Participatory action research First-person perspectives of a graduate student

This article examines the tensions and challenges of a graduate student maneuvering the institutional hierarchies in her journey of participatory action research (PAR). By using a first-person action research framework, the researcher moves back and forth exploring the prose of others, and revealing her reflexive selfinquiry of underlying assumptions and beliefs. Iterations of insider-outsider positionality, drawing on and integrating paradigms, reconciling multiple roles and perspectives, exploring the complexity of power relations, and uncovering the promises and perils of PAR, moves the researcher toward a partnership with her community of inquiry. First-person action research unfolds a process of self-transformation. Action Research Volume 4(4): 419–437 Copyright© 2006 SAGE Publications London, Thousand Oaks CA, New Delhi www.sagepublications.com DOI: 10.1177/1476750306070104