 Navigating the Perilous Waters of Partisan Scholarship: Participatory Action Research (PAR) with the European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF)Huw Thomas and
Peter Turnbull
Work, Employment & Society, 2023, vol. 37, issue 3, 703-720 Abstract: Participatory action research (PAR) has been offered up as a methodological orientation for public sociology. The challenges of PAR at the local level have been well documented. In contrast, PAR with the labour movement, in particular international meta-organisations such as global trade union federations, has received short shrift. We demonstrate how partisan scholars working with the labour movement can engage with both the different logics of collective action and the different levels of worker representation in pursuit of (political) emancipation. To illustrate how PAR can be ‘scaled up’ from the local to the global, we reflect on our participation with the European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF). This revealed three particular perils of PAR – personal, purpose and political – that partisan scholars must navigate in order to foster action and emancipation by research. While PAR is an affirming process for our research partners, it is not a panacea for their problems. Keywords: international trade union federations; participatory action research; partisan scholarship; public sociology; seafarers (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:woemps:v:37:y:2023:i:3:p:703-720 DOI: 10.1177/09500170211038531 Access Statistics for this article More articles in Work, Employment & Society from British Sociological Association |
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