When is Action Research Participatory?

Action research is increasingly being used in a variety of different contexts, including rural development, organizational change and natural resource management. Increasingly it is recognised, if sometimes grudgingly, as a legitimate approach to research. Associated with this welcome trend is the tendency to label all action research as Participatory Action Research (PAR). The problem is that the notion of participation has become very blurred and the adjective “participatory” is often quite meaningless. My aim here is to explore some aspects of participation in the context of action research