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Participatory action research and intersectionality: a critical dialogical reflection of a study with older adults

Maaike Muntinga (Department of Ethics, Law and Humaniora, Amsterdam UMC Locatie VUmc, Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
Elena Bendien (Leyden Academy on Vitality and Ageing, Leiden, The Netherlands)
Tineke Abma (Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Leiden University Medical Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands)
Barbara Groot (Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Leiden University Medical Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands)

Quality in Ageing and Older Adults

ISSN: 1471-7794

Article publication date: 19 October 2023

Issue publication date: 20 February 2024

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Abstract

Purpose

Researchers who work in partnership with older adults in participatory studies often experience various advantages, but also complex ethical questions or even encounter obstacles during the research process. This paper aims to provide insights into the value of an intersectional lens in participatory research to understand how power plays out within a mixed research team of academic and community co-researchers.

Design/methodology/approach

Four academic researchers reflected in a case-study approach in a dialogical way on two critical case examples with the most learning potential by written dialogical and via face-to-face meetings in duos or trios. This study used an intersectionality-informed analysis.

Findings

This study shows that the intersectional lens helped the authors to understand the interactions of key players in the study and their different social locations. Intersections of age, gender, ethnicity/class and professional status stood out as categories in conflict. In hindsight, forms of privilege and oppression became more apparent. The authors also understood that they reproduced traditional power dynamics within the group of co-researchers and between academic and community co-researchers that did not match their mission for horizontal relations. This study showed that academics, although they wanted to work toward social inclusion and equality, were bystanders and people who reproduced power relations at several crucial moments. This was disempowering for certain older individuals and social groups and marginalized their voices and interests.

Originality/value

Till now, not many scholars wrote in-depth about race- and age-related tensions in partnerships in participatory action research or related approaches, especially not about tensions in research with older people.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Since acceptance of this article, the following author has updated their affiliation: Barbara Groot is at the Department of Health Science, VU Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Citation

Muntinga, M., Bendien, E., Abma, T. and Groot, B. (2024), "Participatory action research and intersectionality: a critical dialogical reflection of a study with older adults", Quality in Ageing and Older Adults, Vol. 25 No. 1, pp. 9-20. https://doi.org/10.1108/QAOA-03-2023-0024

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited

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