Participatory Approach in formative research projects

• In Event: Interpretive Approaches to Poverty, Participation, and Populism

Abstract

The following work recounts the experience of a formative research project that implemented a novel participatory approach to the study of citizen participation institutions at the local level in Ecuador. The formative research project “Democratic Theory and Forms of Institutional Citizen Participation” aimed to uncover and understand the different institutional design possibilities based on participatory democracy in Ecuador. Since 2008, Citizen Participation is a constitutional right; thus began a complex process of the institutionalization of citizen participation at the national and local level, as well as throughout the different powers of government. Accordingly, each local government must design their own System of Citizen Participation on percepts established both in constitutional and national law. The research group, consisting of six seniors majoring in Political Science and two faculty members of the Political Science department, studied six Systems of Citizen Participation in six municipalities in the coastal region of Ecuador. Using a Community Based Participatory Research Design (Leavy 2017) in conjunction with the theoretical underpinnings of participatory democracy (Menser 2018), each student worked with a community in addressing a relevant social issue employing the System of Citizen Participation in their respective municipality. The ensuing research experience empowered both the student researchers and the communities they worked with. The students gained an understanding into their role as future political scientists and citizens; the participating communities in turn, acquired institutional knowledge on how to use their municipality´s System of Citizen Participation. Finally, varied aspects associated with citizen participation processes and practices were uncovered, thus, bringing to light new research questions not taken into account when studying the institutionalization of participatory democracy in the Ecuadorian case.

Author

• Daniela Margarita Orrantia, Universidad Casa Grande