Improving reflexivity through embodied action inquiry

How might we become better at noticing how we shape others and how we are shaped by others?

This, and many other, were questions that set off a collaborative inquiry project in distant 2021. Jacqueline van Paassen, Matt Reeves, Jose Luis Bermudez and myself set out to improve our reflexive capabilities through a number of participatory experiments. We used our learning to bolster our own practices as well as inquiries.

I'm delighted to share that part of our learning has now been published in the special issue of the Action Research journal in the Embodied Collaborative Developmental Action Inquiry to Become More Reflexive Research-Practitioners in Action paper.

Further, I have also have also contributed to the guest editorial Mindsets of Transformation: Consciously Entangled Action and Research With a Responsive World, which does a wonderful job of highlighting key themes across the contributions in the special issue.

Editorial is freely accessible and provides a great overview of all special issue contributions. Our paper can be accessed through usual academic channels, or you can reach out to me for manuscript version of the paper. Action Research Plus published a brief overview of our paper as well.

Paper abstract:

This paper outlines several cycles of first- and second-person inquiry that explore how two doctoral candidates developed reflexive capacity-in-action. We illustrate the essential developmental shifts we experienced while facilitating research co-inquiry groups, offering a joint reflection through the theoretical lens of shifting and loosening habitual patterns. We explore how habitus and implicit relational patterns serve as blueprints for how we engage with and co-construct our social and organisational realities. Building on Collaborative Developmental Action Inquiry practices, we exemplify how research-practitioners can become aware of personal and cultural habituations that shape and constrain what we can hold in our awareness at any given moment. We present several cycles of reflection both in, and on action, beginning with our experiences as initiators of an Action Inquiry Group during our doctoral programme and the challenges we faced in extending this quality of inquiry beyond the research paradigm. Ultimately, we found that as action researchers, the specific practices described in this paper equipped us to better uphold the qualities of mutuality, integrity, and sustainability in collaborative projects within conventional contexts.

References:

• Van Paassen, J., & Pešec, B. (2026). Embodied Collaborative Developmental Action Inquiry to Become More Reflexive Research-Practitioners in Action. Action Research, 24(1), 33–48. https://doi.org/10.1177/14767503251375861
• Divecha, S., Bradbury, H., Zelner, B., Watkins, Á., van Paassen, J., Pešec, B., Sexton, T., Kaur, P., & Reams, J. (2026). Mindsets of Transformation: Consciously Entangled Action and Research With a Responsive World. Action Research, 24(1), 3–17. https://doi.org/10.1177/14767503261423713

Big thank you to Hilary Bradbury and Simon Divecha for their support throughout the process.