Podcast Action Research for Kinship Networks with Hilary Bradbury

In her  address to the 2025 UAE Family and Society Conference Dr. Hilary Bradbury introduces action research as a social change and transformations methodology that helps post conventional kinship networks respond to eco-social crisis. Listen to this latest episode of the AR+ Yes/And podcast on your preferred platform or click the video to see the slides too.

Hilary discusses an example of action research that is successfully tackling social cohesion struggles within a European Eco Village. That’s a village where people seek to live more socially and ecologically sustainably. The example exemplifies key features of the participative change methodology.  

Where conventionally people have relied on strong family structures for emotional and social stability,  today’s increasing migration, technological and social changes, have weakened traditional bonds. There are now significant human challenges both physical and mental. At the same time, our collective planetary thresholds for biological health are beyond what can be easily fixed. Hilary argues and illustrates how action research as a social change methodology helps us find a new way of living, of working, of researching. 

As an action researcher she brings attention to the human-relational bonds at the heart of living in community. Hilary illustrates how participative action research tackles, supports and transforms the perceived problems of social cohesion. This work supports a post conventional, post tribal, kinship network. 

In this action research for transformations is a social change and transformations methodology that mutually rearranges relationships of power within kinship networks, through the use of feedback and collaboration. Thus it’s a path to living together with ourselves, one another and eco-system life around us.

Listen to the podcast on your preferred pod platform! Or watch the video with the slides below…

Bio

Hilary Bradbury, Ph.D., is the founder and curator at Action Research Plus Foundation.