Abstract, After Method in Organization Studies, IV, (AMOS): The Epistemology of Practice.
‘Let’s get practical’, or ‘let’s get theoretical’? Scholarly aspirations in Practice-Based Studies.
ANDERS BUCH
VIA University College, Denmark BUCH@VIA.DK
Practice-Based Studies (PBS) install practices as the unit of analysis for social scientists. PBS is thus often construed as a post-epistemological attempt to transcend the Cartesian representationalism that is predominant in mainstream social science. It aspires to theorize social practices as the organizing of socio-material activity in the flow of time. The unfolding of activity as situated, embedded, social, material, embodied, affective, engaged, enactive, performativity thus enables researchers to fathom and re-present social reality in new and productive ways. But is PBS’s re- presentation of social reality yet another attempt to theorize social reality in new and subtle ways that do only refine, but not truly transcend Cartesian representationalism? Eikeland & Nicolini (2011) thus questions that the ‘turn to practice’ in organization and management studies has been fully completed by PBS.
This paper takes its point of departure in Eikeland & Nicolini’s challenging question, and discusses the role and aspirations of social scientists’ attempts to theorize organizations and social reality.
Central to this discussion is the role and purpose of scholarly knowledge production, ‘theory’, and theorizing.
The meaning of ‘theory’ is by no means clear. Gabriel Abend (2008) thus tease out several different senses of the word in contemporary social science. Recently, Sandberg & Alvesson (2020) have developed a typology that enables a rough classification of types of social theory according to their practical aspirations and ontological, epistemological, and methodological assumptions. This attempt helps explore the implicit normativity of scholarly theorizing and how researchers align ontological, epistemological, and methodological assumptions with ethical and political teleologies in their research.
Focusing on the role of scholarly theorizing, and exploring the different uses scholarly theorizing attempt, the paper discusses future avenues for PBS in developing accountable ontological, epistemological, methodological, and ethical research approaches. The positioning of the PBS researcher according to the critical distance-proximity engagement axis (Latour 2005), and suggestions to integrate PBS with action research objectives (Eikeland 2012; Kemmis et al. 2014) will be discussed. The paper will further discuss how new Deweyian inspired experimentalist frameworks in design-based research (Dixon 2020) may suggest constructive horizons that can stimulate moral and practical imagination in (scholarly) research (Frismere 2003; Pendleton-Jullian
& Brown 2018) and more thoroughly transcend Cartesian representationalism.
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Literature:
Abend, Gabriel (2008): The Meaning of ‘Theory’, Sociological Theory, 26(2), 173-199.
Dixon, Brian (2020). Dewey and Design. A Pragmatist Perspective for Design Research, Cham:
Springer.
Eikeland, Olav (2012): Action Research – Applied Research, Intervention Research, Collaborative Research, Practitioner Research, or Praxis Research, International Journal of Action Research, 8(1), 9-44.
Eikeland, Olav & Nicolini, Davide (2011): Turning Practical: Broadening the Horizon, Journal of Organizational Change Management, 24(2), 164-174. DOI 10.1108/09534811111119744 Frismere, Steven (2003): Moral Imagination. Pragmatism in Ethics, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Kemmis, Stephen, McTaggart, Robin & Nixon, Rhonda (2014). The Action Research Planner. Doing Critical Participatory Action Research, Singapore: Springer.
Pendleton-Jullian, Ann & Brown, John Seely (2018): Design Unbound. Designing for Emergence in a White Water World, vol. 1 & 2, Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.
Sandberg, Jörgen & Alvesson, Mats (2020): Meanings of Theory: Clarifying Theory through Typification, Journal of Management Studies, 1-30, doi:10.1111/joms.12587
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