Participatory action research in an Amazon protected area: Lessons for community psychology in Northern Brazil

Participatory action research (PAR) in rural Amazon communities in protected areas (PA) should be a requisite element of community psychology (CP) in Northern Brazil, because it allies investigation with action strategies appropriate to the specificities and problems of those rural communities. In this context, this article intends to promote reflection about PAR carried out in the communities of Auati-Parana Extractive Reserve, a federal PA of sustainable use in the western Amazon rainforest, and to highlight elements to community psychologists to solve issues faced by those rural Amazon communities. The PAR's aim was to help in the implementation of a sustainable development marquetry project that uses fallen wood resources and to monitor its psycho-social-environmental impact. We present and discuss the PAR's trajectory and its critical points for a CP approach in an Amazon PA context: group work, articulations, disagreements, and political negotiations between partners that permeate the PA's management and environmental governance in Amazon, despite the unexpected outcome of the marquetry project. We emphasize the critical engagement, committed praxis, and political role of CP in PA contexts, necessary for CP in Northern Brazil.