Systemic Action Research

Description

Danny Burns:

"Typically action research has focussed at the level of the ‘group’. The group may think systemically, but the ‘reach’ of individuals and groups is limited, and the system that they can engage with is necessarily constrained by the lenses though which the group members view the issues. Systemic action research is a way of “scaling up” the action research model so that it can work across large social and organisational systems. It involves multiple inquiries running in relationship to each other. As a result it is able to bring into view and interact with the many complex inter-relationships which affect interventions on the ground.

The Systemic is important because any intervention we will be affected by

 Underlying patterns and social norms

 Complex power relationships between multiple stakeholders

 Activity beyond the normal “field in view”

 Non linear effects of multiple linear interactions

 Different (sometimes contradictory) impacts at different levels of the system."

(http://nccpe.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/sites/default/files/NCCPE%20Systemic%20Action%20Research.pdf)