Co-Operative Inquiry
Research into the Human Condition
- John Heron - South Pacific Centre for Human Inquiry, New Zealand, South Pacific Centre for Human Inquiry, Auckland
Qualitative Research (General)
Co-operative inquiry is a distinctive and wide-ranging form of participative research in which people use the full range of their sensibilities to inquire together into any aspect of the human condition. This book offers both an extensive exploration of its theoretical background and a detailed practical guide to the methods involved. Topics covered include: a critique of established research techniques; the underlying participative paradigm of co-operative inquiry; the epistemological and political aspects of participation; different types of co-operative inquiry and the range of inquiry topics; ways of setting up inquiry groups and enabling their development; four kinds of inquiry outcome and the primacy of the practical; the main stages of the inquiry cycle, highlighting key issues for practice at each stage; and special skills and procedures used for enhancing validity.
`This text is a quality addition to the literature of qualitative research and postmodern forms of inquiry....Researchers struggling with some of the more esoteric aspects of this orientation will find the clarity of the text and the balance of theoretical and practical content especially refreshing' - Management Learning
'For those of us engaged in facilitating and researching our experiential groupwork with people, Co-operative Inquiry, is an essential sourcebook....The arguments for using co-operative inquiry are compelling and Heron covers the philosophical and methodological ground skilfully' - Peter Ridge, ELAN Newsletter
`In my view Heron has succeeded not only in decisively undermining the philosophical foundations of much of what currently passes as "social scientific" research, but he has carefully and exhaustively articulated a research approach which is not only epistemologically mature, human(e)istic and empowering, but which offers a "hopeful" antidote to the mechanistic and soul-less malaise that typifies so much current scientific research.... Co-Operative Inquiry is enormously relevant to the counselling field, not least in terms of research procedure and what Heron calls "being-values". It is one of the most challenging and potentially transformative books to appear in recent years' - Counselling, The Journal of The British Association for Counselling
