By
Kathryn Moore
Why do organizations solicit participation from “local stakeholders” when the people exist there already, creating movements and advocating for themselves?
This was the question of one development practitioner who witnessed people’s power and their movements for social change, as they were the “owners of the issue” after a natural disaster in her home country (anonymous, personal communication, July 10, 2013). The practitioner determined that her emergency response, even within her home country, was not humble enough due to the inherent power she held as an “insider” in the country but still an “outsider” to those affected in the fragile context. This example highlights how “participation,” a buzzword in the international development and peacebuilding fields, becomes problematic when it reproduces inequalities within groups and reinforces power hierarchies between “outsiders” and “insiders” by showcasing external interests as local concerns and needs (Cooke & Kothari, 2001).
In another instance, a peace and development practitioner noted how women and children died as a result of not being able to swim during a natural disaster. Women and their communities requested swimming instruction specifically for women; however, international practitioners maintained the true problem was lack of women’s human rights access. After much debate, women received training from local professional female swimmers (personal communication, July 18, 2013). This process led the practitioner to question whether international practitioners, donors, communities and organizations, working together, are capable of realizing true participation when not genuinely considering how communities define what it means to “participate” and define their own issues (personal communication, July 18, 2013).
How can initiatives in development and peacebuilding contexts, with the aim of conflict transformation, be truly inclusive, participatory, and more than short-term development projects (as cited in Lederach & Jenner, 2002)? How can those most impacted in said contexts be the “owners of the issue(s)” as well as actively engaged in developing and realizing solutions over time? I posit that as an intervention, Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR) allows minority groups to drive their own conflict transformation processes in fragile contexts as well as exemplify “true” participation of local stakeholders in development initiatives. CPAR, as defined by colleagues from the Public Science Project (PSP), is “a framework for creating knowledge that is rooted in the belief that the most impacted by the research should take the lead in framing the questions, design, methods, analysis and determining what products and actions might be the most useful in affecting change” (Torre, 2009).
CPAR assumes that all people and institutions are embedded in complex social, cultural, and political systems historically defined by power and privilege and that social research is most valid when using multiple methods (Torre, 2009). The latent conflict context of Fiji is an example of one place where CPAR has potential to simultaneously “remember bodies, knowledge, histories of resistance, and opposition that has been excluded” while serving as a conflict transformation intervention (Torre, 2009). Youth have typically been marginalized in peace and development processes with Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) offering the most genuine outlet for youth participation in peacebuilding and conflict transformation (Gavidi & Moore, 2012). If CPAR were employed as a framework, youth, a traditionally “forgotten” or excluded body, may potentially participate in the entire research process from the inception of framing the questions to determining products and actions, thus allowing for conflict transformation of the individual youth within CPAR and society at large. Regarding methodology, if Fijian youth choose to do focus groups as one method in a mixed-methods approach, they could involve more non-formal traditional ceremonies such as the kava ceremony, a ceremony involving drinking the traditional relaxing drink that used to be reserved for indigenous chiefs. This would allow for potential understanding of the “other,” thus embarking on a process of truth and reconciliation between multi-generational and inter-ethnic groups, while simultaneously systematically researching youth as peacebuilders in the process.
CPAR maintains that participation is along a continuum, contextualized and that there is not one “right” way to determine what participation may look like in a given setting or institution (Dr. Maria Elena Torre, personal communication, June 20, 2013). Clara Hagens, a Regional Technical Advisor for Catholic Relief Service’s (CRS) Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning and Accountability (MEAL) in Asia, noted the continuum of participation within the organization, which has peacebuilding as one of its thematic areas. Hagens asserted that examples of significantly participatory initiatives are when communities have designed the project in partnership with the organization’s staff, designed and determined indicators to measure success in the project’s process and outcome, led data collection efforts, and analyzed/determined what actions to take with evaluation findings. An example of participation included a project where CRS and partner institutions determined a desired change and the community defined the “nuts and bolts of the behavior change and what success would look like to them” (Clara Hagens, personal communication, July 15, 2013). Hagens provided a critical perspective on the participation continuum and stated that while there is a commitment to participation across the organization, how it is managed varies greatly related to time and resources in various locations. The question remains as to how, in conflict transformation processes that are very context specific, continuums of participation may be considered when the organizations, themselves have specific norms.
Another example of the continuum of participation comes from a USAID development practitioner working in a post-conflict setting, wherein local university students and government ministries’ officials partook in the data collection process over a six-week period (USAID practitioner, personal communication, July 17, 2013). The local practitioners were able to witness issues in development “on the ground” that allowed them to become “insider” advocates for issues at hand instead of relying solely on “outsiders’” research and perspectives on development issues (USAID practitioner, personal communication, July 17, 2013). The local practitioners requested USAID’s support to build local data collection and analysis skills, among other skills, in order for locals to be the principle leaders in their own research processes over time (USAID practitioner, personal communication, July 17, 2013). Conflict transformation processes include the idea of “continuums of participation” when outsiders are facilitating peace processes; how much of the participation should be “insiders” vs. “outsiders” is a question that remains in both CPAR and conflict transformation processes alike.
CPAR holds that participation might not happen instantaneously and believes relationships are constructed over time (Torre, 2009). Education for Peace (EFP), an NGO working in post-conflict Bosnia-Herzegovina, provides an example of participation evolving over time in conflict transformation processes. Naghmeh Sobhani, working with EFP for over twelve years, noted that, in “true” participatory processes, “the ‘circle of participation’ is expanded over time” (Naghmeh Sobhani, personal communication, July 12, 2013). More people subsequently want to be included and put their “own piece into the group effort.” Sobhani also noted the importance of relationship construction over when working with multiple groups (i.e. ethnic groups, groups with different levels of authority, etc.). Multiple groups needed to first have their own affinity groups in which to set the climate and agenda prior to working in shared spaces. Instead of EFP staff being the “process-owners,” former members of the affinity groups explained to newer members of the plenary the mechanisms for how the group exercises participation that had been co-created and practiced by the plenary over time. Affinity groups later forming a plenary over time might be a timely process based on the traditional age hierarchy of society, ethnic violence, and structural inequalities; however, as with EFP’s example, relationship construction with evolving groups over time could lead to participatory efforts’ long-term ownership and sustainability.
The examples highlighted suggest CPAR is both an approach and an intervention in conflict transformation processes. However, significant considerations and dilemmas ensue. Some deliberations are the ethical considerations around determining issues to be researched and identifying participants to be involved in CPAR, how to ensure that the continuum of participation is reflected upon across institutions with multiple international locations, the readiness of organizations and the donor community to accept longer-term “true” participatory processes vs. quick-impact projects, and how to realize the diversity of groups most impacted inclusion in CPAR efforts, especially when some important groups are resistant to join research efforts. Finally, how may groups prove with their research, in fragile contexts where some fractures might still exist, that conflict transformation is taking place within ongoing, timely processes utilizing CPAR?
Kathryn Moore is an International Development Fellow 2013-2014, Catholic Relief Services Laos.
References:
Cooke, B. & Kothari, U. (Eds.) (2001). Participation: The new tyranny? London: Zed Books.
Gavidi, K. & Moore, K. (2012). “Invented traditions: youth as peacebuilders in collaboration with civil society organizations in Fiji.” (Unpublished M.A. thesis). Teachers College, Columbia University, New York. Retrieved from https://www.dropbox.com/s/lbg5h0d7spc28up/Invented%20Traditions-Youth%20as%20Peacebuilders%20in%20Fiji.FINAL.pdf
Lederach, P. & Jenner, J. (Eds.) (2002). A handbook of international peacebuilding: into the eye of the storm. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Torre, M. E. (2009). Principles of critical participatory action research. Retrieved from http://www.publicscienceproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/PAR-Map.pdf