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Environmental Education Research

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Environmental Education
Researchers as Environmental
Activists
a
KAREN MALONE
a
Monash University , Australia
Published online: 28 Jul 2006.

To cite this article: KAREN MALONE (1999) Environmental Education Researchers

as Environmental Activists, Environmental Education Research, 5:2, 163-177, DOI:
10.1080/1350462990050203

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 Environmental Education Research, Vol. 5, No. 2, 1999 163

Environmental Education Researchers as

Environmental Activists
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KAREN MALONE Monash University, Australia

SUMMARY This article is a reflective account of a researcher's journey whilst

embarking on a study which was political in its intentions and participatory in its
orientation. Learning from feminist writings, where researchers have shared stories and
explored notions of insider/outside, academic/activist, the central argument of the article
is the development of an activist approach to environmental education research.
The article draws on a doctoral research study which was a critical ethnography of a
school and community engaged in a socially critical approach to environmental edu-
cation.

If I had tried to enter

I may have never been invited
If I had seen the cracks
I may have fallen in
If I had seen your tears
7 may not have cried with you
If I had strained to hear
I may not have heard your voices
If I had sought the one true story
I may have never known
If I had watched your struggle from a distance
I may have never shared your pain
Reflective prose, Researcher's Personal Journal, September 1994

Introduction
In this article I embark on a praxiological journey—to reflect on a research
study—taking as my central theme the notion of social research as activism. The
research study was a critical ethnography of a school and community engaged
in a socially critical approach to environmental education. The study was

1350-4622/99/020163-15 © 1999 Taylor & Francis Ltd

 164 K. Malone

conducted during a three-year period from 1993 to 1995 and culminated in the
development of four interrelated narratives. The first narrative is a description
of the environmental education program within the school and community
context. The second and third narratives consist of two participants' stories. The
final narrative is the researcher's story as recorded in her journal. The central
substantive thesis advanced through the study was that a participatory research
approach to social critically environmental education is capable of empowering
communities to collective environmental action in support of environmentalism
as a social movement. As critical ethnographer I adopted a critical perspective in
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the development of the four narratives and embraced the multiple roles of
critical researcher and participant as environmental activist. The central focus
of this article is the development of an argument for an activist approach to
environmental education research drawing on the parallels that exist between
feminist educational research and environmental education research. To orient
the reader I have started the article with a short summary of the context and the
environmental education project which was the focus of the research study.

1VIy Place, Our Place'

Laverton Park, the site of the research study, is in Melbourne's western suburbs.
The western suburbs, with its close proximity to the city (10 minutes drive along
an eight-lane freeway), its vast open, flat plains and the provision for sewerage
outfall into a large bay, is a targeted region and site for developing offensive
industries. The people living and working in the area have carried the stigma of
being 'working-class' cousins of the affluent eastern suburb dwellers since its
first inception as an industrial area over a century ago. The stigmatisation has
been accentuated by the deteriorating physical condition of the urban environ-
ment due to pollution, poor maintenance and high levels of crime and vandal-
ism. Many people living in the west believe their environmental situation is due
to a lack of political clout—without influential supporters or economic resources
they have been silenced and marginalised.
Laverton Park, a small public housing estate, was developed in the early 1960s
to service officers and their families stationed at the local Royal Australian
Airforce (RAAF) base. When RAAF left the area, what remained were affordable
houses for low-income families, the unemployed and newly arrived refugees.
The area is bounded by a freeway, offensive industry and a railway line, with
the only area of open space being a small neglected park. Once the local tip, the
park was reclaimed over 30 years ago to serve as a storm-water overflow drain
from the industrial sites. Most attempts by council to plant at the park had been
thwarted by large-scale incidences of vandalism. These negative responses to
environmental improvement were often viewed by council workers as a lack of
respect by the community for the environment rather than a reaction to the
councils lack of community consultation and participation.
Responding to a growing discontent with the state of the urban environment
and a concern for children's health living in Laverton Park, 'My Place, Our
Place', a whole school and community environmental education program, was
established at the local primary school. The program aimed to rehabilitate
degraded natural ecosystems in the neighbourhood, equip students and the
Laverton community with skills that would enable them to positively influence
 Environmental Education Researchers as Environmental Activists 165

decision making at the local and regional level, provide the community with
much needed recreational facilities, and instil a sense of pride of their 'place'. As
a researcher and environmental educator I was invited by the school community
to participate in the development and documentation of this program. Through-
out my three-year involvement with the program I was politically active in
supporting the community, activities which included: a struggle to save the
school after it was targeted for closure during a Ministry restructuring of
education provision throughout Victoria (a battle which unfortunately was lost
due to the school's inability to fulfil select criterion of what counted as worth-
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while 'education'); a campaign to expose council's bias in their allocation and

distribution of 'green' funds acquired from the offensive industrys in the area;
and, creating forums where the community had the opportunity to voice their
concerns (see Malone, 1996a,b). My role was as educator, researcher and activist.

Researcher as Environmental Activist

If our research is to be praxis oriented, if our purpose is somehow to
change the world, then of necessity we must get involved with those
whom we study ... I am arguing that the researcher/author has three
tasks: the researcher engages the researched in a self-reflexive encoun-
ter; the research 'act'—the book, article or presentation—brings to light
the inequities of power that may exist; and the researcher actively
works for care and change. (Tierney, 1994, pp. 110, 111)
In this opening quote, Tierney (1994) expresses a number of tasks for the
researcher in the context of researching individuals or communities who are
actively involved in trying to bring about change through political activism.
Gitlin (1989,1994) and Weiler (1988) have supported Tierney's view and argued
for a reconceptualisation of the role of the researcher to include the view that
research ought to enable those under study to change their conditions—that the
'act' of participating in and writing about the research should contribute directly
to a change in the conditions of the participants. I support these views and in the
spirit of Tierney's argument extend them to argue that simply talking about or
writing about change is a poor substitute for researchers actively working for
change. Our research efforts should enable the research participants, the
researcher and the readers of the research to reflect on their own lives in a way
that is supportive of change through empowerment, ideology-critique, the
production of popular knowledge and political action. It is an act to support
empowerment. But as Gore (1990) points out (cited LeCompte, 1993, p. 14):
Empowerment is not just a discourse or a state of mind. Empowerment
requires the acquisition of the property of power and its exercise in the
accomplishment of some vision or desired future condition. That vision
cannot simply be the construction of a text to be published.
Empowerment, according to LeCompte (1993, p. 15) is not achieved through
simply writing about participants and their struggle—'empowering people
requires more than making each person aware of the other's life situation. Actual
empowerment requires a second translation from awareness to activism.' The
notion of empowerment is, therefore, problematic for the participant and the
researcher. Empowerment requires the appropriation of power for participants
 166 K. Malone

beyond knowledge of the source of their disempowerment. The role of the

researcher is to go beyond consciousness-raising and provide a climate for
participants to break free of their oppression. As LeCompte (1993, p. 14) has
discussed in the context of research for supporting empowerment:
Creating a name for a condition is not the same as changing it... in fact,
informants may decide that, given the web of intergroup relations in
which they are caught, the researcher's definition of their oppression
may be true, but inescapable, at least in the short run ... To go beyond
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consciousness-raising requires a greater commitment. If researchers

truly wish to empower those whom they study, they must redefine
informants to be those with whom they study, redefine their
activities far beyond the production of a document describing events
experienced, recorded and analysed.
The researcher as environmental activist is constructed from the development of
this argument.
The view of researcher as environmental activist I put forward is not restricted
to an argument for a specific social research methodology but because I believe
as intellectuals we carry a responsibility to engage in struggles of democracy and
justice. As an environmental education researcher and an environmental activist
I have a personal and professional commitment and responsibility to support
and empower community members to be active in social and environmental
change. I am engaging in a highly politicised act. How these multiple roles were
constructed and synthesised is the essence of my research story.
When I embarked on the study I had a view of research that was framed by
own experiences as a 'new' researcher in alternative methods of research. My
previous research venture had been conducted from a rational scientific perspec-
tive and was saturated in notions of detachment and objectivity. This experience
armed me with the tools of quantitative research methods and illustrated the
extent to which as a researcher I could decontextualise (and dehumanise)
the results of a research study. After months of pouring over numbers and tables
I found myself constantly reflecting on the personal dialogues and discussions
I had engaged in with participants and wondering how these data could be
included in the final analysis—most of it was lost. A second dilemma also arose
through my reflections on this initial study—the artificial division I had made
between my professional role (as environmental education researcher) and my
personal role (as environmental activist). What I learnt from this first encounter
with academic research was the importance of creating a research design that
was responsive to the research context and the researched. Critical ethnography
was an approach I felt overcame the constraints I experienced in this first
venture at rigorous academic research and provided coherence between the
method and purpose of the research endeavour.

Critical Ethnography as Critical/Activist Research

In justifying the choice of methodology in any research project it is important to
consider the relationship (compatibility) between the methodology and the
research questions (Howe & Eisenhart, 1990) and in particular the ideological
 Environmental Education Researchers as Environmental Activists 167

orientation of the type of educational process the project seeks to engage

(Kemmis & Robottom, 1982).
My research study focused on the intersection of a number of discourses and
practices in the field of environmental education. The research questions were
located within the overlap of these discourses and practices—environmentalism
as a social movement, socially critical environmental education as a response to
the discourse and practice of environmentalism, and the negotiation of dis-
course, practice and educational organisation by schools and communities in
their approach to socially critical environmental education. The socially critical
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approach to environmental education that this study focused on required a

socially critical orientation to research (Fien, 1992; Robottom & Hart, 1993).
Critical research (informed by critical theory) as described by Comstock (1982,
pp. 378-379) provided such an orientation:
Critical social research begins from the life problems of definite and
particular social agents who may be individuals, groups or classes that
are oppressed by and alienated from social processes they maintain or
create but do not control. Beginning from the practical problems of
everyday existence it returns to that life with the aim of enlightening its
subjects about unrecognised social constraints and possible sources of
action by which they may liberate themselves ... Its method is dialogue,
and its effect is to heighten its subject's self-awareness of their collective
potential as the active agents of history... Practically, it [critical social
research] requires the critical investigation to begin from the intersub-
jective understandings of the participants of a social setting and to
return to these participants with a program of education and action
designed to change their understandings and their social conditions.
According to Fien (1992, p. 158), Carr and Kemmis (1983) support Comstock's
view of critical research and have developed a number of characteristics of
critical education research. They argue that critical education research should:
(1) eschew positivist notions of rationality, objectivity and truth in favour of a
dialectical view of rationality;
(2) be grounded in the experiences and interpretations of teachers and other
participants in the educational process;
(3) distinguish ideologically distorted interpretations in teachers' understand-
ings of their experiences (i.e. instances of false consciousness) from those that
are not;
(4) identify aspects of the existing social order that frustrate the attainment of
critical educational goals; and
(5) integrate theory and practice by providing a language and strategies for
action to address false consciousness and obstructions to critical pedagogy,
and also by providing support for teachers who wish to engage in further
critical reflection and action.
A distinctive aspect of critical research is its potential to be empowering through
its emancipatory intent. The goal of critical research, as noted by Goodman
(1992, p. 122):
... is not simply to report 'what is not there', but to analyse this reality
in ways that empower human beings to work against social, economic,
 168 K. Malone

cultural and psychological constraints and ideologies (e.g. class, gender,

race) that keep them from creating a more just and caring reality.
It has been overtly stated or presumed in the critical research literature that all
critical research methodologies are to some extent empowering or have an aim
to be supportive of empowerment. Smith (1993) argues there are two distinct
approaches to critical research and these can be determined by their empower-
ment potential. Critical methodologies, according to Smith (1993), can be eman-
cipatory while others can be limited to being critical (that is, to providing a
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critique). Critical methodologies limited to being critical are confined to height-

ening understanding and not to supporting political action within the design of
the research with the potential of empowerment as political consciousness-
raising. However, critical methodologies with an emancipatory intent support
action within the design of the research with the potential of empowerment as
collective action/struggle. Table 1 highlights how critical research methodolo-
gies could be organised around their empowerment potential.
TABLE 1. Empowerment potentials and critical research methodologies

Empowerment as political consciousness-

raising Empowerment as collective action/struggle

critical ethnography participatory research

critical policy and text analysis action research
research as praxis

Source: Adapted from Lather (1986) and Smith (1993).

Both Carr and Kemmis (1983) and Robottom and Hart (1993) advocate an
action research or participatory research approach for critical education and
environmental education research. That is, the research is conducted collabora-
tively with the educator- (participant-)as-researcher who is involved in all stages
of the research endeavour with the view of transforming or overcoming those
constraints which frustrate rational change. The orientation to empowerment is
focused on 'empowerment as collective social action/struggle'. This study,
although critical in its intent, was not focused on a desire to transform the
practices of the participants but to describe, understand and capture the experi-
ences of the participants as they endeavoured to bring about a shift in the power
relationships existing among the constituencies making up the educational
setting. The focus of my research was on political consciousness-raising, to alert
individuals and the collective about the political or ideological biases—to
illuminate power relationships through processes such as ideological critique
and participatory dialogues.
Also the study required a methodology that would allow the researcher to
look beyond the institutionalisation of socially critical environmental education
at the level of discourse to view how this discourse was being played out at
the level of practice. To do this the methodology chosen needed to allow
the researcher to engage in a close study of a school and community practising
socially critical environmental education and to become absorbed into the fabric
of the school and community context. The research study needed to be able to
respond to the nature of education (and particularly socially critical environmen-
tal education) within its complex historical, political, economic and social context-
 Environmental Education Researchers as Environmental Activists 169

ually. The study also needed to be flexible, opportunistic and responsive, not
focused or bound by the constraints of a predetermined research design. A
critical ethnographic approach provided the opportunity for this study to
understand and describe the complexity of interactions within the educational
institution and the daily events of the community—to illuminate any contradic-
tions, incoherencies or incompatibilities between discourse and practice—and to
determine how the school and community interacted and constructed its view of
education and in particular socially critical environmental education. The final
dilemma, my multiple role as researcher and activist, was unresolved at the time
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of starting the study.

Embarking on a Research Process

When I started my ethnographic study there were two key characteristics that
influenced how I conducted the research. These key characteristics were: that the
research design, methods and researchers' role needed to be flexible and
responsive to the context of the study and to change, and that opportunities
needed to exist in the written account that included and valued what partici-
pants said. Within this very broad and loose framework I began the study as a
participant observer. What proceeded from these humble beginnings was a
number of events that changed the study context dramatically. If the research
design and methods and the role of the researcher were to be responsive to the
changing context, these changes needed to be defined and accommodated.
After initial visits to the study site it became clear that the research partici-
pants had a politicised view of the role of the research study. This politicised
view was evident in the 'us against them' discourse that emerged through
formal and informal dialogues with the participants. 'Karen did you get
that... make sure you include that in your thesis' was a comment often emerg-
ing during formal and informal dialogue between the group and individuals. As
the events unfolded and the school came under threat of closure, documenting
the struggle and the environmental education program became a matter of
urgency. The shift from a conventional ethnographic study (to describe and
understand school practice) to a critical ethnographic study (to critically analyse
a school and community engaged in social and environmental activism) in-
tensified the relationship between the politics of the study, the socially critical
environmental education program, the researcher and researcher's relations with
the research participants. The participants came to view the study as an
important political tool as well as a descriptive historical account; they
encouraged me to 'use' my position as an academic in one instance to rally
support from outsiders and in another instance as a co-participant to practically
support their actions by engaging in environmental activism.
Hypotherically at this point it would be feasible to say as the researcher I had
two choices; either to continue my role in the research as a participant observer,
involved but professionally detached (a conventional ethnographic position), or
to abandon an outsider's perspective and embrace the opportunity to act
collaboratively with the school and community in their struggle (a critical
position). Returning to the final dilemma I posed after reflecting on my first
venture in academic research—the division between the professional and per-
sonal role in environmentalism—I was excited with the prospect of being able to
 170 K. Malone

incorporate these multiple roles. The transition to incorporating a personal and

professional perspective in my research role was never clear and as I continued
to explore the notion of researchers as activists a number of issues were
revealed.

Researching as an Environmental Activist

Ultimately the decision to become personally involved in the school and com-
munity's struggle emerged from the context of the study; it was a socially critical
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environmental education program aimed at empowering a community to act

collectively in pursuit of an environmental worldview. The argument I advance
is that any research in environmental education that seeks to describe the power
relationships that exist to suppress these aims is itself political. The researcher
who engages in research to explore and support the discourse and practice of
socially critical environmental education is adopting a role as a political environ-
mental activist. I argue that my role in the research did not actually change but
as a consequence of the unfolding events my researcher as activist role was
abruptly revealed. After this revelation I felt exposed to the research community,
to be accountable for describing the influence my political intent had on my
study. Would my analysis be contaminated by my overt political stance? Did I
need to construct a theoretical framework to scrutinise my actions and motives
so not to jeopardise research credibility? To overcome my anxiety (and possibly
the anxiety of readers) I included in the final written account of the research
study the researcher's story as a bibliographic description of my active role in
the study and throughout the thesis (including the preface) attempted to
explicate how my political orientation influenced the course of the study. By
including the other three narratives (a description of the school and community
and the environmental education program and the two participants' stories) in
the body of the text I invited readers to perceive my analysis as one reading of
the events, with the opportunity for alternative readings to exist.
Educational research emerging from the work of activists in support of a
social movement has recently become the subject of a number of books, journal
articles and research papers (see Lather, 1988, 1991; Ellis & Flaherty, 1992;
Reinharz, 1992; McLaughlin & Tierney, 1993; Gitlin, 1994 ). These authors have
identified and discussed a number of methodological issues that have arisen
from the researcher's role as a political activist in educational research. While the
work of these authors have predominantly emerged from social struggles
centred on issues of gender, class, sexuality and colour, they offer a variety of
perspectives that can be paralleled with an approach to researching as an
environmental activist. What these accounts (and the stories of other researcher
activists) have shown is that researchers as activists consider personal experi-
ences as a valuable asset to the research process. This is not often the case in
mainstream research where personal experience and involvement in the research
is thought to contaminate the project's objectivity (Reinharz, 1992). Presenting
the personal 'self in these instances is not as a form of 'confession' to overcome
issues of bias as would be the case in positivist research but as an explanation
of the researcher's standpoint. In change-oriented research the advantage of such
an approach is the link between the research questions, the study and the
research context. This is not to advance the argument that we must have a
 Environmental Education Researchers as Environmental Activists 171

personal experience of something in order to study it, but that if we are working
in a field of study which has the specific task of social transformation then our
personal experience is consequently linked to the research methodology and the
purpose and expected outcomes of the study.
As a critical ethnographer I moved in and out of the research context forever
trying to find a compromise between becoming too involved or too detached.
When the research became a tool of enlightenment for the participants, it became
less possible to stand detached from the political intent of the participants'
activities. It is at this point that the personal and professional lives of the
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researcher collide. There wasn't a particular moment in the events that led to my
personal involvement in the project; it just eventuated as a consequence of the
events as they unfolded. This position reflected my commitment to the view that
for research to be beneficial to the community the researcher should dismantle
the researcher-participant duality and respond to the community's needs.
I could not claim to be an insider in both my professional and personal roles
because, as I stated in the following diary entry, I was a white middle-class
researcher who would at the conclusion of the study benefit from the research
regardless of the final outcome of the community's struggle:
As an outsider I will attempt to catch glimpses of this complex world
from which these children evolve. As an outsider I realise that this can
only be superficial. Like many of the teachers who work in the school,
when the school bell rings at the end of the day I drive to my own
place, far away from the smoke stacks, the freeway and the struggles.
I am an educated middle-class intellectual who brings my middle class
educated eyes to view this world. If they win the battle it will have little
impact on my life, but they will live out the consequences of their
struggle for years to come, (personal journal, September 1993)
My subjectivity and the subjectivity of the other participants was an ongoing
issue throughout the study. During the research project I became personally
involved in the struggle of the community and stood with the people on the side
of action for social justice and social change. It was only after extended
engagement at the research site that I was able to define the extent to which the
community itself was engaged in a research process beyond the project I
initiated. The following extract is taken from a paper I wrote after identifying the
distinct characteristics of the community's actions that lead me to believe they
were engaged in a community initiated participatory research process:
Through the ongoing process of consciousness raising, shared decision-
making and skill acquisition the community has moved beyond a
group of like minded people changing their immediate physical en-
vironment, to a community of politically literate individuals willing to
engage in critical reflection and action, through praxis. It is because of
all these digger picture' antecedents that I believe the group is partici-
pating in more than an isolated 'social action' but in participatory
research. A research process that was embarked on before my involve-
ment and continues after my departure. The participants themselves
may not label it this way, or even see the need to. They are concerned
with the reality of transforming the oppressive and marginalised
position they find themselves in. As a co-researcher and scholar I
 172 K. Malone

have intellectualised my involvement in the process through praxis.

(Malone, 1994, p. 30)
My subjective and responsive researcher position allowed me to adopt mul-
tiple roles within the context of the research study. My first role was as a critical
ethnographer engaged in an activity to construct a narrative (the thesis) of
socially critical environmental education in the context of educational restructur-
ing. My second role emerged from my decision to participate collaboratively as
a social and environmental activist with the study participants in the research
approach adopted by them. The convergence of these multiple roles allowed me
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to develop an account of the participants' struggles (to fulfil their expectations

of what the outcome of their involvement in my research would provide) and to
engage in critical inquiry based on my participation in a participatory research
approach to environmentalism activism that was coherent and compatible with
the critical epistemological and methodological orientations of socially critical
environmental education.
There are a number of parallels between my experiences of taking up a
multiple role in the research process and those of feminist researchers. The
changing and multiple role of the researcher is a common outcome of feminist
research with many feminist researchers documenting their personal involve-
ment with research participants, leading in many cases to supporting the actions
of participants to change their lives. Many feminists describe their research in
terms of personal experiences and reflect on these experiences as an intricate
component of what is learned from the research process (Lather, 1988; Ruddick,
1989; Reinharz, 1992). Reinharz (1992, p. 195) supporting this view wrote:
'Although changing the researcher is not a common intention in feminist
research, it is a common consequence'. According to Reinharz (1992, pp. 263,
264) feminist researchers often form strong bonds with the research participants
and become engaged in activities to assist the women they study:
Feminist researchers frequently express a sense of connection to the
actual people studied ... In general, feminist observational or interview-
based studies include a strong connection between the 'researcher' and
'subject' that develops during the course of the study and lasts beyond
it, sometimes only in memory, sometimes in actuality ... Another blur-
ring of the distinction between the 'subject's' role as subject and a
human being is evident in the fact many feminist researchers give
direct assistance to the women they study.
The multiple roles I adopted in the research study was informed by the view
that environmental education researchers have a dual responsibility that they
should contribute to environmental knowledge and to environmental change.
Many feminist researchers have also adopted this view in regard to social
change to support women. Reinharz (1992, p. 251) recently wrote:
The International feminist community remains concerned that social
research both contribute to the welfare of women and contribute to
knowledge. This is the dual vision—or responsibility—that many
feminist researchers see as part of their multiple responsibilities.
In exactly the same way as feminist researchers find it legitimate, as one of
their multiple roles, to engage directly with women and their struggle against
 Environmental Education Researchers as Environmental Activists 173

sexism, I argue it is legitimate for environmental education researchers, as one

of their multiple roles, to engage directly with community struggles associated
with environmental activism.
In the study I adopted the multiple roles of researcher as narrator and critic
(a critical ethnographic position) and researcher as environmental activist
(a participatory researcher position). In taking up these roles I endeavoured to
construct a narrative of the school and community in action and to contribute
to the activities of the school and community in support of the environmental
activism.
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Research to Support Environmentalism

Environmentalism as a social movement could be described as having three
characteristics: it is founded on the development of an alternative ideology
(the new environmental worldview); as a counter-hegemonic discourse; and as
supporting collective action. I argue that if research in environmental education
is to contribute to knowledge production and activism to support environmen-
talism then the researcher needs to be engaged in an appropriate research
process. This argument gives rise to three questions a researcher may well ask
when conducting research to support a universal social movement, such as
environmentalism:
• Does the research process engage the researcher and participants in a process
of ideology-critique?
• Does the research process support the production of counter-hegemonic
discourses?
• Does the research process empower individuals to participate in collective
action?
These questions are not presented to distinguish or favour particular research
methods or techniques but to determine the extent to which the 'act' of research
seeks to contribute to a shift in worldview. As environmental education
researchers we can make a contribution to a universal shift for a new environ-
mental worldview if we engage in research processes that have direct relevance
to the characteristics of environmentalism. Each of these three characteristics of
environmentalism as a social movement are discussed in terms of the possibili-
ties that exist to advance the role of environmental education research to support
environmental activism.
The purpose of ideology critique is to enlighten individuals about the power
relations that exist to preserve the dominant social order. To engage participants
in a process of ideology critique is to provide opportunities to reveal to
individuals how their beliefs and attitudes may be ideological illusions that
sustain the dominant view. As Freire (1972) stated, revealing oppression is the
first step towards the oppressed understanding the nature of that oppression.
These revelations may present themselves through the development of a social
crisis or through the interaction of the researcher and the participant in partici-
patory dialogues of exploration. The importance of this process for environmen-
talism is that by engaging participants in practices to liberate their minds by
helping them reflect on their situation, to regain their capacity to analyse and
critically examine their relationship with the environment, they are able to
 174 K. Malone

construct an alternative vision of reality. The study illustrated that through

interactive dialogues participants were able to look beyond the immediate
boundaries of their reality and begin to reflect on the nature and purpose of their
work. With the introduction of the educational restructuring this process of
self-analysis was intensified as participants were forced to reflect on their
practice because they could no longer function as before. Research as environ-
mental activism provides the opportunity for the research to support the shifting
context of events and engage in discussions at the level of ideology with
participants while they reflect on their environmental education practices. The
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research design therefore needs to support the purpose of the research, to

provide opportunities for participants to engage in ideology-critique.
Environmentalism as a social movement has produced a counter-hegemonic
discourse, a language of environmentalism constructed from an alternative
worldview. If the purpose of the research is to support the production of
counter-hegemonic discourses the researcher needs to be sensitive to the nat-
urally occurring dialogues of the participants in their communities. Participants
need to be engaged in the production of popular knowledge and the emerging
discourse needs to be valued and legitimised. By engaging in practices to
produce 'popular knowledge', by questioning the status quo, by achieving a
consciousness of the political context of their situation, the community were able
to see themselves as capable of producing and defining their own reality. This
knowledge then served as a resource for challenging the hegemony of dominant
ideas. Sharing stories and engaging in participatory dialogues provided the
opportunity for the community to develop a discourse of environmentalism
based on the experiences of the group. The research process encouraged com-
munity members to produce their own knowledge by creating a forum where
their experiential knowledge would be valued and legitimised. In short, the
research study undertaken by the author gave a 'voice' to the hitherto 'silenced'
members of the community. This was not only through the development of the
written account (the narratives of the two research participant's) but also
through the broader negotiation and interactive processes engaged in by the
researcher throughout the study. Lincoln (1993, p. 43) supported the activist role
of the researcher as collaborator in the development of context specific narratives
when she stated:

Some means must be provided whereby the silenced can come to terms
with the social, historical, and cultural contexts in which the research
effort is embedded. That is an essential function to be served in the
relationship between the researcher and the researched. Researchers in
accomplishing this, can take an activist stance, forgo the 'disinterested
observer' role demanded by traditional research, and undertake con-
sciousness-raising activities (community seminars, community-building
exercises, public meetings, group research design work, and the like)
which enable the silenced to come to terms with their own historicity
and personal locations ... in this way, the silenced, in becoming produc-
ers, analysts, and presenters of their own narratives, cease to be the
objects of their histories and knowledge. They are enabled instead to
become agents of the stories which are produced and consumed about
them, and the agents and instruments of their change process.
 Environmental Education Researchers as Environmental Activists 175

The essence of social movements is their capacity to bring people together to

confront issues and to act collectively to bring about changes. In environmental-
ism it is through activism that individuals and groups contribute to the forma-
tion of the movement's collective identity. Without environmental action the
environmental movement has no recourse for making the changes needed to
fend off the impact of the environmental crisis. The environmental movement
has been organised and developed through its capacity to encourage all people
to engage in actions that contribute to the establishment of a new environmental
worldview.
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The central thread woven through the program was the notion of collective
action—providing opportunities for all members of the community to be in-
volved in actions that would benefit the environment. As a researcher and
co-participant in the community my role as an environmental activist meant I
used the knowledge and practical skills I had to support these environmental
actions. In practical terms this meant I not only observed and documented the
actions of others but became involved in community consultations to develop
the plan of action, in helping to negotiate for funds to support the revegetation
programs and by planting trees with the community. It was a process of sharing
and learning the importance of dialogue and the dialogic processes as a means
of providing a context for a shared activist stance.

Discussion and Challenges

Research as environmental activism involves the critical role of researchers using
their skills and knowledge as environmental educators to support actions that
have direct benefit to the environment. If the purpose of environmental edu-
cation is for individuals and communities to develop the knowledge, attitudes
and skills to be actively involved in working towards the resolution of environ-
mental problems through social action, then as environmental education
researchers we need to utilise our professional roles as researchers to support
these purposes of environmental education. There is, I believe, a strong case to
parallel the advances made by feminist educational researchers in their activist
role to support the women's movement with the potential to advance the
activist role of environmental education researchers to support the environmen-
tal movement. This relationship could be summarised in the following fashion:
Just as for feminist researchers, research as activism means seeking to alleviate
oppressive gender relations directly through the participation of the researcher in
multiple roles in the research process, for environmental education researchers this
means becoming environmental activists, actually participating in the political arenas
we write about and support.
In this article I have advanced an argument that as researchers in environmen-
tal education we are engaging in a political act. If environmental education
emerges from environmentalism and if environmentalism is a social movement
we are in essence generating knowledge to advance a social movement. A social
movement is a challenge supported by people with a common purpose to act
against an ideology. Knowledge to support a social movement is counter-hege-
monic and the mobilisation of a social movement is through social action—social
movements are highly charged political endeavours. Therefore, research as
environmental activism is not the development of a new and radical version of
 176 K. Malone

environmental education research—it is environmental education research. What

I have argued is that if we looked into our research journals we may find that
as researchers we have been involved in environmental activism in our research
endeavours but we have not revealed or exposed ourselves in fear of jeopardis-
ing our research/researcher credibility. In this article I have endeavoured to
show how by exposing my political intentions I was able to realise my potential
as a researcher and environmental activist and utilise these multiple roles to
support the community I researched.
In this article I advance a challenge to environmental education researchers
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and all critical researchers to move outside the 'academy7 and develop
partnerships with schools and communities and become involved directly in
environmental activism.

Notes on Contributor
KAREN MALONE is a Lecturer in Science and Environmental Education at
Monash University and Australian Director of the UNESCO-MOST project
Growing Up in Cities. She has published in the areas of participatory research
with communities and young people, adult and formal environmental education
and the use of public space in urban environments. Correspondence: Faculty of
Education, Monash University (Peninsula Campus), Frankston, Victoria 3199,
Australia. E-mail: karen.malone@education.monash.edu.au

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