Embodied Collaborative Developmental Action Inquiry to Become More Reflexive Research-Practitioners in Action

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.