Exploring the Contextualized Political Spaces of Local Government Towards a Sustainable Learning Environment

• In Event: Advancing CASE SIG as a Hub for Collaborative Partnerships With African and Caribbean Governments

Abstract

The relationship between the local government and the researchers seem to work better when the context is understood and explored accordingly. Through the use of Participatory Action Research, (PAR, McTaggart, 1994) the paper goes beyond providing one size fits all to the local government but instead it allows the people working there to suggest ways of solving their challenges. Because the best people who can solve their challenges are the ones directly affected by it. The paper looks at ways in which team members from the local government can be provided with the safe space to voice their needs and together with the researchers to find solutions to the identified needs. The safety net is provided in order to ensure that people don’t fear being victimized or investigated in any way uncomfortable to them. The safety net will provide them with the ammunition to voice their concern without fearing for their political position. PAR as the approach to inform our methodology and proposed plan sections. PAR enables the study to be coherent, focused, logical and original as its ideas and practices dovetail almost perfectly with the objectives of the study.

PAR is conceptualized within the qualitative school of thought in research. From the olden days of Kurt Lewin to the more recent days of Steve Kemmis and MacTaggart, PAR was operationalised to address some of the pertinent issues that researchers among the human and social sciences were grappling with (Sousa, 2022). All the time the PAR researcher has to apply principles of critical self-reflection to keep his/her excessive power in check such that it does not overshadow the power of the co-researchers who should be more prominent in solving the problem so that they can own and protect the outcome(s) of their study. PAR thus promotes collaboration and teamwork. It opens up discourses and directly confronts issues of power differentials. It involves cycles of collective planning of the solutions to the problems which they together have identified. Through the team of 10 which is made up of 3 form the local government and 7 from the university community. Data generated from the meetings will be analyzed through Critical Discourse Analytic principles of Teun Van Dijk. This technique is important because it focuses on meaning at the level of text, discursive practices and finally the social structure. The study concludes that when participants are treated as human beings with voices, they feel comfortable to work with different stakeholders and eventually share their resources in a way that benefits everyone.

Author

• Makeresemese Rosy Qhosola, University of Kwazulu-Natal