Theme 2: Understanding social, culture and economic transformation

Broad theme with more specific sub-themes:

• The group likes that the title is broad.
• The word “transformation” is about the tensions between certainty and uncertainty / what we know and don’t know, how these things are disrupted during transformation, and what happens in moments of uncertainty as a result. 
• The word “Understanding” opens up different methods for thinking about issues, whether qualitative, quantitative, historical, contemporary. This makes “Understanding” an interesting and useful descriptor in the title. 
• “Transformation” implies something positive. We sometimes work on topics where things happen which we wish didn’t, so the word “transformation” allows for an activism that opens up positive changes in difficult/challenging research topics. Thinks that “Understanding” is possibility too passive.
• What constitutes ‘transformation’. This will differ between fields. How do we understand, theorized, historical, etc the idea or action of transformation? When and where is transformation? Also, continuities and for whom? Is the transformation over time and for individuals, institutions and societies? Sometimes transformations do not happen equally. 
• It will be important to understand how this theme is different to Theme 1: Area Studies, Global Inequality and Economic Development.
• Consider framing the theme as “Understanding Diversity: Racial, Ethnic, Social Cultural” with respecting diversity as the entry point for research in this area.

More specific sub-themes could focus on:

1. Direct engagement with policy and impact:

• How do we as academics impact the polarization that is increasing in society?
• How have people living/existing within traditional modes of power - economic, socially, culturally - cope with the challenges to their power that is erupting in lots of different ways currently?
• How is the tension, generated by that space, respected and not reduced to moral relativism? How can we move forward where people are coming from very different perspectives and world-views without sinking into those ideologies?
• What can we do to achieve economic, cultural, social transformation?

2. Engagement between qualitative and quantitative methods: traditional ways of working keep researchers in disciplinary silos. Would like to see more exchange/interdisciplinary engagement where researchers come together who are working on the same topic but use different methods to explore it, both at the research and impact levels. 

3. Exploratory research: While making social change is aspirational, there should also be a room or a gap between research/understanding/not immediate and activism/impact/action to allow for further research. Sometimes the most effective impact comes from research that might appear arcane/historical/may not seem relevant. 

Link up with Historical Legacies of the Past/Historical Transitions theme: Worth thinking about current and future transformation. Topic also invites past transformations as well.

Knowing Who’s Who:  Who is out there to contact? What are other researchers doing? Who is involved in what? A mapping exercise would be useful. Someone did a mapping exercise with all researchers involved with Net Zero which was extremely useful. Not knowing who does what [meaning academics] is an internal barrier to networking. 

Understanding Diversity can only be achieved by enabling disciplinary approaches to discuss topics that affect development and reproduce inequalities. It is an understanding of this diversity, with broad theoretical perspectives that can help us to bring marginalised knowledges at the forefront of research. It is by disrupting current practices that we can generate meaningful change.