The sixth international symposium of our journal IJAR – International Journal of Action Research entitled ‘Action Research on the Edge’ took place in a hybrid format from October 12-14, 2022, at Sabancı University in Istanbul. Oğuz Babüroğlu and Pinar Akpinar, two of the organizers, look back on the symposium in a short review.
The world has been faced with a state of turbulence that seems to be characterized by extreme conditions and unexpected triggering of events within a new causal texture of the organizational environment. The rising climate crisis, massive shifts in refugee flows, the accelerating health risks arising from the pandemic, increasing polarization, populism, and aggression among leading countries in the world, tendency towards economic and technological disruptions, extraordinary demands and pressures on the new generation are all indicators of being on the edge. Institutional capacities for adaptation and transformation are being severely limited when confronted with these contextual shifts.
The dynamics of the emerging socio-ecological context that the world has been emersed in within the last few decades has been the source of inspiration for the 6th International Journal of Action Research Symposium (IJAR 2022) that was hosted by Sabancı Business School ARAMA Initiative in Action Research on October 12-14, 2022. Organized under the theme, ‘Action Research on the Edge’ in a hybrid format in Istanbul, IJAR 2022 brought together pioneering scholars and practitioners of action research to assess and revisit the premises, practices, and theoretical foundations of action research in this context to explore new contributions to the current state of knowledge. As the most Eastern state of Europe and the most Western state of Asia, Turkey is perfectly positioned on the edge and amid these currents of change and transformation which presents fascinating experimental opportunities for action research interventions and practices.
The symposium kicked off with a timely mini search conference with the title, “Forging and Sharing Best Practices for the European Green Deal: Putting Words into Action”. The Green Deal is slowly but surely modifying the business landscape. All sectors and all practices are being impacted, from tax and finance to operations, supply chains, human resources, and marketing. As the Green Deal’s ambition and goals are turned into policies, regulations, and initiatives, the greatest challenge for the business world lies in the ‘how’. As such, the mini search conference aimed to find answers to questions regarding how organizations could align themselves with the Green Deal in a harmonious and agile fashion.
The symposium also hosted the first ever panel discussion on the use of action research in the Turkish academic and industrial context. In the symposium, Oğuz Babüroğlu, ARAMA Chair in Action Research, introduced the concept, “Action Research Alla Turca” to underpin the sui-generis characteristics of action research as practiced in Turkey. In this sense, “Action Research Alla Turca” was explored by shedding light on a number of interesting references such as the incredible transformation Atatürk University in Erzurum, “Ege Gastronomy” movement as a socio-ecological practice, participatory planning process of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, and the case of EU-Turkey collaboration in/with North Africa as, perhaps, the first ever exploration of the use of action research in the field of foreign policy.
Another interesting panel explored how universities, education and pedagogy are regenerated by action research by referring to examples such as the representation of refugees in primary school textbooks of Turkey through action research and the “Teachers as Action Researchers Program” in Turkey. Several other topics have been explored at the symposium. Miren Larrea, Editor of IJAR, indicated three edges including new forms of capitalism and their impact on climate and sustainability, the stagnation of global democratization, and dehumanization. By referring to a recently penned IJAR article that has been co-authored with Werner Fricke, Davydd Greenwood and Danilo Streck, Miren underpinned that capitalism, and especially its uncontrolled, disembedded forms, is the main force that is changing the world and pushing it closer to the edges by generating both environmental disaster and unprecedented levels of global and societal inequality. She rightfully invited action researchers to find new formulas to face these emerging forms of capitalism.
The panel led by Orkestra – Basque Institute of Competitiveness, dealt with issues regarding action research for territorial development (ARTD) and urban edges. As an institution specialized in territorial development, Orkestra fellows presented a set of influential papers, each offering a different perspective on action research and ARTD. Emphasis was placed on topics such as: action research for constructing entrepreneurial governance modes for sustainable urban transition; ARTD facing the challenge of reach when governments interacting with companies; youth empowerment through action research; agoras of ARTD for building collaborative governance; training spaces for young professionals, configured to generate facilitative capabilities for ARTD. Delving and critically reflecting on these issues helped us both to address current challenges, as well as to identify future directions to be tackled by ARTD from several standpoints.
Another thought-provoking session was “Action Research on the Edge”, which was also the name bearer of the symposium. The panel highlighted the new international collaboration based on action research in the Global South by examining cases from South Asia, South Africa and Latin America. Themes included quality circles in Nepal, decolonization of knowledge production and dissemination in South Africa, and African feminist approaches to knowledge. During the panel, action research was linked to a variety of activist interventions indicating an exciting potential and bridging several traditions.
The symposium also hosted an inspirational round table discussion on social change and partnerships in Canada about the development of action research and community-university partnerships in the country. There is a strong tradition of collaboration between academic researchers and civil society organizations, supported by governmental research grants and services within universities. In this sense, the panel chair Isabel heck observed the growing research capacity outside universities, about which we learnt more during the panel, as two of the presenters are researchers based in non-profit organization outside academia. The case of Grégoire’s work with residents and practitioners in a low-income neighborhood in Montreal through the Parole d’excluEs University Incubator was also noteworthy which stressed the commitment, time and constant iterations between research and action it takes to be able to create spaces where diverse narratives coalesce into actions.
The 5th IJAR symposium was held in a different way compared to the previous ones. Each host country organized the event with novelties specific to the locality. The symposium held in Turkey had several different angles. First and foremost, there were more participants who joined through the online channel as opposed to the more conventional face to face modality. This enabled us to enjoy a terrific diversity of local and global papers and access to whoever in the world who were critical to ongoing action research engagements but may have had travel restrictions because of the pandemic. There were scholars and practitioners from different generations, different varieties and different countries in different continents who contributed meaningfully to the symposium festival. Secondly, there were many modalities: a workshop, a round table, keynotes, reflection, case, and networking sessions and some of these sessions were almost predominantly for practicing managers, others for scholars and some were mixed. And we had three days which is a super time so far as accommodating all kinds of needs although the tradeoff is not to have continuity among the participants who attended only to the session that they participated. We were also fortunate that the symposium was started by the new editor in chief and that it was finished by the outgoing editor in chief.
The complete program of the IJAR 2022 symposium can be found here.
Oğuz Babüroğlu and Pinar Akpinar
All available online issues of IJAR – International Journal of Action Research can be found at Budrich Journals.
© image: Pinar Akpinar
