Action research for emancipation: Social-ecological relations, commoning and basic conceptual questions

Critical Utopian Action Research as a practical working method. Practically, it differs from many other kinds of Action Research due to its specific emphasis on a workshop method. It combines different kinds of workshops that in their basic structures, however, all could be seen as variations of the logic of Future Creating Workshops. The Research Workshop is conceptualised as a way to expand and strengthen the utopian-based ideas, projects and initiatives, primarily with regard to their knowledge and practical perspectives. Democratisation has vanished from the dominating political and societal agenda, at least in a sense that transcends democracy as a formalelectoral and parliamentary form of decision-making. This shift is closely connected to the increase in the influence of neoliberalism, starting back in the 1960s and 1970s and eventually gaining a hegemonic position as the dominant political-economic ideology and practice at a societal level.