Greenfields, M – UNISA conference – Pretoria South Africa, March 11-15th, 2013 This paper sets out to engage with both the ethical and practical aspects of undertaking participatory action research in collaboration with marginalised populations or members of communities who operate within a differential power structure from members of the academy, who be definition are privileged holders of intellectual, social and cultural capital, and potentially, (when academic power manifests as public upholding of dominant knowledge structures), complicit with social inequality (Bourdieu, 1998). My presentation is underpinned by an exposition on the philosophy and methodologies utilised in key research projects on which I have worked. The examples I will present pertain to studies which have explicitly sought to utilise participatory methods as a way of increasing the skills base of research partners (i.e. Gypsies/Traveller and Roma and asylum seeking women from Africa and the Middle-East) whilst ideologically rejecting methodological practices which seek to impose mainstream categories and assumptions on marginalised or excluded peoples (Pollner & Rosenfeld, 2000)
