Research as Resistance: Antiracist Counternarratives and Transformative Action

Zenia Hellgren

Jul, 2026

MUSIC:

In an era characterised by growing political polarisation and the increasing presence of far-right, populist, and xenophobic movements, it is becoming ever more evident that academic freedom cannot be taken for granted. Recent developments in the United States, including the exclusion of research within the “DEI” (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) framework from national funding schemes, illustrate how political pressures can shape the boundaries of legitimate academic inquiry and limit perspectives that challenge dominant political agendas While developments in Europe have generally not reached the same level, there are nevertheless examples from several countries that raise concerns about the future of academic freedom and research autonomy. At the same time, there is no consensus within academia itself about how researchers should respond to contemporary social and political challenges. Long-standing debates continue regarding the role of scholars in society. Should researchers primarily act as observers and analysts, or should they also seek to contribute to social change by promoting values such as openness, solidarity, and social justice? Related questions concern the relationship between research and policymaking, and the extent to which collaboration with public institutions should be considered part of the research process.

These discussions are not only about research practice. They also reflect deeper disagreements about how social phenomena such as racism, inequalities, and exclusion should be understood and conceptualised. Different theoretical and epistemological perspectives often lead to different interpretations of both the nature of these problems and the kinds of responses that are considered appropriate. As a result, discussions on the role of research are closely connected to broader debates about knowledge production, social responsibility, and the relationship between scholarship and social transformation.

Photo_ Pascal Maramis_ CC BY 2.0

Having outlined this broader and complex landscape of competing narratives, I argue in this article that academic research constitutes a crucial form of resistance in a world increasingly marked by violence, violations of international law, and sustained attacks on democratic principles, human rights, and those who defend them. In such a context, the notion that researchers can remain neutral or detached from these struggles is becoming increasingly unsustainable. Rather than standing outside social and political realities, academic inquiry is inevitably embedded within them, rendering questions of positioning, responsibility, and engagement more pressing than ever. Yet, within academia, being labelled an “activist” is often viewed with suspicion. As if it undermined the credibility of one’s scholarship or suggested that one’s research is driven by ideology rather than a commitment to scientific rigour. Such assumptions rest on a problematic dichotomy between scholarship and engagement.

Within academia, being labelled an “activist” is often viewed with suspicion. As if it undermined the credibility of one’s scholarship or suggested that one’s research is driven by ideology.

I share the view that conceptual clarity and methodological rigour are indispensable and should never be compromised. Indeed, maintaining high scientific standards is essential not only for the integrity of research itself but also for producing credible evidence capable of challenging misinformation, exposing injustice, and countering the growing influence of anti-democratic forces. However, rigour and social commitment are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, research can be both scientifically robust and ethically engaged. As Max Weber famously observed, “An attitude of moral indifference has no connection with scientific ‘objectivity’” This insight remains highly relevant today. Objectivity should not be conflated with neutrality in the face of injustice; rather, it requires a transparent, reflexive, and rigorous engagement with the social realities we seek to understand and transform.

Action Research as Scientific Methodology and Transformative Strategy

In recent years, action research has proliferated in the social sciences, in part supported by European Union (EU) funding schemes that require scholars to go beyond merely studying social problems and injustices and elaborate realistic solutions, ideally in collaboration with key actors such as policymakers and civil society organisations. Naturally, the feasibility of such approaches is conditioned by the political contexts in which action researchers operate and the constraints that research funding requirements often entail.

In an ideal scenario, action research is able to foster collaboration, critical reflection, and collective problem-solving. Action research ultimately aims at challenging unequal power relations and amplifying the voices of marginalised groups, providing them with conceptual tools and resources that enable them to better understand and challenge the structural causes of injustice [3].[3] Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.

Within the framework of action research, in turn, there are some differences between the main approaches. Participatory Action Research (PAR) is a research approach that seeks to democratise knowledge production by actively involving participants as co-researchers throughout the research process. The central question guiding PAR is: How can those directly affected by a social issue actively participate in knowledge production and solution development? My own research on racial/ethnic discrimination, inclusion and exclusion of migrants and minorities has largely integrated a PAR methodology over the past 10 years, while progressively shifting towards a more pronounced transformative approach. Transformative Action Research (TAR) shares the participatory foundations of PAR but places a stronger emphasis on social transformation and the pursuit of justice. It is explicitly oriented toward challenging structures of oppression, inequality, discrimination, and exclusion. While participation remains essential, the ultimate goal is not merely collaborative knowledge production but the transformation of social realities and power relations. The key question guiding TAR may be formulated as follows: How can research contribute to transforming unjust social structures and advancing social justice? Or, as expressed by de Marrais [4],[4] deMarrais, K.B. 1998, ed. Inside stories: Qualitative research reflections. Nueva Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. “Transformative research is not a methodology. It is an orientation towards research that is defined by its intended outcome: producing a more just and equitable world”.

Action Research in Supportive vs. Adverse Environments

Action research does not take place in a vacuum. Its processes, outcomes, and transformative potential are profoundly influenced by the broader social, political, and institutional environments in which it is conducted. A useful distinction can therefore be drawn between action research in supportive environments and action research in adverse environments. If we take the city level as our focal point, supportive environments for action research may be defined as municipalities that promote participatory governance, community engagement, and collaborative policymaking. In such contexts, local institutions may actively facilitate partnerships between researchers, civil society organisations, and residents, enabling action research to inform policy design and contribute to more inclusive urban development.

Rigour and social commitment are not mutually exclusive (…) research can be both scientifically robust and ethically engaged.

Conversely, adverse urban environments are characterised by restricted civic space, unwillingness of key actors in policy and decision-making spheres to interact with academic researchers or organised civil society, or overt marginalisation of migrant and racialised communities from decision-making processes themselves. In these settings, action research may function less as a tool for institutional collaboration and more as a form of counter-knowledge production, documenting lived experiences of exclusion and contesting dominant urban narratives that normalise inequality or invisibilise certain populations. Depending on how supportive the political and institutional context is, the city becomes both a site of possibility and a terrain of struggle: a space where action research can either be integrated into participatory governance frameworks or mobilised as a critical and transformative practice of resistance from below.

An Empirical Example: Antiracist Research in Barcelona

Before sharing some empirical experiences of research-action on racism and discrimination in the city of Barcelona, I wish to underline that I have no intention of romanticising Barcelona as a safe haven for migrants, minorities, and other groups that disproportionately experience multiple vulnerabilities. Progressive municipal policies have not provided effective remedies to pressing issues such as huge economic inequalities and a strongly ethnically segmented labour market, alarming levels of child poverty, or the severe housing crisis. Nevertheless, Barcelona constitutes an overall supportive political and institutional environment for transformative action research.

Photo_ Pascal Maramis_ CC BY 2.0

Since 2017, together with colleagues from academia and organised civil society, I have been involved in several EU-funded participatory and transformative action research projects, supported by institutional actors across different political administrations in the city. We have developed our research-action model in different neighbourhoods across the metropolitan area of Barcelona, addressing educational inclusion of Roma students in marginalised housing contexts by exploring and strengthening communication and interaction channels between schools and Roma families We have also designed and tested an online tool to report antigypsyism while simultaneously collecting ethnographic data on the characteristics and consequences of what we have termed “everyday antigypsyism”—the widely shared, normalised, and internalised experience of rejection among Spanish Roma communities, which severely affects their psychological and material well-being as well as their sense of belonging In addition, we have conducted a comprehensive study of how racism in schools is perceived by students and teachers in eight compulsory secondary education centres across the Barcelona area, selected to reflect diverse profiles in terms of students’ ethnic backgrounds and socioeconomic conditions. In another project, I examined how ethnic diversity is (under)represented in Catalan institutions and how the intercultural policy framework that has dominated diversity/immigration management policies in the city for decades—until very recently—did not incorporate an explicitly antiracist perspective At present, we are concluding another European research project that includes an empirical study of how racialised youth experience systemic discrimination in higher education, employment, housing, and healthcare. This is complemented by transformative actions involving collaboration with institutional actors across these sectors to jointly develop tools that address not only individual bias but also systemic and institutional forms of discrimination, as well as practices that risk reproducing racialised inequalities. A key ally throughout these initiatives has been the Barcelona Office for Non-Discrimination, which shares our understanding that racism and racial/ethnic discrimination are systemic, embedded in societal structures and institutional practices. This perspective underscores the importance of self-critical reflection and openness to questioning and challenging existing power hierarchies, as well as the socioeconomic segmentation that persists along ethnic lines.

Depending on the level of institutional support, the city becomes both a site of possibility and a terrain of struggle: a space where action research can either be integrated into participatory governance or mobilised as a critical and transformative practice.

However, the implementation of these projects has not been without friction. A recurring theme across our various activities—such as focus groups, interviews, and numerous meetings with institutional actors from different domains—has been the fundamental conceptual question of what racism essentially is, and what an antiracist perspective should entail. This debate has also extended to the term ‘antiracism’ itself, which has at times been perceived by some actors as confrontational and thus as a source of controversy and polemics. In the educational sphere, these tensions were often quite strongly felt. A key finding of REACT, a participatory action research project on racism in schools, was that racism remains difficult to discuss openly within educational settings. Several headmasters, for instance, turned down our request to participate in the project, citing a lack of support for an antiracist framing and a teaching staff with opposing views on whether there is racism in the schools or whether this issue should be explicitly addressed at all. Our empirical findings consistently showed that the issue of racism was often avoided by school staff, while racist insults and other forms of aggression were frequently perceived by the students to be trivialised as mere “conflicts between youngsters”. Overall, the majority of the 271 participants aged 14 to 16—of migrant, Roma, and native majority backgrounds—called for more direct intervention by teachers and other adults in response to racism. Several participants also reported experiencing racist treatment from teachers themselves.

In contrast, teachers expressed divergent views on the issue and often found it challenging to recognise and address racism within the school environment. Throughout the REACT project as well as other research-action projects and activities with institutional actors, the picture confirmed that racism was a highly contentious topic, and several stakeholders representing the education system and other public institutions would argue for the use of other terms, such as interculturalism, conviviality, or social cohesion. A central conclusion was that there is a general lack of consensus around what racism is, and if/how it needs to be addressed, within the education system as an institution as well as in individual schools, leading to insecurity for racialised students and an arbitrary handling of racist incidents [8][8] Hellgren, Z. y L. Gabrielli (2024). REACT: investigación y acción para la integración del antirracismo en la educación — REACT: investigación y acción por una educación antirracista — REACT: recerca i acció per una educació antiracista. [REACT: research and action to integrate anti-racism into education — REACT: research and action for anti-racist education]. Serie de políticas GRITIM-UPF n.º 13.—especially when these are subtle and “invisible” rather than overt racist aggressions.

Racialisation operates in conjunction with other axes of social structuration, such as class and gender, thereby contributing to the ongoing processes through which people perceived as non-white or non-Western are systematically inferiorised.

The insights from these projects, all in all, reinforced our commitment to defending the need for an explicitly antiracist agenda, framing the core problem precisely in terms of—normalised and invisibilised—institutional, structural, and systemic racism and discrimination. This statement rests on a fundamental recognition: we do not understand racism and discrimination as anomalies, expressed by a few biased individuals, but as inherent in our societies, which in turn shapes our internalised systems of preferences and attachment of values and characteristics to people based on how they are racialised, social interaction in everyday situations, and the character of policies and action programs we produce to address racism and discrimination as such. The conclusion that follows from this recognition is clear: if racism is fundamentally a structural and institutional phenomenon, then anti-racism requires structural and institutional transformation.

What role, then, can research play in advancing such transformation? In our projects, a central component of the participatory action research methodology has been fostering consensus among key stakeholders—including school staff, policymakers, and other institutional actors. This process has involved generating, presenting, and critically discussing evidence, as well as working toward shared understandings of what constitutes racism and how it can be effectively challenged. In 2024, for instance, we organised a workshop bringing together a broad range of actors from public institutions and civil society organisations in Barcelona with the explicit aim of seeking consensus around a shared narrative that conceptualises racism as inherent in societal structures, and antiracism as a necessary counternarrative. This framework sought to illustrate how the normalised invisibilisation of racialisation operates in conjunction with other axes of social structuration, such as class and gender, thereby contributing to the ongoing processes through which people perceived as non-white or non-Western are systematically inferiorised [9].[9] Hellgren, Z. & L. Gabrielli, with a foreword by Paco Vargas (2024). “Our Souls Are Cauterised”. An ethnography of everyday anti-Roma sentiment and its consequences. Barcelona: Icaria.

Since June 2025, I have been a member of the Barcelona Antiracism Council, reviewing the City Council’s plan against racism 2026-2036, a 10-year municipal roadmap designed to combat this structural scourge [10].[10] Ajuntament de Barcelona, “First anti-racist plan in Barcelona”. Info Barcelona, s. F. Available here: https://www.barcelona.cat/infobarcelona/en/tema/interculturality/primer-pla-antiracista-de-barcelona_1635909.html This ethnically and professionally diverse group of activists, scholars and institutional actors have met periodically to discuss a wide range of measures that, I dare say, go further than previous agendas in terms of directly addressing the systemic dimensions of discrimination and racialised inequalities. While ensuring the effective implementation of these measures remains a pending task, the collaborative development of Barcelona’s anti-racism plan offers a valuable example of successful cooperation among researchers, civil society actors, and policymakers. As such, it may serve as an important reference point for transformative action research and for the co-production of policy responses to complex social issues.

Photo_ Pascal Maramis_ CC BY 2.0

Conclusion

In this article, I have argued that in the current global political climate, the question is not so much whether researchers should engage with pressing social and political challenges and contribute to processes of social transformation, but rather how to do so in ways that maintain scientific rigour and credibility.

Participatory and, in particular, transformative action research offer useful methodological approaches in this regard. At a time when democratic values, human rights, and academic freedom are increasingly being challenged in different parts of the world, the idea of a detached, politically neutral scholarship becomes unsustainable, both empirically and ethically. Research is inevitably conducted within particular social and political contexts and is shaped by existing power relations and inequalities. Recognising this does not mean abandoning scientific objectivity. Rather, it calls for greater reflexivity and transparency about the assumptions, values, and potential social consequences that inform research processes and knowledge production.

If racism and other forms of inequality are understood as structural rather than exceptional phenomena, then the role of research cannot be limited to documenting their existence.

Drawing on experiences from a decade of participatory and transformative action research in Barcelona, I have sought to illustrate both the possibilities and limitations of research as a vehicle for social transformation. The projects discussed here demonstrate that participatory and transformative action research can contribute to generating new forms of knowledge, amplifying marginalised voices, and creating spaces for dialogue among actors who do not necessarily share the same understandings of social problems. At the same time, they reveal that transformative ambitions inevitably encounter resistance, particularly when they challenge established institutional practices, dominant narratives, or entrenched power relations.

These experiences also point to the fact that one of the main contributions of transformative action research is not only the production of knowledge, but also the creation of spaces for collective learning and dialogue. Producing empirical evidence is important, but evidence by itself is rarely enough to bring about change. Social transformation requires opportunities for different perspectives to be discussed, for established assumptions to be questioned, and for more shared understandings of social problems to emerge. In this respect, action research is not only a research methodology but also a democratic practice that can facilitate reflection, negotiation, and sometimes uncomfortable conversations about institutional responsibilities and power relations.

However, supportive environments should not be confused with transformative outcomes. Even in a city such as Barcelona, where many institutional actors have shown a willingness to engage with issues of racism and discrimination, change remains partial and contested. Structural inequalities continue to shape people’s lives, exclusionary practices persist, and there is often resistance to acknowledging the systemic dimensions of discrimination. Nevertheless, recent efforts to develop antiracist policies and strengthen participatory forms of governance suggest that research can play an important role in supporting processes of social change.

Ultimately, if racism and other forms of inequality are understood as structural rather than exceptional phenomena, then the role of research cannot be limited to documenting their existence. Research also has a role to play in identifying alternatives, opening up new ways of thinking, and supporting efforts toward institutional and social transformation. This should not be seen as incompatible with scientific inquiry. Rather, it reflects the broader public responsibility of research in societies facing growing polarisation, inequality, and democratic challenges. In this context, transformative action research offers one possible way of connecting knowledge production with the pursuit of greater social justice.

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