Research in practice and action with HIV/AIDS community-based organizations: the reflective practice of volunteerism

Community-based organizations operate with limited resources and insecure funding in poor districts of Canada. With unpaid volunteers, they reach out to marginalized and underserved populations. Their activities take place in unpredictable settings. This paper looks at volunteerism as a research strategy. A systematization of experiences describes the volunteer work during a two-year participatory research project. A doctoral study became rooted in a coalition fighting against AIDS. The author witnessed what happened in terms of lived acts rather than only listened to discourse from interviews. By being there, one can visualize the level of volunteer engagement from civil society. The reflexive practice concentrated on socio-political contexts in which the research took place. Through this journey, traits such as conviviality, caring, festive links and militancy/fundraising emerged as reflective practice. The posture responded to ‘militant’ epistemological and ethical options: (a) the potential autonomy of community groups and their contribution to the social collective practice, and (b) an increased recognition of practical intelligence as an additional instrument for the production of understanding outside the institutional logic.