To change the world: Latin American contributions to the development of participatory research

Abstract

Budd Hall traces the Latin American roots of participatory research through the scholars who shaped his own thinking, Paulo Freire, Joao Bosco Pinto, Francisco Vio Grossi, Carlos Rodrigues Brandao and Orlando Fals Borda. He locates the origins of this research tradition not in Europe or North America but in the independence and democracy struggles of the global South during the 1960s and 70s. Freire's idea of reading the world through dialogue and thematic investigation, Pinto's place-based praxis in Brazil, Vio Grossi's work linking participatory research to historical materialism, Brandao's distinction between solitary, solidarity and participant research, and Fals Borda's four principles for working with grassroots communities each receive attention. The account closes with Fals Borda's idea of sentipensantes, people who think and feel at once, as a guiding image for knowledge workers committed to social transformation.