Community Participation and the Integration of Agroecosystem Health and Sustainability Concerns into Practical Decision Making - Integrated Assessment of Health and Sustainability of Agroecosystems - page 58

various evolutionary lines have retained similar (but conceptually disparate) termi-
nologies, such as participatory research, participatory action research (PAR), par-
ticipatory appraisal, activist participatory research, and participatory rural appraisal
(PRA)—causing a lot of confusion. In addition, there are differences within each
of these dimensions in the way methods are applied in practice. The common tenet
among these approaches is the concept of community participation. Most practi-
tioners apply the term community participation to mean some form of interaction
between local people and outsiders in which the former play a role in identifying,
implementing, or even controlling research or development activities (Catley, 1999).
However, the degree and nature of involvement differs widely among various groups
of practitioners, resulting in more variations in methods.
Among the most widely used and more homogeneous of the participatory meth-
ods are PRA and PAR. PRA has been defined as an intensive, systematic, but semi-
structured learning experience carried out in a community by a multidisciplinary
team that includes community members (Theis and Grady, 1991). It has also been
described as an approach for learning about rural life and conditions from, with, and
by rural people (Chambers, 1994). PRA is intended to enable local people to conduct
their own analysis and often to plan and take action (Webber and Ison, 1995) in col-
laboration with outsiders. In contrast, PAR is defined as a form of action research in
which professional researchers operate as collaborators with members of organiza-
tions in studying and transforming those organizations (Greenwood et al., 1993). It
incorporates the principle of iterative cycles of planning, analysis, and action into a
collaborative process between researchers and communities (Whyte, 1991). PAR is a
way of learning how to explain a particular social world by working with the people
who live in it to construct, test, and improve theories about it so they can better con-
trol it (Elden and Levin, 1991). An important distinction between the two approaches
is that, operationally, PRA is a single, initial phase of interaction between communi-
ties and outsiders (Webber and Ison, 1995), while PAR is a structured, ideally unend-
ing process of action and evaluation by communities in collaboration with outsiders.
The visual representations and analysis by local people (such as mapping; scoring
and ranking with seeds, stones, or sticks; group discussions and presentations; and
diagramming) are similar between PAR and PRA and among other participatory
approaches.
The development of PAR was fueled mostly by industry in the 1980s; loss of
competitiveness led managers in industry to shift emphasis toward worker participa-
tion in solving problems in productivity and costs (Whyte, 1991). The term action
research was coined in the 1940s by Kurt Lewin, an American sociologist working
on a range of community projects concerning integration and social justice in areas
such as housing and employment (Webb, 1996). It refers to a collaborative inquiry
by a group of people into a shared problem, issue, or concern for which they feel
responsible and accountable and that they seek to solve through teamwork (Zuber-
Skerritt, 1996). It attempts to solve problems, issues, or concerns by following a
cyclical process of (1) strategic planning, (2) action, (3) evaluation, and (4) revising
the plan (Zuber-Skerritt, 1996).
In action research, collaboration means that everyone's point of view will
be taken (with equal weight) as a contribution to resources for understanding the