Emancipatory action research as a critical living praxis: from dominant narratives to counternarratives

When we start to question stories, asking in whose interests they are told, we see different possibilities for changing the story and therefore changing the world. From a Freirean perspective, this chapter poses the need for a critical living praxis, a unity of theory and action based on lived experience, and proposes that emancipatory action research (EAR) provides us with the “glue” needed to integrate thinking and doing. With social justice at its heart, EAR involves critical consciousness to expose structural discrimination by challenging dominant narratives, a process of denunciation. Creating practical counternarratives of hope and possibility is a parallel process of annunciation, stories that aspire to better societies built on fairness and equality, which inspire participants to act together to change the course of history.