Park assembles theoretical and case studies on participatory research in North America, a methodology originated in the Third World, as a tool for organizing social change in communities using self-generated knowledge to bring about freedom, justice, and equality.

This volume describes a grass-roots approach to empowering people for democratic social change. It explains participatory research using exemplary case studies on community organizing, feminist theory, and ecological movements from a wide range of locations in North America. The first collection of essays on participatory research in Canada and the United States, the book is an eloquent demonstration that the same approach to social change is needed in industrialized countries as it is in underdeveloped countries. Challenging the relevance and validity of academic social science research, participatory research is an important tool for social activists, community workers, and adult educators working with oppressed peoples.