Moving Forward Together in Aboriginal Women's Health: - Theses ...

Moving Forward TogetherJanet KellyExperimental and organisational forms of action research place researchers asoutside experts, coming in to work with others to meet pre-determined (oftentop down and management driven) aims. In comparison, professionalising andreflective practice forms of action research place the researcher as acollaborator working alongside practitioners toward the empowerment ofprofessional groups and as an advocate on behalf of clients. Empowering/consciousness raising action research places the practitioner/researcher as a coresearcherworking with groups in a bottom up process that involves shiftingthe balance of power and negotiating outcomes (Hart & Bond 1995). In thisstudy we incorporated and extended the last two forms of action research intowhat is often described in the literature as Participatory Action Research orPAR. These concepts complement critical theory and feminist paradigms andenable democratic Ganma knowledge sharing relationships to develop.Participatory Action Research or PAR has two objectives. The first is toproduce knowledge and action directly useful to a group of people, and thesecond is to enable the self empowerment of people at a deeper level throughthe construction and use of their own knowledge (Reason et al 2006). Overmany years, PAR has been built on concepts of collaboration, adult learningand self empowerment. It involves two-way, democratic learning and adulteducation that leads to personal empowerment as described by Freire (1972)and Belenky and colleagues (Belenky et al. 1973). The feminist movement hasassisted PAR researchers to consider how issues of gender, race anddomination impact on consciousness raising and life opportunities (Maguire2006; Moreton Robinson 2002; Reason et al 2006). Post colonial anddecolonisation theories have encouraged researchers to recognise and addressinequality linked to discrimination, colonisation practices and the dominationof Western knowledge (Browne et al 2005; Smith 2003). Indigenousmethodologies such as Ganma have further encouraged researchers to value,respect, and ensure that more than one form of knowledge can come togetherto legitimately create new knowledge (foam) (Gullingingpuy 2007; Hughes2000).In the international action research literature, there is renewed recognition ofparticipatory action research as an appropriate and culturally safe methodology124