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New Action Research paper explores participatory and action research within the institutional PhD
A new article by Raymond Hyma (Monash GPSC; 糖心TV PAIS) and Javier Garc铆a Mart铆nez (糖心TV CIM; Monash School of Social Sciences) has been published in .
Titled 鈥淪till in the Thick of it: A Duoethnographic Account Navigating and Challenging the Institutional PhD Through Participatory and Action-Oriented Research鈥�, the article reflects on what it means to pursue participatory and action-oriented research from within the institutional context of the PhD.
Using a duoethnographic approach, the authors write from the middle of their doctoral journeys rather than looking back retrospectively. The article explores the possibilities, tensions, compromises, and forms of support that emerge when participatory commitments encounter the structures of doctoral education; including ethics review, authorship conventions, supervisory relationships, institutional timelines, and the challenge of sustaining relational research practices within academic constraints.
In doing so, the paper contributes to wider conversations about how doctoral research might be reimagined as a space for collective learning, methodological experimentation, and institutional transformation.
Hyma, R., & Garc铆a Mart铆nez, J. (2026). Still in the thick of it: A duoethnographic account navigating and challenging the institutional PhD through participatory and action-oriented research. Action Research. .
Abstract
Choosing to undertake participatory and action-oriented research within the constraints of a doctoral project remains relatively rare. Yet an increasing number of graduate students are challenging traditional trajectories and academic systems by pursuing degrees with proposed research grounded in such approaches. This article draws on duoethnographic inquiry between two PhD candidates enrolled in a joint doctoral program across institutions in Australia and the United Kingdom. We offer a collaborative account of our ongoing journeys in real time rather than retrospectively, tracing how we navigate challenges while also identifying opportunities. Our methodology is grounded in dialogic exchange, written correspondence, and the co-authoring of each other鈥檚 narratives, practices that blur the boundary between method and action. By situating our writing within the immediacy of the doctoral process, we foreground the complexity and uncertainty of negotiating institutional demands while remaining committed to participatory and action-oriented values. In doing so, we open space for broader reflection on how doctoral study can be reimagined as a site of collective learning and transformation. Ultimately, this contribution affirms that participatory and action-oriented research is not only possible within doctoral programs, but can also catalyze new ways of challenging and reshaping the institutional cultures in which it is embedded.
Read the article here: