Bonjour tout le monde !

There have been very interesting debates on the above listservs over the
last couple of months. The co-authors of the paper below, which is the
intro paper to a special issue of Promotion and Education to come out soon,
thought it would be a good idea to open a new line of exchanges around
participatory research. We also thought it would be a good idea to offer
those of you in  health promotion/ education who might not know the
official journal of the International Union of health Promotion and
Education (IUHPE) an occasion to get accointed to what is the major
international professional and scientific organisation in the field. If
interested to know more about either the organisation or its official
publication, please ask for a leaflet in English, français o español at the
Paris secretariate of IUHPE: [log in to unmask]

In the mean time, we look forward to lively exchanges on participatory
reserach in health promotion and we would also appreciate comments about
this posting: Is it too "commercial" for what people expect from listservs
as the ones it is sent to (sorry for cross postings !!!)


____________________paper begins here_________________________________________

THE CHALLENGES OF PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH
FOR HEALTH PROMOTION

Action research, participatory research, emancipatory research, empowerment
evaluation, or participatory action research (PAR) as we have chosen to
call it here, are but a few names used over past decades to talk about ways
to develop knowledge that has the best chance of producing action or
change. They also produce such change through an educational process. Thus,
they fit both the enabling and empowering goals of health promotion and the
principles of participatory learning fundamental to health education.
These approaches to research and development are by no means new,  but over
recent years they have enjoyed a rekindling of interest among
practitioners, activists, and even in some granting agencies.

The major challenges PAR presents to health promotion research are
epistemological and political. On the epistemological front, PAR calls into
question the dominant way in which health education and health promotion
have conceived knowledge development in the scientific tradition since the
1940's. By challenging the supremacy of academic research based in the
positivist traditions of science, PAR has offered the people who were
objects of research an opportunity to become active partners in its
formulation, execution and application. By questioning the very way in
which science is constructed and used, PAR suggests a profound revision of
research practices. Whatever the research methods employed (they may well
be quantitative if that is what a given research question calls for), what
PAR suggests as much as anything else is a different epistemological
attitude. This, according to some at least, is the only appropriate way to
approach the research task in an action-oriented endeavor like health
promotion.

The other key challenges proposed by PAR are political. If the academic
researcher truly accommodates the degree of involvement required of
research subjects or practitioners for them to be real partners, it limits
fundamentally his or her capacity to control the research process.
Developing the trust and the bargaining skills to interact effectively with
communities on this basis is indeed very difficult and time consuming for
researchers accustomed to leading and controlling the process of scientific
inquiry. Some groups might accord total control to the research specialist
because of the prestige they attach to the job (even if the researcher does
not want it).  Others might label the same researcher an "academic
exploiter," or other names of disrepute. They may threaten to deny him or
her any input in the research process. In the real world of PAR, the
researcher's position is never firm; it usually takes patience and adaptive
capacities seldom taught in classical scientific training.  Finally,
another major political challenge for PAR researchers, especially if they
belong to universities, is to survive in environments where such endeavours
are often regarded as unscientific. In fact, the types of outputs required
by the  PAR process (e.g., presenting the results in a party, or publishing
them as comic strips) might be viewed as totally contrary to criteria for
academic promotion (presentation in international scientific conferences
and publication in international  journals).

Because of these political and epistemological challenges, PAR can be a
risky business for specialized researchers, especially those based in
universities. Much of the participatory research has been facilitated by
research specialists who were not tied to universities.  PAR  requires
academic investigators to play by different rules on several levels and in
several arenas at one time. They may derive some energy from the
extraordinary richness of the human contacts of the PAR process and some
satisfaction from the clearer path that participatory research points
toward action.  But on the academic side they will find little support
within their own university culture and must reach broadly (merciful
e-mail) to a national or international network of like-minded academics.
Without this mutual academic support, PAR researchers run a high risk of
burnout in trying to reconcile the demands of their PAR collaborators and
their university colleagues. This should not discourage people from
embarking on such ventures, but they should do so with caution that PAR
will challenge them to function in ways for which their prior research
training failed to prepare them. This could be why researchers whose
training included health education or health promotion seem to be among the
professionals who are more receptive to exploring or using PAR.

These issues, and many others, were presented and debated in Tokyo, during
a special session on PAR convened by Lawrence Green and co-chaired by
Michel O'Neill and Donald Morisky at the XVth international conference of
the Union. The session was sufficiently stimulating that Marcia Westphal
volunteered to encourage the presenters to submit their papers for a
special edition of Promotion and Education and the editors agreed that it
would be a very worthwhile undertaking.

Following a general background paper by George et al. on the history and
scope of PAR, a series of concrete examples of PAR utilisation are
presented in this issue. Be it with children in Botswana (Pridmore), with
industrial steelworkers in Australia (Ritchie), with the general population
of a small Brasilian town (Westfal et al.) or with commercial sex workers
in the Philippines (Tiglao et al.), each experience recounted in these
papers offers useful examples of the difficulties as well as the
possibilities of PAR. We are thus proud to offer the readership of the
journal the content of this special issue.  We hope it will stimulate not
only more epistemological debate but more experimentation within and
between health promotion and health education researchers, practitioners
and the communities they would serve.

 Lawrence W. Green, Michel O'Neill, Marcia Westphal and Donald Morisky.
Guest editors


______________________end of paper _____________________________________________


Bonne journee !

Michel O'Neill, Ph.D.

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Professeur titulaire, Ecole des Sciences infirmieres; co-directeur,
GRIPSUL; 4108-J, Pavillon Paul-Comtois, Universite Laval, Quebec, Qc,
Canada, G1K 7P4
Telephone: +(1)-418-656-2131 #7431; Telecopieur (fax): +(1)-418-656-7747
Internet: [log in to unmask]

Co-directeur, Centre collaborateur quebecois de l'OMS pour le developpemement
de villes et villages en sante / Quebec WHO Collaborating Centre for the
development of Healthy Cities and Towns
2400 D'Estimauville, Beauport, Qc, Canada, J3G 4M4
Telephone: +(1)-418-666-7000 #461 Telecopieur (fax): +(1)-418-666-2776
Internet: [log in to unmask]
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