Participatory Action Research

Participatory action research is a term used to describe a community-driven research method of working for or with community members to explore issues of importance to them. This bottom-up approach is in direct contrast to traditional research, which often originates from an etic or outsider perspective and is driven by an outside researcher's agenda. In the traditional research paradigm, community members are seen as variables or informants. Instead, participatory action research is a complex research methodology that can empower communities to answer questions that are important and practical to those people who are a part of the process of knowledge creation. Participatory action research practitioners attempt to create just social change from the ground up by amplifying the voice of those who are oppressed.

Participatory action research is one of many terms practitioners use to describe community-based research. Some other terms are action research, participatory research, emancipatory praxis, feminist action research, rapid rural assessment, engaged research, practitioner research, action science, collaborative action research, cooperative inquiry, educative research, community-based participatory research, advocacy action, militant research, and community-based appraisal. All these terms imbue highly nuanced, ideological differences among practitioner approaches and are used to refer to action-based research in different settings. While there are differences in the epistemological basis of each term, participatory action research and all other action-based community research methods are often used to bring about social change, since the topics of investigation are often issues of injustice or significant problems relevant to the communities that undertake investigation.

Participatory action research is based on the premise that all people have contributions to make to knowledge creation, and participatory action research methods encourage participants to rely on their own knowledge of a community or situation to generate questions they may investigate rather than relying on experts or authority figures. Research and subsequent action lead to sustainable change because participants become invested and empowered through the work they are doing and the knowledge they are creating. Participatory action research encourages and supports a democratic process by encouraging community members to become engaged in their own communities. To that end, participants engaged in participatory action research are often referred to as stakeholders. In many participatory action research projects, a core group of stakeholders will seek others who may have an interest in becoming active in the [Page 1089]project. In this way, the group of stakeholders is always increasing with the addition of both new community members and outside participants with needed resources. Unfortunately, many communities do not share a consensus for the best action plan for social change or improvement. This plurality of proposed actions can lead to greater collaboration and innovative solutions but may also stymie groups.

Social workers R. C. and C. M. Sarri identified seven principles of participatory action research: (1) It is participatory. (2) It is empowering to participants. (3) It is experiential. (4) It develops colearning between researcher and community. (5) It is creative in finding solutions. (6) It is collaborative. (7) It is politically active. Participatory action research methodology is cyclical; this allows practitioners to continually adapt and replan the process as it is being used. In this way, the process is an organic expression of the participants' wants and needs and develops those creating the process.

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