Relational Systems Thinking, Citizens’ Assemblies, and Collective Trauma Integration: Excerpts from the Journal of Awareness-Based Systems Change (JASC)
Over the past 2.5 years, the Journal of Awareness-Based Systems Change has gone from seed to reality, shifting and expanding along the course of its six issues (the seventh will emerge in May 2024). The latest issue was the largest yet, and the journal continues its aim to provide a platform for a diversity of voices and perspectives in systems change. Looking back at the Journal’s evolution, the production team explores just three of the many articles published in the JASC with an invitation to look further into the Journal.
Relational Systems Thinking: The Dibaajimowin (Story) of Re-Theorizing “Systems Thinking” and “Complexity Science”
(Written by Melanie Goodchild, Waterloo Institute for Social Innovation and Resilience)
“Like generations of Indigenous scholars before me, my work has been an effort to revitalize Anishinaabe gikendaasowin (our original ways of knowing) and Anishinaabemowin (our original ways of speaking) so that I can progress Indigenous, holistic ways of seeking wisdom.” — Melanie Goodchild
In developing Relational Systems Thinking, Melanie Goodchild extends her analysis begun in the first issue of the JASC (Relational Systems Thinking: That’s How Change is Going to Come, from our Earth Mother), with suggestions for engaging with the spirit of relational systems thinking, as a theoretical model and an Indigenous standpoint theory. Presented as a cultural and dynamic interface that enables emergence in the space between differentiated but equal ways of knowing, Melanie Goodchild explores relational systems thinking as a model for systems change practitioners and scholars to transcend binary and hierarchical thinking in order to embrace a complexity mindset informed by Indigenous wisdom traditions. Goodchild presents relational systems thinking as an invitation into relational knowing, through engagement with stories and lessons from the author’s own lived experience researching at the interface of worldviews: “It is not about the ‘what’ of deep systems awareness, but the ‘how.’”
“Relational systems thinking is a stance, a complexity-relationality mindset or complexity pattern of thinking, anchored in Indigenous worldviews, that can aid scholars and practitioners in generating the conditions for innovation and systems transformation. My dear friend and colleague Peter Senge often says to me, we should be able to explain ‘systems thinking’ without using the word ‘systems’. Systems thinking is a lens on the world that understands natural and human endeavours are bound together “by invisible fabrics of interrelated actions” (Senge, 2006, p. 7). The Elders might say those invisible fabrics and interrelated actions are spiritual energies. Is there a song instead, a poem, a piece of art, a landscape perhaps I wonder, that teaches us the principles of complexity and systems thinking? This has been the focus of my scholarship in studying complex adaptive systems (see Zimmermanet al.,1998) from an Indigenous perspective.” — Read Melanie’s article here.
Goodchild, M. (2022). Relational Systems Thinking: The Dibaajimowin (Story) of Re-Theorizing “Systems Thinking” and “Complexity Science”. Journal of Awareness-Based Systems Change, 2(1), 53–76. https://doi.org/10.47061/jabsc.v2i1.2027
Innovations in Praxis: The Extended Citizens’ Assembly Model for Collaborative Governance: Co-creating a Shared Vision from the Basque Gipuzkoa Province
by Antonio Casado da Rocha AKTIBA IT Research Group, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU)
“Perhaps because of my second-generation Basque identity, my passion is community integration and empowerment: to know and sustain what makes people connect and engage in collective action. In the face of present and future disruption, we need more resilient and inclusive communities…” — Antonio Casado
The new “Innovations in Praxis” section, outlined by Koenig et al. in the editorial for the most recent JASC issue (Vol 3, issue 2), emphasizes ‘change in action,’ and highlights the ongoing practical application of concepts in ongoing examples. In this article, Antonio Casado da Rocha discusses “The Extended Citizens’ Assembly Model for Collaborative Governance,” detailing shifts in political culture in Gipuzkoa, Spain. Drawing on participatory action-research and data from Citizens’ Assemblies, Antonio explores the transformative potential of such processes and addresses openings and challenges in traditional Citizens’ Assembly models, proposing an Extended Citizens’ Assembly prototype to overcome barriers and broaden impact through cost-effective online-onsite deliberation methods, contributing to collaborative governance praxis at urban and regional levels.
If connection and “common caring” are so important, how we can foster them before and after the actual Citizen Assembly taking place? To answer that question, at the University of the Basque Country we are currently experimenting with a prototype of an “extended lab” which moves beyond CAs in several ways. We call it “extended” because it uses digital technology to extend deliberation, both in space and time, so that the gap between decision making in complex systems and the lived experiences of people affected by those decisions might be somehow reduced. As Scharmer (2018, p. 102) explains, this requires new infrastructures that complement traditional forms of governance to catalyze collective action from a shared vision or “awareness of the whole”. The lab itself can be thought of as a sensing organ for a shared vision of the whole; this was suggested by the participant reported in the Tolosa CA evaluation interviews who stated, “it has been valuable for me to see[emphasis added] all the realities that there can be.” — Read Antonio’s article here
Casado da Rocha, A. (2023). The Extended Citizens’ Assembly Model for Collaborative Governance:: Co-creating a Shared Vision from the Basque Gipuzkoa Province. Journal of Awareness-Based Systems Change, 3(2), 229–249. https://doi.org/10.47061/jasc.v3i2.6127
The ‘Tender Narrator’ Who Sees Beyond Time: A Framework for Trauma Integration and Healing
Thomas Hübl, Academy for Inner Science and Lori Shridhare, Harvard Medical School
““If trauma yearns to be voiced yet is unspeakable, from what point of view or perspective will the narrative of that story emerge? Is it possible, as the wound “cries out,” that it might convey a particular wisdom?” — Thomas Hübl and Lori Shridhare
Thomas Hübl and Lori Shridhare demonstrate that while “trauma occurs in separation, healing happens in relation,” emphasising the strength of coming together to witness. In the Trauma Integration Process, a method introduced by Hübl and Shridhare toward the healing of individual and collective trauma, they draw on Olga Tokarczuk’s idea of the tender narrator. This tender narrator is a fourth-person voice that transcends time and space to understand collective experiences from the perspective of the a whole. By purposefully creating a space that welcomes the complete range of emotions in the transitional phase and offering support for managing personal and shared traumas, Hübl and Shridhare’s approach in this article seeks to navigate and propel both an understanding of trauma and the movement towards interventions that truly integrate it.
“Trauma integration is the process of awakening the parts of ourselves that have been split off and fragmented in the past, reconstituting our awareness of their separate or muted existence, and allowing these aspects of ourselves to be seen and held in relationship, witnessing this totality come into presence. Beyond the simple act of verbal narration and the biology of seeing, this process invites layers of holding, denial, and defense to unwind, returning us to our original energetic voice, which speaks beyond the boundaries of time, space, and the confines of a singular perspective.While collective trauma (including the study of it) can be overwhelming in its power to contract and distort, the witnessing capacity opens space to host the world as it is within us. To see healing through a wider lens, where the limits of time and borders of mine and yours dissolve, is to become a tender narrator. While this narrator may embody a fluidity of seeing the interconnectedness and interdependence of humanity, and all of nature, the seer is not overwhelmed, but empowered. As responsible, informed citizens and leaders, we are charged not only with becoming trauma-informed, but trauma-integrated.” Read Thomas Hübl and Lori Shridhare’s article here.
Hübl, T., & Shridhare, L. (2022). The ‘Tender Narrator’ Who Sees Beyond Time:: A Framework for Trauma Integration and Healing. Journal of Awareness-Based Systems Change, 2(2), 9–27. https://doi.org/10.47061/jasc.v2i2.4937
For more information on the Journal and copies of past issues, visit here.
The JASC is deeply committed to providing a platform for diverse voices in systems change. Our commitment to representing a diversity of voices is reflected in both our authorship and our Editorial Board: forty-one percent of the articles featured in the journal are written by BIPOC and/or global south authors (either solely or in collaboration) and 60% of our Editorial Board members are from that same demographic. The journal is open access, reflecting our commitment to democratizing access to knowledge and knowledge generation.
If you or your organization would be interested in sponsoring the journal, please donate here or reach out to research@presencing.org.
