In this wide-ranging interview Berth Danermark discusses several things. First, his route into realism via community activism, an interest in the theory and practice of Marx and Engels and the philosophy of Mario Bunge, and inspiration drawn from Herman Hesse. Second, the formation of the Nordic Network for Critical Realism and realism's enduring foothold in Scandinavia. Third, the career trajectory that took him from research on urban planning to the formation of the Swedish Institute for Disability Research (SIDR). He discusses (...) how the well-known introduction to critical realism and applied social science, Explaining Society, came to be written, some misconceptions regarding critical realism and methods, the challenges involved in undertaking disability research and the development of and influences for his work of concepts such as interdisciplinarity and critical methodological pluralism, as well as issues related to transdisciplinary research and professional collaboration. The interview concludes with some advice for researchers. (shrink)

This article provides a rationale for adopting the critical realism instead of pragmatism paradigm when researching skilled migrants' workplace integration in Australia. While the extant...

. Revisioning the Fifth Element. Can critical realism reconcile competence and Bildung for a more sustainable twenty-first-century education? Journal of Critical Realism: Vol. 18, Sustainability, Interdisciplinarity and Transformative change: A Critical Realist Response to the Crisis System, pp. 402-419.

In this wide-ranging interview Graham Scambler provides an overview of his long academic career. He discusses how he became a medical sociologist, his early work on epilepsy and stigma, his part in the development of sociology textbooks for medical students, the diversity of his work and his many collaborations, his ‘theoretical turn’, his longstanding interest in critical realism and his attitude to ‘bridge building’ between philosophy and empirical work.

Research on the `meaning of work', especially concerning the Global South, is scarce. This paper aims to reduce this scarcity by applying critical realist meta-theory to the work and life history interviews of workers in Sri Lanka. A key discovery is that finding meaning in life through work is a personal emergent power and that, as such, it explains the way that individuals consciously manoeuvre their life-journeys towards a desired end - a modus vivendi - in a dialectic which involves (...) both emergent structural change (morphogenesis) and agency. This paper also reveals that Margaret Archer's theory of reflexivity, based on interviews with Western individuals, cannot be transferred rigidly to the reflexivity of Global South individuals, and therefore more work on reflexivity within this context is required. This paper therefore makes a theoretical contribution to the existing meaning of work scholarship, and it extends existing understandings of the concepts of reflexivity and emergence. (shrink)

ABSTRACTCritical realism is an established post-positivist philosophy applied by researchers in a number of fields and yet it is little used in educational leadership and management research. This article responds to calls from the field for a more critical approach to educational leadership and management research by offering critical realism as a way to address these concerns and it explores why critical realism has not featured more in the field, particularly as it could provide that more critical approach. The use (...) of critical realism as an analytical approach as well as a content enables the linkage of the calls from ELM to critical realist features and then to some constraints upon its use in the field. The theory around the application of critical realism is advanced providing insights for researchers in its use, though no claim is made that critical realism is the only way to do so. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this essay, I set out key aspects of Nicholas’ Rescher’s Metaphysical Perspectives. I illustrate the tenor and value of the text based on extended analysis of: Chapter 1, on fundamental...

In keeping with the 2021 IACR Conference theme (Re) Envisaging Emancipatory Research, Science and Practice, this paper reviews over fifty instances of critical realist research in Africa which have sought to establish emancipatory research praxis by using critical realism to underlabour a range of applied studies in a diversity of disciplines and countries. The initiators of this research have been drawn to critical realism for several reasons, most notably its return to ontology, its interest in transformed, transformative praxis, and its (...) potential for addressing knowledge and experiences exclusions. The paper ends with a reflection on ‘What's in a Conference Theme', returning to the earlier 2012 IACR conference hosted in Africa, and the 2021 conference’s focus on emancipatory research. It argues both for the deepening of conversations between critical realism and Africana Critical Theory; and for the grounding of these conversations in the voices and power of the people in our communities. (shrink)

Critical realism is an established post-positivist philosophy applied by researchers in a number of fields and yet it is little used in educational leadership and management research. This ar...

Research into esports is proliferating (Bányai et al. 2019; Pizzo et al. 2022; Reitman et al. 2020) and now covers a variety of academic disciplines, including business and management (Scholz 2019)...

Research necessarily entails the close interrelation of concepts and arguments, including solutions to a range of meta-questions, whether acknowledged explicitly or not. Despite this, few detailed accounts currently exist that support researchers to develop their complex conceptual architectures, especially in critical realist spheres. Indeed, many published accounts often omit much of this ‘messiness’ that sits behind, yet is foundational to, research projects. Those accounts that do seek to portray how/why researchers have made decisions (e.g. about connections between research philosophy, methodology, (...) methods, theory and empirical evidence) tend to focus on one set of meta-questions, or occasionally on the relationships between two sets, at a time. Therefore, this paper presents a flexible framework – supported by specific examples from studies – that we hope will be useful in supporting researchers from all traditions, but especially critical realists, to carefully think through and develop more holistic connections in their conceptual architecture. (shrink)

This paper suggests philosophical foundations for mixed methods research based on the philosophy of critical realism. In particular, it suggests that the critical realist idea of the primacy of ontology helps bridge the apparent paradigmatic gap between qualitative and quantitative research. It illustrates this foundational idea by showing why and how a multi-disciplinary team used a mixed methods approach to understand the significance of religion in prison through a multi-site study of religious conversion to Islam in prison and how this (...) gives a better account than a single method approach. The mixed method research design used in the project sets out a new way of mapping and understanding religious conversion and differences within a faith group that draws on the emancipatory potential of critical realist thought. (shrink)

ABSTRACTTyphoon Haiyan damaged around a million houses in the Philippines in November 2013. It especially affected the poor. Using a realist laminated ontology, this paper explains how multiple cau...

ABSTRACTThe recent rise in popularity of nurture groups in British schools appears to be aligned with a broader shift towards therapeutic education. With initial origins in attachment theory, nurtu...

The aim of this study is to develop a better understanding of the relation between housing recovery and user involvement from a capability perspective. The thesis studies housing recovery in areas affected by typhoon Haiyan, which struck the Philippines on 8th November 2013. The focus is on three perspectives: a) approaches to housing reconstruction, b) explanation for unexpected housing outcomes, and c) user involvement. The study uses basic critical realism as metatheory, and case study is the main research strategy. Data (...) collection techniques include observations of social settings, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, a workshop, field notes and document analysis. Fieldwork was carried out in 2014 and 2015 in several cities in Leyte.Regarding approaches to housing reconstruction, different types of partnerships, components of the reconstruction approach, housing solutions, and types of user involvement, have been discussed. Concerning explanations for unexpected housing outcomes, the study uses a realist laminated ontology to explain how multiple causal mechanisms triggered unexpected outcomes in the housing recovery programme in the province of Leyte. The Resolution Redescription Retrodiction Elimination Identification and Correction method, a critical realist model of scientific discovery for applied research, was applied to the empirical data and complemented with policy analysis. Six plausible causal mechanisms have been discussed. Regarding user involvement, the study proposes two tools for user involvement from a capability perspective. The Model for user involvement in evolutionary housing recovery has been used to analyze and assess housing reconstruction carried out by two non-governmental organizations a) We Effect, and b) Gawad Kalinga. The study also proposes Freedom to Rebuild, a post-disaster housing evaluation framework, as a tool addressed to disaster survivors for self-assessing their predisaster vulnerabilities, their involvement in housing recovery, and their resilience after occupancy.The case studies on We Effect and Gawad Kalinga draw attention to how active involvement of prospective users in different stages of housing recovery has contributed to expand their capabilities. Active involvement denotes medium, high or very high levels of user involvement. The findings from the GK-Village in Tanauan show that non-involvement in the first two stages of housing recovery has been compensated to a certain extent because users had high involvement during the post-occupancy stage. However, the enhancement of capacities is limited in comparison with the We Effect project, in which users have attained medium, high and very high levels of involvement. The findings from the We Effect project in Ormoc show that multiplicity of opportunities, purposive choices and a combination of medium, high and very high levels of involvement in the different stages of housing recovery have led to disaster survivors with enhanced capacities at the individual and collective level. These users are confident in their resilience towards future natural hazards in terms of having attained safer housing solutions, experience regarding partnerships with other organizations for accessing funding, and skills for repairing their own houses.Unfreedoms for resilient resettlement should be transformed through enacting procurement and housing recovery policies that are consistent with counteracting pre-disaster vulnerabilities. Such policies should foster multiple reconstruction approaches, spatio-material conditions that allow for a multiplicity of housing solutions and tenures in-city, and involvement of prospective users in housing recovery. Hence, policies and regulations for resilient housing recovery would create conditions for building both resilient communities and resettlements. (shrink)