Action research for transforming the poverty field

Abstract

The following special issue, "Action Research for Transforming the Poverty Field," offers five papers from around the globe that illustrate the role of action research in addressing one of the major challenges facing humanity today. It is an expression of this journal's choice to focus on "Action Research for Transformation" (ART) by developing and publishing pragmatic scholarly practice pieces that contribute to attaining the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals, (Bradbury, Waddell, et al., 2019), the first of which is to end poverty in all its forms. This issue was initiated as a collaboration between the Action Research journal (ARJ) and the International ATD (All Together in Dignity) Fourth World Movement, which is dedicated to the eradication of extreme poverty. The seven members of the editorial team for the special issue, from both the global South and North, included academics, practitioners and a person who has the lived experience of poverty. All papers submitted to the special issue underwent a full anonymous review process and five were selected for this special issue. After the review process was completed, the editorial team convened a "mini-conference" with the authors of selected papers to reflect together on their action research and the review process.The five papers in this special issue reflect a global-local continuum of action research on poverty. Skelton et al.'s (2024) action research engaged the poverty field at the global level, bringing together 300 people experiencing poverty (and academics at a later stage) from over 19 countries from both the South and North to study "poverty as violence." This process included individual interviews as well as face-to-face discussions at the national, regional, and international levels. Wetengere et al. ( 2024) focused on the poverty field at the national level, investigating poverty as experienced in Tanzania as part of a global study involving the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Bangladesh, and Bolivia. Their method, "Merging of Knowledge" (MOK), integrated the knowledge of different stakeholders: 216 people experiencing poverty (ages 12 to above 60, from throughout the country), 42 social welfare practitioners, and 25 academics. The scale of these two action research projects is rare, if not unprecedented, and was made possible because ATD Fourth World, the sponsoring organization, provided the resources and already long-term relationships of cooperation and trust with the participants experiencing poverty.Gélineau et al.'s (2024) action research on food security focused on the poverty field in urban, semi-rural, and rural areas of Quebec Province, Canada. This project involved two

Methodology for a time of eco-social planetary crisis: Action research helping transformations happen

“…It was initiated as a collaboration between the Action Research journal (ARJ) and the International ATD (All Together in Dignity) Fourth World Movement, which is dedicated to the eradication of extreme poverty. The editorial (Friedman et al, 2024) introduced a relational view of poverty as a social "field" composed of patterned relationships among individual and institutional actors that generate a core experience of suffering. The papers of this issue point to how the poverty field can be transformed when people living in poverty act as agents of their own liberation through action research in partnership with other stakeholders.…”