“Don’t Research about Us without Us”: Participatory Action Research as an Approach to Producing Knowledge <i>with</i> Marginalized Populations
Abstract
ABSTRACT Communities marginalized along economic, social, and political fronts are frequently the objects of academic research, particularly among scholars who study social problems. However, given the many obstacles that prevent people from vulnerable populations from obtaining graduate degrees and becoming formal researchers, much of our knowledge about vulnerable groups is written by outside academics rather than those from the communities being studied. In this article, we argue that Participatory Action Research (PAR) is an effective approach for enabling vulnerable groups to play a central role in the process of knowledge production about their communities. Not only does this approach bring the voices of the periphery into academic research, it also improves the quality of the data, facilitates data collection, promotes the well-being of the research population, and creates opportunities for community members to gain entry into higher education. We illustrate this claim by describing our experience conducting a two-year research project that employed a PAR approach to examine the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Cidade de Deus, a “favela,” or informal settlement in Rio de Janeiro. We discuss the benefits, challenges, and limitations of employing PAR for incorporating voices from the periphery in sociological research about marginalized communities.
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Record history
| When | Event | Field | Old | New |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-06-18 19:37:53.011249+00:00 | identifier_assigned | DSEID | DSEID-000-8315978 |