Empowerment for Whom? Empowerment for What? Lessons from a Participatory Action Research Project

Going Digital in Ethnography: Navigating the Ethical Tensions and Productive Possibilities

“…Moving away from paper representations opens up new possibilities for shaping how research is presented to others, who participates in shaping its representation, and the degree to which people outside traditional research communities engage with findings. From creating oral history documentation for the public to access (Howley, 2012) to producing websites wherein researcher and co-researchers/participants document the research process (Call-Cummings, 2015), online spaces afford new ways of representing findings and inviting the participation of the broader public. For instance, on Call-Cummings’ public website, her participatory action research study is represented with a variety of arts-based representations and text-based descriptions.…”

“…Such digital spaces have also been described as affording opportunities for researchers to take their research outside the domain of academic journals and books, engaging with research participants in public and visible ways (Vannini, 2012). For example, Call-Cummings’s (2015) participatory ethnography, which focused on Latino youth’s racialized school experiences, resulted in a jointly developed website whereby the youth’s everyday stories were represented visually, narratively, and perhaps most controversially, in publicly visible ways. Yet, notably, there remains a need to continue examining the methodological implications of ethnographies going digital, with the move to such visible, public spaces resulting in emergent ethical challenges, as well as possibilities for engaging people in public and potentially meaningful ways.…”

Institutions and Disadvantaged: Intervention or Oppression? Theatre of the Oppressed at the Universities

“…Most often, theatre of the oppressed is linked to action research (Lewin, 1946). The group process is reflected and the results and reflections by the participants are shared (Wrentschur, 2008;Call-Cummings & James, 2015).…”