Paper Short Abstract:

Ethnographic action research helped Amsterdam’s Employment Services to foster transformational learning. Social workers developed creative methods to enhance client interactions and simultaneously revealed ways to embed them in the organization and envision more inclusive employment services.

Paper Abstract:

In this presentation, we illustrate how ethnographic action research supports the Work, Participation & Income (WPI) department at the City of Amsterdam in transformational learning processes. In collaboration with a cultural organization and a knowledge institute, WPI initiated a project that began with a period during which a group of social workers expressed their need for creative methods. They sought less linguistic and less digital tools to use during client conversations to improve their interactions. Over the next nine months, they developed creative methods, gradually integrating them into their practice.

However, the involved cultural anthropologist and action researcher observed that practicing these methods among themselves inspired the social workers to reimagine their work beyond just creative methods. This practice revealed the interplay between layers of methodological innovation, organizational change, and societal developments in their field. These insights now help WPI reflect on ways to embed the creative methods into the multi-method approach already used by social workers and connect them to parallel innovations within the department.

Inspired by the literature on ethnographic action research, the researchers argue that iterative cycles of observation, reflection, planning, and action fostered transformational learning at WPI. Taking the time to build trusting relationships with the social workers and to deeply understand their work enabled collaborative learning across the interrelated layers. From this perspective, the creative methods unintentionally started to facilitate ideas of how employment services could transition toward more inclusive futures. The researchers will be collaborating on further developments through the first half of 2025.