Our Working Group proposes as a field of study, reflection and intervention an area that is composed of two dimensions relevant to the work of Latin American social researchers: on the one hand, we will work on the processes of participation (instituting and instituted) seeking to improve our understanding of their trajectories of change, their challenges and the conditions for their functioning in this continent and in other regions; on the other hand, the field of participatory methodologies that accompany the processes of action reflection-action as an approach that supports the implementation of interventions.

PARTICIPATORY PROCESSES

Following Cunill (1997), four forms of participation can be identified: social, community, political, and civic. All involve ways of intervening in the public sphere, sometimes at the invitation of the State and other times at the initiative of the citizens themselves, pursuing different goals and with different interlocutors depending on the type of participation (Villarreal, 2009; Ziccardi, 1998). Among these, the creation and dissemination of multiple instruments of institutionalized civic participation constitutes one of the most innovative phenomena of late 20th-century democracies. Examples include neighborhood councils, participatory budgeting, municipal assemblies, participatory strategic plans, social advisory councils, participatory urban planning processes, and prior consultations with indigenous communities, among others. In this respect, Latin America has been a pioneer, for example, with the emergence of participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre in 1989, which has since spread throughout the world. Therefore, interest in the processes generated in these mechanisms invites us to critically analyze their evolution and assess their contribution to the quality of democracies.

On the other hand, we are interested in the collective action of Latin American organizations and social movements, for example, the autonomous forms of territorial organization of indigenous communities in Mexico and Peru, or forms of militant research such as popular universities in various countries, the processes followed by the MST or the National Movement for the Struggle for Housing in Brazil, mass actions such as #NiUnaMenos, #OcupaWallStreet or #ConMisHijosNoTeMetas, or the inorganic movement of protests for better social conditions and the promotion of a new constitution in Chile, among others.

It can be argued that in Latin America, demands for participation have impacted national and local constitutions, leading to an expansion of direct, participatory, and community-based democracy that must be critically analyzed in light of its practical application. To the increase in institutionalized mechanisms of participation (Welp, 2015), we must add the increase and diversification of participatory practices (protest mobilizations in Chile, Ecuador, and other countries, as well as other practices of social, community, and self-managed movements and organizations, such as those focused on popular education or community organizing). In this regard, Calderón (2016) points out that these practices have shown different directions and intensities. On the one hand, we find demands aimed at improving basic levels of access to and quality of public services, and on the other hand, demands more oriented toward intercultural dynamics. On one hand, new actors have appeared on the scene (such as the Mapuche, the Aymara, the Nasa people and other native populations) and on the other hand, new issues have emerged (equal marriage, legalization of marijuana, student and youth demands, among others).

Thus, these different forms of participation are gaining importance in Latin America, coinciding with a representative democracy that is being questioned in political and academic circles. But there is also the rise of nationalist, neoliberal, and populist right-wing movements with increasing militant support from evangelical churches that challenge many of the rights won through social struggles. One of the current challenges for democracies to overcome their shortcomings is to advance in terms of "quality," that is, to "democratize democracy" through citizen participation not only in free, fair, and frequent elections, but also in political decision-making and in demanding accountability from those in power (Levine and Molina, 2007; O'Donnell, 2004).

PARTICIPATORY METHODOLOGIES

This dimension is both independent of and complementary to the previous one, insofar as participatory research processes contribute to improving the chances of success of participatory processes. Latin America has been the scene of emergence and development of various participatory research methodologies (popular education, communication for social change, action research in social psychology, thematic research, participatory action research, systematization of experiences, collective recovery of memory and history, militant research), which have sought to contribute to the empowerment of popular sectors of the population that mobilize around collective demands and rights, forming organizations and social movements that are an alternative to the dominant models of the State and economy.

Indeed, with the thematic research incorporated by Paulo Freire into his educational proposal in the 1960s, and especially with the participatory action research developed by Orlando Fals Borda and his team of researchers at the beginning of the following decade (Gajardo, 1985), Latin American social sciences committed to emancipatory processes gained a methodological alternative to the prevailing positivism. Following the World Congress in Cartagena (1977), these emerging methodologies generated spaces for debate, interaction, and projection, becoming a dynamic research current that transcended the field of social sciences, impacting other areas such as planning, education, and social work.

The World Congress on Convergence (Cartagena, 1997) demonstrated that this rebellious methodology had achieved global reach and continued to expand its scope. The publication of anthologies and collaborative books on the subject (Brandao, 1987; Fals Borda and Anisur, 1991; Brandao and Streck, 2006), the creation of the International Journal of Action Research (IJAR) in 2008, and the Symposia on participatory methodologies held in Porto Alegre (2011), Copenhagen (2013), Bogotá (2015), Cartagena (2017), and Rosario (2018) confirm the continued relevance and vitality of this critical methodology.

Participatory methodologies have been a major contribution of Latin American social sciences to global knowledge, and in recent times there has been a renewed interest in these methodologies among new generations, who are also updating their content and proposals on the path to building truly sustainable participatory democracies. This is why today in Latin America, participatory research, in its different expressions, settings, and involving various actors, is an essential field of research and political practice for understanding the current reconfiguration of the social sciences and the increasingly close links between them and the political processes and social movements that promote participation.

Finally, it is worth noting that 2025 marks the centenary of the birth of Orlando Fals Borda, a foundational figure in participatory methodologies in social research and grassroots participatory democracies; therefore, during this period of the Working Group, we will be generating conditions and initiatives so that this year is recognized as the ORLANDO FALS BORDA YEAR OF PARTICIPATION.

Following the idea of ​​the two dimensions that make up our field of work as a GT, we can say that beyond the generic recognition of the virtues of participatory mechanisms and processes as potential generators of transformations, reflections on these phenomena, which are widely perfectible, need to be nourished by practice, research and criticism.

As Ford and Carné (2009) argue, despite the proliferation of participatory public policies, participation in these mechanisms has not been shown to inherently generate creative proposals for addressing social problems. The same could be said of many non-institutionalized processes. To address this context, we conduct research and engage with participatory processes to deepen our analysis of their theoretical relevance. From our Working Group, in collaboration with regional and international networks and other working groups, we focus on research, action, and training agendas that contribute to strengthening knowledge and practices related to the quality of citizen and social participation processes and methodologies. Thus, we aim to guide our contributions toward the co-generation of situated knowledge, based on critical reflection from universities, public organizations, and civil society organizations.

For their part, the various forms of participation challenge some of the contradictions that need to be addressed (economic, political, environmental, food-related, labor-related, and cultural) associated with the capitalist model of production and consumption of goods and the exploitation of people and the environment. Along these lines, we recognize the participation of decolonial organizations and movements focused on gender, diversity, and care, as well as Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and peasant communities, which reclaim alternative practices of knowledge and power, challenging the patriarchal and colonial culture of Latin America. Promoting outreach to share the experiences of struggle built from resistance is part of our objectives as a group. We aim to make visible new participatory processes that will allow us to build new transformations.

Another key focus of the Working Group will be to continue discussions on methodological contributions and advance participatory action research methodologies. These methodologies foster the co-creation of knowledge, starting from the recognition, understanding, and appreciation of transformative trajectories and lived experiences within complex realities. This is achieved by connecting diverse perspectives and ways of knowing and existing (legal, economic, technical, spiritual, cultural, environmental, and others). Knowledge of participatory methodologies strengthens the practices of citizens, organizations, and researchers, facilitating the improvement of political and social processes. Thus, resolving vicious cycles in our knowledge construction involves recognizing and valuing trajectories of change rooted in social and collective memory (Torres, 2016; Barragán and Torres, 2017; Santandreu and Betancourt, 2019) and intervening in the process, considering solutions from within and focusing on social creativity developed with the individuals involved (Villasante, 2011) (Rodríguez-Villasante, 2006). The application of these tools, which involve different approaches to working with stakeholders, allows for the co-construction of knowledge grounded in the transformation trajectories of organizations, communities, and individuals. This should be triangulated with other instruments (interviews, surveys, ARS, or others), generating new knowledge about the practices of people, organizations, and territories.

Participatory research (as a developing paradigm) draws on participatory methodologies (initially Participatory Action Research, among others) because its purpose is emancipation, transformation, or change. In this sense, it understands Latin American social reality as a complex world characterized by diverse contradictions, including those between nature and humanity, class, gender, ethnicity, and age, all of which are addressed from the ontology, epistemology, theory, and methodologies specific to Latin America. Participatory research is an ongoing, emerging dialogue of knowledge, which is being built as a counter-hegemonic theory that empowers communities to construct their own history and become a source of power.

However, a certain naturalization and excessive instrumentalization of participatory methodologies could lead us to the paradox of having participatory methodologies that do not subvert the processes in which they intervene (Santandreu, 2019). Critical reflection on our practice and the theoretical development with which it engages should therefore be a central and permanent aspect of the Working Group.

The democratic deficits in our sociopolitical reality, linked to its structural systems of inequality, demand approaches that promote the collective construction of knowledge, the articulation between knowledge and action, and an ecology of knowledges that propose postcolonial, post-development, and post-capitalist visions (Torres, 2014; Sousa Santos, 2010; Mignolo, 2005) openly oriented toward the search for creative local alternatives. The advancement of participatory methodologies is openly oriented toward these visions and, through its combination of reflection-action-reflection (Rodríguez-Villasante, 2015), already boasts significant processes of co-construction of knowledge by and for communities. Furthermore, it is necessary to contribute, through participatory methodologies, to making disadvantaged groups (due to gender, ethnicity, economic status, among others) visible from a political standpoint and to combating these inequalities from a common ground that allows for analyzing how to understand differences. Denaturalizing discrimination and combating gender oppression, beyond the fact that women's inequalities of opportunity may be related to problems of other minorities or to broader socio-political issues, undoubtedly implies making visible the power relations between men and women (Fernández, 2009).

In summary, we can say that participatory methodologies provide innovative ways of understanding complex phenomena such as collective action and social and political participation, allowing us to enhance our knowledge of the experiences that have been developing in the countries of the region, and in turn, due to their own vocation to learn together with the subjects (Villasante, 2011), they allow us to improve the experiences at the same time as we learn.

Addressing these components will allow the GT to move towards a better understanding of the problems, building "common worldviews" on the divergences and convergences of participatory processes and methodologies in Latin America and Spain, weaving networks for collective action.