On the Road of Discovery with Systemic Exploratory Constellations: Potentials of Online Constellation Exercises about Sustainability Transitions

Sustainability transitions are shaped by specific dynamics, dependencies, and influences among the actors and elements that are part of the system. Systemic constellations as a social science research method can offer tangible visualizations of such system dynamics and thereby extract valuable, often hidden knowledge for research. This article builds on two online exploratory system constellation exercises about sustainability transitions, with two major objectives: (i) to introduce and disseminate (exploratory) systemic constellations as a method for (sustainability) research, and (ii) to extract their potential for (online) collaborative and transdisciplinary research, with a focus on sustainability transitions. Our exploratory research design includes participatory action research that took place during the virtual International Sustainability Transitions Conference 2020, Vienna, Austria. Data were analyzed following an interpretative-hermeneutic approach. The main findings consist of visualizations about sustainability transition dynamics between selected actors in Germany and Portugal that are discussed in light of the literature on constellation work and sustainability transitions, triggering new assumptions: (i) a strong sustainability narrative does not (necessarily) lead to action and transformation and (ii) transformation requires integrating narratives beyond weak and strong sustainability. We conclude with a list of potentials of exploratory constellations for sustainability research and online formats that offer novelties such as a constant bird-eye perspective on the system while simultaneously engaging with the system.

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Human Subjects Protection and Large-N Research: When Exempt is Non-Exempt and Research is Non-Research

Political Science and Politics ◽

10.1017/s1049096508080840 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 41 (03) ◽

pp. 477-482 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Mitchell A. Seligson

Keyword(s):

Human Subjects ◽

Public Policies ◽

Social Science Research ◽

Science Research ◽

Unintended Consequences ◽

Medical Community ◽

Institutional Review Boards ◽

The Road ◽

Institutional Review ◽

Protection Of Human Subjects

Social scientists are well aware of the unintended consequences of public policies. The protection of human subjects regulations, which emerged in response to a serious problem in the medical community, provides an ideal example of such unintended consequences; to paraphrase an old aphorism, “the road to bureaucratic hell is paved with well-intentioned public policies.” In this essay I will seek to make three points. First, the protection of human subjects by federal regulation was long overdue. Second, this benefit to society has, in its application, ignored another widely accepted regulatory principle, namely that the costs of regulation should not outweigh its benefits; a combination of “bureaucratic creep” and litigation phobia has resulted in intrusive and counterproductive regulation of social science research, such that the cure has become worse than the disease. Third, ironically, because of institutional review boards' definition of what is and what is not research, the protection of human subjects is denied to subjects who actually could be at risk.

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Soylent Is People, and WEIRD Is White: Biological Anthropology, Whiteness, and the Limits of the WEIRD

Annual Review of Anthropology ◽

10.1146/annurev-anthro-102218-011133 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 48 (1) ◽

pp. 169-186 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Kathryn B.H. Clancy ◽

Jenny L. Davis

Keyword(s):

Statistical Power ◽

Cultural Anthropology ◽

Human Subjects ◽

Social Science Research ◽

Science Research ◽

Biological Anthropology ◽

Human Subjects Research ◽

Participatory Action ◽

Scientific Enterprise ◽

Full Spectrum

WEIRD populations, or those categorized as Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic, are sampled in the majority of quantitative human subjects research. Although this oversampling is criticized in some corners of social science research, it is not always clear what we are critiquing. In this article, we make three interventions into the WEIRD concept and its common usage. First, we seek to better operationalize the terms within WEIRD to avoid erasing people with varying identities who also live within WEIRD contexts. Second, we name whiteness as the factor that most strongly unites WEIRD research and researchers yet typically goes unacknowledged. We show how reflexivity is a tool that can help social scientists better understand the effects of whiteness within the scientific enterprise. Third, we look at the positionality of biological anthropology, as not cultural anthropology and not psychology, and how that offers both promise and pitfalls to the study of human variation. We offer other perspectives on what constitutes worthy and rigorous biological anthropology research that does not always prioritize replicability and statistical power, but rather emphasizes the full spectrum of the human experience. From here, we offer several ways forward to produce more inclusive human subjects research, particularly around existing methodologies such as grounded theory, Indigenous methodologies, and participatory action research, and call on biological anthropology to contribute to our understanding of whiteness.

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What’s so good about participation? Politics, ethics and love in Learning Together

Methodological Innovations ◽

10.1177/2059799120927339 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 13 (2) ◽

pp. 205979912092733 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Ruth Armstrong ◽

Amy Ludlow

Keyword(s):

Action Research ◽

Learning Communities ◽

Social Science Research ◽

Science Research ◽

Participatory Action ◽

Action Research Project ◽

Participatory Approaches ◽

Ethical Concerns ◽

The Past ◽

Traditional Approaches

This article tells the story of our movement towards using participatory approaches in an action research project aiming to understand the experiences and impacts of belonging to learning communities that span prison and university walls. We draw on our experiences over the past 5 years of building learning communities involving students from higher education and criminal justice organisations and describe some of our attempts to provide creative opportunities for participation and voice within research. We highlight some of the benefits that we have seen through adopting these approaches, as well as some of the discomforts that we, and our students, have experienced. We use these examples to question for whom we think participation ‘works’, whether participation is always good, or whether it can, rather, sometimes cause harm, and the extent to which participation addresses some of the ethical concerns levelled at more traditional approaches to social science research, including matters of power, purpose, positioning and personhood. Using the work of Cantillon and Lynch as an orienting framework, in the conclusions we return to their arguments to suggest that the benefits of participatory action research might not be in alleviating these ethical concerns, but rather in establishing affective links between people occupying different roles within research, thus imbuing the process with love. This has the potential to transform all of the actors, and the research itself.

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Analyzing the Socio-Technical Transformation of Energy Systems

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190633851.013.3 ◽

2018 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Harald Rohracher

Keyword(s):

Technical Change ◽

Energy Use ◽

Social Science Research ◽

Resource Depletion ◽

Science Research ◽

Energy System ◽

Sustainability Transitions ◽

Societal Challenges ◽

System P ◽

Sustainable Energy System

Dealing with the immense societal challenges of climate change and resource depletion requires no less than a fundamental transformation of the energy system, comprising not only technological change, but also cultures of energy use and consumption, new regulations, and new types of actors operating on the energy market. A growing field of interdisciplinary social science research on “sustainability transitions” deals with the dynamics and governance of such transformative, systemic, and socio-technical change processes toward sustainability. This chapter gives an overview of concepts used to study energy system transitions, their strengths and shortcomings, as well as new advancements. The chapter also discusses a concrete example of socio-technical change in the field of renewable energy—wind power—and reflects on some of the lessons that can be drawn from this about the interdependence of energy and society and for an understanding of transitions toward a more sustainable energy system.

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A History and Analysis of the Evolution of Action and Participatory Action Research

The Canadian Journal of Action Research ◽

10.33524/cjar.v19i3.412 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 19 (3) ◽

pp. 34-52

Author(s):

Steven Darryl Jacobs

Keyword(s):

Action Research ◽

Participatory Action Research ◽

Social Science Research ◽

Science Research ◽

Research Experience ◽

Participatory Action ◽

Research Participants ◽

Transformative Potential ◽

Specific Community ◽

Joint Knowledge Production

Action research is a type of research which is conducted with research participants rather than on participants. This premise democratizes research, resulting in transformative potential, while addressing issues such as power and hierarchy which are present in traditional positivist research approaches, allowing those affected by the research to benefit from a more democratic research experience: According to Habermas, “in a process of enlightenment, there can only be participants”. However, as with social science research, or perhaps any method of research, there are different forms of action research which have evolved over time. This paper describes the worldviews that have informed the evolution of action research and examines three different forms of action research with respect to assumptions value, beliefs, and claims to truth inherent with each form. These three main forms may be thought of as “umbrella” terms for the forms of action research, with various threads of action research originating and continuing to originate from each form. Lastly, this paper explores one thread of action research-participatory action research. The reason for focusing on participatory action research specifically is that this type of action research has grown in popularity recently within social sciences research due to the opportunity for new insight for all research participants. Further, participatory action research allows for joint knowledge-production, may draw attention to previously neglected areas of qualitative research, and is therefore relevant to a specific community. For a researcher considering employing participatory action research, it is helpful to understand the historical and philosophical underpinnings of action research in general in order to better unerstand the specific intricacies and characteristics of participatory action research.

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Youth-Led Antiracism Research: Making a Case for Participatory Methods and Creative Strategies in Developmental Science

Journal of Adolescent Research ◽

10.1177/07435584211043289 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 074355842110432

Author(s):

Adriana Aldana ◽

Katie Richards-Schuster

Keyword(s):

White Supremacy ◽

Social Science Research ◽

Ways Of Knowing ◽

Science Research ◽

Participatory Methods ◽

Racial Justice ◽

Participatory Action ◽

Racial Equity ◽

Structural Racism ◽

Developmental Science

In this article, we conceptualize youth-led antiracism research in developmental science. First, we discuss how Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) principles converge with critical race epistemological approaches to knowledge production. Second, we propose that youth-led antiracism research requires a commitment to multiple ways of knowing, countering paternalism, focusing on structural racism, and activist scholarship that advances racial equity. These commitments are necessary to challenge how White supremacy culture shapes social science research paradigms. We weave existing empirical evidence and theory on YPAR with counter-storytelling methodology to identify various participatory methods and creative strategies that exemplify these commitments and emerged from co-creating research projects with ethnically and racially diverse youth. We conclude with implications for developmental science and offer guiding questions that may help scholars reimagine research in partnership with youth in ways that advance racial justice.

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