On the Local Community: The Language of Disengagement?
Clapperton Mavhunga and Wolfram Dressler
Abstract: For several decades now, social researchers have advocated and steered the popular paradigm of participatory, grass-roots research. The emergence of research that engages, transfers authority to, and empowers 'the community', apparently marks the end of centrist, top-down research initiatives. We offer an alternative interpretation of this assumption. In the case of one Indaba in South Africa-a participatory meeting-we show that while it seems to have achieved its stated objectives on the surface, underlying research beliefs and attitudes still interpreted 'local people' and 'the community' as simple, discrete concepts. Such concepts turned abstract processes into concrete entities. In turn, the use of such concepts by researchers ensured that local settings remained simple so that themes, participants and communities were readily accessible and easily understood. Social researchers thus reinterpreted local reality as if it were an absolute so that results would remain simple, effective and digestible. We conclude that rather than allowing local people to speak on matters that concern them, the discourse of this and other participatory meetings ensures that social researchers speak on behalf of 'the community'.
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