Reflections on 2010 and Hopes for 2011 posted by Mary Brydon-Miller

When I think back on my year in Action Research the common theme is my deep gratitude for the opportunies for community and collaboration the year brought. This speaks to what I consider one of the fundamental values that underlie our practice—the notion that working together we learn more, accomplish more, and grow closer to one another. There are so many examples of how the value and values of collaboration have touched my life this year, but I will focus on five experiences that are especially meaningful to me because of the opportunity they each gave me to deepen my own learning and to develop new and nuture existing friendships.




I begin by thanking my students. My current and past students are some of the major contributors to this blog, they are the energy behind the Action Research Center, and they continue to inspire and amaze me year after year. In December the students in my Action Research course presented on the first-person action research projects they had conducted in which they each examined the ways in which their own value system is expressed through their practice. Each and every one of these presentations was a unique and beautifully crafted expression of the kind of reflection, creativity, and openness to new learning that should be at the heart of all Action Research. I am eager to get back to them to see where our work together takes us from here!



I also want to thank my colleagues at Harmony Garden, the girls health and wellness program I work with in Cincinnati, and in particular to the members of the Community Resident Research Team, who are not only my friends, but my teachers. I am privileged to have been invited to join the Board of Directors of this phenomenal organization this year and look forward to continuing to see their work create positive change in the city of Cincinnati and beyond.

Over the past year I’ve also had the opportunity work with my colleagues Ariane Berthoin Antal, Patricia Gayá Wicks, and Victor Friedman on editing a Special Issue of Action Research devoted to Arts and Action Research. You’ll be hearing from them and from the wonderful authors who have contributed to this project over the next couple of months, but I wanted to thank them all here for the thoughtful way in which they each contributed to nurturing this project—one that I feel makes a remarkable contribution to our understanding of the ways in which the arts can inform, infuse, and reframe our understanding of AR.

And finally, I think about the members of the Swedish Action Research Consortium I met with in Runö, Sweden this Fall and all the fellow action researchers at this year’s World Congress of Action Research in Melbourne in August.

Action Research is a global community of committed individuals who care deeply addressing some of the most pressing problems facing our world today. I look forward to 2011 and to the new opportunities this year will bring to all of us to continue to work together. Thanks to you all!

From the desk of the editor:A new review process

In issue 8(4) of ARJ we have the first of a new review format.  It strikes me that a great way to share news of new publications in the field of action research is to post a short review on the blog.  More formal reviews, however, will be picked up by the journal.

Dr. Donna Ladkin starts us off with a review in ARJ of Olav Eikeland’s work on Aristotle.  Beyond being readable and insightful, Donna offers a model for the new reviews the journal will offer.   This also signals the upcoming finale to the extensive digests of new action research related publications that Bob Dick has offered since the start of the journal. I am very sad to see Bob Dick retire from his position as reviewer of all things action research.  Bob’s reviews have informed my own reading over the past few years (if Bob recommended it, I read it).  I know that his column was very popular judged by the number of times they were downloaded.  We will truly miss Bob.  I am, however, happy to say that Bob has agreed to be interviewed so that he does not leave without us taking to opportunity to pick his encyclopedic brain on action research.  The interview will be published in ARJ. And as Donna’s review shows, we may have a very different but equally informative review process coming on line.  I thank Dr. Patricia Gaya Wicks and her colleagues from the associate editor board for helping us design the new review process.  May it flourish and meet the demands of our readers.

Warm regards,

Hilary Bradbury-Huang, Editor in Chief

From the Editor's desk: Esther Prins on participatory photography

Last of the new papers to be introduced from the upcoming ARJ, issue 8(4) ...

Esther Prins from The Pennsylvania State University writes about the use of participatory photography. Esther’s article examines the unanticipated problems the author and participants encountered when encouraging the stakeholders in their work to use photography as a way to represent their world. The surprise was at how much suspicion, timidity, and ridicule the practice engendered. This article elucidates how historical and socio-cultural factors structured learners’ and community residents’ responses to photography. Theoretically she draws on Foucault’s analysis of surveillance and power, to argue that photography is a technology with contradictory potential for social control and surveillance. This forms the basis for thinking trough how to recovery marginalized groups’ subjugated knowledge..

From the point of view of growing to scale, Esther’s work is also in the category of “how to do action research.” We may be surprised to learn that technology as “simple” as the camera (simple, that is, by the standards of the university based researcher) can evoke unanticipated reaction and consequences. True to the spirit of good inquiry, Esther makes lemonade from the lemons (how many, perhaps especially novice action researchers, might have simply slipped away?!). Beyond mere perseverance, Esther’s contribution to theory is helpful to the larger community. And from a practical standpoint, her work offers an opportunity for vicarious apprenticeship. Please find her work: http://arj.sagepub.com/content/early/2010/06/10/1476750310374502.abstract

Warm regards,

Hilary Bradbury-Huang
Editor in Chief

From the Editors Desk: Feeling Exposed and Rudderless. Colleagues from Teachers College reflect on struggles of action research

Next in my short series of introductions to upcoming publications in ARJ ... in which I also add some reflections on what I see as implications for the work described coming to scale:

Laura Smith and colleagues from Teachers College, Columbia University, USA, Lucinda Bratini, Debbie-Ann Chambers, Russell Vance Jensen and LeLaina Romero bring a window to the awkward difficulty that university-based researchers experience when doing action research – they/ we often feel exposed and rudderless. By examining episodes from three different PAR projects they illustrate challenges as well as what can be learned from them, especially by university based researchers.
From the point of view of growing to scale, Laura’s and her colleagues’ work is in the category of “how to do action research.” On the editorial board we have been very attentive to making such articles available. We recognize that it is not obvious how to do participatory work, especially given the conventional training that graduate students receive. And to be honest the work is not easy, it is multidimensional. Novice action researchers ideally have apprenticeship and practice opportunities. For those who can’t immediately locate a mentor, we hope that such articles help fill the gap. Please find their work: http://arj.sagepub.com/content/early/2010/06/28/1476750310366043.abstract

Scientific - Spiritual Cosmology - Alan Wight

For my AR class, I have been asked to describe the values that inform my research.  I am firmly rooted in a scientific-spiritual understanding of the universe.  Bradbury and Reason (2001) provide an excellent introduction to this point of view in their "On the nature of the given cosmos" (p. 8).  Please a take a moment to view the linked video below, and the read the accompanying words.

This is the Universe, Can you Comprehend it?  - Video link. 

Biopolitan Poetry for creating an Earth-Centered Consciousness.

Cat's Eye Nebula

And the universe asks---what are you compared to me?

Dude, I am you!  Our human consciousness formed from you.  We are one version of your awareness, privileged to reflect back upon this great mystery.

I am humbled by the awesomeness, the grandeur, the scale, the age, the beauty, the violence, and the astonishing---mind blowing distance of our every expanding reality.  The cosmic elements collected and as our star gathered enough mass fusion burst forth, and photons of light energy exploded in all directions.

Eventually the Earth gave birth, and now we can see,

and taste, and touch, and feel and breath. 

It is from this spiritual and scientific understanding that I approach the world. This humility transforms into the highest respect for Gaia, our planetary emissary.  We are one of many forms of Gaia’s awareness.  We exist here because we coexist with everything else on Earth.

Sun's Radiation and the Earth's Magnetic Field (artists interpretation)

A step back reveals the potential precariousness of our current endeavors.  The mad ambitions for money, parceled out-private property, power, domination, and control.  These are the cultural values repeatedly whispered and extolled.

Our economic practices and actions do not reflect the reality of our biosphere, of this larger living entity.  

The expansionist, Promethean, Frontierist, planet – plundering mentality is insane.

Therefore, I actively embrace alternative Earth-Centered paradigms.  From the cosmopolitan, and declaration of ‘citizen of the world’ I advance the key value that informs my thoughts and research. 

This is the concept of biopolitansim: the identification of humans as one life form, one culture, one group of earthlings among many; we are a human community that only exists because of all the other Earth’s communities.  We need to respect and protect all other species and ecosystems and foster an appreciation for other ways of knowing.

It is the values of this Earth-Life-Community Ethic that I heed, and from here, from this moral point that I proceed.

Notes: 

Peter Reason and Hililary Bradbury-Huang (Eds).  2006.  "On the nature of the given cosmos."  Handbook of Action Research.   p. 8  Los Angles: Sage Publishing.

From the desk of the editor: Ngwerume & Themessl-Huber on Healthcare/CBPR

Over the course of a few weeks I am introducing new papers being published by the journal. By way of bringing alive the concept of designing action research for scale, I will also reflect on how to “grow” the projects reported or what the implications to a wider audience may be if the work were continued.


Karebor Tuhaise Ngwerume from Brocklehurst Chemist, Hull, UK and Markus Themessl-Huber of Central Queensland University, Australia share their action research work which developed among a community pharmacy team. The pharmacy team started by reflecting on their own practice and in doing so examined the reliability of the evidence base they used to give advice to customers regarding the sale of medicines. This process resulted in the development of portfolios of evidence-based counter recommendations and a more knowledgeable, self-aware, confident as well as research-aware pharmacy team.


From the point of view of growing to scale, Karebor’s and Markus’ work also helps build the rapidly increasing repository of CBPR studies. The call to be “evidence based” is not so simple to implement – turns out that only half of all medicines and procedures prescribed are in fact evidence based. The intervention that the pharmacy team successfully undertook was, in fact, a microcosm of the type of culture shift happening in healthcare delivery institutions. There will be more and intense interest on such CPBR studies, in aggregate. Calling all graduate students: clearly metastudies of many CPBR studies are needed. Please find their work: http://arj.sagepub.com/content/early/2010/06/28/1476750310366042.abstract

Warm regards,

Hilary Bradbury-Huang, Editor in Chief

Working out Inside: First Person Action Research - Alan Wight

I have been thinking about the consequences of working out (exercising) indoors ever since our campus opened up a state-of-the-art recreation center almost 5 years ago.  Two indoor pools, a hot tub, at least 6 basketball courts, an elevated track, a climbing wall, rooms upon rooms of lifting equipment, free weights, exercise machines, step-aerobic class rooms, spinning bikes, treadmills, stationary bikes, and a variety of elliptical machines.  It is wonderful to have all of these resources dedicated to helping our community members stay physically fit.  Personally, I use the Olympic swimming pool, the free weights, and the elliptical machines the most.  I can workout when the weather is cold, icy, and uninviting.  I can bring a book and watch TV while using the cardio machines.  Working out has never been so comfortable.  There is however, an incredible irony with this set up. 

By using first person Action Research, self-reflective inquiry practices, and critical autoethnography I am able to examine my everyday actions in light of the values I espouse (i.e. environmentalist, Earth centered ethics, social justice, etc). Judi Marshall (2001) talks about “inquiry as life process,” where thoughts and actions become research, with inquiry is at the core of our being (p. 341).  Simply put, it is important to be aware and reflective about how our daily actions affect the earth.

When I use the recreation facility, I consume energy (especially on the exercise machines) by working out inside when an outdoor run or bike could have served the same purpose without using electricity.  Here I am, trying to maintain a healthy body, achieve a good balance between the other important aspects of my life (intellectually, spiritually, dietary, interpersonal relationships, etc), when I am actually harming the planet.  This is contradictory.  I should not use fossil fuel energy in the quest for personal health.  When we ride bikes, run, walk, or engage in cardiovascular exercise outside, we do not generate negative externalities in that specific process.  We should strive to better our health, but not at the expense of the biosphere.

Notes:

Marshall, Judi.  2001.  “Self-reflective Inquiry Practices.”  Handbook of Action Research.  Peter Reason and Hillary Bradbury-Huang (Eds). 2008. pp 335 – 342.  Los Angles: Sage Publishing.