From Canonical to Emancipatory Action Research: Using PrOH Modelling to Enhance Reflexivity

Action research is well recognised as an approach to transform, empower, and emancipate individuals and communities through collaborative enquiry and intervention. A central tenet of action research is to generate learning and new knowledge through the cyclical process of action and reflection. Yet, traditional action research methodologies pose limitations for thoroughly extracting learning from action due to lack of well-developed frameworks for understanding the researcher’s role and their evolving identity throughout the research process. This limitation undermines the depth of engagement with the problem context and the potential for a researcher to reflect and generate learning in real-time. Based on multiple in-depth longitudinal case studies conducted over a decade, this paper argues for the emancipation of action researchers through a new Situated Emancipatory Action Research (SEAR) framework developed using a novel soft systems methodology called the Process Oriented Holonic (PrOH) Modelling Methodology. The SEAR framework seeks to overcome the limitations inherent in action research by emphasising the importance of a cognitive journey for the researcher, moving from a primarily detached observer to an immersed agent of change, while continuously reflecting-in-action. This study demonstrates how the SEAR framework enables emancipation of both the researcher and the researched through an intertwining and mutually complementary process of deepening and widening understanding through successive action research cycles. The new SEAR framework facilitates action researchers to become emancipated from their precepts, biases and identity, towards better engaging with problem situations and extraction of new knowledge. This paper recommends further investigation and experimentation using the SEAR framework to refine and improve its application in wider action research settings.