Transforming Transformative Praxis with Norma Romm: a Review

ROMM’s substantial publication crosses the arguably incoherent line that any social and ecological research can be alienated from the living realities of its field of study. Using MERTENS thesis (2007) of a transformative paradigm to weave commitments to “indigenous ways of knowing” into critical systems thinking and practice, ROMM significantly expands the research world to better fit its twenty-first century work load. Landing on mixed methods research as the methodological container for this theoretical nexus, she works through case studies that reorient commonly used research methods towards mixed ontologies governed by the four transformative principles of relationship, responsibility, respect and reciprocity. From these studies she identifies and addresses the extended ethical domains that activist researchers raise in their pursuit of social and ecological justice. I wrote this review from the standpoint of an action researcher in order to consider the viability of ROMM’s thesis on the grounds of a twenty-first century form of pragmatism as it faces the necessity of transformation.