Trabalho, Educação e Saúde - TES (Work, Education and Health) is an open access scientific journal, edited by the Joaquim Venâncio Polytechnic School of Health, from Oswaldo Cruz Foundation.
In this article, we describe and discuss the main operational issues of participatory research fieldwork, highlighting the dilemmas of the researcher and research subject/collaborator relationship in the context of the Family Health Strategy activities in a territory where there is high social vulnerability. We created the research management group, consisting of managers, professionals (emphasizing the community health agents) and researchers, aiming to develop strategies and reflect on the results of the research. We undertook participant observation of daily life, field daybooks, we took systematic notes, and made transcripts of the meetings. The analysis methodology used was Thompson's in-depth hermeneutics. This methodological combination made it possible to emphasize everyday experiences, adding them to the ‘ground,’ to what supports the experiences, i.e. the local history, culture, politics, and the organization of the work in health, on intersubjective and social settings of the territory and of people's life history. In this context, the management group set the tone of the research actions, although its group process showed the tensions experienced by the Family Health Strategy. The horizontal dialogs conquered by the work done by this group allowed for a transformation and construction of knowledge shared among the field players and researchers, who were involved with the dilemmas experienced.
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