Jämför metoder

	Kritisk etnografi	Participatory Action Research (PAR)
Ämnesområde	Kvalitativa metoder	Kvalitativa metoder
Familj	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Ursprungsår	Late 20th century (~1980s–1993 systematisation)	1940s (Lewin); PAR as distinct tradition formalised ~1970s–1980s
Upphovsperson	Jim Thomas (systematised); rooted in Frankfurt School critical theory (Adorno, Horkheimer) and feminist/postcolonial traditions	Kurt Lewin (action research foundations, 1940s); systematised for participatory contexts by Orlando Fals Borda, Paulo Freire, and William Foote Whyte
Typ	Qualitative research method	Qualitative research method
Ursprungskälla	Thomas, J. (1993). Doing Critical Ethnography. Sage Publications.	Kemmis, S., McTaggart, R., & Nixon, R. (2014). The Action Research Planner: Doing Critical Participatory Action Research. Springer.
Alias	critical ethnographic research, critical qualitative ethnography, advocacy ethnography, emancipatory ethnography	PAR, community-based participatory research, collaborative action research, participatory inquiry
Närliggande	6	6
Sammanfattning	Critical ethnography is a qualitative research approach that combines sustained fieldwork immersion with explicit critical theory to examine how power, inequality, and ideology shape the lived experiences of marginalised communities. Unlike conventional ethnography, which aims to describe a culture as it is, critical ethnography commits the researcher to questioning what is taken for granted and to producing knowledge that can serve as a resource for social change. Rooted in Frankfurt School critical theory and expanded through feminist, postcolonial, and race-critical traditions, it treats the research process itself as a political act.	Participatory Action Research (PAR) is a qualitative, community-centred methodology in which researchers and community members collaborate as co-investigators to identify a shared problem, take deliberate action, observe outcomes, and reflect critically on results — cycling iteratively until meaningful change is achieved. Unlike conventional research that studies people from the outside, PAR treats participants as active agents who co-own the research process, the knowledge produced, and the practical interventions that follow.