Finding the ‘action’ in feminist participatory action research

paper. 1 For general arguments against an excessive philosophical preoccupation with epistemology, see Jacques Derrida, Dissemination (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981); John Gunnell, Between Philosophy and Politics (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1986); Mark Krupnick, ed., Displacement (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1983); Paul Kress, "Against Epistemology," Journal of Politics 41, no. 2 (May 1979): 526-42. For specific arguments against foundationalism, see Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1979); Richard Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983); Don Herzog, Without Foundations: Justification in Political Theory (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985). It is worth noting the irony that even those most intent on repudiating epistemology on the grounds that traditional epistemological concerns involve claims altogether beyond the possibilities for human knowledge are themselves advancing epistemological claims.

IntroductionUnder the scope of the Global Alliance Against the Trafficking of Women's (GAATW) project Safe and Fair Migration from a Feminist Perspective, Anti-Racism Movement (ARM) in Lebanon is conducting a feminist participatory action research (FPAR) project with Mesewat, a group of Ethiopian activist migrant workers, the majority of whom are women migrant domestic workers (MDWs).Mesewat’s work varies in its scope: they do casework, particularly around medical, financial, and shelter needs; they lobby the Ethiopian state and consulate to address the violations they are experiencing; they c

Guiding students step-by-step through the research process while simultaneously introducing a range of debates, challenges and tools that feminist scholars use, the second edition of this popular textbook provides a vital resource to those students and researchers approaching their studies from a feminist perspective. Interdisciplinary in its approach, the book covers everything from research design, analysis and presentation, to formulating research questions, data collection and publishing research. Offering the most comprehensive and practical guide to the subject available, the text is now also fully updated to take account of recent developments in the field, including participatory action research, new technologies and methods for working with big data and social media. Doing Feminist Research is required reading for undergraduate and postgraduate courses taking a feminist approach to social science methodology, research design and methods. It is the ideal guide for all students and scholars carrying out feminist research, whether in the fields of international relations, political science, interdisciplinary international and global studies, development studies or gender and women's studies. New to this Edition: - New discussions of contemporary research methods, including participatory action research, survey research and technology, and methods for big data and social media. - Updated to reflect recent developments in feminist and gender theory, with references to the latest research examples and new boxes considering recent shifts in the social and political sciences. - Brand new boxed examples throughout covering topics including collaborations, femicide, negotiating changing research environments and the pros and cons of feminist participatory action research. - The text is now written in the first (authors) and second (readers) person making the text clearer, more consistent and inclusive from the reader point of view.

Feminist research and participatory action research (PAR) share the belief that research should directly serve social justice aims and work to alleviate suffering of marginalized and oppressed people. This article presents the results of a unique feminist PAR (FPAR) approach to designing and implementing an evaluation of an intervention with women who have used violence. The site of our analysis is the steering committee that oversaw this work and the extent to which members adhered to FPAR principles. Over the two decades since feminist critiques of PAR began to emerge, new discourses of collaboration have appeared. As researchers, we must be alert to FPAR discourses that mask ongoing hierarchies. Our findings suggest that, while reflexivity and genuine commitment to collaboration are fundamental to enacting FPAR principles, social workers nevertheless face real challenges confronting structural barriers that impede anti-oppression goals. This study highlights the challenges of adhering faithfully to feminist participatory principles in real-life settings and the need for future research to examine the effectiveness of FPAR processes in achieving authentic collaboration among committee members who are chosen to represent disparate perspectives and are backed by vastly different levels of social and institutional power.

For centuries Andean women from rural areas of Peru have lived in ongoing conditions of gender and racial marginalisation. Seeking to address these conditions and promote their wellbeing and development, professionals have been working with Andean women through social and economic projects. However, often these professionals privilege ideas and practices informed by their disciplinary training, which is largely rooted in western knowledge. This chapter explores how, through a feminist participatory action research (PAR) project, a group of Andean women engaged and contested ideas they perceive as being introduced in to their community from outside by professionals, particularly ideas regarding organising-as-women, development, and violence against women. It analyses how women decide to incorporate some ideas transforming and adapting them to their local context, and how they choose to reject others given that they are not in line with their ways of being in the world as Andean women. Furthermore, this chapter explores feminist PAR’s potential as a method for decolonizing feminist community psychology. It illustrates how this feminist PAR project served as a space for a group of Andean women to actively reflect and discuss about their processes of knowledge construction, processes that occur in relation to their local knowledge and in constant confrontation with dominant discourses that enter their communities from further afield. The chapter concludes with reflections and recommendations for community psychologists who work with indigenous women and who are interested in developing a feminist decolonial praxis.

The partnership of feminist theory and participatory action research (PAR) aims at democratizing the relationship between 'subjects' of research and researchers in order to advance non-hierarchical social activism. However, there is still a gap between theorization and analysis of the manifestations of feminist participatory action research, particularly that which concerns girls and women of color. Feminist action research can dismantle this disparity by building spaces where voices have potential roles in affecting change; transforming personal experiences into politicized knowledges and standpoints. But how do radical epistemologies lead to social change? How do ─in the words of bell hooks─ radical spaces support marginality as a space of resistance? This project examines these questions by looking at how Girls Justice League (GJL) ─a non-profit organization committed to building girls capacity─ goes about carrying out participatory action research in the City of Philadelphia. As a meta analysis of efforts that support situated knowledges, this research project uses a qualitative approach ─including two semi-structured interviews with GJL board members, a personal-narrative-oriented focus group, and an analysis of GJL's reports─ to understand GJL's effort to build girls and women's capacity through feminist PAR. The study finds that the PAR strategies that GJL follows are linked directly to their three-fold mission statement, which provides a useful framework to understand the implementation of resistance into radical spaces. Building girls capacity through a unique structure, approach, and practical implementation of feminist PAR is an empowering stepping stone into paving the way for social change. GJL's model shows the urgency to replicate feminist PAR in other social justice organizations, institutions, and academic settings as a way of building access to inter-disciplinary research-oriented participatory forums.

The lack of attention to gender and intersectionality is still a major problem in all forms of research, sometimes within feminist-oriented projects. Participatory researchers can inadvertently reinforce gender-neutral approaches by failing to explicitly state what feminist and gender diversity principles guide their research, resulting in superficial outcomes only. Chapter 6 focuses on feminist Participatory Action Research (PAR) and gender diversity considerations to highlight the central importance of gender equality to participatory research models. The author explores the meaning of feminist research and highlights tensions in contemporary discussions of transfeminism. She discusses the potential of feminist PAR and participatory research in gender diversity studies to explore unique experiences through a gender analysis. The chapter vignette is about gatekeeping, based on the author’s experiences in participatory research projects with women co-researchers. She explains how white feminists and male community leaders act as gatekeepers, and shares thoughts on how researchers might respond to gatekeeping issues.

Participation of community stakeholders in health research priority setting is an emerging trend. Despite this, the involvement of marginalised groups in research prioritisation is limited and where they are involved, sample sizes are small, where individuals are merely consulted with, rather than coproducing the research agenda. Without addressing power dynamics inherent in research prioritisation with marginalised groups, their engagement in the research process can be tokenistic and the resulting research agenda unreflective of their needs. This article, therefore, aims to generate knowledge on how feminist participatory action research was used to co-produce an obesity research agenda with British Pakistani women, a seldom heard population, living in deprived areas. The methodology enabled Pakistani women to be involved in all stages of the project, culminating in the co-production of an obesity research agenda that accurately reflects their unmet needs. Women’s engagement in the project led to their increased confidence, the formation of relationships that lasted beyond the research project, improvements to their lifestyles, and engagement in further research. Feminist participatory action research may be used by researchers as a guiding methodology due to its ability to improve women’s lives and develop research agendas for women’s health.

Feminist participatory action research integrates feminist theories and participatory action research methods, often with the explicit intention of building community-academic partnerships to create new forms of knowledge to inform women's health. Despite the current pro-partnership agenda in health research and policy settings, a lack of attention has been paid to how to cultivate effective partnerships given limited resources, competing agendas, and inherent power differences. Based on our 10+ years individually and collectively conducting women's health and feminist participatory action research, we suggest that it is imperative to intentionally develop power-with strategies in order to avoid replicating the power imbalances that such projects seek to redress. By drawing on examples from three of our recent feminist participatory action projects we reflect on some of the tensions and complexities of attempting to cultivate power-with research partnerships. We then offer skills and resources needed by academic researchers to effectively harness the collective resources, agendas, and knowledge that each partner brings to the table. We suggest that investing in the process of cultivating power-with research partnerships ultimately improves our collective ability to understand and address women's health issues.

PurposeTo provide examples of qualitative research based on feminist epistemological assumptions. Such research re‐invents rather than recycles management theory, producing alternative understandings which speak to the demands of managing post‐corporate workplaces characterised by growing levels of diversity and rapid discontinuous change.Design/methodology/approachReports on three feminist qualitative research projects. Describes research processes and outcomes which aim to reflexively attend to diverse voices and researcher and research participant subjectivities.FindingsProvides tangible examples of empirical feminist qualitative research, including discussions of how the research was conducted, the nature of the findings and critical reflections on the extent to which the researchers' feminist epistemological assumptions were enacted.Research limitations/implicationsThe three research projects discussed have all been conducted within the Australian education sector. Accordingly, future research could focus on providing practical examples of feminist qualitative research approaches in the management field, in different international and industrial/sector contexts.Practical implicationsProvides management researchers with three examples of feminist qualitative research covering diverse topics including leadership, mentoring and ethics.Originality/valueWhile there is a plethora of writing concerned with feminist research generally, there is a dearth of feminist research in the management field specifically. This paper's contribution therefore lies in providing tangible examples of feminist qualitative research in the management field.

Since its adoption in 1979, the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) has provided a critical framework for holding governments accountable for addressing gender discrimination and advancing women’s rights. However, structural inequalities significantly restrict the ability of marginalised groups, particularly Indigenous and Ethnic Minority (IEM) women, to engage with CEDAW and similar high-level advocacy mechanisms. This paper explores the innovative potential of Feminist Participatory Action Research (FPAR) grounded in the CEDAW mechanism as a method for amplifying the voices of young IEM women while engaging them in processes of conscientisation, empowerment, and self-advocacy. FPAR is a community-based methodology rooted in feminist and decolonial theories that allows those most affected by systemic injustices to shape research agendas and produce contextually grounded knowledge. The research focuses on a two-year FPAR study conducted with young IEM women in Cambodia, led by a local women’s rights organisation. The Action Researchers (ARs) received training in human rights norms and mechanisms, including CEDAW, before carrying out fieldwork in their own communities to explore patterns of discrimination and resilience. Findings from a reflective group discussion conducted with the ARs demonstrate the transformative potential of this approach in strengthening advocacy capacities while enhancing self-perception and rights awareness. ARs described how engaging with CEDAW shifted their understanding of justice from abstract to actionable, positioning them not only as knowledge producers but also as emerging advocates. This article argues that mechanism-based FPAR offers an innovative bridge between grassroots realities and high-level rights mechanisms. It promotes an inclusive, decolonised approach to the cyclical processes of evidence gathering that underpin human rights advocacy. The findings highlight why, for IEM women, it is necessary to “bring CEDAW home” in order to make rights a reality and build pathways for meaningful engagement in global advocacy.

Feminist participatory action research

In recent years there has been a growing interest in research approaches that can better inform policy and practice and lead to social action. This article describes four models of research: action, participatory, empowerment, and feminist research. The historical roots, epistemological assumptions, agendas, and methodological strategies of each are discussed. Common features and distinguishing characteristics are examined. The article concludes by discussing implications derived from research for family researchers and other social scientists interested in making their work more relevant to practice, policy, and social action. In recent years there has been a growing interest in research approaches that can better inform policy and practice and lead to social action. This trend has occurred in response to such factors as a growing frustration among practitioners and policy makers with the lack of relevance of traditional research findings and an increasing desire among many social scientists to conduct research that has greater social relevance. A number of research approaches from different social science traditions have evolved independently in response to common frustrations with the inability of traditional positivistic social science methods to inform questions of practice or social action and in response to the emergence of postpositivist epistemological paradigms. While these approaches have developed many similar principles of inquiry, the lack of contact among them has delayed recognition of their common themes. There are a number of contemporary research approaches that are directly concerned with informing practice and social change. Family scholars are probably most familiar with feminist methods (e.g., Allen & Baber, 1992; Reinharz, 1992; Thompson, 1992). Other action-oriented models include action research, empowerment research, and participatory research. These research approaches advocate remarkably similar agendas and share a core of epistemological assumptions and methodological strategies. This article describes these four forms of research and examines the epistemological assumptions, moral/ethical values, and methodological strategies that characterize each of them. The article focuses on commonalties among the four approaches, including their implications for family researchers. Examination of the characteristics that distinguish them from conventional, social science research is also included. In this article, the term conventional social science research refers to the positivistic scientific paradigm that has dominated the social sciences for the past century. Drawing on methods and logic first used in the physical sciences, this approach subsumes notions of causality, objectivity, and quantification with the goal of predicting and controlling human behavior (Prus, 1992). FOUR MODELS OF ACTION-ORIENTED RESEARCH What follows is an examination of the distinguishing characteristics of each of four research traditions: action research, participatory research, empowerment research, and feminist research. Each approach is introduced by a discussion of its historical origins. This is followed by an examination of three aspects germane to any research model: (a) agenda (What are the primary goals of the research? Which research questions are most worth asking? Who are the principal beneficiaries of the research findings?); (b) epistemology (What forms of knowledge are considered scientific? What role do values and ethics play in the research enterprise? Can social science be objective?); and (c) methodology (What are the most commonly used data collection strategies? How are they determined? What role do research subjects and other nonresearchers play in the research process?). These three dimensions of the research process have been selected for heuristic purposes, but they are not mutually exclusive. …

ABSTRACTRecovery from disaster and displacement involves multiple challenges including accompanying survivors, documenting effects, and rethreading community. This paper demonstrates how African-American and Latina community health promoters and white university-based researchers engaged visual methodologies and participatory action research (photoPAR) as resources in cross-community praxis in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans. Visual techniques, including but not limited to photonarratives, facilitated the health promoters’: (1) care for themselves and each other as survivors of and responders to the post-disaster context; (2) critical interrogation of New Orleans’ entrenched pre- and post-Katrina structural racism as contributing to the racialised effects of and responses to Katrina; and (3) meaning-making and performances of women’s community-based, cross-community health promotion within this post-disaster context. This feminist antiracist participatory action research project demonstrates how visual methodologies contributed to the co-researchers’ cross-community self- and other caring, critical bifocality, and collaborative construction of a contextually and culturally responsive model for women’s community-based health promotion post ‘unnatural disaster’. Selected limitations as well as the potential for future cross-community antiracist feminist photoPAR in post-disaster contexts are discussed.

This commentary seeks to unpack the politics of community engagement and collaboration, which is an increasingly common practice in neoliberal universities. By centring feminist participatory action research, we examine the disjunction between extractive forms of collaboration for education and feminist pedagogy's aims to work against oppressive structures. Drawing from our teaching experiences at the National University of Singapore, we discuss how feminist educators navigate the risks associated with conducting community engagement courses and the sacrifices and refusals this entails. We reveal the challenges of enacting meaningful feminist participatory community research at the nexus of three intersecting spaces – community, classroom, and university. We support our arguments by drawing from our experiences of partnering with two non‐governmental organisations in Singapore, Sayoni (an LGBTQ+ group) and the Young Sikh Association. We argue that the path ahead calls for more feminist pedagogical tactics that reinstate the radical potential for collaborating with community groups.