72 SOCIAL SCIENTIST within itself work which C Wright Mills calls "abstracted empiricism'— research directed with an obsession with techniques at the expense of a desire to answer relevant questions. This liberal approach permits criticism which is harmless and preserves the pretence of open mindedness. Counterposed to this trend of either increasing sophistication, or an attempt at more functional' research, leading to the generation of data which could help in the preservation of the status quo, is also a 'radical trend5, a dissidence born out of the desire not to surrender to the powerlessness caused by the existing situation. This is the research leading to a critique of the existing social orders with a desire to be linked up to the process of class struggle. The emergence of AR has to be seen within this perspective. Like other research, it too could fall in either camp, and all discussions of the method must keep this in mind. Its uniqueness lies in its link up with action, or action agencies/activists. Within the general framework of AR, as discussed earlier, two distinct trends seem to have emerged, each with its own bias. One is of the institution and its research staff getting directly involved in some 'action'. The studies discussed in the seminar are all of this variety. The other trend is of widening the interaction, and trying to keep in touch with a wide variety of the action groups, a concept similar to the 'National Schools' of the pre-1947 period. This interaction, while being very useful to the institution based researches, also offers the additional possibility of a variety of action groups cross-fertilizing each other, resulting in a possible refining of the action/intervention processes themselves. Both trends propose the development of a synthesis between the study of the process of social change and an involvement in that process. Being then, at the same time, both observer and 'militant', the researcher will have as a goal the furthering of the struggle of the social group with whom the research project is to be carried on. Rather than worrying about explaining events after they have already taken place, the militant observer will try through action and research to bring about an understanding of the process of change by the group which is experiencing that process^ thus enabling the group to redefine and to deepen the scope of their action together. The best proof of the researcher's successful work is seen at the moment when the group takes charge of the process which had been set in motion by the researcher implying thereby that the group has succeeded in appropriating to itself the knowledge and the science which the researcher brought. Such