Social Transformation Through Participatory Action Research

Origins of Participatory Action Research

The deeply transformative change in Action Research (AR) occurred in the 1970s due to the incorporation of two streams of social mobilization in South America:

• The popular education movement created by Paulo Freire in Brazil.
• The Theory of Liberation.

This momentum was carried out by researchers such as Orlando Fals Borda. The group moved toward a critical new concept further defined as Participatory Action Research (PAR).

Methodology and Social Praxis

IAP (Investigación-Acción Participativa) is conceived as a research methodology in which the subject and object develop symmetrically, horizontally, and operationally within social, economic, or political spheres, representing a commitment to social praxis.

Relevant Techniques by Fals Borda

The most relevant techniques were based on the following methods (Borda):

• a) Collective research groups: Utilizing public meetings, skits, and other collaborative methods.
• b) Critical recovery of history: A salvage group of elements of the past that benefit the community.
• c) Evaluation and application of popular culture: Recognition of the essential values of the group.
• d) Production and dissemination of new knowledge: Involving an integral and progressive return of knowledge produced during the investigation.

Modern Dimensions of Action Research

Currently, Action Research is presented as a form of development that builds upon four emerging dimensions: practical guidance, knowledge into action, human prosperity, and democratic participation.

Action Research is a complex set of methods and practices that pose a different way of addressing social research, characterized by:

1. The active, democratic, and symmetrical participation observed at all stages of the investigation.
2. The pragmatic orientation of the research objectives.
3. The acceptance of the final potential of knowledge obtained from research (which mainly affects the others observed).

Divergence in Social Research Forms

There are two basic points of divergence between the three forms of research regarding the relationship between the researcher and the researched concept of the object:

1. Traditional Social Research

• a. Value of the researcher investigated: Their position is that of an expert who pretends to observe to offer answers to a specific demand. Their relationship with the observed is merely for obtaining information. Their approach to the observed is limited to the time of observation.
• b. Conception of the object: Keeps the object in order to see and to know.
• c. Logic of research: Scientific research.