Towards a critical recovery of liberatory PAR for food system transformations: Struggles and strategies in collaborating with radical and progressive food movements in EU-funded R&I projects

Abstract

From sustainability and justice perspectives, food systems and R&I systems need transformation. Participatory action research (PAR) presents a suitable approach as it enables collaboration between those affected by a social issue and researchers based in universities to co-create knowledge and interventionist actions. However, PAR is often misconstrued even within projects calling for civil society actors to act as full partners in research. To avoid reproducing the very structures and practices in need of transformation, this paper argues for university researchers to team up with members of food movements to engage in ‘liberatory’ forms of PAR. The question is how liberatory PAR's guiding concepts of reciprocal participation, critical recovery and systemic devolution can be enacted in projects that did not start out as PAR projects. Two EU-funded projects on food system transformation serve as a basis to answer this question, generating concrete recommendations for establishing co-creative, mutually liberating, and transdisciplinary research collectives.