This is a forwarded message.
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Betreff: Action Research Special Issues - call for papers
Datum: Wed, 3 Dec 2003 14:38:26 -0000
Von: "Swart, Wernard" <[log in to unmask]
Dear Colleague
Please find below information on FOUR SPECIAL ISSUES forthcoming in the
new journal, Action Research.
Please send proposals for contributions direct to the guest editors
indicated below as soon as possible and by 1 May 2004 at the latest. For
further information on Action Research, including submission details and
a FREE online sample copy, please visit www.sagepub.co.uk
<http://www.sagepub.co.uk/
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Special Issue: Sustainability and Action Research
Guest Editor: Hilary Bradbury
We invite submissions for a special issue of Action Research dealing
with the topic of sustainability and action research. The term
sustainability has grown in popularity since 1987 where it was first
defined in the Brundtland report as 'meeting the needs of the present
generation without reducing the capacity of the future generation to
meet their own needs.' Projects that help to build toward
sustainability are underway in many fields of endeavour. Many involve
trans-boundary collaborations with interdisciplinary partnerships
required to make them work. As such an action research approach has
been found particularly useful. In the fields of education, development
efforts, business, natural resource management, etc., projects abound in
which there is attention to balancing the needs of human communities,
natural environment and economic needs. For example in the business
world, corporations are partnering with NGO's to develop 'win-win'
outcomes !
that benefit both shareholders but also a offer breakthrough approaches
to improve their impact on communities in which they do work and the
natural environment. Early issues of Action Research have already
included articles that report on the complex and innovative work that is
required in facilitating sustainable systems (see contributions by
Wakefield & Pimbert in issues 1(2) and 2(1)).
Among the topics that might be included would be examples of action
research projects in which efforts to move a system toward a more
sustainable state have been particularly salient. How do action
researchers facilitate trans-boundary cooperation? How can power elites
work with those who have often been voiceless in how the resources of
their community are developed? What new practices are developing in
this complex work? How do action researchers in the field of
sustainability develop projects that work toward scale, as argued by
Gustavsen in recent issues of the journal Concepts and Transformation?
Clearly this is not an exhaustive list, and we welcome innovative and
provocative approaches to considering these issues.
Please send proposals for contributions to the Hilary Bradbury at
[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask] 1 May , 2004.
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Special Issue: Ethics and Action Research
Guest Editors: Mary Brydon Miller and Davydd Greenwood, and Olav
Eikeland
We invite submissions for a special issue of Action Research dealing
with ethics and action research. Among the topics that might be included
would be critical examinations of the ethical foundations that underlie
the theoretical frameworks that inform our research and how these guide
our practice. How does action research differ from more conventional
social science research in terms of the ethical issues we face and how
these are resolved? Do different forms of action research embody
different sets of values, and if so, how might we articulate these
differences? How might classical philosophy and ethics inform our
practice as action researchers?
We would also like to include examples of action research projects in
which ethical considerations have been particularly salient. How do
action researchers deal with issues of power, privilege, and
representation when working in work, school, or community settings? And
how do differences in age, race, gender, culture, and class influence
the negotiation of ethical aspects of the research? How can we insure
that the relationships we establish with co-participants serve their
interests rather than our own? How do issues of intellectual property
shape the way in which our research is reported and the manner in which
authorship is assigned?
Authors might also consider exploring the ways in which the values
inherent in our own institutions might be made more consistent with the
egalitarian and democratic ideals of action research; or might look at
strategies of protecting the practice of action research from
cooptation. Clearly this is not an exhaustive list, and we welcome
innovative and provocative approaches to considering these issues.
Please send proposals for contributions to Mary Brydon Miller at
[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask] 1 May,
2004.
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Special Issue: Action Research in large/whole systems
Guest Editors: Susan Weil and Danny Burns
We are seeking contributions from people whose action research efforts
involve outcomes of parallel and networked inquiries to support a
widening of the boundary for learning and further inquiry. Such work is
multi layered, multi-stranded and multi-voiced in its approach. It
involves existing and new stakeholders engaging in action research
across organizational boundaries, as well as up and down hierarchies.
It takes place in multiple sites - often in parallel, and involves using
multiple methods. Starting points might include degenerative patterns
that recur across a system, contradictions between espoused strategic or
policy aims and values (and how these are lived across that system),
and/or powerful questions that have a high charge across the system as a
whole. These are then explored in specific contexts and communities of
practice. Such work is characterized by iterative cycles of data
collection and analysis, and multiple forms of knowing.
The issue will invite people to write about their work with and
understandings of 'whole system' action research as practiced in
specific contexts of complexity and uncertainty, and to contextualize
such work, in terms of, for example:
* their own theories of practice
* action research literature (both in terms of what is present and
gaps)
* conceptual, methodological and epistemological issues which arise
from such approaches
Some of the specific issues that the issue will explore are:
* Working with systems through large scale events that both 'play
back' inquiry insights and outcomes, and in turn stimulate further
inquiry across the system
* How to support learning and research insights that travel across
systems, using different forms of knowing
* Learning from patterns and contradictions across diverse practice
contexts in a distributed system
* Tensions and possibilities in facilitating large system inquiry
* Power and intervention in large systems inquiry processes
* Participative approaches to whole systems work
Please send proposals for contributions to Susan Weil at
[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask] 1 May, 2004.
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Special issue: Reflective Practice and First-Person Inquiry
Guest Editors: Judi Marshall and Geoff Mead
We invite people working with self-reflective, first person action
research approaches to submit papers for a special issue which will
explore the range, richness, delights, challenges and dilemmas of these
aspects of action research.
First person action research can be described as:
'skills and methods [which] address the ability of the researcher to
foster an inquiring approach to his or her own life, to act awarely and
choicefully, and to assess effects in the outside world while acting.
(Reason and Torbert, 2001, p17, Concepts and Transformations, 6: 1
1-37.)
Sometimes the inquirer is mainly interested in developing their own
practice and competence. Often, however, they are engaged in some form
of self-reflective practice as an essential core discipline to underpin
action research in which they are seeking to engage in mutual
relationships with others or to influence change in organizations or
social systems. There are a wide variety of terms which have been used
to refer to these aspects of action research - such as action inquiry,
living life as inquiry, reflective practice, heuristic research and
mindful inquiry. A range of traditions and heritages are thus brought
to understanding and to the pursuit of action which incorporates
disciplines of some kind, alongside engaging with what emerges.
We welcome contributions from diverse perspectives which foreground
self-reflective aspects of action research practice and thinking.
Please send proposals for contributions to Judi Marshall at
[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask] 1 May, 2004.
PLEASE NOTE OUR CHANGE OF ADDRESS
From 22nd December 2003 the new address for SAGE Publications'
London offices will be:
SAGE Publications
1 Oliver's Yard
55 City Road
London EC1Y 1SP
UK
Telephone: +44 (0)207 324 8500
Fax: +44 (0)207 324 8600
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