Participation and Participatory Action Research (PAR) in Environmental Education Processes: For What Are People Empowered?

Participatory action research (PAR) derived from anti-colonial struggles in the third world in the 1960s. Traditionally it has been a method of the margins because of its commitment to linking social justice to research. Because of its counter-hegemonic tendency it has had great appeal among environmental educators advocating a socially critical approach to environmental education. However, with the ascendancy of neoliberal politics in recent years, PAR has become co-opted by international organisations such as the World Bank, IMF, OECD and UNESCO. In this paper I wish to critically examine the notion of participation in PAR, and its changing nature as a consequence of its cooptation into mainstream discourses. I explore “vectors of escape” from its assimilation into mainstream environmental education discourses. In exploring the notion of participation in participatory research processes I draw on South African case studies, which might find resonance in wider contexts.