Learning and the ‘change enterprise’: inclusion and ambivalences in an educational action research and development project

ABSTRACT

Educational action research in development projects applies participative methods to include people with diverse backgrounds, experiencing learning collaboratively. In this article, I explore the learning activities, and their outcomes, unfolding in those settings. Based on project documents, 34 interviews with project staff and smallholder farmers, and participant observations for three months in Nepal, I analyse the action research and development project ‘Strengthening Adaptive Farming in Bangladesh, India and Nepal’ (SAF-BIN), and show how inclusive activities allow for critical reflection, individual experience, and dialogue. I find dialectics in this process of adjustment, such as resistant social and cultural arrangements that are activated. The inclusion of specific social groups, for example, goes along with exclusionary dynamics. This case illustrates that inclusion and action research can be conceptualised at least threefold: from a dialectical, institutional, and learning perspective. I conclude that action research in development provides a fruitful basis for learning, allows for legitimacy, and temporarily leads to social change at a micro-level, for better or worse.

KEYWORDS:

• Learning
• inclusion
• development
• farming
• global south
• institutions

Acknowledgments

The data were collected as part of a thesis at the University of Natural Resources and Life Science, Vienna, at the Institute for Development Research. I thank the supervisors for their support, and the interview partners for sharing their experiences.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Geolocation information

The data have been collected in the following districts in Nepal: Kaski and Bardiya. The data was analysed in Innsbruck and Vienna, Austria.

Notes

1. cf. also (2021). Journal information (online) https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=reac20.

2. Action for Food Production (AFPRO), Sam Higginbottom Institute of Agriculture, Technology & Sciences (SHIATS), Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) and Local Initiatives for Biodiversity, Research, and Development (LI-BIRD) (‘As of July 7, 2020, SAF-BIN stated it on its website http://www.safbin.org/project-overview#click’).

3. Elected members at the district level responsible for formulating policies.