Paper Short Abstract:

The paper discusses participatory research as a method for critical social research by identifying different practices of critique using case examples. I show how these practices come into conflict with the claim to produce better knowledge through participatory research.

Paper Abstract:

In my contribution, I will explore the claim that participatory research can promote the democratization of knowledge production and at the same time generate better, more empirically appropriate knowledge. To do this, I will use case examples to identify four different practices through which participatory research exercises criticism and works towards change.

The starting point is the debate on the paternalism problem in critical research as formulated by Robin Celikates (2009). Participatory research offers a way out: it makes the co-production of knowledge central to research. I demonstrate that various approaches can be found to implement this claim to critique and change within research. These approaches differ in what they address: first, as a change in certain forms of institutional or professional practice, and second, as a change in the participating actors themselves, by making their knowledge, skills, or self-understandings the subject of research. In each case, two types can be distinguished in pursuing these goals: in the first case, as a critique that is immanent to the practice it studies or as a critique that transcends it. In the second case, as capacity building or as consciousness raising.

Following this, I will identify two problems associated with these understandings of critique: First, through the interest in empowering the actors, an asymmetry between the participants is once again being established. Second, I argue that the two central claims of participatory research, to induce change and to generate more appropriate representations of the social world, come into conflict with each other.