Participating in Participatory Research: An Indian Methodology for Social Change

Abstract

In the summer of 2004, I will travel to India to learn participatory research in the context of India's growing popular education movement, specifically as the movement has impacted women of the oppressed classes. Located in New Delhi, the Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA) is among the most productive and successful centers devoted to popular education and the empowerment of the marginalized sections of Indian society. As a civil society organization, PRIA engages in various participatory research techniques of intervention, civic empowerment, and participatory research training. With the goal of building a truly democratic society, participatory researchers strive to assist the ?silenced? majority in becoming full participants in their own society. This summer I will join one of the organization?s research teams in order to explore a research methodology that is both humane and revolutionary. I view this research project as the beginning of an extended critique of academia?s responsibility to social needs.