jkircho’s blog

Action research embodies many of the principles of Feminist research methods, as outlined in “Beyond the Personal: Theorizing a Politics of Location in Composition research” (Kirsch and Ritchie, 1995) and “Epistemology, Feminist Methodology, and the Politics of Method” (found in Naples’s Feminism and Method, 2003). McNiff and Whitehead emphasize that undertaking an action research project means asking questions about what we are doing (reflection), have a willingness and an ability to adapt/modify the research plan (i.e. embrace the messiness of research), and realize/accept that “Making sense of what happens when things do not go according to plan is just as much part of an action enquiry as when they do […] the learning is in the practice” (71).

These ideas fall right in line with both Kirsch/Ritchie and Naples. Kirsch and Ritchie claim that a politics of location in feminist research “allows us to claim the legitimacy of our experience, but it must be accompanied by a rigorously reflexive self examination of ourselves as researchers that is as careful as our observation of the object of our inquiry” (9, emphasis mine); later, they posit that feminist researchers “move forward with a willingness to pursue the difficulties inherent in a politics of location accompanied by an equal willingness to be unrelentingly self-reflective” (10, emphasis mine). Similarly, Naples suggests that a commitment to self reflection can bring the dilemmas of ethnographic research to the surface and more importantly, “become part of the ethnographic story” (26).

It seems, then, that both feminist research and action research encourage the researcher to embrace self reflection to not only understand that research is messy, but also that the messiness can be a location of learning. This is more clearly seen in the case study of Siobhán Ní Mhurchú (McNiff w/Whitehead 73-84). Throughout Mhurchú’s research, there is a recurring theme of reflection; Mhurchú describes how “we encountered a huge difficulty [in the study] in that students found it hard to reflect on and evaluate their own work” (76). Rather than ignore this problem, Mhurchú changed the plan a bit, and “decided [to] establish a set of criteria to help the children review their work and analyse its merits” (77). Additionally, Kirsch and Ritchie tell the story of Ann Oakley, who changed her research methodology in response to participants’ response; they write, “When Oakley encountered women who asked her about prenatal care or other medical information […] she found that she could not follow traditional interview procedures […] Instead, Oakley decided that she had a moral obligation to assist these women in their question for information” (14). What both of these stories have in common is a) a willingness to change b) the change that takes place is brought about by self reflection and c) a degree of caring for the participants [this last point, though, would lead into a longer response, so I will cut off here. My apologies].