Participatory research

Participatory research describes an approach to research and action that broadly follows the following four principles:
1. Recognition

To value the perspectives of a range of people whose life experiences vary, for example in terms of age, class, gender, ethnic background, health status, disability or sexuality.
2. Counterweights

To safeguard against the dominance of any individual, group or worldview in controlling the process of knowledge production and what is counted as valid.
3. Voice
Dominant groups to facilitate opportunities for others whose perspectives have been marginalised to have a voice.
4. Learning
Each action for change to be built on a critical reflection on past experiences, generating an ongoing cycle of action and reflection.
However, like qualitative research, participatory research is best seen as an open-ended project. Organisations such as ICPHR have resisted attempts to view participatory research as a single umbrella-like concept. Part of PR’s richness and appeal is the range of paradigms, strategies of inquiry, and methods of analysis that researchers can draw upon and utilize.
This ambiguity is illustrated by the fact that writers such as Fals-Borda use participatory research interchangeably with Participatory Action Research, while a UNESCO document appears to use the term to distinguish their work from this tradition.

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