ABSTRACT
Action research aims to understand and develop existing knowledge systems in a particular situation, through generating dialogue between actors for processes of learning and change. In situations marked by conict and contested agendas, involved knowledge systems can be oppositional, and unwilling to establish arenas for dialogue. This chapter questions how an action researcher interacts with different layers of institutions and actors that represent distinct (and conictual) paradigmatic knowledge systems, in an environmental planning process in Southern Norway: research involvement at different arenas in the planning process of Heiplanen.
