Reflections on the Undercurrent of Participation in Collaborative Action Research: Power Dynamics and the Unsaid

Abstract

Participation is seen as a key methodological principle in Participatory Action Research (PAR), and the literature shows an increasing number of reflections on the challenges of participation. However, beneath the surface of the stories being told, there can often other stories be found, such as stories about conflicts, frustrations, moral sensitivities or even failures, that are challenging to our personal identities as researchers. I conducted an auto ethnographic study as the leader of a collaborative PAR project, called Project Z, using data from my personal experiences and reflections. I reflect on the participation of organizations, and the participation of clients in the project. The organizational learning theory by Chris Argyris and psychodynamic theories by Jessica Benjamin and Melanie Klein, are used to understand the undercurrent in these processes, i.e. the unspoken experiences, thoughts and emotions. My conclusion is that PAR will benefit from communicative spaces in which the undercurrent in participation is explicated in order to strengthen participation to create societal impact.

Introduction

Participation is often said to be one of the key methodological principles in participatory action research (Kemmis & McTaggart, 2000; McIntyre, 2007; Van Lieshout et al., 2021). It means that stakeholders are actively involved in the different stages of a project, such as problem definition, planning, acting, observing, reflecting and adapting practice. The creation of communicative spaces in which different knowledges can be shared in an equal setting, and new insights be gained that lead to actions, has been put forward as a way to design participation (Eady et al., 2015; Kemmis & McTaggart, 2000; Van Lieshout et al., 2021). These can take different forms, such as learning communities, dialogue sessions, creative labs and so on.

Also, in the last decades, tools and instruments have been developed, often based on the ladder of Arnstein (1969; see for example Jacobs, 2006) that distinguish levels of participation, including different ‘steps’ such as information, consultation, partnership (collaboration) and self-direction by those that should benefit from the project. Carpentier (2018) has criticized ladders for not acknowledging the different intensities of participation over time, or within the different activities of a task. Participation is regarded as a messy process and involves different stakeholders who intrude in each other’s practices in different ways, with different intentions that are shared or not shared but nevertheless exert their influence on the processes in the project (Cook, 2009). Others too, have developed models that try to capture the complexity of participation, for example Shier (2001) who developed a model consisting of ‘pathways’ of participation, and Van Lieshout et al. (2021) who designed a stepladder to understand the participation of different stakeholders in their mutual relationship.

Furthermore, attention has been paid to power and how to include the voices of marginalized or vulnerable groups in the decision-making around PAR projects or Research Practice Partnerships and the direction they take (Denner et al., 2019; Dworski-Riggs & Langhout, 2010; Janes, 2016; Strumińska-Kutra & Scholl, 2022). In the last decades there have been quite some publications that specifically address the challenges of participation by vulnerable or marginalized groups in action research (see for example Avgitidou, 2009; De Toledo & Giatti, 2014; Grant et al., 2008). In different publications, it is argued that action researchers may unintentionally impose participation on partners and thereby reinforce existing power differences between academic and professional/lay groups (e.g. Arieli et al., 2009; Jacobs, 2010). The ‘paradoxes of participation’ that center around trust, authority, cohesion and power, identified by Ospina et al. (2004), and the warning to not make participation into a tyranny (Cooke & Kothari, 2001) can be recognized in these publications.

These publications are highly useful, since sharing experiences about the challenges of participation and the strategies to deal with them, are informative for fellow and new researchers in the field and they add to our knowledge of conducting PAR by providing examples and suggestions that can be used in other research projects. However, I also find that beneath the surface of the stories being told about participation by researchers, there are things unsaid, such as personal sensitivities, anxieties, moral dilemmas, failures, or poor decisions. These seem to be repressed or withheld, possibly due to self-censorship, the institutional context or fear of disturbing research conventions and progress. Newitt and Thomas (2020) note that ‘too much of what is personally uncomfortable and challenging to our identities as researchers is often tidied out of the final presentation’ (Newitt & Thomas, 2020, p. 109). In the literature these aspects or dimensions are indicated as ‘failures’ (Horton, 2008); the complexities that ‘are brushed under the carpet’ (Lenette et al., 2019); the ‘backstage processes’ (in this Special Issue) or even ‘the dark side’ (Bartels & Friedman, 2022):

‘…we also know that ART [Action Research for Transformation, author] has a “dark side”. It is a complex and demanding process. It demands relational, conceptual and experimental skills not usually taught together in conventional educational programs. Many challenges are likely to emerge and there are no guarantees that it will achieve the desired impact. Transformative aspirations and change processes inevitably come with ambiguities, mistakes, frustrations, tensions, conflicts and disappointments. All action researchers struggle with feelings of failure and doubt about the value and impact of their work.’ (Bartels & Friedman, 2022, p. 99)

I belief we can learn from these ‘things unsaid’, or as I will call them, ‘the undercurrent’ in research. I want to explore my assumption that the things unsaid have to do with the personal or private selves and that power dynamics are involved. In the next part, I will first outline some theoretical perspectives that help me to build a framework to look at the undercurrent in some of my own experiences in doing PAR in a large collaborative project, called Project Z. I will then outline the autoethnographic approach I have taken, and I will show how Project Z is positioned as a collaborative platform aiming at societal impact. After this, I will present two ‘undercurrent’ stories from my own experience as project leader. In the last part I will discuss these, using the theoretical perspectives outlined above, and I will put forward some implications for learning about the undercurrent.

Theorizing the Undercurrent

In this contribution I look at the undercurrent, i.e. things unsaid, in stories of participation. According to Greenspan (2014, p. 230) in the context of his research with Holocaust survivors, ‘the unsaid is, by far, the largest category of silences. It encompasses the great range of things survivors could (theoretically) talk about in an interview, but choose not to.’ And Pressler (2022) argues that silences are caused by marginalized positions and often reinforcing their powerlessness, but that they also can be related to a position of power, and function in order to keep that power: ‘Across power positions, one may censor what one says or veil it somehow in order to gain advantage and/or avoid social sanctions for provoking or facilitating harm. The powerful gain and maintain considerable power by keeping quiet.’ (Presser, 2022, p. 3–4). The forces behind those silences are complex, because they are both external and internal or internalized (Presser, 2022). Translating this to PAR, it means that silences often go unrecognized, they are hidden or even repressed because they do not belong in the frame of what good participatory research entails. Researchers may feel shame to make some experiences explicit because it can impact on their self-image and how others see them; or it may have academic repercussions.

Argyris’ theory of organizational learning (1993) and psychodynamic theories on self-defense (Klein, 1988; Benjamin, 2013; see also Prins, 2006; Schruijer, 2006, 2020), can also help to build this framework for analyzing what is happening in the undercurrent of participation. Agyris makes a distinction between two types of ‘theories of action’: espoused theories and theories-in-use. Plans, methods, mission statements and so on, show the espoused theories of participation: the beliefs, attitudes and values regarding participation. These are the stories told when asked about participation in the project. Often these stories do not match with the actual practice of participation: ‘there are often fundamental, systematic mismatches between individuals’ espoused and in-use designs.’ (Argyris, 1995, p. 20) According to Argyris, people even ‘develop designs to keep them unaware of the mismatch. And they do all this when the issues are embarrassing or threatening, the precise time when effective learning is crucial.’ (Argyris, 1995, p. 21) This links in with psychodynamic theories, such as the theories of Melanie Klein and Jessica Benjamin, that state that human beings long for a coherent and a positive self-image thereby hiding unwelcome truths and patterns. Klein (1988) does not view the self as an undivided whole that is separate from the outside world, but theorizes the unconscious defenses against anxiety that come into play in intersubjective relationships and that may result in splitting. Splitting is the separation of persons, activities or objects into good and bad in which the latter is projected to something or someone outside oneself; and which is a defending mechanism in the face of self-threat. Hollway and Jefferson (2000) have argued that this defense mechanism plays a role in qualitative research interviewing, which entails a mechanism in interpersonal relationships that may stretch towards other modes of participation in research. Jessica Benjamin’s theory of intersubjectivity (2013) stresses the relational nature of the experience of recognition and the lack of it. Her theory throws light on the relational dynamics and mutual influence of participants in PAR, and the difficulties to put one’s finger on what happens if participation falters or raises challenges. Her work connects intersubjective dynamics with social and political relationships, including issues of power, diversity and exclusion. Argyris’ theory helps to understand the gap between espoused theories (‘sayings’) and theories-in-use (‘doings’), the spoken and visible layers of participation. Klein and Benjamin add to this the layer of ‘being’, that which is happening inside, often unsaid and invisible. The latter experiences are felt as emotions, conflicts or ambiguities by the persons involved; they belong to the personal or private self. Both perspectives help me to look at the undercurrent in participation in a large collaborative project, Project Z. In the next part I will first outline Project Z, as it is laid down in documents and publicity. This is the espoused theory, that which is expressed and articulated as the aim and approach to others, such as sponsors and partners.

Project Z as a Boundary Practice

Project Z is a large collaborative project that started in 2021 and finished in 2024 with the goal to understand and develop existential care in outpatient, primary, and community care. It is a large partnership of universities, university medical centers, health and social care organizations, branch and professional organizations and client organizations. Existential care has its roots in existential philosophy (e.g. Heidegger, Kierkegaard) and existential psychotherapy (e.g. Yalom, 1980) and is a form of care focused on the well-being of the person as a whole, with attention to the deeper, existential or spiritual needs and supporting the person in their unique life situation. It helps people understand their own lives and place in the world, and deal with fundamental questions about life, death, society, past-present-future, and their choices. We feel it is important that care systems recognize the need for existential care and accommodate these elements of care. We work together, learn from and with each other with the aim to bring about this recognition within the healthcare landscape in the Netherlands, through the path of professionalization in a cross-border collaboration. Participation here includes both the interorganizational collaboration on the macrolevel of the platform, and the participation of researchers, practitioners and clients in specific (regional) activities or working groups (the meso- and microlevels).

By professionalization we mean all activities aimed at further developing the identity and competencies of existential caregiving both individually and collectively. Professionalization takes optimal shape in a process of practice development, underscored by research; experimenting with innovations in practice, studying them and learning from them. Different knowledges – of personal experience, practice and academy - are integrated to find evidence for the impact of these developments (Rycroft‐Malone et al., 2004). Cross-border collaboration refers to connecting professional groups and volunteers in primary, ambulatory and transmural health and social care in the Netherlands; and collaboration between research, education and professional practice.

The project has taken shape in four overarching activities.

(1) The development of a platform that promotes cooperation, knowledge development and knowledge exchange;

(2) Regional thematic learning networks (e.g. around living with intellectual disability, poverty, low literacy, dementia) consisting of professionals, clients, researchers and policy makers; and an overarching learning community that promotes exchange between and within these learning networks;

(3) The development of practice-based evidence through participatory qualitative research on the needs, goals, practices and outcomes of existential care; and through overarching research on existential needs of inhabitants; collaboration and differentiation between professional groups; and competence development of professionals and volunteers; and

(4) Collaborative branch projects (such as GP care, social work, youth care, volunteering), carried out by professionals, researchers and clients, in which research is conducted on existential care needs of a diversity of client groups; as well as the needs for support by professionals and volunteers.

As a whole, the project can be seen as a comprehensive participatory action research (PAR) in which research, training and practice development intertwine in various ways to create impact on a societal and professional level. Following Cronholm and Goldkuhl (2004), I would argue that there is an ongoing and developing existential care practice; there is a research practice; and there is education (bachelor and master courses and post initial training) on existential caregiving; and there is the project, as a boundary practice in which research, training and practice development meet directly. We derive the term ‘boundary practice’ from the boundary crossing theory, as elaborated in the Netherlands by Akkerman and Bakker (2011; see also Jacobs, 2016; Jacobs & Cuba, 2023). The project is a space to meet across borders and domains, and strives for equal collaboration. By equal collaboration is not meant that all participants are equally involved, but rather that the contributions of the various participants are equally valued. This is a challenge because experiential and also professional knowledges still lose out to academic and policy knowledges; and there are also differences in the weighing of knowledges of privileged and marginalized groups. Miranda Fricker has referred to this as epistemic injustice (Fricker, 2010). This also operates in PAR, where these knowledge types converge and are often represented in different individuals or groups. Equal collaboration requires people with diverse backgrounds, expertise and interests to work together, based on the recognition and appreciation of those differences.

Project Z as a ‘space in-between’ or ‘boundary practice’ has the potential to be a communicative area for creating impact in society by spurring ‘learning’ and ‘transformation’ (Akkerman & Bakker, 2011). Societal impact often involves incremental and varied changes, based on relationships and interactions that come about through pilots and collaborations and that can only be partially controlled (Abma et al., 2017). Being the leader of this boundary practice requires being a boundary subject who is able to connect to the diverse, multi-voiced and evolving practice; and who works across domains and even roles.

Using Autoethnography to Get to an Understanding of the Undercurrent

Autoethnography is a qualitative research method in which the researcher’s self is the subject of study but which has the aim to develop knowledge about a phenomenon within its contexts from this subjective, first-person perspective: ‘Autoetnography recognizes self-experience as a social phenomenon valuable and worthy of examination.’ (Edwards, 2021, p. 1) The author thereby is both researcher and subject in the study. This fits well with PAR because of the aim to realize both change and understanding from within the setting. So both in PAR and autoethnography, the participants are members of, or ‘inside’ the practice they are developing and investigating, and they are professionally and personally involved in this practice. Autoethnography then provides researchers/participants with a method for analyzing and making sense of the processes they encounter and their own and others’ feelings, thoughts and behaviors within the setting they are studying. (Acosta et al., 2015; Lac & Fine, 2018). The critical reflection in autoethnography helps to identify areas of change, which can be followed by action research.

I will use autoethnography to make sense of the undercurrent in participation in Project Z. Participation is one of my key methodological principles in doing PAR, since my approach to PAR is an emancipatory one: I strive to do research that is transformative, making a difference in the lives and health of those involved. Freire (1970) has been a source of inspiration, as well as feminists and feminist psychologists who contributed to connected ways of developing knowledge and integrating experiential knowledge with innovative and transformative research methods (Belenky et al., 1986; Hill Collins, 1990).

I place this contribution in the so-called tradition of analytic autoethnography (Anderson, 2006) and more specifically, as a retrospective undertaking (Edwards, 2021). After Project Z was finished, I felt that there were things unsaid and that I needed to give meaning to these in order to learn from them. I decided to conduct a single-authored autoethnography, despite the disadvantages outlined in the literature such as the limited scope of the study (see e.g. Lapadat, 2017). The reason for this is my particular position of power in the project, which means that experiences inevitably are different from those of others in the project. Also it was not possible to receive ethical clearance to use data from other participants as the project was already finished. Therefore, I will only use my own experiences and reflections as project leader as data. I want to critically reflect on the power dynamics involved in this role and how this possibly influences the undercurrent. Following from this, the researcher’s (my) self is visible in the narration. I will use the first person voice for talking about personal thoughts and feelings; and will alternate this with third person language use where relevant. I will present my experiences as they shape and are shaped by the processes within Project Z and within the relationships with other participants and the wider social and cultural context.

However, even though I will use my own experiences and reflections as data, my accounts of self-experience will always involve others, since human beings are relational beings, and the self-story includes the relationship with others (Bochner, 2017; Lapadat, 2017). The question then is how to portray these others and how to protect their autonomy? In order to treat others in this study with care and respect (see also Visse & Niemeijer, 2016) I tried to be scarce about details on the project and on the other persons involved, which is called masking (Jerolmack & Murphy, 2019). I constantly questioned my right to speak about others or the project in general. Also, the focus will be on my experiences and meaning making, thereby explicitly not arguing to tell ‘the truth’ about the project, but to highlight the undercurrent from my particular position of power. This possibly will help others in PAR, whether they take a leading role or not, to recognize these power dynamics.

This focus on self, however, also brings risks for the self (Crowley et al., 2025; Visse & Niemeijer, 2016). The question emerged: do I want to make myself vulnerable by bringing the undercurrent to the fore? It is impossible to know beforehand how this study will be received and responded to, by those directly involved but also from a wider audience. There might be a risk of reputation or ongoing rumination about the processes in the project (Edwards, 2021; Visse & Niemeijer, 2016). Indeed, the reflection on my role in the undercurrent has exposed aspects of a power dynamic that I was only slightly aware of so far, but I feel that this knowledge is not only helpful to my learning and development, but is also useful input to the field of PAR and the theorizing about the undercurrent.

I conducted this study from my position as leader of the project. I will use my own experiences and reflections on participation as ‘data’, and will critically examine them using the theories set out above. These reflections provide ‘windows’ to narrative interpretation of what happens in participatory research processes from a leader’s perspective and how power dynamics add to silencing some of these processes. The research question underlying my inquiry is: what is the undercurrent of participation – the unsaid - in Project Z and what power dynamics are involved?

Undercurrent Processes in Participation

Project Z is a large, complex project that takes equal collaboration and participation as a key principle. This is not without challenges, as laid out in the introduction. I will look at some of the tensions and conflicts that are common to this boundary work, in order to try to grasp the undercurrent, that which is not openly said or from which one only may catch a glimpse. To do this, I provide two examples of participation challenges on an interorganizational and interpersonal level that I experienced within the project.

Participation of Organizations in the Project

Project Z is a large and dynamic partnership that has evolved over the years. From the start, the funding agency played a role in its development, by requesting the participation of particular organizations. Also in later years, participation required constant reflection on whether the right organizations and people were involved in the various activities and working groups, what their contribution could be and how to design a particular activity to allow for these contributions. But who decides what the ‘right’ organizations are and how they will be involved? On the national level, the decision making around the ‘who’ and ‘how’ lay with the project team and within that team, with the project leader and the project manager. On the regional and local level, many organizations took part that were not ‘chosen’ by the project team but by partners in the project, but that nevertheless participate in the platform. As a project leader, I felt that some form of direction was needed, because otherwise the large project would become bogged down in an uncoordinated set of activities. Also, from my perspective as a project leader, we needed particular organizations to take part because they represented a specific group of professionals in the project. In a recent reflection I wrote about the process of deciding on partner organizations within the project:

When discussing the membership of the platform, we first look at which organizations we need to have on board and secondly, what representatives of organizations or groups. We first put forward names of key stakeholders that take specific roles or positions within these organizations or groups. But then we start to consider whether this is the best person to have on board. Additional criteria we bring to the fore are the person’s availability and their competencies, how the person would fit in with the rest of the team or group, and also the likeability of this person. Regarding the latter, personal connections with the person are often decisive. This happens in all parts of the project: working groups, projects, the communication team.

The questions this raises is whether we act sufficiently inclusive, because for each organization or group participating there is another one that is not represented. And who can represent whom? Is representation actually what we should be looking for or do we need to look for diversity? These are some of the questions we openly discussed in the project team and tried to find answers to. However, there is also an undercurrent in which the ‘likeability’ and ‘like-mindedness’ of partners is a selection criterium as well, but hardly questioned. This is far more ‘dangerous’ since it allows for the unconscious choice of ‘like-minded’ people to become an active member of the project, excluding ‘the Other’, those persons that are different or that we are not familiar with. Reflecting on this undercurrent and my decisive role as a project leader in this, I feel that having a personal connection with someone or with an organization due to familiarity creates the experience of safety, controllability and predictability in a dynamic, somehow fragmented and in essence uncontrollable participatory project. However, in the project we have explicitly stated (the espoused theory) that we aim at including the perspectives of different groups and organizations, and that these should be represented on the different levels of the project. Personal preferences for like-minded persons and organizations, act as unspoken criteria for selection, and may unintentionally cause the exclusion of persons, organizations or groups that are less familiar.

Client Participation in Project Activities

Client or patient participation is an important concept in health and welfare policy and also with funding agencies in The Netherlands. The question of client participation was explicitly raised during the application phase of Project Z and continued after that. We found it difficult to answer this question because our aim is to professionalize existential care for the benefit of every inhabitant who needs support with existential needs now or in the future. Existential needs may manifest themselves in questions regarding meaningful living. They are not a medical or psychological condition, but are part of being human and are usually of a temporary nature (at least, in the intensified form). A client organization that advocates for people with existential needs does not exist. However, this breadth of client group and open delineation is difficult for funding agencies who want to have the impact measured for a particular group. In a meeting of the project team we brainstormed about possibilities for client participation:

One of the project team members said that we can find ‘experiential experts’ at some umbrella organizations in health and social care; so that we have both their personal experiences and these organizations on board. Another suggestion was to broaden the concept of ‘client expertise’ to include the expertise from health care professionals; it would be possible then to invite a general practitioner who had been involved already to participate on the project team. Or we could organize a client board that would give advice to the project team on specific issues. Then I made the suggestion to see ourselves as both professionals and as persons with existential needs and bring in our own experiences and knowledges in dealing with these needs and the support we missed or found in professional or voluntary care practices.

We had an open discussion about client participation and our struggles to give shape to this in the project. I remember bringing in this suggestion to see ourselves as clients too, since we all will have had experience with existential issues. But while saying this, I already felt doubts myself about being open about my personal experiences and existential needs, since these belong to the private self and seem hard to unite with my professional work. However, they do inform my work on a daily basis, being the driver of my ambitions in the project. The experience of existential needs and doing research in this area, are seemingly two separate domains, the private and the academic, that are difficult to integrate. I am still splitting these experiences – my client experience and my professional experience – and I feel this tendency has to do with my role as a project leader and working in academia. This makes me wonder whether even in PAR, my professional being is still leaning on a classical and autonomous model of professionalism (Freidson, 2001), in which the ‘personal being’ can only form the undercurrent, that which is not said. How can we not only in words, but also in practice allow our multiple voices - including the private self – to speak and recognize the ‘client within’?

Discussion of the Undercurrent and Recommendations

Project Z is a large collaborative project, that entails many challenges of participation. Several authors have discussed the difficulties of working with diversity in multiparty collaborations (see e.g. Schruijer, 2006, 2020; Wood & Gray, 1991). Multiparty collaboration has a high potential for impact, precisely because parties are different: they bring different perspectives, resources, interests and identities to the collaboration.

‘Successful collaboration then means being able to work with diversity: being able to identify the relevant diversity in view of commonly developed goals, and value that diversity as it needs nurturing to realize the joint ambitions. In practice however, diversity gives rise to distrust, stereotyping and conflict.' (Schruijer, 2006, p. 224-5)

Characteristic for interorganizational collaboration is the diversity on different levels: between organizations and also between and within persons (Schruijer, 2020). By studying my own experiences and reflections regarding participation within the project, I could identify the undercurrent of participation as related to the personal and private self. This can work both ways: giving space to the personal such as in the case of giving preference to likeable or likeminded people, may inhibit equal participation. But allowing the personal to speak can also help to open up the differences within ourselves, thereby creating space for more equal collaboration between researchers and other participants. In this last section, I will reflect on some key issues that I came across in this study, on these different levels.

Reflections on the Power Dynamics in the Undercurrent

Participatory practices are characterized by a difference between saying and doing. This phenomenon can be explained by the theory of organizational learning as developed by Argyris (1993; 1995). Although the project explicitly wanted to achieve equal collaboration (which can be seen as the espoused theory), my actual behavior shows that ‘my master program’ – how I have become socialized as a leader, researcher, and human being - activates my theory-in-use. This may take different shapes but in the end comes down to this: I should be in control, oversee all partners and their equal participation. Argyris (1993) calls this a defensive routine: ‘any policy or action that inhibits individuals, groups, intergroups, and organizations from experiencing embarrassment or threat and, at the same time, prevents the actors from identifying and reducing the causes of the embarrassment or threat’ (Argyris, 1995, p. 15). So, although in the short term, the criterium of likeability can be a healthy reaction to a condition of uncertainty, in the longer term it will possibly inhibit the project as a boundary practice in which diversity is acknowledged and can be learnt from.

The two undercurrent processes also illustrate the complexity of boundary work which not only takes place between people but also within them, or: within myself. The espoused theory of ‘embracing diversity’ in PAR, stands in contrast to the self-protective theory-in-use ‘to avoid difference’ and the tendency to connect with ‘the same people’. Both examples show difficulties to recognize ‘the other’ (Benjamin, 2013) in the project, as well as ‘the other in myself’. It shows how inequality enters into PAR, if difference is not explored, recognized or confronted.

Reflections on My Role as Boundary Subject

Brokers or ‘boundary subjects’ cross boundaries to allow multiple identities, perspectives, interests and methods to exist. I wonder whether as the leader of this large network, I have sufficiently taken on this brokerage:

‘Brokers occupy “structural holes” at the crossroads between groups of actors. Thus, brokers intervene by building linkages and increasing information flow among previously unrelated parties. Because of their unique vantage point, brokers have access to a wider array of information than others within a network and, because they have one foot in each of several camps, can decipher differences among the camps and translate among them. Brokers serve as conflict-handlers to iron out disputes and misunderstandings among groups. Brokers can also ameliorate power and status differences among diverse groups.’ (Grant et al., 2008, p. 5)

My doubts were reinforced by notions about collaborative leadership, that state that the leader should take a neutral position in order to build the conditions for trust, mutual learning and collaboration (Schruijer, 2006). And that they provide a strong vision and framing that motivates people to collaborate productively and by judgment regarding the scope of a project, the participants, the tasks and resources (Grant et al., 2008, p. 3). This framing positions the leader outside of the project, as untouched by the participation, the diversity and power dynamics. However, what this autoethnographic study made clear, is that my positioning is multi-voiced, ambiguous and interspersed by professional and personal interests. In my experiences and reflections, I noticed a range of emotions like uncertainty, self-doubt, anger, that do not seem to sit well with the idea of a ‘good researcher’ or ‘strong leader’. I support Prins’ (2006) statement that collaborative work is anxiety-provoking, and that leadership is a challenge in collaborative work, precisely because in PAR authority relationships are ambiguous and joint ownership of decisions needed.

I find comfort in Horton’s (2008) article about his multiple senses of failure as a researcher, including the failure to articulate his failures well and to take account of his positionality. I failed to share some of my feelings openly within team meetings, simply because I was not aware of them or because I unconsciously felt not safe to do so, i.e. the vulnerability that comes from a position of power. Pressler calls this the ‘knowing in not-knowing’ (Presser, 2022, p. 14) and Cohen (2001) states that knowing can be ambiguous: ‘We are vaguely aware of choosing not to look at the facts, but not quite conscious of just what it is we are evading. We know, but at the same time we don’t know.’ (Cohen, 2001, p. 5). So on some level I knew that my personal self influences collaborative practice, but at the same time this was not something I was fully aware of.

Learning About the Undercurrent

Opening up to these undercurrent processes so that there is a common desire to learn and develop knowledge is an ongoing challenge. From the psychodynamic perspective in organizational research I learned that human beings tend to protect their self and identity, thereby trying to avoid uncertainty, anxiety and difference (Hollway & Jefferson, 2000; Prins, 2006) which may become manifest in splitting some parts of the self and attributing it to someone else (Klein, 1988). Social defenses to opening up, then are not ‘poor researcher/participant behavior’ but a natural response to a threatening situation: ‘The essence of collaborative work is to make use of the diversity in the system, but it is precisely such a confrontation with differences that increases the potential for conflict.’ (Prins, 2006, p. 338)

The question then is: can or should everything be opened? I don’t think so, because the undercurrent has two sides. Sometimes the undercurrent may inhibit participation, when it solidifies images; and existing gaps between self and other can be strengthened or deepened if no conscious effort is made to liquefy or bridge them (see also Lapadat, 2017, p. 594). On the other hand, the unsaid can also be an important driver for being involved in PAR and to make a difference. An example is the notion of mattering (Prilleltensky, 2020), as the existential need to feel valued and to add value to others, organizations, society. It is often hidden, an undercurrent in our lives, that we are not aware of, but an important force in life and work. Only if it is inhibited, by becoming ill, or marginalized, we become conscious of the lack of mattering in our lives.

However, if we want to learn from complexity and failures, we need to build in ‘slowing down’ processes to reflect on relational processes in communicative spaces. This will help to review the undercurrent and

‘to gain a richer experience, get a better understanding of the different perspectives around the table, stay in touch with reality, repair any perceived injustices or wrongdoing and, based on a working through of these experiences, adjust the way of working together.' (Schruijer, 2020, p. 20)

I have chosen to do an autoethnographic analysis because of the power differential in the project and the retrospective nature of my study. However I do feel that in future projects, power dynamics should be central in collaboratively exploring the undercurrent. A collaborative autoethnography may provide a methodology that enables the learning from differences and which is undertaken in inter- and transdisciplinary research (Crowley et al., 2025). It is not easy, since it requires vulnerability and trustworthiness from researchers:

‘It presents a risk and the potential for discomfort to be experienced by researchers accustomed to taking a leadership role in a team, or who might be more familiar with and comfortable engaging in solitary or siloed research.' (Crowley et al., 2025, p. 15)

Reflective meetings, possibly facilitated by a third person, may provide the opportunity to make explicit the undercurrent in participatory research and to uphold the tensions and frictions that emerge in boundary crossing work:

‘These include a commitment from partners to make their theories of research and action explicit, to regularly provide and reflect on critiques of what is not working, and to make discussions about power and privilege a regular part of the RPP [Research Practice Partnership, author] routine.' (Denner et al., 2019, p. 9).

A ‘meaning making architecture’ (Crowley et al., 2025, p. 8), consisting of key issues involved in collaborative and participatory work, may bring the collaborative autoethnography in dialogue with theoretical perspectives. In this contribution, the notion of ‘theories in use’ and ‘espoused theories’, as well as the idea of ‘defended subjects’ and ‘splitting’ may be useful to reflect on the ‘differences within and between selves’ and how these influence the participatory processes. Also, writing about the unsaid from a first-person perspective, as I did in this contribution, can be a first step towards reflecting collaboratively on the undercurrent. In future collaborative projects, I aim to integrate reflective writing exercises within ‘safe and brave’ spaces to reflect on the undercurrent collaboratively (see also Chang et al., 2013).