Academic Participatory Researchers: More harm than good?

According to the experience of Randy Stoecker, academic participatory researchers can be irrelevant or damaging to PAR projects. Irrelevant, as the whole purpose of participatory research is that community members become “self-sufficient” researchers and activists, and potentially damaging, as academic researchers may over-emphasize the research component of a PAR project and find themselves incapable of assisting in social change.

So what are the options for an academic interested in participatory research?