Territorial Development and Action Research: Innovation Through Dialogue by James Karlsen & Miren Larrea

Author:James Karlsen & Miren Larrea [Karlsen, James]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2016-03-16T04:00:00+00:00

Collective Knowing in the Agora

Both the Mode 2 concept and the cogenerative AR model presented above have been useful for interpreting our experiences in the agora. Still, neither of them completely covers our interpretation of what goes on in the agora. That is why in this section we propose a framework of our own, based on the two previously discussed, but with distinct elements that we present now.

Gibbons et al. (1994) describe Mode 2, but the specific procedures needed to develop it in social sciences remain black-boxed. Besides, most researchers in territorial development in our environments have more experience in Mode 1 than in Mode 2. Consequently, even when reflecting from experience, we have a better understanding of the procedures in Mode 1 than in Mode 2.

With their cogenerative model, Greenwood and Levin (2007) open the black box of the process that explains what goes on between researchers and practitioners in the agora. But they present a role for the social researcher in workplace-based experiences. We reinterpret it in the context of territorial development. For Greenwood and Levin (2007), researchers mostly use their process knowledge, and participants bring knowledge about the problem the AR process seeks to solve. Our experience of the role of the researcher in territorial development is closer to what Johnsen and Normann (2004, pp. 226–7) describe when they talk about the six roles of the action researcher: the facilitator, the observer, the supplier, the participant, the bridge builder and the service provider. They argue that this list implies that the role of the action researcher is to be both an insider and an outsider to the practice field, which is in contrast with the clear-cut division between insiders and outsiders in the cogenerative model of Greenwood and Levin (2007).

One of the main lessons from the process described in the previous sections is that there are various circumstances that can make the researcher a territorial actor in the process. In EG, one of us was playing a research role but at the same time was the co-ordinator of a network – see Pettigrew (2003) for a very similar case. In the case of Orkestra, this research organisation is part of the RIS, so it is clearly one more actor in territorial development. This makes it very difficult for Orkestra researchers to be perceived as neutral in discussions about the RIS and territorial development. The distinction between insiders and outsiders in the cogenerative process is blurred. Greenwood and Levin (2007) argue that the outsider is not part of the hierarchical structure, but as we argued in Chapter 2, in a situation of territorial complexity this can be applied to all actors, who are interdependent but autonomous.

In this situation, our proposal is not to avoid the distinction between the roles of researchers and practitioners. We have found the distinction between insiders and outsiders useful when discussing our roles with policy makers. But we think that being a territorial actor is implicit in the role of the social researcher in agoras for territorial development.

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