Information is collected from people through surveys and interviews conducted by external investigators. This extracted information is then processed and analysed by professionals without the involvement of local people. People who have been researched are in general not the beneficiaries of this process. The knowledge is not returned to the people. Moreover, the knowledge that is generated is of doubtful value for practical purposes because it has been collected through mechanical means which often fail to capture the perceptions of the people and their living realities.
People supply information for the researcher to write a book.
They do not, however, see a direct benefit for themselves. Such participatory research may not get written up. Oral and visual methods characterise this process of knowledge creation. If people can be stimulated to write them up in their own idiom then such research could be an important source of a people's literature , and reading materials for a wider public. Some of the material could be translated into pictures, cartoons, graphics, posters and slogans which may be a more effective method of communication.