Critique and knowledge in action research – regarding the difficulties of doing and knowing which steps to take in order to prevent work-related stress

Abstract

The article reflects on the questions: who knows what and who can do what in relation to the prevention and remedying of work-related stress. Based on experiences from action research projects, we discuss the importance of democratizing measures in relation to the prevention of work related stress. The article considers how employees’ notions of criticism and vision can play an important role in the process of creating new relevant knowledge and how this can be an important alternative and complement to expert-based directions and solutions. Based on the empirical action research project Stop Stress, the article argues that cooperative learning arenas which unfold workers’ knowledge of critical conditions and their notion of overlooked opportunities, can provide new perspectives and opportunities for action according to work-related stress.Thus the article argues that context-close collective cognitive and developmental processes as a methodological prevention strategy could potentially elaborate new knowledge and provide new ways to prevent, mitigate and investigate work-related stress. The article does so through discussions and reflections about democratization of social change, the critique as an empirical and a theoretic figure and about work-related stress as a qualitative research area. The article concludes that democratizations of knowledge production processes can provide alternative answers and new types of actions both contributing to the development of research and field.