BOOK CHAPTER: Power and Knowledge

Title                 : Power and Knowledge

Writer              : John Gaventa and Ancrea Cornwall

Reference

Gaventa, John, Cornwall, Andrea, 2011, Power and Knowledge, In Peter Reason & Hilary Bradbury (2nd Eds), The SAGE HANDBOOK OF ACTION RESEARCH, SAGE:LONDON

MY SUMMARY

As a quantitative research, I have developed some understandings related conducting some research with different design of study-survey (cross-sectional), case-control, cohort and trials, my respondents are my research object, then I will interpret my data based on my understanding on my data analysis based on those quantitative data. My roles are as a researcher, data-analysist and an interpreter of the data in order to generate knowledge.

As a novice feminist PAR, I learn the concept of Power and Knowledge and interaction between knowledge, consciousness, participation and action by 1) how I am aware that everyone has unique experience, 2) how I create a space for my co-researchers who may be powerless, marginalized, and under-privilege, 3) How to collaborate with them to generate silence voices and unvisible co-researchers who are the experts on their own condition, 4) how I should negotiate my power as an expert and also a co-researcher, 5) how I learn to construct a knowledge I need some people to mingle, participate and interact through a dynamic process of action, reflection and collective investigation; 6) how I recognized multiple ‘ways of knowing, multiple potential sources and forms of knowledge’, 7) ‘how the production of knowledge changes the awareness or worldview of those involved’

A consideration of applying PAR, considering the similar power on the co-researchers group, for instance a group female marginalized group, a group of outreach workers, a group of health workers, and a group of policy makers etc. If we combine some members within a group who have a different power, for instance, female marginalized groups and health workers, we may obtain bias voices from these members.

IMPORTANT DIRECT QUOTATION

Abstract

Participatory research has long held within it implicit notions of the relationships between power and knowledge. Advocates of participatory action research have focused their critique of conventional research strategies on structural relationships of power and the ways through which they are maintained by monopolies of knowledge, arguing that participatory knowledge strategies can challenge deep-rooted power inequities. Other action research traditions have focused more on issues of power and knowledge within organizations, while others still have highlighted the power relations between individuals, especially those involving professionals and those with whom they work. This chapter explores the relationship of power and knowledge. It begins by exploring some of the ways in which power is conceptualized, drawing upon the work of Lukes, Foucault and others. It then turns to considering the ways in which differing traditions of participatory research seek to transform power relations by challenging conventional processes of knowledge production. Finally, the chapter reflects on contemporary uses of participatory modes of knowledge generation and on lessons that are emerging from attempts to promote more inclusive participation in order to address embedded social and economic inequities. P.172

Power and the Nature of Power

Positivist

First, there is the argument that the positivist method itself distorts reality, by distancing those who study reality (the expert) from those who experience it through their own lived subjectivity.

Second is the argument that traditional methods of research —especially surveys and questionnaires — may reinforce passivity of powerless groups through making them the objects of another's inquiry, rather than subjects of their own. Moreover, empirical, quantitative forms of knowing may reduce the complexity of human experience in a way that denies its very meaning, or which reinforces the status quo by focusing on what is, rather than on historical processes of change.

Third is the critique that in so far as ‘legitimate’ knowledge lies largely within the hands of privileged experts, dominant knowledge obscures or under-privileges other forms of knowing, and the voices of other knowers. P.178

Participatory Action Research

First, those who are directly affected by the research problem at hand must participate in the research process, thus democratizing or recovering the power of experts.

Second, participatory action research recognizes that knowledge is socially constructed and embedded, and therefore research approaches ‘which allow for social, group or collective analysis of life experiences of power and knowledge are most appropriate’ (Hall, 1992b: 22).

Third, participatory action research recognizes differing ways of knowing, multiple potential sources and forms of knowledge. While participatory research often starts with the importance of indigenous or popular knowledge (Selener, 1997: 25), such knowledge is deepened through a dialectical process of people acting, with others, upon reality in order both to change and understand it. P.179

Resonating with the feminist critique of objectivity (see Harding, 1986; Reid and Frisby, Chapter 6 in this volume), writing on participatory research emphasizes the importance of listening to and for different versions and voices. ‘Truths’ become products of a process in which people come together to share experiences through a dynamic process of action, reflection and collective investigation. At the same time, they remain firmly rooted in participants’ own conceptual worlds and in the interactions between them. P.179

(Selener, D, 1997, Participatory Action Research and Social change, New York: The Cornell Participatory Action Research Network, Cornell University.)

Knowledge, Social Change and Empowerment

                        Knowledge

                      

Participation

Action                                     Consciousness

Figure 11.1 Dimensions of participatory research

Participatory research makes claims to challenging power relations in each of its dimensions through addressing the need for:

knowledge — as a resource which affects decisions;

action — which looks at who is involved in the production of such knowledge; and consciousness — which looks at how the production of knowledge changes the awareness or worldview of those involved

Participatory research as an alternative form of knowledge

First, there is the danger that knowledge which is at first blush perceived to be more ‘participatory’, because it came from ‘the community’ or the ‘people’ rather than the professional researcher, may in fact serve to disguise or minimize other axes of difference (see critiques by Maguire 1987, 1996, on PAR; Guijt and Shah, 1998, on PRA; see also Brock and McGee, 2002; Cooke and Kothari, 2001; Cornwall, 2003; Cornwall and Pratt, 2003). By reifying local knowledge and treating it as singular (Cornwall et al., 1993), the possibility that what is expressed as ‘their knowledge’ may simply replicate dominant discourses, rather than challenge them, is rarely acknowledged. Little attention is generally given to the positionality of those who participate, and what this might mean in terms of the versions they present. Great care must be taken not to replace one set of dominant voices with another — all in the name of participation. P. 180

Even where differing people and groups are involved, there is the question of the extent to which the voices are authentic. As we know from the work by Freire (1970), Scott (1986, 1990) and others on consciousness, relatively powerless groups may simply speak in a way that ‘echoes’ the voices of the powerful, either as a conscious way of appearing to comply with the more powerful parties wishes, or as a result of the internalization of dominant views and values (hooks, 1994).

The dangers of using participatory processes in ways that gloss over differences amongst those who participate, or to mirror dominant knowledge in the name of challenging it, are not without consequence. To the extent that participatory processes can be seen to have taken place, and that the relatively powerless have had the opportunity to voice their grievances and priorities in what is portrayed as an otherwise open system, then the danger will be that existing power relations may simply be reinforced, without leading to substantive change in policies or structures which perpetuate the problems being addressed. In this sense, participation without a change in power relations may simply reinforce the status quo, adding to the mobilization of bias the claim to a more ‘democratic’ face. The illusion of inclusion means not only that what emerges is treated as if it represents what ‘the people’ really want, but also that it gains a moral authority that becomes hard to challenge or question.3

Participatory Research as Awareness Building

Just as expressing voice through consultation may risk the expression of voice-as-echo, so too action itself may represent blind action, rather than action which is informed by self-conscious awareness and analysis of one's own reality. For this reason, the third key element of participatory action research sees research as a process of reflection, learning and development of critical consciousness. P.181

Not only must production of alternative knowledge be complemented by action upon it, but the participants in the knowledge process must equally find spaces for self-critical investigation and analysis of their own reality, in order to gain more authentic knowledge as a basis for action or representation to others. P.181

Such critical self-learning is important not only for the weak and powerless, but also for the more powerful actors who may themselves be trapped in received versions of their own situation. For this reason, we need to understand both the ‘pedagogy of the oppressed’ (Freire, 1970) and the ‘pedagogy of the oppressor’, and the relation between the two. P.182

The important point is to recognize that the approaches are synergistic pieces of the same puzzle. From this perspective, what is empowering about participatory research is the extent to which it is able to link the three approaches, to create more democratic forms of knowledge, through action and mobilization of groups of people to act on their own affairs, in a way that also involves their own critical reflection and learning. P.182

From Margin to Mainstream? Power and Knowledge in ‘New Policy Space’

The changing context may imply the need for new strategies through which the knowledge, action and awareness-building purposes of participatory research come to interact. P.184

Simply creating new spaces for participation, or new arenas for diverse knowledges to be shared, does not by itself change social inequities and relations of power, but in some cases may simply make them more visible. P.184

Forms of argument and language which populate the spaces may serve to silence the voices or ways of speaking of some groups while enabling those of others. P.184

Those with greater experience of and access to the language of the state and its bureaucracies are more able to use these spaces to press their demands. P.184

For instance, retired teachers, community leaders, and NGO staff members may be able to take up invitations to participate and use them effectively, while more marginalized groups may enter the spaces for deliberation but still be silenced within them by how the meeting is conducted, or by their own internalized sense of powerlessness (as in the third dimension) which the new ‘pluralism’ in policy arenas has not changed. P.184

In certain situations, such forms of ‘invited participation’ have created opportunities for people who may never otherwise have engaged in deliberation over public policy to get involved, learn and grow, e.g. to contribute to awareness building through the process of engagement. P.184

The awareness-building goals linked to participatory research emerge from engagement in new institutional arenas, not necessarily outside of them. Marginalized groups may need their own spaces in which they can develop arguments and confidence, and learn what it takes to participate effectively in these arenas (Agarwal, 1997; Kohn, 2000). P.185