This is a CTP of initiative: Living Knowledge ‐ The Environmental Social Science Research Group (ESSRG ‐ Hungary)
The core of this CTP is when the research group, the people that now comprises ESSRG, came together in 2002 according to BB. However, this was a longer process, as some of the members knew each other back from when they were students, and BB mentions that he worked together for the first time with some of them in 1995, although he is very unsure of the date.
The ESSRG can be seen as a culmination of previous organisations or constellations of the involved researchers. The ESSRG, although a formal legal entity, is a construction of convenience. BB explains how the research group is the core, not the ESSRG or other affiliations and construction:
BB: how we try to adapt because finally at the end of the day, the main goal is to keep us together as a team, because we want to do this type of work together as much as possible. The context is in this sense indifferent, so it is only a problem to be part of the university, we could easily give up all activities that we are now running through the company, but it will not happen as you probably understand… yeah, I don’t know if I managed to tell everything about it, but yes, this is an interesting development. So we remain the same but the whole context changes, so we also change.
Therefore, the core of it is the research group. It could also be seen in a larger perspective as encompassing all science shop activities in Hungary, which ESSRG and the research group represents to some degree. This CTP relates to how the research group that eventually went on to establish ESSRG came together for the first time.
The members come from very different areas. BB is a sociologist, and explained how he became involved with the other members of the research group:
I myself as a sociologist I’ve been working in qualitative research, and then I was contacted by GP and YB [A third person that has been anonymised], but mostly YB because it was her project in agro food diversity issues. And then we started a small project together, I was invited to help them to create and shape this qualitative side of the research because I had the degree in this stuff, interviewing focus groups mostly, and we wanted to do focus groups with farmers and around this Seed issue. So we established our partnership for the sake of this project, and then we started to work together under different smaller projects within the framework of the university, and then I decided okay, I also join the university for a doctor program, and then basically I became employed by the university for research.
He later elaborates how he and GP, and other members of the group, came to know each other for the first time:
BB: We (BB and GP) had been working previously before in smaller projects, when he was previously working at the Corvinus University and then he moved to St. István University where I followed, and then he moved back to Corvinus but I stayed with the rest of the team. It is a little bit the same. One thing I remember was actually a direct disciple for GP, another was YB who was a friend of GP so… so this is how we came together. Obviously when we started to work for the first time I don’t really remember it, it was probably in 1995 maybe…
Therefore, it has been a longer process where the members, some of them back from when they were students, started working together on various projects. Eventually they went on to form the research group.
One of the important factors in the environment is the possibilities for funding, enabling the research groups to pursue their interest and do the work they prefer. Especially EU seems to be relevant as explained by BB:
First it was the FP6 period, you always had nature and environment, and then so on in FP7 it became more and more bio diversity, agro bio diversity, and nature completely disappeared, and then bio diversity started to fade out and ecosystems services came in to the picture and in the founding period, FB7 and now for the Horizon 2020, you don’t much see ecosystems services anymore. Only you know partially, it can be part of different things. So, it is also kind of these are transformed, so we remain the same… how to put it… so everything changed, so we changed as well somehow, but you can also say okay we remain the same, but we had to transform according to the context where we are working.
BB here explains how the EU funding context changed from back when the research group started until the time of the interview. The research group have had a large focus on environmental and agricultural issues throughout its lifetime. The EU in the different framework programs from FP6, FP7 to Horizon 2020 used different vocabularies and perspectives to frame the topics of nature, environment, and agriculture, which has forced the research group to change as well. However, BB says that they “remain the same” by which he means that it is the same people doing the same type of research in the same way, they are just forced to alter their framing of this research, or change their focus a bit over time to comply with how the EU approaches the area in the different framework programs.
This Critical Turning point is the first for this local initiative, and all the later CTP’s are related events depending directly on this one. This CTP also lie quite far back in time, so there is little information on specific related events during this period, and it is hard to remember for the interviewees.
Of especially relevant events are the courses and mentoring on service learning and how research can help solve social issues in society that GP received around 2000-2001. These events are detailed closer in the CTP on “CTP - Establishment of a community service and volunteering centre”. These events led to establishing the research group more formally as they started working closer together on a specific initiative.
Other events are the employment of the various members of the research group at different universities. GP moved back and forth between Corvinus University and the agricultural university, bringing BB to the agricultural university in the process. This brought him into contact with other members of the research group, and had a steering hand in the type of research they came to be engaged with, agro diversity for instance.
One of the issues that lead to this CTP, to forming the research group and the way they are working, was a kind of antipathy to the status quo in the research/academic community, as explained by BB:
I always have this feeling that you can’t do the things anymore the same way as I told you in the introductory part. Like for example, you can’t work with these people (the subject – local communities, NGOs etc.), you can’t do research anymore in a commission way, you have to find ways to adapt. To use an analogy, for more than 15 years now we have been going to many conferences and so on… and very often these conferences already defined themselves at the conferences. For the first time I managed to, you know, get out somewhere to an international conference for sociology. It was quite interesting to see what others are doing and how they are doing it… especially in terms of theory and matters and then after a time you start to feel this little bit, let’s say boring, especially because, you know, nothing is changing from those problems that you are dealing with, and how can you continue to do it in the same way?
What this excerpt of a longer conversation discusses, is how he sees the traditional way of academic as illegitimate. It does not engage the research subjects, the practitioners, the local communities that are the focal points of the research. The contestation illustrated here is how BB, and the research group, resists this status quo and try to engage the research subjects as equal partners.
It is important to note, that this is a longer process of learning and changing how to do research, and not something related only to this specific CTP at the specified date in the start.
Anticipation, like related events, are hard to discuss so many years after the CTP took place. However, BB explains how he always had this feeling of antipathy against the established way of doing research, as explained under contestations. So in this case it was in some ways anticipated that they would move in the direction of a more qualitative and participatory way of research, which is part of the defining character of the research group. At least they refer to “their way or working” as a core part of the research group.
BB: I was always a little bit outlier in a sense, I tried everything, I moved my fields, you know I studied sociology in every important possible sense. I tried media sociology, and I specialized in historical sociology, but I also started a specialization for economic sociology, and then finally I ended up in environmental sociology. So I moved in quite a broad spectrum, and I think it is true for the whole team because I think all of us can say that we started in a completely different area… and we somehow conversed to this topic area of let’s say environment sociology or ecological economics. We were always looking for the… how to do it differently (research), what were the alternative for example in the university at those times… when we were in the sociology courses obviously you have to get through the training for qualitative and quantitative sociology and so, but at that time there was not much talk about, you know, how the narrative turned out and let’s say how the qualitative research completely change and transform. We were following more what’s happening in the domain of quantitative sociology, and I had the luxury to do both, so therefor I always believe that a mixed research approach is the best, which also means that it should be transdisciplinary as much as possible and participatory and corporative and if possible action oriented… so problem orientation and action orientation was always, I think, part of the agenda (agenda of BB and the research group).
The research group ended up in the area of environmental sociology and ecological economics that ESSRG works within, and that they never really anticipated it seems. In short, some of the developments, or the nature of the developments, were anticipated while the specifics like the area of environmental sociology or their specific institutional affiliations were not anticipated.
The focus and reasons for the research group has in this CTP been linked quite closely to a way of doing research, a way or working, and a dissatisfaction with the established ways of doing research in sociology at this time, in Hungary at least.
Impact
In relation to this situation it seems there have been little impact in this area, at least BB tells a story from a recent international conference in sociology where he voiced the same dissatisfaction with the type of research and lack of representation for the research subjects.
In other ways they have had more impact. ESSRG have become quite well-known in Hungary according to BB, received a quite large portion of the EU funding for research coming to the country despite being a small research group. So they have gained some degree of legitimacy.
GP also talks about how his current university, Corvinus, as well as other universities have become more interested in the science shop idea, and the idea of participatory research. This is likely at least partly an impact of the research group, as GP now is in a leading position at his institute at Corvinus, and so have been able to influence the management.
Learning
The interview was quite unspecific on learning, especially from this very early CTP. BB however talks about the situation with this type of research, participatory research, and explains how crucial it is, as many actors in civil society and the voluntary sector refuses to participate merely as research subjects. Therefore, this CTP definitely was the start of a research career in the area. From the research group, and his (BB’s) many shifts between different academic areas, he learned about the importance of mixed methods and transdisciplinary.
Stay informed. Subscribe for project updates by e-mail.
