Participatory
Geographies Research Group (PyGyRG)
The
Participatory Geographies Research Group (PyGyRG) is a research group
of the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers).
Recently there has been a surge of interest in the study and application
of participatory research methods. Whilst a number of geographers have
used participatory approaches and methods for many years, there are a
number of reasons for the more recent interest across all fields of human
geography. These include:
-
A
growing feeling that geographic research should have benefits for
those affected by the social, economic and environmental issues which
are at its heart
-
The
belief that groups outside the academy have meaningful contributions
to make to setting agendas, project design, analysis, interpretation
and writing outputs of geographical research.
-
Disillusionment
with the ability of many mainstream quantitative or qualitative approaches
and their sets of ethical principles to effect this, or to contribute
to significant change, even where findings are disseminated to policy-makers
or (non-participatory) action research frameworks are applied.
-
Discontent
with the increasingly elitist and exclusionary nature of the structures
of higher education and UK geography, including the RAE, which privilege
forms of research which are highly theoretical in nature, have a narrow
audience and few political impacts (in contrast to theoretically aware
'action'
-oriented work, with a focus on examining the difficulties in trying
to undertake such work).
- Development
of critical debate over participatory approaches, including those promoted
in public policy programmes.
In
contrast, a range of participatory principles underpins participatory
geographies. Participatory principles focus on:
Empowerment - participatory work leads to action, especially
collective action, and helps people to change their lives according
to their own ideas;
Continuous learning - all participants learn from their engagement
in the process; everyone has something to learn from the process;
Reflection - practitioners adopt an approach of self-critical reflection,
acknowledge the expert knowledge of other participants, and expect to
learn from other participants and from the experience of their involvement
in a participatory process;
Inclusion - participatory work should be proactively inclusive -
participatory work makes it easier for a wide range of people to take
part and make their views heard, with practitioners actively attempting
to include and seek out people who are often ignored or do not take
part in other community development, consultation and/or research processes,
as well as paying attention to differences and not trying to homogenise
different opinions and points of view;
Challenging established beliefs and power relations - participants
recognise the importance of existing power relations in disadvantaging
certain groups and individuals, seeking instead to facilitate social
change through the effective involvement of disadvantaged people in
social and political processes;
Reliability and ethical practice.
Participatory geographers, therefore, often seek to work in bottom-up
ways with the goal of actively engaging and benefiting groups outside
academia so that traditional barriers between 'expert researcher' and
'researched community' are broken down. A key ethical tenet of their
work might be not just to do no harm, but to do good (on participants'
terms, rather than academics').
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