Critical Communicative Methodology: Informing Real Social Transformation Through Research

• Published in: Qualitative inquiry Vol. 17; no. 3; pp. 235 - 245
• Main Authors: Gómez, Aitor, Puigvert, Lídia, Flecha, Ramón
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.03.2011; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Communication; Communication (Thought Transfer); Communication research; Data Analysis; Data Collection; Dialogs (Language); Dialogue; Egalitarianism; Equality; Inclusion; Inequality; Inquiry method; Intelligence; Knowledge; Methodology; Research Methodology; Research methods; Researcher Subject Relations; Researchers; Scientific knowledge; Social Change; Social development; Social Justice; Social Policy; Social Problems; Social research; Social Science Research; Transformation; social transformation; egalitarian dialogue; political impact; critical communicative methodology
• ISSN: 1077-8004; 1552-7565
• DOI: 10.1177/1077800410397802

The critical communicative methodology (CCM) is a methodological response to the dialogic turn of societies and sciences that has already had an important impact in transforming situations of inequality and exclusion. Research conducted with the CCM implies continuous and egalitarian dialogue among researchers and the people involved in the communities and realities being studied. To this dialogue, researchers bring existing scientific knowledge, and the researched subjects contribute knowledge from their lifeworlds. In this process, new understandings emerge informing solutions to many social problems. Later, social actors lobby for the development of effective social policy based on those solutions. This article presents the CCM, its main principles, techniques, and achievements relating them to the life and person of Jesús Gómez (“Pato”), who deeply engaged in the development of this methodology, always with passion and intellectual rigor and a profound commitment to social justice.