Dear all,
some may be interested in the call below, esp. the first.
Bill
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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 breakthr
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]> by 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]>
by 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]> by 1 May, 2004.

________________________________________________________

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]> by 1 May,
2004.


Dr. Bill M. Cooke
Senior Lecturer in Organizational Analysis
Manchester School of Management
UMIST
PO Box 88
Manchester M60 1QD
UK

tel: (44) 161 200 3411 or 8984
[log in to unmask]



www.umist.ac.uk/departments/management/about/msmstaff.htm?staff_id=2817