Here we make public the activity of inquiry of the research-in-action community, as it evolves. You can browse experimental pieces of work going through early phases of honing and iteration (Thinking in public: previews), as well as peruse a range of material that our members have released into the public realm (Thinking in public: releases) in the form of articles, books, collections, talks, videos…

“Thinking accompanies life … and since life is a process, its quintessence can only lie in the actual thinking process and not in any solid results or specific thoughts.”

—Hannah Arendt (The Life of the Mind, Harcourt, 1978, p. 191).

Thinking in public: previews

Thinking in public: previews (ISSN 2634-8292) is our curated collection of ‘work in progress’ by members of the research-in-action community. If you are active in the community, you can send us work you’d like to be published in the series, making sure you follow the ‘previews’ submission guidelines.

Statement of ethical intent

Our members ‘fieldwork’ takes place in the worlds brought into being by their various projects. In starting their inquiries in experience rather than in theory, they describe and probe scenes they have lived through. This necessarily involves many others who took part in such scenes, even as their ‘take’ on these may differ. The aim of such inquiry is to make more available, for scrutiny and exploration, issues and dilemmas that are relevant in our wider contemporary world. Concerns for social justice and ecological sustainability become ever more significant and may also feel fraught, as we try to find ways forward that have as much integrity as possible. Our members take care to anonymise and protect people and organisations, while also bearing the risk of touching nerves that are sometimes ‘raw’ in our society. This is always done in the service of opening up, rather than closing down, full and inclusive conversation.