Political, epistemological, ecological and spiritual dimensions of participation

Abstract

After briefly introducing the paradigm of experiential, participative action research, four dimensions of participation – the political, epistemological, ecological and spiritual – are explored. The political dimension concerns peoples’ right to have a say in decisions which affect them, and is linked with participatory economics and the development of learning communities; the epistemological dimension concerns that nature of human knowing in a subjective-objective world; the ecological dimension counters the threats to the natural ecology which result from the positivist mindset; and the spiritual dimension suggests that one of the primary purposes of human inquiry is to heal the splits which characterise modern Western consciousness.