Feeling ambiguous about participation in action research

Abstract

ABSTRACT This descriptive study presents a critical reflexive account of my research journey within a large-scale and long-lasting participatory project aimed at siting, developing and building a repository for low and intermediate-level radioactive waste (LILW) in Belgium. While at the start of my employment I fostered ambitions to address several democratic deficits that our research team had identified in the participatory process and which had been brought to the fore by my predecessors over the years, this optimistic aim soon collided with the reality of top-down-oriented public participation in an institutionalised context. I draw on personal notes to elaborate on my evolution as a researcher with participatory, democratising and transformative aspirations. Several grounding principles of the ‘action research family’ provided me with a reflexive lens to engage in, analyse and comprehend the participatory process within the cAt-project, as well as to grasp the broader context of the project and to reflect on my own research practice. More importantly, in this article, the first-person perspective offers a critical lens through which to reflect on the democratising aspirations of action research and on the challenges researchers face in putting these aspirations into practice.