Opening Up Knowledge Production Through Participatory Research?: Agricultural Research for Vietnam’s Northern Uplands

Participatory approaches to project planning and implementation have been hotly debated in development cooperation and policy circles since the 1980s. This book contributes to the debate by focusing on international, development-oriented agricultural research. Based on fieldwork in rural northern Vietnam and interviews with researchers in Vietnam and Germany, the book analyzes the manifold meanings associated with the concept of participatory research, and the hurdles participatory research must overcome in practice. It demonstrates the need to recognize multiple meanings of 'participation' in a multicultural actor constellation, the importance of political and research institutions in governing researchers' work, and the potential of participatory methods to contribute to ethically and methodologically sound research practice.

The Author: Jakob Rupert Friederichsen conducted his Ph.D. research in Vietnam as part of The Uplands Program (Sonderforschungsbereich 308) ’Research into sustainable land use and rural development in mountainous regions of Southeast Asia’, and graduated from the University of Hohenheim in 2008. He has taught development geography at the University of Sheffield and environmental management at Manchester Metropolitan University.