Our Journey Nurturing the Voices of Unemployed Women in China through Collaborative-action Research

Abstract

The restructuring of state-owned enterprises since China's economic reform in 1978 has resulted in massive unemployment, especially layoffs of middle-aged women workers. State policies and programmes developed to combat unemployment often disregard the voices of these women and deprive them of opportunities to participate in reemployment solutions. The authors initiated an action research project in Beijing in which researchers facilitated unemployed women to find their own voices and negotiating solutions to their problems through a collaborative-action research process. Contrary to the women's customary approach of depending on the government to solve their problems, action research demanded that they take on active roles in coping with the unemployment crisis and practice reflexivity, collaboration, and community participation. The article recaptures the process through which unemployed women were empowered to gradually develop their voices through the different stages of the collaborative-action research process.