BLIŻEJ BIEDNEGO -- DOŚWIADCZENIA I POTRZEBY BADAWCZE.

The paper discusses the ongoing evolution of research into poverty that has induced a profound and thorough reformulation of the researcher-respondent relationship and has blurred the distinction between the researcher and research subject. The researcher-respondent roles have merged, turning the research subject into the agent, turning respondents into researchers inquiring into their own conditions. This process has evolved through the first British 'second-hand' inquiries into poverty, analyses of personal documents (diaries), oral history tradition, family histories presented by Oscar Lewis, personal accounts, monographs of communities and recent participatory approaches to poverty research such as the 'Poverty First Hand' project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]