UMI/ProQuest URL	http://80-wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations/fullcit/9729110
PUBLICATION NUMBER	AAT 9729110
TITLE	Reinventing science through agricultural participatory research
AUTHOR	Rusmore, Barbara R.
DEGREE	PhD
SCHOOL	FIELDING GRADUATE INSTITUTE
DATE	1996
PAGES	206
ADVISER	Park, Peter
ISBN	0-591-38281-4
SOURCE	DAI-A 58/04, p. 1466, Oct 1997
SUBJECT	SOCIOLOGY, THEORY AND METHODS (0344); AGRICULTURE, AGRONOMY (0285); SOCIOLOGY, SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND DEVELOPMENT (0700)
ABSTRACT	This dissertation concerns how organizations can engage and support citizens in solving complex problems and shifting public policy through participatory research. Building on a case study of farmer-directed research in sustainable agriculture, this dissertation demonstrates that a paradigm shift is occurring in agricultural science. This shift is happening in part because non-profit organizations are fostering collaborative inquiry into new farming practices, supporting a community of like-minded inquirers, and articulating a vision of a fundamentally different agricultural system. In conventional agriculture, new technologies are developed by scientific researchers and transferred by extension agents to farmers. This innovation and diffusion process became the worldwide standard of agricultural change during the Green Revolution, which brought tremendous increases in productivity through new plant varieties and energy and chemical intensive practices. But the resulting environmental, economic and social problems led some farmers to develop organizations for political action and to engage in their own research for alternatives. This search for an alternative can be seen as the early stages of a scientific revolution. The question this dissertation seeks to address is: How do emerging social problems and values alter ways of conducting scientific inquiry? Kuhn identified three essential social aspects of a paradigm shift which can be correlated with Habermas' theory of the social construction of knowledge. Three corresponding types of inquiry can take place in participatory research: (1) the development of new practices and puzzle-solving methods, (2) establishment of consensus among a community of scientists, and (3) selection of social values and goals to guide research and action. The evidence for a paradigm shift is demonstrated in a 7-year case study of participatory research by the Alternative Energy Resources Organization in Montana. Here participatory research reframes inquiry to include farmers as scientists and all 3 social elements of knowledge construction, which constitutes a reinvention of science. Implications are drawn for organizations about participatory research as a people's science to foster social change.