Seduction and enlightenment in feminist action research

For my research purposes, I conceptualized FAR as a framework that blended feminist theory with participatory action research in order to make women central in my work. Since FAR espouses collaboration between "marginalized" women, service providers concerned about their welfare, and researchers, I assumed there would be a sense of collaboration, empowerment and trust among the research participants that would lead to emancipatory change. Since the women involved with the YWCA differed considerably both in the meanings they brought to their participation and of themselves as women, service provision needs to be sensitive to these differences based on class, age, race, ethnicity, lifestyle choices and privilege. Due to the organizational constraints, I was never able to fully challenge the label of the traditional researcher and was instead allied with the service providers who had rarely before challenged their own power base. Since the pre-employment training program caters to three different groups of women in a single year, establishing a trusting and collaborative relationship with the research participants was hindered. [...]Tom (1996) states that, ...if we do not make a conscious commitment to emergent and changing research design, we run the risk that collaborative-looking actions will be mistaken for genuine collaboration with the consequence that opportunities for collaboration will be missed.