RESPONSIBLE ENTREPRENEURSHIP VISION DEVELOPMENT AND ETHICS

Older people in digital creation contexts: building a participatory action research design 53
Within this general framework, the main aim of this paper is to build a PAR design that
could be used in studying the social media practices among the older generations, as the overlapping
process between two global phenomena of Active Ageing and New Media spread, is
worth analyzing and understanding at both individual, as well as community level. In doing
so, we start by providing a general discussion about the PAR approach, focusing on its constitutive
dimensions, and moving further to the use of PAR in the area of technology creation
and appropriation. The second part of the paper is focused on building a PAR design for studying
how older people use and relate to using social media platforms, such as Facebook. Moreover,
we argue that Ethnographic approach and Photo Voice are two PAR techniques that can
contribute to a more in-depth understanding of this topic.
A general framework of the Participatory Action Research approach
Before discussing the constitutive principles of PAR, we want to briefly address the general
context that favored the ascending wave of this approach in social science. Participatory
research has often been associated with the 20 th century social movements (Chevalier & Buckles,
2013; Kemmis & McTaggart, 2007). It is thus not surprising that it usually involves “participants
in vulnerable situations, whose voices are typically absent from the dominant
academic discourse” (Lykes, Hershberg & Brabeck, 2011, p. 27), placing the whole actioninquiry
process within a social justice framework. Seen as a research approach that empowers
marginalized social groups and “ordinary people”, PAR has been widely embraced by
feminist, critical and emancipatory theories (Fournier, Mill, Kipp &Walusimbi, 2007).
Another contextual aspect that contributed to the overall success of PAR was the claim
for a more pragmatic, action-oriented approach of the research. This meant, on the one hand,
that research needed to be more connected to the community problems and to the community
members themselves, and, on the other hand, that it should be more focused on the endgoal
and the problem-solving function of the research. Based on these coordinates, PAR has
become one of the dominant methodological approaches that are consistent with the principles
laying beyond the sociology of intervention.
The three dimensions that we want to discuss further, as we argue that they are constitutive
for PAR, are connected to the collaborative, the performative and the contextualized nature
of this research approach.
The core-element in terms of research dynamics brings to the fore the collaborative construction
and production of meaning between the researchers and the participants. The traditional
relationship between the researcher and the subjects of the research are redefined in
less hierarchical terms, as it is no longer about the symbolic dominance and control of the
former over the research process. On the contrary, PAR is primarily about a dialogic framework
in which the participant takes on an active co-researcher role and is, hence, actively
engaged in the research process at all stages. From a broader sociological theoretical perspective,
this could place PAR within a symbolic interactionism logic (Genat, 2009), as meanings
and interpretations emerge and are subject to a continuous process of negotiation between
the researchers and the participants, as well as between the participants themselves. One of
the main advantages of facilitating a collaborative research context is that “the practical knowledge
that emerges is usually a better fit for those for whom it is intended, since they them-