ABSTRACT
The focus of this chapter is upon exploring the relevance of group analysis as an interpretive resource for the conduct and management of research, as a particular kind of organisational analysis. Reflecting my own political commitments, I identify some specific conceptual compatibilities and political continuities between processes involved in socially committed action research and in group analysis. While attending to process, including systemic and psychodynamic, issues have a longstanding tradition within social research (from Kurt Lewin’s gestalt-influenced theory of the 1930s onwards, Argyris, 1997, to debates in feminist and anthropological research on reflexivity, e.g. Stanley & Wise, 1993; Steier, 1991; Wilkinson, 1988), my account illustrates additional critical perspectives afforded by drawing on both group-analytic and social research frameworks.
