Although feminist researchers have increasingly called for participatory and action-oriented research, there have been few analyses of the diverse actions that can occur. We theorized the actions considered and implemented in a feminist participatory action research project (FPAR). For three years we collaborated intensively with a group of diverse women on low income who were involved in a FPAR project designed to reduce social isolation and other self-identified health problems. Our data set included tape recordings of 32 one-on-one interviews, 15 research meetings, and extensive fieldnotes. Our findings indicated that actions occurred on both individual and collective levels; some had been enacted prior to the project and were shared to promote ongoing or new actions, while others arose as a consequence of the women's involvement in the project. Additionally, some actions were implemented and actualized while others, though discussed at length, remained hopes for the future. While the research participants reported the benefits of being involved in such projects, they also spoke of the potential risks. Our findings revealed the complexities of taking action in FPAR and highlight important considerations for others wishing to engage in this type of research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
People with serious mental illness die an average of 25 years younger than the general population (Flanagan, et al., 2016). Social exclusion and stigma have been identified as being at the core of health disparities and barriers to meaningful community involvement for people with serious mental illness (Reid & Alonso, 2018). To address the complex and detrimental effects of stigma and social exclusion, Imagining Inclusion used Community Based Participatory Research methodology, Photovoice, to explore experiences of community inclusion, health and well-being for individuals with serious mental illness and will use the findings to foster organizational and societal change. With Photovoice research, participants take photos about their lived experience and speak about how they relate to themselves, community and society (Reid & Alonso, 2018). In Imagining Inclusion Phase 3 we will examine the characteristics and outcomes of the Photovoice process, and the role of peers and therapeutic recreation in helping to create stigma resistance at the personal, peer, and public levels. We will develop an evidence-based toolkit that can be used to adopt and sustain the key elements of the Photovoice process across allied health and therapeutic recreation services for people with serious mental illness.
Contemporary broader government policy surrounding "social exclusion" has tended to characterise it in largely negative terms. Contemporary sport policy in British tennis is no different. Every player excluded from grassroots participation represents a wasted opportunity to develop talent. Thus, "inclusion" and "accessibility" feature today, and have for some time, at the core of contemporary policy from the Lawn Tennis Association, which as an organisation has come to judge itself based on broad participation figures and elite level success, which are often considered incompatible. Such measurements of an association's performance reflect broader political concerns and objectives, and also ignore the sport's elitist past, which actually celebrated the exclusion of particular societal groups as a major positive factor in its rapidly growing popularity among the socially aspirational British middle classes. This paper will take a historical perspective with regard to discourses of social exclusion in British tennis, and consider the ways in which exclusive features of the sport have been both celebrated as a means of enhancing its prestige and criticised for contributing to declining British performances. Such discourses will be positioned within broader historical contexts of shifting class relations, Empire decline, burgeoning commercialism in sport, and the increasing accountability among sport governing bodies.
