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Several people and various organizations have contributed to this study. While it may not be possible to include all here, we would like to mention a few.

This paper is an account of feminist research influenced by Cooperative Inquiry (CI) described as Feminist Cooperative Inquiry. A team of grassroots women leaders-turned-co-researchers, from different marginalised social locations (on gender, caste, class, education, livelihood axes) in India, developed this methodology to collectively analyse their own empowering journeys to make meanings of empowerment. The diversity of co-researchers in this research led to making additions or deviations in the CI protocol. By bringing in nonliterate or low-literate women from marginalised groups as coresearchers, the research added political value by extending centre of collective knowledge building towards marginalised groups. The paper also discusses how the research processes further empowered the coresearchers for their own interpretations, abstractions and their selfdefined viewpoint in the domain of empowerment. Calling empowerment as primarily an ‘internal reflective process’ co-researchers defied oversimplified, quantifiable proxy indicators as any measure of empowerment.

This article aims to reflectively analyse the personal and organisational trajectory of a grassroots activist—researcher in translating abstract praxis-related theoretical ideas to practise through a two-way process of learning. It critically discuses an evolving process of collective actions and associated reflections that progressively brought clarity on the theoretical aspects of the Freirean concepts. The process of the application and usefulness of the problem posing education, conscientisation and critical consciousness in transforming the lives of women and communities is reflectively narrated. The author argues that Freire’s transformative conceptualisations not only have the impact on the ‘oppressed’, but also on the ‘privileged’ who chose to work with them. Despite some limitations, the author, as a community practitioner/activist, finds Freire’s ideas as a gift in the political purpose and politics of her work. These reflections will be of use to community practitioners and members working in similar contexts.

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