Meanings of participation in a community initiative: a discourse analysis at Complejo SACUDE (Montevideo, Uruguay).

Although the notion of participation pervades the literature on community initiatives, what those involved understand by it is rarely examined, even though such conceptions shape the methodologies adopted, the degrees of involvement enabled, and the coherence between intentions and practices. This article analyses the conceptions of participation held by those engaged in Complejo SACUDE, a public-community initiative co-managed by neighborhood representatives and municipal staff in the Casavalle basin, on the periphery of Montevideo, Uruguay. A qualitative-structural methodology was employed, based on the implementation of conversational devices distributed according to a structural sample designed to capture the social discourses associated with the relations relevant to the object of study. Four interrelated discursive positions were identified: committed participation; user participation; diverse participation; and progressive participation. The study concludes that participation is better represented as a spiral rather than a ladder: a nonlinear configuration in which eight steps feed back into one another and are not necessarily traversed in sequential order.