Pragmatic Action Research

Pragmatic Action Research Aims

Like all forms of action research, Pragmatic Action Research aims to produce liberating outcomes but without defining a priori or in absolute terms what should count as ‘liberating’. To a pragmatic action researcher, improving the ergonomics associated with the work of nurses in a hospital by engaging the nurses, doctors, patients and action research facilitator in co-generative dialogue can be just as ‘liberating’ when it improves the working life of nurses as can be the promotion of land reform for landless farmers in a society where the landless starve. Pragmatic Action Research views both scenarios as liberating—obviously in different ways—but insists that they can be similar in using collaboration among the stakeholders to move from a less acceptable to a more liberating and sustainable situation. In Pragmatic Action Research, the belief is that any particular human problem is worthy of attention if that problem negatively affects the quality of life of sincere people and creates obstacles to their flourishing as individuals and communities. Thus, Pragmatic Action Research sees the problems of people in industrialized societies to be as much a part of the mission of action research as the problems of the dispossessed and impoverished.

Pragmatic Action Research is by no means naive about power differentials and vested interests. However, Pragmatic Action Research believes that considerably more positive change is possible in coercive situations than many determinists think. An unequal society, an unfair political economy and vested interests by themselves do not prohibit significant improvements in the lives of individuals and communities through the construction of arenas for dialogue and learning. Gathering people to share their experiences, knowledge and aspirations under conditions in which the stakeholders feel both respected and safe has powerful effects on many apparently intractable problems. Following the line of argument of thinkers like Michel Foucault, Pragmatic Action Research sees power as something that can be generated from anywhere in a system. Power is not a finite source of control, monopolized by the few against the many. There are many more either win-win solutions or at least win–not lose scenarios possible under unequal conditions than the stakeholders often see at the beginning of the process.

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