hand with the protection and promotion of human rights, is essential to our understanding of ‘the common good’ in societal and community development. Additionally, we argue that Collaborative Action Research may create conditions and processes to co-construct capacities (e.g., Krogstrup and Brix, 2019). Such capacities can be raised within and between relationships, organizations, and communities to co-construct better living conditions and capabilities (e.g., Cottam, 2018; Nussbaum, 2000; Sen, 1992, 1999) for ‘the common good’. By doing do, we are placing dignity, equity, well-being and relational flourishing at the very heart of our understanding of ‘the common good’, where the development of human capabilities is key. The concept of capabilities was coined by the Nobel Prize-winning academic Amartya Sen (1992, 1999) and has been further developed by Martha Nussbaum (2000) and others in somewhat different directions (Robeyns, 2005). Sen (1992, 1999) links the development of capabilities to freedom and quality of life. Sen makes a strong argument for replacing economic imperatives in societal development with the freedom to achieve well-being and argues that policies and our evaluations of them should concentrate on people's quality of life and the conditions affecting our possibilities to live a life that we have a reason to value. According to Dréze and Sen (2002, p. 6), within this framework, developments of capabilities are not to be mistaken for individual processes. Social opportunities are described as a crucial prerequisite:
The word ‘social’ in the expression ‘social opportunity’ … is a useful reminder not to view individuals and their opportunities in isolated terms. The options that a person has depend greatly on relations with others and on what the state and other institutions do. We shall be particularly concerned with those opportunities that are strongly influenced by social circumstances and public policy.
The development of capabilities is a moral issue for achieving social justice. This demands interdisciplinary, collaborative and participatory approaches to societal development, placing human rights and capabilities, democracy, empowerment and meaning-making processes at the center of attention. This will be our main focus when laying out our suggested framework for Collaborative Action Research.
Collaborative Action Research (CAR)
CAR is a democratic and participative orientation to knowledge, theory and practice creation (Bradbury, 2015; Ness, 2020). It is about how people co-construct knowledge through language, learning and change together through action research (Gergen, 2009; Gergen and Gergen, 2015; Hersted et al., 2020). It brings together action and reflection and theory and practice in the pursuit of practical solutions to issues of pressing concern. Desai et al. (2019) argue that CAR can help to break down the distinction between science and the community more broadly. These ‘participatory’ turns are premised on an explicit awareness of social injustice and power imbalances while also challenging the presupposition that community members allegedly hold no expertise on serious matters of science. Instead, community input and participation, including by those community members with direct experience of the topic being studied, are valued and embraced as an important feature of knowledge construction, which can in turn help transform the wider system and benefit the community around it (Desai et al., 2019). Thus, CAR focuses on co-construction with, not about or on, people (Bradbury, 2015; Shotter, 1993, 2008) and focuses on what Gergen (2014) calls ‘future-forming’ inquiry, i.e., research not attempting to describe and explain what is but to bring about what could be.
In the history of action research, many descriptions of the practice have been proposed. Hilary Bradbury (2015, p. 1) defines action research as follows:
Action research is a democratic and participative orientation to knowledge creation. It brings together action and reflection, theory and practice, in the pursuit of practical solutions to issues of pressing concern. Action research is a pragmatic co-creation of knowing with, not on about, people.
Further, Greenwood and Levin (2007) describe three commitments that link most action researchers: (1) action, which refers to creating and implementing new practices; (2) research, which refers to contributing to new theory and to generating and testing new knowledge; and (3) participation, which is about placing a strong value on democracy and control over one's own life situations. Action research balances these elements, and if any of these three elements are absent, the research is not action research (Greenwood and Levin, 2007). This balance is in accordance with Reason and Bradbury's (2001) concerns: Practice and research occupied with ‘just theory without action is meaningless, and action without reflection and understanding is blind’ (2001, p. 2). Hersted (2017) and Ness (2011) add elements such as collaboration and reflexivity, where co-researchers co-construct knowledge and practices together through reflexive collaborative learning processes. Thus, action research involves two or more people researching a topic based on their own experience or shared agenda, using a series of cycles in which they move between that experience and reflecting together on it (Heron, 1996; Ness, 2020). This is in line with constructionist theory and research methodologies (Gergen, 2014; McNamee, 2010). The practical point of constructionist research has very often been to promote a better way of thinking and, more importantly, living with respect for the worlds that we inhabit (Weinberg, 2008).
Brown and Tandon (1983) have argued that traditional action research has tended to concentrate on an individual or a group level of problem analysis, whereas participatory action research, with its more emancipatory emphasis, has tended to focus on a broader societal analysis. Traditional action research has tended to focus on issues of efficiency and the improvement of practices, whereas participatory action research has been concerned with community action, equity, self-reliance and oppression problems (Fals-Borda, 2001). Democratic elements are also found in John Dewey's (1938) experiments on education. These elements are often taken up in definitions of CAR that emphasize an empirical and a logical problem-solving process involving cycles of action and reflection (Bradbury, 2015; Hersted et al., 2020). Dewey was occupied with democracy as an ongoing, collective process of social improvement, in which all levels of society had to participate (as cited in Greenwood and Levin, 2007). His important contribution was that democracy had to evolve through people's active involvement in making sense of their world and not by merely adapting to solutions imposed by powerful outsiders (e.g., researchers or teachers; Greenwood and Levin, 2007). From these ideas on democracy and participation, Dewey proposed that learning was a process of action in which students must be active learners and not passive listeners (Greenwood and Levin, 2007). Dewey's view on research was connected to this view of a democratic society. He saw research as a process of democratic social action in which scientific knowing was a product of continuous cycles of action and reflection (Bray et al., 2000), which is in line with the ideas of Collaborative Action Research.
As mentioned above, Gergen (2014) advocates for research as ‘future-forming.’ This means that research does not provide a map of ‘what is there'; it offers descriptions of how things might be. McNamee (2020, p. 18) claims that one ‘could say that research is more about social transformation than about uncovering the stabilities of life.’ McNamee (2020) further explains that to view research as transformative is to consider the ways in which engaging in the research processes, as well as reading research reports, provides us with new ways of understanding our worlds. These new ways of understanding our worlds open the door to new possibilities for human engagement and social transformation. This represents a significant shift from the traditional understandings of objective, scientific research. Traditional notions of research are focused on discovering essential aspects of the world. However, from a social constructionist stance (Gergen, 2014; Gergen and Gergen, 2015; McNamee, 2010, 2014; McNamee and Hosking, 2012), what one comes to know about the physical world is bound by language, and language is social and relational. The physical world exists, but how we talk about it and how we make meaning of it are contingent upon our negotiated language practices (Gergen, 2009; McNamee, 2020). We have used McNamee's (2014, p. 77) framework as inspiration: she argues that relational constructionist research is about the notion of ‘let's change it together’. Her focus of research is on change, co-creation, and co-research and on generating new meaning and new realities. In addition, she suggests that research is locally useful
