Cowards Don't Make History: Orlando Fals Borda and the Origins of Participatory Action Research. JoanneRappaport, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2020, 312 pp.

Abstract

Participatory action research (PAR) is increasingly common in the social sciences, but an analysis of its origins suggests that it has detached from its radical roots. Cowards Don't Make History examines the history of PAR through a study of Orlando Fals Borda's research collective, La Rosca de Investigación y Acción Social. Rappaport details the group's collaboration with Indigenous organizations that sought to rectify slow-paced agrarian reform in Córdoba, Colombia during the 1970s. Guided by a Marxist ideal of reinterpreting history according to class interests, the collective helped produce educational materials that included graphic novels, workshop manuals, historical texts, film strips, and radio shows. These materials were disseminated throughout communities and became tools for political organization. Drawing on meticulous archival research, Rappaport recaptures the experiences and research processes that made this early attempt at PAR so remarkable.Córdoba, Colombia is lush with vegetation, coastal mangroves, and swamps. Fals Borda noted that early peasant settlers adopted an "amphibious" relationship with their surroundings, leveraging resources from both water and land to build strong agricultural systems. In the early 20th century, the land was governed by the matrícula, a system of debt-peonage that confined peasant sharecroppers to haciendas. Although the community resisted elements of the matrícula, it struggled to fully transform its oppressive structures. La Rosca believed integrating popular knowledge, scholarly research, and political action could uncover Córdoba's past histories of popular struggle and re-signify them through activism.Rappaport organizes her analysis around three guiding concepts of La Rosca's PAR: participation, critical recovery, and systemic devolution. Each of these was imperative to the development of educational materials. Graphic novels, which used peasant testimonies to unearth Córdoba's social histories and motivate political organization, are pivotal to Rappaport's analysis. Peasant participation was crucial to the initial collection of the novels' storylines and their subsequent illustrations. Moreover, the graphic novels critically recovered values from communal histories to help energize the peasant psyche. One example of this can be found in Tinajones (1973), which told the story of the 40-year tension between large landowners and peasants along the Sinú River. Central to this story was the "amphibious" approach used by peasant settlers to construct raised fields in coastal mangroves for rice cultivation. Rappaport argues that the novel's focus on past ingenuity successfully fomented pride and recovered historical consciousness among peasants. All four graphic novels promulgated important political themes, and systemic devolution brought them full circle through the distribution of the novels to the broader community.One major strength of this book is that it both praises and critiques Fals Borda's work. Rappaport rightfully commends the unique accomplishments a...