Methodological sifting: the role of researchers in the production of social knowledge for trade union

This presentation focuses on the role of social and management sciences researchers in enacting knowledge for social action, in the specific field of trade unionism. It draws on our experience, as researchers from two different research centres of the University of Liège2, in conducting a short-term intervention research ordered by a Belgian trade union. Our objective was to provide trade union delegates with educational and methodological support for launching a strategic reflexion on the union’s positioning regarding the challenges brought about by the digitalisation of work.
We describe both the methodological framework implemented by the researchers (a questionnaire survey and focus groups) and the educational device settled by the union, which was aimed at enhancing the trade union delegates’ experience of digitalisation. This process that stimulates knowledge production and circulation is analysed on the basis of the phenomenology of knowledge defined by Freeman and Sturdy (2014).
We first discuss the nature of our relationship with trade union executives who ordered the research. We particularly emphasise the role of three factors, namely trust (taming between two organizational cultures), time (strong pressure due to the preparation of the congress) and contingency (due to the lack of decision-making power of the steering committee), in (re- )framing the research project and thereby influencing knowledge production. Then, we describe the role performed by researchers as a role of methodological sifting that consists in imposing different frames on the trade union delegates’ experience of digitalisation. Ranging from « meeting frame » to questionnaires, the researchers’ sifts give different forms (inform) to delegates’ knowledge – which was inscribed in documents meant at circulating the union’s official position on digitalisation; enacted through different events as focus groups and conferences; and embodied by the union delegates who took part in the process.