How can we trust our research and organizational praxes? A proposed epistemology of socioanalytic methodologies

This paper grows out of my experience of facilitating various socioanalytic methodologies as action research projects, consulting interventions and professional development offerings and is a further attempt on my part to ground these praxes in established theory and in grounded research and consultation practice. After briefly introducing the concept of epistemology and describing one of these methodologies (Social Dream-Drawing), I will discuss the ongoing debate as to whether subjective experience and collective learning can be considered valid bases for an epistemological stance. Using Social Dream-Drawing as an illustration, I propose three epistemological underpinnings to this general set of methodologies. I will end this paper by offering a schema that visually represents the arguments presented in this paper.