AR+ News – Action Research Community Update

Coming in March: Special Issue on Development, Aid and Social Transformation.

We are excited to announce our first issue of 2017 is our Special Issue on “Development, Aid and Social Transformation.” Here are some sneak previews.

Our authors tackle some of the world’s most intractable problems: impending destruction of coastal livelihoods due to climate change; gender inequality and poverty; intergenerational inequity; violence against young women; and capturing gains from a globalizing economy while deepening social capital and promoting respect for local culture and history (see article profiles here).

Special Issue editors Kent Glenzer and Alfredo Ortiz have invited short responses from the Development Community to seed conversations across institutional boundaries.

The Special Issue highlights stories of methodological innovation through participatory forms of action learning and research. The accounts tell of problematic patterns of interaction meaningfully shifted with each study focusing on what works – what makes a positive difference – while specifying challenges, hurdles, and failures encountered along the way. We hope to have helped “untame” Action Research in planned Aid.

– New Writing from Peter Reason

Participatory Research in more-than-human worlds is a boundary-busting collection that asks an excitingly hard question—can members of a more-than-human world engage in truly participatory research?

– New (Lifescaping!) Practices in School Communities

Lifescaping Practices in School Communities is an informative new resource that introduces readers to an eco-relational approach to systems change. The Participatory Inquiry Process and the 4-R Relational Wellness approaches to action research described in the text may be applied to schools, organizations, and community change efforts.

– New Healthcare Transformation.“Action Research Healthcare in Sweden. Happier Patients, Lower Costs, Higher Quality – Hilary Bradbury and Steve Waddell”

This AR+ Videologue is about the work led by Dr. Svante Lifvergren. It describes one of the best elaborated examples of action research in healthcare which Svante has been shepherded in Sweden for over a decade to great success.