CHAPTER 6: A puzzling search for authenticity within academia

People's Knowledge and Participatory Action Research

“…However, the same tensions often apply to universities or funding councils that seek to demonstrate 'community engagement' and 'impact'. In both settings, one way round this dilemma can be to explicitly address the ethics of such public engagement in practice (see Pearson et al, 2016;. Swingbridge Media's later work, in particular some of the commissioned promotional films for Sage Gateshead and for cultural education programmes in the North East (NE Generation, 2009-12), mirror some of these contradictions and problems well, despite their continued use of participatory methods in their development and production.…”

“…Power imbalances can sometimes be redressed. Pearson and co-authors employ one such strategy in Chapter 6 (Pearson et al, 2016), where they resist an invitation to write an academic paper by giving good reasons why they should not write one. builds on this argument in Chapter 4, in which he explores three overlapping ideas in the context of action research and race: firstly, recognizing the dominant position of racism in our culture; secondly, recognizing race as an experience; and thirdly, the need for an ongoing process of decolonizing our thinking.…”

“…This was a deeply moving learning experience for all and resulted in us writing a paper that was initially entitled: 'This paper proposes a process for writing a paper that investigates why the proposed paper was not written'. An edited version of this paper is included in this publication (Pearson et al, 2016).…”

“…However, it is clear to me that the less critical thinking, particularly with regards to power, that takes place within a practice or discipline, the greater the risk that people's democratic right to participate in the creation of knowledge becomes compromised. As Chapters 2, 3 and 6 Pearson et al, 2016) have shown, there is a real danger that the presence of many people's voices becomes an exercise in tokenism, leading to epistemic injustice (see Glossary).…”

“…I suggest that a preferable alternative might be to explore what has been called non-procedural, or discourse, ethics, through dialogue with those groups who could be said to use such approaches. Such groups might include the Public Science Project (Cammarota and Fine, 2008;Stoudt et al, 2015;Torres, 2014;RefugeeYouth, 2009; see also Pearson et al, 2016).…”