Abstract

VILLA-MORENO, Adriana; CORREA RESTREPO, Margarita Lucía; ACOSTA RAMIREZ, Stefanía  and  GUARIN GRISALES, Álvaro. SOCIAL APPROPRIATION AND PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH IN REHABILITATION ENGINEERING. Rev. ing. biomed. [online]. 2011, vol.5, n.10, pp.31-43. ISSN 1909-9762.

One of the main goals of rehabilitation engineering is improving the quality of life of people with disabilities through developing solutions for their specific needs. When participatory methodologies for research and design are applied, the resulting solutions show advantages such as products that better address the needs of the community, solutions that are better accepted by the community, and the identification of potential sources and niches for innovation. In addition, participatory methodologies provide benefits that are not only associated with the generated results and products but with the processes themselves. When research processes are inclusive and promote authentic participation a higher social impact can be obtained. This paper proposes a methodological approach for the development of habilitation and rehabilitation products that allows the convergence of participatory research tendencies, design tendencies and the voice of the community that claims for co-participation. This approach also incorporates strategies for the social appropriation of knowledge. Examples, barriers, difficulties, challenges and recommendations for conducting research with a focus on participation are also presented. The reflections herein presented may also be applied to other fields.

Keywords : Disability; Participatory design; Participatory research; Rehabilitation engineering; Social appropriation.

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