Possible Connections Between Intervention Research (IR-Brazil) and Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR-USA)

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyze possible connections between research in social psychology based on critical participatory action research (CPAR) in the North American context and on intervention research (IR) in Brazil. Participatory research questions positivism and neutrality in the social sciences by creating mechanisms for the researcher’s participation in the field. In the scope of social psychology, CPAR in the USA and IR in Brazil radicalize collaborative processes, where researchers and community members become co-researchers. For the discussion of the possible connections between CPAR and IR, the epistemological, ethical, and methodological bases of both are considered. In the epistemological discussion, the differences and approximations between the historical context and the theoretical foundations of CPAR and IR were drawn. In the ethical discussion, based on the concept of contact zone in CPAR and analysis of implication in IR, the relationship between researchers and community members was analyzed. Finally, some methodological tools were discussed, such as group formation and the dissemination of results as regularly research strategies. It is concluded that both CPAR and IR have a centrality in the political concern of engagement in the social sciences in general, in the social psychology, as well as in the social change and justice.