Critical Utopian Action Research: The Potentials of Action Research in the Democratization of Society

This chapter explores the rationality gaps between everyday life's logics and concerns and the different logics and concerns of institutional systems and their representatives. It examines the opportunities and challenges of working with Action Research to study the dynamics of public institutions and society. In general the nature management settings characterised by, among other things, poverty, while trying to change or move these dynamics in the perspective of Commons. In many change projects, among them several Action Research projects, practical anticipations of Plural Economy and Commons could be identified. Plural Economy and Commons are considered by the authors to be decisive elements of the re-embedding of economy into society, while re-embedding is seen as the key to overcoming the sustainability crisis. The chapter offers rich descriptions of and reflections on these inevitably conflicting poles, thus bringing them more strongly and more precisely into our awareness