Action Research in the Convergence of Disciplines

Abstract

Introductory wordsI wish to begin by a personal revelation and a respectful request. Last May 18, at the splendid closing session of the World Congress on ActionResearch, held at the Universidad de La Salle in Bogota, delegates from Australia, Great Britain and the United States informed the audience that I had just been awarded one of the most prized honors of the world of social sciences: the Malinowski Award, of the Society for Applied Anthropology, and that I had been chosen as the Martin Diskin Oxfam America Commemorative Conference Speaker of LASA, Latin American Studies Association.It was unusual in that those decisions were taken concomitantly. They were as two sparks that fell at one time on a single lightning rod. You may believe me that one of them alone would have been enough to burn me to ashes, so much the more taking into account that both citations referred equally to the origin and dissemination of Participatory Action Research (PAR), taking distance from the first psycho-social school of Kurt Lewin. This was now a more complex level of academic, social and political participation. Even so, they were inviting me to remember and explain the story of a process of continuity and dissent in the accumulation of scientific knowledge, a process that certainly deserved such great international recognition.My first concern was how to share this task between the Society of Applied Anthropology and LASA. As you know it was interrupted by a severe illness that would have prevented me from having the pleasure of seeing you in person and shaking your hands at Montreal. I began to decide how I would have done it in my young years as a doctoral student: apply division of labour pragmatically. For LASA, because of the interesting Diskin tradition with "activist researchers" in Central America, I could use a more cognitive and descriptive treatment of experiences in field work, which would make me doubly happy and very satisfied, because it fitted in with that important work by Diskin in El Salvador. For the Society of Applied Anthropology and its venerable journal Human Organization, I would present an interpretative digression on the possibly phenomenological experience, with a view to exploring the possibilities of an alternative paradigm. This is therefore what I am doing.Forgive me if this unexpected double task becomes somewhat repetitive, because I will try to harmonise both works. But I fear that, in future, these reports will have to be consulted complementarily. I hope thus to fulfill the expectations of both institutions, and to receive your indulgence, my colleagues and friends of LASA, to begin the debate here in Spanish.I feel very moved and honoured to have been selected as the Martin Diskin Oxfam America Commemorative Conference Speaker of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), and I extend my heartfelt thanks to Mrs. Diskin, who is present here, and to the distinguished Evaluation Committee, coordinated by Brinton Lykes, which made the decision, as well as the Board of Directors of the Association. Very special thanks to Professors Milagros Pereyra, Charlie Hale, Maria Claudia Duque and Arturo Escobar for their encouragement and support. Also to Professor Kevin Yelvington, who had the kindness and energy to propose and document my name before the authorities. I appreciate the presence of so many Colombians in this room, and of my families, Fais and Samper: I feel the warmth of my country and my people in these cold, although welcoming plains of dynamic Quebec. Thank you, thank you all very much.And now I will present the thesis on the functions of PAR (Participatory Action-Research) in the convergence of disciplines, as an interesting expression of postmodernity.Beginnings and convergencesLet us remember how my colleagues and I, from Third World countries, began to articulate our thinking and action in the 1970s, combining, as we said, heart and mind to propose techniques and procedures that would satisfy our anxieties as citizens and as social scientists. …