Social movements and engaged research: Methodologies of co-production
CFP RGS-IBG 2014 Annual Meeting, London
Sponsored by the Participatory Geographies Research Group
Convenors: Jenny Pickerill, Sam Halvorsen, Bertie Russell
In 2007 two influential books focused on research methodologies: ‘Participatory Action Research Approaches and Methods: Connecting people, participation and place’ (Kindon et al, 2007); and ‘Constituent Imagination: Militant investigations, collective theorization’ (Shukaitis et al, 2007). Both methodologies claim to challenge mainstream academic traditions, to carry out ‘engaged’ research ‘with’ or ‘within’, and to counter hegemonic approaches. Participatory Action Research (PAR) recognises a ‘plurality of knowledges located in a variety of institutions and locations’ (p.11) rather than the confines of policy-making and academia, valorising the knowledges of those who have been systematically excluded. Militant investigation, meanwhile, seeks to collectively develop new strategies of political resistance and argues that such ‘revolutionary knowledge’ must be ‘deeply embedded in the logic of transformational practice’ (p.12).
In this call for papers, interventions and other creative forms of contribution, we are interested in PAR, militant investigation and alternative engaged approaches to research with/within social movements. In particular, we wish to explore the common ground and tensions between such approaches and the challenges they pose to academic geographical knowledges. Questions we would like to address include but are not limited to:
◦ Can engaged research approaches justify claims of co-production?
◦ How is academia to create space for the (voice of) ‘the other’?
◦ What are the temporal and space-relational bounds on commitment to both social movements and academia in engaged research?
◦ How do engaged approaches (differently) represent, resolve or problematise the activist/academic identity?
◦ If engaged epistemologies are taken seriously, (how) should engaged academics act collectively?
◦ Do engaged approaches constitute solidarity? (c.f. Featherstone, 2013)
◦ Can/should engaged approaches sustain a claim to the production of theory?
◦ Can/should engaged approach sustain a claim to contribute to social change?
◦ How do these approaches relate to Marxist, Anarchist and other radical analyses?
◦ Are PAR and militant investigation synonymous or antagonistic?
◦ Is militant investigation limited to an auto-ethnographic method?
◦ How are PAR and other engaged approaches to be reported?
◦ What are the challenges to and transformations in engaged research approaches that have emerged since 2007?
We will seek to facilitate access to this session not only for academics employed in universities but for para-academics (see HammerOn Press forthcoming), activists and others with an interest in contributing. In the context of this session, at least, co-production demands that participation should not be limited by material, spatial or temporal constraints. We will therefore endeavour to make the session open access and, using technology to extend participation in space and time, accessible to anyone who cannot attend in person.
Please send abstracts or proposals for contributions (max. 250 words) to Sam Halvorsen ([log in to unmask]), Jenny Pickerill ([log in to unmask]) and Bertie ([log in to unmask]) by 14th February 2014.
FEATHERSTONE, D. (2013) Solidarity: Hidden Histories and Geographies of Internationalism. London: Zed books
HAMMERON PRESS (forthcoming 2014) The Para-Academic Handbook: A Toolkit for making-learning-creating-acting. HammerOn Presshttp://www.hammeronpress.net/page21.htm
KINDON, S., KESBY, M. & PAIN, R. (eds.) 2007. Participatory Action Research Approaches and Methods: Connecting people, participation and place. London &New York: Routledge.
SHUKAITIS, S. & GRAEBER, D. (eds.) (2007) Constituent Imagination: Militant investigations, collective theorisation. Oakland: AK Press.
Thanks
Jenny, Sam and Bertie
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Dr Jenny Pickerill
Reader in Environmental Geography
Department of Geography
University of Leicester
University Road
Leicester
LE1 7RH
UK
phone: +44 (0)116 252 3836
email: [log in to unmask]
web: www.jennypickerill.info
blog: http://naturalbuild.wordpress.com/
twitter: @JennyPickerill
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