“Our concern is not with the conquest of a future, at least not that ‘temporal’ future that is generally deemed to be the future. Rather it is a question of what is future in us, that is, what is present to the same degree that all past in us is present…  Our sole concern must be with making manifest the future which is immanent in ourselves.” — Jean Gebser 

Action Research for Transformation

Our leading methodological framework is Action Research for Transformation (ART), developed by Hilary  Bradbury and the AR Plus community of authors. It is a framework characterized by great methodological rigor and a strong stance for the joint response-ability of action researchers and practitioners of other social fields to develop the new knowledge and capabilities essential to a sustainable and flourishing world.

Our Center is responding to the ART authors’ “call our colleagues to action, with a relational manifesto, to encourage more widespread uptake of Action-oriented Research for Transformations.”

Transcontextual approach

None of our research initiatives are fully independent from each other. Action research aimed at helping practitioners to address societal challenges cannot successfully do so by perpetuating the reductionist approaches and siloed mindsets that had a lion’s share in creating those challenges in the first place.

Our transcontextual approach was inspired by the Nora Bateson, the systems scientist and visionary thinker, who writes: 

‘transcontextual’ refers to the ways in which multiple contexts come together to form complex systems. It allows for a concentration on the interdependency between contexts that give resilience to both living and non-living systems.

Transcontextual description offers insights into where contextual overlap is reinforcing the status quo and where it is loose enough to initiate shifts.

Our researchers are encouraged and supported to reach out and engage in mutual learning with colleagues both inside and outside the Center to discover and illuminate the interdependencies inherent in complex social phenomena.

Generative action research

Just as ART is a specific way of conducting participatory action research, so is Generative Action Research (GAR)—the focus of which is to be self-sustaining, self-improving, self-evolving, and self-propagating (see: On the Verge of Collective Awakening).

In fact, GAR can be thought of as an extension of ART. In fact, it represents one of our contributions to the ART field and we intend to experiment with the integration of these methodologies in the practice of our research initiatives.

When we take a generative stance, we ask what might be the noblest possibilities

for human existence on earth and commit to engage with one another

and the larger world in relational processes that bring those possibilities within reach. 

— Danielle Zandee