Participatory Action Research Approaches and Methods: Connecting People, Participation and Place

Kindon, Sara and Pain, Rachel and Kesby, Mike (eds.) (2007).
Abingdon: Routledge; 260 pages. ISBN 0415405505.

The editors of this collection note that at the same time as participatory action research is rapidly becoming a leading paradigm within the social sciences, criticism of participatory approaches has intensified. Participatory techniques can be inserted into development schemes and larger research agendas that remain top-down and extractive, they can fail to acknowledge the dynamics of power, and the search for consensus and collective action can marginalize some voices. Therefore, both Part I and Part III of this book are entitled “Reflection,” in the spirit of the “action-reflection spiral” that seeks to engage with both external and internal processes of evaluation. Chapters in Part I discuss ethics, including issues related to power, safety, and making a difference in the lives of research participants and their communities. Chapters in Part III examine other fundamental aspects of practice, such as data analysis, the presentation of findings, institutional change, and the relation between action and activism. These chapters include two contributions by Caitlin Cahill, one co-authored with Maria Elena Torre, which draw on the Fed Up Honeys project with young women of 16 to 22 in the city of New York. All of these topics under the theme of “Reflection” are significant for researchers who work with any age groups, including children and youth.

Part II of the book, “Action,” describes specific projects that used a range of methodologies, and although most were conducted with adult participants, all of the methods are adaptable for use with younger ages. They include resource use mapping, social asset mapping, diagramming, role play, visual art, theater, photovoice, video, GIS, interviews, and focus group discussions. Three of the chapters are primarily based on projects with young people. Jane Higgins, Karen Nairn and Judith Sligo identify ways that youth researching youth enhanced the outcomes of three projects in New Zealand: on student rights in schools, young people’s articulation of identities at the child/adult border, and local government initiatives to facilitate youth involvement in city life. Catherine Alexander and co-authors show how diagramming can be used to identify methods that participants find most engaging, including ways to document children’s journeys to school and youth perceptions of neighborhood crime. Mike Kesby and Fungisai Gwanzura-Ottemuller demonstrate the value of visual methods for getting difficult issues related to sexual health into the open for discussion and action in Zimbabwe, including diagramming with youth and body mapping with school children.

Louise Chawla