La ricerca emancipatoria come strumento di empowerment Un esempio applicato all’analisi della disabilità nel contesto palestinese

Abstract

Over the last decades the traditional approach to research
based on the absolute centrality of the professional researcher
has been challenged by the spread of participatory approaches.
The most radical approaches to participatory research have
been perceived as processes through which marginalized
groups get self-awareness and can actively influence society.
Here we can find a common ground between participatory
research and the emancipatory approaches rooted in the
Freirian emphasis on “conscientisation“ and “emancipation”.
Moreover, interesting applications of participatory and emancipatory
methods draw on connections with the philosophical
foundations of Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach. Starting
from this theoretical background this paper will show how
emancipatory approaches can be used to simultaneously
collect information on disability and induce an emancipatory
process that can involve persons with disabilities. The
presented case study will focus on an emancipatory research
about the interaction between gender and disability based
discriminations in Palestine.