International Participatory Research Network

Founding of the Network

The idea for a network arose from the response to the publication of the special issue of Convergence on the subject (1975). The adult education community and related community development activists bought out all the copies of the journal. It was clear that many people in the majority world and people working with or for marginalized persons in the rich countries were actively engaged in research projects which were very different from the standards of the day in most of the universities of the world.

The next impetus came from the First World Assembly of the International Council for Adult Education in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1976. A recommendation was made to the world adult education community that adult educators should be given the opportunity to learn about and share their experiences in participatory research. Edward Jackson, an activist adult educator from Canada, was a participant at the Dar es Salaam conference, and he, dian marino and Deborah Barndt helped found the Toronto group, which ultimately gave birth to the IPRN.

The 1977 international conference on Participatory Action Research organized by Orlando Fals Borda, a Colombian sociologist, and a group of Latin American and other activist-intellectuals was further inspiration. Participatory research arose in part from a re-examination of the role of intellectuals in the struggle for social justice. There were debates between those who felt that it was the role of intellectuals to lead the social and political movements on behalf of the people and those who said that it was time to build the democratic struggle from the ideas of the poor and excluded themselves. Participatory research emerged as a process of politically engaged co-construction of knowledge.

Upon Hall's return from the Cartagena conference and a visit to Francisco Vio Grossi, a Chilean sociologist in exile in Venezuela, in 1977, the Toronto Participatory Research Group organized an event where the decision to start the IPRN was made. Among the most important political principles of the network was the insistence that each node or networking group working in the various parts of the world would be autonomous and self-directing. They would each be committed to building an international network, but the Toronto group would not be in charge. The initial principles were the

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