Knowledge and People's Power - Multiworld India

of the interesting history of research and action which their organisations hadbeen pursuing there since 1978.In northern Colombia, the Sinu Foundation at Monteria. organisedcorresponding activities with its directors, Victor Negrete and Jose Galeano,both educators. It was decided to provide participatory support for field workwhich they had been carrying out in El Cerrito, a hamlet on the shores of alagoon where peasants had been waging a struggle to defend their land rights.In Mexico, co-operation was provided on behalf of the Centre for Studiesand Assistance to People's Science and Education by Fe1ix Cadena Barquin,Bertha Barragan, Carlos Cadena and Roberto Cubas who are educators andsocial scientists with links to the Mixteco community of San AgustinAtenango (Oaxaca) which had been chosen for the participatory experience.Salvador Garcia Angulo, a social worker with considerable experience withthe Otomi peasants in the valley of Mezquital, also, provided valuableassistance.In Nicaragua, we first made contacts with the National PlanningDepartment, where Malena de Montis, a sociologist, was entrusted with thefieldwork in-,El Regadio, which bad been selected -because it was a"vanguard community" in Region No. 1, Esteli, close to Honduras.Subsequently, support came from the Vice-Ministry of Adult, Education andthe National Union of Farmers and Cattlemen (UNAG).The present report is a synthesis or global, methodological andconceptual vision of this collective enterprise. In order for our work to be atruly comparative endeavour towards this common goal, we based our taskson a previously prepared technical guide or conceptual frame of referencewhich reflected the regional problems which went beyond the local contextwith which in principle we identified ourselves, as well as the basic concernsshared by participatory researchers in general. This preliminary guide wasfirst studied by everyone involved and then modified to take account of localrealities; it was discussed again at several subsequent meetings during thecourse of our research, and in particular with the co-ordinator. The guideallowed for flexibility in the field, as was to be expected. The test of itseffectiveness came With practice, a challenge which the guide metsuccessfully. The fieldwork was done between 1982 and 1984 in the five peasantcommunities (Mestizo, Black and Indian), selected according to theconditions and contexts explained below.12