Abstract
The role of activism in primary care practice, inquiry, and theory development is illustrated through the description of a feminist cooperative inquiry group's deconstruction of menarche education.The development of the emancipatory inquiry method of activist nursing inquiry and its relationship with feminist process is described. The value of feminist process in activist primary care inquiry and practice is examined. A theory of primary caring is inductively gleaned from the research and compared to other caring theories. Connection, commitment, consistency, change, and community are identified as being components of primary caring. A community perspective on primary care is advocated.