Participatory action research in neoliberal academia: An uphill struggle

MILLAR, Gearoid, VOLONTERIO, Matías, CABRAL, Lídia, PEŠA, Iva and LEVICK-PARKIN, Melanie (2024). Participatory action research in neoliberal academia: An uphill struggle. Qualitative Research.

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Abstract

Participatory action research (PAR) is described in the literature as a valuable method for enhancing the power of marginalized individuals and communities by collectively producing knowledge to transform the inequalities they experience. This deviates from most social science research, where such actors are largely the subjects of data extraction. This paper reports on our experience of using PAR to examine existing food systems and ideas regarding ‘just food system transitions’ alongside Non-Governmental Organizations in Brazil, Sierra Leone, the United Kingdom and Zambia. We describe our efforts to encourage these partners to participate in the research design, data collection and analysis in line with PAR ideals. Our experience fell short of our expectations for a PAR project. While some limitations relate to the Covid-19 pandemic, this paper focuses on the structures of contemporary neoliberal academia, which, we found, actively obstructed the realization of the optimistic claims of the PAR literature.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	13 Education; 16 Studies in Human Society; Social Sciences Methods; 44 Human society
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941241259979
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Elements
Depositing User:	Symplectic Elements
Date Deposited:	09 Jul 2024 12:10
Last Modified:	11 Jul 2024 09:15
URI:	https://shura.shu.ac.uk/id/eprint/33927

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