on session 1 (Introduction to Participatory Action Research)

I have a history of conflict with participation and action, and here I am, engaging in this process, probably to exercise in a structured fashion the ephemeral communion (in hopefully less christian terms) I have had difficulties reaching with barely known communities, but also to appraise better what it is I can give and what I can receive from those involved in such an interchange. And there I was, trying to set my mind into attending a class while my mother was undergoing surgery in a country that does not know her language, in a medical system she has never been acquainted with, and so on, and so on. How to engage in participatory methods when your thoughts drift afar?

One first step to an answer was identity. White 4A bond paper sheets and markers lay on the floor so to become tags at each participant's feet. My marker was somewhat dry, something that mixed with my heinous handwriting made Kees's reading of my name difficult. The purpose of the exercise was (up to some point) clear and I was either not getting it or not interested enough to rewrite my tag in legible dimensions. So lesson learned, ask gently about a person's name when you don't understand what's written on their tags, or whatever other tool used for identifying participants.

And so I write these notes to unravel and/or expose creative (?) tensions... as with IceBreakers. Minty fresh candy must be important for odour neutral engagement, always obliged to decide on how to quantify your shares.

 These energising activities were, as discussed in class, an amicable way to get to know each other... except when those unknown are scarce. Which activities should one select if one doesn't know the community? What are the key questions? Kees noted some and proceeded from there, but will they suffice in the field, possibly without (total) access to, say, the Internet or Chamber's book? Probably one can only prepare by acknowledging that surprises should be very welcomed and humbling one's role to... ??? [this would strongly depend on the interests that you incorporate] There's always the possibility of offering bad breathed participants a pint of Western sugar-free freshness. So yes, these activities worked to understand the multiplicity of identities that constitute individuals (not to contest identity itself).

Engaging in PAR obliges you to prepare to give something... or at least think about giving something (unless you change your mind during the process). I  believe that was a sense of the bring-your-object-meaningfully activity. I admit I disliked the idea so I chose the most Malinowskian notebook in my private stock in order to be practical (it is a requisite of the class) a bit eager to engage in classically ethnography (and somehow disrupting my PAR's imagined ideals). But then Carolina spoke before I did and she ended up having a notebook ALSO! Just when everyone seemed so very original I would not be that one. Why did I feel such a pressure? Did everyone feel it? Was that the reason why some emphasised sameness [did they really?] and  expanded the object's significance [did they really?]? 

An interesting turn of events was that this round of presentation was not only about the easy-to-get object, but also the desirable-absent-articles. I lied about this second one. I spoke of a yarn ball, referring to a common activity that emphasises network building. Instead, I imagined bringing an MDMA pill with a psychedelic therapeutic reading. I imagined such explanation as problematic (e.g. PAR=drug?) and leading to both discussions and identifications I would rather elude (and, note, that I'm not giving here either). 

One last comment on the introductory session. Inclusion of pictures (and their taking) was encouraged to be included in the class's diaries. Experiencing multimedia dense environments will force me to think closer on how I will dress and act and speak in front of cameras, recorders, and so on. No one asked for my permission to capture (much less to use) my image(s) [note this is not a plea for that to happen, me being a copyleftist at times]. Oddly enough, this was said just before mentioning editorial copyrights [and how that impeded digitalising a whole book inside the Institute]. Which led to the promotion of multimedia incorporation and hyperlinking in our diary writing... although I must confess that the pictures I saw in last year's "star diary" weren't very telling. This last is not a lack in that diary in particular but it's a generalised problem in the social sciences. It has been increasingly dealt with in allegiances with the humanities and other interdisciplinary ventures (such as TED or Gapminder), but in practise, fieldworkers use photographs just as proof of participation with no further documentary/aesthetic purpose. Fieldworkers should not be professional photographers but some other uses and purposes of documentary photo-making could be very useful.