“Learning and agency for enacted utopias”
Our broad research agenda aims at gaining knowledge on how cross-sectoral collective learning and agency are formed and how they can be fostered to meet critical societal challenges of our time.
Recent projects and ongoing analyses of our research group focus on eradicating homelessness. In line with Sanna Marin’s Government Programme and the UN Agenda 2030 to overcome poverty in all its forms and dimensions, a large variety of actors is involved in responding to homelessness, ranging from informal and grassroots collectives, state and private organizations, political forces as well as educational institutions. Their initiatives, however, lead to impactful concerted efforts only to an extent, and fragmentation and discoordination among them often lead to ineffective use of rather substantial economic resources.
Other ongoing projects include:
GINTL (Global Innovation Network for Teaching and Learning) Africa 2021 seed funding on “Mapping the uptake and local developments of the formative intervention method of the Change Laboratory in the African continent.”
GINTL China 2021 seed funding to explore what is arguably one of the most prominent examples of sustained collective learning and agency in contemporary history in the Zhoujiazhuang commune. The project maps also “The uptake and local developments of the formative intervention method of the Change Laboratory in China.” Additional GINTL China 2022 funding expanded this project to conduct a Change Laboratory for“Redesigning Teacher Education for Boundary Crossing in Service of Equity and Sustainability.”
While stabilized views of impossibility feed stereotypes and prejudices, and frequently hamper initiatives for realising equity and sustainability, our research unpacks processes of enacted possibility in collective analysis sessions performed in collaboration with frontline workers, administrators, practitioners and clients. Differently from critical studies on on societal challenges, which document wrongdoing and scenarios of despair, RESET’s approach prioritizes the documentation of how innovative effective solutions may stem from sustained collective learning and commitment.
Recently Completed Project Funded by TSR (2020-2022)