Feminist cooperative inquiry: Grassroots women define and deepen empowerment through dialogue

Abstract

This paper is an account of feminist research influenced by Cooperative Inquiry (CI) described as Feminist Cooperative Inquiry. A team of grassroots women leaders-turned-co-researchers, from different marginalised social locations (on gender, caste, class, education, livelihood axes) in India, developed this methodology to collectively analyse their own empowering journeys to make meanings of empowerment. The diversity of co-researchers in this research led to making additions or deviations in the CI protocol. By bringing in nonliterate or low-literate women from marginalised groups as coresearchers, the research added political value by extending centre of collective knowledge building towards marginalised groups. The paper also discusses how the research processes further empowered the coresearchers for their own interpretations, abstractions and their selfdefined viewpoint in the domain of empowerment. Calling empowerment as primarily an ‘internal reflective process’ co-researchers defied oversimplified, quantifiable proxy indicators as any measure of empowerment.

Keywords

Co-operative inquiry feminist cooperative inquiry feminist research methodology feminist values in research meanings of empowerment grassroots knowledge building

Introduction

This research is our story of adapting the ‘Cooperative Inquiry’ (CI) methodology to develop ‘Feminist Cooperative Inquiry’. It is conceptualised and carried out with grassroots, marginalised women to collectively explore the meanings of empowerment as made by them. The paper explores challenges faced, additions or deviations done to the protocol of cooperative inquiry. It highlights crucial processes to follow when low or non-literate women from diverse marginalised communities are partners in knowledge building.

The notion of empowerment has been used extensively and in a bewildering variety of ways from mundane to the profound, from general to the specific (Kabeer, 1999). Despite the vast available literature on empowerment, the evidence about its determinants is weak (Malhotra & Schuler, 2005). Our research explored women’s experiences of freedom and unfreedom to look into internal and external impediments to that freedom. This research focuses on the feelings, emotions, perceptions, and thoughts about their journey rather than the less meaningful, proxy indicators of empowerment that inevitably lose the spirit, power and politics within empowerment.

This engagement provides key insights by integrating the CI protocol in feminist research done by marginalised grassroots women. The co-researchers internalised their own disempowerment as a socio-political construct. They then understood their empowerment as expansion of their ‘power within’ to challenge these constructs, not only for themselves but for the category of women that they represent.

The paper also highlights how the Feminist Cooperative Inquiry provided the grassroots co-researchers spaces for sharing, connecting and trust building and for reflection, critical thinking and collective analysis. It also highlights how the research process further empowered the co-researchers, illustrating its potential as a grassroots strategy for facilitating empowerment.

This paper is solely focused on the methodological aspects of the doctoral research that I facilitated as the research-facilitator. The methodology used and the results themselves are totally a function of our team of co-researchers fully engaged as co-creators. I am reporting our results in my role as both research facilitator and co-researcher.

I will first deliberate on the enablers for this research and then on choice of methodology for research as a transformative experience. I will then deliberate on inclusion, profiles of and diversity among co-researchers, and processes underway in this feminist co-operative inquiry. I will then discuss research findings, my reflections and relevance of the research.

Enablers for the research

More than two decades of my grassroots work around women’s empowerment enabled the conceptualisation of the research. As a cofounder of an NGO I have been involved in grassroots, women-centric work in urban and rural marginalised communities. My immersion in this work was neither motivated by a desire to do research nor as a strategy.

I witnessed and partook in my co-researchers’ transformations marked by their growing ability to impact personal and community situations. From being a victim to being a survivor and to then thriving as a change-maker and a change-leader, my co-researchers expanded their ‘power within,’ and continue on their empowerment journeys.

These journeys enhanced my own personal and work-related sense of empowerment. I realised the importance of collectively analysing our journeys. Grassroots women unpacking meanings of empowerment contributes to the domain of empowerment. Grassroots women’s reflective and analytic power and wisdom owing to their lived experiences builds collective knowledge from the grassroots.

Research as a transformative experience

I had observed grassroots women challenging and changing their own deep-rooted social constructs, norms and practices around gender formed during their upbringing. Shifting mindset from ‘being’ to ‘thinking, doing and challenging’ was these women’s choice, made after going through conscious-mind processes that enabled the change. Their processes, the enablers initiating it, the negotiation of their decisions with themselves, and the costs and benefits of these decisions were best known to them. This was the rich knowledge resource waiting to be explored. A nonthreatening, nonjudgmental and non-hierarchical space to speak up was essential to make explicit their experiences. This understanding formed the feminist core of the research.

Crucial for our research was finding a methodology that helps build on experiential knowledge of women, trusts the agency of marginalised women, facilitates their participation and ownership through research processes, recognises and respects women’s ways of knowing, of perceiving, of analysing and of expressing.

Having a participatory worldview that sees human beings as co-creating their reality through participation (Reason, 1994) became the guiding spirit for the research. I believed in the conceptualisation that our experiences, our imagination and intuition, our thinking and our action would constitute this co-creation (Heron, 1992).

The very commitment of Cooperative Inquiry (CI) to the participative research ‘with people’ and not ‘on people’ or ‘about people’ (Heron, 1996) as a political perspective was the closest alignment for me with CI. CI views persons as having agency. Reason (1994) calls this agency ‘self determining’ and explains, ‘to say that persons are self determining is to say that they are the authors of their own actions- to some degree and to a greater degree potentially.’ (Reason, 1994, p. 6). Unlocking the potential of being ‘self determining’ is enhancing agency of the individual for action.

An expanded notion of participation in CI from being participants to being co-researchers and simultaneously being co-subjects defined for me the tenet of the research. It meant including these women with low or no formal education belonging to diverse marginalised social locations into the research as co-researchers.

Smith (2008) in the context of her work with Maori indigenous communities emphasises how the research by the people from the margins leads to spaces of marginalisation also becoming spaces of resistance and hope. Bradbury (2019), in the context of gender and sustainability, rightly emphasises why it is crucial to understand women’s own definitions and experiences of their situation for giving ‘true voice’ to them for novel, inclusive strategies and policies and for building a regenerative future. Our research included women from marginalised communities with the conviction that they were the authors of their actions, and their actions were driven by theory regardless of whether they made it explicit or not.

Most often CI is done by professionals to address the common concerns faced by them. Some examples of CI in practice include Treleaven (1994), Douglas (2002), Bower-Phipps et al. (2016), Napan et al. (2018). Bower-Phipps et al. (2016) describe CI done by teachers/educators who self identified as ‘the other.’ They wanted to understand their experiences of ‘otherness’ and how it resulted in them being advocates of diversity apart from integrating diversity issues and sensitivity in teaching. Napan et al. (2018) describe CI done by a multidisciplinary group of researchers from tertiary education institutions to evaluate the effectiveness of CI as a research method for cross-disciplinary innovations. Both research describe co-researchers’ personal and professional transformations as the outcome.

CI done by non-professional, non-formally educated grassroots women from diverse marginalised contexts will be an addition of our research to CI.

Similar exploration – From the field

Anupamlata et al. (2006) report a similar research done by seven women grassroots workers working in Sangtin organisation on women empowerment in Uttar Pradesh State of India, reflecting on their journeys. An academic researcher from an U.S. University and a coordinator of the Sangtin program facilitated this research. Both, Sangtin and our research had feminist research agenda. The research differed with respect to the facilitator-researchers’ relationship and research method (i.e. written diaries by Sangtin against oral narrations in our research).

Another important difference in these research is about the facilitator’s involvement. In the Sangtin research, facilitators did not write diaries and excluded their experiences in the analysis for the fear of ‘dominating their narratives’ and that ‘their formal diary writing would create the danger of sharpening the socio-economic gulfs … ’ (Anupamlata et al., 2006, p. 47). In our research, as the research facilitator and co-researcher, I not only shared the power of inquiry, but also shared my life narrative. This became part of our collective analysis thus trusting the participatory worldview and celebration of diversity of the co-researchers.

Feminist co-operative inquiry

Maquire (2002) draws on similarities between cooperative inquiry and feminist informed action research on the aspects of developing practical knowledge for worthwhile human purposes and knowledge being created in relationship. Everyday experiences and feelings as sources of legitimate knowledge are crucial to CI and to Feminist inquiry. However, in spite of these perceived similarities, Maquire admits that not all cooperative inquiries are influenced by feminist approaches and understanding.

The specifics of the approach, our research agenda and its politics, how our processes unfolded, the methods used, and the relationship between me as the research facilitator and us as co-researchers made this research a Feminist Cooperative Inquiry. The research was exploratory, was done by women and our day-to-day experiences were a source of knowledge.

In the research, who is trusted, whose voices are believed and whose truth has prevailed are indications of the power relations in the research. All through our research, women’s ways of knowing, of expressing, of analysing, and of reflecting were recognised and valued. Feminist values in our research included valuing lived experiences over formal education, free flowing narratives over close-ended interviews, fluidity and flexibility over rigidity, subjectivities over objectivity, research processes over research agenda, relationship of trust and comfort over transactional relationships and trusting the analysis of what co-researchers said. When grassroots women defined their journeys with their own meanings, the voices that this research sought, as Collins described, were ‘individual and collective, personal and political” (Collins, 2009, p. viii).

Thus our research was feminist research influenced by cooperative inquiry which we called as ‘Feminist Cooperative Inquiry’.

About co-researchers

Finalisation of the co-researchers’ team was guided by the following facts.

We had worked closely and had high level of mutual trust.

There was evidence of assertion in personal life and relationships.

There was passion to relate one’s own experiences for locating discriminations and for fostering interpersonal communication.

Each woman in the research had demonstrated her growth from individual assertion to assuming community leadership.

Each woman had good communication and interpersonal skills.

There was diversity in social locations (religion, caste, culture, education, livelihood etc.)

All of us had been part of NGO’s grassroots leadership development program either as participant-leaders, mentors or as conceptualiser (myself). My association with co-researchers ranged between 5–22 years.

The names of the co-researchers mentioned are their real names (decision of disclosure is discussed later).

Diversity among co-researchers

Eight co-researchers including me formed the research team.

Anita (36) and Sheela (41) belong to ‘scheduled caste’ officially designated group of historically disadvantaged people in India. In the rigid Indian caste system, they were ‘untouchables’ and in spite of now-existing laws protecting them, they face social, cultural, political and economic discrimination.

Mumtaz (35) and Anwari (50) belong to poor Muslim communities with lower rates of literacy and employment. Women in their communities are more confined within boundaries of home or community.

Dwarka (44) belongs to the Pardhi community, a nomadic tribe of hunters. Under British regime this tribe was notified as a criminal tribe. Even with de-notification after independence, the tribe carries the stigma of being criminals and lives as outcastes.

Vinaya (46) belongs to the Matang community within the scheduled caste which was notified as criminal caste in British regime. Matang is a culturally important but socially suppressed and discriminated caste.

Pallavi (39) belongs to Maratha, a dominant caste in India and belonged to economically backward class.

Sujata (57) belongs to the Brahmin caste, the highest caste in the Indian caste system.

As regards to education, Anwari is non-literate, four co-researchers have done different grades of schooling and three co-researchers are graduates. Anwari has eight children, 6 co-researchers have one or two children and Vinaya has none.

Co-researchers represented their marginalised contexts

Ours is a retrospective study. Co-researchers reflected on their experiences of marginalisation and their navigation through those experiences. Co-researchers’ current work is grounded in their respective contexts that continue to remain marginalised. Their experiences thus represent individual and collective, personal and political. Co-researchers’ articulation of experiences of marginalisation enabled them to meaningfully contribute to this research.

Methodology

CI is described by four phases, namely proposition, action, immersion and reflection (on original proposition). These phases coincide with the ways of knowing in the inquiry which are propositional knowing, practical knowing, experiential knowing and critical reflection respectively. Cycles of action and reflection are integral to all phases.

The core of our research was constituted with my one-on-one, in-depth dialogues with co-researchers; co-researchers’ in-depth dialogue with me; applications of insights through research to our ongoing work in the field; and our cycles of reflections.

Phase 1: Proposition

The proposition phase primarily entailed sharing the conceptualisation of the research with identified co-researchers, finalising the co-researchers’ team and seeking consents, collective decision making on methods and modes of data collection, and preparations of guidelines for in-depth dialogues. A narrow scale (8 co-researchers), collegiate type (co-researchers as colleagues) participatory research was deemed fit for the current research.

Initially with the potential co-researchers, I shared the research concept, my observations around the shifts in our lives, mutuality in our journeys and encouraged them in the collective study of our journeys to make meanings of empowerment, as well as a next evolving stage in our journeys.

Nobody declined my invitation, but none had any idea of what it actually entailed. Their trust in me, willingness to explore new things and their aspired recognition as ‘researcher’ became the enablers. My being a co-researcher in the research and they having the right to explore my life experiences proved to be the most motivating aspect of the invitation. Five finalised co-researchers suggested the inclusion of two more co-researchers taking the total to eight including me.

Grassroots women as knowledge builders

All the co-researchers doubted their ability to be researchers owing to the societal perceptions about them. Anita voiced these barriers.

… “Women are always told, ‘Don’t speak. You don’t know’. And women also feel that “I am ignorant, I don’t understand anything … women are told they don’t read, they don’t write … they do not have knowledge … this gets imbibed … “we don’t think we can contribute to knowledge.” … (Anita)

I emphasised them recongnising their self-potential as knowledge-builders to surmount this barrier.

… “The realisations and feelings that have come from our own experience are not necessarily given due importance by us … . And because we do not value them, people also tend to do the same … ” (Sujata)

I also sensed co-researchers’ hesitation on opening up in the group as a barrier to their full contribution to the research and proposed one-on-one in-depth ‘dialogue’ (Freire, 1970) with me at the commencement of the research, also conceived as de-stressing mechanism.

Carrying out in-depth dialogues was discussed, agreed and I prepared guidelines for it. Guidelines were conceptualised along life narrative phases of childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and the empowering phase. Individual, relational and collective levels of explorations were designed for all phases. Psychological, socio-cultural and political aspects were explored in each phase and at each level of the inquiry.

Co-researchers Mumtaz and Pallavi proactively discussed and reviewed these guidelines with me, finalised them in consultations with other co-researchers and got them translated in co-researchers’ mother-tongues (Marathi and Hindi). Collective discussions, reflections happened in Hindi or Marathi as co-researchers were conversant with these languages. Aspects of consent, confidentiality, non-disclosure and right of withdrawal were discussed.

The objective of the research and the ways of data collection—audio recording and transcribing the dialogues—were discussed and agreed. Continuous discussions with the co-researchers either individually or in groups were done do deal with their doubts and anxieties in being researchers.

In this phase I led the research process completely as the research facilitator.

Phase 2: Narrations-reflections

One-on-one audio recorded narrations, transcriptions, co-researchers’ feedback on research processes, reflections especially on childhood and adolescence marked this phase. Ninety-five hours (50 hours of in-depth dialogues and 45 hours of collective reflections) were audio recorded and transcribed during the research.

I am a longstanding, trusted friend, mentor and support in situations of emotional and psychological distress to co-researchers. In-depth dialogues (averaging 6 hours with each co-researcher) not only built their confidence for the research and facilitated their willingness and ability to critically reflect but also became a source of energy to deal with their past memories.

Some of the elements of the dialogue included stories of upbringing, relationships, pleasures and punishments, helplessness and dilemmas, aspirations and choices, public domain interfaces and growing sense of being a self-determining and unafraid person. There were long silences as well as long periods of just holding hands together while allowing tears to roll down. These dialogues not only connected us but also linked our past, present and future. For many, analysing the fear and suffering in their past, and recognising their own transformative journeys, was intellectually stimulating.

Life narratives in this phase were indeed feminist encounters. Our one-on-one dialogues started with describing our childhood in one word. Grappling for the appropriate word took some time for everyone but when asked why they chose that word, there was an unstoppable stream of memories, filled with emotions. Everybody’s response was of disbelief that they could remember their past with such clarity and nuance.

We as co-researchers divulged never-shared aspects of our lives such as experiences of child sexual abuse. For co-researchers, these experiences had scarred their lives. Fear of ‘being held responsible’ for such experiences and self-imposed shame and guilt had refrained them from sharing it even with their mothers. The safe space created in our dialogue helped co-researchers reflect on such experiences.

… “There were certain things I had forced myself not to think. I was not talking to myself also. So, while talking to Tai (‘sister’- referring to me), all these things came out. So, I did not feel good after the interview … ” But what helped me was that I could stop and analyse where I was going wrong and this process helped me to do that.” … (Pallavi)

… “When I used to recollect my past, I used to get filled with negative thoughts. But now I do not experience it that way.” … (Anita)

… “So now you (me) asked this (was about her unmet desires), I felt good. But maybe people are apprehensive in starting these topics … I indeed felt good when you asked me this … No one had asked this to me before.” … (Anwari)

This phase was primarily led by me and my co-researchers wholeheartedly participated. Two of the co-researchers had participated in the presentation of our research proposal in the academic institute. Transparency on my part and co-researchers’ growing realisation about their role settled into a psychological feeling of being co-researchers.

Phase 3: Immersion

Dissolution of boundaries between the research-facilitator and co-researchers and co-researchers owning the research process was the flagship outcome of this phase. The 7-hour in-depth dialogue that all co-researchers collectively had with me (with same guidelines) transformed relationships in the research through sharing the power of inquiry. My disclosure in this research reframed the entire sharing process from being an act of intellectual ‘voyeurism.’ It elevated the process of knowing to experiencing parity and equality amongst ourselves as co-researchers.

… “There is tremendous excitement within the process. Now we always say that there is no division among us now … and all of us are on the same side of the table. I felt that divide disappeared on the third day of our collective conversation with Tai (me).” … (Mumtaz)

… “The important thing in this process was when you had a dialogue with me especially on my personal life. It was very important for me also. At that point, the boundaries within us broke.” … (Sujata)

… “Earlier we felt that it is your PhD study and we are doing it (by being case studies). But you really wiped this out from our minds through this process. After a dialogue with you we felt that we are part of this research, and partner to this process.” … (Mumtaz)

My honest and maximum disclosure and co-researchers’ honesty and transparency in their narrations and reflections deepened the immersion and team’s sense of collective work.

Collective dismissal of confidentiality and non-disclosure considerations was the signifier of this phase (technically, issue of anonymity did not exist as all were ‘co-researchers’ and not mere ‘participants’). In spite of divulging very personal, sensitive and intimate information, none in the team wanted to remain anonymous in the research related presentations. All of us co-researchers instead wanted visibility and disclosure and wanted to own everything we said and they did during the research. Anita spoke for all of us when she said;

… “I want to give my original name, also my photograph, you can use it” … We must do this.” … (Anita)

… “Initially we used to feel that what people will say if we say something. But that feeling does not bother us anymore.” … (Anwari)

… “Also, there were many things that I had not shared with anyone, but I did that here. And now I realise that there are many like me and they also need to undergo this process.” … (Sheela)

… “We realised through this research how important it is to know what we think and we do, and why we need to share our experiences with the outer world.” … (Pallavi)

The research processes had made co-researchers realise how important their experiences were to share, to be seen, to be realised. This exemplifies the sharing of power and co-ownership in the research. It also speaks about the further ‘loss of fear’ component of empowerment kindled by the research process.

We did discuss the risks involved in the disclosure. Collectively we decided to respect our enhanced sense of identity and empowerment and our right to knowledge production through disclosure.

Phase 4: Empowering realisations

Once the confidence and the immersion of the research team was firmly attained, deliberations in the reflection sessions got focused on our lived experiences being the source of knowledge.

We explored our lived experiences for critical reflections. My experiences while working with co-researchers worked as enablers for reflections. The internalisation process moved from understanding ‘the need to reflect’ to ‘being willing to reflect’ and then to actually reflecting. The emotional stress generated while making sense of our lived experiences, while divulging secrets of our lives, was diluted by first accepting the stress and then by dealing with it.

Our conversations were fluid and focused on our evolving sense of self and agency. All of us had stories of doing things that were denied to us (or punished for trying) before becoming part of the NGO mobilisation. We had later made strategic choices in our relationships. We defined this shift from being a passive receiver to an active decision maker and breaking culture of silence as ‘exercising agency’. For many, realising that their current work with women had roots in their traumatic past was a grand, transformational revelation.

Reflection sessions trusted who we were as we were, what we knew as we knew it and how we knew it, and underlined why it was important to do this. Ways of knowing were defined by our lived experiences as perceived by us co-researchers. We together constructed many realities with our subjectivities and they were trusted. The thrust was not about finding uniform experiences but was on a collective understanding of diverse experiences. Our reflections enabled us to critically understand the correlation of our being and our contexts and to redefine our conceptions of self and of our community.

Co-researchers reflectively traced the linkage between their painful past, their now acquired realisations about their past and their current ongoing work.

… “I think what inspires is the fact that we have been denied. My existence was denied since my childhood … ” and there was no one to love me. This is my inspiration.” (Mumtaz)

… “I think our sorrow lies beneath all this. Hope comes at a later stage. You suffer, you lose your confidence and then it starts to grow. Then you understand that this is my problem.” … (Anita)

Vinaya’s experience based reflection challenged the popular understanding of ‘choice’ in deliberations of empowerment when she posed a stark question:

… “Decisions are made in the absence of options … , absence of better options … isn’t it bizarre that one amongst few worst options we have is called choice … there is no choice, it is forced choice … actually it becomes choice only when and if we come out of that situation … . When we are in that situation, it is violence.” … (Vinaya)

Deep dives into our own experiences and co-researchers’ own interpretations and abstractions were the outcome of reflections. These were characteristically feminist features of the research.

Evolving cycles of collective reflection

Enhancing validity and authenticity

In the first reflection cycle, I assessed whether my position in the social and work hierarchy and my relationship with my co-researchers had in anyway ‘influenced’ their narrations. The quality and extent of narrations in dialogues between me and the co-researchers and that amongst co-researchers was assessed. As facilitator, I planned smaller groups (of 3 or 4 co-researchers) for in-depth dialogues with one of them as observer and then circling back into larger group discussions.

… “During first interview, everything was new … when I was sharing about my life, I used to stop somewhere, I couldn’t control my emotions, somewhere didn’t understand how to talk, but when today I was sharing in our group, this did not happen. And very important thing is that today I never felt that there was also an observer … . We all three began to get involved with each other.” … (Anita)

I observed that during my in-depth dialogues more intimate information was shared, which I ascribed to my long-standing and trusted relationship. Co-researchers opined that the dialogue with me had facilitated a safe environment to analyse their past with a critical lens and had equipped them for collective reflections.

The combination of smaller and larger group discussions helped in deepening the research agenda.

… “Smaller groups helped us share with each other and larger groups helped us learn from each other” … (Anita)

Ownership of the research

In the second reflection cycle, a collective analysis of our life narratives was focused. We extensively discussed the similarity or divergences between our upbringings, diversity in our contexts and its relation to shaping up our mindsets, instances of change in our lives, our dilemmas while challenging our own beliefs, our supports and impediments, the impact of our changing self on our relationships. Concepts like ways of knowing, feminist ways of doing research etc. were unpacked. In this reflection cycle, my co-researchers intellectually started owing the research and also analysed or improvised their ongoing women related work.

… “Now after this process, I have become very free and I advocate this process even in the meetings that we have at our place … I tell them (women) please speak … this is the way to find solutions” … (Dwarka)

… “We all are creating something on a common thread and this is what I feel now”. … “Before I only used to hear the terms collective work and all … But I experienced it while doing this now” … (Anita)

Internalisation of research process

In the third reflection cycle, we focused on our internalisation of the research process and observed patterns in our journeys, our conceptualisation of empowerment and ways of narrating our research stories. Based on our narrations, I had prepared a conceptual diagram of our journeys showing shifts that occurred in our lives to facilitate our deliberations on it.

Anwari, using the metaphor of the ocean, described inclusiveness as a core value, and emphasised equality and trust in relationships in such research.

… “. We should first of all have a feeling of equality within us. Secondly, we must also be like an ocean … . have qualities of an Ocean— must absorb everyone’s sorrow” … “There is a phrase that when a glass breaks, you hear noise; but when a heart breaks, you do not hear any noise. … So, this process helped us to open up, the only thing however, when you practice this, is that you should have trust in the other person.” … . (Anwari)

While reflecting on our journeys, organisational support and values believed by the organisation emerged as the key factors in providing external support for activating the ‘power within’.

We all realised that our life was a story worth narrating and what we had acquired in the research process was too precious to lose. We realised that our process of knowledge building could serve as a model for people aligned with the vision. We decided to speak and write and possibly publish our stories narrated with the new awakening acquired during this research.

At the end of our research, co-researchers had a list of persons to initiate similar research process with.

Bonding beyond the research

Not only did we keep discussing our research together, but we stayed together (6 days), shopped-cooked-ate-went for long walks together and that helped evolve the trust and respect in our relationships. Honesty on everybody’s part created space to take liberties to speak, to suggest, to listen, to laugh at, and be sad with which strengthened our bonding. Humour eliminated the stress created by unhappy memories and connected us at different levels.

Research findings

The research processes tracked shifting trajectories of the co-researchers from being victims of violence to being social-change leaders.

For example Mumtaz in our in-depth dialogue narrated the humiliation and the violence she suffered all through her childhood and adolescence and her very controlled and violent marital life before embarking on the journey of empowerment. Our dialogue created a safe space for her in sharing never-before-shared traumatic experiences including those of child sexual abuse. It enabled her to shed unnecessary baggage of guilt and shame that she carried where she held herself responsible for those experiences.

Discussions in the immersion phase around similarities and dissimilarities in experiences across co-researchers’ diversities helped Mumtaz to relate her experiences to wider contexts. Our collective reflections helped her track her own journey and make meanings of it. She tracked down a meeting of the NGO as the enabler to unsettle her sense of pseudo-complacency that she had built around her. Here she was introduced to a possibility of change. She tracked down her smart negotiations with her husband for permission to work with the NGO by agreeing even to some of his unpleasant demands.

An introduction to concepts of human rights and gender equality challenged Mumtaz’s own sense of broken identity. This was incubated, nurtured and supported by the NGO through critical reflections. This led to Mumtaz’s growing sense of self worth, her confidence, enhanced ability to challenge violence perpetrated on her and on other women. Mumtaz said that her NGO’s unconditional support led to tremendous increase in ‘power within’. Her assertion of self in personal relationship built her authenticity as a change-leader and her work with community women enhanced her negotiating power in personal relationships. The enhanced ‘power within’ had led Mumtaz on the path of evolving empowerment which emotionally and intellectually empowered her not only to fight for herself, but to stand for rights of dignity, equality, sexuality and survival of other women.

A ‘realisation of power within’ actualised by external persons/organisations/situations emerged as a key to empowerment in the research. This self-power not only enabled women to challenge violence perpetrated on them, but also connected them with other women in similar situations to address their vulnerabilities. As co-researchers we articulated intertwined aspects of our personal and collective journey as ‘getting empowered’. Calling empowerment as primarily an ‘internal reflective process,’ co-researchers defied oversimplified, quantifiable proxy indicators as any measure of empowerment.

My reflections

I had trusted the innate ability of evolving research processes, progressively and cumulatively leading to the purpose of the research: ‘facilitating grassroots knowledge building’ on ‘meanings of women’s empowerment’.

My longstanding, trusted relationship with co-researchers proved crucial in facilitating co-researchers’ meaningful participation and ownership. Our relationship was neither driven by research, nor was it any coping strategy. This defined for co-researchers the intent (non-transactional) of the research and motivated them to participate. The very trust we shared, made participatory and democratic facilitation of research processes possible.

Insider-outsider researcher

I was both an insider and an outsider to the processes that were under inquiry in the research.

As conceptualiser, implementer, negotiator (on my co-researcher’s behalf), advocate and resource mobiliser of the program that we are part of, I am an insider. As NGO lead, I had conceptualised the program, had negotiated for women’s participation in the program with their family members, and confronted family or community members when women were obstructed from acting on their agency. And, I am an outsider because I do not belong to the other co-researcher’s social and economic strata. My early days of immersion with community women made me aware of my privileges and of the cultural capital that I inherited being a Brahmin, upper-class, educated, well-employed woman. Our work together had impacted my ways of connecting, knowing, acting, and interpreting the world. My deep immersion in the research context later transcended the insider-outsider dichotomy.

Ganga and Scott (2006), Hayfield and Huxley (2015) while deliberating on strengths and weaknesses of researchers being ‘insider’ and or ‘outsider’ to the context of the participant community, rightly conclude that taking a dichotomous framework is oversimplification of the relationship between the researcher and the participants.

My ethnographic understanding of and organic access to the co-researchers’ communities, and their trust in me were gifts of my longstanding immersion. They removed any fear of private disclosure or of any risk within me during the research.

Collins’s ‘outsider within’

Collins (1986) conceptualised ‘Outsider within’ in the academic settings to describe her position as black, marginalised woman (outsider) in the academic setting dominated by white scholars (within). She argued that many black women made creative use of their ‘outsider within’ position to develop ‘Black Feminist thought.’ I followed Collins’ suggestion to place greater trust in the creative potential of my personal and cultural biography (outsider) to facilitate collective knowledge building with co-researchers from marginalised contexts (within). The current research was not only the recognition and acceptance but also the celebration of the differences among co-researchers.

Interestingly while reflecting on ‘Outsider within’ after a decade of its conceptualisation Collins (1998) writes, “Members of elite groups who use their privilege to challenge unjust power relations often produce important critical social theory” (Collins, 1998, p. xiv) and further emphasises the primacy of commitment to social and economic justice for one’s own group and/or for other groups.

For me, ‘Outsider Within’ was also about the two universes that existed within me. One universe was pre-defined and marked by my social location, upbringing, socio-cultural realities, privileges that I enjoyed/continue to enjoy which have shaped my primary identity (before immersion in the co-researchers’ context). I called this ‘Inside’. The second universe within me was equally and powerfully shaped by my immersion in the grassroots work. I called that ‘Outsider’. The dynamic interactions of these two universes consistently defined and re-defined a third universe for me where I was hopping between shifting identities of ‘Outsider within’ and ‘Insider outside’. The process of dynamic concurrence and divergence in these two universes within me progressively shaped my sensitivities, sensibilities, thoughts, ideology, standpoint and therefore the way I connected or disconnected with aspects of both these universes. The third universe thus created within me in many ways facilitated this research process as ‘initiator’.

Research processes

Inclusive and participatory processes in research do not exist by default. They must be facilitated and nurtured to empower other co-researchers to critically contribute to the research. In our research, my privileges as research facilitator were shared gradually, non-intrusively with co-researchers to facilitate ownership with the process and the outcome. I trusted co-researchers’ ability to contribute to the research-processes and consistently created spaces for their enhanced contribution.

Non-threatening, non-judgmental, non-hierarchical facilitation of narrations, reflections embedded in free flowing, fluid reflection sessions proved crucial especially as many co-researchers had never been exposed to research or higher educational activities.

The research has tracked down the ‘facilitated’ processes for collective grassroots knowledge building. The first phase was about realisation, confidence and skill building of ‘being knowledge-builders’. The phase of perceiving our own lives as knowledge-sources and then of reflecting critically on our own experiences followed. The abilities unlocked with cumulative phases laid the foundation for higher level abstractions by co-researchers.

We experienced that the processes in knowledge building by grassroots women became informal, nonlinear, relational, and evolving. In our research, ‘pre-research’ processes became crucial and were integrated as the core research methods. During our narrations and reflections, we seamlessly travelled between our past, present and future. Life narratives were not only an important resource for analysis, but also built the necessary mindset and bridges for the research. One-on-one in-depth dialogues with co-researchers at the commencement of the research were an addition done to the protocol of CI oscillating between actions and reflections. This became a stress-buster for the co-researchers. Our time together beyond research related discussions bonded us together and built validity and authenticity of the research.

Politicising the personal

In this research, we as co-researchers not only explored our personal stories for consciousness raising, but politicised them by exploring the awareness generated for collective actions for challenging gender, religion, and caste-based inequalities. My maximum disclosure of ‘the personal’ as a co-researcher was my way of sharing power in the research with co-researchers. It connected us with a shared sense of un-freedom beyond differences in our shackles (Lorde, 2007, p. 132). Mumtaz and Dwarka voiced this feeling.

… “Normally what happens is that people tend to study the lives of Dalits (scheduled class), Muslims and other such oppressed classes. But they themselves do not relate that to their life and hence they do not open up” … “This process for us … opened us a lot and gave us confidence. Now the openness is such that we all can talk about each other and this excites all.” … (Mumtaz)

… “I felt that as I belong to the Pardhi community, I was the only one who was in grief” … .“But when we interviewed Tai (me), she also was in tears. It made me realise that there is sorrow for women in every society, be it Brahmin or Pardhi.” … (Dwarka)

Empowering power of the research

The research processes themselves were empowering and forward looking. The conclusions of the research were the sense of freedom and the confidence as knowledge builders rendered to the co-researchers and verbalised by Vinaya and Mumtaz:

… “I feel like I have embraced the sky at this moment. I feel that I can do anything under the sky, my energies have gone up incredibly … … I feel that my feelings and thinking has been endorsed” … . “Freedom meant a lot to me. But I lost it all in my life for last so many years. I have regained it now.” … (Vinaya)

… “So, this process started from us being case studies (and evolved) to us being involved as a part of the process. We all discussed the process of empowerment and how it evolved … But we did not discuss it from the way it is traditionally defined. We defined it the way we felt it and, in our terms, in our language. … So, we actually thwarted the existing definitions and that needs to be told” … . “Otherwise certain people decide and define things on their own terms and we have to follow that. In this process, we don’t want to see what others are trying to show us but we want to show the world what we think, feel and what we want them to see … " (Mumtaz)

Relevance of research findings

Participatory research is evolving to ensure meaningful participation beyond tokenism. Our research highlighted processes that enabled co-researchers’ ownership.

Diversity amongst us as co-researchers was the signifier in the research. The research process demonstrated that collective knowledge building by grassroots women, irrespective of their educational status and social locations, is possible through Feminist Cooperative Inquiry (FCI). We have contributed to the process and content of ‘bottom up knowledge building’.

Integrally our research has tilted the balance of knowledge building from individual to collective, from ‘privileged only’ to ‘privileged and marginalised’ women and from the academic base to the grassroots. The learning from this research will contribute to the action research domain by highlighting the processes to include people from most marginalised section in the ambit of academic research.

Processes in FCI were liberating and empowering for co-researchers. They enabled co-researchers to collectively view, narrate, reflect on, internalise, and to analyse their lived experiences for collaborative knowledge building. The research methodology apart from its academic outcome and relevance, should also be seen as a strategy for facilitating grassroots empowerment.

FCI as a research methodology has potential to facilitate grassroots knowledge building movement. Methodology associated with FCI is powerfully available to multiple audiences and researchers within those audiences. Even if our research was focused on the domain of women’s empowerment, the processes will inform similar research done in other domains. Co-researchers’ high motivation for taking this process further to their peers indicated the need for building capacities of the grassroots activists to be potential research facilitators.

Dissolution of power stricken boundaries between the research facilitator and the co-researchers has been a concern both in the feminist research and in the co-operative inquiry. Heron and Reason (2001) express the impossibility of absolute parity between research facilitator and co-researchers and advocated for sufficient degree of non-dependent collaborative reflection and management for the research to be genuinely ‘with’ people. This research underlined processes that resulted in pushing boundaries for equalising relationship between research facilitators and co-researchers and enabled co-researchers to intellectually and emotionally contribute to the research.

Trust, inclusiveness, collectivity, transparency, authenticity and being non-judgmental, non-hierarchical emerged as core essential values in this research. These values emphasised essential attributes of the research facilitator and of facilitation processes in similar research.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Sujata Khandekar

Lakshmi Lingam

Author biographies

Sujata Khandekar is co-founder of a Mumbai based NGO CORO-India, founded in 1989. For more than three decades, she is working with urban and rural grassroots women with women’s empowerment approach. She did her MA in Gender, education, and international development, at the University of London. In her doctoral research at Tata Institute of Social sciences, India she focused on building collective knowledge with grassroots women on ‘meanings of empowerment’. Empowerment from below, grassroots leadership, construction of masculinities and femininities, interlinkages between gender-violence-sexuality have been her focus of work. Action research and gender training are her focused strategies in her empowerment-related work. She has published in national and international journals.

Vinaya Ghewde is part of CORO India’s leadership team that implements a programme focused on gender sensitisation and child-rights in the Maharashtra State of India. Vinaya has completed the 8th grade of schooling. She is working with women and children for more than a decade.

Anita Kamble is a founder of a Community Based Oorganisation (CBO) Ankur, in Beed district of Maharashtra State, India. Anita currently leads a single women’s mobilisation that addresses issues of single women in India such as violence and stigma against them and their property rights and livelihood. This mobilisation platform currently works with more than 15000 rural women. Anita has done her MA in social work.

Anwari Khan works with CORO India as a team leader in a program that addresses issues of domestic violence of Muslim Women. She works with women at the grassroots for more than a decade. Anwari is non-literate.

Pallavi Palav is in the leadership team of CORO India and is a member of its board of trustees. Pallavi has worked in the organisation for 25 years and led a Statewide program on gender sensitisation and child-rights. Pallavi is a graduate in commerce and has done a diploma course on feminism.

Dwarka Pawar has completed seven grades of schooling. She has been working with the NGO Grameen Vikas Kendra, Nagar, Maharashtra State India for more than a decade. Working with nomadic tribes for their rights and entitlements has been her focus of work.

Sheela Pawar has completed her secondary education (grade 10) and works with CORO-India as a team leader in a program on domestic violence on women. She has been in the development work for more than a decade.

Mumtaz Shaikh is currently leading CORO-India’s women’s empowerment program in the Maharashtra State of India. For more than two decades, combating domestic violence on women has been the focus of her work. Mumtaz has completed higher secondary schooling (grade 12). She was listed in British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)’s list of 100 most influential women in the year 2015.

Lakshmi Lingam is a Professor and Dean, School of Media and Cultural Studies at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India. She is a gender expert and has long years of experience in teaching, training, research and public policy advocacy. She has publications in national and international peer reviewed journals.

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