The Problems With Conventional CFS Research - for Rich

[Guest guest]

From:

http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/gcm/ar/ari/p-ywadsworth98.html

" What can typically plague the whole process of such conventional

research are the consequences of non participation:

* In the first place there can be confusion or lack of agreement

regarding the direction and purpose of the inquiry (for whom and for

what).

* There is subsequent disagreement about the form the study should

take (how, where, when, who should be involved).

* Alternatively the wrong direction is taken and dissent suppressed

or ignored.  The wrong questions are asked.  The data is then

irrelevant.  And the conclusions useless.

* There can be misunderstandings about participantsf perceptions

(about the situation being studied).

* There can be conflict over interpretations and analyses (the

ewhyf and 'how').

* And there can be disagreement about what these imply for change in

action (what next).

* And there can be shooting of the messenger! Or of the manager.  Or

mutinous troops.  And critical reference groups' situations left

unchanged.....

....Participatory action research is a term that brings together a set

of assumptions underlying enew paradigmf science and in contrast to

those of traditional or eold paradigmf science.  These new

assumptions underline the importance of social and collective

processes in reaching conclusions about ewhat is the casef, and

what the implications are for change which is deemed useful by those

whose problematic situation led to the research in the first place.

In 'real life', actual researchers often straddle (more or less

uncomfortably) the two paradigms, but the paradigms themselves are

coherent bodies of thought that are not theoretically commensurable. 

But a paradigm addresses the unsolved problems of the previous

paradigm.  So while positivism arose to bring certainty and

verifiability to a world construed as 'irrational', post positivism

addresses the inability to handle enormous complexity in large,

cybernetic, self-changing human systems.  If conventional science

wanted to give a group of people the power to determine 'truth' for

and on behalf of others, the new science arose from a world of

multiple and competing versions of truth and reality as a way of

assisting people both come to the truth of their own reality, and

also to embrace that of others.....

.... Old paradigm social science is often popularly termed

epositivistf.  This refers to a school of philosophical thought

which saw the world as having a single erealityf which existed

independently of the observer, and which could only be discovered by

an objective and uninvolved scientist through acts of pure

perception, ideally in a laboratory setting where all variables could

be controlled and manipulated, and exact causation determined.  This

account has been difficult to sustain in practice - as with Newtonian

science - given the limitations of such an uninvolved science.  Far

more engaged research - literally egoing nativef - yields far

better understanding.  As well, when the social world is encountered,

it takes as many forms as there are people.  That is, understanding

the social world depends on the exchange and communication of

interpretations about what is going on.  These are multiple and may

be conflicting.  As with post-Einsteinian physics, the eobservedf

is importantly constructed by ethe observerf - and in the social

world, is then further reconstructed by the observed (sometimes in

the light of the observerfs observations!).  For old paradigm

science this is all so much unwanted ebiasf and econtaminationf. 

For new paradigm science it is the nature of the ebeastf, and all

so much more material for illuminating inquiry.  New paradigm science

also grasps the value-driven nature of inquiry and is in a position

to focus its research in the interests of those who might

problematise their existing undesirable situations.  This offers a

better chance of edrivingf theory towards better contributing to

practice, and also avoiding the unethical and totalitarian

consequences of a science which sees itself as evalue freef. "

Of course, we also need to consider - not only Participatory Action

Research for " Patients " - but also Participatory Democracy for

" Citizens. "

Regards,

paul d.