A day-long consultation on ‘learning to do community-based research (CBR): perspectives, opportunities and ways forward’ saw experts in rural development and other fields underscoring the need for taking the community along in research activity so as to make it practical.
The focussed meeting had about three dozen participants, including students and research scholars, and was touted as a ‘festival of learning’. It was said to be the culmination of a two-year-long project on ‘training the next generation of community-based researchers’ that the UNESCO chair had taken up.
The workshop was organised by the UNESCO Chair in Community-based Research and Social Responsibility, together with the city- based Centre for Economic and Social Studies (CESS) and the New Delhi-based Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA).
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As the study identified existential gaps in training for CBR and came out with the best practice models and recommendations, the UNESCO chair intended to use the festival and the events planned as a part of it, to promote learning and training in CBR, said UNESCO co-chairs Rajesh Tandon (global-south representing the Asia Pacific largely) and Prof. Budd Hall from the University of Victoria in Canada (global-north). Earlier, Manoj Rai of PRIA welcomed the gathering and outlined the objectives of the day-long consultation.
Dr. Tandon, who is credited with academic and research works spanning over four decades, took the participants on an educative, enlightening journey, narrating his experience. He outlined how in the 1980s people were dismissive of participatory research and would not take local, indigenous knowledge seriously. “In the 90s though, Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) became a methodology that was accepted globally,” he said.
The focussed meeting
touted
as a ‘festival of
learning’