This article reports on a scoping study called Power in Community in which the author carried out Power Talks with community activists in the north of England. She gives a comprehensive analysis of the meaning of power ranging from dominating power, to the power to co-operate, to empowerment. She then concludes that these community activists were using non-dominating power: describing power as enabling others, sharing and listening with others. The article argues that the evidence of practice on non-dominating power should be used to shift the debate from empowerment to transforming power.
Action research provides an alternative approach to bringing about changes in knowledge, policy and practice. But to be effective and inclusive, taking into account complex dynamics of power and participation, action research requires capable facilitators with particular skills – such as the ability to give attention to personal and collective processes of reflection and action. This article explores the challenges of learning to do this kind of action research that are faced by practitioners and activists working for social change in diverse contexts around the world. It reviews these challenges, offering insights and lessons from an innovative master’s degree programme called the MA in Participation, Power and Social Change, which uses action research and reflective practice as the basis of its approach to learning.
Indigenous people and local communities (ILSs) are struggling to defend their rights over land and other resources they have traditionally used and over traditional knowledge they have developed over generations. They experience outsiders such as mining organisations being given rights without any reference to them, and receive few benefits from the commercial use of their crops or knowledge. Two righs-based tools – community protocols (CPs) and free, prior informed consent (FPIC) are being used to help claim indigenous rights and negotiate agreements in various biodiversity contexts. This issue of PLA draws on a range of experiences of using these tools, the lessons learnt and ways to maximise the benefits of their use. Some 17 articles are divided into five parts: setting the scene – research partnerships and ABS from the perspective of communities; institutional innovations for FPIC and benefit-sharing; community protocols for genetic resources and ABS; community protocols and FPIC – mining, protected areas and forest partnerships, and tips for trainers.
This is the introductory chapter to the Handbook of Participatory Research and Inquiry. The handbook aims to articulate a wide range of pioneering and cutting-edge perspectives, as well as some innovative mainstream approaches, methods and techniques - in other words, what the editors and quthors see as the state of the art at the current time. Developed over the past few decaes, these perspectives and approaches reflect the work of a community of researchers, professionals and activists eganged in research that is both participatory and intrinsicaly linked to interventions and actions for social transformation.
The SAGE Handbook presents contemporary, cutting-edge approaches to participatory research and inquiry. It has been designed for the community of researchers, professionals and activists engaged in interventions and action for social transformation, and for readers interested in understanding the state of the art in this domain.