Course info

In these times of multiple overlapping societal challenges and crises, collaborative organizing to investigate, develop and generate new, and more democratic approaches, as well as productive partnerships for learning, engaging and creating change, are vital if the social and human sciences are to adequately inform better futures. Developing collaboration, organizing and learning across actors, organizations, sectors, and disciplines, is a necessary part of moving towards sustainable futures, as is the development of sustainable organizations.

Recently, Pragmatism and Pragmatist approaches have re-emerged as a source of practical insight into the development of organization, collaboration, partnership, and engagement with evolving problem situations – both in terms of research approaches (the doing of research) and processes of organizing, learning and producing change. This course offers students an opportunity to engage with inspirations from Pragmatist approaches, whether their doctoral research is already informed by Pragmatism or they are open to exploring alternative approaches in their research. The course design also leverages the lecturers’ connections with a flourishing international community of organization scholars who themselves draw inspiration from Pragmatism to reinvent and reorient their research towards more dynamic approaches to the social processes of organizing . This PhD Course invites junior researchers to engage with this community as they develop the practical skills of collaboration based on Pragmatism’s rich theoretical and processual legacy.

Curiosity is the first prerequisite for the course, and prior knowledge of Pragmatism is not essential. The objective is to inspire junior researchers having different levels of acquaintance insight with the pragmatic way of thinking, hence, the course focuses on stimulating and advancing the participants, learning and competence.