Praxis Intervention - Praxis Intervention in Practice

Praxis Intervention in Practice

"Praxis intervention" as a practice involves working on the bias of the professionals and their clientele. It is a practical method of "objectifying objectification" on a collective basis (Maton). The praxis intervention method problematises the bias of the researcher and her clientile emerging from their social origins, class, gender coordinates; the their position in the intellectual field and in their respective social space; and also their "intellectual bias," the results of viewing the world as a spectacle.

In practice it involves the clientele and the researchers collectively probing into a problem that affects the clientele and helping the clientele to find solutions to their problem through reflexive probing with the experts belonging to relevant fields. The project aims at the clientele and the researchers work together and collectively learn from each other. Praxis intervention can be carried out in phased manner. The first phase could involve orienting the clientele (and experts as well) of the problem under focus. The problem under focus could be anything like existing status of marginality, gender relation, health condition or status of present technology etc. Once the problem could properly be oriented from as much angles as possible the clientele, experts and others could involve discussing appropriate method to probe the issue under discussion. They could also decide on the phases through which the collective probing to be undertaken. The second phase could be clientele exploring the issue themselves through the methods collectively agreed. They could maintain a journal to record their experiences and reflexive probing. The third phase could be the clientele coming together with experts and sharing their experience with their fellow clients and experts. After discussing all the observations and experiences the method of enquiry can be further fine-tuned for better understanding. Gradually the clientele could be guided to intervene on the issue concerned and document their experience. Their action and reflexion could be discussed and fine tuned for further interventions. The phases and intervention strategies could be decided as it could be appropriate for different problems.

Praxis intervention method focuses on what happens to mindsets. In the community work situation it could be a project helping the community participants to undertake a systematic research on themselves in the areas such as history of their social relationships, land ownership patterns, critically exploring gender relations, studying the ecological changes happening in their habitat, learning historically and comparatively on their health status, nutrition status etc. The research undertook by the local residents can be converted into social actions or welfare projects.

The practice of praxis intervention can be used in many fields such as post positivist research, social work research, participatory action research, Local history research, Social action and social work projects, Clinical health research, Community Health research Projects, Participatory technology development projects, and many other projects where people's participation and their critical reflexivity is crucial.