Action Research on the Possibilities on Tangential Research: An Opportunity to Explore Prospectively in that Uncatalogued Box

Abstract

Action research is a process whereby the researcher becomes the subject within their own study. This essay is a reflection on the opportunity I recently had to work with a number of historians on a book entitled Canadian Baptist Women. Although this paper is specific to my current work, the resulting reflection on this work has allowed me to propose a research model that I hope will form a useful model for future works. In reflecting on both the process that had the Canadian Baptist Historical Society initiate the work and the writers that either stepped forward to write or stepped back from the process, I sought to reflect on a model that might explain the book’s development that would be useful for future historical endeavours. At this point, I am in no way able to analyze whether my perceptions of the process truly reflected those of my co-writer colleagues, but that does not really matter. What I am proposing within this paper is that, although the action research process was instrumental in my developing a model, it was this product, a historical research model, that seems most useful. Over several years I attended with great interest the annual meetings of both the Canadian Baptist Historical Society and the Canadian Society of Church History. I noticed that questions were often posed to presenters that were at the periphery or tangential to their research. Often it seemed that the questioners had some interest either because of their own research focus, or a tangent that the speaker struck within their presentation, or with