Local communities empowered to plan?

Abstract

This article presents the second cycle of an ongoing participatory action research (PAR) project that aimed at facilitating bottom-up, sustainability planning and development in one of the most socio-economically disadvantageous micro-regions of Hungary. The process at the very beginning started as conventional qualitative research, and gradually emerged to a PAR process as deeper relationships with local people were developed and previous research practices and research focus were questioned. Current institutional changes, such as the availability of European Union funding for rural development and the micro-regional re-districting driven both by top-down and bottom-up processes, were structural factors that created a more promising context for participatory planning. Although a PAR project generally targets silenced groups, for this to happen it is arguably necessary to legitimize such development work in the eyes of local decision-makers and funding organizations, in order to establish more inclusive communicative spaces around future rural development. However, this also creates a controversial situation: breaking away from prevailing structural inequalities and hierarchies remains difficult through a process which is designed around consensus-building.