Learning from the Evidence of Co-Inquiry Based Practice and Research: Explorations in Primary Care

This chapter explores a research project that began with a 'respectable passion': to reduce coronary heart disease (CHD) amongst men in the UK originating from Indian subcontinent countries of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. It explores how powerful questions can galvanize participation in action-based co-inquiry that, in turn, can generate possibilities for change with which people identify. Effective collaborative inquiry 'demystifies research and treats it as a form of learning that should be accessible by everyone interested in gaining a better understanding of his or her world'. Critically reflexive action research (CRAR) provided the starting-point for our enactment of alternative epistemological commitments than those that dominate in medical and primary care research, CRAR comes from a fertile mix of influences. The alternative research stance has opened up pathways through the many tensions and uncertainties that beset primary care.