On narrativity, knowledge production, and social change: a diffractive encounter between the Narrative Productions methodology and Participatory Action-Research

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article, we argue for an understanding of engaged social research as an inherently narrative activity that conceptualises both how domination is perpetuated, and the possible ways to transform it. In order to do so, we stage a diffractive encounter between two methodologies that have shaped our past practice: on the one hand, the Narrative Productions methodology (NPM), the focus of this Special Issue, on the other, Participatory Action-Research (PAR). We begin by introducing the Latin American PAR tradition and its relation to narrativity as well as NPM’s roots in the feminist epistemology of Donna Haraway. Later on, we review some of the ways these two methods can benefit from reading their insights from one another. Finally, we synthesise the relation of narrativity and social change. We draw on Karen Barad’s notion of ‘Onto-ethico-epistemology’and the concept of political ontologyto argue that, by engaging in creating the world distinctively, these two methods materialise diverging projects of social justice.