Abstract
Disciplines dealing with human science have an action research feature, since their research characteristically require collaborative processes between researchers and their subjects, much in contrast with the natural sciences which distinctively separate researchers from the target of observation. This paper sheds light on unique perspectives and roles of action researchers by featuring a case of on-going action research in a community affected by the Niigata Chuetsu earthquake. We refer to the interpretation of Osawa (2005) on the legend of Tono by Yanagida that: i) social construction, developed from our experiences, creates dual levels of "language" and "body;" and ii) these two levels exist in both the internal world of an individual and the social world to which s/he belongs. We then conclude that the action researchers bear the role to restore `otherness' confined in the individual's level of "body" for his/her betterment, and hence, a multi-positioned perspective, which we call mikos' perspective, becomes important. In addition, we underscore that these researchers have an obligation to report their findings retrospectively so that future action processes will benefit from the newly acquired perspectives for application toward improving society.
