Transformative paradigm (Donna M. Mertens and
many others): This approach, previously referred to as the
transformative–emancipatory paradigm, applies
critical social theory and social constructionism to mixed-
methods and evaluation research. One of the underlying
assumptions is the existence of multiple versions of
reality.
“I outlined the assumptions associated with the
transformative paradigm and its implications for a mixed
methods approach to evaluation …, to wit:
• “Axiological: The guiding principles for ethical
practice in evaluation concern the ability of the
evaluation to address issues of human rights and
social justice.…
• Ontological: The nature of reality is such that
different versions of reality are held by people in
different societal positions. The evaluator has a
responsibility to reveal the different versions of
reality and to support stakeholders in their critical
interrogation of those versions of reality in order to
identify which have the greatest potential to further
human rights and social justice.
• “Epistemological: The evaluators need to identify the
cultural norms and beliefs of relevance in the context
and be respectfully responsive to those norms and
beliefs.
• “Methodological: The methodology associated with
the transformative paradigm begins with critical
dialogue (hermeneutical explorations) and is
designed in a cyclical manner to be responsive to the
information needs at particular points in the project,
with specific attention to culturally appropriate
methods.”
[Donna M. Mertens, “Program Evaluation without a
Client: The Case of the Disappearing Intended Users.”
The Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation. Volume
25, number 3, 2012. Pages 47-57.]
“The transformative paradigm is one philosophical
framework that helps organize thinking about how
evaluators ‘can serve the interests of social justice through
the production of credible evidence that is responsive to
the needs of marginalized communities. It provides a
meta-physical umbrella to guide evaluators who work in
communities that experience discrimination and
oppression on whatever basis—gender, disability,
immigrant status, race/ethnicity, sexual identification, or a
multitude of other characteristics associated with less
access to societal privileges’ …. Evaluators often work in
contexts in which a variety of possible solutions are
possible for a problem, however, in the context of wicked
problems, evaluators and stakeholders need to work
together to determine which of the solutions are culturally
responsive and have the potential to increase social
justice.”
[Donna M. Mertens, “Assumptions at the philosophical
and programmatic levels in evaluation.” Evaluation and
Program Planning. In Press edition. June, 2016. Pages 1-
7.]
“The transformative ontological assumption recognizes
the multi-faceted nature of reality. Human beings often
believe that they know what is real, but each concept of
what is real is influenced by the positionality of the
person. A person who is in a position of unearned
privilege by virtue of skin color, gender, or lack of a
disability might hold one version of reality. However, a
person who is not in that privileged position may hold
quite a different version of reality.…
“Epistemologically, knowledge is not viewed as
absolute nor relative; it is created within a context of
power and privilege. Evaluators need to develop
respectful and collaborative relationships that are
culturally responsive to the needs of the various
stakeholder groups in order to establish conditions
conducive to revealing knowledge from different
positions.”
[Donna M. Mertens, “Philosophical Assumptions and
Program Evaluation.” SpazioFilosofico. Number 13,
February 2015. Pages 75-85.]
“My theoretical orientation derives from the work of
feminists, ethnic/racial minorities, and people with
disabilities and their advocates regarding ways to
approach research and evaluation in a way that more
validly represents the views of those with the least
power.”
[Donna M. Mertens in Katherine Ryan, “Advantages and
Challenges of Using Inclusive Evaluation Approaches in
Evaluation Practice.” American Journal of Evaluation.
Volume 19, number 1, 1998. Pages 101-122.]
“I used the underlying philosophical assumptions
associated with the Transformative Paradigm to posit its
suitability to underpin evaluation work in culturally
complex contexts. I explained that philosophical
assumptions are really guides to action in evaluation and
that it is important to critically explore the assumptions
that underlie our work. Working within the transformative
paradigm is not about following a defined step-by-step
method, as much as it involves thinking critically about
how realities are shaped, and how the evaluator can work
with stakeholders to accurately capture their realities and
link them to social action.”
[Donna M. Mertens, “Transformative Research and
Evaluation and Dimensions of Diversity.” Presented at
Social Science Methodology in the New Millennium: Sixth
International Conference on Logic and Methodology.
Amsterdam, the Netherlands. August 17th–20th, 2004.
Pages 1-10. Retrieved on December 24th, 2015.]
“The transformative paradigm offers a metaphysical
umbrella that brings together commensurate philosophical
strands. It is applicable to people who experience
discrimination and oppression on whatever basis,
including (but not limited to) race/ethnicity, disability,
immigrant status, political conflicts, sexual orientation,
poverty, gender, age, or the multitude of other
characteristics that are associated with less access to
social justice.”
[Kelly M. Munger and Donna M. Mertens, “Conducting
Research with the Disability Community: A Rights-Based
Approach.” New Directions for Adult and Continuing
Education. Number 132, winter 2011. Pages 23-33.]
“The transformative paradigm is one philosophical
framework that helps to organize thinking about how
evaluation can serve the interests of social justice through
the production of credible evidence that is responsive to
the needs of marginalized communities. It provides a
metaphysical umbrella to guide evaluators who work in
communities that experience discrimination and
oppression on whatever basis—gender, disability,
immigrant status, race/ethnicity, sexual identification, or a
multitude of other characteristics associated with less
access to societal privileges.”
[Donna M. Mertens, “What Does a Transformative Lens
Bring to Credible Evidence in Mixed Methods
Evaluations?” Mixed Methods and Credibility of Evidence
in Evaluation. Donna M. Mertens and Sharlene Hesse-
Biber, editors. San Francisco, California: The Jossey-Bass
Education Series imprint of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
2013. Page 28.]
“Transformative scholars assume that knowledge is not
neutral, but is influenced by human interests, that all
knowledge reflects the power and social relationships
within society, and that an important purpose of
knowledge construction is to help people improve
society ….”
[Donna M. Mertens, “Inclusive Evaluation: Implications
of Transformative Theory for Evaluation.” American
Journal of Evaluation. Volume 20, number 1, 1999. Pages
1-14.]
“The transformative paradigm of research and
evaluation provides an overarching theoretical framework
to guide evaluators who wish to address issues of cultural
complexity …. The transformative paradigm serves as a
useful theoretical umbrella to explore philosophical
assumptions and guide methodological choices. Although
most evaluation approaches could benefit from an
increased understanding of cultural complexity and
competency, evaluation approaches such as those labeled
inclusive …, human rights-based …, democratic …, or
culturally responsive … are most commensurate with this
paradigm.…
“Ontologically, this paradigm explicitly interrogates the
social and cultural forces that determine what is deemed
to be real, how power and privilege play into the accepted
definitions of reality, and the consequences of accepting
one reality over another. Epistemologically, the
transformative paradigm calls for a respectful and
knowledgeable link between the evaluator and the
stakeholders, with explicit recognition of the influence of
power and privilege in human relations and trust building.
Methodologically, decisions are guided by a deep
understanding of the cultural norms and values in the
program context and usually are associated with dialogue
among the stakeholders, the use of mixed methods of data
collection, and shared power in the use of the findings.”
[Donna M. Mertens, “Stakeholder Representation in
Culturally Complex Communities: Insights from the
Transformative Paradigm.“ Fundamental Issues in
Evaluation. Nick L. Smith and Paul R. Brandon, editors.
New York: The Guilford Press. 2008. Pages 41-60.]
“Quite briefly, the transformative paradigm is a
framework of belief systems that directly engages
members of culturally diverse groups with a focus on
increased social justice …. The axiological belief is of
primary importance in the transformative paradigm and
drives the formulation of the three other belief systems
(ontology, epistemology, and methodology). The
fundamental principles of the transformative axiological
assumption are enhancement of social justice, furtherance
of human rights, and respect for cultural norms. These are
not unproblematic ethical principles for researchers.”
[Donna M. Mertens, “Transformative Mixed Methods
Research.” Qualitative Inquiry. Volume 16, number 6,
2010. Pages 469-474.]
“The Inclusive/Transformative Model of evaluation will
focus on the dimensions of the interactive link between
the evaluator and the members of the community that the
program is designed to serve. It will reflect a shift in
emphasis to inclusivity and transformation in terms of a
more integrated view of evaluation with program
personnel, participants, and the communities in which
they are located. Much intellectual energy will need to be
brought to bear to develop this model, but even more
importantly, and perhaps more difficult, will be the
change in the channeling of emotional energy on the parts
of all involved to this end.”
[Donna M. Mertens, “Inclusivity and Transformation:
Evaluation in 2010.” American Journal of Evaluation.
Volume 22, number 3, 2001. Pages 367-374.]
“The transformative paradigm … provides a framework
of belief systems that directly engages members of
culturally diverse groups with a focus on increased social
justice. Being firmly rooted in a human rights agenda,
ethical implications for evaluation are derived from the
conscious inclusion of a broad range of people who are
generally excluded from the mainstream in society. It
strives to extend the meaning of traditional ethical
concepts to more directly reflect ethical considerations in
culturally complex communities. Power issues in terms of
determining the evaluation focus, planning,
implementation, and use will also be examined from a
transformative ethical stance based on axiological
assumptions related to respect for communities that have
been pushed to the margins and recognition of the
resilience that rests within their members.”
[Donna M. Mertens, “Transformative Considerations:
Inclusion and Social Justice.” American Journal of
Evaluation. Volume 28, number 1, March 2007. Pages
86-90.]
“The transformative paradigm emerged in response to
individuals who have been pushed to the societal margins
throughout history and who are finding a means to bring
their voices into the world of research. Their voices,
shared with scholars who work as their partners to support
the increase of social justice and human rights, are
reflected in the emergence of the transformative paradigm
to guide researchers.”
[Donna M. Mertens, “Philosophy in mixed methods
teaching: The transformative paradigm as illustration.”
International Journal of Multiple Research Approaches.
Volume 4, number 1, April 2010. Pages 9-18.]
“The transformative paradigm’s central tenet is that
power is an issue that must be addressed at each stage of
the research process. The development of the research
focus represents a crucial decision point early in the
research process. Typically, researchers turn to scholarly
literature to identify a research problem. However, in
transformative mixed methods research, a researcher
might make use of a variety of quantitative and qualitative
methods to determine the focus of research, with a
specific concern for power issues. Important ways of
gathering insights under the transformative paradigm
include methods of involving community members in the
initial discussions of the research focus. This can be done
in many ways, such as focus groups, interviews, surveys,
and threaded discussions.”
[Donna M. Mertens, “Transformative Paradigm: Mixed
Methods and Social Justice.” Journal of Mixed Methods
Research. Volume 1, number 3, July 2007. Pages 212-
225.]
“The transformative paradigm provides an umbrella for
researchers who view their roles as agents to further
social justice. The axiological assumption provides a
conceptual framework from which the other assumptions
of the paradigm logically flow. Researchers who
recognize the importance of being culturally responsive
are inclined to learn the norms of behavior in
communities, as well as to explore different
understandings of ethical research approaches.”
[Donna M. Mertens, “Transformative Mixed Methods:
Addressing Inequities.” American Behavioral Scientist.
Volume 56, number 6, 2012. Pages 802-813.]
“… although we embrace the transformative-
emancipatory stance paradigm as a lens through which
social justice issues can be addressed—and we have used
this lens ourselves in some of our work …, we believe
that there are at least some occasions when using this
paradigm does not go far enough in terms of giving voice
to people who have been traditionally excluded, namely,
those who represent disenfranchised and the least
advantaged groups in society and who have the least
power. Specifically, although adopting a transformative-
emancipatory stance is extremely useful for giving voice
to the powerless, transformative researchers—as do all
other types of researchers—still exercise control over the
research decisions made at all four stages of the research
process ….”
[Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie and Rebecca K. Frels, “Toward
a new research philosophy for addressing social justice
issues: Critical dialectical pluralism.“ International
Journal of Multiple Research Approaches. Volume 7,
number 1, April 2013. Pages 9-26.]
“The research philosophical stance for our study was …
a critical dialectical pluralistic stance, which operates
under the assumption that, at the macro level, social
injustices are ingrained in every society. According to this
stance, rather than the researcher presenting the
findings …, the researcher assumes a research-facilitator
role that empowers the participant(s) to assume the role of
participant-researcher(s), who, in turn, either
present/perform the findings themselves or co/present/co-
perform the findings with the research-facilitator(s).”
[Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie, Roslinda Rosli, Jacqueline M.
Ingram, and Rebecca K. Frels, “A Critical Dialectical
Pluralistic Examination of the Lived Experience of Select
Women Doctoral Students.” The Qualitative Report.
Volume 19, article 5, 2014. Pages 1-35.]
“A fully mixed concurrent dominant status design
involves conducting a study that mixes qualitative and
quantitative research within one or more of, or across the
aforementioned three components in a single research
study. In this design, the quantitative and qualitative
phases are mixed concurrently at one or more stages or
across the stages.”
[Nancy L. Leech and Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie, “A
typology of mixed methods research designs.” Quality
and Quantity. Volume 43, 2009. Pages 265-275.]
“… in the present study, the following two
epistemological perspectives were combined:
pragmatism-of-the-middle and constructivism.”
[Hesborn O. Wao and Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie, “A
Mixed Research Investigation of Factors Related to Time
to the Doctorate in Education.” International Journal of
Doctoral Studies. Volume 6, 2011. Pages 115-134.]
“The transformative-emancipatory perspective
specifically addresses social inequities in order to enact
positive social change related to oppression, power, and
privilege. In working with marginalized groups, voice and
power are particularly important considerations that
should be addressed in all stages of the mixed methods
design. Theoretical frameworks, methods, and the
researcher all must have strong relationships to the
communities involved. Emphasizing values, this
perspective offers mixed methods inquiry specific value-
based goals to be incorporated at all stages.”
[Peggy Shannon-Baker, “Making Paradigms Meaningful
in Mixed Methods Research.” Journal of Mixed Methods
Research. Volume 10, number 4, October 2016. Pages
319-334.]
“We use this concept [Thomas Kuhn’s ‘scientific
anomalies’] to investigate the ‘transformative paradigm,’
a research approach specifically purposed with addressing
and redressing social injustice …. In particular, we
examine its association with pragmatist mixed methods
scholarship to explain the attractiveness of its particular
emphasis on foregrounding axiological concerns. We do
this not as a critique of the transformative paradigm, but
rather as a means of exploring what we find to be the
uneasy logical relationship within the transformative
paradigm between axiology and methodology, and, by
extension, the underspecified axiological positioning of
pragmatist mixed methods approaches more generally.”
[Catharine Biddle and Kai A. Schafft, “Axiology and
Anomaly in the Practice of Mixed Methods Work:
Pragmatism, Valuation, and the Transformative
Paradigm.” Journal of Mixed Methods Research. Volume
9, number 4, 2015. Pages 320-334.]
Article
Reclaiming the Potential of TransformativeScholarship to Enable Social Justice
Lisette Farias1, Debbie Laliberte Rudman1, Lilian Magalhaes2, andDenise Gastaldo3
AbstractScholars within critical qualitative inquiry and health sciences are becoming increasingly interested in transformative scholarship asa means to pursue greater justice in society. However, transformative scholarship has been taken up within frameworks that givena lack of consistent alignment with the critical paradigm seem to fall short in this intention. This article aims to reclaim trans-formative scholarship as an epistemological and methodological space that transforms and challenges the social order, situatingsocial justice at the forefront of inquiry. The article begins by addressing the call for work toward social justice within criticalqualitative inquiry. Subsequently, Creswell and Mertens’ frameworks are analyzed as examples of transformative scholarship thathas distanced itself from its critical roots. Based on this analysis, we raise three problematics to illustrate the dangers of thisdistancing. We conclude by proposing to reframe transformative scholarship within the critical paradigm to (re)connect it topolitical stances and values.
Keywordscritical qualitative inquiry, critical social paradigm, transformative scholarship, Creswell, Mertens
What is already known?
Increasing calls from scholars for reorienting inquiry to focus
on addressing social inequities have emerged within critical
qualitative inquiry and health sciences. In response, transfor-
mative scholarship has been taken up within contemporary
frameworks to express a commitment to social justice. A crit-
ical analysis of guiding frameworks for transformative scholar-
ship is essential in order to move away from approaches
characterized by implicit or explicit positivist/postpositivist
assumptions that often fail to question and thereby transform
the status quo.
What this paper adds?
This article analyzes an epistemological tension inherent in the
frameworks proposed by Creswell and Mertens. By unpacking
this epistemological tension, we aim to heighten awareness of
potential dangers associated with a reliance on positivist/post-
positivist assumptions in frameworks aiming to make a differ-
ence in people’s lives by promoting social transformation
toward justice. It also contributes to scholarly movements
within the fields of qualitative inquiry and health sciences that
attempt to push away from the historical boundaries of
positivism/postpositivism in order to engage with critical-
informed and participatory forms of inquiry that can develop
contextually situated understandings of injustices.
Introduction
The idea of this article came about in response to a current
tension within the disciplinary home of the first three authors,
specifically occupational science. This tension is arising as
scholars increasingly attempt to take up the discipline’s moral
and ethical commitment to social justice while at the same time
being located within health sciences (Frank, 2012;Whiteford &
Hocking, 2012)—a field largely grounded in positivist/postpo-
sitivist conceptualizations of the scientific method (Gibson,
2016). Thus, in an attempt to move beyond the historical
1 Western University, Ontario, Canada2 Federal University of Sao Carlos, Sao Paulo, Brazil3 University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Corresponding Author:
Lisette Farias, Western University, 1201 Western Rd., Elborn College, London,
Ontario, Canada N6G 1H1.
Email: [email protected]
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Creative Commons CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License(http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without furtherpermission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
predominance of individualistic and positivist/postpositivist
frames, this article responds to the increasing desire for taking
up occupational science’s early calls to attend to the transfor-
mative potential of occupation to address social inequities
(Townsend, 1997; Watson & Swartz, 2004). By aiming to
understand and address this tension, we explore literature
addressing other health disciplines’ similar expressions of
struggle. From this standpoint, the intent of this article is to
build on the efforts of occupational science and other disci-
plines such as nursing (Peter, 2011; Reimer-Kirkham &
Browne, 2006), the disciplinary home of the fourth author, to
mobilize social transformative efforts capable of capturing the
systemic and complex root causes of social and health
inequities.
For this purpose, we turn to the broader context of critical
qualitative inquiry, a multidisciplinary movement that similar
to occupational science is attempting to take up methodological
approaches to draw attention to issues of power and position-
ality in order to increase possibilities for social justice (Can-
nella, Perez, & Pasque, 2015). The expansion of critical
qualitative inquiry over the past two decades has been stimu-
lated by several sociopolitical and economic factors, such as
the global rise in neoliberalism; a political economic theory
that promotes postpositivist assumptions of “objective” science
and values, such as self-sufficiency, autonomy, and individu-
alism, shifting the responsibility for well-being and prosperity
onto individuals away from the community or government
(Gibson, 2016; Ilcan, 2009; Njelesani, Gibson, Nixon,
Cameron, & Polatajko, 2013). In response, many scholars have
reoriented inquiry to move beyond the individual experiences
of those marginalized/excluded and to focus on the sociopoli-
tical conditions that shape their possibilities for changing
oppressive structures (Cannella et al., 2015; Denzin & Giar-
dina, 2009; Hsiung, 2016; Meyer & Paraıso, 2012). As such,
the term transformation has been used within critical qualita-
tive inquiry in relation to the constraining impact of neoliber-
alism on collective opportunities for responding to issues of
injustice and exposing the power relations and conditions that
contribute to maintaining disparities (Kirkham & Browne,
2006).
This increasing integration of critical perspectives to
address social injustices reflects scholars’ need to (re)engage
with the foundations of qualitative inquiry as a reformist move-
ment that started in the early 1970s in academia, involving
diverse paradigmatic formulations and ethical criticism of tra-
ditional/positivist science (Schwandt, 2000). Although some-
what existing at the margins, critical qualitative inquiry has
created a multidisciplinary space focused on how qualitative
inquiry can be used for transformative intents which empha-
sizes the necessity of engagement with critical social theory
(Cannella et al., 2015; Johnson & Parry, 2015). As such, trans-
formative scholarship underpinned by a critical stance
embraces assumptions of inquiry that are far from being value
free or universally true, requiring researchers to take an explicit
political or moral stance while interrogating their positionality
in relation to the phenomenon under study (Fine, Weis,
Wesson,& Wong, 2003; Lather, 2004). For instance, the term
transformative is often associated with scholarship addressing
the hidden structures of power that maintain unequal power
relations in society that simultaneously create privilege and
disadvantage (Kincheloe & McLaren, 2005). Thus, at its core,
transformative scholarship embodies a commitment to reveal-
ing unequal relations or conditions that cause injustices and
altering such relations or conditions by promoting new view-
points and possibilities for resistance and justice (Cannella
et al., 2015; Kincheloe & McLaren, 2005).
Broadly, the interest for employing critical perspectives in
qualitative research for transformative purposes has been
articulated by various scholars, such as Denzin, Lincoln, Giar-
dina, Tuhiwai Smith, and Hsiung, among others, in recent years
(see Cannella et al., 2015; Denzin & Giardina, 2009; Hsiung,
2016; Johnson & Parry, 2015; Meyer & Paraıso, 2012). Yet, as
Cannella and Lincoln (2009) point out, the utilization of critical
perspectives to orient research does not ensure social transfor-
mation. For example, perhaps the most common problem seen
in the health sciences is that there is a partial adoption of
critical lenses, particularly in terms of an espoused critical
intent to readdress injustices, with a persistent reliance upon
dominant positivist/postpositivist assumptions that promote
singular truths and predetermined ways of thinking that do not
question the status quo (Farias, Laliberte Rudman, & Magal-
haes, 2016). As articulated by Cannella and Lincoln (2009),
“Although many contemporary researchers claim to use critical
qualitative research methods (and we are among those), these
inquiry practices often do not transform, or even appear to
challenge, the dominant mainstream constructions” (p. 53).
Thus, to ensure that critical qualitative work maintains con-
sistency with its critical roots and social transformation pur-
poses, scholars continue to push away from the boundaries of
positivism/postpositivism in order to develop contextual under-
standings of the sociopolitical roots of injustices (Johnson &
Parry, 2015).
Drawing on the work of scholars who make the distinction
between research paradigms such as positivist/postpositivism
and critical (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005), we view paradigms as
dynamic commitments to philosophical assumptions and val-
ues that permeate and connect all dimensions of inquiry. As
such, conscious or unconscious of these connections, a
researcher’s approach to inquiry is inextricably linked to phi-
losophical assumptions, perpetuating dominant research para-
digms or seeking to disrupt them (Pasque, Carducci, Kuntz,&
Gildersleeve, 2012). Thus, a disconnection or unrecognition of
researchers’ standpoints often manifests as dangers to social
transformation and justice, especially when such an uncon-
scious paradigm is built from contradictory philosophical
assumptions (Pasque at al., 2012). In the next section, we turn
to two scholars who have offered up contemporary frameworks
for transformative scholarship to illustrate the limits of engage-
ment with social transformation stemming from epistemologi-
cal tensions. Building on concerns regarding critical qualitative
inquiry raised by scholars such as Cannella and Lincoln (2009),
we argue that the epistemological foundations and values that
2 International Journal of Qualitative Methods
guide transformative scholarship are integral to addressing
social, health, and other forms of inequities. We also argue for
combining critical and participatory traditions, and other forms
of critical qualitative research, as means to more fully embrace
the intent of transformative scholarship, particularly in relation
to the need for countering the individualizing tendencies of
neoliberalism.
Deconstruction Frameworks forTransformative Scholarship
In this section, we focus on two contemporary examples that
self-identify as transformative. One is a social justice/transfor-
mative design launched by Creswell (2015) and the other is a
transformative paradigm described by Mertens (2009). Our
intent is not to articulate the details of each of these framework,
but rather this deconstruction focuses on an epistemological
tension between their stated intentions and the ways in which
they frame transformative scholarship. It also demonstrates
how this tension ultimately means that these frameworks do
not align with critical qualitative inquiry.
According to Mertens, the emergence of a transformative
paradigm has been partly stimulated by an increasing aware-
ness of the need for other paradigmatic options in research
evaluation and education psychology, fields largely dominated
by positivist/postpositivist thinking (Mertens, 2009). This
increasing awareness has pushed scholars as herself “to provide
a different avenue of approach to solving intransigent
problems” such as discrimination, marginalization, and oppres-
sion (Mertens, 2009, p. 3). Accordingly, to “solve” ongoing
global inequities, Mertens’ transformative paradigm emerged
as an overarching metaphysical framework that can support
marginalized groups through research and evaluation that
attempts to use results to enhance social justice (Mertens,
2009). Similarly, Creswell launched a social justice mixed
methods design (also called transformative, emancipatory) as
an alternative approach for studies that focus on “improving the
lives of individuals in our society today” (2015, p. 7) and seek
to call for specific changes by “taking a theoretical stance in
favor of underrepresented or marginalized groups” (Creswell &
Plano Clark, 2011, p. 49).
Our aim in this section is to go beyond the stated critical
intent of these transformative frameworks to remediate social
issues and ally with those experiencing marginalization and to
examine Creswell and Mertens’ work as examples of contem-
porary attempts to frame and prescribe how to do transforma-
tive scholarship. This critical analysis focuses on three
problematics that we connect to the failure to embrace and
enact a critical epistemological and axiological frame. First,
we raise concerns regarding how these frameworks appear to
take up a key aspect of positivist/postpositivist epistemology
by naturalizing reality or accepting how an issue has come to be
dominantly framed as essentially true. Second, we articulate
the dangers inherent in promoting an individualistic perspec-
tive in interpretations of injustices. Third, we describe the risks
of disconnecting researchers’ moral values and political stance
from their work.
The Problem of Naturalizing Reality and Adopting anObjectivist Stance
The analysis of Creswell and Mertens’ frameworks allows us to
observe how social transformation efforts can be carried along
with common positivist/postpositivist tendencies that risk
neglecting complex processes and structures that accept or
maintain oppressive practices. One of these tendencies relates
to the naturalization of reality, as it presents itself as “real” or
“true,” which is characteristic of positivist/postpositivist epis-
temological assumptions that conceive reality as “given”
(Chamberlain, 2000; Eakin, 2016). This location tends to pro-
mote notions of objective reality, that is, reality as preexisting
or already there, static and detached from its social construction
and the researcher, and therefore possible to control and mea-
sure by the researcher (Alvesson & Skoldberg, 2009). For
example, this positivist/postpositivist tendency is reflected in
how “the problem” is examined. More specifically, Creswell’s
design seems to study predetermined problems given to the
researcher/evaluator without questioning “who/what is
helped/privileged/legitimated and who/what is harmed/
opposed/disqualified” by framing a problem in a particular way
(Cannella & Lincoln, 2009, p. 54). Such lack of questioning of
the problem, as it is given or predefined, positions the phenom-
enon under study as being independent of the observer, which
in turn limits researchers’ abilities to draw on critical lenses to
question how the problem has come to be constructed and by
whom and how it might otherwise be seen.
This positivist/postpositivist tendency can also be seen in
the way qualitative inquiry is positioned within Creswell and
Mertens’ frameworks for transformative scholarship. In both
cases, qualitative research is outlined as a “toolbox” or
“cafeteria,” where scholars can pick and choose methods sepa-
rated from their philosophical stances (Eakin, 2016; Holstein &
Gubrium, 2012; Pasque & Perez, 2015). As such, this framing
influences how qualitative data are collected and analyzed, that
is, through an objectivist lens that naturalizes and reduces real-
ity to “what is seen” using specific technical means, which in
turn can be unproblematically combined with what works
(Chamberlain, 2000; Eakin, 2016). As result of this disconnec-
tion of inquiry from philosophy and theory, qualitative research
becomes positioned in a service role that can “humanize sta-
tistics, enhance buy-in from researcher subjects or end-users,
and explain conflicting or unexpected results” (Eakin, 2016,
p.116) and critical qualitative inquiry is not achieved.
Furthermore, such objectification of reality can be inferred
from Mertens’ framework which promotes descriptive
approaches that capture “snapshots” in time that can be used
to assess community needs (see Mertens, 2009, chap. 5). This
naturalization of reality as static and as waiting to be captured
tends to promote description as the primary objective of
research at the expense of interpretation or deconstruction, that
is, thinking about (i.e., interpreting, conceptualizing) the
Farias et al. 3
phenomenon under study through a theoretical lens and ques-
tioning how it has come to be understood (Chamberlain, 2000;
Cheek, 2008). A positivist/postpositivist focus on description
can promote stopping at “what” questions (e.g., what are the
needs of a community, what are the probable solutions to those
needs) instead of moving into “how” and “why” questions
necessary within critical qualitative inquiry to examine the
conditions that maintain oppression or disadvantage and that
can be altered to promote justice (Santos, 2014; Sayer, 2009).
As such, the danger of overemphasizing description is that
issues of social (in)justice can be perceived as out there, wait-
ing to be solved through a list of prescriptive strategies or steps
that risk disconnecting injustices from social processes and
power relations.
From a critical standpoint, social transformation has become
a major rationale for rejecting naturalization and objectification
tendencies, promoting a process of denaturalization or decon-
struction of what appears to be true, including what is assumed
to be problematic, in order to transform it (Sayer, 2009). This
position assumes that naturalizing and objectifying reality as
static positions the knower as an external and passive individ-
ual in relationship with his or her context (Motta, 2013). As
articulated by Freire “a person is [assumed to be] merely in the
world, not with the world or with others; the individual is
spectator, not re-creator” (2006, p.75, original italics). As such,
this passivity is opposed to processes of transformation in
which individuals are conceived as actors of their own eman-
cipation. Thus, we propose a denaturalization rationale as fun-
damental for processes of social transformation, since it
promotes moving beyond identifying injustices to reinforce
people’s capacities to challenge and disrupt the root causes
of oppression (Sayer, 2009).
The Problem of Individualization
A second tendency that seems to underlie Mertens and Cres-
well’s frameworks relates to the process of individualization
where “individuals are disembedded from existing social rela-
tions and traditional sources of social identity, such as social
class” (Bolam, Murphy, & Gleeson, 2004, p.1356). Although
the transformative paradigm and social justice design promote
engagement with communities to enhance researchers’ cultural
sensitivity and competence, these attempts seem to be used as a
means to achieve higher validity (see Mertens, 2009, chap. 3).
As such, Mertens and Creswell’s efforts for considering peo-
ple’s views seem to focus on obtaining a more accurate descrip-
tion of reality rather than enabling critical, in-depth
understandings of injustices, which aligns with a positivism/
postpositivist preference for generating a valid report.
This tendency to focus on achieving a valid reading of real-
ity, that is, decontextualized from sociohistorical factors and
power relations, runs the risk of obscuring the wider structures,
practices, and discourses that generate privilege and disadvan-
tage (Bolam et al., 2004). This failure to place individuals
within context in complex ways may means that Mertens and
Creswell’s frameworks can inadvertently (re)produce
injustices by reducing them to individual and private experi-
ences. The resulting individualization can perpetuate injustices
by placing blame, shame, and responsibility on the individual
(Bhaskar, 1989/2011; Wright, 2010). Since the complex socio-
economic and historical roots of structural inequities are
neglected, the promotion of individualization within social
transformative frameworks runs the risk of (re)orienting trans-
formative efforts toward fixing the individual instead of
addressing the social structural issues that shape peoples’ lives
(Farias et al., 2016). At the same time, individualistic interpre-
tations of injustices seem contradictory to the term “social” in
social transformation from which it is possible to infer a social
or collective orientation which implies that human emancipa-
tion depends on the transformation of the social world and not
just on the individual inner self (Bhaskar, 1989/2011; Wright,
2010).
What is more, this tendency toward individualization is pro-
moted within contemporary contexts influenced by neoliberal-
ism that privilege values such as self-sufficiency and autonomy
(Gibson, 2016; Ilcan, 2009). This tendency is often operatio-
nalized by discourses that conceptualize issues of injustice as a
matter of individual choice/responsibility and/or self-
determination (Bolam et al., 2004, p. 1359). As such, research
that fails to question individualization risks obscuring the
inequities produced through neoliberally informed discourses
and the practices they shape.
From a critical standpoint, the focus on validly capturing an
objective reality is problematized based on the assumption that
reality is contextually situated and complex and therefore can-
not be captured as a single and static form. A fundamental
assumption that underlies critical qualitative inquiry is its
opposition to the separation of individuals from contexts
(Wilson-Thomas, 1995). On these grounds, social transforma-
tive efforts that attempt to achieve an objective and neutral
representation of reality are seen as insufficient when dealing
with social matters that demand taking into account the wider
social macro-processes (i.e., historical, socioeconomic, and
structural factors) that open up and limit people’s access to and
possibilities for participating in society (Alvesson & Skold-
berg, 2009; Laliberte Rudman, 2014). For example, issues of
oppression have a strong interrelation with the history of the
land or territory in which individuals reside such that many
groups experience oppression due to a history of colonization
within their land which perpetuates the status of those in power
(Arredondo, 2008). Hence, while Mertens and Creswell’s fra-
meworks attempt to support the transformative efforts of indi-
viduals and groups that experience systematic disadvantages,
their epistemological location risks reducing social matters to
individualized and decontextualized experiences.
The Problem of Disconnecting Researchers’ Values
A third tendency that is possible to infer as underlying Mertens
and Creswell’s framework is the emphasis on disconnecting
researchers’ moral values and political stance from their proj-
ects. Allied with the objectivist epistemology of positivism/
4 International Journal of Qualitative Methods
postpositivism, this axiological position assumes that research-
ers can study a phenomenon without influencing or being influ-
enced by it (Lincoln, Lynham, & Guba, 2011). In other words,
who the researcher is—that is, his or her disciplinary position,
social characteristics, and political stance—does not and
should not matter for the process or outcomes of research.
For instance, Creswell’s social justice design encourages
researchers to select the “best” worldview (Creswell & Plano
Clark, 2011), such as Mertens’ socially transformative para-
digm, for their attempts to improve social justice, thereby
implying that a worldview can be chosen for pragmatic reasons
as something separate from the researcher. Although Mertens
proposes integrating a process of self-reflection into research,
there is little or no acknowledgement of researcher’s values and
political stance regarding social justice in the description of
Creswell and Mertens’ frameworks. In fact, the emphasis on
including a social justice lens throughout the study to ensure its
social justice nature (e.g., including groups experiencing mar-
ginalization) seems to serve as a catch-all umbrella to deal with
the issue of values in research.
Within critical forms of qualitative inquiry, it has increas-
ingly been recognized that researchers consciously and/or
unconsciously bring assumptions and perspectives to their
research (Bochner, 2000). Within transformative work, such
assumptions and perspectives need to be continuously interro-
gated given that they may at times be at odds with the social
justice goals and lens selected for a specific study. For exam-
ple, researchers’ belief systems regarding what is right/healthy/
good/just can vary substantially across the globe, which can
become problematic when conducting social justice/transfor-
mative research that attempts to be objective and value-free.
Researchers may fail to perceive different stances and misun-
derstand silences, producing what Santos (2014) calls a
“sociology of absence” (p. 164) which is structured through
the researcher’s values (e.g., what is desirable for a margin-
alized group). As a result of these variations among value
systems, researchers may risk imposing their own worldview
onto others and/or causing injustice in one area when trying to
promote justice in another because of a lack of critical reflex-
ivity on the value systems they bring into their research (Bail-
liard, 2016). For example, Creswell and Plano Clark suggest
that researchers may “decide how best to refer to and interact
with participants” (2011, p. 195) in order to avoid stereotypical
labels for participants. To illustrate their point, they provide an
example of a mixed methods study of individuals with disabil-
ities (Boland, Daly, & Staines, 2008). In presenting this exam-
ple, they highlight that interviewers in the qualitative phase
used inappropriate language and etiquette related to disability
and therefore were given “specific training on the social model
of disability, etiquette, and language when interviewing clients
with disability” (cited in Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011, p.
195). In doing so, this stance implies that researchers are capa-
ble of separating their assumptions from the research process
through engaging in training, neglecting the multilayered influ-
ences of researchers’ values on how they relate to participants
and how these values shape the process of interpretation of
individuals with disabilities experiences. This also implies that
beyond employing correct techniques (e.g., avoiding stereoty-
pical labeling of participants), there is little concern regarding
researchers’ identities, locations, values, and ways of thinking
about the population or issue under study which is problematic
since it can perpetuate researchers’ uncontested practices. Fur-
ther, suggesting “specific” training for researchers runs the risk
of objectivizing and categorizing the population under study,
overlooking the pluralistic ways of being and thinking among
participants experiencing similar conditions.
Moreover, from a critical qualitative stance, disconnecting
researchers’ values, moral, and political stance from social
justice projects can be seen as a disadvantage. For instance,
Creswell’s theoretically based stance does not take into con-
sideration the positionality of the researcher to embrace social
transformation or the process of research as a means to increase
awareness and change. Rather, it focuses on “recommending
specific changes as a result of the research to improve social
justice” (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011, p. 96) which are
assumed to be taken up unproblematically by the population
under study. Thus, a focus on outcomes or recommendations
rather than considering how populations might interpret and
apply these plans for action limit researchers’ abilities to
engage in value-added forms of analysis that seek to understand
their own posture toward the phenomenon under study as well
as the position of people affected by it (Cheek, 2008; Eakin,
2016).
From a critical standpoint, it is assumed that the type of
knowledge being sought is far from being value-free or uni-
versally true, and therefore, it is essential to conduct ongoing
interrogation of researchers’ moral or political stance and posi-
tionality with relation to the research purpose and population
under study (e.g., whose side is the researcher on?) (Fine et al.,
2003). Thus, we argue that critical reflexivity as an “act of
interrogating one’s situatedness in society, history, culture, and
how this may shape one’s values, morals, and judgments at
both individual and social levels” (Phelan, 2011, p.165) can
help researchers to question how they themselves are influ-
enced by dominant discourses that perpetuate marginalization
and oppression (Sayer, 2009). In parallel, the concept of social
transformation has increasingly been used within critical qua-
litative inquiry to call for an emancipatory agenda that
embraces social justice as both a political and an ethical com-
mitment (Denzin & Giardina, 2009; Kincheloe & McLaren,
2005). As such, it is essential to engage in processes of dialogue
with those who experience oppression/injustice to avoid impos-
ing our appraisals of what is “just” or “unjust,” and collabora-
tively construct a more socially responsive and justice-oriented
research.
Discussion: Reclaiming the Potential of theTransformative Paradigm
Based on the analysis and three problematics presented earlier,
we propose to promote transformative scholarship by returning
to its critical roots as a means to more clearly differentiate
Farias et al. 5
transformative scholarship from frameworks that seem to be
aligned with positivist/postpositivist assumptions. In particular,
we understand critical theory as a paradigm that encompasses a
range of diverse theories (e.g., feminist, poststructural, decolo-
nizing, Marxist, queer theory) and positionalities connected
through key shared aspects (Kincheloe & McLaren, 2005).
Some scholars (Lincoln et al., 2011) consider all participatory
approaches as being part of a distinct paradigm (i.e., participa-
tory), but we are working with participatory perspectives as
part of the critical paradigm.
Although we have highlighted that a key aspect of work
embedded within the critical paradigm includes “its commit-
ment to questioning the hidden assumptions and purposes of
competing theories and existing forms of practice and respond-
ing to situations of oppression and injustice by giving rise to
new possibilities” (Farias & Laliberte Rudman, 2016, p. 3),
work embedded within this umbrella has been criticized for
failing to translate its motivation to actions that enhance social
justice (Denzin & Giardina, 2009; Sayer, 2009). Thus, in this
section, we provide a brief overview of the limitations and
strengths of the participatory and critical traditions when used
separately drawing on literature from critical social science,
international development, and community-based practice.
By introducing these limitations and strengths, we advocate,
aligned with advancements in critical participatory action
research (e.g., Stoudt, Fox, & Fine, 2012; Torre, Fine, Stoudt,
& Fox, 2012), for creatively combining critical and participa-
tory traditions and other forms of critical qualitative research as
ways to move transformative scholarship into more critically
informed, action-oriented, and social justice directions.
An Overview of Participatory and Critical Traditions
Participatory. The roots of participatory research can be traced to
northern and southern traditions (Wallerstein & Duran, 2008).
In the global north, the need for participatory inquiry was
prompted by events in the 1950s and 1960s related to the civil
rights and antiwar student movements in the United States. As
such, this northern tradition can also be linked to Lewin’s work
on action research and experiential learning (1951), Fals-Bor-
da’s participatory action research (1979), and Skolimowski’s
participatory mind (1994). On the other hand, the southern
tradition of participatory ways of creating knowledge can be
traced to the emergence of pressing social and economic issues
in the global south such as the military dictatorships that
emerged between 1973 and 1989 in Chile, Argentina, Bolivia,
Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. This tradition developed in the
south is rooted in Freire’s work on adult literacy for cultural
action (1988), Marxist critics, liberation theology, and a recog-
nition of the colonizing role of research and education within
marginalized communities. While it is beyond the scope of this
article to expand on each stream, we recognize their influence
on participatory research and how this tradition is continuously
evolving and changing into diverse research forms such as
Black participatory action research and critical participatory
action research from the Public Science Project (Lykes,
2001; Stoudt et al., 2012; Torre, & Ayala, 2009; Torre et al.,
2012).
In this section, we draw particular attention to Heron and
Reason’s articulation of participatory because of its great influ-
ence on what today is known as participatory inquiry.
Heron and Reason formalized these ideas in 1997, coining
the term “participatory” as the ground for inquiry that involves
people’s experiential knowledge. In particular, Heron and Rea-
son’s vision for a participatory approach started developing
during their work on cooperative inquiry, a model designed
by Heron in 1968–1969 to emphasize a reciprocal relation
between people involved in a study. Their vision focused on
the process of two or more individuals researching a topic
together using a series of cycles in which people explore the
world “from within,” moving between their experiential
knowledge and the process of reflecting together on it (Heron,
1996; Heron & Reason, 1997). Thus, in terms of strengths,
Heron and Reason’s participatory framework introduces the
possibility of doing research with people, instead of about
them. It also presents self-reflection as part of the research
process in order for the participants to reach self-awareness
as a way to reach human flourishing (Heron, 1996; Heron &
Reason, 1997).
Heron and Reason’s participatory vision and contemporary
participatory research forms have been widely promoted and
discussed from the mid-1980s onward (Neef, 2003).
However, after a boom period throughout the 1990s, in
recent years, increasing criticism of how participatory inquiry,
specifically participatory action research (PAR), has been
taken up has materialized (e.g., Cooke & Kothari, 2001;
Hickey & Mohan, 2004; Masschelein & Quaghebeur, 2006).
For instance, similar to concerns raised in our critique of Mer-
tens and Creswell’s frameworks, one forefronted concern is for
the use of PAR as a toolbox disconnected from philosophy and
theory. This issue has been related to its increasing reduction to
the diagnostic stage of problems and priorities, which in turn
has perpetuated an instrumental character and a myth of instant
analysis of local knowledge (Cooke & Kothari, 2001). For
instance, Cleaver (1999) argues that this instrumentalization
of PAR and focus on “getting the techniques right” to ensure
the success of such projects, risks the disengagement of partic-
ipation from its original political motivation (p. 36).
Another issue present in the literature is that most partici-
patory research forms pay insufficient attention to the hetero-
geneity within the groups with whom they work (e.g., gender,
age, and social position) and to conflicting interests among
them (Lavigne Delville, Sellamna, & Mathieu, 2000). In line
with this issue, participatory research forms have been criti-
cized for becoming too focused on the local, failing to connect
local issues to broader systems of power relations through
which people are disempowered (Hickey & Mohan, 2004;
Mohan & Stokke, 2000). Akin to our earlier forefronting of
the problematic of individualization, this implies that wider
issues related to social conditions (e.g., history of colonialism,
institutionalism) that create and maintain marginalization and
inequity often are left out in participatory projects. As
6 International Journal of Qualitative Methods
articulated by Cooke and Kothari (2001), “an emphasis on
micro-level of intervention can obscure, and indeed sustain,
broader macro-level inequalities and injustices” (p. 14).
Critical. Critical work encompasses multiple critical theories
that are always evolving, creating a dynamic theoretical space
(Kincheloe & McLaren, 2005). These multiple theories are
held together ontologically by a view of reality based on power
relations that are socially and historically mediated. This strug-
gle for power leads to interactions of privilege and oppression
that can be based on, for example, race or ethnicity, socioeco-
nomics, class, gender, mental or physical abilities, religious
affiliation, or sexual orientation. Thus, in terms of strengths,
critical work facilitates the introduction of issues related to
oppression and power to inquiry, and the examination of the
root causes of these issues (Cannella & Lincoln, 2009).
Overall, critical work has been largely promoted because of
its commitment to questioning and exposing oppressive struc-
tures which gives it a potential emancipatory character (Sayer,
1997). However, scholars have pointed out that although crit-
ical work is underpinned by an emancipatory motivation, its
inconclusive nature can limit its intent to identify inequities and
injustices without acting against them (Cannella & Lincoln,
2009; Sayer, 2009). As such, critical work has been criticized
for overemphasizing the questioning of reality, risking turning
its work into a sort of swamp of interminable criticism and
deconstructions (Finlay, 2002; Sayer, 2009).
Furthermore, Bhaskar (1986) and others have argued that
since the main problem many times is not finding the cause of
oppression but finding alternatives that are less problematic,
questioning reality and enabling people to reveal the source of
their suffering conditions are not sufficient for generating
emancipation. Thus, for many scholars, claims regarding the
potential of critical work for social transformation need to be
moderated by recognizing that this work often is disconnected
from generating feasible alternatives of action (Freire, 2006;
ISSC, IDS, & UNESCO, 2016). This issue of applicability cuts
to the heart of critical scholars who have been criticized for
constructing a society so oppressive that the scope of possible
actions tends to shrink into a vanishing point, leaving the issue
of social transformation at an ideological rather than practical
level (Stirk, 2005).
(Re)engaging transformative scholarship with the critical paradigm.Based on the criticism of the critical and participatory tradi-
tions presented earlier, scholars have started combining these
traditions to provide a more fruitful space for advancing trans-
formative scholarship and bringing back an explicit commit-
ment to social justice and political engagement. As such,
scholars are drawing on critical theorists such as Freire among
others to integrate a critical analysis of structures of oppression
within participatory forms of research to value knowledge that
has been historically marginalized and challenge broader rela-
tions of power (e.g., Fine & Torre, 2004; Torre et al., 2012;
Stoudt et al., 2012). This movement brings examples of critical
PAR as one way to reinvigorate transformative scholarship
rooted in notions of democracy and social justice by engaging
with people’s experiences to generate a deeper understanding
of how locally situated issues are shaped by broader processes
without staying only at an ideological level. Other examples of
this work are Fox and Fine (2015) who combine participatory
action research and relational approaches to illustrate how the
collective production of knowledge through research builds
youth leadership capacity. Similarly, the first author of this
article is exploring the potential of a critical dialogical
approach as a space to enact critical reflexivity and social
transformation (forthcoming).
As such, transformative scholarship provides a space for
combining participatory processes in which community part-
ners reflect on their diverse experiences of injustices, and crit-
ical examination of the broader social, economic, and political
forces that shape these experiences. Further, transformative
processes can combine critical examination of local issues in
relation to broader social processes to not only point out “what
is not right” but also express a commitment to people’s signif-
icant knowledge and capacities to (re)negotiate their position
within power relations, and design actions that are suitable for
their particular context (Cooke & Kothari, 2001; Hickey &
Mohan, 2004; Torre et al., 2012). Thus, creative combinations
of critical and participatory traditions and other forms of crit-
ical qualitative research in conjunction with social transforma-
tive goals have the potential to enact research as a social
process of gathering people’s knowledge to generate actions
designed to challenge the status quo. From this combination,
transformative scholarship could be (re)configured as an epis-
temological and methodological space that considers and
addresses individual, collective, and local as well as institu-
tional and structural dimensions.
Conclusion
In this article, we have examined two models of transformative
scholarship. We concluded that while a commitment toward
social justice indicates a desire to promote change, relying on
positivist/postpositivist assumptions often risks accepting
problems as they are dominantly defined, perpetuating indivi-
dualistic interpretations of injustices and neglecting the socio-
political construction of injustices. As an alternative, we
propose to reframe transformative scholarship within the crit-
ical paradigm by embracing epistemological values and meth-
odologies that promote a more complex understanding of
people’s experiences and the conditions that (re)produce
injustices.
Although we acknowledge that enacting transformative
scholarship is a difficult and complex challenge, particularly
in contemporary sociopolitical contexts that often emphasize
methodological “prescription” (Chamberlain, 2000), this arti-
cle does not aim to suggest predefined ways to do transforma-
tive scholarship. Rather, we emphasize how important it is to
“think about” how social justice goals could shape the ways
research is conducted (e.g., partnerships, collaboration, knowl-
edge generation, design of action (Cheek, 2008) and recognize
Farias et al. 7
that the implications of transformative scholarship for research
and practice entail diverse possibilities. From this perspective,
researchers’ values, assumptions, and interpretations should
become explicit in order to facilitate a deeper understanding
and engagement with the value system being put forward in the
context they are situated (Fine et al., 2003). Along these lines, it
seems essential to (re)connect transformative scholarship to
political stances, epistemological standpoints, and social jus-
tice goals by taking up inquiry in innovative ways to enact
relevant and adaptable projects for specific social settings.
In line with this, embracing transformative scholarship can
facilitate recognition of researchers’ moral responsibility and
commitment to the very persons and communities with whom
they engage. This potential for seeking to work with commu-
nities in democratic, inclusive, and respectful ways builds on
the two traditions presented in this article, critical and partici-
patory, and aligns with calls to work toward greater equity in
society. Further, such a transformative stance may help those
disciplines and researchers embracing a critical intent to seek
support for people’s resistance, strengths, and rights to have a
say in actions which affect them and claim to generate knowl-
edge about them, thereby disputing conservative perspectives
of representation and moving away from an “expert” position
(Denzin & Giardina, 2009; Santos, 2014). Thus, considering
the potential of transformative scholarship, we advocate for
shifting away from dominant models of scientific, value-free,
and positivist inquiry to promote creative ways of bringing
together people’s aspirations, political or moral stances, and
possibilities for transformation.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflict of interest with respect to
the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for
the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The pri-
mary author received a doctoral fellowship from the Ontario Trillium
Foundation to support this research.
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10 International Journal of Qualitative Methods
IJTR 2017; 4(1): 18-24
Research Article
Donna M. Mertens
Transformative research: personal and societalhttps://doi.org/10.1515/ijtr-2017-0001received 6 September, 2017; accepted 12 October, 2017
Abstract: Transformative researchers have the potential to contribute to both personal and societal transforma-tion. In this article, I argue that the two are intertwined and that personal transformation is a necessary compo-nent of research that is designed to support change at the societal level in the form of furthering human rights and social justice. I describe a transformative framework that examines assumptions related to ethics, the nature of reality, epistemology, and methodology that can guide researchers who choose to address both the personal and societal levels of transformation. Ethically, researchers need to examine who they are and who they are in rela-tion to the community in which they are working. This process goes beyond self-examination to a critical analy-sis of the cultural blinders that might obscure our ability to contribute to positive impacts. I put forth the hypoth-esis that if we design our research so that it explicitly addresses issues of discrimination and oppression that the probability of personal and social transformation increases.
Keywords: Transformation; Ethics; Indigenous; Deafness; Discrimination
1 Transformative researchIn this article, I argue that framing this as an either/or question will not lead to the desired goal of transforma-tion. Rather, the question would be more helpfully framed as a both/and question. To wit: What is the nature of research that has a transformative goal for the participant, researcher, and society? And, if we accept that the trans-formative goal is multi-leveled, then what are the impli-
cations for the methodologies that we use to conduct this research?
Two of my personal experiences stand out for me when I contemplate the idea that transformation neces-sitates the intertwining of the personal and the societal. First, my family moved from Washington State to Ken-tucky in the early 1960’s when I was just entering seventh grade. When I lived in Washington State, I never saw any Black people, but their presence was immediately appar-ent to me upon arriving in Kentucky. What I noticed was that the Black people did not live in my neighborhood or go to my school or swimming pool. The highest concen-tration of Black people that I saw lived in the inner city without air conditioning in the sweltering humidity found in Kentucky. I asked my teacher why Black people did not go to my school. She patted me on the head and said “Honey, they just prefer to be with their own kind.” I did not know the word cognitive dissonance at that time, but that is what I felt. That was a transformative moment for me as I sensed that there was something wrong with this picture. Without being fully consciously aware, it was at that moment that I decided that my life course would be to find out what was wrong with this picture and what could be done to eliminate discrimination that limited the life chances of Black people and members of other margin-alized communities. This was a personal transformation that led to a commitment to societal change.
The second personal experience occurred many years later at a conference in Amsterdam. I finished a presenta-tion about transformative research that focused on soci-etal transformation; it was followed by a question and answer period. Dr. Bagele Chilisa, then an Associate Pro-fessor at the University of Botswana, asked me if I had con-sidered the transformation of the researcher themselves. Her question took me by surprise; we agreed to meet to talk about it over dinner that evening. At that time, I was in the process of writing Transformative Research and Evaluation (Mertens, 2009) and our conversation led me to reconsider the book outline. I realized that I needed to add a chapter between the introduction and philosophi-cal framing for transformative research and the chapter on the development of the focus of the research study. This added chapter is titled: Self, Partnerships, and Relation-ships and it focuses on how the researcher can come to *Corresponding author: Donna M. Mertens, Gallaudet University,
USA; E-mail: [email protected]
Open Access. © 2017 Donna M. Mertens, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCom-mercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License. Unauthenticated
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Transformative research: personal and societal 19
understand themselves in the research context in a way that facilitates building trusting relationships with the members of the community in which the research occurs. Thus, the intertwining of personal transformation with the goal of societal transformation was a critical element to further understanding of how to conduct research that addresses discrimination and oppression.
I present these two experiences in part as a response to Walton’s (2014) discussion of the transformative para-digm in which she describes my work and those of other transformative methodologists as follows: “These writers are seeing transformative research as a means of achieving change at a community and institutional level. However, transformation can also take place on a personal level; and indeed the argument can be made that transformation at any level has to begin with transformation of the indi-vidual (p. 30).” We see an emphasis on transformation of the individual in studies such as those conducted by Pratt and Peat (2014) that focuses on the transformation of a student and thesis supervisor or by Farren, Crotty and Kilboy (2015) in which they studied the transformation of teachers through the use of information and communica-tions technology in a second language classroom.
This emphasis on the transformation at an individ-ual level is appropriate and necessary. However, it does not necessarily engage with issues that are integral to transformation at a societal level. This is an issue raised by Walton who suggests a linkage between engagement in research that can lead to personal transformation and wider political, social, and cultural transformations.
Walton and I may share more common ground than is evident in the quotation I provided from her 2014 article. We both call for a change in the understanding of how to frame and conduct research that leads to a more just world. We both recognize that traditional approaches to research have not
produced a sustainable world or a stable and fair global economy where everyone is fed, cared for and educated…So, while the achievements that are a consequence of the pro-gress of science can be commended by those living in material comfort, it is important to remain aware that the suffering of countless numbers of people continues, and the problems of mental health, exploitation, drug addiction and poverty exist in wealthy countries. There is an urgent need to radically evalu-ate the research methods we use, and to create new and trans-formed research methods which will address, at an individual and collective level, the urgent social, ecological and econo-mic crises that threaten our human existence (Walton, 2014, p. 40-41).
My work on the transformative paradigm as a philosophi-cal framing for research is based on the premise that if we
are to contribute to transformative change, then we must conscientiously design our research to incorporate that goal into the research. I hypothesize that the probability of transformative change increases when we explicitly acknowledge that this is our goal and we include mech-anisms in the research to support that change. Therefore, I offer the transformative paradigm as a framework for designing research that is inclusive of both personal and societal transformation.
2 Personal research experiences that led to the development of the transformative paradigmEarly in my research career, I coordinated research efforts for the College of Medicine at the University of Kentucky. In that position, I published a paper that questioned the use of high science scores as the main criteria for admit-ting students to the program. I suggested that other criteria might be considered such as ability to relate to people and representation of diverse racial/ethnic groups and gender. I moved from that position to coordinating the evaluation of a project that focused on areas of high poverty in the United States. I struggled to accurately represent the con-cerns of the people in those areas and sought methods to insure that their interests were heard and acted upon. From there I went to the Ohio State University to support policy decisions related to vocational education. I was able to conduct research studies on the experiences of people with disabilities, high school drop outs, students in isolated rural areas and inner city areas, women in the workforce, and people in prison. Throughout all of these experiences, I had a deep feeling of discomfort because most of my research was conducted at a distance using extant data bases or survey instruments. I knew that I needed to find a position that would allow me to work with marginalized populations, rather than “on” them.
To this end, I accepted a teaching position at Gal-laudet University, the only university in the world with a mission to serve the Deaf community. I began my work there with the idea that I wanted to figure out how to enter this marginalized community in a respectful way and how to conduct research with this community. Of course, I had to learn American Sign Language and Deaf culture. What I did not anticipate, and what I am very grateful for, is the learning that occurred in me about how to respectfully conduct research with Deaf people. Those experiences led me to develop the transformative paradigm as a way
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20 Donna M. Mertens
to incorporate the cultural aspects, as well as to address issues of discrimination and oppression in ways that led to personal and societal transformation.
As I immersed myself in the scant literature availa-ble at that time (the early 1980’s), I came to realize that there is a uniqueness to the experiences of Deaf people, but they also shared characteristics with other margin-alized communities. Not only that, the Deaf community itself was heterogeneous and represented a microcosm of the world in terms of privilege based on a variety of dimensions of diversity. In other words, Deaf people come from different countries, racial/ethnic groups, genders, sexual identities, and economic backgrounds. Therefore, I sought a way of understanding how to frame research that would be responsive to the full range of characteris-tics that are used as a basis of discrimination and oppres-sion across the globe. Thus, the transformative paradigm arose because of concerns raised by members of margin-alized communities and their advocates that research was not accurately representing their experiences, nor was it adequately contributing to the improvement of their living conditions (Mertens, 2015b; Mertens & Tarsilla, 2015; Mertens & Wilson, 2012). The impetus came from marginalized communities who saw a great deal of evalu-ation being done “on” them, yet they noted that “little has changed in the quality of the lives of people who are poor and/or discriminated against based on race/ethnicity, dis-ability, deafness, gender, Indigeneity and other relevant dimensions of diversity” (Cram & Mertens, 2015, p. 94) (cited in Mertens, 2018, p. 21)
The Transformative Paradigm’s Philosophical Assumptions and Methodological Implications
The transformative paradigm offers a meta-physi-cal umbrella that brings together philosophical strands associated with feminism, critical theory, Indigenous and post-colonial theories, as well as disability and deafness rights theories. “It is applicable to people who experi-ence discrimination and oppression on whatever basis, including (but not limited to) race/ethnicity, disability, immigrant status, political conflicts, sexual orientation, poverty, gender, age, or the multitude of other character-istics that are associated with less access to social justice. In addition, the transformative paradigm is applicable to the study of the power structures that perpetuate social inequities (Mertens, 2009, p. 4).”
Four philosophical assumptions constitute the essen-tial elements of the transformative paradigm:
– Axiology or the nature of ethics and values – Ontology or the nature of reality
– Epistemology or the nature of knowledge and the rela-tionship between the researchers and those who par-ticipate in or are affected by the research
– Methodology or the nature of systematic inquiryThese four elements were identified by Guba and
Lincoln (2005) as the core assumptions that guide researchers in their inquiry process. The following section highlights the meaning of these assumptions in a trans-formative paradigm and integrates the personal and social levels of transformation that are relevant for each assumption.
3 Transformative axiological assumptionThe transformative axiological assumption holds that ethical research needs to be designed so that it promotes social justice and furthers human rights. The starting point for ethical research is to understand the meaning of being culturally respectful in the communities in which we work, consciously addressing inequities, recognizing a community’s strengths and resilience, and providing for reciprocity to the community members.
The concept of cultural respect provides a platform for examining the intertwining of the personal and soci-etal aspects of transformation. Researchers occupy a position of privilege because their “roles typically confer social powers to define reality and make impactful judg-ments about others…Researchers have an ethical respon-sibility to proactively assess and address the ways in which our personal repertoire of perceptual and interpre-tive resources may ignore, obscure, or distort more than illuminate” (Symonette, 2009, p. 280). Privilege is a soci-etally determined position, thus the researcher needs to be cognizant of the dimensions of diversity that are used as a basis of both privilege and marginalization. In order to engage in culturally respectful research, researchers also need to critically examine their own values, beliefs, and assumptions to get beyond the cultural lens that they bring with them into the research context. Self-awareness is necessary but not sufficient; researchers must also make efforts to find out how they are viewed by the study partic-ipants. Symonette asks the critical question: “Who do the persons that you seek to communicate with and engage perceive you as being? (p. 289).” The participants’ percep-tions of the researcher is a crucial piece of the puzzle and will determine the quality of relationships that are devel-oped, as well as the data that will be collected.
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Transformative research: personal and societal 21
Walton (2014) supports the importance of researchers moving beyond the cultural lens of scientific material-ism that has dominated in the West in order to be open to meanings of ethics that come from spiritual, religious, and Indigenous traditions. The intertwining of the con-cepts of cultural respect and spirituality became evident to me when I was working with two Indigenous research-ers on identifying the pathways that Indigenous research-ers negotiate to become professionals in their fields. The challenges they encountered did not arise from a lack of desire for research, but rather from a frustration that their cultural beliefs were not recognized or accepted as valid by many external researchers, as is captured in this quote:
The ways of Indigenous research are as old as the hills and the valleys, the mountains and the seas, and the deserts and the lakes that Indigenous people bind themselves to as their places of belonging. It is not that Indigenous peoples are anti-research…the ”bad name” that research has within Indigenous communities is not about the notion of research itself; rather it is about how that research has been practiced, by whom, and for what purpose that has created ill-feelings (Cram, Chilisa, & Mertens, 2013, p. 11).
One example of a spiritual values from the African Indig-enous community is described by Chilisa (2012). Ubuntu calls upon researchers to conduct their studies with an awareness of the effects of the research on all living and nonliving things – those that come before us, those who are with us now, and those who will come in the future. With this as a guiding ethical principle, how would researchers change the way they design and conduct their research? What does this ethical imperative imply for our research methods if we want to insure that we not only addresses personal transformation, but also contribute to action for transformative purposes at the societal level?
4 Transformative ontological assumptionThe transformative ontological assumption holds that there are multiple versions of what is believed to be real and that these beliefs are generated based on multiple factors. The versions of reality come from different soci-etal positionalities associated with more or less privilege, such as gender, sexual identity, race, ethnicity, religion, economic status, disability, and deafness (Mertens, 2015). There are consequences associated with accepting one version of reality over another. The vignette that I used to open this chapter gives an example of a version of reality
that was determined by White people with middle income status. They explained segregation as a matter of prefer-ence on the part of Black people to stay with “people of their own kind”. When Black people and advocates for racial equity are asked about the reasons for segregation, they describe a society that discriminates on the basis of a person’s skin color and country of origin. The conse-quence of accepting one of these versions of reality over the other should be clear to the reader. In order to support societal transformation, researchers also need to engage in personal transformation in their understandings of the origins of different versions of reality and consequences of accepting one version of reality over another.
In the early days of social scientific research, reality was defined in terms of what could be observed and meas-ured, thus distancing the notion of personal qualities from the collection of data. Walton (2014) calls upon us to be more open to possibilities about the nature of reality in the form of considering the reality that comes from rec-ognizing inner feelings, intentions, feelings of meaning-fulness and spirituality. She proposes that social science researchers pay attention to the work of quantum physics and their conceptualization of an underlying unity to reality. “An implication is that reality exists ultimately as a unity in which everything is intrinsically interconnected; and our sensual perception of ‘separateness’ in the exter-nal world is an illusion” (Walton, 2014, p. 34) This depic-tion of reality aligns with the African concept of Ubuntu described earlier in this article and holds implications for the connection between personal and societal levels of understandings.
This exploration of the meaning of reality and their sources leads us to consider the meaning of transforma-tion itself. What is accepted as the reality of transforma-tion? This question has different answers depending on who you ask. In the context of transformational learn-ing, Smith (2016) described transformation in the class-room by describing the way lecturers transformed their approach to teaching through creative uses of technology. Jones (2015) described transformation in the lives of dis-enfranchised youth so they can transform their lives from being victims of neglect and abuse, to one where they are able to flourish as a trusting young person with a positive sense of identity and self-esteem. And, Hammond (2016) described transformation of teachers through engagement in blogging that emphasized critical reflexivity. These transformations focus on the individual level while at the same time having wider social implications.
When Indigenous people are asked about transforma-tion, they describe the need for decolonization in terms of research methods, as well as in the form of the return of
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their land, resources, and freedoms that were taken from them (Cram & Mertens, 2015). This is a transformation that is clearly focused at the societal level, but Indigenous people emphasize that such a transformation needs to come through building relationships amongst themselves and with non-Indigenous people. When people with intellectual disabilities were asked about their priorities for transformation, they replied that they wanted to live in a world where they can live “ordinary” lives (National Health Committee, 2003). This definition of transforma-tion has societal and personal level implications. Societal attitudes and barriers that limit life chances for people with disabilities must be part of the transformation, along with personal transformation of those in power and those with disabilities.
5 Transformative epistemological assumptionThe transformative epistemological assumption centers on the meaning of knowledge as it is seen through multi-ple cultural lenses and the importance of power inequities in the recognition of what is considered to be legitimate knowledge (Mertens, 2015). This means that researchers need to be cognizant of their own power and cultural lenses and how they influence their relationships with research participants. As Indigenous researchers and members of other marginalized communities have taught me, it is all about the relationship. At a personal level, researchers need to experience a transformation in the way they enter communities respectfully in order to build relationships that recognize the knowledge that community members bring to the context. For example, as a non-Deaf person conducting research with the Deaf community for over 30 years, I needed to shift my self-perception as the expert in research contexts to recognize that in matters of deafness, I am not the expert. People who have lived experience of deafness are the experts in that regard and this knowledge has to be acknowledged and valued. The researcher has a responsibility to design strategies that allow those with traditional power and those who have been excluded from power to be engaged in respectful ways. This calls upon researchers to transform their roles to support the exper-tise that exists in the communities in which they work in meaningful ways.
This transformation might also involve a growing awareness of and appreciation for the types of transper-sonal knowledge that Anderson and Ball (2011) associ-ate with transformative outcomes, but are not typically
included in social science research. These include (1) intuitive knowledge that we have without waiting for the rational mind to come into consciousness; and (2) inte-gral knowledge that integrates discipline-based knowl-edge with tacit, intuitive, body-based, and feeling-based knowledge to support psycho-spiritual growth. This is in keeping with the transformative paradigm’s assumption about knowledge in that these are types of knowledge that are valued by different cultural groups. For example, Indigenous researchers value knowledge that is rooted in a spirituality manifest by connectedness with all that has come before, all that is here now, and all that will be. Such knowledge may come to community members in many forms, even in the form of dreams (Cram, Chilisa, & Mertens, 2013).
6 Transformative methodological assumptionThe transformative methodological assumption does not dictate any specific methodological approach. Rather, it aligns with the previously discussed transformative assumptions in that the voices of those marginalized in society need to be brought into the research planning and implementation in meaningful ways. This means that an analysis of power relations needs to be conducted as part of the process of bringing focus to the research, as well as throughout the entire research process. Very importantly, a conscious part of the design is to incorporate pathways to action for personal and societal transformation. This is not left to chance.
To this end, transformative researchers often adopt a cyclical mixed methods approach, using the earliest stages of the research study to identify who needs to be included and how they can be included (Mertens, 2018). This also entails a transformative process at the individual level that supports the development of trusting relationships and working with members of marginalized and powerful communities to understand the cultural complexities and their implications for transformation. The relationship building phase can be followed by a phase for contextual analysis during which existing data and literature can be reviewed. It might also include group process strategies to bring to light the types of tacit and integral knowledge that form the basis for transformation. The information collected from these phases are used to develop an inter-vention that has potential for transforming individuals and society. This intervention is usually pilot tested with a small group so that it can be adjusted as necessary. The
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Transformative research: personal and societal 23
research on implementation can use a variety of designs from case study to participatory action research to rand-omized controlled trials. These have to be conducted with a full sense of the meaning of ethics within the research context. While the implementation phase is occurring, data are collected about processes and outcomes of the intervention. When the final data are collected about the effects of the intervention, these are brought back to the community using a variety of strategies for interpretation and use of the findings. The use might be for transforma-tive changes within a particular school or classroom or for a change in policy that could affect a wider constituency.
The transformative methodological assumption aligns with Walton’s (2014) recommendation to collect data from diverse sources in diverse ways that honor the intuitive and integral knowledge needed for transforma-tion. Walton suggests the value of transpersonal methods to train researchers and participants in recognizing intu-itive knowledge. This can include engaging in imaginal dialogue when developing the research topic, using an expansive literature review strategy that allows for chal-lenges to personal values and assumptions, combining intuitive research methods with conventional quantita-tive, qualitative, and mixed methods, and integrating the results of all the data collection with the literature and sharing it in meaningful ways with diverse audiences. “Intuitive perception can help achieve richer forms of understanding when used to complement processes such as analytic reasoning and information gained from the conventional five senses (p. 37).”
7 ConclusionsThe transformative paradigm provides a philosophical framework for designing research that has the potential for changes at the individual and societal level. For me, this framing prompts me to engage differently with study participants, ask different kinds of research questions, and design studies that are focused on supporting changes that challenge an oppressive status quo. The inclusion of knowledge that is based on intuition and dreams does not eliminate the importance of knowledge that comes from more traditional methods of data collection. It provides an opportunity to be responsive to differences in cultural understandings of what knowledge is and provides an opportunity to come to richer understandings about the meaning of experiences and changes.
I agree with Walton (2014) and Anderson and Braud (2011) about the need for a different conceptualization
of research methodology in order to be responsive to cul-tural diversity and different ways of knowing. I add to their thinking the need to design studies that explicitly address issues of discrimination and oppression. Individ-ual change is a desirable goal; however, individuals who experience systemic discrimination find that their life chances are limited by an oppressive system. Thus, there is a need to address both the individual and societal in transformative research.
I also agree with Walton (2014) and Anderson and Braud (2011) that the proposed use of inclusive transform-ative strategies in research does not negate the impor-tance of what is known about good research practice. Transformative strategies can complement and enhance traditional research approaches. Transformative research-ers support the use of multiple methods for the conduct of studies, as well as the development of interdisciplinary approaches to solve difficult problems. I believe that incorporating the concepts of both personal and societal change will serve the world well. I end with this quote from Walton (2014, p. 36) that captures the essence of this argument: “There is a continuing emphasis on the need for methodological pluralism, where researchers from a range of disciplines including the social sciences, natural sciences, humanities and arts, can engage in individual and collaborative approaches to generating knowledge that will address issues of global concern.”
References[1] Anderson, R., & Braud, W. (2011). Transforming Self and
Others through Research: Transpersonal Research Methods and Skills for the Human Sciences and Humanities. New York, USA: SUNY Press
[2] Chilisa, B. (2012). Indigenous methodologies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
[3] Cram, F., Chilisa, B., & Mertens, D.M. (2013). The journey begins. In Mertens, D.M., Cram, F., & Chilisa, B. (Eds.), Indigenous pathways into social research, pp. 11-40. Walnut Hills, CA: Left Coast Press
[4] Cram, F. & Mertens, D.M. (2015). Transformative and Indigenous frameworks for multimethod and mixed methods research. In S. Hesse-Biber & B. Johnson (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of multimethods and mixed methods research inquiry (pp. 91–110). New York, NY: Oxford University Press
[5] Farren, M., Crotty, Y., & Kilboy, L. (2015). Transformative potential of action research and ICT in the second language (L2) classroom. International Journal of Transformative Research, 2(2), 49-59
[6] Jones, J. (2015). Professional engagement in child protection: promoting reflective practice and deeper connection with the lived reality for children. International Journal of Transformative Research, 2(2), 30-38
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[7] Hammond, M. (2016). How ideas of transformative learning can influence academic blogging. International Journal of Transformative Research, 3(1), 33-40
[8] Mertens, D.M. (2018). Mixed methods design in evaluation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
[9] Mertens, D.M. (2015). Research methods in education and psychology: Integrating diversity with quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
[10] Mertens, D.M. & Tarsilla, M. (2015). Mixed methods evaluation. In S. Hesse- Biber & B. Johnson (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of multimethod and mixed methods research inquiry (pp. 426–446). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press
[11] Mertens, D. M., & Wilson, A. T. (2012). Program evaluation theory and practice: A comprehensive guide. New York, NY: Guilford Press
[12] National Health Committee. (2003). To have an “ordinary” life, Kia whai oranga “noa.” Wellington, New Zealand: National Health Committee
[13] Pratt, D., Peat, B. (2014). Vanishing point – or meeting in the middle? Student/supervisor transformation in a self-study thesis. International Journal of Transformative Research, 1(1), 1-24
[14] Smith, D. (2016). An intuitive approach to learning delivery in higher education. International Journal of Transformative Research, 3 (2), 8-14
[15] Symonette, H. (2009). Cultivating self as responsive instrument. In D.M. Mertens & P. Ginsberg (Eds.), Handbook of Social Research Ethics, pp. 279-294. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
[16] Walton, J. (2014). What can the ‘transpersonal’ contribute to transformative research? International Journal of Transformative Research, 1(1), p. 25-44
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IJTR 2019; 6(1): 27-35
Open Access. © 2019 Ida Widianingsih, Donna M Mertens, published by Sciendo. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attri-bution alone 4.0 License.
Research Article
Ida Widianingsih*, Donna M Mertens
Transformative research and the sustainable development goals: challenges and a vision from Bandung, West Javahttps://doi.org/10.1515/ijtr-2019-0005received 21 March, 2019; accepted 2 August, 2019
Abstract: The transformative research lens incorporates ideas such as consciously addressing power differences with strategies that allow for the inclusion of the voices of the full range of stakeholders, including those who are most marginalized. The goal of transformative research is to support the development of culturally responsive inter-ventions that foster increased respect for human rights and achievement of social, economic, and environmental justice. In this article, we use a case study from Universi-tas Padjadjaran in Indonesia to illustrate the application of a transformative approach to research in a complex setting in which the rights of those living in poverty are not respected and economic development occurs at the expense of environmental degradation. We discuss a transformative framing for research associated with the development of interventions designed to support West Java, Indonesia in moving forward toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the goals estab-lished by the United Nations to address inequities. The road to transformation is not simple or smooth, but the combination of a transformative approach to research with the development of transformative interventions provides a hopeful pathway.
Keywords: transformation; sustainable development goals; economic development; social justice; envirnomen-tal justice
The transformative research lens incorporates ideas such as conducting a contextual analysis to fully understand the challenges in the research context, and consciously addressing power differences with strategies that allow for the inclusion of the voices of the full range of stake-holders, including those who are most marginalized. The goal of transformative research is to support the devel-opment of culturally responsive interventions that foster increased respect for human rights and achievement of social, economic, and environmental justice (Mertens, 2020; 2018; Mertens & Wilson, 2019). The transforma-tive paradigm is defined in terms of four assumptions, building on the early work of Guba and Lincoln (1989) who identified these assumptions that represent different paradigms in educational and social research: the axio-logical assumption about the nature of values and ethics, ontological assumption about the nature of reality, the epistemological assumption about the nature of knowl-edge and the relationship between the researcher and the stakeholders, and the methodological assumption about the nature of systematic inquiry.
In this article, we provide an explanation of these assumptions as they are reflected in the transformative paradigm and illustrate their application to a research study in West Java, Indonesia as it attempts to achieve the SDGs that were developed by the United Nations to “end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all” (United Nations, 2018). Leaders who support the attain-ment of the SDGs have recognized the need for transform-ative action in order to address the societal barriers that have limited progress for those most marginalized on this planet (Waddell and Oliver, 2018). Given this recognition by the international community of the need for trans-formative action, we see the transformative approach to research in alignment with the need for transformative action. Thus, the purpose of this article is twofold: first, to explore the meaning of the transformative approach to research, and second, to illustrate its application in the complex and challenging context of West Java. *Corresponding author: Ida Widianingsih, Padjadjaran University,
West Java, Indonesia, Email: [email protected] M. Mertens, Gallaudet University, Washington DC 20002, USA
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28 Ida Widianingsih, Donna M Mertens
1 Transformative Axiological AssumptionThe transformative axiological assumption provides insights into the nature of ethical research that furthers human rights and social, economic and environmental justice. The salient values that constitute this assumption include: cultural respect; explicitly addressing inequities; inclusion of reciprocity (i.e., giving back to the commu-nity); recognition of community resilience and the inter-connectedness of all things (living and nonliving); and building relationships. The implication of this assump-tion for researchers is the need to structure the study to be inclusive of all voices and use strategies that lead to the development of interventions that are respectful and that support positive transformative change in the form of increased social, economic, and environmental justice.
2 Transformative Ontological AssumptionThe transformative ontological assumption holds that reality is multi-faceted and that there are many different opinions about what is real. Versions of reality emanate from different social positionalities and thus are accorded greater privilege depending on whose version of reality is accepted. Following from the transformative axiologi-cal assumption, researchers who work within this para-digm recognize that some versions of reality sustain an oppressive status quo and others provide a pathway for enhanced justice and human rights. For example, differ-ent versions of reality exist about how to address food scarcity arise in West Java based on the contrast between government officials’ and rural farmers’ version of what is best for their economic development and protection of the environment. The government of Indonesia has a version of reality regarding food production that puts value on increased use of pesticides. The farmers and those who are dependent on water from the river into which the pes-ticides flow have a different version of reality about food production. The consequences of accepting one version of reality over another has significant consequences in terms of the health of the farmers, the surrounding communi-ties, and the river.
3 Transformative Epistemological AssumptionThe transformative epistemological assumption addresses the nature of knowledge and the relationship between the researchers and the community members. The nature of knowledge is considered with regard to the histori-cal location of knowledge, i.e., what is considered to be valid knowledge. How do historical factors influence whose knowledge is accorded value? Following from the transformative ontological assumption, what are the consequences of privilege in terms of the value placed on knowledge that comes from different constituencies and positionalities? A second aspect of the epistemological assumption is the relationship between researchers and communities. In keeping with the transformative axio-logical assumption of cultural respect, the transformative epistemological assumption emphasizes the importance of establishing culturally responsive relationships with the full range of stakeholders in the study. Issues of power need to be explicitly addressed and strategies need to be developed that allow for respect for knowledge that comes from the full range of stakeholders. In order to capitalize on the power from the people who are not in formal posi-tions of power, it may be necessary to support the develop-ment of coalitions from the grassroots. We examine how this is being addressed in West Java later in this article.
4 Transformative Methodological AssumptionThe transformative methodological assumption pro-vides a lens for critically examining the assumptions that researchers use as a basis for making methodological decisions. The transformative methodological assumption aligns with the previous assumptions in that the design needs to incorporate culturally responsive strategies that support positive change to increase social, economic, and environmental justice. The use of a transformative lens combined with the mixed methods (both quantitative and qualitative integrated into the design) provides oppor-tunities to be responsive to multiple stakeholder groups and to capture the complexity of the processes needed for transformative change. The design also needs to incorpo-rate the building of relationships and use of the findings throughout the study to critically examine and inform practices and policies.
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5 Transformative Mixed Methods DesignA transformative mixed methods design (Mertens, 2018) typically begins with a phase of relationship building. This includes the identification of the relevant stakehold-ers and development of strategies for working together that are culturally respectful and provide a safe space for sharing ideas. Power differences need to be considered so that members of marginalized communities’ voices are not lost. This phase is followed by a contextual analysis that involves collection of quantitative and qualitative data to get a better picture of the economic, historical, political, and demographic variables that are relevant in that context. The third phase of the transformative mixed methods design uses the data from the first two phases to inform decision makers, developers, and communities about potential interventions that can be pilot tested. At this phase, data can be collected about the strengths and weaknesses of the potential interventions.
If the situation is very complex, many types of inter-ventions might be needed and the cycle of testing and refining might extend over a long period of time. If an intervention or set of interventions is found to be effec-tive at the pilot level, then they might be scaled up and implemented in a wider population. While these phases of transformative mixed methods are presented here in a linear manner, in the complexity of the world, there may be a re-visiting of the various phases throughout the course of the study. The critical feature of transformative research is that the findings are used throughout the study to support culturally responsive, transformative change.
6 Application of the Transformative Approach to Research in West JavaIn this section, we illustrate the transformative approach with a project conducted by researchers at the Universi-tas Padjadjaran (hereafter referred to as Unpad) in West Java, Indonesia that addresses the intersection of social, economic and environmental justice. The transformative methodological assumption calls for the use of a trans-formative lens, mixed methods, cyclical designs (using data throughout the course of the project to understand the context, the nature of the problem, identify potential culturally responsive interventions, determining the effect of the interventions). In this case study, data are collected
on an on-going basis to inform decisions throughout the research cycle (DRPMI, 2017).The project is in its early stages and thus provides insights into framing a study that is geared toward supporting the transformative change that is needed to achieve the SDGs in this part of the world. Conditions of high poverty and unemployment with environmental degradation in West Java, Indonesia provide an opportunity to understand the cultural and contextual complexities that present challenges. It supports the development of strategies to address those challenges in order to make progress toward the transformative change needed to achieve the SDGs.
6.1 Phase 1 of Transformative Mixed Methods Study: Building Relationships
The first author is the principal investigator for the study reported herein. She is part of The Center for Decentrali-zation and Participatory Development Research (CDPD)/(Pusat Studi Desentralisasi dan Pembangunan Partisipatif) (hereafter referred to as The Center) under the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Unpad. The Center includes staff who are focused on understanding the contextual factors that support or inhibit transformative change. In addition, they conduct research to develop and test a mul-titude of possible interventions that are needed to address issues of youth disenfranchisement, lack of environmen-tally just employment opportunities, provision of capac-ity building and technology access, food scarcity, access to clean water, increased human trafficking, sustainable farming practices, and enhanced participatory govern-ance (Widianingsih, Gunawan, & Rusyidi, 2019).
The transformative epistemological assumption’s focus on building relationships, i.e., addressing issues of power; building capacity; and developing action-oriented, community-based coalitions, is evident in the approach the university is taking in West Java. The research pro-cesses, ideally, should involve all development stakehold-ers, including local government institutions, business sector, academics, NGOs, and local communities (Widian-ingsih & Morrell, 2007; Widianingsih, McLaren, & McIn-tyre-Mills 2017). Two research centers at Unpad partnered to conduct the research reported in this article: The Center for Decentralization and Participatory Development Research (CDPD) and the SDGs Center, a research center that was established to support the Indonesian govern-ment in achieving the SDGs agenda. The university has also formed a partnership with government to improve the use of data for policy decisions.
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30 Ida Widianingsih, Donna M Mertens
At the university level, the Center engages with the faculty of the department of social and political science to involve students in the generation of ideas about what needs to be done. These relationships are formalized in a service course that has been developed; this is discussed further in the pilot phase of the research study.
At the community level, the CDPD researchers have developed relationships with farmers, the farmer’s wives, and youth who live in the rural areas. The strategies for involvement with these stakeholders include travel to the rural areas to host opportunities for sharing concerns and ideas for improvement. The university and commu-nity members use a mixed process for planning from the grassroots; people in the community have a discussion about what they think is important in development; like a wish list. Then they bring it to the village level, then dis-trict level, then provincial, and on to the national level. Even with this participatory model, government does not necessarily give the people what they want.
Many aspects of a transformative approach are evident in the work that is being done in West Java. However, challenges continue. Based on interviews that Ida con-ducted with 24 planners at the district level, many aspects of development in Bandung seem to have improved but development in terms of environmental health and issues for women and youth have not progressed. Youth con-cerns are not included in planning documents; there is no mention of disability. Gender is mentioned but it is not supportive of women to be engaged in meaningful ways that will benefit them economically. The Center is working to improve strategies for engagement with youth, women, and people with disabilities (Widianingsih & Paskarina, 2018; Widianingsih & Paskarina, 2019).
6.2 Phase 2 of Transformative Mixed Methods Study: Contextual Analysis
The transformative axiological assumption leads to analysis of the elements of cultural respect, reciprocity, relationships, recognition of the resilience in the com-munities, and consciously addressing inequities and promoting social, economic and environmental justice that are relevant in the West Java context. A complicated picture emerges from the data in West Java. Data collected thus far indicate that economic development has occurred at the expense of social and environmental justice.
The contextual analysis, with the transition to SDGs starting in 2015 under President Jokowi’s leadership, included documents that addressed Indonesia’s com-mitment to the SDGs agenda. This process revealed that
Presidential decree No. 59/2017 strengthens Indonesia’s commitment to achieving the SDGs through develop-ing national policy frameworks such as the Roadmap to 2030, National Action Plan, and Local Government Action Plan (all documents that were reviewed as part of the contextual analysis). For this, the National Develop-ment Planning Board (BAPPENAS) adjusted Indonesian development planning framework and policy towards the SDGs agenda (Post MDGs). The Indonesian government integrated 94 out of 169 SDGs agendas into Medium Term National Development Plan (2015-2019) through four main development pillars (social, economy, law and govern-ance) (Yusuf, Komarulzaman, Alisjahbana, Anna, Ghina, & Megananda, 2018 ; Bappenas, 2017).
Ida and her staff interviewed six provisional govern-ment officials in the West Java province who are members of the West Java Development Planning Board. These respondents are responsible for the implementation of SDGs agenda. They consider Indonesia’s agenda to be a very ambitious plan due to development problem com-plexities related to poverty, unemployment, and ine-quality. In terms of the SDGs agendas, West Java provin-cial government has an obligation to design a five-year Local Action Plan for Sustainable Development (Rencana Aksi Daerah Tujuan Pembangunan Berkelanjutan, RAD-TPB). This is reflected from the achievement of West Java Medium Term Development Indicators (2013-2018) that only 15 out of 41 indicators could be reached as the initial targets. For example, access to education remains low and unequal economic development persists (Bappeda Jabar, 2018).
Researchers at the SDGs Center at Unpad used doc-ument analysis and focus groups with all the planners and programmers at the provincial and district levels to examine West Java’s achievement of SDGs agenda (Pemer-intah Provinsi Jawa Barat, 2019; Yusuf et.al., 2018). They reported that West Java’s low SDGs achievement is most probably caused by lack of innovative development pro-grams and policies. The business as usual policy and approaches failed to address economic inequality and sus-tainability. In West Java, social justice is an issue because youth cannot find employment in their villages. They move to the cities where they take low paying and some-times illegal jobs; this also results in an increase in human trafficking. For example, the document review revealed that there is a growth in prostitution networks; this is evident in analyzing the advertisement for jobs such as a masseuse or house cleaner, but really it is for prostitution. The lack of jobs is an economic issue. Textile factories have stepped in to create jobs, but they are also respon-sible for high levels of air and water pollution, dumping
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20,000 tons of waste and 340,000 tons of wastewater into the Citarum River every day (Tarahita & Rakhmat, 2018).
The Citarum River, the third largest river in Java, is extremely polluted, not only with industrial chemicals, but also with plastic rubbish, trash, waste, and dead animals. Its levels of lead are 1,000 times worse than the U.S. stand-ard for drinking water. Yet, 25 million people depend on it for drinking water, irrigation of crops, and energy produc-tion. The result is that many people who use this heavily polluted water and breath the contaminated air now suffer from health problems such as scabies, infections, and respiratory distress. The transformative axiological assumption calls for researchers to include these aspects of social, economic, and environmental justice into their designs in order to support constructive pathways towards transformation (Tarahita & Rakhmat, 2018)
Unpad has made a commitment to support Citarum river restoration that is embodied in the establishment of Unpad Citarum Research Center that aims to integrate pre-vious and future research of Unpad academics related to Citarum River (Pusat Riset Citarum Unpad 2019).
An important issue that was identified in the con-textual analysis is that access to clean water is differ-ent dependent upon the citizen’s economic status. In Bandung, a large city in the West Java province, access to clean water is limited to certain groups of communities. Bandung’s population is 2,497,938 people (2017); 103,980 people (4.17 %) are considered poor. The water comes from the river and ground water but there is a water crisis due to lack of rain. Local government is not able to provide enough provide clean water for Bandung inhabitants, the Government Local Government Water Company (Peru-sahaan Daerah Air Minum, PDAM) could only serve 74% (1.789.836 people) of its community (PDAM Tirtawening 2013; Irawati, et.al 2013). Our research found that in the Bandung context, rich people have better access to water and better quality at a lower price. Since the service capac-ity of the Tirtawening PDAM is limited, urban poor do not necessarily have access to water pipelines, so they pay a great deal more to buy water. Based on Unpad’s Customer Satisfaction Survey conducted with 1011 customers in 2012, the cost of water provided by the PDAM as IDR 2.00 per liter, whilst water from street vendors would cost IDR 75.00 per liter (Irawati, et.al., 2013).
6.3 Phase 3 of Transformative Mixed Methods Research: Pilot Testing Interventions
Interventions have been developed and are being tested at many levels, reflecting the complexity of the context and the multiple stakeholder groups who are involved. Some of these interventions are shared below along with reports of the methods used to study their effectiveness and pre-liminary reports of the results.
Government Participatory Intervention: The govern-ment instituted an E-participatory planning process in Bandung; the mechanism is to use IT to allow the local government to communicate about their needs. With support of students and research assistants, the Center conducted surveys with 72 respondents who had experi-ences in the E-planning process of Bandung Municipality (Widianingsih et.al., 2018).
The results reveal there are still many challenges. For example, the IT mechanism that the government set up is not easy for many local people, even though they can use their mobile phones for the IT access. A skill gap exists particularly for older people who are not familiar with IT. It does not mean that the quality of planning is more participatory. It depends on who has access to the IT and is able to input the information. It is still driven by government officials who think they know more than the poor. A revision is needed to make it more participatory and accessible for poor and older people. The new plan-ning mechanism is only efficient for the government who controls the resources, but it does not help the poor or the disabled to be included in the planning process.
Participatory planning gave people an opportunity to say what they want; observation of the planning pro-cesses reveals that the data is not used as decisions are made up the line (Widianingsih, 2018; Widianingsih & Paskarina 2018; Widianingsih & Paskarina 2019). The Unpad team conducted 16 interviews with programmers in Bandung at the district, sub-district, and village levels. The results revealed that the participatory process as implemented does not mean that the quality of the plan-ning is better. The team also conducted observations at three different meetings for planning at these levels, with follow-up informal interviews with people at the meet-ings. The respondents reported that one problem is that government supports changes that are easily seen, i.e., progress that can be measured. But empowering people is invisible because it is not a product that can be seen. The problem is still there. They say they are using partici-patory planning but the situation is not changed. There is
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32 Ida Widianingsih, Donna M Mertens
no connection between what the government offers and what people need.
The interviews with local government officials revealed that they are encouraged to be more profes-sional; they developed performance indicators to measure what the government offices accomplish. In the past, gov-ernment workers did not have to do much work to get paid; however, this has changed. After the reform era, they introduced a system based on a performance index to measure the work in each department. For example, the department of trade and industry set up goals and then their salaries are based on achievement of the goals. This has backfired because if they set up a high goal, they may not make it and then they would not get paid. So, they set very low goals that are achievable.
Education for Government Officials: The university is trying to increase the capacity of local government to use evidence-based strategies for policy decision making in Bandung. Local government agreed to send some stu-dents to the university to study the real problems in their region and how they can use evidence to support policy decisions. Local government has experience with the communities and if they can add their ability to use data, they can jointly develop an agenda for SDGs in West Java (BP2D & Flinders University 2017).
The local government officials who come to attend the university program offer hope for change in the future. This is a new program and so its impact is not known yet (Unpad 2018). Document reviews and interviews of the participants at the beginning of the program revealed a lack of understanding of inclusive planning – they talk about gender and think that means their plans are inclu-sive. Programmers from 20 different departments were interviewed; the participants said they did not want to look bad. There is a need to have an intervention to understand what it means to do inclusive planning. In local government, most of the money is used for salaries and administration; very little is used to support actual development programs. There is very little cross depart-ment communication, so they are not aware of what is being done by other departments or at different levels. Some of the programs, like transportation or water cannot be handled by one department; it takes work at several departments and at different levels to solve the problems (Widianingsih & Paskarina 2018; Widianingsih & Paska-rina 2019).
Service Courses for Students to Engage with Commu-nities. Unpad has also made changes in their curriculum and requirements for students to conduct research based on an increased connection with people living in the local villages. The students work in local villages so that the
university is not isolated; they work with people from the rural areas. As a part of their program of study, students go to the village and talk with the people. Every Friday for one semester, they go to the field and have direct discus-sions with community leaders using participatory strate-gies. This has been going on for 4 years in order to build a bridge between youth and community members. Addi-tional curriculum changes include a focus on transforma-tional leadership. The students learn to map development problems; stimulate economic growth, address the needs of poor people, and give hope for those who suffer from persistent problems (DRPMI, 2017).
The first author (Ida) conducted interviews with 6 local leaders from one village, 3 in another village, and a group of 12 women in another village to gather informa-tion about their perspectives of the importance of being inclusive in development and how to do that. The leaders say they have a desire to learn more about how to influ-ence the head of the planning board and his staff. Ida’s interviews and survey were used to ascertain their under-standing of inclusive development. The leaders say they want to see more visibility of inclusive development in their planning documents. Ida will do focus groups with the development planning board to gather more insights into their understandings of inclusive development. For example, the documents mention the importance of including women in the process as leaders (Widianing-sih & Paskarina 2018; Widianingsih, Tunawan & Rusyidi, 2019).
Advancement of Women in Public Sector Leadership: With regards to women’s leadership in the public sector, the first author conducted a collaborative project with Dr. Helen McLaren and Dr. Cassandra Star from Flinders University in Australia. The competitive grant, funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Australia, aims to build collaborations between the two countries and support the advancement of women in public sector leadership in Indonesia (IAA-DFAT 2019). As part of the collaborative project, the university plans to establish a Women’s Leadership Forum to support collaborative work and to change things. Fifty women came to West Java for leadership training and they will continue contact after they return to their homes. The intent is to encourage more women in leadership in the public sector. The uni-versity hopes to invite 50 women from different districts to discuss issues of culture; religion; gender roles; expec-tations for the role of the wife and husband; and lack of support amongst women for each other. At this stage, the research team with Unpad students are conducting face-to-face surveys with women officials in West Java Provin-cial, Bandung Municipality, and Bandung District gov-
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Transformative research and the sustainable development goals ... 33
ernments. To date, 174 questionnaires have been returned and analyzed (unpad.ac.id 2019). This survey is still in process and more responses are expected.
Interventions for Economic Development: The trans-formative ontological assumption holds that different ver-sions of reality exist and that these versions of reality come from the different social positions of the stakeholders. Some versions of reality continue to support an oppressive status quo and other versions of reality have the poten-tial to lead to increased justice and human rights. Focus groups with farmers, the farmer’s wives, young people, and local government officials that included 45 people, along with observations of farmers working were con-ducted over a full semester, meaning that the observers were present 24 times during one year. This provided an example in West Java that revealed that powerful eco-nomic interests view the needs of people in West Java differently than do those from different levels of govern-ment, and different from the villagers and farmers. The example of the different versions of reality regarding eco-nomic development and textile factories has already been presented. Another example that extends the example given previously related to feeding the large population of people in West Java. The government wants farmers to increase rice production and to increase production by using more pesticides and fertilizers. Farmers say that rice production requires more water than raising other crops and, as we have seen, clean water is difficult for farmers to get. The increased use of water leads to land degradation and further reduces the level of water available for other things. The farmers believe that growing more vegetables using the organic farming methods of the past is the best way to produce food. There is also a growing number of farmers who are raising cows for milk, but not in a sus-tainable way. The animals are kept in cages which is not healthy for the animals and the cows create air pollution. The government tried a biogas project but it did not work well. In addition, the waste from the cow cages goes into the river, polluting it even more (Widianingsih, 2018).
Based on the same data collected with farmers, their wives, young people, and local leaders, one solution that is being explored in a partnership between the university and the farmers is supporting the development of their skills to increase their abilities to market their coffee. The farmers also want to increase their connection with local government in order to get access to the resources they need to plant more coffee so that they can support themselves while they are waiting for the coffee to be har-vested and sold. The farmers say that they know how to grow good coffee but they do not get a good price for their coffee. Local leaders have identified a need to develop
markets for their coffee. The establishment of small coffee shops in the area could provide more jobs for the youth. The farmers also want to develop an online market for their coffee. This requires building the capacity of youth in terms of the use of technology for this purpose (Widi-aningsih, 2018a).
Intervention for Reducing Environmental Pollution: Students at the university studied waste water and solid waste in Bandung by means of reviewing documents from the water companies and the government, and observing the treatment of water and solid waste in their communi-ties. Their results revealed that local governments started a water treatment facility in the area; local governments had to work together to turn waste water into clean water. The disposal of solid waste is another problem that has surfaced because there is no room in Bandung to treat the solid waste, therefore; there is no recycling (Waskitawati, Widianingsih & Gunawan 2019). For many years, rubbish was dumped in one area, however, this resulted in a rubbish landslide in 2005 that killed almost 150 people. That area was closed, but where can they put the rubbish? Provincial government has introduced a recycling center but it has not started to work yet because they need more money. They want to do public private partnership. They introduced the bio-digest system but it has not worked well.
6.4 Phase 4 and 5: Scaling up interventions and implementation of utilization plan
The case study in West Java is still in flux. It is not a fin-ished project. In fact, an insight that the authors reached was that it might not be possible to have “an intervention that is scaled up” because of the need to be responsive to the complexity of the context. As understandings of the nature of the problems and the limitations of interven-tions become clearer, the teams need to be responsive to these changes.
While use of the findings from this case study has been made throughout the course of the study, it is prema-ture to think of a final phase for utilization of their find-ings. This represents another insight from the case study: In complex contexts, utilization needs to be planned throughout the study and then plans need to be adjusted as the study progresses. This is the strategy that is being implemented in the West Java case study; results of each data collection effort are used to inform the next steps.
One solution for the utilization phases might entail dissemination of findings in creative ways to stimulate action. For example, a video was made by French stu-
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34 Ida Widianingsih, Donna M Mertens
dents about the Citarum River; it became an interna-tional issue. Now the government is supporting a 7-year project to address the issues of pollution in the river. The government has also asked farmers to plant coffee in the region, however there is still tension regarding the need to increase planting of vegetables in the area.
7 ConclusionsThe conditions in West Java provide a real-life example of a context in serious need of transformative change. The researchers who are working in this area are using a trans-formative approach that is multi-pronged. They incorpo-rate the viewpoints of stakeholders from different parts of society and bring to visibility the voices of those who are marginalized, including people from rural areas, women, youth and people with disabilities. They use data gathered from a wide range of stakeholders to provide a contrast between the versions of reality held by some in power with those who are not in formal positions of power.
As we saw in West Java, the researchers organized coalitions of farmers and youth to develop solutions that seem to have potential for addressing issues of social, eco-nomic, and environmental justice. The university is also in a partnership with the government and with youth and rural people to improve solutions through the use of evi-dence-based planning. The issues of power that control economic decisions are not simple, nor are they all solved by the use of a transformative approach to research and program development. However, such an approach has been able to contribute to redressing power imbalances and to the development of culturally responsive interven-tions.
The transformative approach allows for data col-lection that documents the complexity of societal level change; it also makes visible the power relationships that are supportive or inhibiting that change. The implications of the case study reported in this article are broad because multi-lateral organizations such as the United Nations and International Development Evaluation Association (IDEA) are working with countries around the globe to support the transformation needed to achieve the SDGs. IDEAS (2019) has chosen Evaluation for Transformative Change as the theme for their 2019 Global Assembly. IDEAS did this based on the rationale that:
“transformational change is needed for our societies, economies and our relationship with the environment to become sustaina-ble. On many fronts the world needs transformational change to be able to reach the aspirations expressed in the SDGs and the
Paris Agreement: a world free of poverty; leaving no one behind; and ensuring a prosperous and equitable future in diverse and inclusive societies, with economies that increase wealth but not while undermining our food, clean air and living circumstan-ces, with a climate and biodiversity that safeguards the future of humankind. A transformational change is one that reshapes models, policies, structures, practices, culture and manage-ment.”
As the leaders and citizens of the world strive to achieve the SDGs, researchers need to adopt a transformative lens to support development of interventions that align with these goals. The case study presented here provides one illustration of the complexity and challenges of adopting a transformative stance in research designed to support the achievement of SDGs. This can serve as an example of innovative approaches to research that are needed for transformational change on a global level.
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• AROSE DURING THE YEARS (1980-1990)
SOCIOLOGICAL AND PSICOLOGICAL
THEORIES.
• SOCIAL JUSTICE AND MARGINALISED
PEOPLE.
Paradigm Methods (primarily)Data collection tools
(examples)
Transformative
Diverse range of tools -
particular need to avoid
discrimination. Eg:
sexism, racism, and
homophobia.
Qualitative methods with
quantitative and mixed
methods. Contextual and
historical factors
described, especially as they
relate to oppression(Mertens, 2005, p. 9)
E.g. ACTION RESEARCH
Taken from: http://www.iier.org.au/iier16/mackenzie.html
Critical theory
Neo-marxist
Feminist
Critical Race Theory
Freirean
Participatory
Emancipatory
Advocacy
Grand Narrative
Empowerment
issue oriented
Change-oriented
Interventionist
Queer theory
Race specific
Political
Adapted from Mertens (2005) and Creswell (2003)
Taken from: http://www.iier.org.au/iier16/mackenzie.html
ORIGINAL PAPER
Reviewing the Transformative Paradigm: A CriticalSystemic and Relational (Indigenous) Lens
Norma R. A. Romm
Published online: 8 March 2015� Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015
Abstract In this article I re-examine the tenets of the transformative paradigm as ex-
plained by Mertens in various publications. Mertens suggests that the transformative
paradigm (as she names it) encapsulates the positions of researchers who question
positivist/postpositivist- and interpretivist/constructivist-oriented approaches, which to
date have been ascendant in the field of social research. She argues (following critical
theorists) that researchers embracing a transformative paradigm as an alternative explicitly
bear social justice issues in mind so that their inquiries become intertwined with a political
agenda and are action-oriented towards generating increased fairness in the social fabric. In
the article I consider her arguments and I add additional angles to them with reference to a
number of authors (including myself) advocating critical systemic thinking-and-practice
and advocating Indigenous systemic approaches. I consider some implications of the re-
vised understanding of the transformative paradigm (and its relationship to ‘‘other’’
paradigms) for operating as a researcher.
Keywords Transformative paradigm � Systemic research practice � PostcolonialIndigenous paradigm � Action-oriented research � Active research
Introduction
This article begins with a discussion of Mertens’ argument regarding research paradigms,
and in particular the transformative paradigm, which she has named and elucidated in
various publications. She suggests that at present ‘‘no unified body of literature is repre-
sentative of the transformative paradigm’’, but there are various characteristics ‘‘which are
common to the diverse perspectives represented within it and serve to distinguish it from
N. R. A. Romm (&)Department of Adult Education and Youth Development, University of South Africa,P.O. Box 392, Pretoria 0003, South Africae-mail: [email protected]
123
Syst Pract Action Res (2015) 28:411–427DOI 10.1007/s11213-015-9344-5
the postpositivist and constructivist paradigms’’ (2010a, p. 21). She sets out to explicate
and to further spell out/develop) these characteristics. In this article I discuss her expli-
cation of the transformative paradigm with reference to her views on ontology, episte-
mology, methodology and axiology and the links between them within this paradigm. I
indicate that in different writings she offers somewhat different emphases, but her overall
purpose is to explore what ‘‘transformative’’ might mean in the context of research.
Mertens defines the transformative paradigm by drawing on and adapting various authors’
typologies, such as those supplied by Lather (1992) and Lincoln and Guba (2003), where
distinctions are made between emancipatory approaches (which she re-names as trans-
formative) and positivist/postpositivist-oriented, and interpretive/constructivist-oriented
approaches. (She also singles out a transformative versus pragmatic use of ‘‘mixed
methods’’, adding pragmatism to Lincoln and Guba’s typology.)
In the course of the article I introduce arguments offered by a number of critical
systemic thinkers, whose theory-and-practice is also (like hers) inspired by the critical
theoretical tradition. I deliberately hyphernate theory-and-practice here to point to what
Ivanov calls the ‘‘systemic idea of the relationship between theory and praxis in which the
two are inseparable’’ (2011, p. 498). I show how this way of understanding critical sys-
temic research means that knowing processes are not seen as separable from the con-
tinuing unfolding of social and ecological life (where everything is seen as fundamentally
connected). I relate these arguments to those of certain authors proposing the need to
feature Indigenous views on systems and on research more strongly as a way of de-
colonizing research practice and effecting transformation accordingly. I then consider how
all of these approaches offer views on how one can engage in research by being more
cognisant of its ‘‘active’’ component. I indicate that action-oriented research need not
necessarily mean following the traditional action research cycle. I conclude with some
considerations around including additional paradigms into typologies of what are under-
stood to be the ‘‘major’’ paradigms (as Mackenzie and Knipe put it), as set out in Table 1.
Mertens’ Explication of the Transformative Paradigm
Mertens indicates that she understands ‘‘transformative theory’’ as an umbrella term that
encompasses paradigmatic perspectives that are meant to be emancipatory, participatory,
and inclusive (1999, p. 4). She states that ‘‘the transformative paradigm is characterized as
placing central importance on the lives and experiences of marginalized groups, such as
women, ethnic/racial minorities, people with disabilities, and those who are poor’’. When
embracing this paradigm, efforts are made by inquirers to ‘‘link the results of social inquiry
to action, and [to] link the results of the inquiry to wider questions of social inequity and
social justice’’ (1999, p. 4).1
In order to spell out further the qualities of the transformative paradigm, she refers to its
underlying ontological, epistemological and methodological orientations. She elucidates
that ‘‘the transformative paradigm is based on ontological, epistemological and method-
ological assumptions that are different from those underlying the postpositivist and in-
terpretive/constructivist world views’’ (1999, p. 4). (She prefers to speak of postpositivist
views as these are more sophisticated arguments which have developed, and which do not
1 Mertens is here placing her discussion in the context of doing research toward program evaluation—buther statements can be seen as applying to all forms of research as she questions the distinction between‘‘evaluation’’ and ‘‘research’’ (1999, p. 5).
412 Syst Pract Action Res (2015) 28:411–427
123
presuppose that any statements about reality can become verified—rather it is recognized
that knowledge is always provisional.2) She outlines the differences between these para-
digms as follows.
She states (1999) that within a transformative paradigm the ontological question, ‘‘What
is the nature of reality and by extension, truth?’’ is not answered (as in postpositivism) by
assuming that we have some access to it via processes of science; nor is it answered (as in
constructivism) by asserting that there are multiple realities that are constructed in pro-
cesses of living and knowing. Rather, the ontological question is answered by ‘‘placing
various viewpoints within a political, cultural, and economic value system to understand
the basis for the differences’’—so as to understand how certain perspectives on reality
become privileged over others (1999, p. 5). How specific constructions of reality come to
be given more weight in society and how researchers can serve to undercut undue
privileging of views, are the (ontological) concerns of the transformative researcher.
As far as epistemology goes, she argues that the question of what ‘‘knowing’’ amounts to
is not answered by claiming (as in postpositivism) that the quest for objectivity (observing
from a somewhat distant and dispassionate standpoint) can lead to increased knowledge,
nor by simply asserting that the interaction between researchers and participants generates
the constructions that are developed in the research process (as in forms of interpre-
tivism/constructivism). In the transformative paradigm the manner in which researchers
relate with participants such that a fair understanding of key viewpoints is created and
such that the power of the researcher to frame questions does not overpower the ‘‘results’’
is considered as crucial (1999, p. 5).
Methodologically, Mertens states that the postpositivist paradigm is characterized as
‘‘using primarily quantitative methods that are decontextualized’’ (as the dominant
Table 1 Paradigms: language commonly associated with major research paradigms
Positivist/postpositivist Interpretivist/constructivist Transformative Pragmatic
ExperimentalQuasi-experimentalCorrelationalReductionismTheory verificationCausal comparativeDetermination
NaturalisticPhenomenologicalHermeneuticInterpretivistEthnographicMultiple participantmeanings
Social and historicalconstruction
Theory generationSymbolic interaction
Critical theoryNeo-marxistFeministCritical Race TheoryFreireanParticipatoryEmancipatoryAdvocacyGrand NarrativeEmpowerment issueoriented
Change-orientedInterventionistQueer theoryRace specificPolitical
Consequences ofactions
Problem-centredPluralisticReal-world practiceoriented
Mixed models
Mackenzie and Knipe had an additional term ‘‘Normative’’ in the first column, but I have removed it as Iregard it as somewhat out of place—given that positivism/postpositivism holds that scientists should strivefor value-freedom (objectivity) in the research process
Source: McKenzie and Knipe, 2006, p. 195 (http://www.iier.org.au/iier16/mackenzie.html) (Adapted fromCreswell, 2003, and Mertens, 2005)
2 She states that this can otherwise be called the ‘‘scientific method paradigm’’ (1999, p. 4).
Syst Pract Action Res (2015) 28:411–427 413
123
methods to which it accords most status). The interpretive/constructivist paradigm is
‘‘characterized as using primarily qualitative methods in a hermeneutical … manner (to aid
the interpretation of meanings as expressed by participants). These are its principal
methods, which are given more status in the research endeavor to add depth to the in-
vestigation. Mertens suggests that what is specific about the transformative paradigm is
that it might involve quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods3—but the community that
is most impacted by the research needs to be ‘‘involved to some degree in the method-
ological decisions’’. She therefore argues that what is important methodologically is that
when conducting research underpinned by a transformative paradigm, researchers confer
with key participants in defining which method(s) to use (and how). She cites, for instance,
a project where researchers used a strategy that ‘‘involved surveying disabled people
before conducting a survey to determine the effectiveness of the Americans with Dis-
abilities Act’’. She indicates that:
We used their responses in constructing both the design and the survey instruments,
recognizing—based on what we had learned from them—the need to ask probing
questions of business owners and operators not just about observable barriers, but
also about invisible ones, such as whether a blind person with a guide dog might be
refused entry to a cafe or restaurant. (1999, p. 10)
She cites another example, of how, in a court access project where she was one of the
researchers:
We designed the data collection forms with an eye towards facilitating transfor-
mative change. As part of the training programs for judges and other court personnel,
we invited deaf and hard of hearing people and their advocates to attend the training
workshops with representatives of the court systems in their state [with a focus on
creating action plans]. (1999, p. 11)
The research thus proceeded from initial data collection via forms which were designed
with key participants (from the deaf and hard of hearing communities), to the holding of
action-oriented workshops, which were co-designed with court personnel and representa-
tives of the deaf and hard of hearing) so as to make ‘‘plans for future actions’’ (1999, p. 11):
with the (initiating) researchers not shying from setting up participative change-oriented
inquiry processes where consideration/exploration of future options were seen as part of
the inquiry process.
In later writings (e.g. 2007a, b, 2010a, b, 2012) Mertens elaborates on her understanding
of ontological epistemological and methodological assumptions of the transformative
paradigm and on the link between these various assumptions. She also adds, following
Lincoln and Guba (2003, p. 265) the axiological question (alongside ontology, episte-
mology and methodology). Lincoln and Guba point out that they added axiology into their
layout of paradigms in order to ‘‘make values (the branch of philosophy dealing with
ethics, aesthetics and religion) a part of the basic foundational philosophical dimension of
paradigm proposal’’ (p. 265). This, they propose, enables us to better identify critical
theorists’ concern with ‘‘liberation from oppression and freeing of the human spirit, [which
are] both profoundly spiritual concerns’’ (p. 265). That is, by adding into the discussion of
paradigms researchers’ views on ways in which values enter (if at all) into processes of
3 Mertens qualifies this by stating that ‘‘mixed methods designs that use both quantitative and qualitativemethods can be used in any paradigm; however, the underlying assumptions [that researchers are bringing tobear] determine which paradigm is operationalized’’ (1999, p. 5).
414 Syst Pract Action Res (2015) 28:411–427
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social inquiry, we are better equipped to understand various researchers’ positions on this
score. Now Mertens argues that as far as ethical issues are concerned, the transformative
paradigm exhorts researchers to make ‘‘an explicit connection … between the process and
outcomes of research and furtherance of a social justice agenda’’ (2007a, p. 216). This, for
her, is not a matter of showing a commitment to University Institutional Review Board
requirements, where the focus is on matters such as ensuring informed consent of par-
ticipants, ensuring that they are aware of their right to withdraw, ensuring that concerns
with not harming them will be taken into account, etc. (2009, pp. 222–223). It goes much
further than this and requires that active quests to further social justice are accommodated
within the research agenda.
With this understanding of ethical accountability, she argues indeed (2010b, p. 470) that
‘‘the axiological belief is of primary importance in the transformative paradigm and drives
the formulation of the three other belief systems (ontology, epistemology and method-
ology)’’. Or, otherwise put, ‘‘the axiological assumption provides a conceptual framework
from which the other assumptions of the paradigm logically flow’’ (2012, p. 811). She also
makes the point that although some authors associate mixed-method research with a
‘‘pragmatic paradigm’’ and use ‘‘pragmatism’’ to philosophically justify their use of more
than one method, she herself prefers to use a transformative paradigm as philosophical
basis for mixed-method use. This then requires researchers to consider how the use of
mixed methods might serve the ends of social justice (2010a, p. 8). (Flood and Romm
similarly observe that often in practice with pragmatism as an approach, options may be
united eclectically on the grounds that it ‘‘seems to work’’ to unite them, but ‘‘theoretical
reasoning around the claim that ‘this works’ is limited’’—see 1996a, p. 589. Mertens’
suggestion is that an axiological basis where an ethic of justice prevails would provide the
grounding for deciding—with participants—choices of method and how to use the dif-
ferent methods.)
When discussing ontology in her article on the transformative paradigm (2007a),
Mertens expands on her earlier (1999) account and suggests that ‘‘transformative re-
searchers need to be aware of societal values and privileges in determining the reality that
holds potential for social transformation and increased social justice’’ (2007a, p. 216). She
suggests that what counts as ‘‘reality’’ for transformative researchers is therefore what
definitions (constructions) can be said to have most leverage in effecting change towards
increased justice. She elaborates that
the ontological assumption of the transformative paradigm holds that reality is so-
cially constructed, but it does so with a conscious awareness that certain individuals
occupy a position of greater power and that individuals with other characteristics
may be associated with a higher likelihood of exclusion from decisions about the
definition of the research focus, questions, and other methodological aspects of the
inquiry. (2007a, p. 216)
Put differently, she suggests that those embracing a transformative paradigm concede
(with constructivists) that reality is socially constructed, but try to ensure that ‘‘exclusions’’
of the less powerful in construing ways of defining issues are not unduly perpetuated via
the research process. Interestingly, in further explicating the ontological tenet of the
transformative paradigm (2010b), she offers a somewhat different approach, in order to
distinguish her argument from constructivism. Here she suggests that:
The transformative ontological assumption recognizes that there are many versions
of what is considered to be real and is cognizant of the constructivists’ discussion of
Syst Pract Action Res (2015) 28:411–427 415
123
the social construction of multiple realities. Yet it diverges from this belief in that it
holds that there is one reality about which there are multiple opinions. (2010b,
p. 470, my italics)
She asserts that one can and should still posit a reality—even though we have no access
to it but only to multiple opinions about it. I will return later (critically) to this account of
hers—when discussing the suggestion put forward by various critical systemic thinkers that
in a systemic worldview (ontology) there is no attempt to uphold an ontological dualism
between ‘‘observer’’ and ‘‘observed’’ (so-called external realities).
In discussing implications for epistemology in her article on the transformative para-
digm (2007a), she elucidates her position as follows:
To know realities, it is necessary to have an interactive link between the researcher
and the participants in a study. Knowledge is socially and historically located within
a complex cultural context. (2007a, p. 216)
Here she uses the term ‘‘know’’ implying that some kind of ‘‘knowledge’’ can be
attained as long as one enters into a dialogical relationship with participants—but she also
points out that ‘‘knowledge is socially located’’—implying that it is a constructed product.
Again, I return to this later in the article (when discussing certain Indigenous authors’
arguments concerning the social construction of reality during knowing processes).
As far as methodology is concerned, she expands on her earlier works as follows:
A researcher can choose quantitative or qualitative or mixed methods, but there
should be an interactive link between the researcher and the participants in the
definition of the problem, methods should be adjusted to accommodate cultural
complexity, power issues should be explicitly addressed, and issues of discrimination
and oppression should be recognized. (2007a, p. 216)
She underscores that transformative researchers take care to work together with research
participants when choosing appropriate methods—but she emphasizes more strongly (than
in her earlier works) that the prime participants to which researchers should feel allegiance
are those who are dealing with the brunt of ‘‘issues of discrimination and oppression’’
(2007a, p. 216). This concurs with her account in her article on transformative consid-
erations (2007b), where she notes that the axiological assumption in the transformative
paradigm ‘‘leads to an awareness of the need to redress inequalities by giving precedence,
or at least equal weight, to the voice of the least advantaged groups in society’’ (2007b,
p. 86, my italics). She expands further on this (with what can be said to be a different
emphasis again) when noting (2010b) that:
The transformative belief systems discussed thus far [axiology, ontology and epis-
temology] lead to methodological beliefs about appropriate ways to gather data about
the reality of a concept in such a way that we have confidence that we have indeed
captured the reality in an ethical manner and that has potential to lead to the
enhancement of social justice. (2010b, p. 472, my italics)
She refers to ‘‘capturing the reality in an ethical manner’’—arguing that such a ‘‘cap-
turing’’ can be defined by its potential to enhance social justice. Her use of the word
capture is somewhat ambiguous, though. If one concedes that understandings of ‘‘reality’’
are not neutral (and are imbued with ethical concerns), then the word capture here can
(better) be interpreted as meaning that one is not presuming to grasp some posited reality,
but is working towards generating what one understands—with others—as a defined
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increase in justice. This is the point made by critical systemic thinkers (as well as others
reflecting on the nature of research and its impact in society) to which I turn later.
Returning to Mertens’ argument, she notes that axiological assumptions in the con-
structivist paradigm also are giving rise to more ‘‘leaders in the field’’ citing the ‘‘need to
situate their work in social justice’’ (2010a, p. 21). She refers to self-named constructivists
who refer to the doing of research in ‘‘ways that are both respectful of the human relations
between researchers and participants … [and aimed at] enhancing the furthering of social
justice from the research’’ (2010a, p. 18). Mertens sees this ‘‘shift in constructivist
scholarship’’ as ‘‘as indicator of the permeability of paradigmatic boundaries’’ (2010a,
p. 21). But what Mertens does not highlight is the constructivist argument that social
realities can be said to be formed (and not just ‘‘found/captured’’) via the process of
research (at the moment of doing research) as explained, for example, in Romm (1996,
2001a, b, 2002, 2010). In the next section I turn to this issue through the lens of the
writings of certain critical systemic thinkers/researchers, who focus on the way in which
worlds are ‘‘brought forth’’ via the languaging between humans (Bawden, 2011, p. 4).
Bawden summarizes this (critical systemic) argument thus:
If we are to bring forth … different worlds as a function of a quest to transform the
way we live our collective lives … we will need to modify the epistemes [ways of
knowing and living] that come to dominate the modernist culture. If our intercon-
nectivities and inter-relationships with those in other [less modernist-oriented] cul-
tures as well as with the rest of nature are to be developed in a manner that is
sustainable, defensible, responsible and inclusive, we will need to establish epis-
temes that are appropriate to the task. (2011, pp. 4–5)
Bawden highlights that ‘‘appropriate’’ knowing is a matter of recognizing how our
languaging constructs and creates worlds which are in processes of becoming, and on the
basis of this recognition, taking some responsibility for the way in which we bring forth
worlds (with others). That is, just because knowing necessarily creates an intervention
(albeit that this may be more or less recognized by people and within cultures), it is
incumbent upon us to consider carefully the values that are being brought to bear when
bringing forth different worlds. This, I would argue, is the crux of critical systemic thinking
and practice as explained below.
Critical Systemic Thinking and Practice
As mentioned earlier, Ivanov indicates that in a critical systemic approach—with the
emphasis on systemic rather than on systems—‘‘the systemic idea of the relationship
between theory and practice’’ is borne in mind by those practicing such an approach
(2011, p. 498). He cites Midgley as making it clear that in some sense it is the critical
systemic researchers’ ideology and ethical stance that determines the choosing of
methodologies (with chosen participants) and the choosing of goals with participants (such
as improvements towards social justice). Before explaining this argument, I will first
briefly explain Midgley’s (1996) summary of the commitments of Critical Systems
Thinking (CST) as developed by those naming and developing it as a distinct systems
approach, namely Flood and Jackson (1991). Midgley summarizes that according to Flood
and Jackson those practicing CST can be seen to embrace the following three
commitments:
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• Critical awareness—examining and reexamining taken-for-granted assumptions, along
with the conditions that gave rise to them;
• Emancipation—ensuring that research is focused on ‘‘improvement’’, defined tem-
porarily and locally, taking issues of power (which may affect the definition) into
account;
• Methodological pluralism—using a variety of research methods in a theoretically
coherent manner, becoming aware of their strengths and weaknesses, to address a
corresponding variety of issues. (Midgley, 1996, p. 11)
We can see from this summary that these commitments bear similarity to Mertens’
discussion of the orientation of what she calls ‘‘transformative scholars’’ (1999, p. 1) to:
• re-examine assumptions (and re-examine the privileging of certain views and
approaches that have become entrenched in society);
• orient research to creating improvements towards more social justice; and
• use mixed method research not merely in a pragmatic manner but in a manner
consistent with a critical theoretical transformative approach.
Midgley notes, though, that apart from the commitments which supposedly define CST,
there is no consensually accepted definition of the nature of the commitments, which are
spelled out differently by different authors who self-label themselves as CST proponents
(1996, p, 12). He suggests also that further to the original writings of Flood and Jackson
(1991), they can be said to have each shifted their positions—for example, he sees the book
by Flood and Romm (1996b) as one instance of such a shift (Midgley, 1996, p. 12). He also
argues that new/alternative ways of conceptualizing CST were already germinating in, for
example, Midgley (1990), Flood (1990), and Gregory (1992). What I would like to focus
on here is the ‘‘shift’’ towards recognizing the impact of ways of knowing (and framing of
issues/problems) on the unfolding of ‘‘systems’’. Midgley notes that from his experience,
when relating with participants as a systemic researcher, ‘‘many people welcome the
chance to look at how the problem they have identified interfaces with others, and ap-
preciate systemic logic’’ (1996, p. 21).
Reviewing the Transformative Paradigm: Emphasizing our Impact (as Knowers) on
Emergent ‘‘Realities’’
What seems to me is not sufficiently highlighted in Mertens’ explication of the trans-
formative paradigm is the requirement for us to appreciate that ‘‘knowing’’ itself exerts an
impact on the ‘‘realities’’ to be ‘‘known’’—that is, on their manner of unfolding. When
Mertens states (2010b) that the transformative paradigm asserts that there is one reality
(even though we may not be able to access it) I would suggest that she does not sufficiently
accentuate how the process of knowing already can be said to have impacts at the moment
of ‘‘doing research’’ (cf. Romm, 1995, 1996). Hence researchers working within this
perspective are called upon to recognize that ‘‘knowing’’ generates an intervention in
defining the direction that social (and ecological) systems might develop (with knowing
being part of these systems, as noted also by Bawdens, 2011).4 It is for this reason that it is
incumbent on us to try to consciously intervene in a justifiable and responsible way. This
idea is also expressed by Eser when he refers to what he calls justified intervention (which
4 It is worth mentioning here that I have added the word ecological systems because Midgley (1996, p. 21)is concerned that the term human emancipation as often used within CST and other critical theoretical textsmight deprioritize our thinking around ecological well-being—or what McIntyre-Mills terms social andecological justice (2008, 2014). It is not clear to what extent Mertens too takes ecological considerations intoaccount when speaking about social justice.
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is dialogically based, and which involves considering with others how our languaging
affects the ‘‘outcomes’’ that arise through the way we speak and act—2014, p. 379). Or as
Ali summarizes this concern:
If we are to have confidence in our research we need the to be constantly aware of
how this research impacts on others …. Concerns about impact are less obvious
when researching with objects [non-humans] although of course this need not be the
case. (2010, p. 246)
Bishop and Shepherd (2011) add a caveat to this, though, when they note that it is not
necessarily clear, either in advance or in hindsight, what kinds of effects our research
endeavors might have. As they state in relation to research in the social arena, ‘‘we cannot
know or articulate the effect we have on others (which changes depending on the person)’’.
Even though we do know that self-biographies and concerns that researchers introduce
when doing research will make some difference to the ‘‘outcomes’’ we cannot know in
exactly what way this will be the case—but nor can we ‘‘evade [our] influence’’ (2011,
p. 1290).
In his book on Systemic Intervention (2000), Midgley indicates why this argument can
be considered as systemic at root (in contrast to a dualist perspective):
The term ‘‘subject/object dualism’’ refers to the separation of the observer (sub-
ject/knower) and the observed object (or that which is being researched). In a dualist
perspective the observer is somehow independent of the observed, standing outside
of it, so she does not influence it in any way. (2000, p, 42)
He states that a dualism that sees a separation of observer and observed is regarded as
problematic by systems thinkers (and certainly, by systemic thinkers). He argues that in a
systemic (anti-reductionist) perspective, ‘‘everything can be seen as interacting with ev-
erything else (and boundaries are constructs allowing the inclusion and exclusion of ele-
ments in analysis, rather than being real markers of systemic closure)’’ (2000, p. 42, my
italics). This means that the observer will always be connected with the observed (as they
are all part of a system where parts can never be separated). He argues that quantum theory
in the natural sciences also ‘‘challenges the conventional separation between the observer
and observed by demonstrating that the former cannot help but influence the latter’’ (2000,
p. 43). In this respect see Davis (1997) and Romm’s discussion hereof (2002).5 Bausch and
Flanagan (2013, p. 420), citing De Zeeuw (1996), spell out further the (constructivist as
well as transformative) implications of seeing ‘‘observations’’ as ‘‘observer dependent’’.
They indicate that for De Zeeuw, the aim of knowers then is to explicitly develop con-
structed objects ‘‘which will be useful’’ for furthering action (in this case action for both
social and ecological improvement).6
5 In relation to natural scientific inquiry, Davis argues (following Wheeler, 1982) that we can be said to beliving in an ‘‘observer participatory universe’’, in which ‘‘we are the ones who … first establish the ironposts of observation and then weave the brilliant tapestry of reality between them’’ (Davis, 1997, p. 277).Drawing on a range of examples, he shows how the world can manifest itself in alternative ways, dependingon how we weave the tapestry.6 They argue that it is with this understanding of the relationship between observer and observed thatChristakis and Warfield (also influenced by authors such as Ozbekhan and Churchman) developed a‘‘systems approach for influencing the stream of world events’’ (2013, p. 425). See also Christakis’s (2004),Christakis and Bausch’s (2006), and Bausch and Flanagan and Christakis’s (2010) discussions of structureddialogical processes for furthering this aim.
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Midgley argues that the ‘‘problem is that subject/object dualism is so ingrained in
Western thought that it is very difficult to even identify in some instances, let alone
challenge it’’ (2000, p. 44). This is indeed the argument too of authors wishing to revitalize
Indigenous research methodologies (and ways of knowing) by focusing on Indigenous
views of systems (cf. Chilisa, 2012; Dillard, 2006; Goduka, 2012; Harris and Wasilewski,
2004; Murove, 2005; Kovach, 2009; Smith, 1999). I would suggest that Mertens’ axio-
logical tenet of the transformative paradigm could be strengthened by suggesting that just
because we always have an impact on the realities that we ‘‘observe’’ (even though we
cannot specify exactly what this is) it is required of researchers (those involved in in-
quiries) to engage with others in considering potential impacts, with the hope of generating
justifiable impacts. Our responsibilities arise because research makes, rather than finds
realities.
In other words, that there is no purpose in positing that ‘‘there is one reality’’ (as
Mertens, 2010b posits). Rather, one should lay the emphasis on Mertens’ proposal in her
article (2007a) where she suggests that reality statements that arguably hold (most) po-
tential for generating action toward increased justice should be the focus of the trans-
formative researcher. This way of looking at reality statements (or visions of reality)
invokes what Kvale sees as an extended pragmatic epistemology. Kvale spells out the
principles of such an approach to ‘‘truth’’: A pragmatic approach implies that truth (ways
of bringing forth worlds) ‘‘is whatever assists us to take actions that produce the desired
results. Deciding what are the desired results involves value and ethics’’ (2002, p. 302).
When research is directed by the quest to arouse transformative action, then one would
prioritize the criterion of catalytic validity as a way of justifying the research endeavor (as
indeed also referred to by Mertens when she speaks about catalytic authenticity, 2004,
p. 109).7 Chilisa also speaks about catalytic and tactical authenticities as strategic orien-
tations that might be adopted by researchers, where research is designed so as to maximize
possibilities for prompting/inspiring action (2012, p. 172). In terms of this (epistemological
and axiological) orientation, research is not directed towards trying to prove visions (ap-
proximately) ‘‘true’’ or ‘‘false’’, but more towards defining, with others, potential for social
and environmental justice. As noted above, Mertens focuses more on social justice while
other authors—especially Indigenous-oriented and inspired authors—stress in addition
ecological justice as of prime concern. Indigenous authors also focus more clearly on the
(systemic) idea that we all participate in ‘‘the whole’’, and that ‘‘all is connected’’ in the
web of life.
Some Indigenous Understandings of Connectivity
In this section I attempt to offer some Indigenous understandings of connectedness/rela-
tionality, while recognizing that to speak of Indigeneity is not to suggest that the
Indigenous ideas referred to are either uniform (for Indigenous people across the globe) or
static. In this regard I follow Smith who, writing from a Maori standpoint, argues that
Indigenous people can be said to be in a process of ‘‘writing or engaging with theories and
7 Lather (1986) is well-known for using the term catalytic validity as one way of defining how researchprocesses can attain validity other than through the search for ‘‘truth’’ as representation of some positedrealities). She argues that research can never be a ‘‘pure’’ description/explanation, purified of researchers’concerns (1986:64). Furthermore, it is never neutral in its social consequences. She points to the importanceof recognizing ‘‘the reality-altering impact’’ of the research process (1986, p. 67).
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accounts of what it means to be Indigenous’’ (1999, p. 154). While acknowledging the
diversity within meanings of Indigeneity, Smith points out that a ‘‘common’’ thread that
Indigenous authors stress, is the ‘‘importance of making connections and affirming con-
nectedness …. Connectedness positions individuals in sets of relationships with other
people and with the environment’’ (1999, p. 148). Smith indicates some implications
hereof for practising ‘‘decolonizing methodologies’’.
Following up on this, in her book on Indigenous research methodologies Chilisa (2012)
explains the qualities of relationality in respect to ontology, epistemology and axiology.
Like Smith, she indicates that ‘‘postcolonial Indigenous research paradigms’’ offer a way
of conceptualizing the web of relations in which we can be said to be enmeshed.. Chilisa
explains that a relational ontology (worldview) focuses on ‘‘the web of connections of
people with each other and with living and non-living things’’ (p. 109). She notes that in
the African context the philosophy of Ubuntu (summed up in the African Adage ‘‘I am
because we are; we are because I am’’) expresses a world view of ‘‘existence in relation
and being for self-and-others’’ (p. 109). (She argues that similar adages can also be found,
for example, in Maori expressions.) In terms of research relationships with (human) par-
ticipants, she argues that this implies that ‘‘the researcher becomes part of circles of
relations that are connected to one another and to which the researcher is accountable’’ (p.
113). She also sees that we should be preserving/developing harmonious rather than ex-
ploitative relationships with non-living things (e.g. via ecologically sensitive thinking and
practice). She sums up this systemic worldview: ‘‘people … are embedded in a web of
relations and interconnectedness that extends to nonliving things. Understanding this type
of reality requires a back and forth movement that connects to this web of relations’’ (2012,
p. 186). The ‘‘reality’’ that Chilisa posits is thus a worldview where all things including
knowers/people as part of the web, are seen as inextricably connected.
Along with her elaboration of a relational ontology, Chilisa points to the implications of
upholding a relational epistemology (understanding of knowing). She cites Thayer-Ba-
con’s criticism of Euro-Western theories of knowledge, which are for the most part focused
on how individuals come to ‘‘know’’ (2003, p. 9, my italics). She notes that more important
within Indigenous knowledge systems is the recognition that ‘‘knowing is something that is
socially constructed by people who have relationships and connections with each other, the
living and the nonliving and the environment’’ (p. 116, my italics).8 She here takes a social
constructivist view, where it is held that people jointly construct ways of seeing and being
in relationship with one another and in recognition of their connectedness with one another
and ‘‘the environment’’. Goduka makes a similar point when she argues that while Wes-
tern-oriented epistemologies may be inclined to devalue communal modes of thinking,
what is specific about indigenous modes of knowing is that they are intentionally com-
munally oriented. As she explains: ‘‘Communal knowledge ensures that knowledge is not
collected and stored for personal power and ownership by individual specialists, but is
rather developed, retained and shared within indigenous groups for the benefit of the whole
group’’ (p. 5). This of course implies a view of ethics, namely a relational ethic.
Chilisa describes the ethical stance embedded in a relational axiology by suggesting
that in terms of a relational axiology, research should be guided by ‘‘the principles of
accountable responsibility, respectful representation, reciprocal appropriation, and rights’’
8 This understanding of the way in which social meanings are constructed is congruent with the trustingconstructivist position as spelled out by Romm (2001a, 2002, 2010). It is also consistent with Lincoln andGuba’s point that ‘‘the meanings we associate with any … tangible reality [as we experience it] or socialinteraction … determines how we respond’’ (2012, p. 12).
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(2012, p. 117). That is, a relational axiology expects that researchers will recognize their
accountabilities and their responsibilities (in the light of their necessary impact on social
life and on living and non-living things) and will inform their research accordingly. Chilisa
indicates that for her, as for other Indigenous authors, this implies a participatory ap-
proach—in which participants (especially marginalized ones) are part of the research at all
stages hereof. This means that they participate in the framing of research questions, in the
choice and use of methods, in the way that ‘‘findings’’ are drafted and discussed, and in the
way that meetings are held with audiences to review the findings and their import. These
recommendations for participatory research are similar to the ones put forward by Mertens
when she discusses the methodological tenets of the transformative paradigm:
The transformative methodological belief system supports the use of a cyclical
model in which community members are brought into the research process from the
beginning and throughout the process in a variety of roles (2010b, p. 472)
Mertens recommends that the various roles adopted by initiating ‘‘researchers’’ and
‘‘community members’’ (who become part of the research) are to be negotiated between
the parties. Mertens underlines that part of the cycle of transformative research is that the
various people (researchers/co-researchers/research participants) actively seek options for
‘‘social change’’ (2010b, p. 473). She notes that when research work proceeds in this
manner, then researchers can be said to be operating in a transformative spirit even if they
do not explicitly label their work by placing it in the transformative paradigm. She also
makes the point (including with reference to Chilisa, whose various works she cites) that
‘‘indigenous peoples and scholars from marginalized communities have much to teach us
about respect for culture and the generation of knowledge for social change’’ (p. 474).
Cram et al. (2013) in their introduction to the edited book Indigenous Pathways into
Social Research explain that the emphasis on relational constructs within a postcolonial
indigenous research paradigm ‘‘emanates from Indigenous value systems that recognize the
connections between people, past, present, and future, and all living and non-living things’’
(p. 16). They go on to state that ‘‘connectivity is important for the ethical basis it provides
for making decisions about research’’ (p. 16). They point out that protocols developed by
indigenous researchers in various parts of the globe have ‘‘seen the growth of indigenous-
informed (and culturally responsive) participatory research methodologies’’ (p. 18). They
cite the ‘‘growth of community-based participatory research in the United States and
participatory action research in other parts of the world’’ that is inspired by Indigenous
worldviews/paradigms (2013, p. 18). What is emphasized here is that the notion (and
experience of) connectivity forms a basis for recognizing that in whatever way people
proceed as a researchers/inquirers, the inquiry itself will serve to influence the patterning of
social life; it is this recognition that, as Chilisa puts it (2012, p. 13) ‘‘invites researchers to
interrogate their roles and responsibilities as researchers’’. And as Kovach stresses, this
interrogation can serve to prompt researchers steeped in Western traditions ‘‘to engage in
reflexive self-study, to consider a research paradigm outside the Western tradition that
offers a systemic approach to understanding [and being in] the world’’ (2009. p. 29).
Similarly to Cram et al., Kovach notes that within qualitative inquiries in the par-
ticipatory tradition (such as in participatory action research) there are already ‘‘allies for
Indigenous researchers’’, especially insofar as such research is directed towards ‘‘giving
back to a community through research as praxis’’ (2009, p. 27). But Kovach argues that
there is still room for strengthening the idea of ‘‘self-in-relation’’ (a translation of the Cree
word nisitohtamowin’’ (2009, p. 27) as manifested in research practice.
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I now proceed to show links between these) arguments and various notions of par-
ticipatory action or active research.
Action, Action-Oriented and Active research
In this section I show how Flood unites systemic thinking with intervention/action research
and how this can be said to offer a broader definition of AR than is normally understood in
the traditional action research cycle. I indicate that systemic ‘‘action research’’ or ‘‘action-
oriented’’ research indeed connects with Cram, Chilisa and Mertens’ account of Indigenous
protocols for doing research which ‘‘stress the importance of principles such as respect and
reciprocity, the importance of elders, and cultural and spiritual protocols’’ (2013, p. 18). I
show too how this can be seen as related to Mertens’ conception of involving research
participants in various ways and in various stages of the research. I point out that terms
such as action-oriented or active allow for researchers (with participants) to operate
broadly with an understanding that research is always connected to social and ecological
outcomes. This creates a basis for choosing with participants’ ways of proceeding and
ways of making research ‘‘useful’’. Space in this article does not afford a full discussion
hereof, so I offer only some pointers.
In the course of deliberating around the relationship of systems thinking to action
research Flood makes the point (along with others) that the term systemic is preferable to
systems in that the focus is on operating with an appreciation that the social construction of
the world (of which we are part rather than apart) is systemic (2001, p. 133). Flood refers
to complexity theory (a type of systemic thinking) which, he notes, ‘‘explains that the
vastness of interrelationships and emergence in which people are immersed is beyond our
ability to establish full comprehension’’ (2001, p. 140). He remarks that one of the im-
plications of this is that ‘‘human understanding will always be enveloped in mystery’’. Far
from seeing this as problematic, Flood proposes that ‘‘once this idea is grasped, a systemic
appreciation of spiritualism then envelops the entire human experience and consequently
everything that happens within that experience, including action research’’ (2001, p. 141).
Flood criticizes a reductionist-oriented science, which fragments the world ‘‘and alienates
so called parts, for example you and me from patterns and rhythms of life in which we
participate’’ (2001, p. 142). He prefers the spiritual quality of a ‘‘deep systemic view that
pictures each person’s life as a flash of consciousness, in existence and of existence’’
(2001, p. 142). He states that such a view leads to a perception of wholeness, not of
individuals and objects’’ (2001, p. 142). He argues that a systemic view understood in this
way, ‘‘is not an approach to action research, but a grounding for action research that may
broaden action and deepen research’’ (2001, p. 143).
That is, if ‘‘action research’’ is adopted with a systemic understanding as basis, then
‘‘actions’’ are broadened as participants recognize their interconnectedness with the
mysterious whole and recognize (on a spiritual level) that what they do to others (living
and non-living) will not be without consequences for them (and for others). Nonetheless,
operating in terms of a systemic view does not imply that all participative research/inquiry
need follow the traditional action research cycle of developing plans, acting, observing,
and reflecting on consequences (cf. Dick, 2014). It can imply a variety of ways of prac-
ticing a participatory approach (as proposed by, for example, McKay and Romm, 2008).
Romm (2014) spells out this argument when she speaks of ‘‘active and accountable in-
quiry’’, where ‘‘activity’’ can take a variety of forms on the parts of ‘‘researchers’’ and
‘‘research participants’’—depending on how their various roles are envisaged. This clearly
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resonates with Chilisa’s point that what is important is that ‘‘researchers interrogate their
roles and responsibilities’’ (2012, p. 13).
Permeability of Paradigms and Creating Space for Additions
To conclude this article I wish to offer some considerations around the ‘‘big four’’ para-
digms as well as the additions of ‘‘new’’ alternatives (that are new to Western-oriented
typologies). As indicated in my Introduction, Mackenzie and Knipe (2006) offer a pre-
sentation of the four paradigms (postpositivist, constructivist, transformative and prag-
matic) that have served as a reference point for a myriad of discussions around paradigms
in the research literature.
I have focused in this article on the transformative paradigm and shown how it bears a
close relationship to, but at the same time can be strengthened in terms of, a ‘‘commu-
nication’’ with a critical systemic approach and also with postcolonial Indigenous para-
digms. In her discussion of characteristics, conversations and contexts of Indigenous
methodologies, Kovach accepts that the four-paradigmed rubric supplied by Mertens offers
an inclusive space, which also accommodates Indigenous research practices (2009, p. 27).
Nevertheless, Chilisa (and others), in speaking about postcolonial paradigms, seem to be
wary of typologies which do not give sufficient recognition to the distinctiveness of these
alternative ‘‘pathways to research’’. Dillard expresses her reservations (as an African
American woman) regarding her approach being subsumed under the ‘‘big four’’. She
indicates that she wishes to embrace a paradigm that ‘‘resonates with my very spirit and
provides some congruence and support for the work that I do, as an African-American
woman scholar’’ (2006, p. 65). She continues:
Rather than subvert the Big Four (or worse yet, create a replicated ‘‘sub-version’’ of
the same), I seek to embrace and create a paradigm that embodies and articulates a
coherent sense of life around me, as an African-American woman. (2006, p. 65)
When explicating the transformative paradigm, Mertens cites Indigenous authors’ work
as fitting in with, and contributing to, the transformative paradigm. But Dillard (and many
Indigenous researchers) prefer to add additionals to the ‘‘big four’’ so that their positions
(including their specific understandings of spirituality and what it means to do research
with a spiritual focus) are not subsumed under one of these four, which are still seen as
overly Western-oriented. Koitsiwe, writing from the context of South Africa, too suggests
that ‘‘a new paradigm and epistemology in research is important because the global
knowledge economy is based on new and diverse ways of generating and developing
knowledge for sustainable livelihoods’’ (2013, p. 274). Furthermore, Wilson and Wilson,
both from the Opaskwayak Cree Nation in Canada, indicate that ‘‘the highlight of our
careers was to finally realize an initiative that reflected an Indigenous paradigm; one that
honored relationships in all their many forms’’ (2013, p. 340). The inclusion of Indigenous
paradigms in typologies about paradigms could create a space for further conversation
between the big four and additional pathways, and would at least not subsume them within
the transformative paradigm (unless proponents of ‘‘new pathways to research’’ are
comfortable with this).
As far as boundaries between positions are concerned, I have noted in the article that
while Mertens wishes to distinguish the transformative paradigm from, say, postpositivism
and constructivism, she also recognizes that boundaries between paradigms may be per-
meable. This is especially insofar as proponents exhibit a propensity to communicate and
424 Syst Pract Action Res (2015) 28:411–427
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learn from one another. I have shown, for instance, that the transformative paradigm may
benefit from appreciating the constructivist insistence that all that researchers can ever
‘‘find’’ are ways of constructing visions of realities. And constructivist-oriented authors can
benefit from the axiological tenet that Mertens offers as a basis for deciding to which
constructions researchers should feel allegiance to give more ‘‘voice’’. Meanwhile, Scott
attempts to open a space for postpositivist-inclined researchers to communicate with more
constructivist-oriented ones when she notes that:
There are very few adherents to epistemologies of objective knowledge. Quantitative
researchers are not naıve positivists. They acknowledge the role of social con-
struction in measures and are wary of quantification being seen as the equivalent of
scientific reasoning. They know better than most that ‘‘statistics can lie. (2010,
p. 233)
Once postpositivist-inclined authors adopt this position, there is room for further dis-
cussion around the tenets and application of tenets of postpositivist- and constructivist-
oriented paradigms (see also Romm, 2013). This would also concur with Smith’s sug-
gestion (1999, p. 137) that although positivism normally implies a view of researchers as
‘‘outsiders’’ who are not ‘‘implicated in the research scene’’, positivist-oriented researchers
(examining variables) can blur the lines between apparently objective outsider research
(where researchers assume a distance from the community) and insider research (where
relationships with communities are intentionally built). In an Indigenous research agenda it
is understood that involving members of communities in defining ‘‘measures’’ and in the
analysis of results (rather than seeing results as objective displays of information) adds to
the quality of the research process. What is important, she maintains, is that researchers
learn the skills and reflexivities required to mediate and work with these insider/outsider
dynamics (as she believes Indigenous research is especially geared to handle). In short, I
suggest that appreciating ‘‘new’’ paradigms (new to Western-oriented typologies) without
subsuming them under the ‘‘big four’’ is possible, as well as learning across (defined)
boundaries, to enrich all our pathways into the variety of ways of responsibly practicing
social research.
Ethical Statement This is to confirm that in the writing of this article I have complied with all ethicalstandards for the writing of a theoretical piece on, in this case, the transformative paradigm and howarguments connected with it can be developed and extended (including implications for practice). Thearticle title is: Reviewing the Transformative Paradigm: A Critical Systemic and Relational (Indigenous)Lens
Conflict of interest The author has declared that there is no conflict of interest in this article.
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