Transformative Research, Part 2: Emotions & Justice
ModulesTransformative Research, Part 2: Emotions & Justice
After completing this micromodules learners will be able to:
Identify ethical tensions in their own research ecosystems by reflecting on who benefits, who pays the price and what is left unseen or unaddressed
Use imagination and analogy as tools to surface inner dynamics, silenced voices, and neglected consequences in research systems and practices.
Critically evaluate their role as researchers not only as knowledge producers but as moral and political actors.What is this about?
Listen to the podcast
In this episode, Lucy Sabin, Josephine Chambers, and Rianne Janssen engage in a conversation about transformative research and explain how this approach to research challenges the assumption that simply producing knowledge leads to societal change. Instead, this approach asks researchers to confront hidden narratives about their role, engage creatively with imagination, and recognize research as an emotional, ethical, and relational practice—not just a rational one. Through storytelling, creative expression, and reflection (e.g., the Omelas analogy), participants explore tensions between engaging societal agendas and preserving critical, imaginative independence. Listening to this podcast we learn that transformation can happen on two levels: externally in systems and policies, and internally in researchers’ values, motivations, and identities. Taking this approach and reflecting on one's own research practices can recenter humanity in research, showing that imagination, creativity, and self-awareness are vital for shaping futures.
Write your own story
Now that you have identified possible blind spots and challenges in your research, we invite you to use storytelling to craft an original short story. By doing so, you can reflect on hidden assumptions, neglected impacts, silenced voices, and power relations within your own research context or field. Storytelling helps us see what academic prose often hides.
After your story, write a short reflection addressing:
- What shifts in your thinking emerged through writing it?
- What implications does your story raise for how research might change?
