The result of this kind of activity is living knowledge that may get translated into action.

Dialogue and Critical Reflection

A key methodological feature that distinguishes participatory research from other social research is dialogue. Through dialogue, people come together and participate in all crucial aspects of investigation, education and collective action. It is through talking to one another and doing things together that people get connected, and this connectedness leads to shared meaning. Dialogue encourages people to voice their perspectives and experiences, helping them to look at the "whys" of their lives, inviting them to critically examine the sources and implications of their own knowledge. In this context, dialogue allows to awaken participants' voices and cultivates their participation as critical, active agents of change. This is particularly essential in the light of many social forces of domination at work in the lives of people from socially and culturally disenfranchised groups.

The role of the researcher in this process is a facilitator of the learning process. The researcher is not an expert who is assumed to have all the knowledge and gives it to the people who are assumed not to have any knowledge. Rather, it is a facilitator who sets up situations that allow people to discover for themselves what they already know along with gaining for themselves new knowledge. In this process, the researcher not only learns from the participants, but also engages in dialogue by posing questions:

The researcher's sharing of his or her perceptions, questions in response to the dialogue, and different theories and data invite the participants to critically reflect upon their own experiences and personal theories from a broader context. Ideally, in such a setting, the expert knowledge of the researcher combined with the experiential knowledge of community members, create an entirely new ways of thinking about issues.

This is the meaning of conscientization, which Paulo Freire has helped popularize. Critical consciousness is raised not by analyzing the problematic situation alone, but by engaging in action in order to transform the situation. Dialogue acts as a means for fostering critical consciousness about social reality, an understanding based on knowledge of how people and issues are historically and politically situated.

Participatory Communication and Research Methods

Communication is a key methodological concern in participatory research. It draws upon creative combinations of written, oral and visual communication in the design, implementation and documentation of research. Grassroots community workers, village women, and consciousness raising groups have used photo novella (people's photographic documentation of their everyday lives) to record and to reflect their needs, promote dialogue, encourage action, and inform policy. Researchers use theater and visual imagery to facilitate collective learning, expression, and action. Other forms of popular communication are utilized such as collectively written songs, cartoons, community meetings, community self-portraits and videotape recordings.

Critical knowledge development calls for a creative blend of traditional methods of inquiry and new approaches. Use of alternative communication methods in participatory research has both pushed researchers to re-examine conventional methods and opened up the possibility of using methods that previously would not have been considered legitimate.

References

Brown, L.D. 1985. People-Centered Development and Participatory Research. Harvard Educational Review, 55 (1), 69-75.

Finn, J. 1994. The Promise of Participatory Research. Journal of Progressive Human Services, 5 (2), 25-42.

Foucault, M. 1980. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings. New York: Pantheon.

Freire, P. 1978. Education for Critical Consciousness. New York: Seabury Press.

Contributed by:
Sung Sil Lee Sohng
Email: suesohng@u.washington.edu