PAULO FREIRE IN ACTION RESEARCH FOR TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT: A REFLECTION FROM PRATICE IN THE BASQUE COUNTRY

Abstract

The article presents a reflection on how the thinking of Paulo Freire is being reinvented by a team of action researchers in the field of territorial development. It departs from a critical reading of the literature on regional innovation systems, which is highly influencing policy in Europe, and of the literature on action research, which is the research approach adopted by the team and the thread that led them to the work of Paulo Freire. In both frameworks the research team poses the need to make the political nature of researchers visible, which relates to their need to assume themselves as territorial actors and not mere observers of or external to the problems of territorial development. This is not a theoretical proposal, but one based on praxis. That is why the article shares a chronology of how routines of researchers have changed in the context of an ongoing dialogue between their actions and Paulo Freire’s legacy.