Moving with the Movements: Participatory Action Research In/Action

• Published in: The Canadian journal of action research Vol. 22; no. 1; pp. 87 - 104
• Main Authors: Langdon, Jonathan, Cameron, Sheena, Krieger, Natalie, Shani, Alhassan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Canadian Association for Action Research in Education 05-10-2021
• Subjects: Action Research; Activism; Epistemology; Foreign Countries; Indigenous Knowledge; Information Dissemination; Participatory Research; Popular Education; Social Action; Social Change; Story Telling; Ghana
• ISSN: 1925-7147; 1925-7147
• DOI: 10.33524/cjar.v22i1.538

Participation by its very nature is iterative, meaning Participatory Action Research (PAR) must be responsive to the way participation manifests and what actions emerge from this participation. In the article that follows, we share the complex and intertwined stories of PAR in action in two social movement contexts in Ghana, as well as the conditions that led to inaction in these two stories. This article builds on previous related work, where PAR was described as "moving with the movement" (Langdon & Larweh, 2015), and describes the complexities of trying to move with the movement as conditions and relationships change over time. By sharing challenges and achievements that have emerged from the movement and research, we illustrate how moving with the movement has resulted in rich and unanticipated learnings.