ABSTRACT
Participatory research methods have increasingly become orthodox in empirical studies in both development and post-war recovery. A participatory methodology is presented that allows such a comprehensive approach to the global impact of conflict on a population or particular subset of a population. Different perceived needs exist in rural and urban, rich and poor families, and between families with significant contact with human rights agencies and those without. The traditional ethnographic method of participant observation was also used throughout the contact the researcher had with families of the disappeared. The data collection of tins research involved interviews and group discussions with members of families of the disappeared. Social science research demands that subjects understand the terms in which they participate in research and that they give informed consent to those terms. The greatest limitation to the generalization of this methodology is the need for mutuality between the research agenda and the goals of the community being researched.
