Ethical and Political Challenges of Participatory Action Research in the Academy: Reflections on Social Movements and Knowledge Production in South Africa

Abstract

From the vantage point of South Africa, this article highlights a number of ethical challenges that could potentially arise in the relationship between social movement researchers and activists in the pursuit of social justice and transformation. In contrast to conventional approaches to social science more generally, we argue that a neat separation between theory and action is useful neither for producing knowledge within the academy nor for advancing the causes of social movements. The article reflects on two different research experiences in order to explain the limitations and quandaries that confront academics who seek to negotiate scholar -activist identities. In doing so, it extends the work of Croteau, who has explored the tensions between activism and scholarship. Drawing on participatory action research (PAR) approaches, including Touraine's method of sociological intervention, we suggest that a refined approach to PAR may assist in countering the inequalities that have been created in the academy between the researcher and researched, thereby alleviating some of the ethical and political concerns that inevitably confront scholar-activists.

Engaged Academics as Activist Professionals: Privilege and Humility in Addressing Knowledge Divides

“…Several academics have written about the straightforward problem of time commitments and balancing engaged activism with publishing research articles (Cancian 1993;Croteau 2005;Reiter 2015). Most agree that the customs and rhythms of academic research are different from those in the activist world (e.g., Croteau 2005; Dawson and Sinwell 2012;Hoynes 2005). Most who do engaged scholarship emphasize that the kind of research and writing that is useful to community groups is produced on a different time table and in a different format than research for academic audiences.…”

From ‘Here’ to ‘There’: Social Movements, the Academy and Solidarity Research

“…In so doing, this approach is regarded as uniquely 'generative' (Hale 2006, 98), i.e., yielding data that would otherwise be unavailable (Santos 2012;Wylie 2004). For the researcher seeking to stand in solidarity with movements, moreover, active engagement and identification -and the situated knowledge that this gives access to -by helping the researcher to better understand movements' positionality, also helps them to understand movements' interests, leading to research that is more aligned to movement needs (Dawson and Sinwell 2012;Smeltzer 2012, 267). Decoupling from this epistemological dimension, however, active identification and engagement is also affirmed as a necessary correlate to the assertion of solidarity -in its various different forms -between academics and movements.…”

“…Through alignment with these worldviews the researcher identifies their connection with and accountability to indigenous peoples, and their corresponding obligation to stand with them 'in solidarity against colonialism and all forms of oppression and domination' (Lewis 2012, 228). Relatedly, others have asserted the basis of this solidarity in identity, especially the self-identification of the researcher with the movement (Cancian 1993;Croteau 2005;Dawson and Sinwell 2012), such as that affirmed, for instance, when a Black researcher engages with an anti-racism movement or a feminist academic engages with a women's social movement (Sefa Dei and Johal, 2005).…”

“…For some, as above, these diverging incentives are captured in the distinction between the 'interpretive' project of the academic and the 'practical' project of the movements. For others they are revealed in the challenge confronting those who would enter into movement-oriented postures presented by strategic and externally determined evaluative frameworks that privilege traditional academic publishing, or grant-raising, leading to the instrumentalising of movement relations and potential trade-offs between career progress and the exigencies of collaboration (Chesters 2012;Dawson and Sinwell 2012;Federici 2009;Juris 2007;Routledge 1996;De Certau 1984).…”

“…Indeed, much of this recent output seeks to identify and explore the practices, methodological and ethical principles for, and structural constraints to, the realisation of this solidarity. Negotiating positionality (of academics on the one hand, and movements on the other) is recognised as crucial in this regard (Routledge 2004;Dawson and Sinwell 2012). Given both the centrality of movement-academic solidarity to the rationale behind these participatory approaches, and the focus of much of this recent literature I have elected to refer to this group of scholars as practicing or attempting to practice solidarity research.…”