Participatory Action

Research (PAR)
An Introduction

Dr. Anjuli Fahlberg

Department of Sociology
Tufts University
 Guiding Norms
• Affirming , encouraging, and supporting people in the • Visualizing concepts
chat and with reaction buttons • ‘Take space, make space’
• If they wish, adding pronouns to Zoom name • Facilitating and monitoring how
• Allowing people to express themselves and much space is taken up in
respecting their opinions conversation
• • Sharing in small groups to get a deeper
Connecting with others without having to speak
• Allowing snacks and breaks to support focus during understanding of peers’ work
• Meeting in small groups as well as with
class
• Truly feeling comfortable to express concerns new people in the class
• • Streamlining Zoom chat and conversation
Reaching out the peers about shared interests, etc.
• Having check-ins with the group (reading out longer comments)
• • Being present during the course
At times, have everyone share back to the full group
• Willing to be vulnerable and slightly
uncomfortable
 Benefits of conducting research on a social
problem
• Evidence-Based Knowledge
• What people want, what’s working / not
• Create solutions and change
• Understanding vs operating off of assumptions
• Inform policy decisions based on lived
experiences
• Potentially leads to funding
• Bring light to lesser known issues + add nuances
to issues
• If through PAR: bottom-up approaches
• Advocacy tool
• Harm Reduction
 Problems with traditional research practices
• Publishing is seen as ultimate goal; advocacy
is not seen with equal value
• Extractive practices
• Ivory tower; perpetuates distrust and
creates inequities within communities
• Power dynamics imposed through the roles
of “expert” and “subjects”
• How one defines community and failing to
add nuances to this definition
• Structure of Graduate studies
• Question formulation is divorced from
the issues of the community
• Not reflection on positionality; vilifying
subjectivity
Colonialism in Western Research
1. Limitations of Western theories

2. Representational gaps

3. Epistemological hierarchies

4. Eurocentric “solutions” to social problems

5. Exclusionary infrastructure of empirical research

Two-Eyed Seeing
- Brings together Western and indigenous perspectives

- “By engaging the overlapping perspectives of each ‘eye,’

integrative science enjoys a wider, deeper, and more generative
‘field of view’ than might either of these perspectives in
permanent isolation” (Iwama et al, 2009)

- Connectiveness: “the knowledge about an individual’s relation to

the Creator and all of creation” (Murdena)
Decolonial Methodologies

- Indigenous Methodologies
- Feminist/Black Feminist Methodologies
- Queer studies
- Public Sociology
- Critical Race Theory
- Postcolonial Theories
- Public Sociology
Participatory Action Research
• PAR is an approach to research

• PAR is based on:

1. Participation: To meaningfully involve research participants in each step of the research

process as decision-makers and knowledge producers, alongside “formal” researchers;

2. Education: To promote shared learning by encouraging dialogue and exchange of

information between researchers and participants;

3. Action: To more equitably distribute the direct benefits of the study while also
promoting broader social and political change.
PAR Alphabet Soup
• PAR
• CPAR (Critical PAR)
• CBPR (Community-Based Participatory Research)
• Feminist PAR
• YPAR
• Community-engaged research
• Action Research
The Anti-Colonial Roots of PAR
• Developed in 1960s and 70s in Latin America in reaction to
authoritarianism and neoliberalism
• Used to provide tools for local communities to identify, study, and
develop solutions to their own problems
• Shared learning promotes community-building, literacy and critical
consciousness for everyone involved
• Honors multiple forms of knowledge
• Community-driven data can challenge “official” statistics and narratives
• Research provides tools to address immediate, local problems
PAR Is PAR
is NOT
A set of guiding principles Fully attainable

An iterative process Easy

Founded on respect, humility, A social movement

safety and trust
Often rewarded
Exciting, enriching, and fun!
Break
Positionality

- Positionality: One’s location within intersecting fields of power

- These can include age, gender, race, religion, but also accent &
dialect, how you dress, your profession, nationality, marital
status, etc.

- Some parts of our positionality are fluid

- Elements of our positionality can take on more or less power in
different communities and contexts
Our positionality impacts…
• How people see, treat, and feel about us
• How we see, treat, and feel about others
• Which types of inequities we notice
• The types of privilege, power, and resources we have in
different spaces
• The types of challenges and constraints we face in different
spaces
• How we engage in research and action
 Small Group Activity
Map your Positionality

How might different members of your research community perceive

you?
 Community
What is a “community?”

What are some assumptions/views we often attach to the idea of

“community”?
The research “community”
Community: A group of people living in the same place or having a particular
characteristic in common.

The research “community”: The population your research project is

examining.

It is:
- Larger than your sample
- Defined by a set of shared attributes or experiences
- Extremely heterogeneous
- Embedded in external and internal power structures
Power and Inequities in our Research
• Individual/interpersonal inequities (btwn people participating in the
project)

• Community-level power dynamics (economic, political, etc)

• Symbolic inequities (i.e. cultural beliefs around race, gender, religion,

etc)

• Structural inequities (laws, policies, economic arrangements,

institutional practices, etc that create unequal opportunities for differing
groups of people)
 Small Group Activity:
Around what set of attributes is your research community defined?

What types of internal power structures create inequities between

people within the community?

What types of external power structures create inequities between

members of the community and outsiders?