Abstract
This chapter investigates the role of social research in a society developing through ‘improvisation’ and ‘crafting communities’; it examines two concrete cases of knowledge production in cooperation with practice. Knowledge gives direction to the process of crafting and improvising but is simultaneously a product of that very process. A researcher who is engaged in social improvement will be a participant and an observer at the same time. Social science has always played this role in the tradition of action research, a tradition that goes back to the 1940s, when Kurt Lewin was seeking a more productive and supportive form of research. In an improvising society this manifestation of pragmatism becomes radicalized because researchers are no longer unproblematically granted a monopoly on knowledge.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Emerging Governance |
Subtitle of host publication | Crafting Communities in an Improvising Society |
Editors | Willem Trommel, Hans Boutellier |
Place of Publication | The Hague |
Publisher | Eleven International Publishing |
Chapter | 9 |
Pages | 161-189 |
Number of pages | 29 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9789462747876 |
ISBN (Print) | 9789462367968 |
Publication status | Published - 2018 |