this is about the 19th time I have tried to have my email address removed
from your mailing list.....

please remove me as soon as possible, I am not interested in your topics or
causes.  They are just filling up my mail server space.

I will continue to respond to all email sent from this group with this
response until I am removed from the list.


[log in to unmask]
At 09:28 PM 10/28/96 -0300, you wrote:
>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.
>
>*******************************************************************
>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]
>*******************************************************************
>
>