This Research Topic aims to pool different approaches, experiences, and resources for facilitating Participatory Action Research (PAR) by practitioners working in a range of country and cultural contexts. For scholar-activists or researcher-practitioners researching in rural areas, whether using participatory or non-participatory approaches, the specter of an increasing number of pandemics, together with the mounting climate crisis, raises important questions about how we might think about and approach our work differently. That we and our local partners, often located in cities, risk carrying the virus to remote communities only serves to sharpen the mind. This is a challenge for any practitioner intent on authentic dialogue for people-centered and -led, place-based transformative praxis with the most marginalized in society - be they in the UK, Europe, or in the Majority World.
This Research Topic seeks to explore creative methodological approaches, and to stimulate critical thinking about the ethics and principles of undertaking PAR in this `new normal', and whether this fundamentally alters the precepts of PAR itself, if not the need and reasons for it. Here, we are interested in experiences or proposals for adapting PAR methods and tools, including associated challenges for inclusion, representation, and rigor. With a view to collectively exploring what this might look like, and what needs to be considered, we would welcome contributions that explore, but are not limited to, the following questions:
1. How do remote and virtual ways of conducting fieldwork affect the power imbalances in the researcher-participant relationship?
2. To what extent can the pandemic foster new opportunities to build capacity to conduct research?
3. How can we support knowledge co-production, co-facilitation, and co-analysis remotely, and which tools might be helpful?
With its emphasis on the need to engage with and amplify voices, PAR seeks to overcome biases and lock-ins associated with undertaking research in the same locations and missing important nuances, associated power, vulnerability, discrimination, or stigmatization. Does this mean PAR adds burden on the same, over-researched and fatigued communities/risks excluding the more difficult-to-reach?
What are the pressures placed on local partners by shifts to remote working? Might this lead to an over-reliance on the same experienced partners and risk excluding wider networks? How can these be addressed or overcome when necessary resources are not enabled through existing funding architecture?
This Research Topic aims to pool different approaches, experiences, and resources for facilitating Participatory Action Research (PAR) by practitioners working in a range of country and cultural contexts. For scholar-activists or researcher-practitioners researching in rural areas, whether using participatory or non-participatory approaches, the specter of an increasing number of pandemics, together with the mounting climate crisis, raises important questions about how we might think about and approach our work differently. That we and our local partners, often located in cities, risk carrying the virus to remote communities only serves to sharpen the mind. This is a challenge for any practitioner intent on authentic dialogue for people-centered and -led, place-based transformative praxis with the most marginalized in society - be they in the UK, Europe, or in the Majority World.
This Research Topic seeks to explore creative methodological approaches, and to stimulate critical thinking about the ethics and principles of undertaking PAR in this `new normal', and whether this fundamentally alters the precepts of PAR itself, if not the need and reasons for it. Here, we are interested in experiences or proposals for adapting PAR methods and tools, including associated challenges for inclusion, representation, and rigor. With a view to collectively exploring what this might look like, and what needs to be considered, we would welcome contributions that explore, but are not limited to, the following questions:
1. How do remote and virtual ways of conducting fieldwork affect the power imbalances in the researcher-participant relationship?
2. To what extent can the pandemic foster new opportunities to build capacity to conduct research?
3. How can we support knowledge co-production, co-facilitation, and co-analysis remotely, and which tools might be helpful?
With its emphasis on the need to engage with and amplify voices, PAR seeks to overcome biases and lock-ins associated with undertaking research in the same locations and missing important nuances, associated power, vulnerability, discrimination, or stigmatization. Does this mean PAR adds burden on the same, over-researched and fatigued communities/risks excluding the more difficult-to-reach?
What are the pressures placed on local partners by shifts to remote working? Might this lead to an over-reliance on the same experienced partners and risk excluding wider networks? How can these be addressed or overcome when necessary resources are not enabled through existing funding architecture?
