Participatory Research in a Mental Health Clubhouse

Participatory research, also known as participatory action research, has its roots in communities around the world, particularly in Africa, Asia, and South America. The fundamental characteristics are that people who have experienced oppression become researchers. They generate knowledge and disseminate findings through consciousness raising, social critique, and social change with the explicit aim of transforming their oppression into empowerment. Through participatory research, people with long standing mental health problems, for example, may be able to transform their oppression into empowerment. Articles on participatory research generally report a single research project. This paper analyzes a portion of the data from a two-year institutional ethnography of a participatory research program. Presented here is an analysis that: 1) addresses the questions: What is research? and Who is driving research? and, 2) offers a critical perspective on the social organization of knowledge (and ruling power) when members and staff of a mental health clubhouse take up research as an occupation. Highlighted are power inequities between participants and the importance of social critique in participatory research. The paper includes reflections on participatory research as a form of client-centered practice in which clubhouse members and staff can engage together in a meaningful occupation.