Seite 260 [260]
258 PáL GÉZA BALOGH — LUCA KASZÁS — REBEKA MÁRTA Kiss
Personal dimensions, impact on the participants
Involuntarily or not, in the course of working with the local community — the
research — we have become connected to the project and to each other at many
points, and to a greater or lesser extent we ‘old cottage people’ have become part
of the community of Késpallag, too. During the research camps, we started from
the past, but at the same time, by listening to personal life stories and exploring
the history of the Old House, we have become shapers of the present of Késpallag.
An essential part of the learning and community development process also takes
place alongside the activities in the village community, within the ‘Old House
team’, which is also a close-knit group of friends. All the methods and structures
that have been discussed in the community development section are also applied
to ourselves. There is also a constant change of dynamic within this core team, as
we evolve with the project.
When presenting our work in Köspallag, it is a constant difficulty to avoid
writing in a deeply subjective tone, and to adhere to the standards of objective
scientific rigor. For this reason, although we have been working together for 6 years,
we have not attempted to summarize our work in many writings. Typically, ours
is one of those examples of action research in which the primary product is not the
published academic writing. The personal dimension of such a process must be
mentioned in the conclusion of this paper, as it is transformative for the “researcher”
as well. From this point of view, too, our whole story is a process of learning and
cognition: it is also one of learning about ourselves and of growing self-awareness.
In the course of our work, our own need for community is also an important
motivation and the capability approach is also true of the researchers themselves,
who are also constantly discovering and taking possession of new capabilities. Action
research is also a transformative process for the researcher. For us, this is what the
creation of the Késpallag Old House as a new local institution represents.
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