Identity

Identity is a term laden with a range of meanings by scholars and practitioners, but two understandings, both relevant to action research, regularly surface. Identity can refer to core aspects of an individual—that is, what we or others view as our essence or nucleus. It can also refer to particular, pre-existing (though socially constructed) categories, including societal groups, such as gender or race; professional and occupational affiliations, such as researcher or farmer, and roles, such as manager or father. Identity has been inherent in action research since its inception because it is based on the idea that research can be pursued by those who do not identify as scholars. By design, action research brings together people with different identities—researchers and practitioners or insiders and outsiders—as part of the research process. But identity may come up in other ways as well; for example, many action researchers document conflict related to divided organizational loyalties or their own struggle with issues related to class, gender or race.

The degree to which such issues are actually engaged with ranges across approaches, especially depending on whether the research is first, second or third person research. First person research involves researchers studying their own practice; second person research is undertaken by small groups exploring individual- and group-level practice; third person research is the most similar to traditional research in that a research team (which may include scholars and/or community members) studies a separate group of individuals. First person and second person researchers customarily grapple with the implications of identity—implicitly if not explicitly—while third person researchers vary in their take-up of these concerns. This entry reviews (a) how action researchers tend to characterize identity, (b) common questions and concerns related to identity faced by researchers and (c) methodological issues and approaches.