DYNAMICS OF PARTICIPATION IN A COMMUNITY-HEALTH PROJECT

Although the term 'participation' is widely used in discussing communi ty development strategies, there has been relatively little said about the characteristics of 'participatory relationships', i.e. the intera ctions between community developers and those who stand to benefit fro m community development initiatives. There is seen to be a need for ca se studies which attempt to understand the relational and communicativ e processes involved in participatory development. The paper presents an analysis of the participatory dynamics of a community health develo pment project. The principal source of data is interviews conducted wi th thirteen selected participants in the project. Analysis of intervie w data using a structured hermeneutic method led to a description of t he meaning of participation for each of the participants interviewed. Further interpretation led to the identification of a number of modes of participation in the project as a whole. For each mode of participa tion descriptions were developed of how it was perceived by others not participating from that mode. An attempt was made to understand the d ynamics of the project in terms of the relationship between the differ ent modes of participation and in terms of the discrepancies between h ow participants saw themselves and how others saw them. Finally, these problems were discussed at a general theoretical level and suggestion s were made about how such problems might be alleviated. Copyright (C) Elsevier Science Ltd