Participatory for Whom? Contemplations on the Researcher/Participant Dynamic in Participatory Research

• In Event: How Participatory Are Our Participatory Approaches? A “Pop-Up” Community of Praxis

Abstract

Overview, Objectives, and Purposes

Participatory approaches can take many shapes but all share the purpose of disrupting top-down inquiry. While most participatory research accomplishes the aim of shifting power dynamics, this occurs to varying degrees. Factors that influence this include when participants become part of the process, one's methodological malleability, how data are analyzed, and how decisions are made about what and how to share (or not) about the research with the larger public.

While participatory research can begin with a community approaching a researcher to assist with a point of concern, when researchers engage in community collaborations, we are seeking entry into a community space. Even if we belong to or have similar cultural and/or professional backgrounds as participants, insider/outsider dynamics remain, as does the power researchers hold within an inquiry relationship (Villenes, 1996). This prompts the question: when we engage in participatory research, who is it participatory for? As a collaborative made up of early childhood studies doctoral students and a faculty member, each journeying to learn more about participatory methodologies, we share our insights on the variety of participation that can occur and how we can avoid, as researchers, becoming the main benefactors of collaborations.

Theoretical Framework

Chicana and Black feminisms (Anzaldúa, 2015; Collins, 2008) guide this work, as they have created openings inspired by and enacted through the lived experiences, knowledges, and wisdoms of women of color. As a collaborative made up of mostly women and people of color, collaborating with communities of color, we find that theories of the flesh (Moraga & Anzaldúa, 1983) align well with the hopes and aims of our research.

Modes of Inquiry and Data Sources

To contemplate the tensions and complexities of participatory research, we have engaged in a photovoice project as a collective (Wang & Burris, 1994). Our project stemmed from recent research that included interviewing center-based childcare directors and educators working in a major U.S. metroplex. The main purpose of this research was to learn about their lived/professional experiences since the start of the pandemic. While this research was not participatory, as the data were being analyzed, we found value in thinking about ways to make the project's next phase more participatory. To facilitate this thought process, we engaged in PV to help us reflect on the power dynamics that can manifest during participatory research and how we can continue to be reflective about this throughout future inquiry. We gathered over several sessions to take pictures representing the complexities of participatory research with early childhood educators.

Substantiated Conclusions and Scholarly Significance

Discussing our photos raised contemplations about our role as researchers in participatory research, rethinking research methods, how data analysis can be more collaborative, and how theories in the flesh help guide every aspect of how we engage in participatory research. This has scholarly significance as it complicates how we think about and do participatory research, and how being reflexive in our inquiry praxis can create greater potential for social justice and transformative advocacy in early childhood education and care.

Authors

• Michelle Salazar Perez, University of North Texas

• Zutella Holmes, University of North Texas

• Jeonghye Nah, University of North Texas

• Iana Phillips, University of North Texas

• Jennifer Castillo, University of North Texas

• Molly J. Doherty, University of North Texas

• Antonieta Barces, University of North Texas