Community Participation and the Integration of Agroecosystem Health and Sustainability Concerns into Practical Decision Making - Integrated Assessment of Health and Sustainability of Agroecosystems - page 59

situation (Winter, 1996). The analysis proceeds to assemble the differences between
viewpoints and the contradictions within each of them. In this way, many of the
claims made from each viewpoint are translated into questions, allowing for a range
of alternatives to be suggested when previously particular interpretations would have
been taken for granted. The goal of this process is to generate a set of ideas that have
been interpersonally negotiated (Winter, 1996). A form of action research, termed
emancipatory action research (Carr and Kemmis, 1986), aims at not only resolving
the primary concern of the participants but also changing the system itself and those
conditions that impede desired improvement. It aims at empowering and increas-
ing the ability of participants to create grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967),
which is a theory developed on the basis of experience and practice and aimed at
facilitating the solution of complex problems in different situations.
It is important in both theory and practice to distinguish between the various
forms of action research (Whyte, 1991). Elden and Levin (1991) conceived the par-
ticipatory form of action research as consisting of “insiders” (local participants) and
“outsiders” (the professional researchers) collaborating to cocreate “local theory”
that the participants test out by acting on it. They defined local theory as the most
direct, simple, and elegant context-bound explanation of cause-and-effect relations
in a given situation that makes sense to those with the most local experience. Accord-
ing to this definition, a local theory is situation specific. It is generated by insiders in
dialogue with outsiders using general knowledge and the rules of scientific inquiry
and expressed using everyday language and meanings.
The initial framework of what develops into local theory is a description of how
individual members of an organization perceive the problem situation. Insiders have
their own ideas or models for attributing meaning and explanations to the world they
experience. Since they (the insiders) spend most of their lives in the situation of inter-
est, they know more about it and have more ways of making sense of their world than
would be possible for an outsider to appreciate without in some way becoming an
insider. Thus, insiders are experts in the specifics of the situation. They know from
personal experience how things work and how the elements are connected to each
other and about values, attitudes, and local culture, factors among those that interact
to create the subsisting situation.
Insiders are primarily concerned about theories of their own particular situation—
those that would facilitate the solution of practical problems and achievement of personal
and organizational goals. Their theories, however, are (in most cases) not systemati-
cally tested, and their knowledge is highly individual, tacit, and unreflected on (Elden
and Levin, 1991). Outsiders have what is missing: (1) training in systematic inquiry and
analysis and expertise in (2) designing and carrying out research and (3) recognizing
patterns and creating new knowledge that is less context specific. The second frame-
work that contributes to local theory comes from the application of these principles to
generate data about the problem situation and carry out relevant analyses.
In the context of agroecosystem health and sustainability, PAR provides a means
through which communities can be involved as collaborators. Specifically, PAR
provides the methodological background for collaborating with the communities to
(1) generate a systemic description of the agroecosystem, (2) build consensus on
management goals for the agroecosystem, (3) plan and undertake remedial action,