Situational Analysis: Mapping Discourses and Interconnectedness of Power in Participatory Action Research Toward Epistemic Justice and Decolonial Critical Feminist Qualitative Inquiry

Background and Purpose: In this current context, social work knowledge production processes are facing complex societal challenges that reproduce harmful, extractive, and privatized knowledge generation and dissemination. These conditions perpetuate epistemic injustice and demand transformative leadership and meaningful change informed by the development and application of research methodologies grounded in decolonial theory and critical feminist principles. Rather than reducing the experiences of oppressed communities to a mere phenomenon in its conditional siloed context, situational analysis presents possibilities to map and examine multilevel interdependent human and nonhuman elements, relations, positions, and discourses in a particular situation. This oral presentation discusses the possibilities and applications of situational analysis as a decolonial critical feminist qualitative methodology in alignment with social work’s commitment to social justice. Drawing from qualitative research findings examining power differentials within participatory action research (PAR) collaborations, this presentation highlights the importance of situational analysis in social work to expose power dynamics within participatory knowledge production processes, and presents the use of situational analysis as a decolonial unsettling critical reflexive qualitative methodology that maps visible and invisible discourses of power.

Methods: This presentation will discuss in detail the application of situational analysis methodology to social work research drawing from an exemplar empirical research study that sought to investigate configurations of power in PAR. Situational analysis mapping and memoing was employed to analyze qualitative individual semi-structured interview transcripts with social work faculty (n=13) and community partners (n=10) engaged in PAR. Using five maps of situational analysis, this iterative analytic exercise explores key human and nonhuman elements, relations, social worlds, and positions present in the situation. Specific connections to decolonial critical feminist inquiry and social work research are explored.

Findings: By exposing more explicitly the influence of interlocking systems of power and oppression in participatory inquiry, situational analysis can serve as a research analytic technique that promotes critical feminist qualitative inquiry and social work values. In the exemplar study, the application of situational analysis allowed for apparent and non-apparent relationships, silent actors/actants, and non-human elements and relationships to be uncovered. In particular, discourses on unexamined silent actants, the commodification of knowledge, and collective commitments of social work faculty embedded in academic institutions that promote dominant narratives of epistemic injustice were analyzed.

Conclusion and Implications: Given the complexity of the institutional challenges experienced within knowledge production processes, it is necessary to consider the application of research methodologies that are situated within specific contexts and weave critical epistemologically and theoretically grounded approaches to further understand social issues in social work research, practice, education, and policy. Beyond placing emphasis solely on replicating research methodologies, situational analysis engages researchers as instruments in mapping throughout the research phases to increase awareness on unexamined key discourses, silences, elements, and positions in participatory inquiry.