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To enact a just and sustainable blue economy, one must consider all the actors involved in its shaping. This paper argues that a quintuple helix approach to stakeholder engagement – involving government, academia, the business community, and civil society – and an inclusive transdisciplinary action research (TAR) methodology are promising avenues with which to do so. Embracing critical pragmatism as a foundational framework, key ideas from three strands of research are consolidated: (1) the recent work on the geographical dimension of socio‐technical sustainability transitions; (2) the literature on just sustainabilities and just transition; and (3) action research and transdisciplinary approaches to problem solving. This allows for the reimagination of a common future for the blue economy that is developed through a different kind of democratic process driven and informed by co‐learning, and shared experiences. By adopting a transdisciplinary action research approach, actors from different disciplines and spheres of experience can gain a better mutual understanding and find commonality through the open door of collaboration. The theoretical argument presented in this paper is illustrated by a vignette of an ongoing TAR project at Southern Connecticut State University, which outlines the challenges and opportunities inherent to implementing a TAR approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: To identify barriers and enablers that influence engagement in and acceptability of diabetes prevention programmes for people with pre‐diabetes. The results will provide insights for developing strategies and recommendations to improve design and delivery of diabetes prevention programmes with enhanced engagement and acceptability for people with pre‐diabetes. Methods: This review used a critical realist approach to examine context and mechanisms of diabetes prevention programmes. Medline, Embase, PsycInfo, Cinahl, Web of Science, Scopus and Pre‐Medline were searched for English language studies published between 2000 and 2023. A quality assessment was conducted using Joanna Briggs Institute critical appraisal tools. Results: A total of 90 papers met inclusion criteria. The included studies used a variety of quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Data extracted focused on barriers and enablers to engagement in and acceptability of diabetes prevention programmes, with seven key mechanisms identified. These included financial, environmental, personal, healthcare, social and cultural, demographic and programme mechanisms. Findings highlighted diverse factors that influenced engagement in preventive programmes and the importance of considering these factors when planning, developing and implementing future diabetes prevention programmes. Conclusions: Mechanisms identified in this review can inform design and development of diabetes prevention programmes for people with pre‐diabetes and provide guidance for healthcare professionals and policymakers. This will facilitate increased participation and engagement in preventive programmes, potentially reducing progression and/or incidence of pre‐diabetes to type 2 diabetes and improving health outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses critical realism to identify mechanisms that activate successful relationships. It draws data from a longitudinal, mixed‐methods study of youth who used multiple services. It examines functionality of four relational mechanisms: power, recognition, responsiveness and mutuality that lead to positive change and explores the implications of these for practice with youth with complex needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emergence is central to critical realism, but there has been little attempt to develop a systematic account of this concept within the tradition. Two notable exceptions are seen in the work of Dave Elder‐Vass and Tony Lawson. However, both face problems in responding to reductionist claims and accounting for downward causation. This paper proposes contextual emergence as a robust alternative that overcomes these issues and provides a better justification for critical realism's stratified worldview. Contextual emergence explains that while properties at a lower 'level' offer necessary conditions, for emergence to obtain, there must also be contingent conditions at a higher 'level'. This approach maintains many of critical realism's intuitions about emergence, providing a robust account of ontological stratification and downward causation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Philosophy of social science (PoS) typologies can help practitioners in the social sciences to reflect upon the often‐tacit assumptions embedded in research. Existing PoS typologies however suffer from various shortcomings, one of them being a tendency to present extreme versions of the assumptions underpinning research. Having considered this and other shortcomings, the present paper advances a flexible PoS typology. Operating with strong and moderated versions of three PoS perspectives – positivism, constructionism and (critical) realism – the typology captures key assumptions underpinning a broad range of contemporary social research. Moreover, it opens up the possibility of contemplating the assumptions embedded in research in a more fruitful way. To render tangible how the typology constitutes an improvement over existing typologies, it is used in reflections on sustainability research on climate negotiations, green growth and housing development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are several theses in political science that are usually explicitly called 'laws'. Other theses are generally thought of as laws, but often without being explicitly labelled as such. Still other claims are well‐supported and arguably interesting, while no one would be tempted to call them laws. This situation raises philosophical questions: which theses deserve to be called laws and which not? And how should we decide about this? In this paper we develop and motivate a strategy for thinking about laws in political science which integrates two core concepts: spatio‐temporal stability and social mechanisms. The proposed strategy is a set of guidelines that political scientists can use to reflect on and argue about specific cases within their discipline, not a clear‐cut demarcation criterion. We defend and motivate this strategy and apply it to two cases (one with respect to state repression, one about parliamentary elections). After we have developed and motivated our strategy for political science, we show that our proposal is relevant for other disciplines in the social sciences. We explain how our views fit into critical realism and embed them in the debate on laws in general philosophy of science and in the philosophy of the social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agency, understood as the capacity to act independently and to make one's own choices, is considered central to children's development. Thus, education, and hence education curricula, have a role in the development of learner agency. While curriculum development is a key focus for educational theory, research, policy, and classroom practice, the potential implications of curriculum content selections for learner agency remain underexplored. Theoretically, this paper engages with critical realism, explaining how it can provide theoretical foundation for a more comprehensive view of learner agency and, by implication, more balanced curricula. Empirically, the paper draws on the findings from a content analysis of the national curriculum documents of four countries with relatively high scores in international comparative tables, England, Australia, Hong-Kong, and Canada, to develop a new typology of primary curricula. Based on the extent of emphasis placed on knowledge versus skills, values, and attitudes, three types of curricula were identified: knowledge-based, skills-oriented, and learner-centred. Due to its significant theoretical and practical influence globally, we focus on the knowledge-based model and its likely impact on students' agency. We conclude by highlighting the importance of making learner agency a key orientation of the curriculum and suggesting directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the gradual evolution of the French Régulation school (FR) for the study of capitalism through the lens of structure and agency. The analysis first segments the school into two epochs, the early Régulation, led by authors Aglietta and Lipietz, and the later Régulation, which saw the rise of Boyer. We find that the gradual progression that occurred within the FR school is linked to its authors' implicit ontic engagement with structure and agency, which, in turn, provides natural linkages to Critical Realism. In the second part of the paper, we demonstrate how the comparison between Morphogenetic Régulation and French Régulation (FR) can facilitate a much deeper reading of the structure‐agency debate pertaining to the transformation of capitalism. In so doing, it discusses the value addedness of Morphogenetic Régulation through three specific concepts by stressing their relevance for contemporary studies in international political economy. These concepts are: stratified emergence; causality and the problématique of hierarchy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper re‐examines a key feature of Emile Durkheim's sociology of knowledge from a critical realist perspective. It is argued that Durkheim's attempt to establish a social basis for the categories in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life should be understood along ontological rather than epistemological lines. This brings to light new problems with the argument which, however, can be brought fruitfully into contact with the more recent social psychological literature on collective intentionality. This yields insights into future lines of inquiry into social cognition and theories of human conceptualizing capacities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a widely accepted conception that institutions are norm systems or norm‐guided practices. Opening this conception itself to discussion, the paper initially discusses a group of concepts, such as norm, power, practice, structure, etc., that are related to the definition of institution. Following the discussion, it focuses on the possibility of understanding institutions as spaces. Finally, the paper suggests that institutions mediate ontologically between structure and agency within a framework developed with a critical‐realist approach, and formulates the two sides of this mediation (structure‐institution and institution‐agency) as two spatialities. While the institution as a topos corresponds to a ground on which social structures materialize their causal powers, the institution as a locus manifests itself as a place where agents reproduce and/or transform with their strategic and dispositional actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, critical realists have increasingly engaged with the thought of Charles S. Peirce (1839‐1914), the founder of the American pragmatist tradition. But the engagement has been mostly narrow in focus and at times misinformed. This paper examines points of continuity between Peircean thought and critical realism with respect to causation, ontology, and truth. Its purpose is to lay the groundwork for further and more fruitful engagement between the traditions by bringing attention to some things critical realists may not have known, and to correct some inaccurate things they thought they knew, about Peirce's philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Charles S. Peirce's realism has been neglected by pragmatists and critical realists alike in the current debate over metatheoretical realism in sociology. This paper introduces Peirce's view of what is at stake in the question of realism, specifically regarding causation. Leveraging current interest in Peirce's conception of abduction, I show how realism about causation is implicit therein. I present a genealogy of the concept of real causation Peirce embraces. I explicate Peirce's view of the scientific significance of realism about causation, and why he finds it compelling. Finally, I argue that Peirce would intervene in the current debate by saying that those committed to abductive theorizing and causal explanation are implicitly realist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To uncover pathways for understanding and alleviating poverty, this paper offers an alternative approach for examining the real and unseen processes of destitution and in‐work poverty which shape the lives of consumers. We apply a critical realist paradigm structured around three core tenets—stratified realities, complex causations and generative structures—to surface the nuanced complexities of these issues. A critical realist lens encourages impact by focusing on the deep causes of enduring social problems and provides transformative consumer research scholars with an integrative way to work toward transformative policy action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When critical realists consider epistemology they typically start from "epistemological relativism." We find this position necessary, but we also find it insufficient because it lacks a critique of the highly unequal social relations among observers themselves—relations that shape the very production of knowledge. While it is indeed the case that all knowledge is fallible, it is also the case that all knowledge is positioned, with a particular standpoint. What is more, the social power relations between standpoints organize the production of truth in ways that produce systematic distortions. In this paper, we propose a critical realist social epistemology. We introduce feminist standpoint theory and postcolonial theory as our suggested interventions into critical realism and we use two case studies of existing work to highlight i) the social production of truth and the real, and ii) what is at stake for radicalizing epistemology in critical realism. In so doing, our paper emphasizes the epistemic complexities that continuously shape ontology, a commitment to subaltern voices or experiences, and a thorough interrogation of the relations between positions of knowledge production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to advance understanding of interactive knowledge sharing (KS) processes through exploring the role of transactive memory systems (TMSs) and Web 2.0. In the context of the information systems literature, there is little focus on their particular role in KS. To address this gap, this paper develops a conceptual model based on activity theory and critical realism outlining the role of TMS and Web 2.0 as mediating tools. This paper further reveals that their use as tools depends on deeper underlying structures/factors embedded within the community, namely, informal networks and trust among people. The new conceptual model and theoretical propositions are then illustrated by a qualitative study undertaken in Bulgarian organisations. This illustrative case provides support for the model, where TMS and Web 2.0 are found to facilitate KS. It further demonstrates that informal networks and trust among people support the use and the positive effects of these tools. The contribution of this paper is in the new analytical approach and conceptual model developed, which advances our understanding of interactive KS by explaining the linkages between the various factors involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay attempts a critical defense of Kwasi Wiredu's decolonization program in response to criticisms raised against it by Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò in his paper, "Rethinking the Decolonization Trope in Philosophy" (Spindel Supplement 2019). Táíwò claims that decolonization has lost its way as a trope of scholarly discourse owing to some fundamental misconceptions on the part of its pioneering advocates, notably Kwasi Wiredu and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. I limit myself to Wiredu in this essay and argue that Táíwò's criticisms are misdirected and generally lose their potency because they are based on a less than accurate picture of Wiredu's decolonization program. Nevertheless, Táíwò's critique underscores the importance of identifying and separating Wiredu's decolonization approach, which is pragmatic, from afrocentric decolonization, which is preoccupied with pedigree and hostile to anything of foreign provenance as a result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the social sciences there is a long standing debate over the primacy of structure or agency in shaping human behavior. Structurationists like Giddens think of individuals' agency and collective features as two sides of the same coin while emergentists including Archer and Elder‐Vass claim that structurationists are blurring an important ontological distinction——they argue for effective social analysis, we should think of structures and individuals as different things because emergence happens when the properties of the collective are not reducible to the properties of the parts that constitute them. This paper contributes to the agency‐structure debate by showing how production and reproduction of emergent properties of social groups sharing same normative commitments (norm circles) can be empirically studied using two behavioral game theory experiments, adding a previously neglected insight that strategic uncertainty can lead to coordination failures of individual behaviors within norm circles, manifested as unintended outcomes of interdependent actions that are difficult to predict. Here the synchronic relation between the unpredictable collective outcomes of each game round and agential reactions of the participants to them defines emergence——the previous outcomes are diachronic inputs but they appear in the new outcome only through their effects on the individual decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to contribute to a growing critical and reflexive awareness of the implications of gendered assumptions about ontology, epistemology, and ethics in academic research governance and practice. It provides a retrospective account of the authors' shared experiences of an autoethnographic study of lap dancing clubs, focusing on critical or "sticky moments" encountered, and considering the implications of these for research more widely. It does so by highlighting the gendered power relations shaping academic research, showing how Judith Butler's critique of the heterosexual matrix can be applied to a critical, reflexive understanding of the impact of binary, hierarchical gender power relations. The analysis provides insight into some of the ways in which autoethnographic research on sexualized work may become messy, dirty, and sticky in ways that accentuate power inequalities but also open up moments of opportunity for gender binaries and hierarchies to be revealed, challenged, and resisted. Using a Butlerian lens to reflect on our experiences, we contribute to understanding how heteronormative assumptions shape perceptions of what makes "good," "clean," and ethically (formally) approved research that conforms to the governmental norms of the heterosexual matrix and, by implication, those contaminating forms of research that disrupt or resist its disciplinary effects. As ethnographic research is often messy by its very nature, and particularly so when situated within sex/sexualized work, we aim to show how gendered assumptions can inhibit reflexivity in academic knowledge production, resulting in research processes that are (paradoxically) unethical. In response, we suggest three ways in which gender reflexive research might be pursued, by: (i) identifying gendered assumptions reflexively and dialogically, (ii) adopting an anti‐essentialist approach that foregrounds experiential, embodied knowledge, and (iii) developing an anti‐hierarchical methodology. We do so in the hope of opening up ways that might enable others to avoid heteronormative assumptions having potentially detrimental consequences for their research and to offer a starting point for developing gender reflexive knowledge production in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transdisciplinarity, which seeks to transcend the limits of existing disciplines and the boundaries between science and society, has become a hallmark of sustainability science. Since transdisciplinarity requires researchers to co‐produce knowledge by drawing together diverse knowledge systems, knowledge integration becomes a key challenge. However, the practice of knowledge integration brings to the fore tensions around philosophy, methodology and the role of the researcher. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the value of applied critical realism in enabling knowledge integration in transdisciplinary research, and in engaging these important tensions. I introduce tools from applied critical realism to enable knowledge integration across disciplinary and science‐society boundaries in sustainability science. Using an illustrative case of place‐based social‐ecological research from South Africa, I demonstrate the application of these tools. I conclude with a reflection on how they enable reflection on tensions related to philosophy, methodology and researcher positionality, identifying some of the challenges I experienced in putting these tools to work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The capability approach (CA) is a framework for understanding, assessing, and promoting the quality of human lives and social justice. It focuses on capabilities – people's freedoms and opportunities to live in valuable ways. Although its proponents readily acknowledge that capabilities can depend on personal, social and environmental factors, little attention has been paid to the ontology of capabilities (what they are and how they are caused and constituted) and the inherent relationality of the approach is often not well followed through in research and practice. This, we suggest, leaves the CA vulnerable to misinterpretation and misappropriation. In this paper we draw on the complementary lenses of critical realism, hermeneutics and complexity theory to develop an explicitly relational ontology of capabilities that explains how capabilities, as potential for ways of being or forms of doing, are generated by both personal agency and material and social structures. We demonstrate how these lenses can illuminate the relational constitution of particular capabilities through reference to a composite case involving a man called Bert and his healthcare team. We outline how our relational ontology of capabilities can demand and support more theoretically coherent and socially just approaches to CA informed practice, research and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humanitarian medical organizations rely on information on and from the ground to evaluate their effectiveness and accountability. Related digitalization efforts within health information systems assume an instrumental rationality in the use of data. However, previous research identified a multitude of factors influencing actual information use for evidence‐based decision‐making for healthcare delivery. This case study, anchored by critical realism philosophy, unpacks these nuances against the backdrop of a globally operating organization (Médecins Sans Frontières). It aims to highlight the contextual conditions and structures that enact the contingent mechanisms at work in project monitoring within humanitarian health management information systems. By applying an affordance‐based causal analysis, three mechanisms are identified: first, an analytics service provides templated analysis modalities resulting in user–producer–provider relationships; second, the rationalization and synchronization of content and software artifacts gives rise to the standardization strategy of flexible generification; third, the study uncovers the potential for increased internal social discourse and advocacy through collaborative and mobile data analysis. This paper proposes that mechanism‐based explanations can be useful for theory‐building in information systems research as well as for providing insights to practitioners in the humanitarian health sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the question of the relations between emotions and personhood, with a view to advancing a critical realist account of the role of emotions in social life. It is argued that the constitution of persons has to be approached from an ontological perspective, and that this raises questions about how sociology has addressed the meaning and role of emotions. Margaret Archer's critical realist perspective on them as commentaries on human concerns is broadly endorsed, but some significant correctives are proposed, especially with respect to the important distinction between primary and secondary emotions. To this end, it is argued that the affect spectrum theory advanced by Warren TenHouten can be fruitfully appended to a critical realist theory of emotions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically analyses realist evaluation, focussing on its primary analytical concepts: mechanisms, contexts, and outcomes. Noting that nursing investigators have had difficulty in operationalizing the concepts of mechanism and context, it is argued that their confusion is at least partially the result of ambiguities, inconsistencies, and contradictions in the realist evaluation model. Problematic issues include the adoption of empiricist and idealist positions, oscillation between determinism and voluntarism, subsumption of agency under structure, and categorical confusion between context and mechanism. In relation to outcomes, it is argued that realist evaluation's adoption of the fact/value distinction prevents it from taking into account the concerns of those affected by interventions. The aim of the paper is to use these immanent critiques of realist evaluation to construct an internally consistent realist approach to evaluation that is more amenable to being operationalized by nursing researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper constitutes an extended response to Athanasia Chalari's paper The Causal Impact of Resistance, which suggests that one may derive from internal conversations a causal explanation of resistance. In the context of our engagements with critical realism and digital research into social movements, we review Chalari's main argument, before applying it to a concrete case: the student protests in London, 2010. Whilst our account is sympathetic to Chalari's focus on interiority, we critique the individualism that is implicit in her argument, arguing that it emerges because of an underlying neglect of the relational aspects of resistance. Instead, we offer a relational realist analysis that treats resistance as process within an ontologically stratified account of reality that is mindful of the contingency of political acts. Taking this route, we establish resistance as an emergent relation, generative of distinctive 'relational goods' in the context of collective action, which we locate at different levels of reality, as we move from an analysis of individual to collective reflexivity. In doing so we offer a sympathetic critique of Chalari, building on the thought provoking arguments contained within it, whilst also making a contribution to the theorisation of social movements and the 'relational turn' within realist social theory ( Archer, 2010, 2012). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are many differing ways to be a realist about language. This paper seeks to classify some of these and to examine the implications of each for the study of language. The principle of classification it adopts is that we may distinguish between realisms on the basis of what exactly it is that they take to be real. Examining in turn realisms that ascribe reality to the external world in general, to causal mechanisms, to innate capacities, to linguistic signs, to social structures, to language systems, and to linguistic groups, the paper summarises the case for a particular critical realist ontology of language. In the process, it engages briefly with the work of Saussure, Chomsky, Halliday, and more recent explicitly realist thinkers such as Bhaskar, Pateman, Archer, Sealey and Carter. One implication is that language itself is not a phenomenon that separates us from a causally structured world, but rather a part of that world, a part with an identifiable causal structure of its own that is similar to that of other normative phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the place of knowledge in developing a socially just curriculum. It pursues the unusual route of a critique of Social Realism, a small but influential tendency in curriculum studies which claims that knowledge has been squeezed out by recent curriculum reforms and that there has been a descent into relativism. This paper shares the Social Realist view that 'powerful knowledge' is needed, and particularly by disadvantaged or marginalised young people. However, it critiques Social Realism's limited definition of 'powerful knowledge', arguing that for knowledge to be truly powerful, it must open up issues of power and inequality. It contests the Social Realist argument that critical pedagogy which begins from a subaltern stance is intrinsically relativist, arguing instead that alternative perspectives can help uncover concealed truths and break through hegemonic paradigms and ideologies. It argues that this is entirely compatible with a Critical Realist epistemology. Furthermore, the paper presents reasons why a socially just curriculum needs to draw upon the vernacular knowledge of marginalised groups as well as the canonical knowledge of academic disciplines to produce truly powerful knowledge and a social justice curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are gradually becoming important artifacts for people with disabilities (PWDs). This paper investigates the use of mobile phones in the daily activities of PWDs in sub‐Saharan Africa. The study argues that mobile phone use empowers PWDs, but little is known about what contextual factors and under what underlying mechanisms such empowerment occurs. By adopting Thapa and Omland's (2018) critical realism methodology, we aim to understand the underlying mechanisms, structures and conditions that shape empowerment through mobile phone use by PWDs in Nigeria. The Capability Approach (CA) was engaged as the theoretical framework. Semi‐structured interviews and focus group discussions with twenty‐four PWDs were used as the primary source of data. Our findings reveal that contextual factors such as personal, social and environmental factors enable/hinder empowerment for PWDs. Similarly, mechanisms such as accessibility and acceptability, technology knowledge, social media and mobile phone features are found to be the main underlying mechanisms triggering the events we observed. However, we argue that these mechanisms are enacted from other enabling structures such as the ubiquity of mobile phones, caregivers and contextual conditions like the personal innovativeness in mobile phone use and the low price of mobile phones. Our findings contribute to the critical realism methodology, policy and theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article views the confrontation between pragmatism and Kant's Critical undertaking as very possibly the single most consequential agon of contemporary philosophy, given the utter irreconcilability of their respective ways of addressing the concerns of First Philosophy, with regard to the enabling conditions of cognitive realism. Pragmatism favors an informal, fluxive, "instrumentalist" form of empiricism, impossible to complete, opposed to any and all the ontic and epistemic fixities of Kant's Rationalism. Reason (Vernunft) cannot be more than a fiction. Kant has no supporting criterion of realism. The article proposes an empirical criterion of the distinctive (given) "duality" of sensory "appearings" and "appeareds" (that is, objects) as yielding a plausible "cognitive faculty" (involving "reasoning"—inference, for instance—but not Vernunft) that, in accord with the drift of evolutionism and Aristotle, readily extends to languageless animals as well as humans. It serves as the linchpin of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I encourage consideration of a self‐structure singularity such that structural forces like racism or capitalism do not bear influence on individual actors in a given social field. Instead, individuals enact those forces through carrying out even the smallest of everyday occurrences. Structural forces emergent as individual actions and lived experiences can be understood through the lens of Karen Barad's agential realism as a materially discursive apparatus in lieu of being conceptualized as separate, mutually exclusive indices of social behavior worthy of theoretical consideration in their own right. Further, I propose autoethnography as a method by which critical psychologists can initially engage with the mutual instantiation of structures and lives. I encourage self‐structure examination through critical autoethnographic practices as an initial way to recognize self‐structure singularity in one's own life so as to facilitate a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the societal groups or individuals a critical psychologist desires to study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of modern nursing practice that is embedded within complex social situations, critical discussions about the contribution of major philosophers are relevant and important. Whilst nurse theorists have advanced and shaped nursing as a discipline, other major philosophers can offer much to advance nursing enquiry. In this paper, we focus on philosopher Roy Bhaskar who, amongst others, developed critical realism, a philosophy for social science which connects with how many of us think about the world. Bhaskar's work focuses our attention on the interplay between structure and agency and on the search for the causative or generative mechanisms that explain the social world. Bhaskar was interested in human emancipation, and we suggest his work is of great importance to advance understanding of complex social situations. Critical realism has already been endorsed by a range of disciplines, especially in research which focuses on real problems and acknowledges the complexities of the social world. In recent evidence from healthcare literature, there has been a surge in research using realist methodology (realist evaluation and realist synthesis), which is underpinned by the philosophy of critical realism and which offers a different perspective to understanding nursing and healthcare problems through the realist lens. However, we suggest that sufficient attention is not always paid to the philosophical roots of this methodology. In this paper, we provide insight into Bhaskar's work and demonstrate how research positioned within critical realism and realist methodology can advance nursing and healthcare-related knowledge. Through shining a light on Bhaskar, we illustrate how critical realism philosophy is a natural fit with human and health science enquiry, including nursing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical realism is a philosophy of science, which has made significant contributions to epistemic debates within sociology. And yet, its contributions to ethnographic explanation have yet to be fully elaborated. Drawing on ethnographic data on the health-seeking behavior of HIV-infected South Africans, the paper compares and contrasts critical realism with grounded theory, extended case method and the pragmatist method of abduction. In so doing, it argues that critical realism makes a significant contribution to causal explanation in ethnographic research in three ways: 1) by linking structure to agency; 2) by accounting for the contingent, conjunctural nature of causality; and 3) by using surprising empirical findings to generate new theory. The paper develops the AART (abduction, abstraction, retroduction, testing) research schema and illustrates its strengths by employing a Bourdieusian field analysis as a model for morphogenetic explanation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fundamental dilemma in the middle power study is the repeated epistemic fallacies that attempt to answer an ontological question of middle powers with epistemic features. With the common epistemic belief that middle powers are significant actors that play some constructive roles, South Korea is automatically designated as a middle power as long as the agent (researcher or practitioner) finds comparable middle power‐like characteristics in South Korea's material attributes and foreign policy behaviors. However, this research adopted a critical realist research design that addresses the epistemic fallacy and finds the "real world" that makes South Korea's middle power categorization necessary. It analyzed South Korea's middle power rhetoric in South Korean presidents' and foreign ministers' foreign policy discourses, and ultimately uncovered that the "real world" behind South Korea's middle power rhetoric has been its environment comprised of the dominant and less dominant countries. As the less dominant country, South Korea has utilized the middle power title to balance and neutralize the asymmetrical power relations and create an environment more conducive to South Korea's national interests. This includes the removal of South Korea's deeply ingrained victim mindset. Yet, it should be emphasized that such a conclusion is valid only because of the critical realist research design, committed to ontological realism, epistemological relativism, and judgmental rationalism. If not, South Korea's unequal power environment would be viewed as merely an additional condition that a "middle power" South Korea must deal with. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The renewed interest in Marxism that occurred in social sciences and humanities after the 2008 economic crisis has not yet found its counterpart in spatial planning. This paper examines what Marxist planning theory and practices could mean in the current conjuncture. It does so through scrutinising (1) the vibrant Marxist discourse in planning that existed in the late 1970s and early 1980s, (2) the recent history (since the 1980s) of planning theory and its relation to the political economy, and (3) the current political economic context (not least defined by the diabolic crisis). Where previous Marxist approaches to planning were very strong on analysing the political economy, I argue there is currently a need—with old hegemonies losing ground, communicative approaches losing support, and neoliberalism in the political economy losing legitimacy—to also discuss establishing alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper undertakes an historical re-evaluation of Louis Althusser's philosophical legacy for modern Marxism. While Althusser self-consciously sought to defend the scientific character of Marxism, many of his closest followers eventually exited the Marxian paradigm for a post-structural post-Marxism. We argue that this development was predominately rooted in a series of philosophical errors that proved fatal in a period of retreat for European socialism. There has always been, however, a second post-Althusserian legacy associated with the critical realist conception of Marxism initiated by Roy Bhaskar. Bhaskar found part of his inspiration in Althusser's successful posing of the question of Marx's science and this paper sets out to excavate the proper links between Althusser and Bhaskar in order to deepen the relationship between critical realism and scientific Marxism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to note the convergence between two critical realist philosophies of science, namely, that of Roy Bhaskar and Bernard Lonergan with regard to the intelligibility of experimental activity. Bhaskar very explicitly argues that 'differentiation implies stratification.' The idea is that because the situations produced in laboratories are special instances of closure (like the solar system in the open universe, they do not represent the general case) the significance of experimental activity is that it brings about regularities with a view to understanding scientific laws at a deeper level. This is to say, when experiment is properly understood, the weaknesses of empiricism are exposed. Although he is not as explicit, Lonergan also has recourse to this argument. The parallels between Bhaskar and Lonergan are not surprising given the Aristotelian heritage that is manifest in their common concern for a realist ontology. Nevertheless, some differences between the two emerge, for example, in Lonergan's concern with the development of statistical science, and as well, a firm commitment to substance (rather than to powers, simply). Some attention to the significance of experimental activity for the debate surrounding realism is explored; it is suggested that Lonergan has something to offer in the subsequent conversation associated with Maxwell, van Fraassen, Hacking and Cartwright. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The need for formulation of solid explanatory theories is heightened in information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) by the high incidence of failure, which involves substantial costs for the countries affected. A core argument of this paper is that a critical realist ontology offers intellectual tools that can ground the formulation of causal theory in ICT4D. The paper illustrates such potential through the case study of India's Unique Identity Project (Aadhaar), which Indian states are increasingly using within their anti‐poverty programmes. Following a critical realist retroductive methodology, the paper seeks to explain the incorporation of Aadhaar into India's main food security system, the Public Distribution System; an incorporation somewhat paradoxical given the mistrust often associated with biometric infrastructures in social protection. Critical realism allows construction of a theory of trust‐building in Aadhaar, based on mechanisms of institutionalisation (state governments framing Aadhaar as a core institutional means to receive benefits) and image formation (authorities systemically associating Aadhaar with an image of effective pro‐poor reform). Based on primary and secondary data collected over the course of six years, this paper contributes a theoretical explanation of an important phenomenon in Indian development, and illustrates how a critical realist philosophy is instrumental in building the type of causal theory that is needed in ICT4D. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents my reflections on adopting critical realist (CR) assumptions in information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) research over the last decade. Critical realism, and its notion of generative mechanisms as contingent causality, offers one potential way to frame and engage in research that is compatible with the contextual nature of developing ICT4D theory. However, CR can be difficult to understand and operationalize. This paper provides practical insights on how to engage in ICT4D research underpinned by the CR philosophy of science. As such, the bulk of this paper presents insights and implications of accepting CR assumptions in the research process, looking at different elements of research (eg, including forming research questions, theory building, engaging in research). I use examples in ICT4D research to illustrate these implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper examines the difference between the orthodox assumption that adult‐child sexual contact is both wrong and harmful and another that focuses upon moral panics. The latter view emphasises that the personal or social harm arising from adult‐child sexual contact is open to question. The tension between these two positions is laid out in order to examine their different assumptions about what exists (ontology), how it is understood (epistemology) and how we appraise power discrepancies in relationships (ethics). Resources from the philosophy of critical realism are deployed to critique the applicability of moral panic theory to child sexual abuse and understand the persistent presence of that theory, despite its poor evidence base. It is concluded that child sexual abuse is not a moral panic at all and that practitioners should be wary of the influence of this line of reasoning in their professional training and literature. ‘Examines the difference between the orthodox assumption that adult‐child sexual contact is both wrong and harmful and another that focuses upon moral panics’ Key Practitioner Messages: A minority academic position is that adult‐child sexual contact is usually harmless and ethically and psychologically warranted in society. Public and professional concern about the contact is depicted as a ‘moral panic’. The recent history of that minority position is examined and justifications from policy libertarians and pro‐paedophile groups summarised. Using resources from the philosophy of critical realism, this position is critiqued for its unwarranted reliance on the assumption that adult‐child sexual contact has become a moral panic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complexity theory (CT) intends to reveal public management's unpredictable side but its empirical applications are scarce due to prevailing constructivist approaches that collapse larger systematic outcomes into micro agent actions and conflate them into movements of co‐constitution and co‐evolution, precluding effective analysis. How can we capture emergent properties and outcomes if we cannot delineate objects and subjects? How can we attribute causes and effects without fixed, stable entities? To address this significant weakness of theorization for a more effective CT framework, Margaret Archer's critical realist model solves this constructivist conflation dilemma—agents and systems, though interrelated, are distinct and stable entities—public management and governance process is thus the result of emergence from a learning‐to‐control process for rule‐makers, with structurally unpredictable inputs from the ruled whereby systematic features predate and condition (Time 1) individual actions, which can maintain or reproduce them (Time 3) during agent–system interactive processes (Time 2). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from Archer's critical realist theory of agency, this paper has two specific aims. First, the cultural and structural features of one 'striving' institution are outlined. Then, I illustrate how faculty members asserted agency inside their striving university in ways intended to disrupt the structures and cultures that striving universities produce. Forms of faculty agency included negotiating, critiquing and resisting. The work is relevant to those who study the academic profession; those who provide support and professional development to contemporary academics, especially academics serving inside striving universities; and, finally, to those interested in the study and possibility of human agency inside a higher education field that is marked by the pressures of both fiscal and cultural markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A standard view would suggest that research is a neutral apolitical activity. It neutralizes external pressures by its fidelity to robust scientific methods. However, politics is an inevitable part of human knowledge. Our knowledge of the world is always mediated by human priorities. What matters is therefore a contested and political debate rather a neutral accumulation of factual data. How researchers manage this varies. Research paradigms are one way in which research engages with knowledge. They frame knowledge within epistemological and ontological philosophies. In this paper, I will explore this view in relation to neo‐positivism, qualitative research, Foucault and critical realism. I will argue that if nursing knowledge is to be effective it needs to acknowledge the political, particularly in the context of neoliberalism. Healthcare systems are having to cope with a social world increasingly dominated by market fundamentalism, extreme levels of inequality and a rise in xenophobia. These forces are undermining the provision of ethically sound health care, misdirecting research practice and contributing to a discourse of dehumanization. These forces need to be challenged politically and I will argue that epistemologically diverse approaches, alongside a realist ontology can provide a way forward for nursing research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Open data—including open government data (OGD)—has become a topic of prominence during the last decade. However, most governments have not realised the desired value streams or outcomes from OGD. The Kenya Open Data Initiative (KODI), a Government of Kenya initiative, is no exception with some moments of success but also sustainability struggles. Therefore, the focus for this paper is to understand the causal mechanisms that either enable or constrain institutionalisation of OGD initiatives. Critical realism is ideally suited as a paradigm to identify such mechanisms, but guides to its operationalisation are few. This study uses the operational approach of Bygstad, Munkvold & Volkoff's six‐step framework, a hybrid approach that melds concepts from existing critical realism models with the idea of affordances. The findings suggest that data demand and supply mechanisms are critical in institutionalising KODI and that, underpinning basic data‐related affordances, are mechanisms engaging with institutional capacity, formal policy, and political support. It is the absence of such elements in the Kenya case which explains why it has experienced significant delays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Healthcare studies in the information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) domain have attempted to understand how technology can be used to support healthcare organisations in developing countries; organisations whose performance is negatively impacted by resource constraints. Current studies – predominantly informed by positivist and interpretivist paradigms – produce analyses and prescriptions designed without an in‐depth understanding of the underlying mechanisms influencing performance. The result is limited ability to explain how organisational performance is enabled by ICT. Critical realism as a philosophy of science provides a deeper ontological and broader epistemological approach that makes it possible to theorise the micro‐level mechanisms that hold potential for explaining observed outcomes. The study reported here, informed by the critical realism paradigm, uses interviews, observation and organisational data collected from a single case study to identify the resource optimisation micro‐level generative mechanisms that have improved emergency medical services. The study integrates the technological affordances lens to explain ICT‐enabled organisational performance. Additionally, the paper proposes and tests an understanding of the Bygstad, Munkvold, and Volkoff stepwise framework as a methodology for doing critical realist research using affordances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is little overt engagement with research paradigms in ICT4D research, but what there is shows a dominance of positivism and interpretivism. In this paper, we explore the value of a "third way" research paradigm: critical realism. We concisely review the main features of critical realism: its ontological realism combined with epistemological relativism; its iterative, pluralist, and reflexive methodology; and its emancipatory values. Alongside the general value of explicit use of any research paradigm, we argue two particular types of value of critical realism for ICT4D research. First, generic values including exposure of context, a contingent causality that reflects real‐world ICT4D experiences, support for use of theoretical frames in ICT4D, legitimisation of different stakeholder views, and reduction of research bias and support for ICT4D's interventionist approach and its goal of delivering international development. Second, specific value in addressing current trends in ICT4D research: The growing search for causal links between "ICT" and "D," and the political and ethical turns in ICT4D that are spurring researchers to engage more with issues of power, rights, and justice. But delivery of critical realism's utility will require the ICT4D research community to take actions that enable this emergent research paradigm to flourish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In the margin of the ongoing experimental and quasi‐experimental research projects on family preservation, some research projects focus on the process through which families accomplish change and acknowledge the importance of the working alliance. There is, however, little information about barriers and facilitators in building this working alliance. To fill this gap, we performed a multiple case study with a triangulation of ethnographical methods such as observation, in‐depth interviews, case file analysis, and multistakeholder focus groups. We illustrate how, in a context of managerialism and transactional leadership, social workers find themselves in a continuous tension between complying with the expectations of their social organization and “tuning in” with the service users. This jeopardizes the working alliance between a social worker and a family. Consequences for research, practice, and policy regarding family preservation interventions are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study offers fresh ontological insights by examining generative causality through the Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) counterfactual lens, in conjunction with Critical Realism and the practice of retroduction. Specifically, it claims that Information Systems (IS) researchers could retroduce generative mechanisms by leveraging the QCA counterfactual approach to causation because retroduction is about conjecturing hypothetical mechanisms that would generate the outcome of interest in a counterfactual fashion. Drawing on an example of typological theorising, this study calls for a renewed effort in the use of retroduction in the study of IS phenomena. In addition, this study sheds new light on the overarching approach for conducting Critical Realist (case study) research. A number of theoretical, methodological, and practical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative case study aimed to explore environmental circumstances and interactional processes that appeared to be relevant for the dynamics of resilience in adolescents exposed to child abuse. Fieldwork at a learning and coping centre for children and their families was combined with semi‐structured interviews with adolescent participants aged 12 to 18 years. A critical realist approach was used to unpack what has been called the 'ordinary magic' of resilience. We found that intensively validating qualities of both the environment and relationships seemed to be driving components for resilience. Borrowing ideas from the sociometer theory, we propose that particularly the consistent intensiveness may offer a recalibration of the adolescents' immediate life‐worlds, in terms of how they perceive the people they meet and the environments they step into. In keeping with the transactional‐ecological model of resilience, we suggest that such a recalibration leads to altered social agency that becomes visible through their immediate social participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study takes a critical realist grounded theory approach to explore the intersection of pupil‐teacher relationships and school alienation using experiences of secondary school pupils and teachers. Qualitative data were collected through semi‐structured interviews with both pupils and teachers. Participants' perceptions and experiences were explored, both positive and negative, to develop an understanding of the perspectives of both actors in reciprocal relationships. The methodological framework for this grounded theory diverges from the popular constructivist design and is, instead, influenced by the classic approach. It is developed to be situated in a critical realist philosophy, emphasising the importance of the emancipatory goal of critical realism. Analysis of the data identified that alienated pupils frequently have difficult relationships with their teachers and discovered a subgroup of pupils who experienced more extreme forms of alienation. An implicit pupil‐teacher social contract is presented, describing the emergence of observable actions through the causative mechanism inherent to critical realism. The social contract rests upon the concepts of mutual respect and power. When a pupil believes the contract to have been breached, through the perceived violation of one of these concepts, pupil‐teacher relationships begin to deteriorate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]