Description

Exploring the Intersection of Philanthropy, Research, and Scholarship in a Third World Context

This article seeks to complicate the benefits and constraints of using participatory action research in a Third World setting. The global South has provided increasing numbers of U.S. academics with fertile grounds to practice their desires to combine philanthropic ideas with academic research and scholarship. Through her own transnational research experiences in Nepal, the author draws attention to the complexities of engaging in a “democratic practice of research” in this type of setting and in so doing, bring to light issues of power, positioning, representation, and dependencies. By focusing on educational research within school settings, the author attempts to provide concrete suggestions for how a reconceptualized version of PAR might be used to promote educational development and social change in the context of the “Third World.”

participation, philanthropy, development, participatory action research, Nepal, nationalism

Citation: Social Justice Vol. 36:4 (2009): 84-97