Abstract
This chapter is a distillation of my own experiences of participatory action research (PAR) in Zimbabwe, divided across five broad themes. Of course, I share some of my expectations and the tools I adapted, but also my own limitations as the process unfolded. The enduring lessons that stand out continue to resonate in my work today, not least: the need to remain true to the emancipatory ethic of PAR; being mindful of any unintended consequences of interventionist approaches; constantly being alive to one’s own assumptions; and respecting the time and needs of participating co-researchers. As such, this chapter hopes to encourage others to immerse themselves in, and fully embrace the messiness of PAR as a lesson in re-humanising our work in ways that transcend the notion of ‘the field’ as if divorced from our own reality.
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Notes
- 1.
Chisi is the traditional rest day which ordinarily falls on a Wednesday when working in the fields is prohibited to allow the ancestors that reside in the soil to rest.
- 2.
Youths are defined across the region as 35 years or below.
- 3.
A positivist ends-means approach to arriving at fixed outcomes based on predefined value preferences within which technocratic assumptions related to, i.e. growth and development are embedded.
- 4.
The development of bottom-up indicators provides an emic analysis using indigenous or local measurements to overcome the imposition of unilinear concepts and definitions. This approach is well established in development and agroecological research (Pulido and Bocco 2003; Astier et al. 2011; Rogé et al. 2014), with formal metrics being questioned in relation to difficult-to-measure concepts such as peace in Sri Lanka (Holt 2013) informing the Everyday Peace Indicator (EPI) project (Mac Ginty 2013; Firchow and Mac Ginty 2017).
- 5.
Those invited included people participating in focus groups, all survey respondents, the host NGO, traditional leaders, ward councillors and district authorities.
- 6.
A gender swap day was planned for international women’s day—with men and women swapping chores for the day to stimulate mutual understanding and respect for one anothers’ roles and contributions.
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McAllister, G. (2021). Participatory Action Research: Challenges and Rewards in Fifteen Field Lessons. In: Mac Ginty, R., Brett, R., Vogel, B. (eds) The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_13
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