Community based Participatory Action Research

Environmental degradation and biodiversity loss, persisting poverty, a mounting obesity epidemic, food insecurity and the use of biotechnology are all examples of wicked problems faced by agricultural and food organizations. Yet, managers and policy-makers often do not recognize that these problems are “wicked”. Wicked problems have cause-effect relationships that are difficult or impossible to define, cannot be framed and solved without creating controversies among stakeholders and require collective action among societal groups with strongly held, conflicting beliefs and values. In contrast to past research, this Special Issue takes an organizational perspective by tackling three key managerial questions: what is the value of managing wicked problems and engaging with multiple stakeholders? What are the human and organizational resources and the strategic conditions needed to engage with multiple stakeholders effectively? How can multi-stakeholder engagements be undertaken? A worl...

This study employs community action research and arts-based research to explore collaborative development of the women’s mobile photography community, Her Mind's Eye. Her Mind’s Eye is an exploratory, creative and contemporary women’s mobile photography community that exists both physically (through in-person meetings) and digitally (in online social media spaces). The group was designed to support women in learning and inquiring into mobile photography and new technologies within an encouraging, flexible, and supportive art creation community. At the same time, it looks at the women’s uses of the social/mobile photographic medium itself, finding that it was used for: personal memory keeping, communication, jumpstarting relational connectedness, experiencing an increased sense of awareness of one's environment, and of others’ ways of seeing and being in cities. Through this community, we expanded the possibilities of collaborative and informal education, meeting in-person and on the social media platforms Facebook and Instagram. We found that these social media applications can be utilized to create “real life” connections between diverse individuals with like interests, in order to form city-based, digital/physical composite networks of people interested in creative photographic development. Simultaneously, we investigate how experiences of physical places (the cities of Montreal and Vancouver) can be shared in the digital world. In addition to developing new networks and opportunities for creative growth, the group has a goal of exhibiting and promoting each woman’s artwork, and exploring women’s views and experiences of living in urban environments. Her Mind’s Eye held one exhibition during the time of this study, and several more afterwards. Lastly, it was found that the presence of group traits and structural supports similar to those within feminist pedagogy, such as an ethics of care, and sense of community, were fundamental to the successful operation of Her Mind’s Eye. Finally, having emerged from research origins, Her Mind’s Eye developed the unique form of a micro-SMP community, containing several clearly delineated boundaries, those of: group size, committed participation, and a defined focus. This made for a very successful community of inquiry and creativity, which however, poses questions for long-term group sustainability.

Australian Pacific Island (API) women face poorer health outcomes from diabetes-related conditions yet there is limited information on the use of Pacific methodologies, particularly in the Australian context. The aim of this paper is to present a Pasifika Diabetes Health Research study that employed the use of Pacific methodology, talanoa in a community based-participatory action research (CBPAR) to explore lived experiences of API women with type 2 diabetes.

The impetus for this thesis has grown from the challenges facing day-to-day design studio education and the recognition that the formal/informal division of educational space impacts upon student learning and engagement in higher education today. As a consequence of the changing conditions imposed by economics, politics, and technology, specialist design studio facilities are being reconfigured into studio-based classroom learning spaces (often generically termed as ‘studio’). It is, I believe, worth assessing how these recontextualised learning spaces impact upon students’ senses.

This investigation did not set out to prove or test a pre-determined hypothesis from the onset of the study. Instead, the purpose of this research study was to systematically examine the relationship between sensory affect and learning in the changing landscape of contemporary Communication Design education. However, as the study progressed, sensory affect moved from being the central emphasis of the study to being the conduit through which to investigate aspects of learning experience within the two case studies in different shared domains. To understand the component parts of studio learning, sensory affect was effectively employed via the range of practice-led methods.

The data was gathered via the systematic examination of two case studies: an art school in the UK and a college of art contained within a parent university in Australia. Real-life formal and informal learning spaces provided the naturalistic settings in which to conduct the research with two groups of Communication Design students. The participants worked within studio and studio-based classroom environments using an inductive Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach involving Participatory Design (PD) tools and techniques. Participants responded to their everyday learning experiences through detailed and reflective narrative accounts via a series of participatory group workshops and individual visual, sensory and sound ethnographic research methods.

Overall, the findings showed that the participants could either be disturbed or supported by sensory affect in their experiences of learning spaces. The Case Study 1 participants in the UK responded that their friendly, informal, day-to-day social interactions with peers and staff in their situated studio community, are integral to their collective and individual learning and practice. The Case Study 2 participants created their own offline and online community outside of the boundaries of their studio-based classroom learning spaces, mainly in cafes, at home and via social media. The findings evidenced the importance of multi-sensory research methods in drawing out relationships between place, lived experience, and community.

This research investigation travels a substantial distance towards a form of reconciliation and understanding of contemporary Communication Design learning spaces to support student engagement. As articulated throughout this thesis, this is largely a methodological investigation, which employs sensory affect as a lens to investigate the relationship between learning and practice, community, institutional management, the role of the studio, the pedagogical approach and lastly, meaning making of sensory affect. The suggestion is that when employing the proposed transferable framework – the Methods Process Model (MPM) (or elements thereof) – then the student’s individual and collective relationship with learning is supported in relation to each of these areas. This is especially pertinent as technological concerns cross-cut and impact upon studio education today. The factors that might disrupt studio learning need to be brought forward into a students’ consciousness using this framework, guided by educators, researchers and institutions. Being mindful of these issues might mean that students and educators can implement strategies to work better within the studio. Therefore, the main contribution to knowledge of this thesis, and grounded in the findings, is the support of students as they explore and engage with contemporary Communication Design studio learning, and how they reflectively examine the range of behaviours and reactions that can be drawn out from their lived experiences, through embodied thinking.

Keywords: Communication Design, sensory affect, studio education, learning spaces, case study, Participatory Action Research (PAR), Participatory Design (PD), narrative inquiry, ethnography, phenomenography.

This essay argues for a participatory synodal Church and the possible contributions of the African palaver as a model for participatory dialogue in the Roman Catholic Church. The African palaver is the art of conversation, dialogue, and consensus-building in traditional society that can be appropriated in the current search for a more inclusive and expansive participatory dialogue at all levels of the life of the Church. I will develop this essay first by briefly exploring some theological developments on synodality between the Second Vatican Council and Pope Francis and some of the contributions of the reforms of Pope Francis to synodality in the Church. Secondly, I will identify how the African palaver functions through examples taken from two African ethnic groups. I will proceed to show how the African palaver could enter into dialogue with other new approaches to participatory dialogue for a synodal Church.

Integrative-holotropic community action research is an emergent and developing research method. This new method is rooted in transpersonal theory and practice, informed by feminist thought, and inspired by innovative indigenous and action research. Utilizing dreams, synchronicities, and creative process, the researcher attuned to the archetype of death to produce a multifaceted and practical survey and exploration. Combining the researcher's personal narrative with coresearcher narratives, this project formed the foundation of a community action project focused on death and dying for a group of 20 individuals from a small, rural American community. Doing Death Differently is the name of the group which formed following the research, which expanded post-study to over 50 members. Qualitative data were assessed through ongoing thematic content analysis. Three primary objectives were set for the overall project: (a) develop a community action project rooted in the death practice needs of the researcher's local community, (b) develop an emerging research method incorporating information gained by accessing holotropic consciousness integrated with hylotropic consciousness, and (c) provide a potential for transformation for coresearchers, researcher, and community.

A review of 6 years of PLD’s partnership programme. It profiles the work of the field-based partners, discusses PLD’s contribution to their work and assesses the impact of collaborations giving insights into the gains and challenges of such partnerships.

Sites of the ancient past, intervened upon through archaeology, often come to be deemed " heritage " and are later the elements around which tourism is developed. Archaeology does not simply reveal existing heritage nor tourism destinations, rather elements from the past are reformulated and recontextualized in the present according to the particular circumstances, trends, and expectations of the social worlds and geographical locations in which they presently emerge. This paper is an interdisciplinary study drawing on the fields of anthropology of heritage and anthropology of infrastructure to emphasize how heritage and tourism-related industries have impacted physical space and lived realities found entangled in contemporary Peruvian archaeological developments. The world over, archaeology, heritage and tourism institutions are increasingly in collaboration with relevant stakeholder groups in attempts to redress conventional industry developments. I focus in on a case study of the non-profit organization Sustainable Preservation Initiative (SPI) to reveal that the altruistic and celebrated visions of community engagement may obscure contestations, conflicts, tensions and oppressions occurring within communities in Peru's North Coast as they undergo archaeological-heritage and tourism developments.

This chapter draws on the findings of the doctoral dissertation examining grassroots community action for health equity and justice, and the relationships between local community-based groups and nonprofit agencies. My research is a critical inquiry into the realities of everyday work of community groups and local nonprofit organisations that are positioned as intermediaries between the communities and higher-level policymakers and administrators in a tightly controlled and monitored fiscal environment. This chapter focuses on nonprofit organisations and grassroots groups relations in the context of community development work that involves community participation as both a goal and an intrinsic value embedded in process. Drawing on governmentality theory, the chapter analyses structural factors that enable or constrain nonprofit organisations’ capacity to support meaningful participation of grassroots groups. The discussion is informed by the researcher experience of integrating participatory action research and institutional ethnography. This integration of two methods informed insights into what makes participation meaningful for community members, and what roles nonprofit organisations perform as partners in nonprofit-community partnerships.

El presente artículo analiza el despliegue de los Planes de Desarrollo Comunitario (PDC) como política pública en la ciudad de Barcelona (periodo 1997-2015). Su principal objetivo es hacer una aproximación a como los PDC han contribuido a la transformación social del territorio des de una triple perspectiva, la configuración de las políticas, la mejora de las condiciones de vida y la redefinición de las relaciones de poder. A su vez hace una aproximación a los factores que han incidido en la diferente evolución de las experiencias. Metodológicamente
se apoya en varias fuentes, análisis documental, metodologías etnográficas e investigación cualitativa a través del trabajo de campo. Como principales resultados se señala como elemento facilitador el papel de la administración local y de los equipos comunitarios, no municipales, para generar sinergias público-ciudadanas fundamentadas
en la cooperación y la proximidad territorial. En cuanto a las transformaciones, los PDC han contribuido al despliegue de acciones y proyectos con incidencia en las condiciones de vida, han permitido una mayor efectividad del trabajo de determinados servicios públicos (a partir de estas lógicas de proximidad), pero solo en casos excepcionales, han sido optimizados como plataformas para el diseño de nuevas políticas y grandes transformaciones urbanas. El artículo cierra sus conclusiones abriendo el interrogante sobre los límites de
la acción comunitaria con soporte institucional para la generación de conciencia crítica y empoderamiento político en los territorios.

Palabras clave: Política Pública, Acción comunitaria, desarrollo comunitario, transformación social, empoderamiento, modelos de participación

This article is a response to Davydd J. Greenwood's critical review of defensiveness and sloppiness in the current action research (AR) community. My experience of the situation in AR coincides to a large degree with Greenwood's. His claims are hard to test, however, since he hardly gives concrete examples. In order to sort out real “sloppiness“ (whatever that is), we have to take into consideration the conditions under which most AR has to work. I also think Greenwood's contention that AR suffers from “complacency about fundamental issues of theory, method and validity“ has to do with fundamental changes in AR's self-understanding between “old AR“ before 1965 and “the second wave“ from the 1970s on. Personally I recommend an AR-strategy — immanent critique — that balances between “morally superior, but sloppy and complacent AR“ on the one hand and “conventional social research“ (whatever that is nowadays), but find it hard to find much support in the AR community, for reasons, I believe, that have to do with the mentioned fundamental change in justification-strategy and self-conception within AR. At the end I announce some issues I would like to discuss further, but for which I lack the space in this article.

Keywords: action research; immanent critique; justification-strategies for action research; phrónêsis

In discussing modernism versus post-modernism , positing "transcendent" universal and "immanent" local standards as contrary opposites works as an inhibiting straitjacket. This comment on Marianna Papastephanou's article attempts to support and reinforce her critical theorist intentions to overcome this opposition by invoking viewpoints from the philosophy of Aristotle, interpreted as a dialectical philosopher in light of the totality of the Corpus Aristotelicum, not by isolating his practical from his theoretical philosophy. The argument is that immanent transcendence is both possible and necessary in every local human culture, already implied in the concept of immanent critique.

Ethnoecology studies human beings’ relation with their environment aiming at understanding several current social-ecological problems such as ecological degradation and loss of cultural diversity, mainly from a local point of view. Since 2006, the research team of the Ethnoecology Laboratory (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona) is conducting research projects focused on the study of social, cultural, political, and ecological factors and dynamics influencing the relation of rural and indigenous communities in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe, with their surrounding environment. Contrary to the common practice of simply extracting information from rural communities, projects from the Ethnoecology Laboratory blend academic research and actions oriented to return their findings to the populations where they take place to contribute in some direct or indirect way to the improvement of their well-being and sustainable use of natural resources.

Governments, international agencies, foundations, local authorities, private firms, NGOs and civil society organizations promoting positive social impact through architectural projects are gradually shifting to a self-sustainable systems approach where participation and contextualization take center stage.

In East Africa, this means an important change from a usually foreign-funded pro bono approach to single-focused linear-thinking interventions. For centuries the promotion, planning, and construction of projects with a social program in the region were based on usually imported ideas to solve in many cases preconceived, assumed needs. These largely foreign-funded projects responded to donors’ agendas and timelines, with contextualization and the participation of local populations relegated to the margins.

Action research (AR) – as a participatory problem-oriented methodology - has been recently employed in Egypt by both researchers and practitioners to resolve complicated classroom and learning problems, and provide context-based solutions. Simultaneously, new 'special education' courses have been recently included in the university bylaws and internal regulations of Egyptian colleges of education in 2010, and this imposes many challenges, especially as far as course design and content selection are concerned. Therefore, the present study aimed at negotiating and improving the structure and delivery of a new special-education language-learning course entitled, 'TESOL/TEFL for Special Needs Students' taught to English majors (EFL student teachers) at Assiut University College of Education (AUCOE), and reaching a final framework of how the new course content should be like, and the best methods to be used in delivering it. Therefore, an action research methodology of two cycles was employed with two different groups of English majors throughout two successive semesters during the academic year 2012/13: the first group included 106 junior general-section EFL student teachers (1st semester, 2012); and the second group consisted of 51 senior primary-stage EFL student teachers (2nd semester, 2013). Data collection tools were used for both formative and summative evaluation purposes, and thus varied both at the initial stage and during the two iterations. They included: (1) questionnaires; (2) online diaries; (3) semi-structured interviews; (4) final feedback reports; (5) following-up logs online (on a Facebook page). The two AR cycles resulted in a final framework of the course structure and content along with some suggestions and guidelines into how to deliver it to the target learners. Moreover, results presented some educational implications of teaching English as a foreign language to students with special educational needs as well as some conclusions related to using AR methodology in Egypt to resolve many real teaching/learning problems.
Keywords: Action Research; TESOL/TEFL for Special Needs; Special Language Course Design; Special Education; Content Delivery; Course Structure and Content

THE SCHOLARLY LITERATURE pertaining to the issue we nowadays conveniently, and loosely, call " globalization " is well established and vast. In exposing, quite judiciously , the various aspects of, and injustices caused by, the existing pace of global capitalism, however, such literature remains in many cases also vague, inconsequential , overly descriptive, ideologically rigid, and unable to provide rigorous theoretical grounds for understanding the issue. Numerous pages are dedicated to documenting the effects of the expansion of capitalist systems around the world. Numerous pages record both local and international movements and resistances against this phenomenon. Volumes supply policy criticisms on various state, su-pra-state, interstate , or corporate levels. Yet, the foundational works that would potentially contribute to the modes of activism against the injustices manifested through various processes of transnational capitalism become harder to find despite the growing number of titles, which, ironically, tells us something about the mar-ketability of books on globalization.

The core of service learning in post-secondary education is a range of partnerships between higher education institutions and communities, as co-generators of knowledge. This paper, reporting from a national arts-based service learning project involving three Australian universities, is concerned with communities of practice that influence stakeholder values and attitudes as well as enhancing the work readiness of pre-service teachers and university students in music, screen arts and journalism. It builds on seven years of practice and research in arts-based service learning with Aboriginal communities (2009-2015) and a nationally funded project that entailed service-learning programs at three Australia universities in partnership with Aboriginal communities in regional and metropolitan areas Australia (2011-2013). Drawing on the concept of Ubuntu, or humanness, the paper discusses the benefits and challenges of working as an interlocking community of practice. Within this community...

The core of service learning in post-secondary education is a range of partnerships between higher education institutions and communities, as co-generators of knowledge. This paper, reporting from a national arts-based service learning project involving three Australian universities, is concerned with communities of practice that influence stakeholder values and attitudes as well as enhancing the work readiness of pre-service teachers and university students in music, screen arts and journalism. It builds on seven years of practice and research in arts-based service learning with Aboriginal communities (2009-2015) and a nationally funded project that entailed service-learning programs at three Australia universities in partnership with Aboriginal communities in regional and metropolitan areas Australia (2011-2013). Drawing on the concept of Ubuntu, or humanness, the paper discusses the benefits and challenges of working as an interlocking community of practice. Within this community...

This paper traces the development and execution of a community action research project working with a government-run primary school in an inner suburb of Melbourne, Australia. Located in a suburb where new wealthy owner-occupiers have superseded original residents yet the suburb’s high-rise government housing blocks offer refuge for newly arrived families, many often fresh from painful refugee experiences, the local primary school has seen its enrolment tumble and desperately wants to address the increasingly diverse cultural needs of its community and attract local culture groups to the school through novel initiatives. With school personnel and a small number of engaged local residents and parents, we developed a music playgroup, to support positive transitions to school and build community amongst parents in the multicultural local area through communicative musicality experiences for parents and their pre-school aged children.

We shall report on the challenges of conducting community action research. This includes discussing the process of implementing a research component within the playgroup’s organic development and paradigm which complied with stringent University ethical procedures and timelines yet addressed the needs of a community partner. Through reflective examination of members’ experiences, research practices, and project materials, the discussion will also address the various challenges and solutions concerning building engagement in the project and community, navigating varying stakeholder desires, as well as funding and sustainability concerns. The findings have implications for community music programs as well as community- and service-focused music education programs.

Intended as a historical starting point for a critically informed assessment of the state of multimedia social work research, advocacy and practice, this dissertation explores the methods and practice models envisioned by Progressive Era social work leader and media producer, journalist, and editor Paul U. Kellogg (1879-1958). Kellogg harnessed the most advanced visual technologies of his time in service of progressive social change. In social surveys such as The Pittsburgh Survey, and in his editorship of two widely read periodical publications, The Survey and Survey Graphic, Kellogg brilliantly combined documentary photography, art, maps, data, and textual narratives with the goal of making unavoidably visible the inequities of industrializing America.
Key aspects of Kellogg’s contributions—particularly his vision for a social work practice deploying media production in service of community-based research, education, and political advocacy—have largely been forgotten, particularly in social work. Responding to this historical amnesia, this dissertation aims to document and analyze, in their innovation and limitations, the projects Kellogg undertook during his career. I aim to enrich the field’s historical memory of Kellogg’s variation on the social survey method, which sought to assess conditions of health, environmental safety, and labor conditions in a given geographic area as carried out during the Pittsburgh Survey, 1907-1908.
Representing a moment in which the social work profession was focused on environmental intervention in low-income urban communities, Kellogg’s variation on the social survey method emphasized the significance of multidisciplinary teams and partnerships with local community organizations. In light of a recent re-commitment by social welfare researchers to environmental, place-based practice (Kemp & Palinkas, 2015), it feels especially timely to explicate Kellogg's social survey methodology.
Kellogg’s approach was distinctly journalistic in that it demanded that social workers should be producing media in order to disseminate findings not only to community stakeholders but also to the larger voting public in order to influence social action and policy-making. As social work research methods employing media approaches ranging from photography and video to participatory mapping rise in popularity, there seems to be little awareness of this prior rich period of media-based practice and research during the Progressive era. Revisiting Kellogg’s methodology counters a presentism in current scholarship regarding media-based methods.
Several scholars of social research have measured the success of the Pittsburgh Survey by contemporary standards of empirical, quantitative research and found it lacking (Bulmer, 1991, 1996; Turner, 1996; Zimbalist, 1977). I believe I bring a fresh perspective by considering it as a genealogical forebear of community-engaged approaches operating in epistemological frameworks that appreciate the significance of both emic and etic knowledges of place and community.
Paul U. Kellogg’s publications positioned social workers as public pundits in regards to interventions in poverty and social welfare policy (Chambon, 2012), providing them with a public voice that the field has largely lacked since his journals closed down in 1949 and 1952. By exploring Kellogg’s publishing collective, Survey Associates, and their publications, The Survey and Survey Graphic, I hope to raise questions regarding the loss of a media platform upon which social work practitioners and scholars can engage each other and the public regarding a variety of issues and to consider what the legacy of what this period means for current practitioners of public scholarship in social work.

This report summarizes the current and completed phases of the ongoing project entitled ―Iskewewak Miwayawak‖ (Women Feeling Healthy) which is funded by the Canadian Institute for Health Research (CIHR). Obesity and its associated health risks have been identified as areas of concern for First Nations women. There has been little focus on the visual, gendered, historical and cultural meanings or experiences of healthy body weight and healthy body image for Aboriginal women. The goal of this research has been to identify, analyze and disseminate local knowledge about the cultural and visual contexts of healthy body weight and healthy body image from the perspective of First Nations women in the region.

This essay features critical reflections on a process of generative community-based participatory research (CBPR) in which communication researchers collaborated with environmental organizations, cultural advocacy groups, and community participants to identify better ways of addressing ecocultural struggles. In response to Depoe's call to promote scholar–practitioner interactions, the authors make explicit challenges and benefits implicated in employing a CBPR process to promote environmental justice. This critical ...

This paper details implementing a community action research project with a government-run primary school in an inner suburb of Melbourne, Australia. In this suburb, new wealthy owner-occupiers have superseded original residents, yet the suburb’s high-rise government housing blocks offer refuge for newly arrived families. Amongst this shifting community backdrop, the local primary school has seen its enrolment fall and seeks novel initiatives to address the increasingly diverse cultural needs of its community and attract local culture groups to the school. With school personnel and a small number of engaged local residents and parents, we developed a music playgroup for local area parents and their pre-school aged children. The playgroup, designed through community consultation and partnership, aimed to support positive transitions to school and build community amongst the multicultural group of school and community participants.
We shall report on the challenges and benefits of conducting community action research. Reflective examination of members’ experiences, research practices, and project materials resulted in five themes which will be discussed: the process of implementing a University-approved research component within the playgroup’s organic paradigm; the various challenges and solutions concerning building engagement in the project and community; navigating varying stakeholder desires, including a focus on culturally inclusive practices and the role of music (and food) in the playgroup; facilitation challenges and un-anticipated acts of participant leadership; and concerns regarding funding and sustainability. The findings have implications for community music programs as well as community- and service-focused music education programs.

This paper investigates the widespread integration of technology-enhanced learning (TEL) within specialist Communication Design studio education in the UK and Australia. The impetus for this paper has grown from the challenges facing day-to-day design studio education and the recognition that the use of technology in higher education today has increased dramatically. Conventional design studio facilities are being reconfigured into blended studio-based classroom learning spaces (often generically termed as ‘studio’). This study compares the lived experiences of students interacting with technology within two differing international studio settings. The two case studies used a Participatory Action Research approach and employed sensory affect as a lens through which learning within studio education was investigated using Participatory Design practice-led methods. The study finds that the Australian participants working within a TEL classroom-based environment faced significant obstacles to engagement and that their UK counterparts, who were situated within a conventional studio environment, much less so. This paper aims to support Communication Design students as they engage with studio education via the proposed transferable methodological framework – the Methods Process Model.

16 th IGSC Abstract 17 th February Friday 10:30 – 12:30 Abstract: Objectives Whilst type 2 diabetes is a growing health problem for Australian Pacific Island (API) communities in Queensland, very little is known about self-management. The purpose of this study was to develop a socio-cultural construct of self-management (self-care) for Australian Pacific Island women living with type 2 diabetes.