The ‘participation’ component of PAR (participatory ACTION RESEARCH) is
what intrigues me. Emphasis on participation was a result of criticism
of approaches in development and rural agricultural research by the
World Bank and IMF which was extractive and ultimately exploitative.
They used approaches such as Rapid Rural Appraisal, which also developed
into Participatory Rural Appraisal. Robert Chambers has a book called
‘Putting the last first’ and a chapter entitled ‘Whose knowledge?’.
Both of these highlight the moral imperative behind participatory
research approaches.
But for me what is lacking in these approaches is a theorization of what
‘participation’ does, how it is the cornerstone of change on individual
and social levels. I think that is what Vygotsky and CHAT approaches
(and DWR in particular) add to PAR etc., a way of understanding how it
is that participative processes are so significant in bringing about
social change. A moral imperative is not enough to ensure change.
Mary
Mary van der Riet; School of Psychology; University of KwaZulu-Natal
Private Bag X01, Scottsville, 3209
email: vanderriet@ukzn.ac.za
tel: 033 260 6163; fax: 033 2605809
Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> 05/16/11 04:19 AM >>>
I think Vygotsky's absence of concern for ownership of a collaborative
research project arose from what we would see today as a naive
acceptance of the Soviet Union as the inheritor a popular revolution. I
am sure he knew better, but it seems to have been a working assumption.
It meant that he could see himself as a participant in that revolution,
exercising popular agency. It doesn't look like that to us in historical
retrospect and few of us on this list see it that way here and now.
I have to say that we I first got interested in this stuff I saw it that
way (like LSV). My activism was as an elected trade union representative
and thinking about what I was doing was one of the responsibilities of
that role. So also was maintaining a high level of participation in and
commitment to the work. Things have changed, both in the world outside
and my relation to it, and I now take these questions to be as relevant
to me as they were to those academic researchers who would interview me
as a subject years ago.
But apart from many experiences with change consultants brought in by
successive managers, I really know nothing of Lewin and AR or Mondragon,
so I can't help with this issue any further, other than to affirm that I
now believe that the dynamics of collaboration are a central problem for
psychology, maybe even *the* central problem, and this question rightly
deserves attention. It tends to be hidden until class divisions or
neo-liberal atomisation of society, puts collaboration into relief
Andy
mike cole wrote:
I am still trying to figure out the issue of theory and methodology in
this
CHAT-AR discussion but in the meantime, I am would like to know
other's
views of Figure 3
in Seth's article. Here is what I could capture from the pdf. (Hey!
It
worked!!).
"Proposition" refers to a set of analytic characteristics that Seth
uses to
compare Lewin and Vygotsky. I raise questions below.
Proposition
Lewin
Vygotsky
1. Direct consideration of improvement of
societal practice
+ + ?
2. Necessary to intervene into societal practices
+ +
3. Explicit attention to societal values used
O O
4. Part of being objective is to consider
societal values and interests
O
O
5. Advocacy and objectivity
O
O
6. Distinction between “basic” and
“applied” is meaningless
+
+
*Note. *+ indicates concordance; ? indicates uncertainty; O indicates
absence.
I want to focus on propositions 3,4,5. I think that they might provide
a
rough pointer
towards some of the differences that appear to exist between different
forms
of research that claims some relation to some form off action
research.
3 and 4 are closely related in that both presuppose that there is more
than
one social value and interest to be considered. Neither LSV nor Lewin,
it
seems, attended to these issues explicitly. Then, of course, they
would not
pay explicit attention to advocacy.
I believe that in general people who participate in this discussion
assume
that there are in fact multiple societies in Society, we would point
to
socioeconomic class as fundamental, but however we do it, we would
argue
that those "for whom" the research is being done are not members of a
single
society with a single set of values and a single set of criteria of
virtue.
So we MUST raises these issues.
When we do, the issue of agency jumps in our face. Whose interests
are
being served here, given that there are different social groupings
involved?
Who gets to decide what gets remembered out of these encounters and
who does
not?
When conducting joint research with Soviet colleagues in the 1980's I
learned that the question of who initiates a proposed collaborative
project
is a central concern in human interaction. At the diplomatic level,
my
Soviet colleagues did all they could to be sure that it was the
Americans
who initiated any interaction. Why? Because they could go to their
bosses
and say, "We have been asked to engage in these activities, what
should we
do?" Once they were told to do what they wanted to do in the first
place,
the could perceive. They were absolved of the crime of exerting
agency.
When working with local communities, the balancing of responsibility
for the
joint activity is an ongoing and major concern. I take Yrjo's focus on
the
method of dual stimulation in the Change Lab as a way of providing the
"other" (postal workers, medical workers, etc.) with agency.... to
become
their instrument.
I like the phrase I learned from Olga Vasquez, "reciprocal relations
of
exchange." Sounds like the definition of non-profit capitalism, but
when one
achieves such reciprocity, good things happen.
What do others think about the absence of these concerns shared by
Vygotsky
and Lewin that we do not, I am surmising, share with them? (Judging
from
Seth's account.)
mike
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