Resources

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Organizations and Networks

Grounded and engaged political theory happens in a wide range of spaces. Here are some academic organizations and networks where you will find researchers who take an engaged approach to normative theorizing:  

Human Development and Capabilities Association: https://hd-ca.org/

Centre for Engaged Philosophy (University of Sheffield): https://engagedphilosophy.org/

Caribbean Philosophy Association: https://caribbeanphilosophy.org/

Interpretive Policy Analysis: https://ipa.science/

Philosophy Born of Struggle: http://pbos.com/

ECPR (European Consortium for Political Research), Democratic Innovations Standing Group: https://standinggroups.ecpr.eu/democraticinnovations/

The Participatory and Deliberative Democracy Specialist Group of the Political Studies Association: https://deliberativehub.wordpress.com/

The Philosopher: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org/events

Association for Feminist Ethics and Social Theory: https://www.afeast.org/

Centre for the Study of Democracy (University of Westminster): https://www.westminster.ac.uk/research/groups-and-centres/centre-for-the-study-of-democracy

International Studies Association, Theory section: https://www.isanet.org/ISA/Sections/THEORY & Feminist Theory and Gender Studies section: https://www.isanet.org/ISA/Sections/FTGS

Grounded Normative Theory hub, University of California at San Diego Center on Global Justice: http://gjustice.ucsd.edu/grounded-normative-theory/

Some key publications:

Foundations & Methods (a partial list…)

Ackerly, B., L. Cabrera, F. Forman, G. Fuji Johnson, C. Tenove, an A. Wiener, 2021. “Unearthing normative theory: practices and commitments of empirical research in political theory.” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy (24, no. 7).

Ackerly, B., 2000. Political Theory and Feminist Social Criticism. Cambridge University Press.

Ackerly, B., 2018. Just Responsibility: a Human Rights Theory of Global Justice. Oxford University Press.

Coulthard, G., & Simpson, L. B. 2016. Grounded normativity/place-based solidarity. American Quarterly, 68(2), 249–255.

Gaventa, J. 1982. Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley. University of Illinois Press.

Green, F. and E. Brandstedt, 2021. “Engaged Climate Ethics,” Journal of Political Philosophy (29, no. 4).

Longo, M. and B. Zacka, 2019. “Political Theory in an Ethnographic Key,” American Political Science Review (113, no. 4).

Mansbridge, Jane. 1980. Beyond Adversary Democracy. University of Chicago Press.

Mertens, D., F. Cram, and C. Bagele, 2013. Indigenous Pathways Into Social Research: Voices of a New Generation. Routledge.

Moraga, C. and G. Anzaldua, 1981. This Bridge Called My Back. Kitchen Table Women of Color Press.

Schatz, E. 2013. Political ethnography: What immersion contributes to the study of power. University of Chicago Press.

Schwartz-Shea, P. and Yanow, D., 2013. Interpretive research design: Concepts and processes. Routledge.

Simpson, A. and A. Smith, eds. 2014. Theorizing Native Studies. Duke University Press.

Special issue of PS: Political Science & Politics, 2017 (50, no. 1). Symposium on ethnography and participant observation in political science (including political theory).

Symposium on Brooke Ackerly’s Just Responsibility, 2020. In The Journal of Global Ethics (16, no. 1) 

Smith, Linda Tuhiwai, 2021. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. Zed books.

Tully, James. Public Philosophy in a New Key (vol’s 1 & 2), 2008. Cambridge University Press.

Tungohan, E., L. Levac, and K. Price, 2020. “Introduction to dialogues section on socially engaged research and teaching in political science,” Politics, Groups, and Identities (8, no. 1).

Tungohan, E. 2020. “Reflections on the use of socially engaged research in the social sciences,” Politics, Groups, and Identities (8, no. 1).

Yanow, D. and Schwartz-Shea, P., 2015. Interpretation and method: Empirical research methods and the interpretive turn. Routledge.

Zacka, B., B. Ackerly, J. Elster, S. Gutnick Allen, H. Iqtidar, and M. Longo, 2020. Special issue of Contemporary Political Theory (20, no. 2): “Political Theory with an Ethnographic Sensibility”.

Some recent publications in grounded and/or engaged normative political theory

Apostolidis, P. 2019. The Fight for Time: Migrant Day Laborers and the Politics of Precarity. Oxford University Press.

Asch, M., J. Borrows, and J. Tully, eds., 2018. Resurgence and Reconciliation: Indigenous-Settler Relations and Earth Teachings. University of Toronto Press.

Blackett, A. 2019. Everyday transgressions: domestic workers’ transnational challenge to international labor law. Cornell University Press.

Douglas, A. J. and J. A. Loggins. 2021. Prophet of Discontent: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Critique of Racial Capitalism. University of Georgia Press.

Horgan, B., M. Cholbi, A. Madva, and B. Yost. 2021. The movement for Black lives: Philosophical Perspectives. Oxford University Press.

Fuji Johnson, G. and K. Porth, 2022. “Sex Worker Rights are Human Rights: An Approach to Solidaristic Normative Theory,” International Journal of Feminist Politics.

Getachew, Adom. 2019. Worldmaking After Empire: the Rise and Fall of Self-Determination. Princeton University Press.

Herzog, L., & Zacka, B. 2019. “Fieldwork in political theory: Five arguments for an ethnographic sensibility.” British Journal of Political Science, 49(2), 763–784.

Reed-Sandoval, A., 2020. Socially Undocumented: Identity and Immigration Justice. Oxford University Press.

Shelby T., and B. Terry. 2018. To Shape a New World: Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Taíwo, O. 2021. Reconsidering Reparations. Oxford University Press.

Vasanthakumar, Ashwini. 2021. The Ethics of Exile: a Political Theory of Exile. Oxford University Press.

Woodly, D. 2022. Reckoning: Black Lives Matter and the Democratic Necessity of Social Movements. Oxford University Press.