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The Emancipatory Research Methodology for 
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Sociologist, Journalist, and Historian
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A research methodology, as an instantiation of the scientific method, incorporates more than research techniques or "methods," such as participant observation and content analysis. Broadly, methodology, or the scientific method, is a specification of epistemology within the sciences. In the context of a particular project, a methodology encompasses research techniques (either singly or in triangulation), a philosophy of science (as in pragmatism or empiricism), a theoretical perspective, the (stated or not) axiology of the researcher, modes of presentation, etc.
The The MarkFoster.NETwork™ project centers around the theory, The Emancipatory Constructionist Paradigm™, i.e., emancipatory constructionism™. That theory's methodology, emancipatory research, can be defined by its attention to the empowerment of the oppressed, not by its application of particular research techniques. In fact, a variety of techniques are utilized.
This project's emancipatory research methodology focuses on the construction, including the historical construction, of online lebenswelten (lifeworlds). It triangulates the following research technigues: contemporary history (historiography), narrative approaches, participant observation, reflexive sociology, content analysis, phenomenology, and existentialism. The project has been developed around the online universe of The MarkFoster.NETwork. The research implications of emancipatory constructionism, a new critical theory, include an examination of relevant processes of social construction.
The Internet will be regarded as a metasociety, analogous to the concept of virtual communities. It is, in other words, a digital society, operating beyond particular geopolitical units, and, in its bits and bytes, is socially constructed in the minds of its participants.
The project has two principal dimensions:
Methodologically, the term, emancipatory research, was coined by Mike Oliver in 1992. The construct has been particularly influential upon the social model of disability. As a radical approach, it frames the basic epistemology of this project. Oliver, in addition to being both an author and a disability rights activist, is Emeritus Professor of Disability Studies at the University of Greenwich. Emancipatory methodologies tend to adopt a stance which is simultaneously critical of normative research methodologies and concerned with exploring the experiences of oppressed persons, such as the disabled, in their own voices.
This project's own emancipatory methodology has been developed through trope nominalism. That is to say, our observations of entities are of their tropes (attributes). We are only categorizing, or naming, them. Universal essences are rejected, while, concerning the essences of particulars, should they even exist, we remain agnostic. To engage in discourse upon such unknown quiddities is speculative (or metaphysical) and a waste of good time.
Emancipatory research may be distinguished from lifeworld research. The latter is grounded in phenomenology and, as such, incorporates the usual Husserlian categories, such as epoché and intersubjectivity. The objective of the researcher is, through a bracketing of her intentionality, to enter into the lifeworlds of disabled persons. As a nominalist, phenomenological reduction impresses me as both metaphysical (speculative) and essentialist. Indeed, I question whether such phenomenological reduction is even possible or desirable. Nonetheless, I have tried to be sensitive to this mode of inquiry where suitable.
Emancipatory research may also be differentiated from empowerment research, Most of the relevant literature I have found comes out of the fields of community healthcare and community psychology. In those settings, empowerment research appears to be associated with the investigation of wellness promotion as a patient's responsibility. Anecdotally, I may have experienced an implementation of this methodology: A hospital seminar I attended, after being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, incorporated many of the characteristics I came across in my reading.
Empowerment is a construct shared by many disciplines and arenas: community development, psychology, education, economics, and studies of social movements and organizations, among others. How empowerment is understood varies among these perspectives. In recent empowerment literature, the meaning of the term empowerment is often assumed rather than explained or defined....
As a general definition, however, we suggest that empowerment is a multi-dimensional social process that helps people gain control over their own lives. It is a process that fosters power (that is, the capacity to implement) in people, for use in their own lives, their communities, and in their society, by acting on issues that they define as important.
We suggest that three components of our definition are basic to any understanding of empowerment. Empowerment is multi-dimensional, social, and a process. It is multi-dimensional in that it occurs within sociological, psychological, economic, and other dimensions. Empowerment also occurs at various levels, such as individual, group, and community. Empowerment, by definition, is a social process, since it occurs in relationship to others. Empowerment is a process that is similar to a path or journey, one that develops as we work through it. Other aspects of empowerment may vary according to the specific context and people involved, but these remain constant. In addition, one important implication of this definition of empowerment is that the individual and community are fundamentally connected.
Page, Nanette, and Czuba, Cheryl E., "Empowerment: What Is It?. Journal of Extension. October 1999. Volume 37. Number 5.
According to Milon Gupta, the manager of marketing and public relations for eHealhthonline.org:
The vision of the empowered patient is still lagging behind reality, but now e-health offers the opportunity for patient empowerment. Potential benefits include better health outcomes and higher cost-effectiveness. However, looking at the European situation, one realizes that a number of obstacles have to be overcome, before these benefits can be reaped.
The concept of patient empowerment emerged in the 1970s in the United States and Europe in the context of the civil rights movement. Patients and their organisations demanded a right to self-determination over decisions affecting their health.
In addition to political pressure for giving consumers and patients more rights, there were also factors in the healthcare sector itself, which supported this trend. Alternative medicine and the growing number of alternative treatments, especially for chronic diseases, increased the choice available to the patients. A growing sensitivity to environmental factors influencing health further fuelled the push towards patient empowerment.
Pragmatically, the purpose or volition, as well as the truth content, attributed to any dynamic of interpersonal discourse is transitively situated in its designated function, not in its substantive content. Definitionally, if a cultural narrative or truth system, one purposefully elucidated and enacted upon by a set of conscious elites, is realized in domination, its truth content has thereby been confirmed. This epistemological, or methodological, pragmatism, is accepted here. However, when pragmatism is schooled by the axiological principal that the sole value of social action is the achievement of ambition, with little or no regard for one's defined adversary, the epiphenomena become Machiavellian or realpolitik.
Fortunately, there are, in addition to realpolitik, other current species of pragmatism. These include neopragmatism, a relatively conservative approach commonly identified with Richard Rorty, and incommensurability, which expresses Thomas Kuhn's work on paradigms or, as he later preferred, exemplars. As a philosophy of science, this project utilizes a contemporary, and indeed an emancipatory, version of pragmatism generally designated as critical pragmatism, namely, a fusion of pragmatism with critical social theory. As developed here, critical pragmatism retains the equasion of truth with instrumentality or agency. Nevertheless, the internalized, or reverse, Machiavellianism, such as characterizes Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals, is eliminated.
The methodology also presumes a pragmatic conventionalism:
Unlike conventionalism, a philosophy of science that regards scientific laws and theories as freely chosen constructs that are simply devised by the scientist for the purpose of describing reality, Realism holds that laws and theories have determined and real counterparts in things.
-- "Realism," Encyclopedia Britannica
Critical social research must, in its conveyance, be praxical or pedagogical. In other words, it should address, not only the craftiness of domination, but the craft of emancipation. The pedagogy of this paradigm, whether in voice or text, is founded upon a version of Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy. Although similar to certain theologies of liberation, given Freire's Marxian influences and his unabashed devotion to Roman Catholicism, its specific focus, inspired by his occupation as an educator, is upon conscientization, which is to say, a consciousness raising process among students regarding specific categories of oppression accompanied by the means to realize liberation.
Emancipatory Constructionist Theory™, as a neo-Marxist approach, criticalizes the radical sociology of the 1960s and 1970s into the sociopolitical constructs of the twenty-first century and opposes a recent drift into a post-radical accommodationism with the capitalist intelligentsia, while it relativizes critical social theory into a new, or postmodern, critical theory
From the standpoint of this framework, the coexistence of an engaged, radical axiology, expressive of religious or spiritual commitment, with a grounded sociological theory, averse to global capitalism and elite dominance, is posited. The requisite distinction lies in the juxtaposition of value and fact. Those values, or axiology, are developed in this paper. Consistent with my nominalism or terminism (Ockhamism), they are not discussed here.
To the question, "Could the social world be arranged differently," the nominalist would nod in the affirmative. As such, that which is volitional is accidental, not essential. Oppressive groups can be deconstructed and new and liberatory ones erected in their places.
Methodologically, religious supernaturalism and empirical science must each operate within their own grounded spheres of authority, while respecting the other's core competencies. The alternative would be the development of contemporary social scientific versions of such monstrosities as Auguste Comte's Religion of Humanity and Felix Adler's Ethical Culture (making religion scientific), on the one hand, or Creation Science and Islámic science (making science religious), on the other.
Emancipatory constructionism incorporates a nonviolent revolutionary program for transformative social action. In other words, while its axiology, its values and moral direction come, properly, from religion, not from social science, its theoretical foundations originate in social science, not in religion.
Given that the axology of Emancipatory Constructionist Theory is inevitably rooted in the hermeneutic of the individual sociologist, a reflexive sociology must be among its integral components. Dynamically, emancipatory constructionism can be both socially transformative and intensely personal.
A significant mode of reflexive praxis is voice. Personal forms of discourse which are socially, politically, and economically emancipatory are advocated. Accordingly, free speech must refer exclusively to such forms of self-expression as are fundamentally free of oppressive content and do not promote false consciousness. Society should educate its members to rigorously avoid establishmentarian language which champions the subjugation and enslavement of others.
As Emancipatory Constructionist Theory is developed, it will incorporate various theoretical perspectives. These are discussed elsewhere on this site.
This project will use various modes of praxis, including As a critical sociologist, my two principal forms of praxis are through public sociology and clinical sociology. As a journalist, I engage in advocacy journalism. My work in cultural history is concerned with the dominative characteristics of popular media.
For further information, see my paper entitled, An Anti-Terrorist Manifesto. This section of the present page is modified from that paper.
For definntions of clinical sociology, sociological practice, and applied sociology, see my ClinicalSociology.com portal.
syn·chro·nous
Pronunciation: 'si[ng]-kr&-n&s, 'sin-
Function: adjective
Etymology: Late Latin synchronos, from Greek,
from syn- + chronos time
Date: 1669
1 : happening, existing, or arising at
precisely the same time
2 : recurring or
operating at exactly the same periods
3 :
involving or indicating synchronism
4 a :
having the same period; also : having the same period and phase b : GEOSTATIONARY
5 : of, used in, or being digital communication (as between computers) in which a common timing signal is established that dictates when individual bits can be transmitted, in which characters are not individually delimited, and which allows for very high rates of data transfer
Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary © 2002 (Online Edition)
asyn·chro·nous
Pronunciation: (")A-'si[ng]-kr&-n&s, -'sin-
Function: adjective
Date: 1748
1 : not synchronous
2 : of,
used in, or being digital communication (as between
computers) in which there is no timing requirement for
transmission and in which the start of each character is
individually signaled by the transmitting device
-
asyn·chro·nous·ly adverb
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary © 2002 (Online Edition)
Medium
plural usually media...a
channel or system of communication, information, or entertainment
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
All of us have a lifeworld; it is all that we are and all that we do. It is the sense that we have of ourselves, how we feel emotionally, what our bodies can do physically, the relationships that we have with others, our hopes and ambitions, our perceptions of time past and the future in front of us, the things that we do and all that we value. Although the way that we experience them will be unique for each of us, these aspects of being alive will be shared by all of us....
Body – impact on the physical and emotional
Temporality – present, past and future
Project - interests, activities, goals and aspirations
Spatiality – places we go
Sociality – relationships with others
Selfhood – how we view ourselves, feel viewed by others
Discourse – the words used to describe experiences, changes in language
Interviews centre around these fractions...
No attempt made to extract essential, universal truths or common theories from the data
The reader will judge the validity of the data
The research process needs to be transparent
Bassey (1999) ‘fuzzy generalisations’.
Barnes (2003) central defining characteristic [of emancipatory methodology] is the empowerment of the research participant
Understanding the perspective of the participant gives value to their being
Participants understanding of the experience is the only ‘truth’
Sayer(2000:172): ‘the lifeworld can be a site of domination and misrecognition’
Lifeworld enables this to be recognised
Research has traditionally marginalised disabled people (Moore, et al.; Walmsley, 2001; Barnes, 2003)
Lifeworld places participants at the centre of the research process (Hodge, 2006)
The focus is on the participant’s agenda and not the researcher’s (Kvale, 1996; Hodge, 2006)
Unlike emancipatory research and feminism Lifeworld does not have a political agenda (Hodge, 2006)....
Lifeworld is a useful critical framework
Participants are at the centre of the research process
Participants are facilitated in recognising their own understanding of their experience
The research agenda is never less than shared.
Hodge, Nick, "Lifeworld as a Tool of Emancipatory Research." PowerPoint. Retrieved on June 14, 2009.
Emancipatory Research Exposing Oppression
The project presents an exciting opportunity to generate, through emancipatory research methods, new knowledge about factors contributing to poverty and strategies for ameliorating the economic disadvantage of people with disabilities. (Disability Studies scholar Mike Oliver suggests that emancipatory research "exposes the real oppression and discrimination that people experience in their everyday lives without merely contributing to the classification and control of marginalized groups who seek nothing more than their full inclusion into the societies in which they live.) Additionally, the project is developing new research alliances.
"A Voice of Our Own." January 2009. Volume 27. Issue 1. Council of Canadians with Disabilities. Retrieved on June 14, 2009.
In the previous paper I contextualised the emerging [emancipatory research] paradigm in the following way:
'The development of such a paradigm stems from the gradual rejection of the positivist view of social research as the pursuit of absolute knowledge through the scientific method and the gradual disillusionment with the interpretive view of such research as the generation of socially useful knowledge within particular historical and social contexts. The emancipatory paradigm, as the name implies. is about the facilitating of a politics of the possible by confronting social oppression at whatever levels it occurs' (Oliver, 1992: 110).
This was never intended to be an argument against the pursuit of knowledge per se, whether that knowledge be absolute, socially useful or whatever; but rather an assertion that it is not possible to research oppression in an objective or scientific way. As Barnes (1996) has recently argued, you cannot be independent in research oppression; you are either on the side of the oppressors or the oppressed.
In seeking to describe what the emanicaptory research project was, I suggested that it might be seen as an emerging new paradigm for undertaking research. The reason for this was simple:
'The issue then for the emancipatory research paradigm is not how to empower people but, once people have decided to empower themselves, precisely what research can then do to facilitate this process. This does then mean that the social relations of research production do have to be fundamentally changed; researchers have to learn how to put their knowledge and skills at the disposal of their research subjects, for them to use in whatever ways they choose.'
Thus what made it a new paradigm was the changing of the social relations of research production - the placing of control in the hands of the researched, not the researcher.
Building on previous feminist work (e.g. Lather, 1987; Ribbens, 1990), I went on to suggest that there were three key fundamentals on which such a paradigm must be based; reciprocity, gain and empowerment. However, merely attempting to base research on these fundamentals did not necessarily mean working in ways very different from some positivist work and much interpretive work. But changing the social relations of research production meant that it was impossible to incoporate emancipatory work into existing research paradigms....
Crucial to the production of [our] book were our own roles as both activists and researchers....
This question [Was it empowering?] is perhaps a false one. As I have argued elsewhere (Oliver, 1992; 1996) empowerment is not in the gift of the powerful; albeit whether they are politicians, policy makers or researchers; empowerment is something that people do for themselves collectively. Disabled people have decided to empower themselves therefore the question that needs to be asked is whether our work makes a contribution to this process. The question could also be asked in a negative way – is our work likely to contribute to the disempowerment of disabled people?...
... In eschewing objectivity and neutrality and embracing partisanship, we were clearly confronting many of the canons of scientific and social scientific approaches to research....
As I indicated earlier, the question of doing emancipatory research is a false one, rather the issue is the role of research in the process of emancipation. Inevitably this means that research can only be judged emancipatory after the event; one cannot 'do' emancipatory research (nor write methodology cookbooks on how to do it), one can only engage as a researcher with those seeking to emancipate themselves.
Oliver, Mike, "Emancipatory Research: Realistic Goal or Impossible Dream?" PDF file. Retrieved on June 14, 2009.
The move toward patient empowerment began in the 1970s. Some references cite American and European civil rights movements as its root. Others suggest the patient of the '70s became more interested in complementary and alternative methods of healthcare and therefore demanded more of a say in their treatment choices. Even the explosion of technology and its resulting possibilities for research, testing and medical treatment played a role.
In 1999, the Institute of Medicine, an agency of the US government, issued its report called To Err is Human which cited the deaths of between 44,000 and 98,000 Americans each year due to medical errors. Thus the flames of patient empowerment were fueled, and the quiet-to-that-point movement began to grow.
Patient empowerment has a handful of definitions. Most focus on the concept of the patient as taking an active role in his own disease management, or being a contributing member of his medical decision-making team. This includes participation in, and respect for the tenets of patient advocacy, self-determination, healthcare consumerism and patient safety.
With more than 30 years of history, patient empowerment is approaching its tipping point. More and more, patients are realizing they can improve their medical outcomes by taking responsibility for their own healthcare decisions in partnership with their providers.
Torrey, Trisha, "The History of the Patient Empowerment Movement." Website. Updated: April 9, 2009. Retrieved on July 2, 2009.
In this paper I will talk about my own experience of involvement in what might be classed as ‘emancipatory methodologies’ in a mental health context, but first I want to consider some of the differences between the role and prevalence of emancipatory research in the field of disability and the field of mental health. There is a distinct tradition of ‘emancipatory research’ within the Disabled People’s Movements. The term was coined by Oliver in 1992 and has been used ever since to describe research which has critiqued mainstream disability research and which instead has offered a perspective that draws on disabled people’s experiences, ‘illustrating the complexity of the process of disablement with reference to environmental and social factors,’ (Colin Barnes, 2001:4). The legacy of Oliver’s 1992 statement has enjoyed a far higher profile within disability research than it has in mental health research....
The disability movements are in a different social place than the mental health movements. Beresford and Wallcraft (1997) talk about some of the reasons for these differences. The primary difference they identify is in the relationship between service users and service providers. Beresford and Wallcraft (1997) contend that the disability movements in the UK, through their utilisation of the social model, have developed Largely independently of the disability professionals and the disability service system. It has placed an emphasis on developing organisations of disabled people and challenging the traditional dominance of organisations for disabled people (1997:70).
The distinction between ‘of’ and ‘for’ is one that crops up again in the literature; it is related to issues of empowerment and is one that I will return to later in the paper (see also Barnes, 2001: 47-8). However, this does not simply mean that the social model can be extended to encompass issues of emotional distress. Plumb (1994) has argued that there are distinct differences between the two movements. She argues that the prevalence of the social model within the disability field could well lead to the colonisation of mental health service users, to the extent that their specific needs may be subsumed under the social model of disability. However, to return to the original point, this distinction or distance from service providers within the disability movement is not found to be the same when UK mental health movements are considered. Mental health organisations have been much more closely tied into the mental health service system. In relation to the Irish context, the dominant type of mental health organisations would tend to be organisations for users of services (see Speed, 2002), but within these self same organisations there is a move towards some representation of users by users....
... Empowerment methodologies, I would argue, are fundamentally different from emancipatory methodologies. I would further this distinction by stating that, (particularly in relation to mental health): empowerment methodologies and research projects are a necessary precursor to emancipatory methodologies and research projects.
The disability movement has succeeded (to a degree) in moving from a framework of empowerment to a framework of emancipation (the idea that people are readily familiar with a notion of emancipatory research within the disability movement is in itself a reflection of progress). This has been achieved in part, by the utilisation and development of empowerment methodologies.
Essentially my argument here is that emancipatory research is part of a process, or is bound up in a process, of movement development. Empowerment research is a necessary pre-cursor to emancipatory research, empowerment research might be thought of as the tool, which can re-distribute or even open up (an important distinction) what up to now has been professionally dominated power. It is through these changes in power relations that it becomes possible to build projects and programmes which can then be identified as emancipatory projects.
Speed, Ewen [Department of Sociology, Trinity College, Dublin], "What Exactly is an Emancipatory Methodology?" Word file. Retrieved on June 14, 2009.
Many use the term empowerment without understanding what it really means. A literature review resulted in no clear definition of the concept, especially one that could cross-disciplinary lines. This article defines empowerment as a multi-dimensional social process that helps people gain control over their own lives. It is a process that fosters power in people for use in their own lives, their communities and in their society, by acting on issues they define as important.
... we see empowerment as a multi-dimensional social process that helps people gain control over their own lives. It is a process that fosters power in people for use in their own lives, their communities, and in their society by acting on issues that they define as important. In PEP as in Extension we strive to teach people skills and knowledge that will motivate them to take steps to improve their own lives – to be empowered.
Page, Nanette and Czuba, Cheryl E., "Empowerment: What Is It?" Journal of Extension. October 1999. volume 37. number 5. Retrieved on June 14, 2009.
The concept of empowerment is studied from an individual perspective even though the phenomenon comprises a collective component [35,43]. From an individual perspective, empowerment is a social process whereby the acquisition of skills by the person to satisfy his or her needs, resolve his or her problems and mobilize the necessary resources to take control over his or her life is recognized, supported and valued....
Promoting selfcare initiatives by relying on a person's strengths and supporting his or her progress towards this goal is not a simple task. Studies like this one are needed to understand the processes involved. The use of a reflective approach to study enabling interventions and individual empowerment is therefore an innovative aspect of this research. It should provide cues on how to better support health care professionals in their efforts to adapt and transform their practices so they can guide their clients towards greater autonomy.
Tribble, Denise StCyr et al., "Empowerment Interventions, Knowledge Translation and Exchange: Perspectives of Home Care Professionals, Clients and Caregivers." BMC Health Services Research. Volume 8. August 20, 2008. Retrieved on June 14, 2009.
Empowerment is a construct that links individual strengths and competencies, natural helping systems, and proactive behaviors to social policy and social change (Rappaport 1981, 1984). Empowerment theory, research, and intervention link individual and social well-being with the larger political and social environment. Theoretically, the construct connects mental health to mutual help and the struggle to create a responsive community. It compels us to think in terms of wellness versus illness, competence versus deficits, and strength versus weakness.... Empowerment-oriented interventions enhance wellness while they also aim to ameliorate problems, provide opportunities for participants to develop knowledge and skills, and engage professionals and collaborators instead of authoritative experts.
Perkins, Douglas D. and Zimmerman Marc A., "Empowerment Theory, Research, and Application." American Journal of Community Psychology. Volume 23. Number 5. 1995.
The path to be taken in understanding the person with dementia is now clear – we should focus on the description of the person's lifeworld. The carer becomes an informal phenomenologist of a kind.....
Bracketing presuppositions in order to reveal the lifeworld of the person with dementia is the process indicated (Ashworth, 1997). This epoche is something which has continually to be undertaken....
So, throughout the attempt to describe the lifeworld of the person with dementia, the process of entering into the experience itself "in its appearing" entails exercising a form of epoche.
Ashworth, Ann and Ashworth, Peter, "The lifeworld as phenomenon and as research heuristic, exemplified by a study of the lifeworld of a person suffering Alzheimer's disease." Journal of Phenomenological Psychology. Volume 23. Number 2. 2003.
