How Does Participatory Action Research Generate Innovation? Findings from a Rapid Realist Review

Mieke Snijder,Marina Apgar, J

doi:10.19088/clarissa.2021.009

Abstract

This Emerging Evidence Report shares evidence of how, for whom, and under what circumstances, Participatory Action Research (PAR) leads to innovative actions. A rapid realist review was undertaken to develop programme theories that explain how PAR generates innovation. The methodology included peer-reviewed and grey literature and moments of engagement with programme staff, such that their input supported the development and refinement of three resulting initial programme theories (IPTs) that we present in this report. Across all three IPTs, safe relational space, group facilitation, and the abilities of facilitators, are essential context and intervention components through which PAR can generate innovation. Implications from the three IPTs for evaluation design of the CLARISSA programme are identified and discussed. The report finishes with opportunities for the CLARISSA programme to start building an evidence base of how PAR works as an intervention modality, such as evidencing group-level conscientisation, the influence of intersecting inequalities, and influence of diverse perspectives coming together in a PAR process.

Highlights

The CLARISSA programme is an FCDO-funded participatory evidence and innovation generation programme working with children engaged in the worst forms of child labour (WFCL) in supply chains in Bangladesh and Nepal
Evaluation research is guided by the question: How, in what contexts, and for whom can Participatory Action Research (PAR) generate effective innovations to tackle the worst forms of child labour? As described in Apgar et al (2020), the evaluation research in CLARISSA uses a theory-based evaluation approach, combining contribution analysis and realist evaluation
The three initial programme theories (IPTs) can broadly be mapped onto the PAR cycle, with the conscientisation IPT aiming to explain what happens during the first part of the cycle, the diversity IPT relating to when the groups are generating actions, and the praxis IPT aiming to explain what happens once people start acting and reflecting towards the end of the first cycle of PAR

Summary

Introduction

The CLARISSA programme is an FCDO-funded participatory evidence and innovation generation programme working with children engaged in the worst forms of child labour (WFCL) in supply chains in Bangladesh and Nepal. A rapid realist review, employed in the context of realist evaluation, is primarily concerned with evidence from literature that can support or dispute a programme theory Action research and Participatory Action Research (PAR) ‘seek to bring together action and reflection, theory and practice in participation with others, in the pursuit of practical solutions to issues of pressing concern to people’ (Reason and Bradbury 2001: 1) They are an orientation to knowledge production and problem-solving which embrace knowledge as plural and centre lived experience in creating change through collaborative and iterative cycles of action and reflection on real-life challenges. That the way PAR is theorised and practised is influenced heavily by the context through which experiential knowledge is shaped

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