Conscientization
Conscientization, or critical consciousness, is a concept developed by Paulo Freire and is grounded in Marxist critical theory. Freire wrote about various ways in which people respond to cultural deprivation and oppression. To Freire, conscientization is the antithesis to oppression. The concept of conscientization within the community context focuses on the community members achieving an in-depth understanding of the world, which would allow them a greater awareness of their sociocultural realities and are able to critically engage in socio-cultural analysis, and cultural re-development and transformation.
Thus, in the opinion of the practitioners of the participatory research approach, conscientization, or the raising or critical awareness, or self reflexivity, is an essential component in any research project or intervention that has the aim of being sustainable and effective in being an agent of liberation. Furthermore, placing focus on the concept of conscientization means adopting the view and stance that people are active agents in the research process. The desired practical outcome of the concept within the PR approach is that if people are involved in an analysis of their own realities, they have a chance to develop their understanding and a capacity to act to improve that reality.
Control and Empowerment
The term empowerment is often misunderstood by those who see it, if they ever do: a literature review conducted on articles which focus on empowerment resulted in no clear definition of the concept, and the definitions found were often narrow and limited to one field. Participatory researchers assert that empowerment is a complex and multifaceted concept and that it is a process that challenged our assumptions about the way things are can be, it challenges our basic assumptions about power, helping, and achieving.
Generally, participatory research is used when there is a motivation or need to bring about some form of cooperative action, usually between a certain community and an external (as in outside of that community) agent, which could be a service or resources, with the primary intention of improving the conditions in the community. It is not surprise then that empowerment is intricately linked with participation, just as participation is closely connected to the concept of conscientization and reflexivity.
The PR research stands between external agents, such as the governments and NGO’s, on the one side, and the community they are working with on the other side. Through the participatory research process, communities are able to move themselves from a position of marginalization to a position of greater power.
Practitioners of the PR approach believe one of their main tasks is to discover what skills and resources the community possess; in other words, the capacity of the community. They also believe that is it their responsibility in working with the community to enhance these skills and resources to benefit the community. Combined, this process is called capacity-building, and it can take many forms; however, simply put, capacity building can be defined as a process that ‘enables’ people to participate actively in development processes and usually entails some form of skills enhancement.
Thus, having knowledge about an existing, possibly oppressive, reality and being part of the process of knowledge production can, according to the PR approach, result in empowerment; when people participate in determining their own future, they are empowered – at least to some extent.
In the next post I will be discussing the concept of local knowledge. This concept gets a post of its own because it is vital to participatory research.
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