XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology (July 15-21, 2018)

207

Participatory Action Research (PAR) – Taking Stock of Advancements and Challenges. I

RC10 Participation, Organizational Democracy and Self-Management (host committee)

Language: English

PAR has been an important force in social science for humanitarian research and interventions that empowers people as knowledgeable and reflecting subjects, reduces suppression of ecologies of knowledges, and enabling epistemological justice in questioning academic hegemonies. As a many-sided tradition and vision of knowledge democracy it has during recent years shown considerable advancements in many fields, both in mobilizing citizens and professionals as co-researchers for transforming practices and in creating supportive sites in academia. Much experience has been accumulated since PAR was launched in the 1970s, through its applications to different fields of research, development and problem-solving areas, such as: philosophy of knowledge, research methodology, social policy and social practice, organizational development, entrepreneurship, sustainable human development, rural development, industrial democracy, quality of working life, conflict-transformation and resolution, and non-violent social change, among other realms. At the same time there are many obstacles and challenges, from enacting liberating and equalizing dialogues in a Freirean spirit which enables broad participation, to making breaches in dominant science praxis restricting participation. This session invites contributions showing promising advancements in theory and practice of PAR as well as elaboration on challenges, struggles and dilemmas in broadening participation in research and building institutional support structures and spaces. Generally we invite those that want to share in the local as well as global struggle for knowledge democracy and epistemological justice through the development of a transformed social science research practice which enables citizen participation in doing research.