scholarly journals Participating in social exclusion: A reflexive account of collaborative research and researcher identities in the field

2020 ◽  
pp. 147675032095453
Author(s):  
Simon Newitt ◽  
Nigel Patrick Thomas

This paper offers a critical reflexive perspective on a Participatory Action Research project with young people at a site of ‘advanced urban marginality’ ( Wacquant, 2008 ). Its purpose is to explore the ways in which habitus based inequalities in the research field ( Bourdieu, 1977 ) contributed to a parallel process of marginalisation and exclusion in the act of participating. More specifically, we examine how a particular professional academic research identity and taxonomy of participatory social research, animated by a benign intent, nonetheless exerted an ideological form of control over the enquiry, administering and recycling feelings of failure and marginalisation among participants - including the ‘professional’ researcher. To draw out the different ways this control took form, our analysis centres on a particular exchange within the group concerned with the distribution of a one-off financial stipend to participants. We endeavour to draw some conceptual insights in our exploration of this exchange, and in conclusion offer some ideas for a ‘good enough’ practice of action research undertaken in comparable socio-economic and psycho-cultural conditions.

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-29
Author(s):  
Brunilda Pali

The epistemology of participatory action research sets a high agenda for pursuing and engendering change oriented towards social justice. This article is based on a participatory action research project, anchored both in the principles of restorative justice and action research. The project aimed at mobilizing local participation, knowledge and resources and creating restorative dialogue and encounters in handling social conflicts in intercultural settings in four different countries. Restorative justice and action research are highly compatible in terms of some of their core principles, but the project revealed important tensions that this article will reflect upon. Zooming into a town in Hungary – one of the four action research sites – the article addresses these tensions by focusing on two central themes. The first theme, encountering the silence and micropolitics, relates to the challenges created in the site, due to our encounter with its micropolitics and the existing ‘culture of silence’ about social conflicts. How should researchers enter a site, how far should they stir the depths of conflicts and disturb the silence and status quo in order to unearth injustices, multiply narratives, and stage different perspectives? The second theme, rethinking conflict participation, relates to the tension created between a more naïve idea of participation and a more antagonistic one. In restorative justice, it is often assumed that if everybody were included and participated in restorative processes, staging their different perspectives, then consensus could be reached. But considering the possibility that different views cannot be reconciled, and power relations cannot be suspended, we need to rethink the meaning of conflict participation in restorative praxis. 


KWALON ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Famke van Lieshout ◽  
Gaby Jacobs ◽  
Shaun Cardiff

Action research in lifestyle research is no sinecure. Response to Kromme et al.: ‘Changing together is learning together’, a participatory action research project This is a reply to the contribution entitled: ‘Learning together is changing together: A participatory action research project on the role of the internist in promoting a healthy lifestyle’. Here the authors highlight the complexity of facilitating participatory action research (PAR) in a clinical practice setting and reflect on the first three stages of their research through eight principles that could guide PAR, as described by Van Lieshout et al. (2017). As we developed these principles, we explain the principles of participation, reflexivity, contextuality and transformation in greater detail in relation to the context of this study. The authors made suggestions to change the five-phased model of PAR to get a better grip on the process. The authors rightly highlighted some limitations in the labeling of some phases. However, it is the reflexivity on the multiple perspectives that facilitators encounter and the relationships they engage with during the process, as well as acknowledging the iterative process of PAR, which needs to be embraced and experienced during the entire process of study.


Author(s):  
Joanne Rappaport

Abstract Reflections on participatory and collaborative research commonly neglect to pay attention to the fact that for community researchers, investigation into their own realities frequently takes forms very different from those of academic scholars. They may use methods that are more explicitly intuitive and may depart from approaches that involve the rigorous collection and systematization of data. This paper explores what research might have meant to the Caribbean peasants of the early 1970s with whom Colombian sociologist Orlando Fals Borda developed his approach to what is today called participatory action research. In particular, it focuses on the field notes of Alfonso Salgado Martínez, a leader of the National Association of Peasant Users-Sincelejo Line (ANUC, Asociación Nacional de Usuarios Campesinos-Línea Sincelejo), juxtaposing them to his published work, both read in comparison to Fals Borda's own notes and writings.


Given the interdependence of the public and private sectors and simultaneous and massive impact of widespread disasters on the entire community, this paper investigates the use of information technologies, specifically geospatial information systems, within the multi-organizational community to effectively co-create value during disaster response and recovery efforts. We present and examine in depth a participatory action research project in a disaster-experienced coastal community conducted during the 2006-2014 time period. The results of the action research project and analysis of a survey completed by stakeholders leads to a list of findings, in particular those related to developing a model of next generation learning design where students are co-creators of value to the smart cities.


2014 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Gossett Zakrajsek ◽  
Mansha Mirza ◽  
Nathan Kai-Cheong Chan ◽  
Tom Wilson ◽  
Mark Karner ◽  
...  

<p><span>Despite preference for community-based living, large numbers of people with psychiatric disabilities live in nursing homes throughout the US. Community-based services for this population are limited by public policy and service system barriers. This paper summarizes these barriers and presents the second phase of a participatory action research project jointly developed by university-based researchers and two Centers for Independent Living. A qualitative case study methodology was used to understand the experiences of three individuals with psychiatric disabilities reintegrating into the community from nursing homes. Findings revealed themes of social isolation, participation in virtual communities, variability of impairment experiences and unmet needs for community supports. In addition to thematic findings, action products were generated for the benefit of community partners. These products included national best practice resources and a needs assessment survey tool. Study findings and products point to specific systems change and policy recommendations to better support community reintegration for this population. These recommendations are discussed in light of U.S. healthcare reform and broader disability advocacy efforts.</span></p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 74-85
Author(s):  
Stuart Wood ◽  
Fiona Crow

This article presents a small Participatory Action Research project involving music therapists working in a care home company, creating a documentation tool (The Music Matrix) that is fit for purpose. The project emerged out of a commonly held dissatisfaction with existing documentation among the Music Therapists in the care home company’s national team. The Music Matrix tool uses graphic notation to record observations of client participation, systematised into 10 dimensions of activity. The tool was developed in a cycle of practice and reflection between members of the music therapy team and stakeholders in the wider organisation. This was systematised in a three-stage trial process of profiling, peer review and thematic synthesis of feedback. Findings suggest that the tool was viewed to be useful in a number of aspects. First, it enabled insights for Music Therapists, in seeing patterns and recognising unacknowledged habits in their own practice. It helped show complex experience in an immediate graphic way. This was useful for reporting to stakeholders and was flexible in applying to numerous formats of practice. However, this flexibility also created a level of uncertainty for some research respondents, as the tool’s wide applicability does not have the appearance of objectivity afforded by other methods. Stakeholders saw applications beyond music therapy, particularly for non-musical care work and activities. Insights emerged regarding how Music Therapists can usefully meet the many demands that care documentation serves.


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