Midwifing Transformative Change

Feminist literature has drawn attention to the lack of diverse voices in women’s research (Cook and Fonow, 1990; DeVault, 1990; Harding, 1991; Kaschak, 1992; Gorelick, 1996; Gottfried, 1996). This is especially true of the voices of women representing the diversity of color and class (Anzaldua, 1990; Bing and Reid, 1996; Collins, 1990; Reid, 1993; Reid and Kelly, 1994; Zinn et al., 1986). Even less represented in the literature are the implications of research conducted with groups who are marginalized from the dominant center of the inquiry process. In this chapter, we discuss two outcomes of a three-year project with women in transition seeking to become agents of change in their own lives. One of these outcomes was predicted; the other was total gift. The planned for outcome was the evolution of a collaborative methodology of adult education that grew organically out of our work with the community women and is based in theories of transformative learning, feminist post-structural pedagogy, and ecological dimensions of learning. Here we share three of the basic principles of our methodology, which foster what we describe as the development of an ecological consciousness. The second outcome, unforeseen, was the change experienced in the research team, itself. We will describe aspects of our own personal transformation as we sought to midwife change in others.