Feminist Participatory Action Research

Feminist Participatory Action Research (FPAR) fuses the participatory action research tradition — in which communities investigate their own conditions through cycles of action and reflection — with feminist commitments to analyzing gender power, foregrounding marginalized women's knowledge, practicing reflexivity, and producing concrete social change. Pioneered by Patricia Maguire in 1987 and later systematized by Colleen Reid and Wendy Frisby, it dissolves the usual divide between researcher and researched, positioning community members as co-researchers who shape the questions, the process, and the outcomes.