Abstract

WIESENFELD, Esther. Intermittences of community participation: Ambiguities and challenges for its research and practice Unido. Psicol. Conoc. Soc. [online]. 2015, vol.5, n.1, pp.335-387. ISSN 1688-7026.

This article reviews and analyses the multiple facets and component of community participation, from the perspective of community social psychology. It begins relating this process with the discipline, and providing some of its antecedents. Following this, three sections are presented. The first one refers to the connotations and dimensions of participation, among them its characteristics, types, benefits and obstacles, showing its complexity and its semantic and ideological ambiguity. The second section illustrates some methodological strategies, methods and other resources for addressing main contexts and topics related academic milieu, as a training, knowledge production and possible participatory space, as well as public policies as the influence sphere of participation in governance. We finish the article with reflections regarding the virtues, as well as limitations and tensions inherent to the ampleness and complexity of participation, and the challenges the impose for the enrichment of community social psychology and for the promotion of a transformative community participation.

Keywords : Community participation; Dimensions; Approaches; Challenges.