Participatory research: An approach for change

Abstract

How can research be imagined as an educational and transformative process rather than an extractive one? In this reflective essay, Dr. Budd Hall examines the shortcomings embedded within dominant principles of social science research. Drawing from his experiences as a researcher and his interactions with local education officers in the 1970s, he reflects on how research practices often alienate communities from the very processes meant to understand them. The essay explores key concerns around the ideological foundations of research, the ways in which social problems are oversimplified, and the distance from adult education principles. In doing so, it invites researchers to reimagine research as a dialectic, dialogic and ongoing educational experience which is oriented towards the liberation of human creative potential rather than the production of “neutral” knowledge.