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From project to action: seven years of research in seven urban contexts
Author(s) -
Hainard François
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
international social science journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.237
H-Index - 43
eISSN - 1468-2451
pISSN - 0020-8701
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2451.2009.01674.x
Subject(s) - action (physics) , action research , work (physics) , process (computing) , resistance (ecology) , sociology , power (physics) , public relations , political science , social science , pedagogy , mechanical engineering , ecology , physics , quantum mechanics , computer science , engineering , biology , operating system
This article describes research carried out over 7 years in seven different countries on three continents under the aegis of the UNESCO management of social transformations programme. Such longitudinal studies are rare in the social sciences and provide an opportunity to try to assess their outcomes by considering various aspects that characterised the research. Firstly, in methodological terms, the benefits gained from organising an activity in a network and using an action‐research approach permitted questions of major importance for making comparisons between countries and using gender analysis. Secondly, it provided an opportunity to consider the role of this research in the process of raising people's awareness of environmental problems in very different urban and cultural contexts and the unequal gender relations that characterise it, the importance of constructing identities, resistance to change and the need to work with the various power levels.