Puppeteering as a metaphor for unpacking power in participatory action research on climate change and health

Abstract

The health impacts of climate change are distributed inequitably, with marginalized communities typically facing the direst consequences. However, the concerns of the marginalized remain comparatively invisible in research, policy and practice. Participatory action research (PAR) has the potential to centre these concerns, but due to unequal power relations among research participants, the approaches often fall short of their emancipatory ideals. To unpack how power influences the dynamics of representation in PAR, this paper presents an analytical framework using the metaphor of 'puppeteering'. Puppeteering is a metaphor for how a researcher-activist resonates and catalyses both the voices (ventriloquism) and actions (marionetting) of a marginalized community. Two questions and continuums are central to the framework. First, who and where the puppeteer is (insider and outsider agents). Second, what puppeteering is (action and research; radical and managerial). Examples from climate change and health research provide illustrations and contextualizations throughout. A key complication for applying PAR to address the health impacts of climate change is that for marginalized communities, climate change typically remains a few layers removed from the determinants of health. The community's priorities may be at odds with a research and action agenda framed in terms of climate change and health.

Climate change adaptation networks for small and medium-sized cities

“…Previous studies have shown that this methodological approach is well suited for conducting municipal climate adaptation research (e.g. Boezeman et al 2014;Campos et al 2016;Ruiz-Mallén 2020;Meriläinen et al 2021;Vizinho et al 2021). Inspired by these studies, a PAR network for the federal state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, in Germany, was initiated and established at Aalen University in 2020.…”

Youth, Gender and Climate Resilience: Voices of Adolescent and Young Women in Southern Africa

“…Throughout the process, the research facilitators were conscious of the need to balance the goals of the research with those of FPAR as an empowering process. We remained conscious of the potential for PAR approaches to retain asymmetrical power relationships and that the young women researchers' and community's priorities may be contrary to the framings of the research and action agenda around climate change and education [24]. Critical researchers studying climate resilience in development contexts have highlighted the importance of agency and empowerment as drivers of transformation that can enable wider ranges of choices within these pathways towards high resilience, low risk, and high welfare outcomes [15,25].…”