This article posits it is possible to extend participatory action research (PAR) beyond human beings to include other-than-human animals. This research method and philosophy offers a radical and revolutionary opportunity for trans-species communication. The goal is to highlight the ethical impetus that undergirds PAR, as a form of action research, and suggest it as an appropriate methodology for gaining an understanding not only of the value of the approach, but also how it can be used as a tool with which to ‘hear’ and consider the conditions of animals’ marginalized voices. If the primary purpose of action research is to ‘produce practical knowledge that is useful to people in the everyday conduct of their lives’ (Reason & Bradbury, 2006, p. 2) can we not also extend this goal to include animals? I argue trans-species psychology, in concert with PAR, is an ethics-based method for attaining this goal. For, as Cheney (2002, p. 91) observes, ‘to articulate an epistemology is to articulate an ethical practice’. Two examples of prototypal PAR research are discussed as practice indicators that set a challenge for researchers to fully envision those who are silenced.
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