ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how fields are constituted, or based on a conception of a social problem influenced in itself by policy, politics, and institutional behavior. Addressing the ambitions of social interventions and problems like resources, it outlines an approach to analyzing and altering fields of social action that combines practical questions with exploring existing research and conducting new action research. The aim of analyzing existing fields is to understand how they are constituted and reproduce themselves, and the implications for both categorizing and addressing specific social problems and encouraging or circumscribing broader trajectories of social change. More specifically, the chapter brings together the author's ethnographic research on social action, social theory, research on organizational behavior, and evaluation research and practical models to show fields of social action can be analyzed. Organizational characteristics, behavior and decision-making reflect the pressures inherent to surviving in a field, particularly if resources are scarce.
