ALARj Action Learning and Action Research Journal
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180 research outputs found
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‘Research makes me strong’: An Oriental perspective towards using an autoethnographic approach
No full textHaving received critical comments from academic journal reviewers, the Author reflects on herself and her practices, which led to her thinking back to the start of her career as an Action Researcher and exploring ways to study herself and hence what it means to write an autoethnography. The exploration included a relevant literature review, which suggested to her that its writing process may inevitably lead authors to be engaged in the negotiation of their own identity, and an interview with a former colleague who has attempted to use autoethnography in her Action Research (AR) practice. The Author claims writing an autoethnography could help us negotiate our own identities through shuttling between them and through a dialogic relationship with ourselves, which is why it may be worth incorporating autoethnography into an AR practice. Most notably, the colleague’s word, which is that research made her strong, may mean everything to the Author
What conditions enable senior, white women to show up as anti-racist in their organisations?
No full textThis study seeks to explore the conditions that enable senior, white women to show up as antiracist in their organisations by utilising an Action Research methodology, specifically Cooperative Inquiry.
Over the course of four inquiry cycles the author and her co-inquirers, five other senior, white women from different organisations, explored the inquiry question “What conditions enable senior, white women to show up as antiracist in their organisations?” in conversation and via shared journaling, reflecting on the actions that they were able to take and the conditions that enabled those actions or hindered them. In collaboration, we identified five conditions, namely:
Knowledge and confidence
Having a platform
Organisational context
Living with discomfort and personal risk appetite
Reflective space and support
This paper concludes with a discussion of the practical implications and recommendations derived from the research
‘She might find out the truth': Action researching with young theatre audiences
No full textAction Research (AR) is often used in theatre and performance to engage communities in acts of social change. Framed as theatre action research in applied theatre, practice as research or participatory enquiry, theatre becomes the central tool in generating knowledge. However, engaging with audiences experiences of theatre as an act of performance throughout my PhD means I was interested in how AR’s paradigmatic qualities apply to young people’s experience of theatre. Thickly detailing my methodological approach, in this paper I examine how AR applied across my research and has subsequently become embedded in my methodological approach to analysing theatre and performance
A ‘veteran reflects’ – A personal biographic response to Akihiro Ogawa’s Introduction: A personal biographic response to Akihiro Ogawa’s Introduction
No full textAkihiro and I did not write abstracts because of their biographic nature.
But please let me know if this is in fact still required
An HR student’s search for relevancy
No full textThe following details how my PhD journey and dissertation reflected the ethos of Action Research (AR), a research paradigm that emphasizes collaborative knowledge creation between researchers and community members with the aim of solving practical, real-world problems. I first provide context with a brief background about myself and my understanding of the core principles of AR, followed by discussion of a perceived crisis in the practical relevancy of management research and psychometric-focused human resource management (HRM) research. I then return to personal matters to discuss the evolution of my dissertation and how it might qualify as participatory research in spirit if not entirely in practice. I highlight specific challenges with thesis writing, working with supervisors, and the examination process, and reflect on how my individual challenges may be generalizable to other PhD students seeking to produce impactful and practicable research
Introduction: Learning, Practicing, Connecting, and Passing Along
No full textThis paper presents my action research (AR) journey – what led me to this paradigm, the key figures I have encountered, and my subsequent work over the past twenty years both in Japan and Australia. While developing my research program on civil society in contemporary democracies, I have committed to AR since my graduate days in the early 2000s. Based on my AR training under Davydd Greenwood at Cornell University, I have been conducting an AR project for almost two decades now in Tokyo, which started originally as a doctoral project. Since 2016, I have been coordinating a PhD seminar on AR at the University of Melbourne. I see this as me passing on my AR knowledge and experiences to the next generation of AR-minded scholars as well as connecting them to veteran AR scholars in Australia. Thus, I can clearly see a new research culture emerging from the new generation
Researching resilience in action: Matters of action research as ‘matters of care’
No full textThis paper traces my Action Research (AR) journey and suggests a care perspective to AR. In my research that investigated the idea of resilience in disaster recovery, I engaged in a five-year collaborative inquiry of what it means to do resilience with a civil society group in Cairns, Australia, which acts alongside Fukushima children affected by the 2011 nuclear disaster. AR enabled a co-generative and democratizing ways of knowledge creation in which research can be simultaneously action-driven, theory-advancing and policy-informing. In my project, I addressed matters of action and inquiry as ‘matters of care’ – a generative engagement with neglected everyday needs and its wider entanglements that are tied to a multigenerational problem. Through this lens, I trace my journey of how I came to do AR, encountered a problem, found my co-researchers and engaged in collaborative inquiry. Finally, I reflect on who the audience is before concluding with ‘What’s next?
Research reflexivity: A journey of unlearning and co-learning
No full textIndigenous art markets in Australia are highly dynamic. Current literature on Australian Indigenous art markets reveals that they comprise of different stakeholders’ groups, including Indigenous artists, Indigenous communities, art intermediaries, community art centres, consumers, and art collectors. Upon reflecting on the settler colonial history in Australia that consists of continuous erasure of Indigenous people and their ways of life, it became important that I adopt a research trajectory that is participative, collaborative and culturally sensitive. In this paper, I justify the importance of conducting participative action research which shares the spirit of the postcolonial and decolonization movements. Particularly, these movements advocate for an unlearning process that involves relinquishing of power. Then, I outline my research process that involves co-learning with different stakeholders’ groups through informal and formal field work. Lastly, I provide my reflexive account of my positionality as a non-Indigenous researcher conducting research with Indigenous people and cultures
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Collaborative writing as action research: A story in the making
No full textA small, transnational group of action researchers came into a collaborative writing venture as part of a broader research inquiry. The inquiry was looking into the role of action research publications in manifesting action research in the world. It was mandated by the Action Learning Action Research Association as input to strategic planning for the future publication directions of the association. Early in our research engagement, the group was offered an opportunity to critically examine our collaborative writing process as it was unfolding, to carry out real time action research into writing up action research and action learning, proceeding through publication into a journal, and tracking how the paper played a role if any, in the manifestation of action research and action learning in the world. Our intention is to share these reflections with ALARA readership beginning with the formation of the collaboration and the working out of how to write together. This paper captures the in-time articulation of language, argumentation, peer and reviewer critique as a way of manifesting the structures, methods and choices that we, as a group, are grappling with as we seek to actualise egalitarian and participatory principles to deliver our co-research. The paper aims to benefit fellow practitioners who have an interest in collaborative writing ventures