Participatory Evaluation as Educational Outreach: Working in Unsettling Times

In the context of information and communication technologies in five Newfoundland coastal communities, this article deals with participatory research and outreach. Outreach in these communities, reeling from the near-collapse of the fishery and struggling to survive in a climate of neo-liberal restructuring, is considered to be a holistic educational enterprise involving new technologies and the popular media, schools, and their district officers, clinics and regional health care providers, and children and adults as lifelong learners. Based on five approaches that emerged in the final year of one project--the work of an on-site liaison, a residential workshop, community workshops, reports through popular media, and contacts with outside organizations--the author argues that outreach should be recognized as integral to all stages of participatory research. (Contains 3 notes.) [This article was initially presented as a keynote address at the conference, "Questioning Rurality," Acadia University, March 2005.]