Waldenström, Cecilia
- Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Conference paper2009
Waldenström, Cecilia
This paper describes a study in which researchers worked with interactive research methods with a Swedish LAG to support learning processes in the LAG itself as well as in and among the projects. Interactive research builds on the recognition of the different roles of researchers and the participants in the activities explored, as well as on the value of their collaboration. In this study, researchers and participants developed the research questions together, preliminary results were analysed at a LAG seminar and follow-up procedures decided on jointly. Theoretically, the study built on theories of learning from work life studies and on the importance of disturbances to spur reflective and development oriented learning. A mediated process is important initially but the development of contextually adapted tools for the participants in the activities to proceed with their own processes is equally important. In this case a main challenge for the LAG was the vague and often unclear ownership of projects which affected the responsibility for taking heed of project results. Another was that limited resources tended to lead to that the bottom-up emphasis on mobilising and starting up projects competed with offering a context for the projects which could support learning in and among similar projects. The paper describes how the LAG acts to handle these challenges
Congress of European Society for Rural Sociology
Economics and Business
Social Sciences
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/28670