Shifting power, a Praxis: reflections from theWorkshop in India

Clémence Petit-Perrot and Siphokazi Tau with fellow participants Somita Pal and Prachee Agrawal

From 10–14 November, more than eighty researchers, practitioners, activists, and community organisers gathered in Bangalore for theWorkshop, Praxis Institute for Participatory Practices’ annual immersion into participatory research.

Praxis is one of eight partner organisations partnered with, in Phase 2 of the Centres for Exchange (CfE) programme, which aims to find and share better ways for communities most affected by health challenges to inform health research. Praxis’ project aims to influence health research by embedding community participation at its core, addressing the exclusion of marginalised voices. It is deeply informed by the Indian, and South Asian contexts where “ entrenched caste, class, and gender inequities exacerbate access to healthcare and participation in health research.”

For the CfE cohort, the gathering came at a pivotal moment: funded projects’ learning questions are drafted, planning is complete, and projects are beginning implementation. Six CfE partner organisations: The Banyan, ATREE, Shujaaz, Lwala, SEARCH and, of course, Praxis, joined, creating a unique opportunity to deepen connections, foster cross-project learning, and strengthen collective understanding of participatory research.

As part of the Centres for Exchange Learning and Evidencing Partner team, we attended to document theWorkshop and support Praxis in starting to answer their learning question: “How can participatory practices in knowledge exchange spaces meaningfully shift hierarchical health research systems?”

By the end of the week, it was clear that theWorkshop was not simply engaging with this question rhetorically, but wrestling with it, enacting it through careful practice. The gathering operated as a living example of a learning environment where knowledge emerges from dialogue, where communities shape insight, and where power is openly contested.

Participatory Action Research as a science from the South

Participatory Action Research (PAR) can be defined as “a research paradigm within the social sciences which emphasizes collaborative participation of trained researchers as well as local communities in producing knowledge directly relevant to the stakeholder community” (Coghlan and Brydon-Miller, 2014).

PAR has evolved dramatically over the past decades, from Participatory Rural Appraisal to more radical, justice and action-oriented approaches that aim to actively transform the world, rather than simply to study. . This orientation, actively moving towards a more equitable world, makes PAR critically engaged and inherently political.

As a result, for some funders, especially from the Global North, PAR is often too political to fund: “PAR feels like a round peg that we want to fit into a square hole.” shared one researcher, reflecting on their challenges of getting PAR funded through conventional research funding pipelines?.

In this landscape, Praxis is unique for its longstanding commitment to both the practice and pedagogy of participatory research. Over 27 years, nearly 1,900 participants have passed through theWorkshop, a space for teaching and learning through which Praxis has continually rethought methods, updated political analysis, and centred community knowledge.

The Praxis team is clear that PAR can not be captured in a “toolkit” but must be learned through embedded practice. They recognise that it is an evolving science, grounded in politics, experience, and struggle.

This grounding makes theWorkshop more than a training exercise. It is a site of continuous epistemic renewal, guided by the knowledge and understanding that the communities involved share. From the outset, Praxis facilitators reminded us that in PAR “the role of the researcher is to understand the systemic issues. However the research participants must tell and own their stories.”

Holding and releasing the space

Field work in Nangamalai village, ~Tamil Nadu province

Hosted at the leafy Ecumenical Christian Centre (ECC) in Bangalore, theWorkshop unfolded in a space that Praxis intentionally shaped into a learning environment. Participants wandered along shaded paths where large swings hung from branches, and posters of decolonial thinkers, Paulo Freire, Naila Kabeer, Simone de Beauvoir, Walter Mignolo, bell hooks, and Frantz Fanon amongst others, were pinned to trees, meeting us on the way to and from sessions. Praxis’ books and publications were laid out during breaks, inviting ongoing reflection. These small but deliberate choices signalled that this would be a space where ideas, histories, and power would be examined with intention.

Praxis uses an approach called Sindhanai, a Tamil word that means “thinking and reflection,” in all their activities. As an approach, it centres their commitment to embedding critical thinking and constant and intention self-reflection and documentation moments in all their activities. This way, they are constantly learning and adapting, which often also means deconstructing mainstream ways of doing things.

Aligned with this approach, Praxis opened the workshop sessions with the kind of structured one-directional, Powerpoint-driven learning sessions we are all accustomed to receiving at workshops and training, and then intentionally dissolved this structure, shifting power to the participants in the space. By Day 2, participants were challenging tools, assumptions, and methods. When questions arose about whether some tools reinforced hierarchies, facilitators leaned into the critique. As lead facilitator Pradeep Narayanan emphasised: “The facilitator does not have the answers. There is no wrong and right.”

Participants drew deeply from their own practice. Evelyn Kemunto from Shujaaz reflected: “In the community, there are no boundaries… There is no I, just we.” These exchanges showed how participants were reshaping the method itself. As Pradeep noted: “Now people are negotiating. It is therefore an unworkshop.”

Pradeep continued challenging the group: “Tools are not important. It is why you are using them that matters.” The only non-negotiable was dignity.

By Day 3, power had shifted noticeably. A WhatsApp group initially created for logistics became a peer-learning space (that has stayed lively in the weeks following the workshop). Facilitators rotated, introducing sessions on ethics and theatre-based exercises on power. Participants enacted power dynamics: parent/child, principal/learner, boss/employee, and explored how gestures and tone shape hierarchy, before attempting to “equalise” power in each scenario.

Fieldwork and its tensions

The field experience embedded within theWorkshop powerfully mirrored the dynamics we had been analysing. On Day 4, we gathered at 05:45 am and travelled three hours to the villages of Nangamalai and Ramandoddi, where Workshop participants engaged with residents using the methods discussed throughout the week.

We were quickly confronted with the complexity of applying the theory covered the previous days to a real-life situation: Participants guided the conversation, asking questions in an “interview” type format without quite succeeding to truly dialogue with community members present. Time constraints limited community interpretation, and therefore participation from a broad and inclusive group of community members.

Participants repeatedly tried to centre “health topics” (as per the assignment given by Praxis) while residents emphasised land, caste, income, identity, and relationships with the environment as the issues that mattered to them.

These exchanges revealed complex and interconnected understandings of health, and made clear how easily research processes can default to extraction when power is uneven. Despite these hurdles, a wealth of information was shared in a few hours, providing a complex picture of social issues facing the two communities.

Yet, one participant voiced what many were feeling: “Are we wasting the community’s time?” It was an uncomfortable but necessary question. It pushed us to reconsider what participation really means, not treating communities as respondents, but recognising them as co-researchers whose knowledge shapes the inquiry. As Pradeep explained, through this collaboration a newly formed collective begins to build a sense of shared “citizenry”.

Yet he also reminded us of a crucial tension: involving communities in research is not the same as involving them in every decision. Researchers remain accountable for the process and its consequences. As Pradeep put it plainly: “the buck stops with you, the researcher.”

A Praxis and a movement

Members of the Praxis team: Sam Jacob, Sarulatha S, Neha Narayanan, Nafeesa Khan, Tarini Shipurkar, and Shishupal Prajapati

By the final day, it was evident that Praxis was nurturing more than a training space; they were cultivating a movement grounded in Southern epistemologies and ethics of power-sharing. bell hooks’ framing of communities as sites of resistance (hooks, 1989) resonated throughout.

TheWorkshop offered a powerful hypothesis: Power shifts when learning spaces embody the values they teach, when facilitators let go, when participants own the process, when tools are interrogated, when community knowledge is centred, and when accountability is held by those with structural power.

We want to commend the Praxis team, Pradeep, Neha, Sam, Tarini, Sarulatha, Sarah, Nafeesa, Shishupal, ​​Mohan, Sabu, Anusha, Stanley, Dheeraj, Indu and Tom for their tireless organising and for holding theWorkshop with such care and intention. Their leadership in facilitation, and the depth and quality of what they shared throughout the week, were outstanding.

As the Centers for Exchange projects’ implementation unfolds, we remain committed as Learning Partners to sharing what we learn about how participatory, community-led, and embedded approaches to knowledge exchange take shape across different contexts.

Over the next two years, we will continue collaborating with project teams to surface emergent reflections and insights as learning evolves. We will also work alongside funded project teams and partners at the Wellcome Trust and Development Dynamics to enable open, collaborative exchange with others committed to this work.

We invite you to walk with us, follow our journey, share your reflections, and help shape a collective vision for more just and inclusive research practices.

References

Coghlan. D and Brydon-Miller, M. 2014. Participatory Action Research. In: The SAGE Encyclopedia of Action Research. David Coghlan and Mary Brydon-Miller Editors, London: SAGE Publications Ltd. pp. 583–588 Available at: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446294406.n259 [Accessed 25 Nov 2025].

hooks, b. 1990. Homeplace (A Site of Resistance). Yearning: Race, gender, and cultural politics. Boston, MA: South End Press. pp. 383–389.