Challenges in participatory research

As hinted at in the last post, there are many challenges that participatory research and its practitioners must face. Mainly, these challenges have arisen because this research approach is relatively young and still needs to work out some 'kinks'. Some of these challenges will be discussed in the forthcoming post.

As some participatory researchers assert, it is common to hear of participatory researchers expressing frustration on the part of the community being apathetic towards the research process; thus, non-interest or apathy on behalf of the community is a challenge that PR practitioners must face. Participatory researchers also face a dilemma between building the capacity of the community as much as possible and report back to the research funders on the progress of the project; whilst educating funding agencies on the benefits of PR may make them more amiable to participatory research and true capacity building, this is currently a challenge PR faces.

Some of the core principles in PR, such as rapport building, often take a long time and thus can be constrained by lack of time and financial resources. Also concerning the financial resources of some PR phases, such as rapport building, are less likely to be supported by funders as they may not see it as an important part of the research process and thus it is up to the researchers to convince them of its importance. Although there is a focus on the ‘dispossessed’ (such as young children, the elderly, women) members of the community, many of the people do not end up being part of the research process and, subsequently, possibly vital sources of information are lost.

There may be participants who do not trust the researchers or feel that they have nothing to gain from participating in the activities and the overall research process often choose not to be involved in them at all, and, again, this is a loss of important information. Last in this itinerary of challenges, but not the least of them, is the issue of the lingering unbalanced power dynamics among the participants and the researchers, even if participation has been increased.

To conclude the posts i've written so far,  it is evident from what was discussed that the participatory approach to conducting research is, at its core, fundamentally different from other research approaches, specifically that of positivism. For example, in contrast to the principles and concepts of conducting positivistic research, such as the researcher being a distant, disconnected, neutral entity who only looks at empirical sources of information and indirectly reinforces unequal power dynamics in research, the participatory researcher believes in the principles of verstehen and distanciation, maximizing the role of the participants in the research in order to make use of their own local knowledge so as to decrease the power dynamics between researchers and participants and to maximize the chance of sustainable empowerment in the community they are working with.

The participatory approach also adopts some principles from the social approach to understand human action, such as the fact that individuals are not always aware of the meaning and reason behind their own actions and that in order to understand an action; one must understand the cultural and social conventions and institutions that indirectly determine the intent of the action. The ontological (nature of reality) and epistemological (nature of knowledge) structure of the participatory approach and subsequently how knowledge, using the participatory approach, is generated. Lastly, in this post, some of the challenges of the PR approach – which appeared to be primarily practical issues – were discussed. In the subsequent posts, I will be discussing certain participatory research techniques that can be used which maximize participant participation.

Concepts of conscientization and control and empowerment

In this post I will be discussing the concepts of (a) conscientization and (b) control and empowerment and how they are used within the participatory research process.

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.