Between Metaphors and Knowledge Projects: A Critical Cartography of the Psychologist–Researcher in a Community Educational Project
Abstract
This study reconsiders the notion of objectivity in knowledge production within social intervention and interrogates how even participatory methods can be absorbed by hegemonic logics. The aim of this research is to reflect on researchers’ decisions and to explore epistemological shifts through the analysis of metaphors and knowledge projects, with the purpose of contributing to more inclusive methodologies in community psychology. The study was conducted within a qualitative–critical approach, combining direct field experience with a review of literature in social epistemology and critical theory. This approach enabled the configuration of the knowledge project: the researcher as method. The materials included field notes from a community intervention experience in the state of Chiapas, Mexico, linked to the call issued by the National Council of Science and Technology [CONACYT], as well as the summary submitted to that agency, in which the commitments assumed for its implementation were documented. The findings show that knowledge projects, understood as political, ethical, and epistemic configurations, articulate situated knowledges. Metaphors, operating across rhetorical, critical, and philosophical levels, intersect with these projects to problematize the figure of the researcher, make power tensions visible, and generate reflective and transformative knowledge. In its conclusions, the study proposes interrupting the hegemonic conception of research by positioning the researcher as method, on the premise that knowledge emerges from the embodied subject. An ontological reconfiguration of the research act is thus advanced, challenging methodological neutrality and the objectivity–positionality dichotomy in contexts marked by structural violence.
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