PARTICIPATIVE ACTION RESEARCH (PAR) FOR RURAL COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT IN SOUTH SULAWESI, INDONESIA

摘要

This study found that there was considerable potential for the application of PAR to rural community development in Indonesia. A key recognised need was for facilitated processes to help stakeholders make the transformation from an expectation of being told what to do, to becoming co-learners and developers of their own situations. This was achieved in this project in a participative way, where the power of decision-making was shared amongst all stakeholders: Learning partnerships appropriate to this specific situation were the means used to achieve this. An important lesson learnt from this study was that a high adoption of technology will occur if the technology fulfils the needs of farmers, and has been adapted to local circumstances. We believe that Participative Action Research has great potential in agricultural extension, and can enhance the current Transfer of Technology approach to produce clear and definable beneficial outcomes.