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3. Participatory Action Research (PAR)

(from ìStrategies of Canadian Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations for Protecting Biodiversity: A Participatory Action Research Studyî, 1998) by Brian Sarwer-Foner

In this chapter Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodology is explored with reference to the literature, explaining how it emerged, comparing it with other methodologies, and discussing its applicability to different research settings. PAR is examined in relation to its value in scientific investigation, differentiating its philosophical underpinnings and contrasting its strengths and weaknesses with those of the more traditional research methodologies.

Defining PAR
Participatory Action Research (PAR) is a methodological process that combines two major research approaches: Participatory Research, which actively involves subjects of research in the design, implementation, and analysis of the inquiry process (Park, 1993); and Action Research, which sets out to bring about positive social change resulting from the act of engaging in the inquiry process (Cunningham, 1993).

PAR can be defined as research that actively involves the subjects in a collaborative inquiry process, having the goal of creating positive social change resulting from the process and its findings (Heron, 1981).

PAR is most suited to social science research; it is particularly useful in situations where active collaboration on the part of the research subjects is desirable and when there is a situation being investigated where positive change is urgently needed (Whyte et al., 1989). PAR has been most effectively used to help empower and give a voice, recognition and ‘official’ validity to the concerns of minority groups (Fals-Borda, 1991). PAR is designed to produce knowledge that is contextually relevant and used for situational improvement (Park, 1993).

PAR approaches have mainly been developed and applied in the following four broad areas: 1. participatory research in community development; 2. action research in organizations; 3. action research in schools; and 4. farmer participatory research (Selener, 1997).

Other research approaches that overlap with PAR include action science, action learning, collaborative inquiry, co-operative inquiry, experiential inquiry, appreciative inquiry, new paradigm research, and transformational research (Reason, 1994a). These mainly differ in terms of the level of participation and in their relative emphasis on investigation and implementation (Heron, 1996).

Having the research goals set by the participants is important because the action component of PAR requires committed and effective participation for sustained change to take place (Smith, 1997).

A Brief History of PAR
Kurt Lewin, an American sociologist (who is often regarded as the "father"of social psychology) was the first to coin the phrase "action research"in a 1946 paper entitled, “Action Research and Minority Problems” (Lewin, 1946). His aim was to develop a way for social scientists to collaborate with research subjects to find ways to facilitate positive change. His work, performed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), was designed to develop a participatory process conceived as a spiral of steps, each comprising a cycle of planning, action and fact-finding about the outcomes of the action (Lewin, 1946). As part of the process, workshops were conducted jointly by researcher and participating subjects to achieve the three roles of action, research, and training.

At the same time, the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, in Britain, was starting to bring social anthropologists, psychologists, psychiatrists and psychoanalysts together to gain new insights into human relations (Susman and Evered, 1978). Their aim was to get collaboration from members within an organization while attempting to help them solve their own problems. As one of their members put it, “action research aims not only to discover facts, but to help in altering certain conditions experienced by the community as unsatisfactory” (Curle, 1949: pg. 269).

It is interesting that the concepts underpinning PAR emerged towards the end of World War II, when there was both a widespread acknowledgment of the conflict and strife between and within nations, and a recognition that people had to come together, pool resources, and develop new alternatives and technologies. It was this resourceful inventiveness, coupled with the conviction that we need positive social change, that gave rise to PAR.

PAR developed through four streams during the 1950s and 60s:
-The Tavistock stream, in Britain, continued to bring multi-
disciplinary forces together for the study of Human Relations. The Tavistock group started the Journal of Social Issues.
-The Group Dynamics stream emerged from Lewin and his followers.
They moved from MIT to Michigan where they set up the Centre for Group Dynamics. They were more experimental than Tavistock, but they kept close ties with one another; together the two groups sponsored the journal Human Relations.
-The Operational Research stream, in Britain, was a mix of
mathematics, engineering and physical, rather than biological sciences, using visual maps and models to help examine the complex problems of production, scheduling and decision-making.
-The Applied Anthropology stream, in America, addressed the need to
approach problems in cultural and sub-cultural terms. The Society of Applied Anthropology was a tight group with people like Margaret Mead and Alexander Leighton leading the way. The Society published the journal Human Organization.
(Rapoport, 1970).

Robert Rapoport (1970: pg. 499), a member of the Tavistock Group, in an influential paper entitled, "Three Dilemmas of Action Research", provided the following widely accepted definition of Action Research:
Action research aims to contribute both to the practical concerns of
people in an immediate problematic situation and to the goals of social science by joint collaboration within a mutually acceptable ethical framework.

In the late 1960s, participatory research really began to develop, particularly in the ‘South’. During this time, participatory research as a community development approach evolved in Latin America; the concepts behind it were inspired by radical intellectuals like the Brazilian, Paulo Freire (Freire, 1970; Selener, 1997). This practice, involving educators, community organizers and facilitators working with exploited and oppressed groups, later spread throughout Africa, Asia, Europe and North America in the following decades (Selener, 1997).

William Whyte played a leading role in the development of PAR in the USA throughout the 70s, 80s, and 90s. His research, documented in several texts, is devoted to “improving the lot of society’s underdogs in agriculture, industry or wherever they are” (Whyte, 1991: pg. 1).

Peter Reason and John Rowan, in Britain, co-developed the concept of New Paradigm Research in the early 80s, and they promoted the notion of going beyond strict objectivity, the old paradigm of scientific research, to inquiry that strives towards objective subjectivity as a central theme (Reason and Rowan, 1981a). With the help of John Heron (1996) and others they have continued to make advances in the field, and to publish important books on the subject (Reason, 1988a; 1994b). Peter Reason is director of the Centre for Action Research in Professional Practice, University of Bath, and the editor of the newsletter, Collaborative Inquiry .

Patricia Maguire, at the University of Massachusetts, has effectively used PAR in her work with battered families and international education. She has helped empower minority peoples, both in her own country and abroad, and has produced a useful text on the subject entitled, “Doing Participatory Research: a Feminist Approach” (Maguire, 1987).

Canadians, such as L. Barton Cunningham, and Budd Hall, of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, have also made important contributions to the field (Cunningham 1993; Park et al., 1993).

The Australians are currently very advanced in their development and use of PAR in a wide variety of applications, especially within education and agriculture (Dick, 1991; Kemmis and McTaggart, 1988; Hill, 1997; Wadsworth, 1991).

The use of PAR has been spreading further throughout the ‘developing’ world as researchers team up with community groups, farmers, traditional healers, and other rural people, to investigate, legitimize, publicize and take effective action in relation to their knowledge, concerns and problems (Fals-Borda and Rahman, 1991; Scoones and Thompson, 1994).

PAR Compared to Traditional Positivist Science
PAR differs from traditional (mainstream, ‘orthodox’), positivist science in many respects. Fundamentally, positivist science operates through recognizing only verifiable facts and observable phenomena and rejecting all else. The research proceeds by affirming or negating hypotheses, whereas PAR is an investigative approach that allows the major themes and findings to emerge from a collaborative inquiry process as it proceeds and evolves (Susman and Evered, 1978).

PAR is distinct from traditional science by being more responsive to change processes, by removing the barriers between researcher and subjects (created in the name of ‘objectivity’), by fostering active participation of subjects in all phases of research processes, and by investigating social phenomena in which subjects’ voices are not normally heard and/or where subjects possess knowledge, opinions, and experiences that are important for accurate and complete data gathering and analysis (Rahman, 1991).

Positivist science and PAR differ particularly in the trade-offs between Rigor vs. Relevance, and Replicability vs. Responsiveness. The rigor of traditional science, achieved by maintaining an objective distance between researcher and subjects, can unfortunately call into question the relevance of the information that is gathered, especially when research is applied to social settings (Whyte et al., 1989).

With PAR, barriers between researcher and subjects are minimized, all parties being active participants in a process of collaborative inquiry. While standard scientific objectivity is somewhat sacrificed, the information generated is always relevant because all involved parties co-operate in the design and re-design of the project, with the major focus being on the production of useful information that is directly applicable to the situation being investigated, and on facilitating positive change through effective collaborative action agendas (Argyris and Schön, 1989).

Another axiom of traditional science is replicability -- an experiment needs to be repeated in order to test its validity. However, when researching social situations (and indeed ecological ones), it is hard, if not impossible, to repeat the exact experiment because the social (and natural) environment is in a state of constant flux; as well, each social situation is unique unto itself (Reason, 1994b).

PAR offers an advantage by being contextually relevant and extremely responsive to the social setting and its players. With PAR one can adapt the direction of the inquiry as closely as possible to the needs and demands of the situation under investigation as the process evolves (Dick, 1991). The rigidity of traditional science does not allow for this flexibility. Thus, PAR is often the most appropriate approach to use in areas in which traditional science has debilitating limitations (Dick, 1991).

Maguire (1987) highlights the following six principal differences in emphasis between traditional research and PAR:

1. Quantitative vs. Qualitative;
2. Strict Objectivity vs. Objective Subjectivity;
3. General Applicability vs. Uniqueness;
4. Researcher Distance vs. Closeness to Subject;
5. Social Control vs. Local Self Determination; and
6. Impartial Advice vs. Solidarity and Action.

PAR is usually based largely upon qualitative and often subjective data; strives to be objectively subjective in the interpretation of that data; is employed in situations that are unique and often not generalizable; requires the researcher to be involved in a close working relationship with the subjects and not detach their personal views and feelings from the subject matter; involves non-hierarchical structures that favour personal and group enlightenment and empowerment; and fosters all participants to collaboratively bring about change through the act of doing the research.
Perhaps the greatest advantage PAR has to offer is in the quality of the information generated.

This derives from its philosophical stance, which is characterized by:
- the ontological view that reality is not only facts, but perceptions as
well, concrete reality being seen as the connection between subjectivity and objectivity;
- the view that manifestations of reality are not just through the mind,
but through reflective action of persons and communities;
- the belief that living is a process of knowing and that knowledge
arises from action;
- the emphasis on the importance of experiential knowledge which
arises from participation with others; and
- the vision that people can be self-reflexive about their world and their
action within it.
(Reason, 1994a).

Applicability of PAR
PAR was developed and has been used mainly by researchers working in the social, behavioral and educational fields. These include sociology, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, psychoanalysis, systems analysis, management, organizational development, education, informational sciences, and labour, feminist, indigenous peoples and other minority group studies. PAR has also been applied to the fields of agriculture, forestry, urban planning and health, especially in the ‘South’, where much of it was developed through community based participatory research (Selener, 1997).

PAR need not be limited to the above listed fields, however, because it can be used in any area where knowledge possessed by people can be harnessed, applied, and related to the situation under investigation (Maguire, 1987). Currently PAR is being recognized and used in many new fields, including conservation biology and environmental sciences (Reason, 1994b).

Research Cycles
Most research involves the repetition of stages in a cyclical process. John Rowan (1981) developed a basic model for understanding how research proceeds and for comparing different research approaches. It has four phases: a detached state of “being”, when an issue or question arises; designing the “project”; enacting or “encountering” the project; “communicating” the results; and then return to a detached state of “being”. Throughout such cycles researchers -- and the participants, if they are involved -- proceed by “thinking” about and “making sense” of their experiences (Rowan, 1981).

Research can be categorized in relation to this cycle, depending on where in the cycle the researcher meets the subject -- from only at the encounter point to meeting throughout the whole process (Reason, 1988b).

With PAR, the research goes into a reflective phase at the end of the research cycle, rather than returning to a detached state of being, and then another cycle begins with the collaborating participants. Thus, PAR usually comprises a spiral of many cycles, with periods of introspection between them. This permits the information generated to become increasingly refined, validity to be tested, and actions relevant to the agenda to be implemented (Rowan, 1981).

The role of the researcher is to observe, listen, articulate, make linkages, insightfully understand and provide feedback, and there are no hard and fast rules about how this should be done (Miles and Huberman, 1994).

With PAR the researcher often starts with a “fuzzy” question that demands fuzzy methods and initially generates fuzzy answers, but as the research proceeds through the spiraling cycles, the questions, methods and answers become increasingly less fuzzy, until they become clear, and effective action can be taken (Dick, 1981).

Validity in PAR
Validity of research results in standard research is usually dictated by accuracy of measurement, variability, sample size, and reproducibility (Kirk and Miller, 1986). In PAR, validity relates to personal and interpersonal qualities, such as awareness, competencies, empowerment, psychological well being, and communication skills (Hill, 1997, modified from Reason and Rowan, 1981b). Research findings are valid if they are sound or well-grounded and have been reached by a rational method (Heron, 1996).

Validity of PAR findings include the following four aspects: being well-founded and coherent with the experiences of researchers and participants; being coherent with each other; being well grounded in the forms of knowing (practical, propositional, presentational, and experiential); and having conclusions that are appropriately balanced between being convergent and divergent (Heron, 1996). Validity is enhanced through a diversity of overlapping views, found through the “unity-in-variety” of these views (Heron, 1988).

Three common and easy ways to enhance validity in PAR are: 1. being clear about analysis; 2. triangulation methods; and 3. reducing and displaying data (Hopkins, 1987).

Having a clear analysis methodology applicable to understanding a problematic situation helps enhance validity. With the collaborators, the researcher needs to select and define the issues or problems to be investigated, choose the general framework for analysis, and determine how to respond to the findings (Hopkins, 1987).

“Triangulation” refers to combining several methodologies to study one phenomenon (Jick, 1979). It is a metaphor arising from military strategy, where multiple reference points are used to locate an object’s exact position. In PAR it involves contrasting the perceptions of one actor in a specific situation against those of other actors in the same situation; by doing this, an initial subjective observation from one individual is fleshed out and given a greater degree of authenticity (Jick, 1979). In a sense, triangulation is playing devil’s advocate to see if findings or views hold up to argument and confirmation (Hopkins, 1987).

Data reduction involves selecting, focusing, simplifying, abstracting, and transforming the ‘raw’ data from the field or interviews. This usually occurs during the reflection phases in the spiraling research cycles. Data display involves clearly arranging data in an assembly of information that is conducive to conclusion drawing and action taking (Hopkins, 1987).

Transformational Research and Evolving Worldviews
Characteristics of new paradigm research, research that involves new ways of thinking and looking at our world, have been built upon since its inception in the early 80s by Reason and Rowan (1981a). The latest extension of this notion has become known as transformational research, which is fully participatory in all phases (Rowan, 1995). In transformational research, researcher and subjects are fully integrated, even in their states of being outside the project. There is no outside the project, no separation between the research and the rest of life, no distinction between researcher and subject (Rowan, 1995). Although this is ultimately desirable, it may be functionally implausible. Rowan himself points out that at present he knows of no examples of fully transformative research, except perhaps Freud’s own self-analysis, but here the researcher and subject have no separation between them to begin with, seeing as they are the same person (Rowan, 1995).

In, “Participation in Human Inquiry”, Reason (1994b) relates PAR to the process of changing our worldviews. He explores, “two themes which, while quite distinct, are highly interconnected and in the end inseparable”. He asks, “How do you practice research in a collaborative fashion?”; and, “How can we foster a worldview which fosters an experience of participation with each other and with our planet?” (Reason, 1994b: pg. 1).

He argues that the main components necessary for such a worldview include multi-disciplinarity, integrativeness, ecological thinking, and planetary connectivity (Reason, 1994b). Such a participatory worldview directly links the goals of PAR to the paradigms common to many social movements (Park, 1993) and, in particular, to the environmental movement.

Ultimately PAR is much more than a research methodology: it is not only a process and an approach, but also a philosophy and paradigm (Heron, 1981). It recognizes the link between power and knowledge and sets out to help empower people by valuing their knowledge, sharpening their capacity to perform research in their own interest; allowing them to explore situations from their unique perspectives, liberating their minds for critical reflection; and bringing them together to implement collective improvements and positive social change (Tandon, 1989).

It is mainly for these reasons that I chose to employ PAR as the research approach for this study. A description of how I used PAR and other methodological details are provided in the next section of this thesis.