Participatory Action Research: Change and Social Action in the Context of Social Development

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Participatory Action Research: Change and Social Action in the Context of Social Development Adrian Zenz, 1999 1.0 The History of PAR Action research was first introduced by Lewin (1946) as a method of acquiring information about social system while at the same time stimulating action for the change of those systems. Lewin’s purpose was to overcome the separation of research and action inherent in traditional empirical-analytic forms of research. Action research is defined as research that is bound to a particular local practice context; it aims at combining research and action for change, at encouraging participants to take action in order to improve their situation. The term PAR was introduced to distinguish action research approaches with a distinctive focus on the participation of the people in the research process. In PAR, researchers and practitioners are equal partners. The main purpose of PAR is then not just the generation of knowledge but the empowerment of the participating people. Widely practised amongst non-governmental organisations and very similar to PAR is the concept of Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) developed by Robert Chambers. It evolved from Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA), which was developed by Chambers (1983) as an alternative to the rushed field trips of development experts who paid little attention to the local context (“rural development tourism”), and in turn produced research that suffered from shallow information gathering and miscommunications with the local people. More recently, PRA has been renamed to Participatory Learning and Action (PLA). According to Jayakaran (1996:15), the PLA expert of the international NGO World Vision, “PLA is a process of learning with the people; of their needs, problems, concerns and empowering them to plan and take action by themselves” (emphasis all caps in original). We can conclude that

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