Reclaiming Democratic Possibilities: Community-Based Participatory Action Research As a Site of Resistance within the Cognitive Empire

Background: Applied social work research has long been understood as integral to sustaining democratic life by strengthening civic participation, advancing human rights through knowledge creation, and enabling communities to shape the services, policies and systems that affect them. Community-based participatory action research (CB/PAR) extends this mandate by positioning knowledge production as a site of democratic practice, where communities are not merely subjects of research but active agents in defining problems and mobilizing action. However, little empirical synthesis exists to examine how CB/PAR in social work actually contributes to, or is constrained in advancing, democratic practice. Drawing on a critical interpretive synthesis of CB/PAR scholarship, this study reframes CB/PAR not only as a methodology, but as a contested site where democratic possibilities are both enacted and undermined within the broader cognitive empire. The purpose of this paper is to examine how social work CB/PAR contributes to democratic knowledge production, and to identify the structural conditions that shape its transformative potential.

Methods: This study employed a two-phase mixed-methods systematic. First, a scoping review of social work CB/PAR studies in North America (2010–2023; N=254) was conducted to map trends in populations, practice areas, and participatory strategies. Second, a critical interpretive synthesis (CIS) of published case examples and practice reflections (N=30) was undertaken to examine how researchers narrate and negotiate the practice of CB/PAR. Guided by Epistemologies of the South, the analysis focused on identifying patterns of epistemic inclusion/exclusion, power relations, and forms of resistance within research processes.

Results: Findings suggest that CB/PAR in social work holds significant potential to advance democratic research by expanding participation, valuing lived experience, and fostering collective knowledge production. Across studies, researchers employed strategies such as peer researchers, popular education, and arts-based methods to create more inclusive and relational research spaces. However, this democratic potential is uneven and fragile. Three cross-cutting tensions shape CB/PAR practice: 1) epistemic injustice, where community knowledge is invited but ultimately subordinated to academic norms; 2) competing temporalities, where institutional timelines undermine relational and participatory processes; and 3) pressures of institutional co-optation, where CB/PAR is reshaped to fit funding, publication, and accountability regimes. These tensions can reproduce exclusionary dynamics, limiting the extent to which CB/PAR fulfills its democratic promise.

Conclusions and Implications: This study argues that CB/PAR should be understood as a form of community practice within social work research; one that requires active protection, reflexivity, and resistance to institutional pressures. While CB/PAR can contribute to more equitable and participatory forms of knowledge production, its capacity to do so depends on the extent to which researchers challenge dominant epistemologies and create space for community-defined forms of inquiry and action. Implications for social work research include the need to reconfigure tenure and promotion metrics, funding structures, and dissemination practices to support democratic engagement. By foregrounding the conditions under which CB/PAR advances or constrains democratic practice, this paper contributes to ongoing efforts to position social work research at the service of the common good.