Collaborative Inquiry in Practice : Action, Reflection, and Making Meaning

Collaborative Inquiry in Practice : Action, Reflection, and Making Meaning Review

Collaborative Inquiry in Practice is an invitation and guide for people interested in pursuing a more imaginative and holistic approach to human inquiry. The reader is guided step-by-step through the theory and practice of collaborative inquiry:

• the key ideas from pragmatism and phenomenological traditions;
• the relationship of collaborative inquiry with other action-oriented methods of inquiry;
• the conduct of collaborative inquiry, from forming a group to constructing knowledge

The authors demonstrate how effective collaborative inquiry demystifies research and makes learning more accessible. The guidance provided is equally relevant to professional and academic settings.

Citizen Action and National Policy Reform: Making Change Happen (Claiming Citizenship: Rights, Participation, Accountability)

Citizen Action and National Policy Reform: Making Change Happen (Claiming Citizenship: Rights, Participation, Accountability) Review

How does citizen activism win changes in national policy? Which factors help to make myriad efforts by diverse actors add up to reform? What is needed to overcome setbacks, and to consolidate the smaller victories?

 

These questions need answers. Aid agencies have invested heavily in supporting civil society organizations as change agents in fledgling and established democracies alike. Evidence gathered by donors, NGOs and academics demonstrates how advocacy and campaigning can reconfigure power relations and transform governance structures at the local and global levels. In the rush to go global or stay local, however, the national policy sphere was recently neglected. Today, there is growing recognition of the key role of champions of change inside national governments, and the potential of their engagement with citizen activists outside. These advances demand a better understanding of how national and local actors can combine approaches to simultaneously work the levers of change, and how their successes relate to actors and institutions at the international level. 

 

This book brings together eight studies of successful cases of citizen activism for national policy changes in South Africa, Morocco, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Turkey, India and the Philippines. They detail the dynamics and strategies that have led to the introduction, change or effective implementation of policies responding to a range of rights deficits. Drawing on influential social science theory about how political and social change occurs, the book brings new empirical insights to bear on it, both challenging and enriching current understandings.