Orlando Fals Borda and the methodological laboratory: committed and critical research during 1970-1975

Abstract

This paper aims at exploring the methodological principles of Orlando Fals Borda’s work during a specific period (1970-1975). As interpretative hypothesis, we argue that this period served as a laboratory of methodological experimentation which was put into practice and, at the same time, objectified in books written by the Colombian sociologist himself and, mainly, as co-author with other members of La Rosca. To this end, we carried out a hermeneuticinterpretative analysis based on a critical reading of: i) a corpus composed of four texts selected from Fals Borda’s work published during the period under analysis; ii) specialized literature regarding the methodological and epistemological aspects of the intellectual trajectory of the Colombian sociologist; iii) unpublished documents of the Fals Borda’s collection in the Historic and Central Archive of the National University of Colombia. The findings indicate that this period has a specificity that requires to be tackled in deep considering it is not a mere transition towards the emergence of the participatoryaction-research. We find especially relevant the debates regarding the research methods and techniques, and the conception of the relation between research and political activism.