The SAGE Handbook of Social Constructionist Practice 2020935277, 9781526488879

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The SAGE Handbook of

Social Constructionist Practice

International Advisory Board The Sage Handbook of Social Constructionist Practice has benefited from the insights of an International Advisory Board. The Advisory Board members are senior authors, editors, and administrators who have contributed to the field of social construction. We wish to thank them heartily for their insights, suggestions, and recommendations to the editors in the development of this volume. Harlene Anderson, Taos Institute, USA Duane Bidwell, Claremont School of Theology at Willamette University, USA Tom Billington, University of Sheffield, UK Hilary Bradbury, Oregon Health Sciences University, USA Ronald Chenail, Nova Southeastern University, USA David Cooperrider, Case Western Reserve University, USA Thalia Dragonas, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece Glenda Fredman, Hunter Street Health Center, UK Dora Fried Schnitman, Fundacion Interfas, Argentina Kenneth Gergen, Taos Institute, USA Jaber Gubrium, University of Missouri, USA Marie Hoskins, University of Victoria, Canada Jean Messingue, Institut de Theologie de la Compagnie de Jesus, Ivory Coast Haesun Moon, Canadian Center for Brief Coaching, Canada Edgardo Morales-Arandes, University of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico Ottar Ness, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway Johann Roux, Institute for Therapeutic Development, South Africa Jorge Sanhueza, University Adolf Ibanez, Chile Loek Schoenmaker, Hogeschool de Kempel, the Netherlands Josep Segui, Independent Social Psychologist, Spain Monica Sesma, University of Calgary, Canada Mary Jane Spink, Pontificia Universidade Catolica de Sao Paulo, Brazil Sally St. George, University of Calgary, Canada Jacob Storch, Joint Action, Denmark Tom Strong, University of Calgary, Canada Toshio Sugiman, Kyushu Sangyo University, Japan Haridimos Tsoukas, Warwick Business School, UK Nelson Molina Valencia, Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, Colombia Diana Whitney, Taos Institute, USA Jim Wilson, Systemic Psychotherapist, UK Stan Witkin, Global Partnership for Transformative Social Work, USA Shi-Jiuan Wu, Center for Creative Dialogue, Taiwan Dan Wulff, University of Calgary, Canada Liping Yang, Nanjing Normal University, China Xinping Zhang, Nanjing Normal University, China

The SAGE Handbook of

Social Constructionist Practice

Edited by

Sheila McNamee Mary M. Gergen Celiane Camargo-Borges and Emerson F. Rasera

SAGE Publications Ltd 1 Oliver’s Yard 55 City Road London EC1Y 1SP SAGE Publications Inc. 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, California 91320 SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd B 1/I 1 Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area Mathura Road New Delhi 110 044 SAGE Publications Asia-Pacific Pte Ltd 3 Church Street #10-04 Samsung Hub Singapore 049483

Editor: Amy Maher Editorial Assistant: Marc Barnard Production Editor: Jessica Masih Copyeditor: Rosemary Campbell Proofreader: Sunrise Setting Indexer: Elske Janssen Marketing Manager: Camille Richmond Cover Design: Naomi Robinson Typeset by Cenveo Publisher Services Printed in the UK

Introduction and editorial arrangement © Sheila McNamee, Mary M. Gergen, Celiane Camargo-Borges, and Emerson F. Rasera, 2020 Chapter 1 © Kenneth J. Gergen, 2020 Chapter 2 © Mary M. Gergen, 2020 Chapter 3 © Celiane Camargo-Borges and Sheila McNamee, 2020 Chapter 4 © Ottar Ness and Dina von Heimburg, 2020 Chapter 5 © Hilary Bradbury, 2020 Chapter 6 © Mary M. Gergen, 2020 Chapter 7 © Dan Wulff and Sally St. George, 2020 Chapter 8 © Rocio Chaveste and M. L. Papusa Molina with Christian Lizama, Cynthia Sosa, and Carolina Torres, 2020 Chapter 9 © Gail Simon and Leah Salter, 2020 Chapter 10 © Tanya Mudry and Tom Strong, 2020 Chapter 11 © Dan Wulff and Sally St. George, 2020 Chapter 12 © Stanley L. Witkin and Christopher Hall, 2020 Chapter 13 © Harlene Anderson, 2020 Chapter 14 © Dora Fried Schnitman, 2020 Chapter 15 © Jasmina Sermijn, 2020 Chapter 16 © Emerson F. Rasera and Carla Guanaes-Lorenzi, 2020 Chapter 17 © Lois Holzman, 2020 Chapter 18 © Marilene A. Grandesso, 2020 Chapter 19 © Jill Freedman and Gene Combs, 2020 Chapter 20 © Karl Tomm, 2020 Chapter 21 © Diana Whitney, 2020 Chapter 22 © Gitte Haslebo, 2020 Chapter 23 © Lone Hersted, 2020 Chapter 24 © Haesun Moon, 2020 Chapter 25 © Johan Hovelynck, Marc Craps, Art Dewulf, Koen Sips, Tharsi Taillieu, and René Bouwen, 2020 Chapter 26 © Ginny Belden-Charles, Morgan Mann Willis, and Jenny Lee, 2020 Chapter 27 © Amanda Trosten-Bloom and Barbara E. Lewis, 2020 Chapter 28 © Danielle P. Zandee, 2020 Chapter 29 © Gervase R. Bushe and Robert J. Marshak, 2020

Chapter 30 © Thalia Dragonas, 2020 Chapter 31 © Rolla E. Lewis, 2020 Chapter 32 © Gro Emmertsen Lund, 2020 Chapter 33 © Ingebjørg Mæland, 2020 Chapter 34 © Dawn Dole, 2020 Chapter 35 © Michael Williams and John Winslade, 2020 Chapter 36 © Tom Billington and Dan Goodley, 2020 Chapter 37 © Harriet Cameron, 2020 Chapter 38 © Thalia Dragonas, 2020 Chapter 39 © Scherto Gill and Kenneth J. Gergen, 2020 Chapter 40 © Murilo S. Moscheta, 2020 Chapter 41 © W. Ellen Raboin and Paul N. Uhlig, 2020 Chapter 42 © Karen Gold, 2020 Chapter 43 © William Randall, 2020 Chapter 44 © Lorraine Hedtke, 2020 Chapter 45 © Natalie B. May, Julie Haizlip, and Margaret Plews-Ogan, 2020 Chapter 46 © Pavel Nepustil, 2020 Chapter 47 © Murilo S. Moscheta and Emerson F. Rasera, 2020 Chapter 48 © Edgardo Morales-Arandes Chapter 49 © Arlene M. Katz and Kathleen Clark, with Elizabeth Jameson, 2020 Chapter 50 © Saliha Bava, 2020 Chapter 51 © Marie L. Hoskins, 2020 Chapter 52 © John Winslade and Gerald Monk, 2020 Chapter 53 © Janet Newbury, 2020 Chapter 54 © Celiane CamargoBorges and Cesar A. Ferragi, 2020 Chapter 55 © Jacob Storch and Carsten Hornstrup, 2020 Chapter 56 © David Anderson Hooker, 2020 Chapter 57 © Victoria Lugo, 2020 Chapter 58 © Ilene C. Wasserman and Erin W. Taylor, 2020 Chapter 59 © Kristin Bodiford and Peter Whitehouse, 2020 Chapter 60 © Duane R. Bidwell, 2020

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form, or by any means, only with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers. At SAGE we take sustainability seriously. Most of our products are printed in the UK using responsibly sourced papers and boards. When we print overseas we ensure sustainable papers are used as measured by the PREPS grading system. We undertake an annual audit to monitor our sustainability.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020935277 British Library Cataloguing in Publication data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library 978-1-5264-8887-9

This book is dedicated to Mary Gergen whose lively spirit forged broad connections and expansive understandings of relational approaches to living.

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Contents List of Figures and Tablesxiii Notes on the Editors and Contributorsxv Editors’ Introductionxxxv SECTION I  INTRODUCTION 1

Constructionist Theory and the Blossoming of Practice Kenneth J. Gergen

3

SECTION II  RESEARCH PRACTICES 2

Practices of Inquiry: Invitation to Innovation Mary M. Gergen

3

Research as Innovation: An Invitation to Creative and Imaginative Inquiry Processes Celiane Camargo-Borges and Sheila McNamee

24

Collaborative Action Research: Co-constructing Social Change for the Common Good Ottar Ness and Dina von Heimburg

34

Action Research and Social Constructionism: Transformative Inquiry and Practice in Community Hilary Bradbury

46

4

5

17

6

Research as Performative Inquiry Mary M. Gergen

57

7

We Are All Researchers Dan Wulff and Sally St. George

68

8

To Know and Not to Know: Dialogic Social Inquiry Rocio Chaveste and M. L. Papusa Molina, with Christian Lizama, Cynthia Sosa, and Carolina Torres

77

9

Transmaterial Worlding as Inquiry Gail Simon and Leah Salter

86

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Researching Socio-material Practices: Inquiries into the Human/Non-human Interweave Tanya Mudry and Tom Strong

100

SECTION III  PRACTICES IN THERAPEUTIC PROFESSIONS 11

Curiosity and Generativity: Welcome to Practices in the Therapeutic Professions Sally St. George and Dan Wulff

12

Social Construction and Social Work Practice Stanley L. Witkin and Christopher Hall

13

Collaborative-Dialogic Practice: A Relational Process of Inviting Generativity and Possibilities Harlene Anderson

14

Generative Dialogues: Creating Resources and Possibilities in Therapy Dora Fried Schnitman

15

How Symbolic Witnesses Can Help Counter Dominant Stories and Enrich Communities of Concern Jasmina Sermijn

115

120

132

140

151

16

Contributions of Social Constructionism to Group Work Emerson F. Rasera and Carla Guanaes-Lorenzi

160

17

Constructing Social Therapeutics Lois Holzman

171

18

Integrative Community Therapy: Creating a Communitarian Context of Generative and Transformative Conversations Marilene A. Grandesso

183

Individuals in Competition or Communities in Connection? Narrative Therapy in the Era of Neoliberalism Jill Freedman and Gene Combs

193

19

20

Post-Truth and a Justification for Therapeutic Initiative Karl Tomm

203

SECTION IV  PRACTICES IN ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 21

When Social Constructionism Joins the Organization Development Conversation Diana Whitney

217

Contents

22

Relational Ethics in Organizational Life Gitte Haslebo

23

Working with Relational Leading and Meaning Making in Teams of Leaders Lone Hersted

ix

225

235

24

Coaching: Using Ordinary Words in Extraordinary Ways Haesun Moon

246

25

Relational Practices for Generative Multi-Actor Collaboration Johan Hovelynck, Marc Craps, Art Dewulf, Koen Sips, Tharsi Taillieu and René Bouwen

258

26

Designing Relationally Responsive Organizations Ginny Belden-Charles, Morgan Mann Willis and Jenny Lee

268

27

Large Scale Appreciative Inquiry: New Futures Through Shared Conversations279 Amanda Trosten-Bloom and Barbara E. Lewis

28

Zooming in on the Micro-Dynamics of Social Innovation: Enabling Novelty Through Relational Constructionist Practice Danielle P. Zandee

29

289

Social Construction and the Practice of Dialogic Organization Development298 Gervase R. Bushe and Robert J. Marshak

SECTION V  PRACTICES IN EDUCATION 30

Education as Relational Process and Practice: Introduction Thalia Dragonas

313

31

Lifescaping: Cultivating Flourishing School Cultures Rolla E. Lewis

321

32

Creating School Harmony Gro Emmertsen Lund

332

33

Creating New Futures Through Collaboration: Dropouts No More Ingebjørg Mæland

343

34

Collaborative, Appreciative, and Experiential Pedagogy in Educational Settings Dawn Dole

352

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35

School Counseling Michael Williams and John Winslade

36

The Relief of Critical Educational Psychology and the Nomadism of Critical Disability Studies: Social Constructionism in Practice Tom Billington and Dan Goodley

372

Specific Learning Difficulties as a Relational Category: Reconstruction, Redistribution and Resistance in Higher Educational Practice Harriet Cameron

381

37

363

38

Intercultural Education: Empowering Minority Learners Thalia Dragonas

391

39

Educational Evaluation: A Relational Perspective Scherto Gill and Kenneth J. Gergen

402

SECTION VI  PRACTICES IN HEALTHCARE 40

Political, Collaborative and Creative: Dimensions of Social Constructionist Health Care Practices Murilo S. Moscheta

415

41

Collaborative Re-construction of Health Care W. Ellen Raboin and Paul N. Uhlig

42

Words Matter: Promoting Relationality in Healthcare through Narrative Medicine Karen Gold

434

Strengthening Our Stories in the Second Half of Life: Narrative Resilience through Narrative Care William Randall

444

43

422

44

From an Individualist to a Relational Model of Grief Lorraine Hedtke

45

Changing the Conversation: Appreciative Inquiry and Appreciative Practices in Healthcare Natalie B. May, Julie Haizlip and Margaret Plews-Ogan

464

Populating Recovery: Mobilizing Relational Sources for Healing Addiction Pavel Nepustil

476

46

47

Health Care Practices for LGBT People Murilo S. Moscheta and Emerson F. Rasera

455

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Contents

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48

Mindfulness as a Generative Resource in Compassionate Healthcare Edgardo Morales-Arandes

497

49

Toward Relational Engagement: Poetic Reflections in Healthcare Arlene M. Katz and Kathleen Clark, with Elizabeth Jameson

507

50

Play Creates Well-being: The Contingency and the Creativity of Human Interaction Saliha Bava

516

SECTION VII  COMMUNITY PRACTICES 51

Community Building from a Social Constructionist Lens Marie L. Hoskins

531

52

Narrative Mediation John Winslade and Gerald Monk

537

53

Inclusion and Community Building: Profoundly Particular Janet Newbury

548

54

Placemaking, Social Construction, and the Global South Celiane Camargo-Borges and Cesar A. Ferragi

559

55

Re-imagining the Welfare State: From Systems Delivery to Collaborative Relationship Jacob Storch and Carsten Hornstrup

570

Transformative Community Conferencing – A Constructionist Approach to a More Hopeful Future David Anderson Hooker

581

56

57

Relational Community Practices for Transitional Societies Victoria Lugo

58

Knowing Ourselves in the Stories of Us: The Inclusive Practice of ‘Be-Longing’ Ilene C. Wasserman and Erin W. Taylor

608

Intergenerative Community Building: Intergenerational Relationships for Co-creating Flourishing Futures Kristin Bodiford and Peter Whitehouse

618

Social Construction, Practical Theology, and the Practices of Religious Communities Duane R. Bidwell

630

59

60

594

Index640

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List of Figures and Tables Figures Figure 5.1 Action-oriented Research for Transformations (ART) Figure 10.1 Gambling social worlds/arena map Figure 10.2 Zooming out: assemblage Figure 10.3 Zooming in: assemblage instance Figure 10.4 Zooming out: network of practices Figure 10.5 Zooming in: gambling practices Figure 10.6 Hinge practice: walking into a casino Figure 10.7 Hinge practice: interacting with a VLT Figure 15.1 Anna’s diary Figure 20.1 The coupled reciprocities in the systemic therapist’s preferred ‘truth’ Figure 22.1 Moral obligations in relational ethics Figure 23.1 Discovering new ways of relating by use of roleplaying with reflecting team Figure 23.2 Roleplaying with reflecting team in bewildering situations Figure 24.1 Timeline of narrative Figure 24.2 Content of narrative Figure 24.3 Dialogic Orientation Quadrant Figure 26.1 Comparing open systems design with relational design Figure 26.2 AMP principles Figure 26.3 Practices for relational responsiveness in organizations Figure 29.1 The generative change model Figure 41.1 Social construction and re-construction of health care Figure 41.2 Collaborative practices in a social field Figure 41.3 Collaborative decision making: divergence, deliberation, and convergence to action Figure 45.1 The 4-D Cycle Figure 49.1 “Completed conversation cards” Figure 55.1 Picture of a family’s network of professional relationships in a municipality Figure 56.1 Example of community narrative mapping Figure 58.1 Critical incident Figure 58.2 Services requested, and approach offered Figure 59.1 Rehema teaching handicrafts to a young person in Uganda Figure 59.2 Intergenerational yoga in India Figure 59.3 Mr. Pongwe and a young person learning and working together in Tanzania Figure 59.4 Dialogue about public policy in Linking Generations ‘Is it Fair’? Figure 59.5 Elements to strengthen intergenerational collaboration

49 104 106 107 108 109 110 110 155 211 233 241 242 251 252 252 269 270 271 304 426 428 430 466 509 577 587 612 613 622 623 624 625 626

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Tables Table 3.1 Imagineering Design Steps Table 22.1 Key assumptions about knowledge and morality Table 24.1 Embedded presuppositions Table 29.1 Five criteria for all OD practices Table 32.1 The cultural geography of the school around early school leaving Table 32.2 Basic assumptions that lead to actions, interactions, relationships and positions Table 35.1 Success rate and expected longevity of outcomes as assessed by victims and team members Table 41.1 Schemas in health care Table 45.1 Traditional versus appreciative language Table 55.1 Municipality Rethinks… Table 55.2 Comparison: Open Dialogue versus traditional psychiatry, 19 years after first-episode psychosis

29 230 249 299 336 339 370 425 469 574 576

BOX Box 32.1 Showcase: the becoming of Sebastian

337

Notes on the Editors and Contributors The Editors Sheila McNamee is Professor of Communication at the University of New Hampshire and co-founder and Vice President of the Taos Institute (taosinstitute.net). Her work is focused on dialogic transformation within a variety of social and institutional contexts including psychotherapy, education, healthcare, organizations and communities. She is author of several books and articles, including Research and Social Change: A Relational Constructionist Approach (with D.M. Hosking, Routledge, 2012), Relational Responsibility: Resources for Sustainable Dialogue (with K. Gergen, Sage, 1999) and Education as Social Construction: Contributions to Theory, Research, and Practice (co-edited with T. Dragonas, K. Gergen and E. Tseliou, Taos WorldShare, 2015). Mary M. Gergen is Professor Emerita, Psychology and Women’s Studies, Penn State University, Brandywine and is a pioneer in the field of social construction and feminist studies. Feminist Reconstructions in Psychology: Narrative, Gender and Performance and Feminist Thought and the Structure of Knowledge are two of her books on these themes. Recently Playing with Purpose: Adventures in Performative Social Science, with K. Gergen, is a composite of their performance work. She is also a founder of the Taos Institute, an educational non-profit organization dedicated to the application of social constructionist ideas to professional practices. With Kenneth Gergen, she edits the ‘Positive Aging Newsletter’; Paths to Positive Aging is their most recent book on aging. Celiane Camargo-Borges is a lecturer, researcher and practitioner with a PhD from her native Brazil, from the University of Sao Paulo. While completing her doctoral dissertation, she spent one year as a visiting scholar at the University of New Hampshire, USA. She is faculty at Breda University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands and visiting professor and guest lecturer at several universities around the world such as University of São Paulo in Brazil, Polytechnic Institute of Leiria in Portugal, University College Aspira in Croatia, among others. Celiane is also the founder of Designing Conversations (www.designingconversations. us), where she consults, designs and delivers workshops and process design within a diversity of areas where creativity, imagination, innovation and dialogue are central. Celiane is also involved in international projects where she facilitates organizations and communities in joining together to initiate change. Among her projects are her collaboration with NGOs in Uganda, with sustainable local tourism in Cape Verde, and with community activism in Brazil. She has more than 30 publications in journals and books on participatory research, Imagineering, design approaches, PlaceMaking and community development. In addition, she is a member of the Taos Institute Board, serving as a PhD supervisor and facilitator of workshops and online courses.

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Emerson F. Rasera is Professor of Group Theory and Practice at the Institute of Psychology, Federal University of Uberlândia, Brazil. He is former President of the Brazilian Association of Social Psychology, and Editor of the Brazilian journals Psicologia & Sociedade [Psychology & Society], and Gerais: Revista Interinstitucional de Psicologia [Gerais: Interinstitutional Journal of Psychology]. His work is focused on social constructionist contributions to psychological practices, especially in healthcare, community work and issues of sexual diversity. His most recent books are Social Constructionist Perspectives on Group Work (2015), Construccionismo Social en acción: Prácticas inspiradoras en diferentes contextos [Social construction in action: inspiring practices from different contexts] (with Karin Taverniers and Oriana Vilches-Álvarez, 2017) and Grupo como construção social [Group as social construction] (with Marisa Japur, 2018).

The Contributors Harlene Anderson is a co-founder and board member of the Taos Institute, Houston Galveston Institute, and Access Success International; she is the founding editor of the International Journal of Collaborative Practices and founder of the International Certificate in CollaborativeDialogic Practices programme. Her books, translated into several languages, include Conversations, Language and Possibilities and (as co-editor) Appreciative Organizations, Collaborative Therapy: Relationships and Conversations that Make a Difference and Innovations in the Reflecting Process. She received the 2008 American Academy of Family Therapy Award for Distinguished Contribution to Family Therapy Theory and Practice, the 2000 American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy award for Outstanding Contributions to Marriage and Family Therapy, and the 1997 Texas Association for Marriage and Family Therapy award for Lifetime Achievement. Saliha Bava is an associate professor of marriage and family therapy at Mercy College (New York), Taos Institute advisory board member and associate, and founding board member of the International Certificate in Collaborative-Dialogic Practices. She focuses on expanding relational intelligence by harnessing the power of play. Partnering with individuals and organizations around the world, she combines interdisciplinary ideas and methodologies to create generative, inclusive change. Performative methodologies, hyperlinked thinking and dialogue guide her academic activism which aims to unsettle dominant discourses regarding research, social justice, and identity. She co-authored The Relational Book for Parenting with her partner Mark Greene. Based in New York City, she consults to couples, companies and communities. Learn more at SalihaBava.com | Email: [email protected]. Follow @ThinkPlay Ginny Belden-Charles helps groups in the midst of complex conditions find cohesive direction, build organizational capacity and facilitate change. She has worked with more than 50 organizations in all sectors and also designs and facilitates large-scale cross-sector social change initiatives. She is a co-founder of the Center for Emerging Leadership and its Women in Leadership Learning Community, now in its 28th year. Ginny has a PhD in Social Science from Tilburg University, an MS in Organization Development from Pepperdine University, a BA from the University of Minnesota in Music Therapy and is a Bush Fellowship recipient. She has taught in several Master’s programmes in the United States and the UK. She is a mentor and coach to many emerging leaders, an actively engaged grandmother and a Lake Superior sailor.

Notes on the Editors and Contributors

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Duane R. Bidwell serves as Professor of Practical Theology, Spiritual Care, and CounselingCounselling at Claremont School of Theology at Willamette University, USA . He is a senior staff clinician and supervisor at The Clinebell Institute for Pastoral Counseling and Psychotherapy. A Taos Associate and member of the Taos Institute board of directors, Duane is a clinical Fellow of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors; a psychotherapist member of the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education; and a board member of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies. He edited Spirituality, Social Construction, and Relational Processes: Essays and Reflections (WorldShare, 2016) and authored When One Religion Isn’t Enough: The Lives of Spiritually Fluid People (Beacon, 2018), Empowering Couples: A Narrative Approach to Spiritual Care (Fortress, 2013), and Short-term Spiritual Guidance (Fortress, 2004). He co-edited The Formation of Pastoral Counselors: Challenges and Opportunities (Routledge, 2006) with Joretta Marshall. Tom Billington is Professor of Educational and Child Psychology in the School of Education at the University of Sheffield. His research and professional practice seek to challenge forms of oppression and discrimination in young people’s lives, in particular, when suffered due to uncritical approaches to psychopathology. In a focus upon the emotional well-being and mental health needs of young people his research draws upon a range of qualitative methods – narrative, discourse analysis, psychodynamic and social constructionist approaches – while his professional practice in the family courts is rooted in analyses of the relational conditions in which young people live their lives. His works include Separating, Losing and Excluding Children (2000, Routledge); Working with Children (2006, Sage) and Critical Educational Psychology (Williams, Billington, Goodley and Corcoran, eds. 2017, BPS/Blackwell Books, John Wiley). Kristin Bodiford is Principal of Community Strengths, working with communities to support creating new possibilities. She serves as a Health Advisor for HelpAge USA and as a representative to the United Nations for Generations United, advising on social development policy related to aging, youth, families and intergenerational solidarity. Kristin is a core team member of the Taos International Relational Research Network, faculty in the Taos Institute International Diploma in Social Construction and Professional Practice, visiting scholar and researcher at Portland State University Institute on Aging, and adjunct faculty at Dominican University School of Social Work. Kristin holds a PhD from Tilburg University and an MBA from the University of California at Davis. Kristin believes magic can happen when people come together around issues they care deeply about. She embraces transformative approaches, tapping into and strengthening relational resources to propel social innovation. René Bouwen is Professor Emeritus at the Center for Organizational Psychology of the KU Leuven (Belgium). Through several national and international networks on organizational innovation research and socio-cultural development, he was involved in the creation of continuous education and research programmes in group dynamics, organizational learning and development, conflict framing, appreciative inquiry and multi-actor collaboration, and in social constructionist study circles. Collaborating across differences in and between organizations remained his core concern after he became emeritus in 2006. Hilary Bradbury is a scholar-practitioner focused on the human and organizational dimensions of creating healthy communities. She supports educators of all types as well as educational institutions in transforming in response to the social-ecological crisis of our times. She emphasizes the integration of research and practice, as ‘action research for transformations’.

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Her global role and reputation for her work is reflected in her position as Editor in Chief of the international peer reviewed Action Research journal. She is founder and principal at Foundation AR+, ActionResearchPlus.com, a global community of participative action researchers, an active network of multiple action researching universities and think tanks from the Global North and South. Gervase R. Bushe is Professor of Leadership and Organization Development at the Beedie School of Business, Simon Fraser University, and has consulted with a diverse array of leaders and organizations in a variety of sectors for more than 35 years. He has published over 100 articles and books and received numerous awards. His Clear Leadership book and course has been translated into seven other languages and delivered to tens of thousands of participants worldwide. He is the co-editor of Dialogic Organization Development: The Theory and Practice of Transformational Change (2015). His latest book is The Dynamics of Generative Change (2020). In 2016 HR Magazine in the UK added him to their annual rankings of the most influential HR thinkers. In 2019 he was ranked 12th. A chapter about him and his work is included in The Palgrave Handbook of Organizational Change Thinkers (2017). Harriet Cameron is particularly interested in the way language around learning disabilities and differences comes to shape the way diagnoses of autism, (specific) learning disability, ADHD and mental ill-health are constructed in specific places, spaces and times. She is also interested in the lived experiences of people who come to be categorized as ‘deficient’ in learning or communicating, and in how systems, processes and policies interact with these experiences. Following a career as a specialist teacher/assessor and service lead in the field of specific learning difficulties in higher education, Harriet now undertakes research and teaching as an academic in The University of Sheffield’s School of Education (UK). Her current role follows a previous position as a senior lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University (UK) where she led the MA in Autism Spectrum Conditions. Her research and teaching are centred in critical psychology and education. Rocío Chaveste is founder, general director, professor and clinical supervisor at Kanankil Institute in Yucatan, Mexico, Guest Professor at the Houston Galveston Institute, Associate of the Taos Institute, and a member of the Relational Research Network of the same Institute. She has a PhD in Social Psychology, and three Masters Degrees, in: Family and Couples Therapy, Organizational Management, and Political Communication and Electoral Marketing. She was the Director of Social Development for the Merida, Yucatan municipality. She is the co-author of Prácticas socioconstruccionistas y colaborativas: psicoterapia, educación y comunidad; editor of Identidades, y Relaciones: una mirada desde el Socioconstruccionismo y las prácticas colaborativas y dialógicas; and co-editor of Harlene, conversaciones interrumpidas. Kathleen Clark is an attorney, consultant, speaker, facilitator and published author. The subject of her dissertation was collaborative practices in adverse medical event situations. Her work as both an attorney and consultant involves collaborative practices, non-adversarial conflict resolution, and restorative justice. Dr Clark’s articles have been published in various American Bar Association periodicals and journals, as well as in The Daily Journal, California’s legal newspaper. She has also co-authored a book chapter on conflict resolution in adverse medical event situations. She has facilitated many dialogues on improving healthcare and building community and collaboration across all aspects of healthcare. In addition, she trains and consults on issues related to healthcare and the law in the United States, Canada, Ireland, and Colombia, SA.

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Gene Combs is co-director of Evanston Family Therapy Center, and a long-time practitioner, teacher, and writer in the field of narrative therapy. Recently retired from his position as Associate Clinical Professor in the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago, he serves on the board of directors of The American Family Therapy Academy, and is an Honorary Associate of the Taos Institute. With his partner, Jill Freedman, he has written many articles and three books: Symbol, Story, and Ceremony: Using Metaphor in Individual and Family Therapy, Narrative Therapy: The Social Construction of Preferred Realities and Narrative Therapy with Couples … And a Whole Lot More. Marc Craps obtained degrees in Organizational Psychology, Social and Cultural Anthropology and Philosophy (KU Leuven). His PhD focused on multi-actor collaboration and local communities for sustainable resources management, based on action research in Ecuador. He has 15 years of field experience in Latin America, working with urban squatters, indigenous communities, NGOs and government agencies. His main research interest is in the quality of the relations in collaborative initiatives for complex sustainability issues. He is a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Economics of KU Leuven (Belgium), teaching Strategic Organization Development and Corporate Social Responsibility. Art Dewulf obtained a PhD in Organizational Psychology (KU Leuven) and is personal professor of Sensemaking and Decision-making in Policy Processes at the Public Administration and Policy Group of the Wageningen University (Netherlands). He studies complex problems of natural resource governance with a focus on interactive processes of sensemaking and decision-making in water and climate governance. Dawn Dole is the Executive Director of the Taos Institute. Dawn also consults with organizations, non-profits and schools utilizing strength-based approaches to organization development (Appreciative Inquiry), and designing and facilitating experiential team building and leadership programmes. She has held leadership positions in non-profits, healthcare and community education. Dawn taught elementary school and has worked with children of all ages in community settings. She is the co-author of a book titled: Positive Family Dynamics: Appreciative Inquiry Questions for Bringing Out the Best in Families and co-editor of the book: Social Construction in Action: Contributions from the 25th Anniversary Conference of the Taos Institute. Thalia Dragonas is Professor Emerita of Social Psychology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. She was previously Chair of the Department of Early Childhood Education and Dean of the School of Education. Her research and publications are on psychosocial identity, intergroup relations, social inclusion, intercultural education, ethnocentrism in the educational system, prevention and promotion of early psychosocial health, transition to parenthood, fatherhood and masculinity. She co-directed a 22-year-long intervention for the education of the historical Muslim minority in Greece. She served as an MP with the Socialist Party (PASOK) (2007–09) and was Secretary at the Greek Ministry of Education (2009–10) responsible for populations at risk such as migrants, the Roma and the Muslim minority in Thrace. She co-edited, together with K. Gergen, S. McNamee and E. Tseliou, the volume Education as Social Construction (TAOS Institute Publications/WorldShare Books, 2015). Cesar A. Ferragi is Adjunct Professor at the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar), Brazil. He has an MA and a PhD in Public Administration (with a focus on Institutional Theory and Organizational Change) from the International Christian University (ICU), located in Tokyo, Japan, and a BA in Public Administration from the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV),

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Brazil. Cesar is interested in the learning capabilities of individuals, understanding education as an organic process, composed of multiple experiences. Having lived in six different countries – and travelled to more than 60 – he tries to ‘connect the dots’ under an NVC™ (Nonviolent Communication) approach. He currently teaches Management and Entrepreneurship at UFSCar, and coordinates an MBI (Master in Business Innovation) – an educational journey through the topics of innovation, entrepreneurship and digital transformation. Jill Freedman is a MSW and is co-director of Evanston Family Therapy Center, a centre dedicated to teaching narrative therapy. She is on the faculty of the Chicago Center for Family Health, is an international faculty member of the Dulwich Center in Adelaide, Australia, an Honorary Clinical Fellow of the University of Melbourne where she is faculty for the low-residency narrative therapy and community work Masters programme, and is an Honorary Associate of the Taos Institute. She has a small therapy and consultation practice in the Chicago area and teaches internationally. She has co-authored many papers and three books with Gene Combs: Symbol, Story, and Ceremony: Using Metaphor in Individual and Family Therapy, Narrative Therapy: The Social Construction of Preferred Realities, and Narrative Therapy with Couples … And a Whole Lot More. Kenneth J. Gergen is a Senior Research Professor at Swarthmore College, and the President of the Taos Institute. He is internationally known for his development of social constructionist theory and practices, and for his relational perspective on human well-being. Among his major works are Realities and Relationships: Soundings in Social Construction, The Saturated Self: Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life, An Invitation to Social Construction (3rd edn), and Relational Being, Beyond Self and Community. Gergen has received numerous awards and has been the recipient of honorary degrees in both the United States and Europe. Scherto Gill is Senior Fellow at the GHFP Research Institute, Visiting Fellow at the University of Sussex, and Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts (FRSA). Through research, international project development, and writing, she actively explores ways to foster practices of transformative dialogue, the ethics of caring, whole-person development, and global peace. Her most recent books include, Ethical Education: Towards an Ecology of Human Development (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Human-Centered Education (Routledge, 2017) and Education as Humanisation (Routledge, 2016). Karen Gold is a clinical social worker, educator, and Affiliated Education Scientist at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto, Canada. She is a graduate of the Taos PhD program. Her dissertation explored clinician writing as relational practice. She has completed narrative medicine training at Columbia University and is a Certified AWA creative writing facilitator. She has taught at the Faculty of Social Work and the Health, Arts & Humanities Program at the University of Toronto and has facilitated a wide range of writing workshops in hospital and community settings. She has published on arts-based pedagogy, poetic inquiry, collaborative practice, and personal narrative in professional practice. Dan Goodley is co-director of iHuman – an interdisciplinary research institute at the University of Sheffield. He is a recovering psychologist and disability studies researcher who has written widely around the area. Recent publications include Disability Studies: An Interdisciplinary Introduction (Sage, 2016) and Dis/ability Studies (Routledge, 2014). He is currently working on a text for Emerald due out in 2020 entitled Disability and Other Human Questions.

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Carla Guanaes-Lorenzi is a psychologist and family therapist. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters of Ribeirão Preto (University of Sâo Paulo – Ribeirão Preto – Brazil), where she coordinates the activities of the Laboratory of Study and Research in Group Practices (LAPEPG-USP). Her activity at the Department of Psychology includes training, supervision and research on group work, family therapy and social constructionism. She is also a professor in the Graduate Program of Psychology (USP/Ribeirão Preto) where she mentors Masters and doctorate students on their research projects. She is author of the book, A construção da mudança em terapia de grupo: um enfoque construcionista social [The construction of change in group therapy: a social constructionist approach] (2006) and of many articles and book chapters. She is the mother of two little girls (Ana Cecília and Beatriz). Email: [email protected] CV: http://lattes.cnpq. br/5305070621567074 Marilene A. Grandesso is a Brazilian Psychologist; Family, Couple and Community Therapist; Faculty and Supervisor of Family and Couple Therapy at Catholic University, São Paulo; Founder and Chair of the INTERFACI Institute; Coordinator of the ICCP – International Certificate in Collaborative-Dialogical Practices – Houston Galveston Institute/Taos Institute and INTERFACI (since 2011); Coordinator of the Community Therapy training course at INTERFACI – Sao Paulo (since 2003); President of the Family Therapy Association of São Paulo (APTF – 2000–2001); and first President of the Brazilian Community Therapy Association (ABRATECOM – 2004–2005). She is the author of the book, About the Reconstruction of Meaning: An Epistemological and Hermeneutical Analysis of Clinical Practice (2000, in Portuguese). Marilene is also the organizer of the book, Community Therapy: Weaving Nets to Social Transformation: Health, Education and Public Politics (2007, in Portuguese) and three others about Collaborative-Dialogical Practices. She is a member of the Taos Institute and an editorial board member of World Share Books (Taos Institute). Julie Haizlip is Clinical Professor at the University of Virginia School of Nursing and Faculty in the University of Virginia Department of Pediatrics. Dr Haizlip conducts research on mattering in healthcare. She is currently the Director of the UVA Center for Appreciative Practice and co-Director of the UVA Center for Interprofessional Collaborations. Christopher Hall is Professor of Social Work at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington where he teaches graduate social work practice, field and postmodern electives. In addition to his teaching, Chris practises in the community assisting individuals, couples, families and groups from a postmodern perspective (www.DrChristopherHall.com). He is a board member of the Global Partnership for Transformative Social Work (www.gptsw.net) and a Taos Institute Associate (www.TaosInstitute.net). His publications are primarily practice- and postmodern-focused, and he is currently co-editing the 4th edition of Theoretical Perspectives for Direct Social Work Practice. Past publications include chapters for the Encyclopaedia of Social Work, ‘A History of Cybernetics and Social Work Practice’ (2017) and ‘Narrative Therapy’ (2016), as well as journal articles, ‘A Narrative Case Study of Hamlet and the Cultural Construction of Western Individualism, Diagnosis, and Madness’ (2016) and ‘How Social Constructionism Could Inform the Education of Social Work Practitioners’ (2015). Gitte Haslebo has a Master of Science in Psychology from the University of Copenhagen and before that a Masters Degree in Social Psychology from the University of Kansas. Gitte is a certified specialist and supervisor in organizational psychology. In 1991 she founded the consultancy firm known as Haslebo & Partnere, which carries out consultancy assignments in

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Denmark and Norway based on social constructionism and inspired by systemic, appreciative and narrative approaches to consultation, leadership and organizational development. She has also developed and carried through a social constructionist training programme for more than 36 groups of managers and consultants. She is the author, co-author and co-editor of numerous books and articles on leadership and organizational development. Two books have been translated into English: G. Haslebo and K. S. Nielsen, Systems and Meaning: Consulting in Organizations (Karnac Books, 2000) and G. Haslebo and M. L. Haslebo, Practicing Relational Ethics in Organizations (Taos Institute Publications, 2012). For years she has worked as a board member of the Danish Psychological Publishing Agency and was appointed an Associate to the Taos Institute in 2008. Lorraine Hedtke is the programme coordinator and an associate professor of counselling and guidance at California State University, San Bernardino. She is also the proprietor of The Fabula Center, a counselling and training centre. She teaches about death, dying and bereavement throughout the United States and internationally. Her work represents an exciting and unique departure from the conventional models of grief psychology. Her articles have appeared in numerous professional journals and magazines and she is the author of several books about grief. Her children’s book, My Grandmother is Always with Me (2nd edn, Lulu Press, 2013), is written with her daughter, Addison Davidove. Her book, Breathing Life into the Stories of the Dead: Constructing Bereavement Support Groups (Taos Institute Publications, 2012) outlines an innovative and practical model for practice. Along with John Winslade, she is the co-author of the book Remembering Lives: Conversations with the Dying and the Bereaved (Baywood, 2004) and The Crafting of Grief: Aesthetic Responses to Loss (Routledge, 2017). Dina von Heimburg is a MSc and works as a public health coordinator in Levanger Municipality, Norway and is a PhD candidate in Sociology at Nord University, Norway. She is also an adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health and Nursing at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Her PhD research is a collaborative action research project focusing on the co-creation of social inclusion among families whose children are in kindergartens. Lone Hersted is an associate professor and works as a researcher and a lecturer at the Department of Culture and Learning at Aalborg University (Denmark). Her research is concerned with organizational learning, organizational change processes, relational leading and leadership development, action research and creativity. In particular, she is concerned with dialogically based processes for organizational learning and development. Lone has a professional background in theatre, family therapy and consultancy, and brings these experiences creatively into her work with organizational development. In 2013, together with Professor Kenneth Gergen, she wrote the book Relational Leading: Practices for Dialogically Based Collaboration, which was published in English, Danish and Japanese. In addition, she has contributed to a series of books and articles on leadership, the education of leaders, organizational learning, dialogical process, action research and creativity. Recently she edited the book Action Research in a Relational Perspective together with Ottar Ness and Søren Frimann (published by Routledge). Lois Holzman is director of the East Side Institute, an international research and education centre for the advancement of social therapeutics and performance activism. As a proponent of postmodern, activity-theoretic, cultural approaches to human learning and development, she has championed the role of play, performance and ensemble building as central to ongoing attempts to support people to grow themselves and their communities, to humanize the mental health field

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and the social sciences, and to effect social change and global cultural transformation. Among her books are Vygotsky at Work and Play; Unscientific Psychology: A CulturalPerformatory Approach to Understanding Human Life (with Fred Newman); and The Overweight Brain: How Our Obsession with Knowing Keeps us from Getting Smart Enough to Make a Better World. David Anderson Hooker is Professor of the Practice of Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies in the University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs. His practice spans more than 30 years as mediator, restorative justice practitioner, trainer, leadership development specialist, advocate and community peacebuilder working throughout Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, and the (united) States of America. Hooker’s primary research investigates the social and narrative construction of complex identities; the role of multigenerational trauma in the formation of interpersonal and communal relationships, systems and structures; and the various models and approaches to truth-telling as mechanisms for approaching justice, quality peace, and societal reconciliation. He is the co-author (with Amy Potter-Czaijkowski) of Transforming Historical Harms (Eastern Mennonite, 2012) and author of The Little Book of Transformative Community Conferencing (SkyHorse 2016), as well as several other book chapters and journal articles. Carsten Hornstrup is an experienced consultant and leader and is regarded as an expert on public sector development. In later years he has focused on Relational Capacity as a way of integrating systematic evaluations in highly complex cases with dialogical practices. He holds a PhD in Relational Leadership and has published seven books and several books and articles. He is currently the director and founder of Joint Action Analytics and is associated with Aarhus University’s research centre for public leadership as well as chairing the board of the RCRC (Relational Coordination Research Collaborative) at Brandeis University, Boston. Marie L. Hoskins is Professor Emeritus in the School of Child and Youth Care (Faculty of Human and Social Development) at the University of Victoria, Canada. She has held several administrative positions and sat on several boards over the years. She has published in a wide range of journals including Mediation Quarterly, Qualitative Inquiry, The Journal of Constructivist Psychology, Constructivism and Human Sciences, the Canadian Journal of Counselling, Qualitative Inquiry, the Child and Youth Care Forum, to name just a few. Her teaching focus has been in the area of human change processes, girls’ identity challenges and various modes of interpretive inquiry. She has been the principal investigator on two large Social Sciences and Humanities Research Projects (SSHRC), one focused on eating disorders and processes of change, the other focused on the relationships between culture, substance use and transformation. She is a former member of the coordinating team for the Child Soldier Initiative led by Rt. General Romeo Dallaire. Johan Hovelynck works as a self-employed process consultant and is part-time lecturer at the Leuven University (Belgium). With a background in Organizational and Community Psychology (KU Leuven) and in Adult Education (VU Brussels), Johan facilitates group and organizational development processes in various profit and social-profit settings, including multi-actor collaboration in different governance domains. His action research on facilitating relational learning in those fields provides an additional basis for teaching group dynamics and group decision-making at the KU Leuven Center for Organisational Psychology and Professional Learning.

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Elizabeth Jameson is an artist who specializes in the intersection of art and science. Her artwork creates interest and curiosity about the imperfect body, and her work serves as an invitation to open up conversations about what it means to have an illness or disability as part of the universal human experience. She is an artist, a writer and a former public interest lawyer; she has written about illness and disability in publications such as the New York Times, British Medical Journal and WIRED magazine. Her work is part of permanent collections including the National Institutes of Health, major universities and medical schools throughout the nation. In 2016, she delivered a TedX talk, ‘Learning to Celebrate and Embrace Our Imperfect Bodies’. Arlene M. Katz is a Taos Associate and mentor of many Taos PhD students. She is also a Lecturer in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and teaches cross-cultural care in their residency programme at the Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA). A published poet, photographer and videographer, Dr Katz uses social poetics (Hearing the patient’s ‘voice’: Toward a social poetics in diagnostic interviews. Social Science Medicine, Katz and Shotter, 1996) to explore the space between health and the humanities. Her work emphasizes the importance of hearing the ‘voice’ of patient and community, making visible the moral dimensions of care and suffering. Former Director of CHA’s Community Councils Project, she worked with community elders and health professionals to address ageism by developing a ‘Council of Elders’ to make visible the lived experience of aging (A council of elders: Creating a multi-voiced dialogue in a community of care. Social Science and Medicine, Katz, Conant et al., 2000). This has developed into a series of participatory ethnographic publications and research projects, co-creating ‘resourceful communities’ of those involved in healthcare. Jenny Lee is the executive director of Allied Media Projects (AMP), where she has worked in various capacities since 2006. Over this period she led the healthy growth and evolution of the organization through facilitative leadership, innovative programme design, and network cultivation. She honed the theory and practice of media-based organizing that is at the core of AMP’s work. Jenny represents AMP within city-wide and national initiatives to advance the fields of media, art, technology and social justice. She currently serves on the leadership team of the national Art x Culture x Social Justice Network. In 2015 she was a Detroit Equity Action Lab fellow and from 2008 to 2012 she served on the national steering committee of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence. Jenny graduated from the University of Michigan with a BA in Comparative Literature in 2005. She is a mom, a dancer and a motorcycle rider. Barbara E. Lewis is a co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Center for Positive Change and a consulting partner of the Corporation for Positive Change. She is widely respected for designing and facilitating creative processes to engage diverse stakeholders in collaborative decisionmaking on everything from community visioning to water resources planning to priority setting. In 2000, experiencing first-hand the authentic connections, joyful experience and shared commitment produced by Appreciative Inquiry (AI), she made AI the primary model of her work. She is co-editor of The Promise of Appreciative Cities: Compelling the Whole to Act, an edition of the Appreciative Inquiry Practitioner. Her work has been recognized with multiple awards – most recently the Greater Good Award from the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) for her contributions to the field. Rolla E. Lewis is Professor Emeritus in Educational Psychology at California State University, East Bay (CSUEB). His current research and scholarly interests include public education advocacy, participatory leadership, and using lifescaping action research practices and participatory inquiry process (PIP) in ways that enhance school communities, student learning power, wellness, and

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connectedness to the living environment. He was School Counseling Coordinator at Portland State University (PSU), 1995–2006, and at CSUEB, 2006–2014. He is an active Associate of the Taos Institute. Dr Lewis has published numerous chapters, articles and poems in books, peer-reviewed journals and other publications, such as R. E. Lewis and P. Winkelman, Lifescaping Practices in School Communities: Implementing Action Research and Appreciative Inquiry (Routledge, 2017). He is the recipient of the Oregon Counseling Association’s Leona Tyler Award for outstanding contributions to professional counselling. He may be reached at [email protected] Victoria Lugo is a psychologist, with a Masters degree in Public Health, and a PhD in Social Sciences (Tilburg University). She is currently on faculty at the Universidad de Caldas in Manizales, Colombia, the director of the Master program in Social Justice and Peace Building and the editor of “Eleuthera”, an international journal about human and social development. Her research interests focus on social constructionist ideas applied to conflict transformation and restoration with survivors from armed conflict. Her doctoral dissertation was titled ‘Disarmed Warriors: Narratives with Youth ex-Combatants in Colombia’. During 2019, she was the national director of the study ‘Creating Political Abilities for Transitions in Local Territories’, a Participatory Action Research project located in six municipalities affected by armed conflict in Colombia. Gro Emmertsen Lund is an independent consultant and researcher and part of NOISE; Network of Independent Scholars in Education. She holds a PhD from Twente University, an MA in Evaluation from the University of Southern Denmark and a BA degree in Educational Science from University College of Southern Denmark. Her research on social exclusionary processes in schools has played a pivotal role in school development and practices of responding to interactive troubles. As a keynote speaker in Denmark, Norway, Estonia, The Faroe Islands and the United States, she shares her research as well as exploring implications for praxis. As a Taos Associate she has arranged international conferences in the Nordic countries. She is a published author and serves as a co-serial editor for the series Relational Pedagogy at the Danish Psychological Publisher. As an organizational consultant Gro works with organizational learning and improvement, leadership, organizational membership and cultural change processes. Ingebjørg Mæland holds a Social Science and Masters degree in Educational Leadership. She has been working for over 40 years with young people in Norway. She started as a social worker in the criminal justice system, moved on to child and adolescent psychiatric services, and then to outreaching services for drug users. She was consulting for the County Office of Education on special needs education before she became the head of YouthInvest 1998, a post she still holds. Ingebjørg has conducted a lot of seminars and workshops at universities and conferences. She has cooperated with the University College of Southeast Norway 2012–2016 and developed a session-based University programme based on Appreciative Inquiry and other strength-based approaches. This study programme is now connected to Norwegian Technology University (NTNU) where Ingebjørg lectures occasionally. She has been a politician for eight years in a local Municipality and was also leader of the Board of Education and Social Challenges. She has been a board member in a bank (Sparebanken Øst) and in the board of public transport. Robert J. Marshak is Distinguished Scholar in Residence Emeritus, School of Public Affairs, American University and has consulted with managers and executives around the world for more than 40 years. Marshak’s contributions to the field of organization development have been recognized by numerous awards, including the Organization Development Network’s

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Lifetime Achievement Award and the Distinguished Educator Award from the Organization Development and Change Division of the Academy of Management. He is the co-editor of Dialogic Organization Development: The Theory and Practice of Transformational Change (2015). His latest book is Dialogic Process Consultation: Generative Meaning Making in Action (2020). A chapter about him and his work is included in The Palgrave Handbook of Organizational Change Thinkers (2017). Natalie B. May is Associate Professor of Research in the University of Virginia School of Medicine and the UVA School of Nursing. She has co-authored several books and chapters on appreciative inquiry in healthcare, including Appreciative Inquiry in Healthcare: Positive Questions to Bring Out Your Best and Choosing Wisdom. She is a founding faculty member in the UVA Center for Appreciative Practice. M. L. Papusa Molina holds a PhD in Educational Leadership – with an emphasis on Women’s Studies, Public Administration and Chicano Studies – and an MA in Education and Development, the University of Iowa. She is the Executive Director and Professor of Inquiry at Kanankil Institute; Guest Professor at the Houston Galveston Institute; and Associate and member of the Relational Research Network of the Taos Institute. Previously she was the Coordinator for Academic Development at Universidad de Oriente; General Director of the National Institute in Mexico; James Watson Irwin Distinguished Chair in Women’s Studies at Hamilton College; Professor in the Feminism and Spirituality MA Program at the San Francisco Institute for Integral Studies; and co-founder of Women Against Racism. Her early publications and research focused on the intersections of gender, race, class and sexuality; recently she has been engaged with issues of inquiry from a collaborative-dialogic perspective. Gerald Monk is Professor in the Department of Counseling and School Psychology at San Diego State University. Gerald is a practising Marriage and Family Therapist and mediator in private practice in San Diego, California. Gerald has a strong interest in the theory and practice of narrative therapy and narrative mediation. Currently, he works with couples and families utilizing a social constructionist orientation and the theoretical developments connected to the affective-discursive turn. His latest co-authored book is Intercultural Counseling: Bridging the Us and Them Divide (Cognella Publishing, 2020). Haesun Moon is a leading expert and educator on coaching and the use of language in transforming workplace dialogues leading to social change. Her academic and professional research in coaching dialogues and pedagogy from the University of Toronto introduced a simple heuristics of interactions, the Dialogic Orientation Quadrant (DOQ), that has transformed the way people coach and learn coaching worldwide. Haesun teaches Brief Coaching at the University of Toronto and serves as Executive Director at the Canadian Centre for Brief Coaching. She resides in Toronto with her family and her beloved dog, Kito. Edgardo Morales-Arandes is a Taos Associate and Professor in the Graduate Psychology Program at the University of Puerto Rico. In his practice as a therapist and consultant, he has explored the uses of performance, imagination, dialogue, and presence as relational resources that can serve to promote generative change in individuals, couples, families, and organizations. As a researcher, he is currently examining the ways through which autoethnography can help students generate meaningful and imaginative personal narratives that can subvert dominant accounts of marginalization, oppression, and enforced silence while highlighting the transformative possibilities of evocative storytelling. Along with his professional,

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academic, and personal pursuits, Edgardo has been accompanied by a practice of mindfulness meditation which he began more than 45 years ago, and which still continues to be a vital presence in his life. He is also Academic Co-Director of the Diploma on the Generative Perspective and Practice co-sponsored by Fundación Interfas in Argentina and the Taos Institute. Murilo S. Moscheta is a licensed psychologist and Professor of Psychology, Gender and Sexuality at the Estate University of Maringá (Brazil). For many years, he has worked in a variety of institutional contexts on the development of relational resources for inclusive healthcare practices with respect to the LGBT population in Brazil. As a researcher, he has worked and published on narrative counselling, dialogue facilitation and healthcare workers’ training in gender and sexuality. He is the founder of DeVERSO, a research and intervention group on sexuality, health and policy, and is associate editor of the Brazilian journal Psicologia em Estudo. His latest book is A Dimensão Política do Pesquisar o Cotidiano [The Political Dimension in Researching Everyday Life] (with Laura Vilela e Souza and Emerson F. Rasera, 2020). Tanya Mudry is a PhD, Psychologist and Assistant Professor in Counselling Psychology at the University of Calgary. She practises from a postmodern, collaborative, family therapy perspective, with a research focus on discursive, practice-oriented and systemic approaches to research. Her research has focused on therapy practices, excessive behaviours, addiction and recovery from addiction, and other health concerns. Among Tanya’s articles and chapters, are ‘The Psychological Underpinnings of Addictive Behaviours’, in N. el-Guebaly and H. Tavares (Eds.), Textbook of Addiction Treatment: International Perspectives, and ‘A Life History of a PIP: Snapshots in Time’, in K. Tomm, S. St. George, D. Wulff and T. Strong (Eds.), Patterns in Interpersonal Interactions: Inviting Relational Understandings for Therapeutic Change. Pavel Nepustil lives and works in Brno, Czech Republic. He is a therapist, supervisor and trainer with a special focus on substance use and addiction from a relational perspective. He co-founded the Recovery Brno group, an association of people with their own or family experience with addiction and the Narativ group that promotes the development of collaborative and dialogical practices in the Czech Republic. He co-established several innovative projects in Brno aimed at social integration, housing and recovery support. His book Recovered without Treatment: The Process of Abandoning Crystal Meth Use without Professional Help is available in Czech and English. Janet Newbury teaches and conducts research in the School of Child and Youth Care at the University of Victoria, where she is also an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Faculty of Graduate Studies. She has worked in group homes, schools, camps, an after-school programme, an orphanage, and a family resource centre, and as a family initiatives worker and family enhancement worker. She currently sits on a number of boards, conducts community-engaged research related to children and families, and is actively involved in a range of intergenerational initiatives. The focus of her research and practice is primarily on fostering the structural conditions that contribute to wellness for children, young people and families. Organizing economic, social and political realities such that barriers can be removed and opportunities created for children and families to thrive has been a key focus of most of her involvements – with a particular interest in contributing to decolonization efforts. Ottar Ness is Professor of Counselling at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and Professor of Mental Healthcare at the University of South-Eastern Norway. He is also a

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senior advisor at the Norwegian Competence Centre for Mental Healthcare. He has been working with collaborative action research projects within the fields of family therapy, mental health and substance abuse recovery and community work. Among his latest books are the co-edited books Action Research in a Relational Perspective together with Lone Hersted and Søren Frimann (Routledge), and Beyond the Therapeutic State together with Del Loewenthal and Billy Hardy (Routledge). Margaret Plews-Ogan is Professor of Medicine at the University of Virginia. As a wisdom researcher, she has developed and implemented innovative curricula and programmes to foster wisdom in medical students and throughout the health system. She has authored several books and chapters on wisdom in healthcare, including Choosing Wisdom: Strategies and Inspiration for Growing Through Life-Changing Difficulties. With Gene Beyt, she edited Wisdom Leadership in Academic Health Science Centers: Leading Positive Change. W. Ellen Raboin is a Senior Organization Development Specialist at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, Stanford Children’s Health, in Palo Alto, California. Her focus is building contextual resources to support the transformation of local and systemic patterns. Her curiosities include relational action networks in care ecosystems constituted by care organizations, family systems, communities, the workplace and government. Ellen draws on theory and practice from organization development, relational social constructionism, therapy and systemic constellation work. She is a Taos Institute Associate, a Co-Founder of the Collaborative Care Learning Network, past Chair of the Board for Ronald McDonald House, San Francisco, and past President of the Bay Area Organization Network. William (Bill) Randall is Professor of Gerontology at St Thomas University, in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. A former Protestant minister, he has been principal co-organizer of three international conferences called Narrative Matters (in 2002, 2004 and 2010), founding director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Narrative (CIRN), and co-editor of the online, open-access, peer-reviewed journal, Narrative Works: Issues, Investigations, and Interventions. With Gary Kenyon and other scholars worldwide, he has helped to pioneer a unique approach to aging known as ‘narrative gerontology’. He is the author or co-author of over 60 publications on this and related topics, including the book Reading Our Lives: The Poetics of Growing Old (Oxford University Press, 2008). His ongoing areas of interest include: wisdom and aging, the links between reminiscence and resilience in later life, the practice of narrative care with older adults, and the role of lifestory work in late life spiritual development. Leah Salter is a systemic psychotherapist and supervisor working in NHS Wales. Leah is a doctoral supervisor and visiting lecturer at the University of Bedfordshire on the Professional Doctorate in Systemic Practice programme, a Director for The Centre for Systemic Studies in Wales, UK, and also teaches with The Family Institute Wales. Leah also works with Friends of the Earth. Dora Fried Schnitman is a PhD and is the founder and director of Fundación Interfas, a think tank on innovation and a postgraduate educational center based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She is an associate of the Taos Institute. She is the founder and director of the international postgraduate program in Generative Perspective and Professional Practice at Fundación Interfas in collaboration with the Taos Institute and CINDE-Universidad de Manizales, Colombia. For the last twenty-five years, she has developed and taught the generative

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perspective as applied to an array of disciplines and practices (therapy, conflict, crisis, war and peace work, community organizing, and others) in different countries. Dora has taught at many postgraduate programs housed at universities and institutes in Latin America, USA, and Europe. She has published nine books, including Nuevos paradigmas, cultura y subjetividad [New paradigms, culture and subjectivity] (Paidós, 1994; in Portuguese Artes Médicas, 1996, WorlShare Books, 2014), Nuevos paradigmas en la resolución de conflictos. Perspectivas y Prácticas [New paradigms in conflict resolution: Perspectives and practices] (Granica, 2000), New Paradigms, Culture and Subjectivity (Hampton Press, 2002; WorldShare Books, 2014), Diálogos para la transformación, Vols. 1, 2 and 3 [Dialogues for transformation, Vols. 1, 2 and 3] (WorldShare Books, 2015-2017), and over one hundred and thirty articles and book chapters in five languages. Jasmina Sermijn is a clinical psychologist, systemic therapist, supervisor and trainer. Her interest areas focus on the practice of narrative and collaborative systemic therapy, postmodern philosophy, including especially the way identity is narratively co-constructed in and through interaction and dialogue. In her PhD dissertation she researched the interaction between psychiatric diagnoses and the co-construction of the self. She has published several books and articles on that topic. Gail Simon is Programme Director for the Professional Doctorate in Systemic Practice at the University of Bedfordshire and runs writing groups for reflexive practitioners. Gail co-founded The Pink Practice in London, UK, which pioneered systemic social constructionist therapy for the lesbian, gay, trans and queer communities. She has edited books on systemic practice and research and is editor of Murmurations: Journal of Transformative Systemic Practice. Koen Sips studied Organizational Psychology and worked as a research assistant at the KU Leuven (Belgium). He carried out research and consulted on the dynamics of organization development and management, with a special interest in teamwork, self-management and new organizational forms. Koen worked in various national and international projects on multi-actor collaboration and complex socio-technical problems, with a focus on sustainable natural resources. He currently works as an independent consultant and action researcher at Point Consulting Group and Cycloop. He is a regular guest lecturer at KU Leuven, University of Antwerp and Nijenrode Business University. Sally St. George is Professor in the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Calgary and a Family Therapist and Clinical Supervisor at the Calgary Family Therapy Centre. She conducts workshops on family therapy and qualitative inquiry. Sally serves on the Boards of Directors for the Taos Institute, an organization dedicated to developing social constructionist practices worldwide, and the Global Partnership for Transformative Social Work, which involves co-developing transformative practices in social work education. For the last 20 years, Sally has worked on The Qualitative Report and is currently Senior Editor for this online journal. Jacob Storch has more than 20 years of consulting experience and is an experienced scholar. Today he works as a practice researcher combining his experiences in consulting and research in addressing the most complex challenges within the public sector in the Nordic countries. He holds a doctoral degree in applied social science and is the CEO and founder of Joint Action Analytics, as well as an adjunct associate professor at Aarhus University. He has a long list of

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publications in international journals and has authored six books on leadership, consulting and welfare development. Tom Strong is a professor and counsellor-educator who recently retired from the University of Calgary. He writes on the collaborative, critical and practical potentials of discursive approaches to psychotherapy – most recently on concept critique and development (particularly with respect to therapy and research), and critical mental health. Among Tom’s books are Medicalizing Counselling: Issues and Tensions, Patterns in Interpersonal Interactions (coedited with Karl Tomm, Sally St. George and Dan Wulff), Social Constructionism: Sources and Stirrings in Theory and Practice (co-authored with Andy Lock) and Furthering Talk (with David Paré). Tharsi Taillieu is Professor Emeritus of Work and Organization Psychology associated with the University of Tilburg (Netherlands) and the KU Leuven (Belgium). He carries out research concerning processes of cooperation and collaboration (social learning, managing of interdependencies) in interorganizational networks such as business alliances, co-makerships and public–private partnerships. Lately, his focus of attention has shifted towards similar dynamics in the management of natural resources and transitions towards sustainability. Erin W. Taylor is an Associate with ICW Consulting and is a professional educator specializing in bridging food security and education. Erin’s work and interests focus on using land, food and facilitation to build and heal people’s relationships with place, identity and human systems. She works from the principles of anti-oppression movements, and both school-based and outdoor education. She brings these approaches together in her work as a facilitator and in helping organizations use their core values to shape design decisions. In addition to her work with ICW she consults independently to non-profits on both organizational and curriculum development, works as a middle school teacher in public schools, and is the Food Education Manager at Colorado Springs Food Rescue. She holds a BA in Community Health and a Master of Arts in Teaching, both from Tufts University. Karl Tomm is Professor of Psychiatry in the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary. He is also the Director of the Calgary Family Therapy Centre which he founded in 1973. He is deeply interested in the application of systems theory, narrative theory, social constructionism, bringforthism, and second order cybernetics to therapy. He has focused on clarifying different patterns of interpersonal interaction, different kinds of questions therapists can ask, the influence on therapists of the distinctions they make regarding their clients, the effects of social injustice on families, and on explicating the possible therapeutic and counter therapeutic effects of the interviewing process itself. Amanda Trosten-Bloom is a Principal with the Corporation for Positive Change and cofounder of the Rocky Mountain Center for Positive Change: consultancies dedicated to furthering applying the principles and advancing the practices of Appreciative Inquiry (AI) and related transformational processes. She is a widely acclaimed consultant, master trainer, author and pioneer in the use of AI for high engagement, whole system change. Her award-winning work in the areas of strategic planning, culture transformation and organizational excellence spans the business, non-profit and government sectors. Along with Diana Whitney she has coauthored four books, namely, The Power of Appreciative Inquiry, Appreciative Leadership, Appreciative Team Building and the Encyclopedia of Positive Questions. In addition, she has written more than a dozen articles and book chapters.

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Paul N. Uhlig is a cardiothoracic surgeon, and associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Kansas School of Medicine – Wichita, Kansas. His professional interests include collaborative care with active engagement of patients and families, interprofessional education, healthcare simulation/experiential learning, and patient safety. His research and teaching utilize social science methods to study and transform healthcare practice culture. He is a Co-Founder of the Collaborative Care Learning Network and an Associate of the Taos Institute. Ilene C. Wasserman is President of ICW Consulting, has over 30 years of experience in Leadership Development, Executive Coaching and Organizational Consulting. Ilene helps her clients leverage multiple dimensions of domestic and global diversity by enhancing communication and collaboration. Ilene takes a strengths-based, action learning approach, aligning goals, behaviours and actions. Consultations have included retreats for leadership teams, developing internal work teams and leading large strategic change initiatives. In addition to consulting and coaching, Ilene teaches at the graduate level. She is a Senior Leadership Fellow at the McNulty Leadership Program at the Wharton School, an executive coach with Wharton Executive Education and faculty at PCOM. Ilene holds a PhD in Human and Organizational Development, and a Masters in Counselling Psychology and Social Work. She is the author of Communicating Possibilities: A Brief Introduction to the Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM) and Peer Coaching at Work: Principles and Practices. Peter Whitehouse is a Professor of Neurology and former/current professor of Psychiatry, Psychology, Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, Bioethics, History, Nursing and Organizational Behaviour at Case Western Reserve University, Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto, Honorary Research Fellow at Oxford University and Founding President of Intergenerational Schools International. He received his undergraduate degree from Brown University and MD-PhD (Psychology) from The Johns Hopkins University, followed by a Fellowship in Neuroscience and Psychiatry and a faculty appointment at Hopkins. His current main foci are on ecopsychosocial models of brain health and aging and the role of the arts and humanities in health. Peter considers himself a wising-up, intergenerative, transdisciplinary, action-oriented scholar and emerging artist. And he believes in the magic of relationships too. Diana Whitney is an internationally acclaimed consultant, writer and inspirational speaker working at the forefront of the fields of dialogic organization development and positive social change. Dr Whitney is best known for her work applying Appreciative Inquiry and Appreciative Leadership to strategic large-scale organization culture change. She is an executive advisor, founder of the Corporation for Positive Change and co-founder of the Taos Institute. She is an award-winning author of 20 books and dozens of chapters and articles. Her books include The Power of Appreciative Inquiry: A Practical Guide to Positive Change; Appreciative Leadership: Focus on What Works to Drive Winning Performance and Build a Thriving Organization; and most recently, Thriving Women, Thriving World: An Invitation to Dialogue, Healing and Inspired Actions. Michael Williams is Head of Guidance and Counselling at Edgewater College, a co-educational, multicultural high school in Auckland, New Zealand. He first used Undercover Antibullying Teams in 2004 and has since used them successfully over 60 times. His partnership with John Winslade goes back nearly 20 years and together they have written many journal articles on Undercover Anti-bullying Teams and co-authored Safe and Peaceful Schools in 2012.

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Michael has a Masters degree in Education from the University of Waikato, the place where their friendship began. He continues to speak nationally and internationally on topics related to narrative approaches to conflict resolution and reintegration after disciplinary actions, and consults with schools about whole school approaches to creating safe and peaceful school communities. Morgan Mann Willis makes room for media-based organizing work to thrive. Morgan is the past associate director at Allied Media Projects, where she produced the Allied Media Conference for seven years. As an independent consultant, Morgan works with creative projects and community-driven organizations to clarify their vision, strengthen leadership and make room for them to sustainably flourish. In 2016 she edited bklyn boihood’s IPPY-award winning anthology, Outside the XY: Queer, Black and Brown Masculinity. In 2017, Morgan was the inaugural Roxane Gay fellow at the Jack Jones Literary Arts Retreat, where she worked on her forthcoming novel, Politics from Nowhere. More often than not her heart is camping in Idlewild, Michigan and with her two nieces. John Winslade is an Emeritus Professor of Counseling at California State University, San Bernardino. He was formerly Director of Counselor Education at the University of Waikato in New Zealand and Coordinator of Counseling Programs at California State University San Bernardino. Also at California State University San Bernardino he was the Associate Dean of the College of Education. He is the co-author of 12 books on narrative mediation and narrative practice, as well as many articles and has taught workshops on narrative practice in 25 countries. Since he is now retired, he lives in New Zealand to be closer to his family. Stanley L. Witkin is Emeritus Professor of Social Work at the University of Vermont and an Adjunct Professor in the School of Social Policy & Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the co-founder (with Dennis Saleebey) and current president of the Global Partnership for Transformative Social Work (www.gptsw.net), an organization that uses social constructionist and related dialogues to explore ways of enriching relationships that support the generation of just and sustainable futures. In addition to several journal publications and book chapters, recent books include: Transforming Social Work: Social Constructionist Perspectives on Contemporary and Enduring Issues (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), Narrating Social Work Through Autoethnography (Columbia University Press, 2014) and Social Construction and Social Work Practice: Interpretations and Innovations (Columbia University Press, 2011). Presently, Stanley lives in Charlottesville, Virginia with his spouse, Frannie, and their precocious dog, Pekoe. Dan Wulff is a Professor in the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Calgary and has served as a Family Therapist and Clinical Supervisor at the Calgary Family Therapy Centre for the past 12 years. He has recently incorporated the examination of societal discourses and the impacts of material life conditions into his work with families. Dan also serves on the Boards of Directors for the Taos Institute and the Global Partnership for Transformative Social Work as well as serving as a Co-Editor of The Qualitative Report. Dan teaches graduate-level social work practice and research courses and has taught post-structural family therapy at Blue Quills College and Grande Prairie Regional College, both in northern Alberta. Danielle P. Zandee is Professor of Sustainable Organizational Development at Nyenrode Business Universiteit in the Netherlands. She obtained her PhD in Organizational Behavior at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. As a scholar-practitioner, Danielle facilitates

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change and conducts action research for social innovation in settings like Dutch healthcare organizations, municipalities and the fire service. She does so from a critical appreciative stance with a keen interest in the micro-dynamics of change. Danielle has published about appreciative inquiry as action research, organizational discourse and institutional change, and about how organization development can help handle the grand challenges of our time. Danielle is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science and the Journal of Management Inquiry. She is an active member of the Academy of Management and Past Chair of its Organization Development & Change Division.

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Editors’ Introduction Dialogues on the social construction of knowledge, beliefs and values have played a catalytic role in scholarly life for over 50 years. They have represented a liberation from a narrow scientism, a sensitizing to the ideological dimensions of scholarly work, and an invitation to boundary-breaking exploration. However, the reach of constructionist ideas has extended far beyond the halls of academia, and indeed, stirred the interests of professionals and lay persons around the world. New dialogues have sprung to life within and across such professions as psychotherapy, education, organizational consulting, and medicine. Inspiration has been added by groups engaged in community building, civic governance and conflict reduction. Most important, these dialogues have yielded a massive harvest of innovative practices for enhancing human well-being. Such practices are the focus of the present Handbook. Our purposes are several. At the outset, we aim to offer an array of conceptually related and innovative practices to practitioners, scholars and the public in diverse fields across the world. The hope is not only to provide information, but to offer resources that may enrich existing activities and initiatives in both professional and daily life. Further, readers will find an implicit invitation throughout this volume to further innovation. Social constructionist ideas themselves, emphasize that meaning making is a continuous process of co-creating. For readers this means that the practices described and explained in this Handbook are not so much ‘how-to-do-it’ recipes for action, as invitations to borrow, hybridize and reformulate as needed in one’s unique circumstances. Finally, the Handbook furnishes an historical marking of a period in which a significant shift in the intellectual world has been accompanied by a related watershed in social innovation. We have embarked on this project realizing that there has been no single venue at present for scholars and practitioners to find a concise, clear and comprehensive description of social construction and its contributions to various fields of endeavour. Our hope is that the offerings in this volume remedy this void and provide rich and innovative resources that will assist the reader in orienting his/her own practice within a constructionist stance. We focus here on six domains of practice: Research, Therapeutic Professions, Organizational Development, Education, Healthcare and Community Practice. And, we feel confident that, embedded within each of these areas, those working within other professional fields such as governance, social justice, etc., will find inspiration for their own practice.

ORGANIZATION AND CONTENT The Handbook has benefited from the insights of an International Advisory Board. The Advisory Board members are senior authors, editors and practitioners who have contributed to the field of social construction. We wish to thank them for their insights, suggestions, and recommendations to us, as editors, in the development of this volume. Their names are listed in a special section at the beginning of this volume.

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The Handbook begins with an introductory chapter by Kenneth J. Gergen, a major contributor to the field. This chapter provides the theoretical background and context for the subsequent chapters. As mentioned, chapters are clustered into six domains of practice, each one comprising a section of the book. Within each section there is a broad offering of resources. Authors address specific issues, contexts and professional positions, thereby providing rich resources for the reader. No template was given for the structure of the chapters; authors were asked to design their chapters according to their own intellectual and aesthetic preferences. This allows for a great deal of variety in the book, with their chapters designed to benefit its topic. Each of the sections was overseen by a Section Editor who shepherded the chapters from author invitation through various drafts and revisions. Our Section Editors are the handmaidens of this Handbook, and responsible, to a great extent, for the high quality of the chapters they supervised. As editors of this volume, we wish to publicly thank them for their commitment and creativity in providing such a bounty of practices. Section Editors also contributed an introduction to their sections, which elaborates the major themes of each chapter. We offer a short summary of each main section below.

Section 2: Research Practices (Mary Gergen, Section Editor) Social constructionist ideas have raised significant epistemological, methodological and ethical issues and have inspired new ways of understanding and conducting research. Chapters in this part cover the topics of: innovation in research, collaborative action research, communities of inquiry/practice, research as performance, research as everyday life, dialogic research, and research focused on human–non-human relations. The naming of specific research practices may be distinguished from the naming of other such practices, however the reader will find all methods described in this section share commonalities in the form of collaboration, multivocality and connection to those whom the research is intended to support.

Section 3: Practices in Therapeutic Professions (Dan Wulff and Sally St. George, Section Editors) Human challenges faced by the different caring professions have identified innovative solutions through reframing concepts such as diagnosis, intervention, treatment, cure and professional expertise. In this section of the book, chapters cover collaborative therapy, narrative therapy, generative dialogues, social therapeutics, family therapy, social work, group work, and community therapy. This section includes the work of psychologists, therapists and social workers.

Section 4: Practices in Organizational Development (Diana Whitney, Section Editor) In a fast-changing world, organizations need to quickly adapt to remain relevant. Flexibility, creativity and innovation play a fundamental role in this process. Constructionist perspectives address these challenges through their emphasis on promoting relationships and engagement. In this section of the book, chapters address appreciative inquiry, dialogic organizational development, creativity and design, relational leading, relational coaching, relational ethics, conflict reduction, multi-party decision-making, and organizational consulting. Again, although in a wide variety of settings authors focus on different types of organizations, a great deal of overlap can be seen among the various practices, based on the social constructionist framework that guides their activities.

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Section 5: Practices in Education (Thalia Dragonis, Section Editor) Schools are powerful places to create learning communities that facilitate the development of all participants. Collaborative communities can be achieved by promoting conversational and relational practices in schools. In this section of the book, chapters treat such topics as collaborative and appreciative pedagogy, relational evaluation, school bullying, building school culture, school counselling, minority inclusion, whole systems change, youth at risk, critical education and action learning. The overall tone of these offerings is hopeful and full of potential for achieving innovations in schools, without great expense or overly elaborate interventions. Cultivating an orientation of possibility (as opposed to constraint), based on social constructionist viewpoints, serves as the springboard for progressive changes in a student’s capacities for success in school.

Section 6: Practices in Healthcare (Murilo S. Moscheta, Section Editor) The technological development of medicine, combined with the strengthening of biomedical discourse jeopardize the intrinsically relational character of healthcare. The constructionist emphasis on meaning, collaboration and appreciation adds promising possibilities for improving patients’ and health professionals’ quality of life. In this section of the book, chapters treat such topics as narrative medicine, collaborative healthcare, community action for health, appreciative healthcare, medical education, aging, sexual diversity, play, addiction and bereavement. This section of the book is vital to the efforts of the medical establishment today to reorient patient care so that it is centred on the patient’s interests and values rather than on the expertise and power position of the medical authorities.

Section 7: Community Practices (Marie L. Hoskins, Section Editor) Political disputes, polarization of ideas and various forms of conflict occur daily around the world. It is necessary to enhance the power of dialogue, to embrace differences, and to view conflict as an opportunity to construct new realities. In this section of the book, chapters discuss narrative mediation, inclusion practices, placemaking in communities, social welfare, community conferencing, transitional societies, intergenerativity in communities, and practices of religious communities. Scarcely anything in our political and social worlds right now is more important than creating practices for conflict reduction and mutual understanding. A social constructionist framework encourages forms of dialogue and interchange that facilitate the potential for finding peaceful resolutions to our persistent problems and conflicts. As editors, our hope is that the enormous riches offered by this chorus of contributors will serve to advance social constructionist approaches to knowledge building and practice in the world. We dearly hope that readers of this volume, whom we envision as researchers, theorists and practitioners – students and professionals – will be inspired to further develop these ideas in a world that sorely needs new resources for creating more just and equitable societies and new potentials for saving the planet itself.

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SECTION I

Introduction

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1 Constructionist Theory and the Blossoming of Practice Kenneth J. Gergen

The stunning growth of the natural sciences in the 20th century was accompanied by an unbridled optimism. It was just such optimism that also sparked the development of the ‘social sciences’. If inquiry in the natural sciences could lead to the eradication of disease, the harnessing of energy, air flight, and powerful weaponry, one could only imagine the potentials of the social sciences. Could we not cure mental illness, ensure effective education, create profitable organizations, eradicate war, and more? The logic for realizing such societal gains was based on a positivist model of science in which knowledge is established in the basic or pure sciences – such as chemistry, biology, and physics – and then made available to society for broad application. With increased knowledge of the brain, for example, new practices would be anticipated in medicine, education, aviation, athletics, and so on. Thus, in the social sciences, disciplines such as psychology, economics, and sociology could hope to generate fundamental knowledge of broad

applicability. Little now remains of the early optimism. Neither the voluminous theoretical offerings nor the staggering accumulation of research findings in the social sciences have contributed significantly to societal well-being. During the waning years of the 20th century, a range of conversations across the academic community began to challenge positivist assumptions about the nature of scientific truth, objectivity, and value-neutral knowledge. These dialogues ultimately gave rise to what is now characterized as a social constructionist (or constructivist)1 orientation to knowledge. As deliberations on this orientation have matured and made their way into circles of professional practice, the results have been astonishing. A spirited wave of innovation has swept across the professions, across many regions of the world, and its force has continued to the present. Early innovations in fields of therapy, education, and organizational development were soon followed by new practices in social

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work, law, counseling, cartography, practical theology, community building, and conflict reduction. These were followed by developments in social justice, healthcare, and welfare programs. Also noticeable were the ways in which innovations carried across borders of practice. New practices in law drew from developments in therapy; new welfare programs found resources in organizational development, and so on. Further, energizing dialogues between the communities of ‘knowledge makers’ and ‘practitioners’ emerged. The concept of ‘scholar practitioners’ is now a commonplace phrase. How are we to understand this mutually enriching relationship between social constructionist ideas and the flowering of innovative practices? What is it about the constructionist dialogues that practitioners have found so inspiring? Can we anticipate a continuing harvest of such magnitude; are there forces that threaten a sustained prosperity? It is to just such questions that the remainder of this chapter is devoted.

SCANNING THE CONTOURS OF CONSTRUCTIONIST THEORY To appreciate the dynamic relationship between constructionist theory and innovations in practice, let us briefly return to its origins in the late 20th century. More extensive accounts can be found in a variety of sources (Arbib and Hesse, 1986; Burr, 2004; Gergen, 1994; 2015; Hacking, 1999; Hjelm, 2014; Lock and Strong, 2010; McNamee and Hosking, 2012; Potter, 1996; Weinberg, 2014). However, it is this very variety that calls attention to constructionism as an unfolding dialogue as opposed to a fixed theory with credited authorship. In general, however, one may trace the more immediate roots to the intellectual tsunami of the late 20th century, variously termed postmodern or post-foundational. Placed in question were the promises of unlimited progress

through science. Such promises depended largely on the belief that because of their reliance on systematic and unbiased observation, the sciences could provide objective and value-free knowledge of the world. Armed with such knowledge, humankind could thus move beyond armchair speculation and ideological bias to predict and control the forces of nature. The harnessing of electrical energy, the curing of deadly diseases, and the developing of air flight were among the many illustrations of potential success. Despite these gains, the power of the natural science approach was not without limitations. Three lines of broadly shared critique played a major role in the decline of faith in the natural science approach, and the development of a social constructionist consciousness. The first movement centers around value critique, or the unmasking of claims to value-neutral knowledge. As argued, all descriptions and explanations of the world – including those of the sciences – are saturated with values. Whether acknowledged or not, there are social and political ramifications of all truth posits. For example, research that differentiates between male and female genders discriminates against gender fluid people; psychological research lends itself to an ideology of individualism; economic research emphasizes the importance of wealth; and the natural sciences themselves – lodged in the assumption of a material world – denigrate those whose lives are anchored by religious and spiritual beliefs. Within the scholarly world, such commentaries have played a major role, from early Marxist and feminist movements, to the work of Foucault (1979; 1980), and onward to include the critical voices of virtually every marginalized minority. The second line of critique centers around language as representation. The positivist vision of science was largely committed to the view that language can function more or less like a picture or mirror to nature. With developments in semiotic theory in general and literary deconstruction in particular

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(Derrida, 1976), attention was variously drawn to the ways in which conventions of language precede all claims to knowledge. Whatever nature may be, its representation will inevitably be dominated by traditions of representation. For example, to describe the world in English language will demand the use of nouns. Regardless of the nature of the world, in relying on nouns the description will automatically segment the world into separate units (persons, places, or things). Or, to make a compelling description of events over time (for example, Darwinian theory, or an account of child development) will take the form of a narrative. Such proposals are also congenial with Wittgenstein’s (1953) view of language as a social practice, with differing linguistic traditions reflecting different ways of life. Words are not maps or pictures of the world as it is, but ways of representing the world within particular communities. What we might commonly index as ‘a person’, might variously be described as a mammal, a living system, a father, a schizophrenic, or a sinner, depending on the language community from which one is drawing. The third significant line of critique counters the philosophic claims to logical foundations of science with a social account of knowledge making. Of major importance here was the 1962 publication of Thomas Kuhn’s The structure of scientific revolutions. Kuhn portrayed normal science as guided by paradigms – an array of assumptions and practices – shared by particular communities. What we view as progress in science, he proposed, is not the result of increasing accuracy in understanding of the world, but the product of shifting paradigms. In effect, we make progress not by ‘seeing better’ so much as ‘seeing differently’. This critique of foundational science was further buttressed by a welter of inquiries demonstrating the way in which what we take to be ‘facts’ are established through an elaborate and unsystematic process of social negotiation (see for example, Feyerabend, 1975; Latour and Woolgar, 1979). Historians added to the argument by

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illuminating how the very concepts of objectivity and truth have emerged and changed across cultures and times (Daston and Galison, 2010; Shapin, 1995). Together these three lines of reasoning converge toward a view of knowledge as socially constructed. Knowledge making is understood then, as a social process invariably reflecting the values, assumptions, and ways of life of the time and culture. Or more generally, what we take to be true as opposed to false, objective as opposed to subjective, scientific as opposed to mythological, rational as opposed to irrational, moral as opposed to immoral is brought into being by communal activity. This does not at all eliminate the importance of truth claims, but invites cognizance of the time, place, and communities for whom they have value (or not). When flying across the country, it is wise to trust the knowledge of the community of engineers who designed the plane, and to vilify anyone who intentionally falsifies their account of the aircraft’s safely. Constructionist ideas invite, then, our replacing of the traditional image of a universal, value-free knowledge, with an orientation of reflective pragmatism. What we should ask of various knowledge-making communities, is what they offer to the world and for whom these offerings are valuable or not. These themes will reverberate throughout this chapter and this Handbook.

THEORY AND THE PROVISIONING OF PRACTICE With the contours of a constructionist orientation in place, we return to the question of how to account for the enormous watershed in professional practices accompanying these dialogues. Here it is first helpful to consider some of the reasons why the practical contributions of positivist social science were so unremarkable. At the outset, the alliance of social science with positivist foundationalism, carried with it a range of restrictions.

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These included limits on the aims of inquiry, assumptions about the nature of the subject matter, the relationship between the observer and the observed, the acceptable forms of explanation, and methods of research. Such restrictions in what constitutes knowledge and its acquisition ultimately limited the potentials of the social sciences in terms of their offerings to society. For example, the distinction between knowledge making and its application posed a major obstacle to practical innovation. On the one hand, this meant that the research community could proceed in generating and testing theories of sweeping scope, without regard to societal utility. Programs of experimentation, along with complex sampling and statistical procedures, were placed in the service of theories without obvious application. The challenge of application was left to outsiders, often viewed by the research community as parasitic. Thus, for social practitioners such as therapists, organizational leaders, social workers, human service workers, and so on, the academic community had little to offer. And too, should practitioners take the initiative in exploring the scientific offerings, they would frequently encounter an impenetrable thicket of ‘jargon’. They were not the intended audience. The hope that basic social science could contribute to flourishing societal practices began to fade. The emergence of more practically focused social sciences – such as education, organizational behavior, and social work – did speak more directly to societal needs. However, inquiry in these domains was largely conducted within a positivist paradigm, and thus subject to positivist restrictions and assumptions. For example, one might propose a theory of organizational leadership, and proceed to generate data to support the claims. Counter-claims might soon appear, accompanied by relevant statistics. Conflicts would then ensue regarding the methodological purity of the various findings, the clarity and coherence of the conceptual claims, and so on. More research, more conceptual

distinctions … and the route to application was occluded. Let us turn, then, to the relationship between a constructionist orientation to knowledge and its generative relationship to societal practices. We focus in particular on five animating forces.

Liberation from Authority Perhaps the chief incitement to innovation resulted from the constructionist challenge to authority. Whether it be philosophical foundations, rational structures, ethical principles, bodies of evidence, the demands of tradition, or divine inspiration, all claims to authority were thrust into question. An enormous literature began to emerge pointing out the socially constructed character of takenfor-granted realities, both in the natural and social sciences. One had reason to ask of any authoritative pronouncement, from whose standpoint, in what context, for what purposes, at what point in culture or time in history, and with what ideological political implications is this given? It wasn’t that such claims should thus be dismissed, as indeed all counter-claims were equally without foundations. And for many purposes, one might well wish to sustain existing traditions. However, the removal of any fundamental grounds of legitimacy provided an open door to innovation. If existing traditions of understanding are limiting, oppressive, or contrary to favored values, how else could one proceed? Could one create practices that would realize one’s valued goals? In the social sciences, a pervasive sense of ‘what if …?’ thus became evident. New forms of pedagogy began to emerge, often emphasizing dialogue and collaboration as opposed to mastering the words of authoritative texts. The ideological and political implications of traditional texts were also thrown into question, thus paving the way for more varied, inclusive, and individualized curricula. Perhaps the most radical outcomes of

Constructionist Theory and the Blossoming of Practice

asking ‘what if …?’ emerged in the domain of research methods. Because natural science research had become progressively identified with positivist foundationalism, there had been strong demands for the newly emerging social sciences to adopt positivist methodologies. Such methods were markers of scientific legitimacy. Thus, systematic measurement, statistical tests, and controlled experiments, for example, had become defining criteria of research. However, liberated from positivist foundationalism, imaginations were free to soar. Such wide-ranging creative efforts were often collected under the misleading but useful banner of ‘qualitative research’. One indicator of the magnitude of this growth was the success of Denzin and Lincoln’s pivotal volume, The handbook of qualitative research. The book was first published in 1994, but so energetic and innovative were the practices that were inspired, by 2018 the work had gone into its fifth edition. These adventures in the social sciences were echoed as well across many domains of social practice. In the mental health professions, for example, the authority of diagnostic labeling came under attack, along with the presumption of the therapist or psychiatrist as ‘the knower.’ Why, it was asked, were the understandings and values of the client or patient so frequently dismissed? As feminists added, the power structure of psychiatry leaves female clients in the position of depending on a male authority to know more about their mental lives than they themselves. Similarly, in healthcare, questions were raised about the way doctors were so often deaf to the values and experiences of their patients. In the organizational world, the shortcomings of top-down control became topics of intense discussion. The knowledge of top management could be narrow, and oblivious to the ideas, needs, and values within the organization and the surrounding culture. Such critique opened the way to developing a new range of more collaboratively based practices, the focus of later chapters in this Handbook.

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Inclusion and the Energizing of Innovation While the constructionist dialogues are broadly liberating in their implications, they do not give rise to a ‘new truth’ to which everyone must subscribe. Acknowledged are the multiple perspectives, values, and ways of life created by the peoples of the world, and the rich potentials of sharing. The advantages of this inclusion for the development of professional practices cannot be overstated. There is first a farewell to the ingurgitating conflict among various schools, disciplines, guilds, and the like for ontological primacy. The longstanding conflicts within the world of psychotherapy are illustrative. Early psychoanalytic claims to ‘truth about the mind’ gave way to a succession of battles among schools – Jungian, Rogerian, Behaviorist, systemic, cognitive, and biomedical among them – for preeminent authority. Similar battles may be found in the fields of education, organizational management, counseling, and so on. Such battles have only been intensified by the demands for quantifiable evidence. From a constructionist perspective, however, schools of practice represent different forms of understanding, with different values, goals, and pragmatic potentials. The chief question then, is not which most accurately reflects the nature of the world, but when, where, how, and for whom might an orientation be useful. Here we replace a tradition of either/ or with an invitation to curiosity. For example, are there enclaves for whom classic psychoanalysis is perfectly suited, while others might benefit from positive regard, and still others from a reinforcement regimen? And does this not open the possibility that indigenous healing or spiritual traditions might be ‘just right’ for certain people at certain times? We move, then, from the establishment of self-contained and defensive enclaves of practice, to thriving in an ecology of possibilities (Anderson, 1997; McNamee and Gergen, 1992).

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It is just such a context that also invites the crossing of traditional boundaries among disciplines and professions. When one’s concerns are primarily pragmatic, there is no single tradition of understanding or practice from which resources may be drawn. In opening a sea of possibilities so are the creative energies set in motion. In program evaluation, for example, one might think beyond traditional measurement practices, to include phenomenological reports, focus groups, and participant observation practices. Or, a practitioner concerned with conflict reduction, might build a new form of dialogue inspired by practices in organizational development, education, and collaborative action research. A therapist whose practice has traditionally relied on verbal exchange may find it inspiring to incorporate Buddhist meditational practices and role playing. In effect, with an open ear to the many voices of the world, a new wave of innovative practices is spawned.

Values in Action As outlined, in challenging the assumption of value-free knowledge, the constructionist dialogues thrust issues of human value back into the center of social science concern. Where positivist science had seen moral and political values as biasing research outcomes, scholars began to place values at the center of their efforts. Scholarly work could serve as a vehicle for social transformation. One of the most visible results was the emergence of curricula in critical studies – in education, psychology, economics, management studies, sociology, cultural theory, race theory, social work, and nursing among them. These were accompanied by relevant innovations in research methods, including critical discourse analysis, feminist methodology, critical text work, decolonized methodologies, and more. For some scholars, the chief goal of qualitative research is equated with social justice.

As this recognition of the values inherent in otherwise commonplace practices circulated among practitioners, a new source of innovation was unleashed. No longer, for example, were therapists content to embrace a therapeutic practice by virtue of its evidence base. Rather, they pressed on to develop new forms of therapy that might favor a more just, compassionate, or egalitarian society. Practices aimed at supporting and empowering women, minorities, and immigrants, are illustrative, along with practices that legitimated spiritual beliefs, and non-Western ontologies. Both narrative therapy (White and Epston, 1990), and social therapy (Holzman, 2014) indeed functioned as consciousness-raising practices, tracing individual ills to societal problems. In many schools, these ideological energies gave rise to new practices of inclusion, critical pedagogy, restorative justice, environmentalist curricula, and anti-bullying activities. For many businesses, a range of new initiatives began to emerge, variously invested in environmental sustainability, social equality, and the well-being of the laborers who served them. The Business as an Agent of World Benefit initiative is emblematic, in its efforts to support just such activities.

Regenerating Conceptual Tools The constructionist dialogues liberated both academics and practitioners from the demands of authority, invited appreciation of multiple traditions, and opened the way to cementing values to innovation. At the same time, however, the constructionist dialogues drew from across multiple intellectual traditions – philosophy, literary theory, political theory, rhetoric, symbolic anthropology, micro-sociology, and the history of science among them. Most all these sources were absent from mainstream social science itself. Thus, as constructionist dialogues spilled across the professions, so was a rich repository of new logics and concepts introduced.

Constructionist Theory and the Blossoming of Practice

The concept of narrative is illustrative. While largely a child of literary theory, the idea of narrative played an important role in constructionist dialogues. As outlined earlier, in representing the world in spoken and written language one must follow the conventions or rules of language itself. There are strong conventions for describing events across time. Informally, these are conventions for telling a good or plausible story; most relevant, the rules of narrative are pivotal to our constructions of the world. The logic of narrative construction has subsequently made its way across the worlds of practice. Narrative therapy (Freedman and Combs, 1996), narrative mediation (Monk and Winslade, 2013), and narrative medicine (Charon, 2006), are among the most obvious derivatives. Closely related, the concept of the storyteller has also made its way into practices of pain management, organizational leadership, educational pedagogy, and peace building. Yet, while the constructionist dialogues have unleashed energies of innovation in professional practice, the relationship between scholarship and practice is also synergistic. Innovations in practice have also fueled the fires of theory. As constructionist scholars have directed their attention increasingly to consequential action, often working sideby-side with societal change makers, new theorizing has been inspired. For example, in just this way one may justifiably understand developments in the theory of coordinated management of meaning (Pearce and Cronen, 1980; Wasserman and Fisher-Yoshida, 2017), dialogical self theory (Hermans and Kempen, 1993), positioning theory (Harré, and Moghaddam, 2003), relational theory (Gergen, 2009), performance and arts-based research theory (Gergen and Gergen, 2012; Leavy, 2019), actor-network theory (Latour, 2005), practice theory of leading (Raelin, 2016), process theory of organizations (Lawrence and Phillips, 2019), embodiment theory (Shotter, 2010) and feminist constructionist theory (M. Gergen, 2001). The same may be said for a plethora of powerful new concepts, such as the

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discursive mind, radical presence, generative moments, relational responsibility, withness as opposed to aboutness, poetic activism, and phonetic capacity. Increasingly, however, this cross-fertilization between scholar and practitioner groups becomes an ever-blurring line. The term scholar practitioner does not specify the location of one’s occupation.

The Return of Optimism As outlined, the optimism that sparked the early development of the social sciences can be traced in part to the promise that scientific research could solve social problems. We have glimpsed some of the reasons that the sciences could not realize these promises. However, the logics of positivist science also came to inform the attempts of practicing professionals to bring about change. One of the central logics has proved deeply problematic for practitioners, namely the logic of causality. As most educated professionals could agree, an individual’s actions are neither random nor the result of voluntary whims but are determined by conditions – either environmental or hereditary. As proposed, our social institutions such as education, government, and business are similarly governed by causal conditions. Thus, as the logic goes, in order to bring about change, one must devise means of controlling or manipulating the causal conditions. Among the most visible illustrations of this orientation are Fordism in the world of work, the behaviorist movement in therapy, curriculum-centered education, the use of punishment to reduce crime, and the new public management practices of today. Yet, while the logic is compelling, the results have been largely disappointing. In large measure, the problem with a causal approach has stemmed from the resistance and/or cleverness of those whose actions are being ‘improved’ or ‘corrected’. In the attempt to change others, a distance is often placed between the change agent and the

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‘object’ of change. The former may be seen as coercive, manipulative, calloused, and dehumanizing. Feelings of resentment, suspicion, and distrust may be set in motion, triggering the development of counter-strategies – resisting or punishing those in power, or attempting to profit from the situation. Work slow-down, resistance groups, whistleblowing, cheating on tests, selling one’s prescriptions, or colluding with the powerful to game the system, are all common. From a constructionist perspective, the concept of causality is a cultural construction, one form of explanation among others. Whether a change-making practice is based on such a logic is a matter of deliberation  – both pragmatic and ideological. Informed by this view, many practitioners have shifted their logic from causality to the co-construction of meaning (McNamee and Hosking, 2012). If together we co-construct and sustain our ways of life, it is reasoned, then this same process may be key to transformation. As many constructionists put it, if we change the conversation, we may change the future. This is indeed an optimistic vision, and has played a major role in the creation of dialogic practices for change – in organizations, therapy, peace building, education, medicine, and elsewhere. It is at the heart of movements such as the New OD (Marshak and Bushe, 2015), brief therapy (de Shazer, 1994), Appreciative Inquiry (Cooperrider and Whitney, 2005), and creativity by design (Lipmanowicz and McCandless, 2013).

CHALLENGES TO FULL FLOWERING We find ourselves, then, in a condition of considerable consequence. With an exhilarated sharing of ideas and practices across a wide range of professions and nations, a burst of innovative activity has followed. Can we anticipate a continuing cascade of contributions to human well-being? By bringing potential impediments into focus, we may be

prepared to subvert their functioning. Let us briefly consider four forms of obstruction.

The Stranglehold of Modernism Cultural traditions commonly resist change. And while this is not a critique of traditions themselves, it is often difficult for those within a tradition to reflect on its shortcomings. This is especially so when assumptions and values have been transformed into organizations, and the organizations are located in concrete structures, linked interdependently to other institutions, given a place in the economic process, and defended by law. Those sharing the tradition of positivist science occupy exactly this space. The tradition is linked to institutions of education, commerce, government, law, and more. As commonly put, positivist science is a central constituent of modernist culture. For many modernists, constructionist theory and practices are the harbingers of a relativistic chaos. Should we not anticipate that cultural modernism will soon enough snuff out the constructionist flames? This is not the context for discussing the erosion of cultural modernism, but it is useful to focus on one matter of more local consequence. The relationship between positivist (foundationalist, realist) and constructionist communities has traditionally been contentious. Critique and counter-critique have been accompanied by mutual dismissal, ridicule, and demonizing. In these exchanges, constructionists have often succumbed to this tradition of mutual annihilation, though it is not congenial with constructionism itself. There is nothing about a constructionist orientation in general that would eliminate positivist theory or practice. At play is simply the reality of another community of meaning-making, one that offers logics, values, and practices of rich potential in confronting the future. Thus, rather than caving to the romance of vanquishing the enemy, far better to make clear the benefits of expanding potentials. Mixed

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methods researchers already partake of these benefits. Theirs is a message worth sharing across the divide.

The Foibles of Fixity Innovations in professional practice are typically embraced because they represent improvements; they solve a pressing problem, are more effective, expand potential, and so on. And so it is with most of the practices explored within the present volume. However, when a new and desirable practice is found worthy, there is an accompanying tendency to lock it in place. This may be realized through extensive accounts in books and journals, and through operating principles, codifications, procedural rules, graphic summaries, and so on. One may see this tendency as only natural: ‘if a practice works, let’s make sure we can repeat it’. The modernist worldview just discussed adds further weight: ‘If we can standardize it, we can install it in multiple locations, with a correspondingly high yield.’ Yet, this same penchant for a fixed procedure presents a danger to continuing innovation. On the most obvious level, and spurred by the neoliberal emphasis on economic gain, there are pervasive moves to monetize the practice. ‘How can we use the practice to make money?’ For practitioners, steps in this direction often include trademarking, developing training programs, and certification. There are several unfortunate results. The use of the practice becomes limited to only those who can afford the certified training. And, because they in turn will charge those who wish to make use of their services, the practice will ultimately be limited to the economically advantaged. In the service of expanding profits and/or control, the practice ceases to be transformative. There is a more subtle problem at play in systematizing a successful practice, one that may be termed repetition regression. In general, any action – verbal or otherwise – shifts

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in significance as it is repeated. In the same way, any practice that is brimming with success when it is first employed, faces the problem of waning efficacy over time. The reasons are several. When a practice becomes a ritual it often loses excitement. Over time, boredom is invited. The first time one experiences an Appreciative Inquiry practice, for example, may be riveting. The tenth time, one may even feel resistant. Further, in many contexts the importance of a practitioner’s words depends on their authenticity, that is, whether the expressions are specifically relevant to the unique individual or conditions at hand. When a teacher praises a student, for example, or a therapist expresses regard for a client, much depends on whether the praise or regard are seen as programmed – what the teacher or therapist always says – as opposed to being specific to the individual or situation in question. Finally, when a practice becomes formalized, it also becomes open to instrumentalization. It becomes a tactical tool for changing others, and thus subject to the same pitfalls discussed above regarding the presumption of causality. It is essential, then, to avoid memorializing favored practices, and to embrace the possibilities of hybridization and continuous reforming.

The Enchantment of Righteousness Working within a constructionist framework, most practitioners are keenly aware of the values that are realized in their efforts. Practices may be intended, for example, to support those in need, achieve social justice, create social solidarity, achieve peace, and so on. As proposed above, it is just such values that have motivated the development of new practices. However, the satisfaction derived from such efforts also carries dangers. The sense of ‘doing good’ can suppress critical reflection on one’s efforts. Alternative points of view and practices may be dismissed or

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demonized. The general antipathy among many constructionists to strategic, mechanistic, individualist, materialist, structural, or hierarchical practices is illustrative. Further, the unreflective championing of one’s ‘good’ practices may blind one to their ‘bad’ consequences. Supporting those in need may sustain the very systems responsible for their condition; the empowering of a group may lead to the dis-empowering of another group; alternatives to diagnostic categories threaten the well-being of those reassured by such categories; and so on. Unless we sustain a posture of humility in our valued endeavors, we risk becoming yet another encampment in the battles for moral superiority.

Absence of the Agora As we have seen, constructionist ideas and practices have emerged in widely disparate professions around the world. Further, there are numerous communities – both professional and informal – in which practices congenial with constructionist ideas are continuing to emerge. Yet, communication between and among these many cousins is effortful. Books and journals are significant vehicles for information transfer, but their costs are often prohibitive, they lack broad visibility, they require translation, and the writing is often technical and opaque. The result is essentially a general state of mutual ignorance both within and across the domains of theory and practice, and across cultures. Metaphorically there is little that functions as an agora or public space for sharing and discussing developments. As constructionists emphasize, it is just such dialogues that kindle curiosity and enthusiasm, build confidence, spark innovation, and generate thoughtful reflection. The present volume is a contribution to building this public space, and while broadly representative, the chief site of dialogue may be between readers and the authors. There are increasing numbers of conferences built

around constructionist-friendly practices – in education, therapy and healthcare for example. Likewise, there are many websites that gather and feature relevant practices from broad sectors. And the Taos Institute has long attempted to bring together scholars and practitioners from around the world to share their work and inspire further growth. However, sustaining and developing the impetus to innovation will importantly depend on generating more plentiful sites for trans-disciplinary and trans-cultural dialogue. Most efficient and least environmentally harmful may be the offerings of the ever-expanding vistas of web-based communication.

CONSTRUCTIONIST PRACTICES: THE VITAL CHALLENGE While there are obstacles to the continued flourishing of relevant practices, there are profound reasons for energetically pressing ahead. We confront a world in which the world’s peoples are both closer together and further apart than ever before. Not only are there more people moving across the globe than at any point in history, but technology enables instantaneous communication among people at virtually any location. These same technologies, however, enable the convictions of any group to be sustained and intensified through continuous interchange. The relations among peoples thus degenerate; callousness, defensiveness, exploitation, and aggression are commonplace. We find ourselves, then, immersed in a drift toward mutual annihilation. It is in just such conditions that the kinds of ideas and practices represented in this Handbook are most vitally needed. The constructionist dialogues themselves invite a humility with respect to one’s own convictions, as they remind us that our beliefs and values have no foundations other than those which we create together. Invited as well is a curiosity about others’ beliefs and ways of

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life, as these will contain insights and possibilities that may enrich the human venture. And, as we have seen, constructionist theory invites a posture of creativity, emphasizing our potentials for co-creating new and more inclusive ways of life. The practices shared within this Handbook provide both a direction toward a more promising future, and the confidence that it can be achieved.

Note 1  Although the term ‘constructivism’ has early roots in a theory of mind, it is now widely used synonymously with the more socially oriented emphasis of ‘social constructionism’.

REFERENCES Arbib, M. A., and Hesse, M. B. (1986). The construction of reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Anderson, H. (1997). Conversation, language, and possibilities: A postmodern approach to therapy. New York: Basic Books. Burr, V. (2004). Social constructionism. London: Routledge. Charon, R. (2006). Narrative medicine: Honoring the stories of illness. New York: Oxford University Press. Cooperrider, D. L., and Whitney, D. (2005). A positive revolution in change: Appreciative Inquiry. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler. Daston, L. J., and Galison, P. (2010). Objectivity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Denzin, N., and Lincoln, Y. (Eds.) (2018). The handbook of qualitative research, 5th edition (orig. published 1994). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Derrida, J. (1976). Of grammatology. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. de Shazer, S. (1994). Words once were magic. New York: Routledge. Feyerabend, P. (1975). Against method. London: Verso Books. Foucault, M. (1979). Discipline and punish. New York: Vintage.

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Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings. New York: Pantheon Books. Freedman, J., and Combs, G. (1996). Narrative therapy: The social construction of preferred realities. New York: Norton. Gergen, K. J. (1994). Realities and relationships: Soundings in social construction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gergen, K. J. (2009). Relational being: Beyond self and community. New York: Oxford University Press. Gergen, K. J. (2015). An invitation to social construction, 3rd edition (orig. published 1999). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Gergen, M. (2001). Feminist reconstructions in psychology: Narrative, gender, and performance. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Gergen, M., and Gergen, K. J. (2012). Playing with purpose: Adventures in performative social science. New York: Routledge. Hacking, I. (1999). The social construction of what? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Harré, R., and Moghaddam, F. M. (2003). The self and others: Positioning individuals and groups in personal, political, and cultural contexts. New York: Praeger. Hermans, H. J. M., and Kempen, H. J. G. (1993). The dialogical self. New York: Academic Press. Hjelm, T. (2014). Social constructionisms: Approaches to the study of the human world. London: Palgrave. Holzman, L. (2014). Practicing method: Social therapy as practical-critical psychology. Psychotherapy and Politics International, 12(3). Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Latour, B., and Woolgar, S. (1979). Laboratory life: The social construction of scientific facts. London: Sage. Lawrence, T. B., and Phillips, N. (2019). Constructing organizational life: How socialsymbolic work shapes selves, organizations, and institutions. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

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Leavy, P. (Ed.) (2019). Handbook of arts-based research. New York: Guilford. Lipmanowicz, H., and McCandless, K. (2013). The surprising power of liberating structures: Simple rules to unleash a culture of innovation. Seattle: Liberating Structures Press. Lock, A., and Strong, T. (Eds.) (2010). Social constructionism: Sources and stirrings in theory and practice. New York: Cambridge University Press. Marshak, R. J., and Bushe, G. R. (2015). Dialogic organizational development: The theory and practice of transformational change. Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler. McNamee, S., and Gergen, K. J. (Eds.) (1992). Therapy as social construction. London: Sage. McNamee, S., and Gergen, K. J. (1999). Relational responsibility: Resources for sustainable dialogue. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. McNamee, S., and Hosking, D. M. (2012). Research and social change: A relational constructionist approach. New York: Routledge. Monk, G., and Winslade, J. (2013). When stories clash: Addressing conflict with narrative mediation. Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute Publications.

Pearce, B., and Cronen, V. (1980). Communication, action, and meaning: The creation of social realities. New York: Praeger. Potter, J. (1996). Representing reality. London: Sage. Raelin, J. A. (Ed.) (2016). Leadership as practice: Theory and application. New York: Routledge. Rasera, E. (2015). Social constructionist perspective on group work. Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute Publications. Shapin, S. (1995). A social history of truth: Civility and science in seventeenth-century England. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Wasserman, I., and Fisher-Yoshida, B. (2017). Communicating possibilities: A brief introduction to the Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM). Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute Press. Weinberg, D. (2014). Contemporary social constructionism: Key themes. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. White, M., and Epston, D. (1990). Narrative means to therapeutic ends. New York: Norton. Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical investigations (G. Anscombe, Trans.). New York: Macmillan.

SECTION II

Research Practices

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2 Practices of Inquiry: Invitation to Innovation Mary M. Gergen

With the emergence of the social sciences in the early twentieth century, debates on the nature of research were active and ubiquitous. However, somewhere toward the mid-twentieth century, such controversy was largely replaced by convergence. More specifically, for many social scientists there was much to be gained by embracing what appeared to be philosophic foundations for a unified science. By identifying themselves with the assumptions of logical positivist philosophy, the social sciences would be placed on an equal footing with such widely respected sciences as physics, chemistry, and biology. At the same time, in the process of embracing a positivist conception of research, there was a radical reduction in what counted as an acceptable research practice. As the disciplines of science took shape, so did the disciplining of research methods. Then, with the emergence of social constructionist dialogues in the late twentieth century, a sea-change took place. These dialogues offered a major alternative to positivist foundationalism. In many respects,

constructionist ideas proposed a dramatic liberation from methodological dogma. The strangulating grip of what had become a ‘methodolatry’ was released. Given this liberation, what may now be said about the nature of research practice? To what have the constructionist dialogues given birth? The contributions to the present section begin to answer this question. To appreciate the issues at stake, it will be useful first to briefly scan the historical background for the present undertakings. We may then consider some general outcomes, along with more specific implications for constructionist researchers themselves. Finally, we turn to the particular features of the contributions to this section.

BEYOND THE POSITIVIST PARADIGM As outlined in the opening chapter of this volume, the constructionist dialogues have

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undermined the positivist conception of scientific knowledge on which this view of research practice is based. For constructionists, scientific descriptions are not mirrors or maps of the world as it is. Rather, the act of research has its roots in a social process in which ontological assumptions, logics, and values are negotiated. Research places these assumptions into practice. Thus, differing groups of scientists may develop different paradigms of understanding and practice that guide their research and what may plausibly be said about the world. Groups of scientists working within different paradigms may pursue different ends, with different values, different research practices, facing different worlds of understanding. Positivist researchers in the social sciences often criticize all research that is not positivist for its failing to follow their notion of what the standards of proper science are. ‘Not everything goes’, as it is said. To be sure, not everything can go within the limits of a given paradigm. However, we must not forget the paradigmatic limits of the positivist construction of science itself. For constructionists, when we expand our orientations to research, we also enrich the potentials for action in the world.

PRACTICES OF RESEARCH: CREATIVITY AND CONVERGENCE Constructionist ideas of scientific research have moved across the sciences, releasing a vast source of creative energy. Excitement abounds, as the boundaries of what is possible continue to expand. New conceptions of research are invited, open to a wide spectrum of aims and values. The margins between the disciplines are blurred. Most important for present purposes, there is no principled end to what may be fashioned as a practice of research. Perhaps the most visible result of this dawning of consciousness

is represented in the appearance of new journals and handbooks of research methods and practices. In the case of journals, we wish to mention the Berlin-based FQS – Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, as well as Qualitative Psychology, Qualitative Inquiry, International Journal of Qualitative Inquiry, The Qualitative Report, Qualitative Research in Psychology, and the International Journal of Social Research Methodology, among others. As for handbooks, many have been recently published, including the Handbook of Arts-Based Research, Handbook of Feminist Research, Handbook of Discourse Analysis, The Routledge Handbook of Critical Discourse Studies, The Sage Handbook of Social Research Methods, and the Handbook of Constructionist Research. However, the signal accomplishment is no doubt the Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research (Denzin and Lincoln, 1994, 2000, 2005, 2011) and now in its fifth edition (2018). Turning to the present Handbook, the contributors to this section have been especially engaged in constructionist dialogues. However, they are but a small sampling of a vast number of such researchers. They represent innovations in six different countries: Brazil, England, Norway, Mexico, Canada, and the United States. And, while each chapter was written in isolation from the others, one can begin to realize the emergence of certain commonalities. The fourteen authors who developed these practices diverge in the way they describe, illustrate and write up their research topics, but their specific background in social constructionist theory seems to favor a certain range of ideals in research practice. The most powerful shift from a positivist to a constructionist perspective is represented in the way these researchers challenge the trope that research must be unbiased, value neutral, and independent of the interests of the researcher. Also of significance, these researchers often place the interests

Practices of Inquiry: Invitation to Innovation

and outcomes of the research participants in a place of importance for doing the research. The rationale for doing research thus shifts away from a hypotheses-testing model that builds toward establishing a general theory to one that is more specifically related to the special circumstances and motives of the research participants. Accumulating empirical facts, substantiated by statistical analysis, is replaced with a concern for the interests of the participants and others who may be affected by the research. Issues of social justice, social change, power dynamics, and well-being are pervasive. As advocated by Bodiford and Camargo-Borgas (2014), research from a social constructionist position should be relationally sensitive, useful and generative, organic and dynamic, and engaging in complexity and multiplicity. In much the same vein, the researchers often see the relationship of the researcher to the participants as one of collaboration. Participants are often regarded as coresearchers. Research is done with, not about, or on others. The emphasis on ‘withness’, as John Shotter (2010) called it, sets this orientation to constructionist research practices apart from usual empirical research. Helen Kara’s (2015) book, Creative Research Methods in the Social Sciences: A Practical Guide provides further examples of similarly oriented research. To summarize the significant characteristics of research practice favored by social constructionist researchers in this Handbook: 1 The research practice is value-invested. Researchers are not only conscious of the values implied or favored by a given practice of inquiry but engage in research for the very purpose of fulfilling a vision of a better world. This means, for example, that they are conscious of how a research practice constructs the research participants, themselves, and the world. As well, they may be sensitive to indigenous viewpoints, which may diverge from their own, differential power relations among diverse groups, and ethical concerns that are absent from those accepted

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in Western scientific communities (Romm, 2018). In all cases, the hope is that the research practice will contribute to enhanced ways of relating among various groups. 2 The research is dedicated to social change. Consistent with the last point, the research practices are designed to affect change. The point of research is not to collect, archive, add to or challenge existing theoretical views so much as to improve on existing social conditions. Constructionist informed research may be useful in formulating new modes of relating among social groups. In this sense, the practice is ‘future-forming’ (Gergen, 2015). Through the research itself, new potentials for future practices are demonstrated. 3 The practice is collaborative. Coherent with the two preceding features, researchers frequently develop practices in which relevant members of society collaborate. The major drivers of a research project may be participants who desire some major change in their life circumstances or the culture at large. Participatory action research is a classic example, but the more general attempt is to work with others who are relevant to the research topic, as opposed to observing and reporting on them. 4 The orientation is pragmatic. The contributors do not select a fixed or given method to guide their research. Rather, their primary concern is with achieving a value-based end, and the particular research practice is chosen or created as a means to this end. Existing practices may be combined in various fashions, or entirely new practices may be created. Most fascinating here are movements toward performative or arts-based inquiry, in which researchers may draw from theatrical, literary, artistic, and musical traditions to enrich research practices, from conception to presentation. Consistent with the previous points, if research is dedicated to social change, it is important that its significance is communicated with sophistication and power to the public at large (Leavy, 2019).

As is clear, the emergence of such an orientation to research radically expands the scope and relevance of social science research, with important implications for practices of education, medicine, organization development, governance, and law among them.

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THE PRESENT CONTRIBUTIONS In the context of these broad convergences, it is useful to consider the specific contributions to this section:

Research as Innovation: An Invitation to Creative and Imaginative Inquiry Processes In this chapter by Celiane Camargo-Borges and Sheila McNamee, the metaphor of research as innovation is explored. The authors examine the role of creativity and imagination in the process of inquiry. Researchers move away from the logic of either/or and navigate toward a spectrum of opportunities, not thinking in oppositions or polarities, but embracing ambiguity, uncertainty, possibility, and multiplicity. As a consequence of acknowledging research as a process of social transformation, the results of research move the researcher and participants toward an unfolding and newly constructed future. The authors offer illustrations of research approaches/practices that invite innovation by embracing relationality and participation. They focus on practices that have gained broad acceptance over the past few decades: Imagineering, Arts-Based research, and Appreciative Inquiry.

Collaborative Action Research: Co-Constructing Social Change for the Common Good In this chapter, by Ottar Ness and Dina von Heimburg, the concept of Collaborative Action Research (CAR) is explored as an approach for addressing complex societal problems. The return to the interest of ‘the common good’ can be understood as a rebuttal to the individualist, neoliberalist approaches dominating contemporary societal research. Ness and von Heimburg argue

that forms of collaborative research must be created in order to make participation in societal change processes easy, intuitive, and natural for ordinary citizens. Collaborative action research places meaning-making processes at the center of attention. When working with social change and social justice, one also needs to co-construct knowledge about how co-researchers live their everyday lives. What resources are available in the everyday life of the community such that, with the coresearchers, they can meet their social change goals in a sustainable way?

Action Research and Social Constructionism: Community of Inquiry/Practice One of the most well-known forms of research within the social constructionist realm is action research. Author Hilary Bradbury has been a leading light in this movement for many years (Reason and Bradbury, 2008). She argues, within this chapter, in favor of describing action research as ART; that is, action research for transformation. The major feature of action research is its dedication to the demands of those with whom one is doing the research. The special talents and training of the researchers from outside the system are engaged in order to facilitate the activities of those who are within it. The preliminary stage of the research involves clarifying the purpose of the project in order to streamline its efficacy and avoid unnecessary pitfalls. Project participants must reflect on what their roles might be and how they might facilitate the project’s development. They must be committed to a process that will evolve over time, given various contingencies, including the preferences of the community members with which they work. The talents and viewpoints of all the members must be blended together, to maximize the power of the overall group. Action Research should also be full of good cheer and interpersonal enjoyment. It should

Practices of Inquiry: Invitation to Innovation

be a source of joy and relational robustness for all the contributors.

Research as Performative Inquiry Mary Gergen, who authored this chapter, has been one of the originators of performative inquiry in the social sciences. Performative inquiry, also called arts-based research, is unique among these researchoriented chapters in that the cardinal characteristic is its emphasis on arts-based forms of expression and implementation. Among the attributes of performative inquiry are its capacities to blend various forms of art together with traditional scholarly discourse, to address social concerns more directly than traditional scientific research, and to be more accessible to various public audiences than professional scientific writing. From a performative point of view, while making declarations about the real and the good, performance work simultaneously removes the gloss ‘is True’. Performative pursuits continuously remind us that everything remains open to questioning and dialogue. Performative studies encourage creativity, novelty, and radical revisions of the ‘real’.

We Are All Researchers Authors Dan Wulff and Sally St. George use their own lives as templates for understanding the major theme of this chapter, which is that doing research as a professional and making decisions about everyday life are synonymous. What people do is largely based on what they believe is possible and available. This everyday process mirrors a scientific process as well. The authors’ work focuses on what is in practice rather than trying to impact or influence practice from a position outside. The aim is to go forward, not necessarily to fix or to remedy. This is a significant re-imagining for practitioners  – the focus

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shifts from producing change in the client, customer, or community to joining with efforts to take next steps in a preferred direction. It is an endeavor that is not formalized, specified, or described as action research. One might say that ‘action research’ is a formalized and deliberate term for what all people engage in during the course of their everyday lives in making their decisions, big and small. For the authors, this pragmatic approach is utilized in their teaching, clinical work, and program of research. Importantly, inquiry fits into what the practitioner is already doing, rather than being an extra task over and above the daily work. Six initiatives/activities encompass both what they consider practice and what they consider research: attending to curiosities, speculating, enlisting partners, gathering information, making sense, and reflecting-in-action.

To Know and Not to Know: Dialogic Social Inquiry This chapter is the result of the collaboration of authors Rocio Chaveste and M. L. Papusa Molina with former students, Christian Lizama, Cynthia Sosa, and Carolina Torres. Its structure is developed around the act of writing a thesis from a Dialogic Social Inquiry approach, developed at the Kanankil Institute in Merida, Mexico. It is a very helpful description of how research is actually done, as an ongoing activity among a group of students. The students enact ‘Design research,’ based on four principles: (1) research as relational and collaborative; (2) research as useful and generative; (3) research as organic and dynamic; and (4) research as engaged in complexity and multiplicity (as defined in Chapter 3). The approach involves constructing the research question(s); inviting co-researchers; focusing on ethical issues, including maintaining respect and curiosity for the diverse

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and complex moral orders practices by those with whom one works; enacting forms of inquiry that depend upon dialogue with other people; and, engaging together with the researcher on a particular topic. The manner in which the research takes place is decided through an emerging process, involving ongoing, reiterative processes with others who are not primarily responsible for the project.

Transmaterial Worlding as Inquiry Transmaterial worlding, the title of this chapter written by Gail Simon and Leah Salter, is an unfamiliar phrase to most English speakers. For these authors, the concept of transmaterial alerts the researcher to the significance of the material world in social life. Worlding is a new word that refers to the creation of the world through symbolic means, often stories. Transmaterial worlding describes researcher activity as storying a diverse material world. It is a way to attend to the human condition and the vitality of matter, to the interconnectedness between humans and non-humans, to life beyond species and life beyond what appears as death. Transmaterial worlding is here referred to as a method of inquiry that has an important role to play in showing how language works in and between human and non-human relationships to maintain or disrupt practices of power. We re-position ourselves from inhabiting or co-habiting the world to coinhabiting the world. ‘Worlding’ describes the constant process of intra-becoming within and between species and matter. As an approach to inquiry, this includes not only observing, but also challenging, perturbing, disrupting, and transforming. There is no stasis, only movement. Deconstructing the relations in dominant discourses enables us to see how and why some voices (human or non-human) succeed in their stories being promoted and

popularized in some contexts over others. This has the potential to render visible the context and connection between everyday activities and their local and global contexts. Research then becomes an opportunity to understand and disrupt power relations in order to challenge and reduce injustice.

Researching Socio-Material Practices: Inquiries into the Human/Non-Human Interweave This chapter, written by Tanya Mudry and Tom Strong, echoes the philosophical viewpoint of the previous chapter. The authors focus on researching socio-material ­practices – those that conjoin humans with material elements of their situations. Their aim is to show ways to ‘zoom in’ in order to research specific socio-material practices as concurrent doings, sayings, and relatings, while also ‘zooming out’ to research bigger picture influences sustaining socio-material practices. Socio-material practices exemplify how humans routinely interact with material phenomena to reproduce experiences and relations, and effectively meld with these phenomena. Practices acquire their ‘second nature’ through becoming conjoined in networks and assemblages and then persist because they have a kind of life support system that extends beyond the person caught up in sustaining them. To illustrate, systemic therapy seeking to change unwanted family practices tends to be in competition with other practices engaging the family beyond the consulting room. Thus, a focus on a specific practice in order to create change may seem like bucking the tide when the practice is part of a greater network or assemblage of practices. An important difference relates to the focus of the chapter, which is on integrating the details of a therapy case involving gambling. It is an important narrative in that it allows the significance of the human/ non-human interweave to be explored.

Practices of Inquiry: Invitation to Innovation

REFERENCES Bodiford, K., and Camargo-Borgas, C. (2014). Bridging research and practice. A.I. Practitioner, August, 16, 3. Denzin, N., and Lincoln, Y. (1994, 2000, 2005, 2011, 2018). The Sage handbook of qualitative research (editions 1–5). London, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Gergen, K. J. (2015). From mirroring to worldmaking: Research as future forming. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 45, 287–310. Kara, H. (2015). Creative research methods in the social sciences: A practical guide. Bristol, UK: Polity Press.

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Leavy, P. (Ed.) (2019). Handbook of arts-based research. New York: Guilford. Reason, P., and Bradbury, H. (Eds.) (2008). Sage handbook of action research: Participative inquiry and practice (2nd ed.) London: Sage. Romm, N. R. A. (2018). Responsible research practice: Revisiting transformative paradigm in social research. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. Shotter, J. (2010). Social construction on the edge: ‘Withness’ thinking & embodiment. Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute Publications.

3 Research as Innovation: An Invitation to Creative and Imaginative Inquiry Processes Celiane Camargo-Borges and Sheila McNamee

Much has been written in the past few decades questioning whether or not the scientific research tradition is the best one for exploring and understanding the social world (Law, 2004; Parker, 2005; McNamee and Hosking, 2012). Particularly today, in our technological, globalized, and interconnected world, the ability of traditional research methods to address complex matters is called into question (Camargo-Borges, 2018a; Hilary, 2000; Karakas, 2009; Nowotny et al., 2008). This questioning is not focused on whether or not the scientific research tradition is right or wrong; the question is whether this research tradition is the only legitimate form of research. In 1973, Kenneth Gergen argued that social psychological research actually presented an historical description of the social world, not a predictive one as claimed by social scientists (Gergen, 1973). In the same decade, Latour and Woolgar (1979) showed us how scientists actually construct, through the research process, what come to be considered

facts. And in 2014, Gergen illustrated that, rather than mirroring what is actually going on in the social world (an assumption made about the research process), research actually serves to form the (unknown) future, uniting his earlier argument that research is historical with Latour and Woolgar’s acknowledgment that research is about creating possibilities. In other words, our research endeavors are less an exploration of ‘what is’ and more an opening to ‘what might be’. Relational approaches that explore the creation of new understandings about the social world, such as social construction, argue that research practices should be intertwined with context, culture, and local histories (McNamee and Hosking, 2012; Gergen et al., 2015). In this way, research can be seen as a process of innovation, embracing contemporary challenges and creating potential futures. Innovating in research is the act of conducting research that might point us (and the communities we examine) in a generative and useful direction.

RESEARCH AS INNOVATION

In this chapter, we will explore the metaphor of research as innovation and examine the role of creativity and imagination in the process of inquiry. Here, we use the term creativity in the sense that the focus of our research is on collaborating with people, communities, and institutions to examine together how the complexity and multiplicity within which we live can be embraced. In creative inquiry, the researcher moves away from the logic of either/or1 and navigates toward the spectrum of opportunities, not thinking in oppositions or polarities, but embracing ambiguity, uncertainty, possibility (Montuori, 2006), and multiplicity. We use the term imaginative in the sense that we support modes of research that seek to envision and explore ideas, meanings and scenarios that have previously remained unspoken or minimized. Instead of asking the very same questions validated by previous research protocols and instruments, imaginative inquiry is more interested in developing new questions that will offer new intelligibilities – new ways of understanding our social worlds – thereby forming new futures. Imagination adopts a fluid and less fixed view of meaning, encouraging ingenuity, spontaneity, and novelty. To that end, imagination can be seen as the ability to produce and simulate novelty in practice. Thus, like Janowski and Ingold (2012) who see imagination as not exclusively a cognitive process, we propose that imagination is linked to place and body. Imagination also involves setting up relationships with materials and people. This suggests that, in our research efforts, we cease asking questions concerning the best way to achieve some specific outcome and instead ask questions concerning how we might coordinate together and construct new, useful possibilities. In this sense, research serves as an intervention – a process of transformation (McNamee, 1988). To acknowledge any research process as a form of social intervention/transformation, is to accept that, in defining the research process, selecting the participants, and framing the questions, we

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are already setting the stage for reflections, dialogue, and opportunities for new configurations in the system. We are not (as is often presumed in more traditional understandings of research) simply promoting knowledge about a system – knowledge that has presumably been ‘discovered’ due to the researcher’s formulation of the right questions, examination of the right phenomena, and use of the proper tools of analysis. As a consequence of acknowledging research as a process of social transformation, the results of research are already moving researcher and participants toward an unfolding and newly constructed future. We call this process research as innovation. As a consequence, we also stop seeking the best method for collecting data. Instead, we examine what sort of methods, resources and practices we can embrace as researchers who acknowledge what is, to us, the most important aspect of examining the social world – finding ways to go on together (Wittgenstein, 1953). That means the focus is on the participants, the process and the context. In other words, research is always situated and, depending on these situational features (e.g., participants, processes, and context), different methods are likely to be considered useful in different moments. If our attempt is to be innovative – to create new possible ways of making sense of the social world and to create the possibility for new ways of acting – we must remain fluid in our approach to research and sensitive to local, cultural, and contextual features of a given inquiry process. We begin here by providing a brief overview of some of the main distinctions between the scientific research tradition and research as a process of social construction. Our attempt, as stated previously, is simply to make visible the taken-for-granted and broadly unquestioned understanding of research so that we might open the possibility for a plurality of approaches. We then move on to discuss social construction and research as innovation. We will close with some illustrations of research approaches that

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fit squarely within the constructionist attempt to focus on relationality, participation, collaboration and the creation of potential and possibility.

THE RESEARCH TRADITION AND CONSTRUCTIONIST ASSUMPTIONS The dominant research tradition has emerged within a modernist worldview (McNamee, 2010). Modernism assumes that, with the proper methods, tools and techniques, we will be able to discover reality, as well as describe it, as it really is. Of course, part and parcel of this assumption is the belief that there is a reality to be discovered. Constructionist thinking, on the other hand, challenges the notion that there is one reality to be discovered. In fact, research within a constructionist frame challenges the very idea of discovery, itself (McNamee and Hosking, 2012; Gergen, 2014). Rather than discover reality, the assumption is that we create reality in our interaction with our topic of research, with the framing of our research objectives and questions and, consequently, with the questions we ask our participants and the observations we make in the environment researched. All research is a by-product of a researcher’s interactions within not only the site of research but also his/her interactions within his/her community of scholars and practitioners. Let us embrace the understanding that there is no reality waiting to be discovered and there is no possibility of a neutral and objective researcher who – with the right tools and methods – will discover how things really are. Let us also invite the radical position that research is an opportunity for innovation and that innovation is embraced by adopting the ideas of multiple truths, multiple realities, and multiple methods for exploring those constructed realities. If we embrace these proposals, we become curious about what sorts of worlds can be made possible through

particular forms of research. Our focus is on relational processes that construct our worlds and this is understood as something very different from a focus on discovering how the world (really) is and (really) functions. The focus on relational processes is the hallmark of a constructionist orientation (Gergen, 2009). This focus represents a shift from examining entities (whether they be individuals, groups, organizations, or physical matter) to attending to what we refer to as language or language processes. Language, to the constructionist, is much more than words or text; it entails all embodied activity. In addition, language is viewed as not simply representing reality. Rather, language is seen as constructing reality. What we do together actually makes our social worlds. Meaning emerges in the interplay of people engaging with each other. And, different communities, groups, and cultures can rightfully negotiate very different meanings and thus live in very different realities. This acknowledgment of diverse meanings, collaboratively negotiated within different communities, is an acknowledgment of the complexity of the world we inhabit. Through innovative research, we can better understand how such realities are created. We can also collaborate with communities who are dissatisfied with their constructed social order to create new possibilities. This understanding invites a deconstruction of our accepted, dominant view of research. In other words, it suggests that we ask: How else might we imagine research? How do we conceptualize what research is when we start from the position of seeing research – like any other interaction – as a collaboratively constructed process? The questions we ask focus our attention on the implications – or unintended consequences – of our communally constructed worlds. And, it is this attention to what our meanings make possible (or impossible) that is critical for constructionist researchers. The attention is not on proving anything to be right or wrong, but on exploring the implications of stepping into and embracing any particular

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truth. A researcher’s curiosity about the very different worlds/realities/truths of different communities makes it possible to see the ‘local coherence’ for each group. Thus, as we can see, the philosophical stance of social construction helps us shift our thinking from a view of research as a process of discovery to a view of research as a process of innovation. It offers an appealing new story about what counts as research and how to engage multiple voices, methods, and priorities in ways that are creative and innovative.

RESEARCH AS INNOVATION There is an extensive literature illustrating innovation in research. Yet, most of this literature focuses on ‘research in innovation’, ‘research and innovation’, or ‘research for innovation’ (Audretsch et al., 2019; Hjalager, 2010; Mazzucato, 2018; Ray and Street, 2005; Stilgoe et al., 2013). Less common is the sense of research as innovation, which is what we are proposing here. Innovation is a way of describing research as creating possibilities, or, as Callon (1987) proposes, innovation is ‘society in the making’. This requires a level of sensing and presence from the researcher; a quality of attention to what is happening moment by moment in order to see what was unseen before. Creativity and imagination are core in research; they allow researchers to tap into the unknown. This differs from traditional forms of research where we often see researchers employing the same categories, instruments, and research questions that predecessors have employed. In other words, innovation is the generation of new meanings through critical examination of our assumptions about the phenomena (Mars, 2013) and what counts as data, what counts as analysis of that data, and the unfolding implications of our research (Alvesson and Sandberg, 2012).

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Research as innovation centers on an intrinsic collaborative process among researchers and research participants in which information, observations, and other ‘data’ are shared, taking into consideration various vantage points, combining different perspectives and voices, inviting reorganization, reframing, and including alternative contexualizations as the research process unfolds. The expansion and generation of new meanings (traditionally identified as findings) is a process of innovation in the sense that opportunities for engagement with the topic and possibilities for change are amplified. The ‘intervention’ or transformation, from this perspective, occurs when multiple understandings invite a community to begin to question their takenfor-granted ways of being.

Research Practices that Invite Innovation In the remainder of this chapter, we offer some illustrations of research approaches/ practices that invite innovation by embracing relationality and participation, thereby enhancing creativity and imagination in research processes as well as the results of our research. Of course, the range of available practices is limitless. Here, we focus on some practices that have been gaining broader acceptance over the past few decades: Imagineering, arts-based research, and appreciative inquiry.

Imagineering Imagineering is a design methodology inspired by complexity theory and systems thinking (Nijs, 2019). It focuses on the principles and processes of living systems, where concern is with self-organizing life forms and the ways in which they interact with their environment (Banathy, 1996). Thus, emergence, interdependence and non-linear, open relations become central (Corning, 2012; Cross, 2006). The Imagineering design methodology follows these principles, looking at

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organization and society from a more complex, interconnected and non-linear perspective. It also focuses on generating high concepts, which are concepts borrowed from the movie industry. Here, producers create a short, easy to communicate narrative, linking the story with an appealing invitation that aims to foster the collective creativity of the audience when engaging with a certain leisure activity. The Imagineering design approach borrows this idea of creating a generative image or a powerful word with the goal of provoking a creative tension that results in reframing meanings and bringing forth a new perspective about a topic or a system. That can be called a Creative Tension Engine. Creative tension is defined by Senge et al. (2015) as the bridge between the actual reality and the future that is to be created. Thus, the high concept, or also called Creative Tension Engine, focuses on designing generative images that provoke a creative tension where new meanings can emerge and new realities can be created. The Imagineering approach to research is focused on promoting emergence more than theoretical knowledge, itself. Emergence refers to a process or a phenomenon in which new patterns are formed as a result of local interactions, thereby forming new realities (Lichtenstein, 2014). In the context of Imagineering, Nijs (2019) refers to ‘emergence by design’. The focus is on interactive approaches where the dialogue among participants initiates emergent processes that facilitate self-organization in a system, thereby generating new possibilities and directions. The research path follows a design cycle of three steps with two phases each. One example is a research project developed in the context of libraries in the Netherlands (Nijs and Terzieva, 2015). Libraries have been struggling with their traditional role in society. Today, most people do not use libraries to access books and information. Instead, they draw upon new technologies to access and interact with knowledge. In an attempt to face this challenge, seven

libraries from North Brabant, the Netherlands invited Imagineering researchers to investigate the topic and come up with possible solutions (Nijs and Terzieva, 2015). The project was named, ‘Creating the future with libraries’ and started with the following questions: What is the core meaning of a library that could be lifted up in today’s society? How can we create a meaningful future where libraries are seen as exciting? How can we help libraries remain adaptive in a digital, fast-moving society? The research followed the Imagineering design methodology by first posing the questions above and understanding the central features of libraries (Inspiration – A phase). To tap into these features, the researchers also explored the main role libraries have in society and the elements that have always attracted people to libraries. The researchers invited librarians, visitors, and students to bring their own views on the topic in order to make it more complex and to embrace different perspectives. The results indicated that participants viewed libraries as institutions that foster openness, transparency and diversity (Inspiration – B phase). With this information, some creative sessions with different social actors were organized in order to evoke the collective creativity of all involved in designing a generative image or word that would invoke emergence (Ideation – C phase). Some narratives were created. One of them was, ‘From Collection to Connection’. This phrase was an attempt to bridge the traditional view of libraries (collections of books) to a new vision of hyper-connection. This high concept had the goal of reframing the mindset of all actors involved with the libraries (Ideation – D phase). This short, easy to remember narrative provoked new ideas for services and activities, thereby facilitating the emergence of a new, inviting library for today’s societal context. From there, the management of the library started to consider new initiatives for the emerging ideas in order to create new actions (Implementation – E–F phases, see Table 3.1).

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Table 3.1  Imagineering Design Steps Three Steps

Two phases

Imagineering Design Steps: The research path follows

Inspiration

A-ppreciating

This is about understanding the issue in an appreciative way, exploring all the different elements that might play a role in a specific topic investigated. This is about taking a step back and a long breath before coming to conclusions about the various appreciative explorations offered. Based on all the material collected, this is about discovering generativity, as well as understanding the golden nuggets of the topic. Here, the main actors are invited to interact and create the generative image or word that has the aim of reframing meanings and engaging transformation (Creative Tension Engine). Here the aim is to translate the generative image into tangible actions/ proposals. This is about developing environments or platforms to enable engagement and commitment to the actions/proposals. This is about creating actions for sustainable flourishing.

B-reathing

Ideation

C-reating

D-eveloping Implementation

E-nabling F-lourishing

Source: Adapted from Nijs (2019).

Imagineering research is an illustration of research as innovation as it has the fundamental goal of engaging and inspiring research participants to bring novelty into a system. Attention is given to the creation of new mindsets that have the potential to create new forms of action. Research, in the Imagineering context, is about promoting an iterative and creative process, embracing the challenge of creating high concepts, appealing narratives, a creative tension engine and orchestrating processes of emergence in order to reframe existing situations into more desired ones (Nijs and Terzieva, 2015).

Arts-based Research Arts-based research is a participatory approach combining art and research together. It uses the creative arts, such as dance, painting, and photography to address social questions (Leavy, 2009). It focuses on engaging ways of promoting a participatory research path where new ideas and articulations might emerge. The arts can be used to collect or analyze data or as a way to represent findings. When we embrace the transformative potential of inquiry, the integration of the arts and participatory methods contribute to our understanding of social issues, largely through their relevance and accessibility. For example, we

might explore how visual art serves as a method of exposing and altering unequal relations of power, privilege, and oppression. How might researchers use the visual arts for studying race, class, gender, and sexuality? There are several good examples, but to identify one, we can note how the photography of Robert Mapplethorpe – largely in the 1980s – raised social awareness concerning homosexuality and the AIDS epidemic (Smith, 2010). Other art forms such as theater, drama, poetry, dance, and music provide powerful means for engaging communities in the full participation of social transformation. Capturing the sentiment of what is happening in a given community through artistic expression can be experienced as quite different from collecting the same information through surveys, questionnaires, Likert scales, or interviews. We tend to think of the arts, by definition, as vehicles for creativity and imagination. When recognized as a form of research, we invite broader participation that is likely to result in collaboratively achieved transformation. One example of a method within artsbased research is photovoice. Photovoice  Photovoice is a method where participants are supported to produce their

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own photographic work in order to help them to understand, define and communicate in images and stories about the issues that are affecting them (as the Mapplethorpe example above achieved). Through photographs a variety of perspectives emerge, thereby adding complexity to a topic as opposed to teasing out the singular answer. In 2014 a photovoice research project called ‘Discovering the Beauty of Uganda’ was developed in Entebbe, Uganda, with two local partners: Hope for Youth Uganda and Health Nest Uganda (Camargo-Borges, 2018b). The goal was to engage in an exploration of the community through the youth’s positive experiences and impressions of Uganda. The researchers first introduced participants to the Photovoice method (Griebling et  al., 2013) and trained them in the context of the research topic. Participants were prompted to take photos of something that was meaningful to them, that had a meaningful story or represented an important experience in their lives. The data collection unfolded, as the participants were absorbed with the topic, the method, and co-created meaning together. Digital cameras were given to around 20 young people, aged 8 to 26. They moved around the city and took pictures of what they saw/interpreted as the beauty of Uganda. The method of photographing enabled and encouraged participants to be creative and reflect on the topic. With their cameras, participants were able to explore locations, documenting and revealing what they appreciated about Uganda and what they wanted to share. During the data collection, participants were actually generating (creating) data. The participants–method–team interaction promoted the emergence of new ideas and material with which the researchers and participants worked afterwards. The arts-based method used here involved all participants in the research, enabling them to tap into their creativity and inviting interaction among

themselves as well as with the researchers and their own city, promoting a sense of ownership with their locality (Camargo-Borges, 2018a). The next phase was to collect all the pictures taken. The participants sat together in small groups and told the stories their photos portrayed. Their stories became richer as they shared them with each other. After choosing some pictures to be printed, they managed to find shared meanings and also find what was special about their own experiences and stories. The research project ended with a final public exhibition in the community park of the pictures together with the stories written. By sharing the pictures and stories with community members and leaders, their meanings were further extended, and new stories emerged from the interaction. ‘Discovering the Beauty of Uganda’ shows the potential that arts-based research can bring to innovate by using arts, visual arts and narrative to develop shared and coordinated meanings. Young people from two villages developed stories from their experiences in Uganda. They invited people from the community to visit their Photovoice exhibit. The wider community could better understand the experiences of the young people, and could also, in turn, share their own experiences about Uganda. These shared stories began a rich weaving of meaning and a strengthening of relationships. According to Patricia Leavy: Arts-based research (ABR) was developed in a transdisciplinary context and merges scientific and artistic ways of knowing. ABR practices have posed serious challenges to methods conventions, thus unsettling many assumptions about what constitutes research and knowledge. With the tools of ABR, we are able to ask a host of new questions and to ask old questions in new ways. ABR researchers tap into a range of skills, both scientific and artistic – such as thinking metaphorically, symbolically, and thematically. (Leavy, personal communication, October 21, 2019)

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Appreciative Inquiry Appreciative inquiry, originally developed by David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva (1987), upset the mold of organizational consulting by proposing that, instead of researching the cause of organizational problems as a method for resolving the problem, consultants should inquire into what is working in the organization, what gives it life, and when organizational members feel energized. Originating as a form of organization consultation, AI rapidly became recognized as a form of research that invites innovation (Bodiford and Camargo-Borges, 2014; Hosking and McNamee, 2007; McNamee, 2004). Research reports, such as those presented in the special issue of the AI Practitioner (Bodiford and Camargo-Borges, 2014), offer a variety of illustrations of appreciative inquiry as a research method that invites participants to imagine a preferred future. Through such imagination, research participants join together to create that future. The focus of appreciative inquiry on what is working well in a community, as well as the highpoints in the community’s experiences, orients the research process toward the creation of generative ways to go on as opposed to discovery or documentation of ‘what is’.

WHAT RESEARCH AS INNOVATION OFFERS In terms of knowledge production, these research examples map out opportunities for new formats for engaging in research and, as a consequence, new meanings and opportunities for action and change emerge. The transformation/intervention is the creation of a learning community in which research participants can critically reflect on a topic, cocreating and sharing opportunities for themselves as well as for their context, issue, or challenge.

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The illustrations above show some similarities and core values that make research a process of innovation: 1 Shared stories collected throughout the research process: They have the potential to connect people and to increase the sense of belonging. 2 Participatory and process-oriented: The focus is on what is happening in the ‘here and now’ and from there, decisions on how to move on with the research are made as opposed to relying on fixed methods to be followed rigidly that are independent from the context and from what is emerging. 3 Multiple voices invite complexity: Instead of simplifying the topic to come up with one final solution/result, in research as innovation the idea is to embrace the complexity in order to make new combinations, thereby inviting new meanings and actions. 4 Inclusive: Those participating in the research process are part of creating the process. 5 Flexible: Research as innovation understands research as an ongoing, unfolding process; the interest is in creating something new with participants.

What we want to highlight with these illustrations is that innovation in the research process is related to generative learning, engagement, and inclusion in the context researched; it is related to a methodologically pluralistic approach in which the research design unfolds in a relational, flexible and organic manner (Bodiford and Camargo-Borges, 2014). Looking forward, we see research as innovation as a metaphor that opens multiple doors in the research realm, thereby amplifying research as a process of creativity, imagination and transformation, and offering a revolutionary direction for research, particularly for academic research. We believe that research that is viewed as innovation can be seen as a form of activism, calling attention to ethical dilemmas, political action, and issues of social justice. It can improve our understanding of inequality, oppression, violence, and other social issues. Researchers as innovators

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are liberated to engage and become more involved in socially significant academic research that has a strong social impact. Research, therefore, becomes an integrated part of daily life.

Note 1  Traditional and popular understandings of research tend to promote a binary view of the world. That is, the research either proves or disproves a theory. It discovers a cause, a cure, a previously unknown ‘fact’ or it does not.

REFERENCES Alvesson, M. and Sandberg, J. (2012). Has management studies lost its way? Ideas for more imaginative and innovative research. Journal of Management Studies, 50(1), 128–152. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6486.2012.01070. Audretsch, D. B., Lehman, E. E., and Link, A. N. (Eds.) (2019). A research agenda for entrepreneurship and innovation. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. Banathy, B. H. (1996). Designing social systems in a changing world. New York and London: Plenum Press. Bodiford, K. and Camargo-Borges, C. (2014). Bridging research and practice. Designing research in daily practice. The AI Practitioner Journal, 16(3), 4–8. ISBN 978-1-907549-20-5 Callon, M. (1987). Society in the making: The study of technology as a tool for sociological analysis. In T. Hughes and T. Pinch (Eds.), The social construction of technological systems: New directions in the sociology and history of technology (pp. 83–103). London: MIT Press. Camargo-Borges, C. (2018a). Creativity and imagination: Research as world making! In P. Leavy (Ed.), Handbook of arts-based research (pp. 88–100). New York: Guilford Press. Camargo-Borges, C. (2018b). Designing research with creativity: Arts-based methods as a way to co-create with Destinations. Tourism Destination Management Insights Journal, 11, 9–11. Cooperrider, D. L. and Srivastva, S (1987). Appreciative inquiry in organizational life. In

W. ­Pasmore and R. Woodman (Eds.), Research in organization change and d ­evelopment (vol. 1, pp. 129–169). G ­ reenwich, CT: JAI Press. Corning, P. A. (2012). The re-emergence of emergence, and the causal role of synergy in emergent evolution. Synthese, 185(2), 295–317. Cross, N. (2006), Designerly ways of knowing. London: Springer-Verlag. Gergen, K. (2014). From mirroring to worldmaking: Research as future forming. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, 45(3), 287–310. Gergen, K. (2009). Relational being: Beyond self and community. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gergen, K. (1973). Social psychology as history. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 26, 309–320. Gergen, K. Josselson, R., and Freeman, M. (2015). The promises of qualitative inquiry. American Psychologist, 70(1), 1–9. Griebling, S., Vaughn, L., Howell, B., Ramstetter, C., and Dole, D. (2013). From passive to active voice: Using photography as a catalyst for social action [Special issue]. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 3(2), 16–28. Hilary, P. (2000). Rethinking the research agenda. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 1(1). Retrieved from http://www.icaap.org/iuicode?149.1.1.1 Hjalager, A. M. (2010). A review of innovation research in tourism. Tourism Management, 31, 1–12. Hosking, D.M. and McNamee, S. (2007). Back to basics: Appreciating appreciative inquiry as not ‘normal’ science. In J. Reed and L. Holmberg (Guest Eds.), The AIPractitioner (http://www.aipractitioner.com), November, 12–16. Janowski, M. and Ingold, T. (2012). Imagining landscapes: Past, present and future. New York: Routledge. Karakas, F. (2009). Welcome to world 2.0: The new digital ecosystem. Journal of Business Strategy, 30(4), 23–30. Latour, B. and Woolgar, S. (1979). Laboratory life: The construction of scientific facts. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Law, J. (2004). After method: Mess in social science research. London: Routledge.

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Leavy, P. (2019). Personal communication, October 21, 2019. Leavy, P. (2009). Method meets art: Arts-based research practice. New York: Guilford Press. Lichtenstein, B. (2014). Generative emergence: A new science of organizational, entrepreneurial and social innovation. New York: Oxford University Press. Mars, M. (2013). Framing the conceptual meaning and fundamental principles of innovation. In M. M. Mars and S. Hoskinson (Eds.), A cross-disciplinary primer on the meaning and principles of innovation (Advances in the Study of Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Economic Growth, Vol. 23) (pp. 1–12). Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Mazzucato, M. (2018). Mission-oriented research and innovation in the European Union: A problem-solving approach to fuel innovation-led growth. Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg. McNamee, S. (2010). Research as social construction: Transformative inquiry. Health & Social Change, 1(1), 9–19. McNamee, S. (2004). Appreciative evaluation within a conflicted educational context. New Directions in Evaluation, 100, 23–40. McNamee, S. (1988). Accepting research as social intervention: Implications of a systemic epistemology. Communication Quarterly, 36(1), 50–68. McNamee, S. and Hosking, D. M. (2012). Research and social change: A relational constructionist approach. New York: Routledge.

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Montuori, A. (2006). The quest for a new education: From oppositional identities to ­ creative inquiry. Revision: A Journal of Consciousness and Transformation, 28, 4–20. Nijs, D. (Ed.). (2019). Advanced Imagineering: Designing innovation as collective creation. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. Nijs, D. and Terzieva, L. V. (2015). Rethinking research: How insights from complexity influence the way we research and develop knowledge and translate this in IMA Labs. World Futures: The Journal of New Paradigm Research, 71(1–2), 40–57. Nowotny, H., Scott, P. B., and Gibbons, M. T. (2008). Re-thinking science: Knowledge and the public in an age of uncertainty. New York: Blackwell. Parker, I. (2005) Qualitative psychology: Introducing radical research. Glasgow: Open University Press. Ray, R. A. and Street, A. F. (2005). Ecomapping: An innovative research tool for nurses. Leading Global Nursing Research, 50(5), 545–552. Senge, P., Hamilton, H., and Kania, J. (2015). The dawn of system leadership. Stanford Social Innovation Review. Leland Stanford Jr. University. Smith, P. (2010). Just kids. New York: HarperCollins. Stilgoe, J., Owen, R., and Macnaghten, P. (2013). Developing a framework for responsible innovation. Research Policy, 42(9), 1568–1580. Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical investigations. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd.

4 Collaborative Action Research: Co-constructing Social Change for the Common Good Ottar Ness and Dina von Heimburg

INTRODUCTION In a rapidly changing world with increasingly complex problems, such as social and economic inequities, medical disasters, climate change and globalization, collaboration is needed more than ever. Due to the complexity of the world’s problems, the United Nations (UN) has even devoted one of its 17 sustainability goals (SDGs) to collaboration. Around the world, nations and communities are struggling to face the demands of addressing the complexity of the SDGs. This includes finding viable solutions for problems that the civil sector, the public sector, businesses, politicians, media and academia cannot solve on their own. At the same time, in several countries across the globe, we are witnessing a decrease in the broad democratic involvement of citizens, alongside the threat of increasing populism following the rise of anti-global and anti-immigrant political movements (Pestoff, 2019; Smith,

2009). Thus, there is a need for increased citizen participation at all levels of societal development. Active citizen participation can facilitate the resolution of and joint action around some of the most tenacious problems facing governments across the world and help win popular support for such measures (Pestoff, 2019). Although citizen participation is key for collaboration based on democratic principles and values, the need for innovation and collaboration includes constructing new relationships and structures between actors and institutions in an ecologically oriented ‘whole-of-society approach’ (Marmot et al., 2020; WHO, 2019). This involves capacity building that cuts across authority structures, organizations, sectors and stakeholders at all levels, and this is increasingly acknowledged as a necessary approach to addressing these societal challenges (Krogstrup and Brix, 2019; Ostrom, 1996; Brandsen et al., 2018; WHO, 2013, 2019). Such collaborations enable societies, governments

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and communities to enhance problem solving and innovation as they mobilize the co-construction of ideas, experiences and resources and the ability to work together towards mutual goals (Bradbury, 2015; Gergen, 2014; Hersted et al., 2020). To meet these demands, we suggest that Collaborative Action Research (CAR) methodologies are an important approach to research and social change. Following Greenwood and Levin (2007), action research can help us build a better, freer, fairer and more socially just society. In this chapter, we explore CAR as an approach to co-construction to address the complex societal problems described above. Gergen (2020, p. xii) asks the following: ‘If action research is a process of co-construction, then what kind of process is this, how can it be done well, what are the obstacles, what innovations are invited?’ These are critical questions for our chapter. Although CAR is an approach that can be used in a wide range of disciplines, we will focus on social and relational processes. The chapter is a response to the need for collaborative, participatory action to address the increasing complexity in a fast-changing world and promote human dignity and flourishing in present and future generations. We will describe a framework for Collaborative Action Research through a social constructionist lens, accompanied by a set of principles for researchers and practitioners working on collaborative action-oriented research and innovation. To contextualize this framework, we invite you to explore some interconnected assumptions and what we believe to be vital prerequisites.

The (Re-)turn Towards ‘The Common Good’ Collaboration across disciplines and sectors, coupled with citizen engagement might facilitate the co-construction of knowledge, practices and policies moving communities and

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nations towards ‘the common good’. The return to the interest of ‘the common good’ (e.g., Reich, 2018) can be understood as a response to the individualist, neoliberalist approaches dominating contemporary societal development. In the research literature, the notions of ‘common good’, ‘public value’ and ‘public interest’ seem to overlap, without clear distinctions (Selloni, 2017). Although the term ‘the common good’ has been used in various ways throughout history, we rely on the Aristotelian notion of the common good as a ‘public interest’, i.e., a distinction between pursuing a common interest whereby all citizens can flourish and fulfill their purpose as human beings in community life, as opposed to pursuing the interest of sovereigns and other powerful leaders in the society (Diggs, 1973; Selloni, 2017). In an ever-changing social world, people’s efforts to pursue societal goals also need to adjust. Throughout history, societies have constructed a wide range of structures and institutions aiming to develop communities and societies towards a common good, in which the citizens have been alienated as clients or consumers rather than acknowledged as part of the solution (Pestoff, 2019; Torfing et al., 2016). When research and community change are worked out for rather than with citizens, they are unlikely to engage a wide range of relevant concerns promoting public interest (Gergen, 2014; McNamee and Hosking, 2012; Smith, 2009). Throughout the last century, the Nordic countries and other welfare states across the globe have undergone major (although overlapping and coexisting) changes in logics and ways of governing societies towards desired outcomes (Torfing et al., 2016). Public sector organizations all over the world are now striving to transform neoliberal organizational recipes (i.e., new public management, NPM) into a logic embracing the public sector as an ‘arena for co-creation’ (i.e., new public governance, NPG; collaborative governance). From a co-creational perspective, people, relationships and their living environments

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alongside nurturing capabilities, capacity building and empowerment are positioned at the heart of societal and community development (Cottam, 2018; Davidson, Ridgway, Wieland and O’Connell, 2009; Gergen, 2014; Hersted et  al., 2020; McNamee and Hosking, 2012; Nussbaum, 2000; Sen, 1992, 1999; Torfing et al., 2016). We will argue that this represents a truly people-centered and relational approach, placing ‘human becomings’ and the potential solutions that we create together in our social, ecological worlds as a focal point. Adjustments, or even radical change, require inquiry, collaboration and action. One ongoing example of radical change that we find inspiring is the transformation of welfare states towards relational welfare (Cottam, 2018). This approach places people and the relationships between them as a focal point to reinvent and design societies and welfare systems. Based on above-mentioned theories and approaches, we propose the following definition of relational welfare: Relational welfare is a human centred and collaborative approach premised on human rights, social justice and societal sustainable development. Relational welfare means that welfare is a resource that people co-create together, where personal and collective relationships and environments are placed at the centre of development. Within this, the foremost mission of the public sector is to build public value as a common good by supporting conditions that enable all people to flourish and live a life they have reason to value and the capacity to sustain. The purpose is to strengthen the resources, relationships and communities to create positive and sustainable life courses, now and in the future.

Following Cottam (2018) and Desai et  al. (2019), there is a need to start by standing in communities, shoulder to shoulder, and by seeking insight together to understand the complexity of the problems and the possibilities of approaching these from an everyday life perspective. As Cottam (2018, p. 46) points out, ‘participation cannot be seen as something special or unusual that must be celebrated. We need to create systems that make participation easy, intuitive and natural’.

A recent example that has gained largescale international attention and widespread praise for pursuing a ‘re-turn’ towards the common good is New Zealand (NZ). In 2019, the NZ government unveiled its very first (actually the world’s first) ‘well-being budget’, aiming to replace GDP with a national framework measuring well-being, equity and sustainability as the ultimate societal goals. In developing the policies and assessments for progress, the state agencies in NZ invited and mobilized a largescale participatory and collaborative process where citizens with diverse backgrounds contributed by constructing meaning and purpose for national policies. In the development of the Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy, the NZ government, with the support of partner agencies, engaged with more than 10,000 New Zealanders, including 6000 children and young people (New Zealand Government, 2019). As a result of what mattered most to New Zealanders in negotiation with the knowledge built on research, all policies in NZ are now evaluated through a lens of kindness, empathy and well-being (Ng¯a T u¯ tohu Aotearoa – Indicators Aotearoa New Zealand, 2019). In this process, NZ people shared what was most important for their well-being through a wide range of face-toface meetings, workshops, surveys, focus groups and free postcards. In 2018, NZ, together with Scotland and Iceland, established the network of Wellbeing Economy Governments (WEGo, nd), through which these governments share expertise and transferable policy to challenge the acceptance of GDP as the ultimate measure of a country’s success. The objectives of the group are as follows: Collaborate in pursuit of innovative policy approaches aimed at enhancing well-being through a broader understanding of the role of economics – sharing what works and what does not to inform policy making. Progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals, in line with Goal 17, fostering partnership

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and cooperation to identify approaches to delivering well-being. Address the pressing economic, social and environmental challenges of our time.

A ‘well-being economy’ places collaboration to achieve goals such as equal pay, childcare, mental health and access to green space at its heart and demonstrates how this approach helps build resolve to confront global challenges. Although the NZ and WEGo example does not explicitly build on the notion of ‘the common good’ or CAR, we believe that it serves as an excellent example of a ‘re-turn’ to the interest of the citizens as described by Aristotle. Further, we believe that it serves as an inspiration for a collaborative movement towards desirable societal goals, to which CAR could make an important contribution.

The Collaborative Turn and the Growing Jungle of ‘Co’s’ Throughout the last decades, collaboration and active citizen participation have been increasingly endorsed as essential approaches to address complex societal problems and promote human flourishing across a wide range of practices and academic disciplines (Bradbury, 2015; Cottam, 2018; Hersted et  al., 2020; Ostrom, 1996; Pestoff, 2019; Voorberg et al., 2015). Indeed, participatory and collaborative approaches and concepts are not new, especially because they have always been the focus of social constructionist theory and practice. In social constructionist theory, the term ‘co-construction’ has a long history and is used to describe processes of relational meaning-making and joint action (Gergen, 1985, 1994, 2009; McNamee, 2010; Shotter, 1993). However, the expansion of attention to such concepts and the language used for meaning-making around these have most certainly come from the public sector. Many of these emerging discourses have been constructed and described through a language

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of ‘co’s’ (Phillips and Napan, 2016). This development may be considered a reaction to societal development heavily dominated by neoliberal and positivist ideas, where individualism and fragmentation have been key tendencies (Gergen, 2009, 2014; Selloni, 2017). The expansion of parallel worlds of ‘co’s’ in a series of academic and practice discourses (e.g., public administration and policy, organizational studies and design thinking) can be described as co-constructed through terms such as ‘co-creation’, ‘co-production’, ‘collaborative governance’ and ‘co-design’. Most of these co’s have mainly focused on descriptions of processes aimed at achieving desired outcomes, not on the process of coconstructing knowledge or evaluating or having dialogues about outcomes (e.g., Voorberg et al., 2015). In this chapter, we will not go into detail about these numerous concepts of ‘co’s’ and the academic struggle to coin and further develop them. Instead, we acknowledge the commonality of collaboration, participation and empowerment as central concepts in the developing pluralism of ‘co’s’ and as key issues in addressing the complex societal problems described above.

Collaboration as Key to Capabilities and Capacity Building for the Common Good We maintain that a movement towards the SDGs, hand in hand with the protection and promotion of human rights, is essential to our understanding of ‘the common good’ in societal and community development. Additionally, we argue that Collaborative Action Research may create conditions and processes to co-construct capacities (e.g., Krogstrup and Brix, 2019). Such capacities can be raised within and between relationships, organizations, and communities to coconstruct better living conditions and capabilities (e.g., Cottam, 2018; Nussbaum, 2000; Sen, 1992, 1999) for ‘the common good’. By doing do, we are placing dignity,

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equity, well-being and relational flourishing at the very heart of our understanding of ‘the common good’, where the development of human capabilities is key. The concept of capabilities was coined by the Nobel Prizewinning academic Amartya Sen (1992, 1999) and has been further developed by Martha Nussbaum (2000) and others in somewhat different directions (Robeyns, 2005). Sen (1992, 1999) links the development of capabilities to freedom and quality of life. Sen makes a strong argument for replacing economic imperatives in societal development with the freedom to achieve well-being and argues that policies and our evaluations of them should concentrate on people’s quality of life and the conditions affecting our possibilities to live a life that we have a reason to value. According to Dréze and Sen (2002, p. 6), within this framework, developments of capabilities are not to be mistaken for individual processes. Social opportunities are described as a crucial prerequisite: The word ‘social’ in the expression ‘social opportunity’ … is a useful reminder not to view individuals and their opportunities in isolated terms. The options that a person has depend greatly on relations with others and on what the state and other institutions do. We shall be particularly concerned with those opportunities that are strongly influenced by social circumstances and public policy.

The development of capabilities is a moral issue for achieving social justice. This demands interdisciplinary, collaborative and participatory approaches to societal development, placing human rights and capabilities, democracy, empowerment and meaning-making processes at the center of attention. This will be our main focus when laying out our suggested framework for Collaborative Action Research.

COLLABORATIVE ACTION RESEARCH (CAR) CAR is a democratic and participative orientation to knowledge, theory and practice

creation (Bradbury, 2015; Ness, 2020). It is about how people co-construct knowledge through language, learning and change together through action research (Gergen, 2009; Gergen and Gergen, 2015; Hersted et  al., 2020). It brings together action and reflection and theory and practice in the pursuit of practical solutions to issues of pressing concern. Desai et  al. (2019) argue that CAR can help to break down the distinction between science and the community more broadly. These ‘participatory’ turns are premised on an explicit awareness of social injustice and power imbalances while also challenging the presupposition that community members allegedly hold no expertise on serious matters of science. Instead, community input and participation, including by those community members with direct experience of the topic being studied, are valued and embraced as an important feature of knowledge construction, which can in turn help transform the wider system and benefit the community around it (Desai et al., 2019). Thus, CAR focuses on co-construction with, not about or on, people (Bradbury, 2015; Shotter, 1993, 2008) and focuses on what Gergen (2014) calls ‘future-forming’ inquiry, i.e., research not attempting to describe and explain what is but to bring about what could be. In the history of action research, many descriptions of the practice have been proposed. Hilary Bradbury (2015, p. 1) defines action research as follows: Action research is a democratic and participative orientation to knowledge creation. It brings together action and reflection, theory and practice, in the pursuit of practical solutions to issues of pressing concern. Action research is a pragmatic co-creation of knowing with, not on about, people.

Further, Greenwood and Levin (2007) describe three commitments that link most action researchers: (1) action, which refers to creating and implementing new practices; (2) research, which refers to contributing to

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new theory and to generating and testing new knowledge; and (3) participation, which is about placing a strong value on democracy and control over one’s own life situations. Action research balances these elements, and if any of these three elements are absent, the research is not action research (Greenwood and Levin, 2007). This balance is in accordance with Reason and Bradbury’s (2001) concerns: Practice and research occupied with ‘just theory without action is meaningless, and action without reflection and understanding is blind’ (2001, p. 2). Hersted (2017) and Ness (2011) add elements such as collaboration and reflexivity, where coresearchers co-construct knowledge and practices together through reflexive collaborative learning processes. Thus, action research involves two or more people researching a topic based on their own experience or shared agenda, using a series of cycles in which they move between that experience and reflecting together on it (Heron, 1996; Ness, 2020). This is in line with constructionist theory and research methodologies (Gergen, 2014; McNamee, 2010). The practical point of constructionist research has very often been to promote a better way of thinking and, more importantly, living with respect for the worlds that we inhabit (Weinberg, 2008). Brown and Tandon (1983) have argued that traditional action research has tended to concentrate on an individual or a group level of problem analysis, whereas participatory action research, with its more emancipatory emphasis, has tended to focus on a broader societal analysis. Traditional action research has tended to focus on issues of efficiency and the improvement of practices, whereas participatory action research has been concerned with community action, equity, self-reliance and oppression problems (FalsBorda, 2001). Democratic elements are also found in John Dewey’s (1938) experiments on education. These elements are often taken up in definitions of CAR that emphasize an empirical and a logical problem-solving

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process involving cycles of action and reflection (Bradbury, 2015; Hersted et  al., 2020). Dewey was occupied with democracy as an ongoing, collective process of social improvement, in which all levels of society had to participate (as cited in Greenwood and Levin, 2007). His important contribution was that democracy had to evolve through people’s active involvement in making sense of their world and not by merely adapting to solutions imposed by powerful outsiders (e.g., researchers or teachers; Greenwood and Levin, 2007). From these ideas on democracy and participation, Dewey proposed that learning was a process of action in which students must be active learners and not passive listeners (Greenwood and Levin, 2007). Dewey’s view on research was connected to this view of a democratic society. He saw research as a process of democratic social action in which scientific knowing was a product of continuous cycles of action and reflection (Bray et al., 2000), which is in line with the ideas of Collaborative Action Research. As mentioned above, Gergen (2014) advocates for research as ‘future-forming.’ This means that research does not provide a map of ‘what is there’; it offers descriptions of how things might be. McNamee (2020, p. 18) claims that one ‘could say that research is more about social transformation than about uncovering the stabilities of life.’ McNamee (2020) further explains that to view research as transformative is to consider the ways in which engaging in the research processes, as well as reading research reports, provides us with new ways of understanding our worlds. These new ways of understanding our worlds open the door to new possibilities for human engagement and social transformation. This represents a significant shift from the traditional understandings of objective, scientific research. Traditional notions of research are focused on discovering essential aspects of the world. However, from a social constructionist stance (Gergen, 2014; Gergen and Gergen, 2015; McNamee, 2010, 2014;

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McNamee and Hosking, 2012), what one comes to know about the physical world is bound by language, and language is social and relational. The physical world exists, but how we talk about it and how we make meaning of it are contingent upon our negotiated language practices (Gergen, 2009; McNamee, 2020). We have used McNamee’s (2014, p. 77) framework as inspiration: she argues that relational constructionist research is about the notion of ‘let’s change it together’. Her focus of research is on change, co-creation, and co-research and on generating new meaning and new realities. In addition, she suggests that research is locally useful and generative, historical and co-evolving and that it generates new possibilities. In the following, we will present our proposed framework for Collaborative Action Research from a social constructionist stance with a set of action-oriented principles. This framework and the principles are to be seen as resources rather than as a recipe for conducting Collaborative Action Research.

FRAMEWORK OF COLLABORATIVE ACTION RESEARCH This proposed framework, with a set of ideas and principles, is an ever-evolving process with persons who are interested in co-constructing CAR together with us. We suggest the ideas and principles as context markers and borrow from McNamee’s (2004) ideas on conversational resources and research as a relational practice (2014) for persons and communities interested in CAR. This also means that the principles are part of not a linear but a circular and iterative process. We will now turn to the framework of Collaborative Action Research: co-constructing the research agenda and research process, relational capacity building, negotiating actions and experiments, and co-constructing knowledge and practices.

Co-Constructing the Research Agenda and Research Process The first principle is co-constructing the research agenda and the research process by preparing the relational context (McNamee, 2009). Central for this is collaboration. At the core of these collaborative relationships are people’s competence and capability to listen, take each other seriously, and respect the perspectives of others concerning both the relationship and the partnership in which they are involved (Strong et  al., 2011). Making collaboration useful, Collaborative Action Research requires a free flow of information and the sharing of feedback among all parties so that they are on track with the changing intentions that often arise (Sundet, 2011). In the research literature which focuses on services and practices that keep the participants at the center of decision making, a number of essential principles are espoused. These include working with sometimes competing beliefs, values and priorities; power and power balancing; engagement strategies; consistency of care delivery; relationship competencies; role blurring; and negotiated decision-making (Ness et  al., 2014; Strong et al., 2011). In concrete terms, this principle involves getting to know each other as co-participants in the research, both personally and professionally, and getting to know people’s interests, dreams and agendas – what do we all want to be achieved by doing this research project together. This involves what McNamee (2015) calls relational ethics, which means being attentive to the process of relating; this involves co-constructing trust in both persons and the research process. When working with social change and social justice, one also needs to co-construct knowledge about the living conditions where co-researchers live their everyday lives. This means mapping and exploring the contextual and cultural knowledge about the everyday life of the community together with the co-researchers.

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Another important topic is negotiating power relations. This means working in ways that enable the research to be truly collaborative. This requires the authentic engagement of all the co-researchers in equally voicing and influencing shared decision making, which involves listening to multiple views and together finding ways to make the decision-making process transparent and collaborative, not something that those with the most power (i.e., researchers) own (Heron, 1996). Based on these above-mentioned topics, after becoming familiar with the people (i.e., their backgrounds, living conditions, interests, social context) and negotiating the power relations that affect the process of collaboration, the next principle is then to negotiate shared purposes and research questions and prepare the research process. This also involves the need to take into account in the conversation what the participants would like to use as data for the process of coconstructing the knowledge that may be disseminated. Another point is related to research ethics. It is important to consider the ways of conceptualizing ethical issues in terms of an approach that Banks et  al. (2013) call ‘everyday ethics’, which emphasizes the situated nature of ethics, with a focus on the qualities of character and the responsibilities attached to particular relationships (as opposed to the articulation and implementation of abstract principles and rules). Everyday ethics is the daily practice of negotiating the ethical issues and challenges that arise through the life of CAR projects. Thus, the ‘ethical’ is present in ways of being and acting as well as in relationships, emotions and conduct. The key qualities of a researcher include ethical sensitivity (the capacity to see the ethically salient features of situations) and relational virtues, such as trustworthiness (reliability and not disappointing others) (Banks et  al., 2013). This is similar to what McNamee and Gergen (1999) call ‘relational responsibility’ and ‘relational ethics’ and what Swim et al. (2001) call ‘process ethics’.

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Relational Capacity Building As we mentioned in the introduction, we see CAR as a process of relational capacity building. Capacity building in this regard is defined as activities that strengthen the relationships, knowledge, abilities and resources of individual communities and that improve institutional and social structures and processes so that organizations and communities can meet their goals in a sustainable way (Brix et  al., 2020; McNamee and Hosking, 2012). This is linked to the capabilities approach, where the focus is on the capabilities that all people need to flourish, i.e., the capability to work/learn, to be healthy, to be part of a community, and to nurture relationships within the family and beyond (Cottam, 2018). Here, we suggest ideas such as how coresearchers can work together to co-identify assets and resources in people and relationships in environments such as buildings, meeting places and green spaces. Something that often happens in the process of co-identifying assets and resources, which we suggest should be emphasized, is that one comes to know many people. Once one comes to know these assets, one can connect people and resources together, which creates relationships and communities. These relationships and communities will then be mobilized in this process, which ultimately creates changes within the area of research interest and beyond. As part of the process, one will surely experience chaos and uncertainty. This refers more to an attitude rather than to a procedure to invite interdependence between chaos and order in a developing inquiry. This attitude enables the participants to avoid premature closure on their reflections and actions while helping them overcome feelings of confusion, uncertainty, ambiguity, disorder and tension as an asset. Since uncertainty accompanies chaos, awareness of relational dynamics may be helpful in guiding the Collaborative Action Research process. Reason (1999, p. 213) argues that CAR ‘is sometimes about

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throwing all caution to the winds in a wild experiment. There can be no guarantee that chaos will occur; certainly, one cannot plan it’. An important validity issue for balancing chaos and order is to be prepared for chaos and then to tolerate it and not let anxiety press for a premature order, while waiting for a sense of creative resolution.

Negotiating Actions and Reflections Another aspect of CAR is what kind(s) of actions it is decided to experiment with. As CAR is about changing and improving conditions and practices during a research process, it is important to create a research environment where it is acceptable to try and fail. This involves a process of negotiating what actions will be tried together, when and by whom – and what kind of process the coresearchers want to have to generate data for documenting the changes and improvements being made in the community. One way of doing so is by co-constructing cycles of action and reflections. The purpose of research cycling is to ensure that the research outcomes are well grounded for the participants involved in the focus of the inquiry. This means that co-researchers repeatedly explore emerging concepts for ideas that they believe should be included or omitted. By doing so, ideas and concepts may develop and improve through a co-constructed cycling process between actions, experiments and reflections.

Co-constructing Knowledge and Practices It is important that CAR projects involve changes and improvements that are useful for local contexts. However, we will argue that it is important that other local communities, policy makers, practitioners and researchers come to know how CAR projects are being

conducted and that they disseminate the results. When constructing knowledge from CAR projects, we will emphasize the importance of co-analyzing the chosen data and the co-writing and co-presenting of results, as all aspects of research are collaborative. For this process, we find the following framework useful. Banks et al. (2017, pp.  543–544) developed three types of impact of action research that they call coimpacts. These types can help researchers organize and map out the different aspects of knowledge construction relevant to many contexts: Participatory impact refers to changes within researchers and core partner organizations, which happen as a result of their involvement in the research process. This may entail learning research skills, developing new insights and understandings that can be used in daily life or in community action, developing confidence, and feeling empowered or passionate about a cause. Collaborative impact is based on the take-up and use of the findings of CAR by individuals and organizations to change practice and policy and influence attitudes and culture. This may include impact on the individuals and organizations involved in the project, as well as on outside individuals and organizations. In participatory research, the impact is generated by individuals and organizations working together. Hence, the authors call this ‘collaborative impact’ and note that it is more findings-based than ‘participatory impact’, which emphasizes process. Collective impact involves a deliberate strategy on the part of the research partners (and sometimes others) to achieve a specific, targeted change in practice and/or policy-based issues highlighted via the research. The concept of ‘collective impact’ is currently a hot topic but is used less in relation to research and more in the context of multiple organizations working together strategically to achieve social change, where interventions are co-designed to address ‘wicked’ (intractable) issues, such as poverty or persistently low educational outcomes for children in a neighborhood.

In our experience, co-constructing knowledge and practices by focusing on the impacts that they make sustains results and supports

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the capabilities of communities to continue making changes and improvements for the common good.

CONCLUDING REMARKS Try to see it my way… While you see it your way… We can work it out, We can work it out    The Beatles

In this chapter, we have outlined a framework for CAR, seeking social justice, democratic innovation and social change for the common good. The world is continuously facing complex problems and challenges that demand joint action from the whole of society and increased citizen participation. As made explicit by SDG # 17, collaboration is key for sustainable development. By using CAR, we address what Gergen (2014) has called for, that is, research as ‘future-forming’, to build capabilities and capacities within people, organizations and communities by starting with people and their everyday lives. We have argued for and outlined some principles of CAR as an important approach to focus on people’s human rights, sustainable development and the conditions for creating dignity and human flourishing in present and future constructions of our social worlds. As Gergen et al. (2001, p. 681) ask: ‘Perhaps the major challenge for the 21st century is how we shall manage to live together on the globe. What resources are available to us in confronting this challenge?’ CAR is certainly not the only answer to this question. However, we believe, it could serve as a vital part in the future of forming a world of people pursuing the common good – together.

REFERENCES Banks, S., Armstrong, A., Carter, K., Graham, H., Hayward, P., Henry, A., Holland, T.,

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Holmes, C., Lee, A., McNulty, A., Moore, N., Nayling, N., Stokoe, A., and Strachan, A. (2013). Everyday Ethics in Community-based Participatory Research. Contemporary Social Science, 8(3), 263–277. Banks, S., Herrington, T., and Carter, K. (2017). Pathways to Co-impact: Action research and community organizing. Educational Action Research, 25(4), 541–559. Bradbury, H. (2015). The Sage Handbook Action Research (3rd edition). London: Sage. Brandsen, T., Verschuere, B., and Steen, T. (2018). Co-Production and Co-Creation Engaging Citizens in Public Services. New York: Routledge. Bray, J. N., Lee, J., Smith, L. L., and Yorks, L. (2000). Collaborative Inquiry in Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Brix, J., Krogstrup, H. K., and Mortensen, N. M. (2020). Evaluating the Outcomes of Co-­ production in Local Government. Local Government Studies, 46(2), 169–185. Brown, L.D. and Tandon, R. (1983). Ideology and Political Economy in Inquiry: Action research and participatory research. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 19(3), 277–294. Cottam, H. (2018). Radical Help. London: Virago. Davidson, L., Ridgway, P., Wieland, M., and O’Connell, M. (2009). A capabilities approach to mental health transformation: A conceptual framework for the recovery era. ­Canadian Journal of Community Mental Health, 28(2), 35–46. Desai, M. U., Bellamy, C., Guy, K., Costa, M., O’Connell, M. J., and Davidson, L. (2019). ‘If You Want to Know About the Book, Ask the Author’: Enhancing community engagement through participatory research in clinical mental health settings. Behavioral Medicine, 45(2), 177–187. Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and Education. New York, NY: Kappa Delta Pi. Diggs, B. J. (1973). The Common Good as Reason for Political Action. Ethics, 83(4), 283–293. Dréze, J. and Sen, A. (2002). India: Development and participation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fals-Borda, O. (2001). Participatory (Action) Research in Social Theory: Origins and challenges. In P. Reason and H. Bradbury (Eds.),

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Handbook of Action Research: Participative inquiry and practice (pp. 27–37). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Gergen, K. J. (1982). Toward a Transformation in Social Knowledge. New York, NY: Springer-Verlag. Gergen, K. J. (1985). The Social Constructionist Movement in Modern Psychology. American Psychologist, 40, 266–275. Gergen, K. J. (1994). Realities and Relationships: Soundings in social construction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gergen, K. J. (2009). Relational Being: Beyond self and community. New York: Oxford. Gergen, K. J. (2014). From Mirroring to WorldMaking: Research as future-forming. The Journal of Social Behaviour, 45(3), 287–310. Gergen, K. J. (2020). Learning New Ideas and Practices together through Relational Action Research. In L. Hersted, S. Frimann, and O. Ness (Eds.), Action Research in a Relational View: Dialogue, reflexivity, power and ethics (pp. xii–xv). London: Routledge. Gergen, K. J. and Gergen, M. (2015). Social Construction and Research as Action. In H. Bradbury (Ed.), Handbook of Action Research (pp. 401–408) (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Gergen, K. J., McNamee, S., and Barrett, F. J. (2001). Toward Transformative Dialogue. International Journal of Public Administration, 24(7–8), 679–707. Greenwood, D. J. and Levin, M. (2007). Introduction to Action Research (2nd ed.). London: Sage. Heron, J. (1996). Co-operative Inquiry. London: Sage. Hersted, L. (2017). Relational Leading and Dialogic Process. PhD dissertation, University of Aalborg, Denmark. Hersted, L., Ness, O., and Frimann, S. (Eds.) (2020). Action Research in a Relational View: Dialogue, reflexivity, power and ethics. New York: Routledge. Krogstrup, H. K. and Brix, J. (2019). Co-produktion i Offentlig Sektor [Co-production in Public Sector]. København: Hans Reitzels Forlag. Marmot, M., Allen, J., Boyce T., Goldblatt, P., and Morrison, J. (2020). Health Equity in England: The Marmot Review 10 years on. London: UCL, Institute of Health Equity.

McNamee, S. (2004). Promiscuity in the Practice of Family Therapy. Journal of Family Therapy, 26(3), 224–144. McNamee, S. (2009). Postmodern Psychotherapeutic Ethics: Relational responsibility in practice. Human Systems, 20(2), 55–69. McNamee, S. (2010). Research as Social Construction: Transformative inquiry. Health and Social Change, 1(1), 9–19. McNamee, S. (2014). Research as Relational Practice. In G. Simon and A. Chard (Eds.), Systemic Inquiry: Innovations in reflexive practice research (pp. 74–94). London: Everything is Connected Press. McNamee, S. (2015). Ethics as Discursive Potential. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, 36(4), 419–433. McNamee, S. (2020). Action Research as E­ thical Practice: Coordinating voices, expanding possibilities. In L. Hersted, S. ­Frimann, and O. Ness (Eds.), Action Research in a Relational View: Dialogue, reflexivity, power and ethics (pp. 17–33). London: Routledge. McNamee, S. and Gergen, K. J. (eds.) (1999). Relational Responsibility. London: Sage. McNamee, S. and Hosking, D. M. (2012). Research and Social Change: A relational constructionist approach. London: Routledge. Ness, O. (2011). Learning new ideas and practices together: A co-operative inquiry into learning to use Johnella Bird’s relational language-making approach in couples therapy. PhD-dissertation Tilburg University. Tilburg: Tilburg University Press. Ness, O. (2020). Learning New Ideas and Practices together through Relational Action Research. In L. Hersted, S. Frimann, and O. Ness (Eds.), Action Research in a Relational View: Dialogue, reflexivity, power and ethics (pp. 93–110). London: Routledge. Ness, O., Borg, M., Semb, R., and Karlsson. B., (2014). ‘Walking alongside’: Collaborative practices in mental health and substance use care. International Journal of Mental Health Systems, 8:55. New Zealand Government. (2019). Seeking Views and Ideas. Retrieved August 6, 2019 from https://dpmc.govt.nz/our-programmes/ child-and-youth-wellbeing-strategy/seekingviews-and-ideas Ng¯a Tutohu ¯ Aotearoa – Indicators Aotearoa New Zealand (2019). Wellbeing Data for

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New Zealanders. Retrieved August, 6, 2019 from https://wellbeingindicators.stats.govt. nz/?_ga=2.244606725.1222980137.1565120255924832265.1563521560 Nussbaum, M. (2000). Women and Human Development: The capabilities approach. New York: Cambridge University Press. Ostrom, E. (1996). Crossing the Great Divide: Coproduction, synergy, and development. World Development, 24(6), 1073–1087. Pestoff, V. (2019). Co-production and Public Service Management: Citizenship, governance and public management. London: Routledge. Phillips, L. and Napan, K. (2016). What’s in the ‘co’? Tending the tensions in co-creative inquiry in social work education. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 29(6), 827–844. Reason, P. (1999). Integrating Action and Reflection Through Cooperative Inquiry. Management Learning, 30(2), 207–227. Reason, P., and Bradbury, H. (Eds.) (2001). Handbook of Action Research. London: Sage. Reich, R. (2018). The Common Good. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Robeyns, I. (2005). The Capability Approach: A theoretical survey. Journal of Human Development, 6(1), 93–117. Selloni, D. (2017). Co-design for Public Interest Services. Milano: Springer. Sen, A. (1992). Inequality Re-examined. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Sen, A. (1999). Development as Freedom. New York: Anchor Books. Shotter, J. (1993). Conversational Realities. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Shotter, J. (2008). Conversational Realities Revisited. Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute Publications. Smith, G. (2009). Democratic Innovations: Designing institutions for citizen participation. Cambridge: Cambridge ­University Press.

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Strong, T., Sutherland, O., and Ness, O. (2011). Considerations for a Discourse of Collaboration in Counseling. Asia Pacific Journal of Counselling and Psychotherapy, 2(1), 25–40. Sundet, R. (2011). Collaboration: Family and therapist perspectives of helpful therapy. Journal of Marital Family Therapy, 37(2), 236–249. Swim, S., St. George, S. A., and Wulff, D. P. (2001). Process Ethics: A collaborative partnership. Journal of Systemic Therapies, 20(4), 14–24. Torfing, J., Sørensen, E., and Røiseland, A. (2016). Transforming the Public Sector INTO an Arena for Co-Creation: Barriers, drivers, benefits and ways forward. Administration & Society, 51(5), 1–31. Voorberg, W. H., Bekkers, V. J. J. M., and ­Tummers, L. G. (2015). A Systematic Review of Co-Creation and Co-Production: Embarking on the social innovation journey. Public Management Review, 17(9), 1333–1357. WEGo (nd). The Network of Wellbeing Economy Governments (WEGo). Retrieved August 6, 2019 from http://wellbeing e­conomygovs.org/ Weinberg, D. (2008). The Philosophical Foundations of Constructionist Research. In J. A. Holstein and J. F. Gubrium (Eds.), Handbook of Constructionist Research (pp. 13–39). London: Guilford Press. World Health Organization (2013). Health 2020: A European Policy Framework and Strategy for the 21st Century. Geneva: World Health Organization. World Health Organization (2019). Healthy, Prosperous Lives for All: The European Health Equity Status Report. Copenhagen: World Health Organization.

5 Action Research and Social Constructionism: Transformative Inquiry and Practice in Community Hilary Bradbury

As the windows of the Academy open up, more scholars are called to co-create new experiments in societal learning in response to the social-ecological challenges we faced. Social constructionism is central in how action researchers work. Action Research is shaped by pragmatism, reflexivity and dialogue, in combination necessary to the action research transformative approach to learningby-doing. This chapter proceeds with an introduction to Action-oriented Research for Transformations, or ART (Bradbury et  al., 2019), and offers illustrations and principles for its contemporary practice. The author argues that constructionism offers a possibility for co-creating life sustaining institutions through our joint efforts. Action research brings together action and reflection, theory and practice, with stakeholders, to issues of pressing concern; it is scholarly practice with a participative orientation to knowledge creation (Bradbury, 2015; Reason and Bradbury, 2000).

Action researchers seek to make a useful difference in a world in which scientific reports rarely provoke the response appropriate to the scale of the problems defined. Yet action researchers do not bring pre-packaged solutions. We acknowledge that expertise resides in the hands of stakeholders. Action researchers, do however, bring diagnostic and facilitative tools, along with distillation and documentation of notable results so that those involved can articulate their own answers and share them. Action research belongs in a category of knowledge that has evolved from an orientation we might broadly label Pragmatism, which emphasizes the multi-dimensionality of human experience and knowledge. The central emphasis of Pragmatism is that knowledge should be assessed by its practical consequences and not - as Cartesian science insists - only by its explanatory power. As a brief framing, with more on the interweaving of heritage from Global South and North below, we may say that action researchers

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see clear intellectual lineage back to John Dewey’s (1938) emphasis on the individual’s active inquiry process in combination with William James’ articulation of the primacy of praxis in interaction with the world. This interweaving of learning and democracy also has roots in the work of Mary Parker Follett (1924) and Paolo Freire (1970). Knowledgein-action concerns power; democracy is something to be learned as ever deeper levels of emancipation are realized. Social constructionism (Berger and Luckmann, 1966), followed by the cognitive/linguistic turn, call us to appreciate the ways in which our individual (psychological) understandings of a situation actively shape our collective (sociological) reactions. Action researcher Budd Hall (1992), drawing on Berger and Luckmann (1966), explains that action researchers recognize that knowledge is socially constructed and embedded. This happens because action researchers are influenced by the potential of people they work with, their co-researchers, to shape their own world, through creative acts. Action research allows stakeholders not just to react, but to be choiceful about the type of world we want to shape. Marja-Liisa Swantz, a Finnish action researcher, credited with coining the term Participatory Action Research, gets to the heart of the matter in a recent interview: “In participatory research you can help people in seeing their own problems. You do not tell them, ‘This is your problem’, but you work with them in a way that they become active” (Nyemba and Meyer, 2018). This ‘help’ is a form of collaboration and implies an interest in transforming power dynamics toward mutuality. Reason and Bradbury (2000) presented action research to fellow action researchers as a logical next step beyond a linguistic turn that privileged rational cognition, to one that seeks creative action. In allowing the importance of transforming power relations, if there is to be transformation, we can trace an easy line from the sociology of social constructionism to poststructuralism

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with the latter emphasis on how social institutions both enable but also dominate people (Foucault, 1994). Action researchers go beyond merely understanding domination to actively transforming toward desired futures. In this we see the value of a constructionist approach. The influential action researcher Bjorn Gustavsen referred to action research as a form of pragmatic constructionism (Gustaven, 2014). This is similar in spirit to Gergen et al.’s (2015) prod to qualitative scholars to move beyond qualitative (deconstructive) descriptions to invest more in supporting creative experiments that co-produce better worlds. Looking to those rarer efforts that explicitly explicate epistemological groundings for action research (Coleman, 2015), we see social constructionism is at the heart of fostering the explicitly dialogic efforts for collaborative action. These take expression in a variety of forms from balancing inquiry and advocacy (Taylor et al., 2015) and critical appreciative inquiry (Duncan, 2015), to working within the arena of political action. Constructionism when it meets participation implies working transformatively with others, i.e., taking on the exercise of inhabiting another’s mind-set, for which empathy is required. For this, action researchers must become better acquainted with the one who is doing the inquiring, namely the self. Thus, the practice of reflexivity becomes a critical anchor for ensuring quality of work with stakeholders in a way that integrates subjective, intersubjective and objective work (Chandler and Torbert, 2003). For example, the practice of relational action inquiry (Bradbury and Torbert, 2016) describes an effort by the author and her mentor to be in inquiry together about the impact of their different gender socialization. In an era of #MeToo, they illustrate and invite others to attempt to transform power dynamics through the active co-creation of mutuality. This highly personal work can transform deeply alienating, inherited patterns of how women and men relate.

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As the windows of the Academy open up, and constructionism is understood as the way in which life is co-created through our joint efforts, there is an opportunity for scholars to help with the societal learning required to meet the interwoven social-ecological challenges we face. This chapter proceeds with an introduction to Action-oriented Research for Transformations, or ART (Bradbury et al., 2019), a contemporary update on action research thinking. It is an update that points to ways in which expanded epistemologies that empower participative and reflexive methodologies for collaborative action can help respond to the call of our social-ecological times. ART articulates a timely updating of our notions of learning beyond ill-fitting mental templates in which knowledge has been presumed to emanate from experts in the form of disinterested fact and figures. Instead ART encourages us to reconnect knowing with emotion and action. A new global consciousness sensitized by awareness of ourselves as participants within the larger ecology of life, along with fellow sentient beings, is now required if we are to make the leap from passive recipients of inert facts to transformative co-creators within an ecology of living beings. Happily, it is not actually a leap, but more of an uncovering, a recognition of the truth available when we turn to our own experience. ‘How long we have been fooled’, poet Walt Whitman enlightened us, ‘we are nature.’ And so our experience, when not drowned out by conditioning to privilege objectifying skepticism, or turn dialogic partners into objects, offers a path forward in scholarship that encourages expression of our full selves within a community of subjects.

ACTION RESEARCH HERITAGE The term ‘action research’ is often attributed to Kurt Lewin (1946), but increasingly it is common to hear of two origins of action

research, one from Global North and the other from the Global South. These are, however, becoming quite intertwined. The Global North account starts with Kurt Lewin’s efforts to understand and prevent human complicity in such horrors as the Nazi Holocaust. Father of social psychology, Lewin escaped Nazi Germany and then stumbled, through collaboration, into bringing observers (e.g., research facilitators) and research subjects (e.g., therapeutic groups) together to share, understand and create new patterns of dialogic interaction. The other account centers on the collaboration of Colombian Orlando Fals Borda (2006) working with Bangladeshi Anis Rahman (2004). Situated in the Global South, action research went hand-in-hand with popular liberation movements, which espoused the importance of popular knowledge creation among nonelite populations (Freire, 1970). The North and South traditions interweave today with, for example, the North’s embrace of the arts, e.g., inspired by Augusto Boal’s (1985) theatre of the oppressed, At the same time, the Global South embraces a wider set of emancipatory issues – such as gender, sexuality and race – that intersect with the previous emphasis on economic justice. The heritage of action research is both wider and deeper than just the past few decades. Olav Eikeland (2006) traces the ethical orientation of action research back to Aristotle, whose notions of multiple ways of knowing included what we might call the primacy of the practical (techne) and cultivation of cycles of action and reflection (praxis). Action research also provides interesting points of connection to Indigenous ways of knowing because of a growing openness to the arts (Etmanski and Bishop, 2017). In turn, this allows for connection to the more integrative Eastern paradigm of mindfulness that weaves threads from Buddhist teachings to Greek and to Western Enlightenment philosophers such as Montaigne. Indeed recent scholarship is troubling the simple notions of what is East and what is West.

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The contemporary manifestation of action research as ART includes attention to both internal (subjective) and external (objective) worlds, and goes beyond overly rationalistic formats to include the arts. Since the 1970s, explicit concern with social liberation has been a central component of all action research. Without this concern, indeed, action research is devitalized to a set of powerful but uncritical techniques. The concept/ practice of mindfulness is more globally appreciated for its help in becoming choiceful with intention and emotion. In short, action research has always been transforming and with its practice emphasis and pragmatic purpose has been open to methodological innovation, which in turn opens the door to new ways of living in the world. Given the growing eco-social crises of our time, action research finds a contemporary expression in Action Research for Transformations (ART) (Bradbury et al., 2019) as a call for creative experiments in how to live better together. Our aspiration is that more of us who practice action-oriented scholarship may revitalize our social institutions as social systems learn to become beneficial presences on our shared Earth. In Figure 5.1, action-oriented transformations research is presented as an orientation to learning that makes it possible to know ourselves simultaneously as scientists and caring citizens, consciously bringing reflexive agency (‘inner work’) to peer learning experiments with our stakeholders (‘outer work’) in service to a better world. This Conceptual Space

ART Collaborative Experiments

Relational Space

Figure 5.1  Action-oriented Research for Transformations (ART)

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orientation is a means and an end. By ‘relational space’ we mean finding resonance with the ones we work with, the so-called ‘objects’ of our study, using the myriad insights of group dynamics while also attuning to ourselves. Such artful processes often require respect for generative silence (so as not to be burdened by too much ‘self’), speaking from the heart, use of the arts, listening generously, participating constructively, hanging in when confidence is shaken, and … yes, enjoying ourselves! This in turn enriches our conceptual space, a space for better ideas, richer insights, to meet and align. When these spaces are well mingled, transformative experiments become possible. In other words, action-oriented researchers for transformations – ARTists – require equal emphasis on relational, conceptual and praxis spaces. Therefore, in Figure  5.1 you see these core components, linking relational with the more familiar conceptual space of scholarship and then to pragmatic expression in experiments. Action-oriented transformations research is, therefore, an invitation to inquiry-in-practice on how there can be a more concerted emphasis on making a positive difference with the stakeholders to an issue in response to the crises we now face. Intention is key. Without intention toward transformation, scholarship is simply another set of good ideas, disconnected from experience, unembodied. A case follows. It’s intended to provide detail enough to clarify what has just been sketched and, one hopes, to connect lofty sounding abstractions to practice. In the following case, the elements of purpose, ­listening/inquiry in practice, making a positive difference with the stakeholders to an issue, resonance within the subject/object distinction, specific methodologies, dynamically reconnecting reflection to sense-making and active experiments in learning, use of the arts, working transformatively, overcoming institutional inertia – and, not to forget, enjoying ourselves too – will become evident.

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A CASE OF TRANSFORMING SELF AND COMMUNITY: THE JOURNAL OF ACTION RESEARCH When baking an apple pie from scratch, quipped physicist Carl Sagan, you must start with the big bang. In other words, as everything is connected to everything else, the location of a pragmatic starting point is always a choice; Similarly, when recounting a case. Let’s take August 29 as a start then. I remember it because I was celebrating my birthday. This was a day punctuated by getting to give a keynote address at an international conference titled, ‘Transformations 2017’, hosted by the University of Dundee, Scotland. This date provides a good starting point from which to look back and see specific notable results which have emerged through the practice of action-oriented research for transformations, namely: i) a new articulation of Action-oriented Research for Transformations (ART); ii), refreshed emphasis by the Action Research journal to develop and publish papers that exemplify ART; iii) stewarding a new global community (Action Research Plus) which gathers online and in person to provide content, curriculum and gatherings for those interested in this ARTful practice of knowledge creation. What follows is therefore a case that integrates personal, interpersonal and impersonal findings. It is not presented, as is conventional scholarship, as a case of work being done ‘somewhere by someones’, though its methodologies and principles are similar to the many such disembodied cases. Instead it is a case offered by the author in the first person. The ‘Transformations 2017’ conference was itself a pearl in a strand among events and efforts championed by scholars concerned by climate change. Professor Karen O’Brien, a geographer, was figural in such events. Karen was a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize for work with the International Panel on Climate Change. Since then, she has come to feel

stymied by the reluctance among IPCC team scientists to even mention ‘transformation’ in connection to climate change. The term was deemed too political, too contentious. There is wisdom in this reluctance given that outright science denial often hinges on the claim that science is biased. Additionally, there is the ongoing sensitivity of scholars to the negative colonizing impact of zealous experts. Still, if talk of transformation is said by scholars to be taboo, then talk of pragmatic efforts, much less engagement of scholars with non-elites, becomes impossible to discuss. Imagine if even 20% of IPCC funding could be spent on local experiments in combatting climate change in ways that those involved might learn from and build upon, harvesting the collective power of abundant, small-scale, nature-based efforts. To get close to such an outcome requires acknowledgment of the need for transformation and a scholarly practice that can support that. It was in this context that I was invited to talk about action research as an orientation to transformative knowledge creation. Despite the often-unquestioned norms of the scientific approach and the heretofore marginalization of action researching as a challenge to the dominant regime, interest in action research has been climbing exponentially since the 1970s. As such, it is a sibling to many efforts today that call for a transformation of the very practice of science, many of which may be found in the chapters of this Handbook. Action researchers can understand the sensitivities around the term transformation without shying away from it. We can seek to be nuanced. Also because of the centrality of stakeholders in decision making, we can strengthen ethical guardrails and have our inclusionary efforts be more evident. A key part of the relational work of action research is to locate allies in other fields and see what we might co-create together. I therefore approached the Transformations conference as an opportunity to meet thinking partners in the field of climate change. As the editor in chief of a journal, I was also

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in a position to convene a guest editor team for a special issue that allowed us to blend ideas of action research with those of new allies who do not identify with the legacy or label of action research. With like-spirited guest editors Karen O’Brien, Steve Waddell, Marina Apgar, Ben Teehankee and Ioan Fazey, our collaboration eventuated in an editorial essay which became an important articulation of ART (Bradbury et al., 2019). We also succeeded in bringing a special issue on Climate Transformations to fruition, which is available without a paywall (https:// actionresearchplus.com/climate-transformations/) alongside a set of papers, each emphasizing engaging aspects of a new generation of ART.

AN EPISTEMOLOGICAL INTERLUDE: REFLEXIVITY AND DISSONANCE The case recounted is one example of how I respond to the question of what can I do in my sphere of influence, in my day-to-day personal and professional life. The self involved with action research is a transformative self and this self – and activities with others – are the experiments that help us learn how to enact needed transformations. In the space of the conference we recognized together that part of what inhibits our efforts as scholars is the unquestioned norms of an academia that has yet to truly reckon with the limits to objectivity, much less the need to support active engagement with (rather than distancing description of) our fraying social and ecological ecosystems. When individuals – and more powerfully as a group – find the opportunity to look under the surface of what inhibits our wellbeing (a key step in transformation is asking how structures prevent well-being), we may feel our sense of dissonance increase and sense of agency decrease. How to proceed? At first blush the brain, especially when unpracticed in reflective skills, can

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leap to black and white choices: either I must make a difference or fall back to sleepwalking. Taking things personally and feeling (unconsciously) overwhelmed is, however, paralyzing. What might a middle path, a kind of muddling forward, look like? It helps to recall that this ‘I’ is not alone, but is inside a system co-created with others, because of, and for, others. The question may morph to ‘how can I take responsibility without feeling burdened?’. By definition, there is no objectivity for a self who investigates their own experience. Bias is always a danger, hence the need for reflexivity and consensus seeking. Reflexivity in inquiry is a central practice of the self-development necessary in action research for transformations. By investigating more of what I am subject to, through making it an object of investigation, the perspective of ‘I’ transforms. To use an analogy, learning improves the capacity to see, much like updating the software that runs the microscopes in a biology lab. This ‘subject object’ investigation provides the basic dialectical mechanism behind adult constructionist development. With it comes the capacity to grow ourselves in complexity to meet what we experience. Such reflexivity is therefore key in our practice as action-oriented researchers for transformation. In the process, we hardly need to be reminded that the dominant, and in many cases powerfully useful, discourse on objectivity, domiant since Descartes, is but a few hundred years old. Moreover, it is waning. When knowing starts with experience here and now, as when we engage with reflexive practice, the separation between self and other cannot be found. After all the oxygen I breathe or the thoughts I think are not controlled by me. There is – in e­ xperience – only one boundless field, that includes me and my personal agency. Contemporary Buddhist philosophy, exemplified in part by the Kyoto school that has arisen around the work of Kitaro Nishida (1979), is grounded on Buddhist experiential concepts – of say a

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boundless field in which all happens – that are radically systemic. Nishida claims that the self is emergent (there is no separate, fixed self), coming to being and passing away in response to action, interaction with others and universal context. He articulates a relational self (also referred to as no-self). Experiential reality is naturally already interconnected. When persons tap into this collective field, collaborative knowing can open up new avenues for inquiry and reflective conceptual knowledge that emerge from the relationships involved.

SOCIAL MEANS BUILDING ON LEGACY Action research can begin anywhere – in any context in which we find ourselves as facilitators, and or as leaders, and/or as participants in the systems that require change. We can’t do action research if there are no stakeholders to the inquiry. Engaging others is the most important, and often most difficult, work. To return to the case above, I wondered about next steps, and next key stakeholders, after the Dundee conference. An immediate group to engage was the other associate editors of the journal in which the special issue on climate transformations was published. What if the special issue was not just a once off? I know from my own experience that no one embraces transformation easily (including me). I started the conversations with my fellow associate editors by stressing how a potential change process – whereby the journal would support more action research for transformations – is also in continuity with what we have accomplished before. As a journal we were well positioned to embrace a refreshment of our mission. Our journal experiences an over-supply of good articles. I knew that each associate editor had individual career and personal goals, and so I inquired with them how a shift in emphasis

to embrace sustainability in our mission, and with it a vision for regenerative society, could be of value to them and to us as a whole board. Not everyone is equally familiar with the notion of sustainability. To bring clarity we agreed that the SDG’s (The UN Sustainable Development Goals) supply a concrete, if imperfect vision of a regenerative world. We agreed that the SDGs supply a concrete, if imperfect, vision of a regenerative world. The emphasis on refreshing our mission at the journal felt like a step toward joining the many poly-centric, poly-vocal efforts within our larger societal shift to embrace better knowledge-creation processes in search of a life sustaining society. These are fed in particular today by the Global South and nonWestern perspectives on diverse forms of knowledge beyond Cartesian colonialism. The action research tradition brings decades of experience, and a commitment to learning with others – a recipe for naturally transforming with the times. While it is unlikely that conventionally trained scientists will leap to practice action research, we agreed as a board that we can and ought to partner more to mutual benefit with those conventionally trained scientists who are interested in impact. In turn, our gift to our stakeholders, i.e., the scholar-practitioners who want to do things differently, who want to be part of the solution, and who see ethics as part of scholarship, is to offer an oasis, a community of inquiry/practice, in an otherwise arid world of objectivist-objectivizing research.

OVERCOMING MICROINSTITUTIONAL INERTIA The journal of Action Research has been around for over 15 years. Our own process of transformation emphasized relational space. Before and during our associate editor meetings, we met in progressive trio groups so all

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participants could discuss the implications of a new emphasis. Coming back into plenary dialogue (we number a dozen people from eight countries; we meet by video which allows for breakout groups), there was more willingness than opposition to adopting a transformative agenda. There were also good questions, some too difficult to answer. For example, who would we attract and/or repel with this new emphasis? Would we be forced to reject papers that just a few weeks previously would have been considered good? To answer too soon would merely substitute speculation for inquiry. Perhaps such questions can only be answered through our practice. To take inquiry to practice required aligning in intention. One board member called for more attention to our learning approach, asking us specifically to use our meetings for inquiring systematically into our own practice. We’d see in the intervening time which papers we saw as having potential and which not. We’d learn together to make these decisions more explicit together. We ended up agreeing that we’d look more carefully and reflexively at what constitutes truly ‘transformative’ action research. In other words, while we might not be able to tell in advance what the rejection process would be, we could simultaneously engage the new emphasis as a learning process for ourselves too. Moreover, we also agreed to bring more of the relational spirit to the review process itself. We agreed that the first round of review would remain completely blind, but that later rounds of review could begin to include meeting/dialoguing with reviewers and with authors, thus emphasizing community as part of inquiry in practice. Different Associate Board members brought their own individuality, reflexivity and egocentricity to the effort. One board member chose to resign around this time. As a follow up, I continued to lead ongoing trio meetings among board members, recording notes to ‘play forward’ to the next group. The heart of our work was to refresh the set

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of criteria by which we assess quality – called the 7 quality choice points – and which also help us discern how to develop papers toward publication. We shared the new emphasis on transformation with our stakeholders, namely all readers, authors, reviewers. Six scholars volunteered to join as associate editors. We’re really just getting started. Transformation is emergent. In turn there are practical issues, such as building our capacity for using social media, and joining, where welcome, the efforts of others and inviting them to ours. For this we use the Action Research Plus Foundation and the global community developing around it. It was founded with seed capital from the royalties associated with the Handbooks and Journal of Action Research. It is a foundation that also funds work that makes journal articles available in accessible blog posts and videos, as well as books (called Cookbooks) that share stories and resources for self and community transformation. At the ‘Transformations 2019’ conference in Santiago, Chile, two years after the Dundee conference with which this case opens, Action Research Plus (AR+) launched its new bilingual, Spanish/English Cookbook, helping to overcome a language barrier that prevents action researchers from the Global North and South learning together. This launch happened during huge street protests that called on the government to rewrite its constitution. It was also in the midst of a severe drought and a burden of pollution brought about by unregulated capitalism. A timely moment indeed.

WE PAVE THE ROAD BY WALKING Does ART sound perhaps ‘a bit much’, requiring so much emphasis on transformation? Or are we perhaps too used to the controlling narrative of Cartesian scholarship, whose stance is distant from life, controlling, simplifying and universalizing? Stability and

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control undoubtedly have a place in producing the powerful impact of double-blind results. Still it is partial (and indeed a surprising number of scientific studies are never reproduced). Action-oriented transformations research calls us to inquiry/practice as whole persons enriched by reflexivity, which allows for interpersonal resonance, and through that capacity for objectivity. Still one may expect that action research – and transdisciplinarity more generally – remains interpreted by a feudal elite of professors and grant foundations as foreign ideas too risky to take on. The resources of mainstream academia emerge to replicate rather than transform the status quo. Patience and understanding is useful. Yet asymmetrical power makes life difficult for more actionoriented junior scholars who would be the future of the field.

THE IMPLICATIONS? All of us scholars grapple with a deep addiction to the unsustainable systems within which we live and work – and a deep addiction also to the approbation, the scholarly rewards that recognize a narrow slice of inquiry. To varying degrees, we belong to communities that practice various levels of denial of just how much we exact a toll of suffering on weaker ones to maintain the status quo. If all of us are morally culpable, we also have the possibility to co-create the next system together, because we understand that we construct our social institutions. Knowledge systems for knowledge creation are not just academic. Transformation of academia is possible too! Action research shows up in many contexts. The special issue on climate transformations mentioned above offers examples, e.g., by Daniel Morchain and his colleagues (2019). They share how transforming Oxfam’s Vulnerability and Risk Assessment methodologies contributed to personal and

institutional transformations. Drawing on projects in Malawi, Botswana and Namibia, they conclude that inclusive and representative participatory approaches can help shift narratives that people hold about their lives and work. By establishing platforms and processes for speaking ‘truth to power,’ participatory processes also allow marginal voices to be heard, which can uncover issues that have been previously unaddressed. Their ART research focused on building relationships and on narrowing power dynamics and differentials to enable the co-creation of solutions that are rooted in social justice. Their work is a powerful example of how to move beyond incremental toward transformational thinking and action, especially in relation to climate change adaptation. This – and the many hundreds more action research cases – share principles of not remaining distant from the object of study, working within a conscious relational space, broadening perspectives and producing results together. Future and past are treated as part of the present moment. To ask ‘how do I do action research’ is similar to asking ‘how do I cook’? There is no simple answer, nor is a conceptual description all that helpful, especially not one without pictures of the dishes. By this I imply that action research is a process and takes various cultural forms across fields of endeavor and scholarly disciplines. And as with cooking there is a range, from simple potatoes to fiesta, and so action research too can involve a few or many thousands. As Gustavsen (2014) points out, there cannot be universality but there is potential for proliferating social learning if the findings are brought to a next group of stakeholders. The wary newcomer may see this as offputting and amorphous in comparison to the controlled process of conventional science. Still there are key ingredients or principles (Bradbury and AR+ Associates, see ActionResearchPlus.com); as long as you make sure you are not alone nor follow an expert’s recipe to the letter. Along with stakeholders, may the ART force be with you!

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CONCLUSION

REFERENCES

I have offered a case as an illustration of the practice of ART. Journals – which channel the work of scholars – help to give voice to, and therefore fashion, the mindset of the educated class that produces – either as reproduction or transformation – the world we have. ART is a process for self-transforming as a scholar, with stakeholders, in the creative work of co-producing a more sustainable world. To be transformative – that is to bring social constructionism to pragmatism with a larger ecological intention, ART comprises:

Berger, P. L., and Luckmann, T. 1966. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Doubleday. Boal, A. 1985. Theatre of the Oppressed. New York: Theatre Communications Group. Bradbury, H. (Ed.) 2015. The Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice, 3rd Edition. London: Sage. Bradbury, H., and Torbert, W. 2016. Eros/ Power: Love in the Spirit of Inquiry. Transforming how Women and Men Relate. Tucson, AZ: Integral Publishers. Bradbury, H., Waddell, S., O’Brien, K., Apgar, M., Teehankee, B., and Fazey, I. 2019. A Call to Action Research for Transformations: The Times Demand It. Editorial. Action Research, 19(1): 1–10. Chandler, D., and Torbert, W. R. 2003. Transforming Inquiry and Action: Interweaving 27 Flavors of Action Research. Shaping the Future. Action Research, 1: 133–152. Coleman, G. 2015. Core Issues in Modern Epistemology for Action Researchers: Dancing Between Knower and Known. In Bradbury, H. (Ed.), The Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice, 3rd Edition. London: Sage, pp. 392–400. Dewey, J. 1938. Experience and Education. New York: Collier. Duncan, G. 2015. Innovations in Appreciative Inquiry. Critical Appreciative Inquiry with Excluded Pakistani Women. In Bradbury, H. (Ed.), The Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice, 3rd Edition. London: Sage, pp. 55–63. Eikeland, O. 2006. Condescending Ethics and Action Research: Extended Review Article. Action Research, 4(1): 37–47. Etmanski, C., and Bishop, K. 2017. Art: Enhancing Creativity in Action Research in Six Lessons. In Bradbury, H. and AR+ Associates, Cooking Action Research: Stories and Resources for Self and Community Transformation (ActionResearchPlus.com), pp. 81–88. Fals Borda, O. 2006. The North–South Convergence. A 30-Year First Personal Assessment of PAR. Action Research, 4(3): 351–358.

• • • • • •

Clarifying purpose Reflexivity and agency Commitment to developmental process Inquiry in practice with others Integrating first, second and third And don’t forget, enjoying ourselves too!

How then might we muddle forward, learning together? For our transformative inherent potential as a learning species to be realized, a new intention for knowledge creation is key. Like Othello who bemoaned mere ‘prattle without practice’, we can intend for ourselves, new systems of learning – beyond prattle – which can practice as part of a solutions orientation to future forming. To paraphrase the relational sentiment of Margaret Mead: never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, constructionist actionoriented transformations researchers can help change the world. Isn’t it time that more scholars learned to engage fellow citizens in inquiry/practice around desired futures? It helps to remember the wisdom of philosopher/poet David Whyte who reminds us that our ‘great mistake is to act the drama as if you were alone’. We are not alone. We construct the world in relationship. This is the promise of the constructivist spirit of action research for transformations.

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Follett, M. Parker 1924. Creative Experience. New York: Longman Green and Co (reprinted by Peter Owen in 1951). Foucault, M. 1994. The Birth of the Clinic. New York: Vintage Press. Freire, P. 1970 Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Translation by Myra Ramos. New York: Bloomsbury. Gergen, K., Josselman, R., and Freeman, M. 2015. The Promises of Qualitative Research. American Psychologist, 70(1): 1–9. Gustavsen, B. 2014. Social Impact and the Justification of Action Research. Action Research, 12(4): 339–356. Hall, B. L. 1992. From Margins to Center. The Development and Purpose of Participatory Research. The American Sociologist, 23(4): 15–28. Lewin, K. 1946. Action Research and Minority Problems. In Lewin, G. W. (Ed.), Resolving Social Conflicts. New York: Harper & Row, pp. 201–216. Morchain, D., Spear, D., and Ziervogel, G. 2019. Building Transformative Capacity in Southern Africa: Surfacing Knowledge and Challenging Structures through Participatory Vulnerability and Risk Assessments. Action Research, 17(1): 19–41.

Nishida, K. 1979. The Historical Body. In Sourcebook for Modern Japanese Philosophy (Zenshu, 19 volumes). Tokyo, Japan: Iwanamu Shoten, pp. 37–54. Nyemba, F., and Mayer, M. 2018. Exploring the Roots of Participatory Action Research: An Interview with Dr Marja-Liisa Swantz. Action Research, 16(3): 319–338. Rahman, A. 2004. Globalization: The Emerging Ideology in the Popular Protests and Grassroots Action Research. Action Research, 2(1): 9–23. Reason, P., and Bradbury, H. (Eds.) 2000. The Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice. London: Sage. Taylor, S., Rudolph, J., and Foldy, E., 2015. Teaching and Learning Reflective Practice in the Action Science/Action Inquiry Tradition. In Bradbury, H. (Ed.), The Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice, 3rd Edition. London: Sage, pp. 732–741. Whitman, W., 1855, 1897. ‘We Two, How Long We Were Fool’d’ and ‘Song of Myself’. In Leaves of Grass. Walt Whitman Archive U. Virginia. Whyte, D. 2003. Everything is Waiting for You. Washington, USA: Many Rivers Press.

6 Research as Performative Inquiry Mary M. Gergen

The purpose of this chapter is to explore the ways in which social science research practices have conjoined with the arts, and the place of social construction in these emerging explorations. In my view this conjoining brings to light the potentials of seeing research as a form of performance, and thus an attempt to evoke a responsive action. However, given the rapid acceleration of interest in allying the arts with research practice, performative inquiry is virtually synonymous with ‘arts-based research’. Patricia Leavy, a well-known advocate of arts-based research, defines the field as ‘any social research … that adapts the tenets of the creative arts as a part of the methodology. So, the arts may be used during data collection, analysis, interpretation and/or dissemination’ (Jones and Leavy, 2014, pp. 1–2). Compendiums emphasizing performative inquiry include Playing with purpose: Adventures in performative social science (Gergen and Gergen, 2012), Creative research methods in the social sciences: A practical

guide (Kara, 2015) and many chapters in various editions of The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (Denzin and Lincoln, 2000, 2005, 2011, 2018). The Handbook of artsbased research is a major resource for performative inquiry (Leavy, 2019) and extends its reach into the health sciences, natural sciences, business, and education. Early performative handbooks include The SAGE handbook of performance studies (Madison and Hamera, 2006), and the Handbook of the arts in qualitative research (Knowles and Cole, 2008). Other important contributions include Arts-based research (Barone and Eisner, 2012) and Qualitative inquiry at a crossroads (Denzin and Giardina, 2019). Journals especially receptive to performative work include Qualitative Inquiry, International Review of Qualitative Research, Journal of Mixed Methods Research, and two online journals, Forum: Qualitative Social Research and Qualitative Research. In what follows I shall first provide a brief account of the development of performative inquiry. Now a powerful

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catalyst in the social sciences, performative work is of relatively recent origin. How, one might ask, did such flowering occur, and how has its development bolstered by social constructionist ideas? We may then take a more focused look at developments in several areas of inquiry, including those relying on textual, embodied and visual arts. Finally, I will touch on some salient achievement and aspirations.

PERFORMATIVE INQUIRY: EMERGENCE AND DEVELOPMENT One might legitimately trace the origins of performative studies to the publication in 1632 of Galileo’s Dialogue concerning the two chief world systems. In this volume, Galileo effectively justifies his Copernican view of the universe, that the earth revolves around the sun. In this account, however, he draws from the full range of rhetorical devices available at the time: formal scientific articulation, irony, drama, comedy, sarcasm, and poetry among them. By rolling his manifesto into this rich mix of genres, and the like, Galileo was able to give voice to his view of the cosmos, while simultaneously protecting himself from the ire of the Pope and the Catholic Church, for which his views would be anathema. Over the next three centuries, Galileo’s research came to be a centerpiece in the emergence of a self-conscious empiricist science. However, the all-important rhetorical devices had grown into discredit, now regarded as ‘bells and whistles’ as opposed to carrying real objective substance. Science, it was said, was engaged in the pursuit of literal as opposed to rhetorical truth. This was indeed the received view within the burgeoning social sciences of the 20th century. The hope of many scholars was that the study of social life would constitute a science with a status approximating the natural sciences. Such research might provide the scientific basis for generating effective institutions of

education, commerce, and governance; they might lead the way in eradicating poverty, mental illness and other social problems. The effort to create and sustain this dream of the social sciences as kin to the natural sciences remains dominant in psychology, sociology, and economics, especially.

CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION: PROTEST AND PLURALISM As widely documented, a major shift in the political landscape took place in the second half of the 20th century in both the United States and across Europe. Where there had been widespread trust in the existing political institutions, a steadily expanding chorus of protest emerged. In the United States the first major wave of protest was embodied in the civil rights movement in the 1950s. This was followed by the equal rights movement, and most vociferously in the anti-war movement in the 1960s. One might say that, anti-­ establishment protest virtually became a way of life, with gay and lesbian activists, antipsychiatry advocates, environmental activists, and pro-life/pro/choice combatants soon participating. One important outcome of these movements was the questioning of all established forms of authority – not only governmental, but scientific and religious as well. All groups, great or small, voiced the right to speak out, to claim a legitimacy equal to others. While conflict was pervasive, there was also an emerging understanding and appreciation of the potentials of a pluralist society in which new ways of life could emerge, forms of life that favored inclusion, accommodation, and collaboration. Widely recognized for their liberal political leanings, social scientists were often in the vanguard in nurturing such pluralism. And in the same spirit of critique and protest, traditional definitions of scientific knowledge and method came under attack.

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Ideological and political critique was already under way in Europe, but was soon joined by a powerful wave of feminist scholarship. Soon joining in were scholars concerned with the homophobic, individualist, capitalist, and Eurocentric biases of the social sciences. As common within the culture at large, there was an accompanying urgency to act. The possibility of combining scholarly work with social activism became increasingly plausible (Conquergood, 1982, 2002). The impact of this confluence remains robust in performative social science today (KeiferBoyd, 2011). Yet, the possibilities of conjoining the arts and sciences for such purposes must be traced to what was taking place within the artistic communities themselves. Many such communities thrive on challenging tradition. Indeed this has been the leitmotif of what we call modern art. However, during this period of broad political unrest, many artists from across the spectrum sought ways of using their various media for purposes of social and political change. Thus making their way into the scene were movements in performance art, pop art, disposable art, political art, street art, and more. In the groundbreaking films of Frederick Wiseman (Titicut Follies, Ballet, In Jackson Heights), and Jennie Livingston’s award-winning Paris is Burning the lines separating ethnography, politics, and entertainment were erased.

THE CONSTRUCTIONIST TURN It is during this same historical period – sometimes heralded as postmodern – that dialogues on the social construction of knowledge also erupted. One central idea within these dialogues was that our understandings of what we call reality emerge from relationships among people, especially through language and other meaningful activities (see Chapter 1). It is through relational processes – situated within particular

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historical cultural and physical contexts – that our understandings are created and stabilized (or not), and through which we come to trust one another (or not) as knowable entities acting in what we see as reasonable ways (Gergen, 1994). From this point of view, there is no group of people that can make claims to transcendent truth, that is truth beyond what anyone might think or wish. There may be multiple and competing claims to what is the case, each legitimate within a socio-historical context. Importantly, this applies as well to the sciences. Scientific descriptions are constructed within sub-cultures of scientists, and serve their particular purposes and values. This is not to say that all descriptions are equal, but rather, to ask what purposes and values are served by their work. Thus, if one agrees with the assumptions and values of Western medicine, one can legitimately compare the outcomes with various indigenous forms of medicine. Yet there are also reasons to question the assumptions and values. The question thus emerges, what are the aims and purposes of the social sciences? What do they value, and how are these values fulfilled by their forms of research and their languages of description and explanation? Often it is said that the aims of the sciences are ‘prediction and control.’ However, many researchers are alienated by this conclusion, and prefer to cast their work, for example, in the service of various liberal and humanitarian goals. We are then invited to ask: what methods, what forms of inquiry, and what forms of description and explanation may best suit such ends. From these constructionist dialogues emerged three significant conclusions linking the social sciences with the arts. First, by removing the mantle of authority from traditional empirical science, social sciences were liberated to consider alternative methods of inquiry. One may trace the mushrooming of qualitative research practices – including the performative – to this line of argument. Second, because all accounts of the worldincluding the scientific – carry the values of

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those who espouse them, then social science researchers can make no claims to value neutrality. The door now opens to carrying out science not as neutral bystanders, but for the very purposes of realizing social and political ends. Finally, from a constructionist perspective, there is no privileged form of language for describing and explaining the world. Thus, in terms of truth posits, the various languages of the arts are equivalent to the languages (and statistics) of the sciences. While the enormous range of performative and arts-based inquiry that subsequently emerged within the social sciences cannot be traced directly to these ideas, the indirect effects cannot be overestimated. Until such ideas began to ripple through the social sciences, there was no way to legitimate such inquiry. One could look back at many experiments created by social psychologists in the late 1960s and early 1970s as performative in character. For example, Stanley Milgram’s (1974) famous studies on obedience, along with the well-known ‘Stanford prison study’ (Haney et al., 1973) were highly theatrical. However, the performativity was inadvertent, as the primary intention was to create empirically grounded generalizations. More directly related, in my experience were a series of highly popular symposia presented at the American Psychological Association meetings from 1995 to 1999. Presentations included plays, poetry, film, painting, dance, mime, and multi-media presentations. Similarly important were the annual meetings of the International Conference on Qualitative Inquiry, hosted by Norman Denzin at the University of Illinois. Since 2005 they provided an inviting platform for performative work. Attracting over a thousand international researchers a year in the qualitative field, they highlighted the work of many well-known performance scholars, including Tami Spry (2001, 2011), Laurel Richardson (1997), Ron Pelias (1999, 2014, 2018) and Johnny Saldaña (2011). Also noteworthy in the direct linkages with constructionist ideas was the compilation by

Kip Jones et al. (2008) in an edited issue of Forum: Qualitative Social Research (vol. 9), This special issue included 42 entries from authors in 13 countries, and featured 100 photographs, 50 illustrations, 36 videos, and two audio-recordings. Jones also was the organizer of a series of five exploratory conferences in 2006–07. These efforts allowed social scientists to identify areas of possible connections with each other as well as with practitioners from the arts (Gergen and Jones, 2008). Jones continues to advance performative social science through his blog Kipworld (2017), and his work at the Bournemouth University, Centre for Qualitative Research.

ATTRACTIONS OF PERFORMATIVE INQUIRY As we see, the constructionist dialogues provide strong arguments for social scientists to cast off the restrictions of positivist methodology, to give expression to their values in the aims and practices of their research, and to employ the full range of rhetorical skills in communicating their work. For those engaged in these dialogues, there was the additional advantage that performative inquiry avoided the kind of authoritative truth claims often associated with scientific rhetoric. When a message is carried through performance, an audience may be moved without presuming that it is scientifically certified. Performative work constitutes serious play. Whether touched directly or indirectly by constructionist dialogues, social scientists have found performative inquiry appealing in many other ways. At the outset, such inquiry allows the researcher to address social concerns in ways that are far more accessible to public audiences than are the more antiseptic and abstract forms of professional writing (Finley, 2018). This also allows the researcher to avoid the common critique that scholarly work is elitist, that it is written for

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other scholars, while the public is shut out of the conversation that is often ‘about them.’ Also attractive is the invitation to personal expression. The researcher is not hamstrung by a cumbersome and formalized language of representation, as required in many scientific communities, but can draw from the full range of his or her potentials. This may mean, for example, drawing from folk traditions in one’s life – woven into one’s ethnicity, gender, or class. In a recent edition of the International Review of Qualitative Research, for example, one article features Anishinabe song and story (Pedri-Spade, 2016) and a second the craft of beading as a method of performative inquiry (Ray, 2016). In contrast to traditional methods – in which one’s life history is eliminated from view, a performative orientation also opens a space in which one’s life experiences can become assets to expression. We shall return to this potential in a later discussion of autoethnography. And too, performative inquiry invites the researcher to explore or give expression to one’s aesthetic potentials – in writing poetry, acting, playing an instrument, dancing, and so on. Many researchers are attracted to performative inquiry because of its rhetorical power. Among the attributes of performative inquiry are its capacity to blend various forms of art together, thus ‘speaking in many voices’ at once. For example, in his analysis of Custer’s ‘last stand’ against native American warriors, Norman Denzin combined autobiographical reminiscences, historical description, artistic representations, staged readings, and snippets of documents to produce a powerful, multilayered ethnography (2011). This feature is especially attractive to activist researchers. While lines of careful reasoning may advocate social change, their temperate and measured form of logical argumentation often leave one in thought. Are there other arguments to consider; what is the history of this issue; and so on. By drawing on the full range of the arts, one’s message can stimulate excitement, the emotions, and the impetus to action.

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DOMAINS OF PERFORMATIVE INQUIRY Social scientists now draw from the full range of artistic traditions in their inquiries, and often combine traditions for particular purposes. The creative possibilities are limitless, and the mushrooming developments in digital technology open a vast new territory. However for analytic purposes it is useful to scan the work in three more circumscribed realms: textual, embodied action, and visual.

Textual Adventures Because traditional scholarship takes the form of writing, the most attractive invitation into performative work has been furnished by literary traditions such as biography, fiction, and poetry. Constructionist ideas invite one to experiment with these traditional forms. In the case of biography, for example, in an exploration of her own eating disorder, Lisa Tillmann-Healy (1996) shows her hidden bulimia via short vignettes, from early childhood to her twenties. Karen Fox’s (1996) juxtaposition of three voices was extracted from interviews to form a pseudo-conversation: the first voice was that of her client, who as a young girl, had been sexually abused by her grandfather; the second a man now in prison for sexually abusing his granddaughter; and the third, her own, commenting on her feelings. Kenneth and Mary Gergen (1994) composed a duography, that is, a double biography, which began with the voices of two independent individuals and gradually melded them together over the course of the text. The logic inherent in this tradition also finds lively development in autoethnography (Bochner and Ellis, 2016; Sughrua, 2016), in which scholars use themselves as instruments for illuminating a particular socio-cultural condition. The shift from ethnography to autoethnography is an important one, as it

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replaces the authority of the outside observer with the voice of the person in-situ (Ellis, 2004). This work has frequently expanded to include novels and theatrical scripts (Ellis, 2004; Richardson, 1997; Richardson and St.  Pierre, 2005). Excellent compendiums of this work are found in edited volumes by Ellis and Bochner, Composing ethnography (1996) and Bochner and Ellis, Ethnograpically speaking (2002). More radical in its challenge to realist representation is the work of social scientists who have turned to fiction as a means of inquiry. The enormously expanded range of expression allowed by fictional traditions enable them to illuminate their subject matter in what are often seen as more effective and penetrating ways than traditional empirical study. Pfohl’s (1992), Death at the Parasite Café was a courageous and innovative entry into the professional literature – at once serious and playful. Also adventuresome are dialogues between fictitious characters. For example, in Michael Mulkay’s (1985) groundbreaking work, fictional characters, Marks and Spencer, along with inebriated participants at the Nobel ceremonies, dispute about chemistry, in a parody of issues in sociology. Exploration now abounds. For example, Diversi (1998) has used short stories to provide a glimpse of street life for homeless youth in Brazil, and Muñoz (2014) has employed fictional stories to explore dimensions of silence in interpersonal communication. Poetry has long been viewed in the culture more generally as a way of communicating wisdom, insights, or passions in more powerful, economic, and more highly nuanced ways than prose. To explore these potentials in social science, for example, Mary Breheny (2012) has provided a poetic representation of aging; Anne Görlich (2016) has introduced us to the lives of adolescent dropouts, and Laurel Richardson has used experimental writing to illuminate her life in Fields of play (1997). As an alternative to authoring their own poems, other social scientists have

drawn from the words of others – typically those to whom they wish to give voice – to form a poetic integration. For example, Steven Hartnett (2003) has provided insight into prison life through the poems of inmates. For more detailed accounts of the use of poetry in social research see Richardson and St. Pierre (2005), and Faulkner (2009). More on the performative use of text in general can be found in Pelias (2014), and Gergen and Gergen (2012).

Embodied Performance The blend of activism and performance has a long history in the culture of protest. The Brazilian theater practitioner and political activist, Augusto Boal (1995), is noteworthy in opening the way to blending embodied performance with social theory, and he has inspired many to follow. For example, Jonathan Shailor in his work in prisons uses performative methods to create change in the lives of inmates (2010). Also illustrative is the theatrical work of Anna Deavere Smith on youth going to prison (2019), Mary Gergen on women and aging (2001), and Anita Woodley (2015), an inspiring storyteller and creator of ethnodramas, in her role as Mama Juggs on breast cancer and body image. Tami Spry, who has a special concern with Native American lives, also offers wisdom and guidance to those who may be drawn to the potentials of performance (2001, 2011). A major innovator in performance studies is the East Side Institute in New York City, where dramatic productions are integral to educational, therapeutic and communitybuilding functions (Holzman, 1999; Newman, 1996). From this perspective, the performative nature of human relationships is implicated in their doing, and thus, a performative analysis is coherent with the drama of everyday life. However, there is also increasing movement toward full-blown performance. For example, Johnny Saldaña, an educator and

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musician, has transformed an aspect of his life story into an hour-long theatrical piece, ‘Second Chair’, during which he plays music as well as speaks lines (Saldaña, 2011). Organizational behavior scholar, Frank Barrett, a former professional jazz musician, has developed a brilliant musical presentation involving audience participation, to illustrate the creation of meaning through collaboration (2012). Possibly because of the far greater demands involved (e.g. multiple performers, costumes, sets) the deployment of theatrical plays as social inquiry has not been well developed. One of the most salutary inspirations is the work of Gray and Sinding (2002), in which women with metastasized breast cancer both wrote and performed a play inviting others, especially medical personnel, to treat them as whole persons, in contrast to reducing their identities to their diseases. Park (2009) and Norris (2010) have shown how play building can be used as a form of action research. As mentioned, Kip Jones has been at the forefront of this effort to use film as a form of performative inquiry (Hearing and Jones, 2018).

From the Visual to the Visionary Given the longstanding assumption that photographs provide the unvarnished truth about their subject matter, it is surprising that outside the tradition of visual sociology, so little use has been made of photography in the social sciences. The performative movement lends new life to this medium, but with an understanding of photography as both interpretive and value invested (Allen, 2011; Allen, 2012; Miller, 2016). To sample the innovative use of the medium, Newbury and Hoskins (2010) gave adolescent girls, who were drug users, digital cameras to explore and portray their life conditions and potentials. In their photovoice work on Parkinson’s disease, Hermanns et al. (2015) asked their participants to take photos of

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everyday challenges related to the disease, and then engaged them in dialogue about the photos. Such combining of photography with other forms of representation is increasingly common. Mannay (2010) has combined photos, mapping, and collage production in her study of the experiences of mothers and daughters in a social housing estate. Also see Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis for their pioneering work on portraiture methodology (1997). Brooks (2017) has elaborated on the importance of portraiture in its contributions of aesthetics to performative inquiry. The development of digital video devices has been a strong invitation to explore filmic representation in the social sciences. The aforementioned works of Wiseman and Livingston opened the door. Kip Jones’ prizewinning film, Rufus Stone (https://vimeo. com/109360805) is testimony to a continuing tradition of excellence. The project was based on narrative materials collected and synthesized by Jones. The aim was also to empower older lesbians and gay men in rural areas through participatory action research. Kenneth Gergen (2018) has turned to video to create what he calls an evocative ethnography of life in the contemporary digital world. Still other scholars have turned directly to You Tube to reach large audiences of viewers. For example, Kitrina Douglas (2012) offers performative videos in anti-psychiatry and feminism in song form. Other efforts can be found in the multi-media journal, Liminalities. These various endeavors in textual, embodied, and visual performance scarcely exhaust the range of innovative explorations now extant. For example, Blumenfeld-Jones (2008) describes the uses and potentials of dance in performative social science; Glenda Russell and Janis Bohan (1999) have demonstrated the power of choral music in the politics of change. Bartlett (2013) has used cartoons as a form of inquiry. Kuttner et al. (2018) have combined cartoons with rap music as part of their research work. There are also numerous

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ways in which scholars have combined various forms of representation to achieve their ends. As poetic expression is accompanied by music, for example, the audience’s experience may be enriched. The combinations and permutations resulting from integrations across the realm of artistic expression may be limitless.

ACHIEVEMENTS AND ASPIRATIONS Performative work radically alters the definition of knowledge and research. In doing so, it functions subtly within the academy to gradually expand consciousness of possibilities. And with this shift, the potential contribution of the social sciences to society is substantially increased. Unlike traditional empiricists, typically absorbed by testing abstract hypotheses or observing society from the sidelines, performative inquiry can actively create change. A performative consciousness prompts asking such questions as, ‘Who is this research for?’ ‘Will this research help to make a change for the better?’ It is ultimately a matter of communicating with full potentials to all peoples. In this way, the distance between the academy and the community is diminished and scholars become more fully engaged in the life-worlds about them. Its capacity for engagement further means that performative work establishes the grounds for dialogue within society. Traditional scientific writing speaks down to society, positioning itself as authoritative and legitimate, over and above the views of the audience. In contrast, when communicating with forms of theater, poetry, film, or photography – all common in society – the scholar is often using culturally familiar forms of communication. Because no claims are made to The Truth, the audience can approach performance work not defensively, but with more openness to what is presented. The conditions are thus established for dialogic interchange. To be sure, performance pursuits may express

a particular point of view, often passionately. Yet the very fact that the expression is performative informs the audience that the message is an artifice – crafted for the occasion. One may compare this with traditional empirical work, in which researchers do all they can to suppress their personal investments. While making declarations about the real and the good, performance work simultaneously removes the gloss ‘is true’. Performative pursuits continuously remind us that everything remains open to dialogue. Much more can be said about the potentials inhering in the performative movement. As discussed, by using the arts to socially construct the world, new and exciting vistas of theory and research are opened up (see, for example, Rolling, 2014). And, because performative inquiry does not require that disciplines be defined in terms of pre-fixed objects (e.g. the mind, society, the family, the community), disciplinary boundaries can be crossed more easily. New research territories can also be created, as evidenced in the way performance researchers take up issues in post-humanism, and the new materialism (Barad, 2007; Bennett, 2010; Braidotti, 2013; Haraway, 2016). Increasingly, academic cultures are invited into mutual exploration with mixed-methods and research innovations encouraged. One may now envision a future in which concerns with the philosophical and aesthetic origins of research inquiry will be replaced with questions of how one’s research practices can best serve one’s purposes. Resistance to performative work will remain, but critical reflection is also healthy. At this point in time, however, the vistas of possibility are irresistibly inviting.

REFERENCES Allen, L. (2011). ‘Picture this’: Using photomethods in research on sexualities and schooling. Qualitative Research, 11, 487–504.

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Allen, Q. (2012). Photographs and stories: Ethics, benefits and dilemmas of using participant photography with Black middle-class male youth. Qualitative Research, 12, 443–458. Anita Woodley Productions. (October 27, 2015). Anita Woodley’s Mama Living with BreastCancer Mini Documentary [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= tUDnwFjYJcU Appignanesi, J. (Director) and Jones, K. (Author). (2011). Rufus Stone [Film]. London: Parkville Pictures & Bournemouth: Bournemouth University. Retrieved from https:// vimeo.com/109360805 Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Barone, T., and Eisner, E. (2012). Arts-based research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Barrett, F. (2012). Yes to the mess: Surprising leadership lessons from jazz. Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing. Bartlett, R. (2013). Playing with meaning: Using cartoons to disseminate research findings. Qualitative Research, 13, 214–227. Bennett, J. (2010). Vibrant matter: A political ecology of things. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Blumenfeld-Jones, D. (2008). Dance, choreography, and social science research. In J. G. Knowles and A. L. Cole (Eds.), Handbook of the arts in qualitative research: Perspectives, methodologies, examples, and issues. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Boal, A. (1995). The rainbow of desire: The Boal method of theatre and therapy (pp. 175–184). New York: Routledge. Bochner, A., and Ellis, C. (Eds.) (2002). Ethnographically speaking: Autoethnography, literature, and aesthetics. New York: Rowman and Littlefield. Bochner, A., and Ellis, C. (2016). Evocative autoethnography: Writing lives and telling stories. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Braidotti, R. (2013) The posthuman. London: Polity Press. Breheny, M. (2012). ‘We’ve had our lives, we’ve had our lives’: A poetic representation of ageing. Creative Approaches to Research, 5, 156–170.

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Brooks, S. D. (2017). The song (does not) remain the same: Re-envisioning portraiture methodology in educational research. The Qualitative Report, 22, 2231–2247. Retrieved from https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol22/ iss8/16 Conquergood, D. (1982). Performing as a moral act: Ethical dimensions of the ethnography performance. Literature in Performance, 5, 1–13. Conquergood, D. (2002). Lethal theatre: Performance, punishment, and the death penalty. Theatre Journal, 54, 339–367. Deavere Smith, A. (2019). Notes from the field. New York: Random House. Denzin, N. (2011). Custer on canvas: Representing Indians, memory, and violence in the New West. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Denzin, N., and Giardina, M. D. (Eds.) (2014). Qualitative inquiry at a crossroads: Political, performative, and methodological reflections. New York: Routledge. Denzin, N., and Lincoln, Y. (Eds.) (2000, 2005, 2011, 2018). The SAGE Handbook of qualitative research, 2nd–5th editions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Diversi, M. (1998). Glimpses of street life: Representing lived experience through short stories. Qualitative Inquiry, 4, 131–137. Douglas, K. (2012). Signals and signs. Qualitative Inquiry, 18, 525–532. Ellis, C. (2004). The ethnographic I: A methodological novel about autoethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira. Ellis, C., and Bochner, A. C. (Eds.) (1996). Composing ethnography: Alternative forms of qualitative writing. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. Faulkner, S. L. (2009). Poetry as method: Reporting research through verse. New York: Routledge. Finley, S. (2018). The future of critical artsbased research: Creating aesthetic spaces for resistance politics. In N.K. Denzin & M. Giardina (Eds), Qualitative inquiry in the public sphere. New York: Routledge, 186–199. Fox, K. V. 1996. Silent voices: A subversive reading of child sexual abuse. In C. Ellis and A. P. Bochner (Eds.), Composing ethnography (pp. 330–356). Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.

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Gergen, K. J. (1994). Reality and relationships: Soundings in social construction. Cambridge: Harvard University Press Gergen, K. J. (2018). The digital wayfarer: Evocative ethnography as performance. Qualitative Psychology, 5, 16–25. Gergen, K. J., and Gergen, M. (1994). Let’s pretend: A duography. In D. J. Lee (Ed.), Life and story: Autobiographies for a narrative psychology (pp. 61–86). New York: Praeger. Gergen, M., and Jones, K. (2008). Editorial: A conversation about performative social science. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 9(2). Gergen, M. M., and Gergen, K. J. (2012). Playing with purpose: Adventures in performative social science. New York: Routledge. Gergen, M. (2001). Feminist reconstructions in psychology: Narrative, gender and performance. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Görlich, A. (2016). Poetic inquiry: Understanding youth on the margins of education. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 29, 520–535. Gray, R., and Sinding, C. (2002). Standing ovation: Performing social science research about cancer. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. Haney, C., Banks, W. C., and Zimbardo, P. G. (1973). A study of prisons and guards in a simulated prison. Naval Research Review, 30, 4–17. Haraway, D. (2016). Staying with the trouble. Chapel Hill, NC: Duke University Press Hartnett, S. J. (2003). Incarceration nation: Investigative prison poems of hope and terror. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira. Hearing, T., and Jones, K. (2018). Film as research/research as film. In P. Leavy (Ed.), Handbook of arts-based research (pp. 425– 436). New York: Guilford Press. Hermanns, M., Greer, D. B., and Cooper, C. (2015). Visions of living with Parkinson’s disease: A photovoice study. The Qualitative Report, 20, 336–355. http://www.nova.edu/ ssss/QR/QR20/3/hermanns10.pdf Holzman, L. (Ed.) (1999). Performing psychology: A postmodern culture of the mind. New York: Routledge. Jones, K. (2013). Infusing biography with the personal: Writing Rufus Stone. Creative Approaches to Research, 6, 6–23. Jones, K., and Leavy, P. (2014). A conversation between Kip Jones and Patricia

Leavy: Arts-based research, performative social science and working on the margins. The Qualitative Report, 19, 1–7. Jones, K., et  al. (Eds.) (2008). Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 9(2). Kara, H. (2015). Creative research methods in the social sciences: A practical guide. Bristol, UK: Policy Press. Keifer-Boyd, K. (2011). Arts-based research as social justice activism: Insight, inquiry, imagination, embodiment, relationality. International Review of Qualitative Research, 4, 3–19. Kipworld (2017). http://kipworldblog.blogspot. com/2017/ Knowles, J. G., and Cole, A. L. (2008). Handbook of the arts in qualitative research: ­Perspectives, methodologies, examples, and issues. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Kuttner, P. J., Sousanis, N., and WeaverHightower, M. B. (2018). How to draw comics the scholarly way: Creating comicsbased research in the academy. In P. Leavy (Ed.), Handbook of arts-based research (pp. 396–424). New York: Guilford Press. Lawrence-Lightfoot, S. and Davis, J. (1997). The art and science of portraiture. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Leavy, P. (Ed.) (2019) The handbook of artsbased research. New York: Guilford Press. Madison, D. S., and Hamera, J. (Eds.) (2006). The SAGE handbook of performance studies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Mannay, D. (2010). Making the familiar strange: Can visual research methods render the familiar setting more perceptible? Qualitative Research, 10, 91–111. Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority: An experimental view. New York: Harper & Row. Miller, K. E. (2016). Dear critics: Addressing concerns and justifying the benefits of photography as a research method work. http:// nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1503274 Mulkay, M. (1985). The word and the world: Explorations in the form of sociological analysis. London: Allen & Unwin. Muñoz, K. L. (2014). Transcribing silence: ­Culture, relationships, and communication. Thousand Oaks, CA: Left Coast Press. Newbury, J. & Hoskins, M. (2010). Relational inquiry: Generating new knowledge with

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adolescent girls who use crystal meth. Qualitative Inquiry, 16(8), 642–650. Newman, F. (1996). Performance of a lifetime: A practical-philosophical guide to the joyous life. New York: Castillo. Norris, J. (2010). Playbuilding as qualitative research: A participatory arts-based approach. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Park, H.-Y. (2009). Writing in Korean, living in the U.S.: A screenplay about a bilingual boy and his mom. Qualitative Inquiry, 15, 1103–1124. Pedri-Spade, C. (2016). The drum is your document: Decolonizing research through Anishinabe song and story. International Review of Qualitative Research, 9, 385–406. Pelias, R. (1999). Writing performance: Poeticizing the researcher’s body. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Pelias, R. (2014). Performance: An alphabet of performative writing. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Pelias, R. (2018). Writing performance, identity, and everyday life: The selected works of Ronald J. Pelias. New York: Routledge. Pfohl, S. (1992). Death at the Parasite Café. New York: St. Martins. Ray, L. (2016). ‘Beading becomes a part of your life’: Transforming the academy through the use of beading as a method of inquiry. International Review of Qualitative Research, 9, 363–378. Richardson, L. (1997). Fields of play. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

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Richardson, L., and St. Pierre, E. A. (2005). Writing: A method of inquiry. In N. Denzin and Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 959–978). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Rolling, J. H. (2014). Artistic method in research as a flexible architecture for theory-building. International Review of Qualitative Research, 7, 161–168. Russell, G., and Bohan, J. (1999). Hearing voices: The use of research and the politics of change. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 23, 403–418. Saldaña, J. (2011). Ethnotheatre: Research from page to stage. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Shailor, J. (2010). Performing new lives: Prison theater. Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Press. Spry, T. (2001). Performing autoethnography: An embodied methodological praxis. Qualitative Inquiry, 7, 706–732. Spry, T. (2011). Writing and performing autoethnography. Thousand Oaks, CA: Left Coast Press. Sughrua, W. M. (2016). Heightened performative autoethnography: Resisting oppressive spaces within paradigms. New York: Peter Lang. Tillmann-Healy, L. M. (1996). A secret life in the culture of thinness. In C. Ellis and A. P. Bochner (Eds.), Composing ethnography (pp.  76–105). Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.

7 We Are All Researchers Dan Wulff and Sally St. George

Twenty-two years ago, we wrote an article entitled ‘Research as Practice – Practice as Research’ based upon our social constructionist stance (Gergen, 2009, 2015) and our experiences of integrating our practice of family therapy with research. The article was rejected by a journal editor, stating that ‘everyone was already merging research and practice and this was not a new idea’. As new academics at the time, we were crestfallen and took the feedback to heart, even though from our experience we saw little evidence that people were seeing practice and research as the same. We noticed efforts to create bridges and translations across research and practice, but we did not see others re-visioning them as one and the same process. We have read numerous articles focused on connections between research and practice where researchers focus on the evidence for, and application of, research results to further certain preferred practices (FarleyRipple et al., 2018). While we see advantages

of bridging research results with practice applications, our perspective is to not separate them into two ideas in the first place that then need to be bridged. We have connected with professional kindred spirits who share, at least in part, the interest in seeing research and practice combined into a single initiative (Relational Research Network of the Taos Institute, see https://www.taosinstitute.net/ relational-research network). We have remained committed to the notion of practice and research being variations of the same thing and continued to experiment with this idea in our practice setting (mostly at the Calgary Family Therapy Centre; St.  George et al., 2015b; Wulff et al., 2015). We were impressed by how generative it was in our professional world and became interested in how it could be productively used in other human endeavors, including everyday activities (e.g., making decisions about how to balance work and personal life, choosing how to invest time and money, evaluating job

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choices and decisions, creating and engaging with preferred life styles) (McNamee and Hosking, 2012). While joining these two ideas can contribute to research and researchers, our driving motivation is to improve practices with which to go forward. We are not interested in trying to develop a single ‘truth’ or certainty because we believe in the utility of multiplicities (Anderson, 2014; Gergen, 2015). ‘Practices’ could include parents trying to find better ways to respond to problems with a child, teachers looking to provide better instruction or manage learning difficulties, managers of a small business wanting to improve staff/employee relationships or alter the way their service is delivered, nurses wanting better ways to connect with ‘noncompliant’ patients, lawyers who are looking to refocus legal practice to embrace a different orientation or clientele, or religious leaders wanting to reshape their congregation’s relationship to the surrounding neighborhood. In all of these situations, seeing practice and research as part-and-parcel of each other facilitates directed movement in the moment. Examining aspects of a situation, the context, the history, and the persons involved are sensible and useful considerations in planning and taking action. Additionally, our understanding is furthered by noticing how situations respond to action (Kuhne and Quigley, 1997). Investigating situations is integrally linked to the situation itself. Action provides insight and insight provides action. Distinguishing them as two separate processes diminishes each of them. In this Handbook chapter we will illustrate with everyday examples how common notions of research and of practice unnecessarily distinguish them (McNamee and Hosking, 2012). Everyday examples of deciding what to do or how to do it involve processes to discern the optimal choice(s) for the person given the situation at hand. This is not an attempt to locate the ‘truth’ or the ‘accurate’ choice (Gergen, 2015) – it is an effort to make the best decision for the

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person given what is available and desired. Considerations of options are predicated on the actions that will or can be taken. Let us consider how persons decide what kind of transportation to use. Making a decision about buying or leasing a car, carpooling, using public transportation or taxis, riding a bicycle or walking requires thought and deliberation considering preferences, prior experiences, relationships with employment, costs, and other factors. The consideration of options is connected to the ‘doing’ of the choice – the examining of choices is intimately connected with the eventual performance of the choice. The performance of the choice will include an examination of how the choice is working (or not working) – the ‘doing’ will also involve examination and reflection. Both the doing (practice) and the examining (research) happen concurrently, simultaneously. Seeing research and practice as merged acknowledges how we make decisions in our everyday lives. Deciding how to go forward is idiosyncratic for each of us and does not lend itself to being categorized as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in an abstract sense. What we do is largely based on what we believe is possible and available – our considerations/reflections are lodged within what we see ourselves as capable of. The optimal answer/decision is the one that fits the myriad of conditions and circumstances involved and that can only be determined by that person or group. We resonate with John Shotter’s (2014) views on ‘withness’ and ‘aboutness’ – our work focuses on what is in practice rather than trying to impact or influence practice from a position outside. The idea of research is within practice. The weddedness of research and practice impacts how practitioners work. A practitioner relates to the situation at hand that involves a client, customer, or a community in a way that points to progressive next steps. The aim is to go forward, not necessarily to fix or to remedy. This is a significant re-imagining for practitioners – the focus

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shifts from producing change in the client, customer, or community to joining with efforts to take next steps in a preferred direction (Shotter, 2007; Witkin, 2017). Practitioners undergo this same process when they work with a client in order to understand the nature of the task at hand and to proceed in an effective way. This process of orienting to a client family and their circumstances is a situated endeavor that takes into account a complex of elements in the lives of the clients, the practitioner and his/her way of practicing, and the nature of the service delivery. Research and the production of knowledge about a given problem as detached from practice cannot include enough situational knowledge to fit the specific circumstances of the client. Research knowledge oftentimes needs to be transformed by the ‘user’ of that knowledge to become resonant enough with the context to be useful. Some of our readers may liken the processes that we have just briefly described to action research, and rightly so (Kuhne and Quigley, 1997). Looking into alternatives and creating change based on exploring the context and the circumstances of the person(s) involved using a series of phases and action steps is the basis of action research. These actions are closely associated with what we are describing in this chapter and closely resemble what we have been proposing in Research As Daily Practice (St George et al., 2015a; Wulff and St.  George, 2014), with the primary difference being that we believe that daily living is filled with the ‘action research’ processes without it being formally so labeled. It is an endeavor that is not formalized, specified, or languaged as action research. We might say that ‘action research’ is a formalized and deliberate term for what all people engage in during the course of their everyday lives in making their decisions, big and small. The centralization and consolidation of ‘research’ activities under the purview of an expert, in our experience, tends to distance people from one another and discourages

people without formal scientific training from engaging in examining their own worlds. In this chapter we aim to disrupt the hegemony of research as the exclusive domain of expert researchers, while we would like to acknowledge the importance of ‘expert research’ for what it can provide. Scientific knowledge has helped us understand many aspects of our material existence and has led to the creation of improvements in our health and longevity, our mobility, and technological innovations. Our point is that researching and/or inquiring is involved in practice and that all practitioners are, by virtue of the very processes they employ, researchers (Schön, 1983). Their ‘research/inquiry’ activities are situated in each unique situation – it is a coordinated project with those affected to determine how to go forward (Simon, 2012). All sorts of decontextualized knowledge, anecdotal information, knowledge from systematic studies, historical perspectives, and creative ideas are germane to the process of figuring out how to proceed. But it is the inquiry that takes place in real time between people (e.g., practitioners and clients) that provides the platform from which to chart the course forward.

DIFFERENT OR THE SAME? Our initial impetus in thinking about research and practice as the same grew from an effort to find better ways to coordinate our efforts in doing both research and practice in our academic lives (Wulff and St. George, 2014). Looking at the basic steps involved in each process, we were intrigued by the strong similarities. Practitioners focus on a problem or concern and so do researchers. Practitioners assemble information about the issue (i.e., interviews with their clients, history-taking, reading case files, performing tests or assessments, consulting with others) and researchers collect data (interviews, observations, written documents/archival materials, questionnaires/surveys). Practitioners assemble

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the information to conceptualize how to understand the situation while researchers design ways to analyze their data in order to develop understanding. Practitioners use the conceptualization to intervene or provide assistance while researchers transform the data with the methodologies to produce knowledge/understanding. Practitioners assess the impact of their efforts to determine whether to continue or to change course while researchers make conclusions about what they have learned through their processes and publish their results (and perhaps create new research projects to extend the knowledge).

HOW WE USE IT – OUR ‘SOLUTION’ TO BE MORE INCLUSIVE AND EFFICIENT We have developed a way of practicing called Research As Daily Practice (St. George et al., 2015a; Wulff and St. George, 2014) and utilize it in our teaching, clinical work, and program of research. This process allows us to integrate all of the responsibilities we hold as academics. Research As Daily Practice has become a form of knowledge-inaction. Inquiry, as described above, is the central process of how we, as practitioners, practice every day. Our definition of Research As Daily Practice is ‘continuously examining data/information from our own clinical work reflexively in order to better understand what we do and what we could do’ (Wulff and St.  George, 2014, p. 296). Importantly, inquiry fits into what the practitioner is already doing, rather than being an extra task over and above the daily work. We see our therapeutic work as itself ‘inquiry’ for the purpose of change (Anderson, 2014; Epston, 1999). Rather than continue to use language that distinguishes research and practice, we present six initiatives/activities that encompass both what we consider practice and what we

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consider research (listed in no preferred linear order): • • • • • •

Attending to Curiosities Speculating Enlisting Partners Gathering Information Making Sense Reflecting-in-Action.

Attending to Curiosities Whether we are engaged in formal/official research or clinical or everyday practice, we become interested in a topic or energized by an unrelenting dilemma, or we notice that we keep repeating the same question or understanding. In our clinical work, we pay close attention to the words and phrases our clients use when they present their troubles and the professional rules, traditions, and voices we adhere to; in reading research, we focus on the language and themes used in the literature and the words and phrases that appear in the calls for grant monies or in our professional discourses. We get curious about consistencies, inconsistencies, and we answer the question of what intrigues us, what we would like to understand better and why. These questions orient us to aspects of our world and invite action.

Speculating As human beings, when faced with dilemmas or concerns, it is hard for us to leave the blanks open, the mysteries unsolved. We tend to fill in those blanks and imagine possible answers to those questions in order to have an understanding and move forward. We begin to synthesize from what we have come to know. This reveals the extent of what we know and the extent of what we do not know. In speculating, we can begin to get more specific and clear regarding what we are curious about and begin to reformulate key questions so that we might focus our work

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precisely and efficiently. It becomes a calculated hunch that can help us begin to engage with the topic of interest. It could be called a hypothesis, a guess, a working assumption, ‘starter dough’ – it is most simply, a place to start. It does not lock us into a position – we can reshape our speculations as we go along (and we most likely will).

Enlisting Partners There is no need to pursue questions as a solo mission; we can usually find others who are similarly intrigued and who can provide support for one another. These may be clients, students, employees, or neighbors. There is much to be said for collecting other viewpoints on an issue that stimulate and extend our curiosity. Connecting with others who share a concern or question is a pivotal component. The initiative in which we invite/ encourage inquirers to engage others transforms an individual idea or wish into a collective one. This reverses the trend to separate our questions and inquiries from others. Questions change when we join with others to examine issues that concern us. When we face a clinical or teaching dilemma for example, we actively wonder if we are alone in this or if there are others in our agency/ practice/circle of colleagues who experience this issue. Our experience has been that there are always others who share our interests or concerns. A developing curiosity is how our clients and students could join us in our curiosities about the dilemmas we experience in our efforts to try to help them. This is an example of how one of our six initiatives carries within it the seeds of another one of the initiatives (attending to curiosity). One of the surest ways we have found to expand our thinking is to engage others in our work (Bohm, 1996).

Gathering Information Practitioners in the field, whether working with projects, people, or situations, are aided

in decision-making by gathering information that has been already created, developed, and utilized. We can do this by conversing with others, reflecting on our own thoughts/experiences, noticing effects and patterns, and seeking variety/diversity. We sometimes have very targeted questions, other times more general questions, and other times we may switch our questions once we are engaged in the process. We may connect with ‘insiders’ to the issues or we may solicit relative outsiders to gain some breadth or fresh views. New information often influences our question and we might revise it as we integrate the information we are gathering. You can see that we have already jumped ahead into the making sense part of the process, because it is hard for us not to think about new information and organize it as we take it in. This crisscrossing of these initiatives moves smoothly because they are all part of the process of engaging with our worlds – they are tools that are utilized as the situation or issue-at-hand indicates. They are chosen and utilized as the situation merits. Some issues may require more of the different components we have at our disposal (‘tools in the toolbox’).

Making Sense We must admit, this is probably our favorite part – this is where the picture of what we are doing (or going to do) really starts to take visible shape. We have loads of information and usually new information continues to stream into our thinking. Now we need to do something with it to bring the informational pieces together into something that the individual bits cannot provide – something that will lead to and make action sensible and worthwhile. This is where we start to assemble the various ‘pieces’ to form a picture – a matter of ‘engaged unfolding’ (McNamee and Hosking, 2012, p. 45). From our social constructionist ways of understanding, the pieces we are bringing together are not revealing a

We Are All Researchers

picture that was always there – the sizes and shapes of the pieces work together to create a coherent picture that was not pre-ordained (Gergen, 2015). The various elements we have chosen to bring together can be assembled in a number of different ways, each embracing a sort of coherence of its own. We shape our understandings. We like to challenge ourselves to step outside of the expected, the known, the usual, or our ‘comfort zone’ in order to gain some freshness or newness to our thinking. We ask ourselves the following questions of the information we have collected: • What are we coming to know that was not visible before? • How are our actions aligning with what is already known and accepted? • What possibilities arise from imagining alternative ideas to the status quo? What limitations do they present? • What surprising ideas have we been starting to notice? • What are some of our assumptions or understandings that are getting in the way of seeing things differently?

The questions above fit all manner of choices and decisions. Making sense of the information will be idiosyncratic to each decisionmaker – the ‘facts’ may be organized in very different ways by different people.

Reflecting-in-Action Reflecting-in-action means that we are deliberately trying out our new learnings. It could also mean sharing these ideas with others and then attending to their responses. We do best when we ask ourselves questions about what we see and experience. Those keep us on our toes, prevent us from becoming complacent and are more generative than making assertions and definitive statements. • What new questions can we develop that take into consideration possible influences that we cannot at this time see?

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• What new courses of action and joining with others are available to us now? What are new avenues to pursue that we did not see before (or were willing to overlook)? • Are there better questions to pose and pursue? What shape would those questions take? • Do we have new curiosities that have started to form? If so, what are they?

INITIATIVES THAT ARE NOT LINEAR As we mentioned just before we described these six initiatives, the order is not predetermined. As letters on a keyboard, they can be ‘typed’ in many different configurations to create different ‘words.’ Here are some examples. We could begin with a curiosity that we have been having and then move directly to find some partners to engage with discussions. Those discussions could reform our curiosity which could lead to some efforts to try out some practices and pay attention to how they impact our clients and ourselves. This could lead to some information gathering and then trying to put some new conceptualizations or ‘spins’ on what we are attempting. As you can see, these initiatives all engage our work in different ways, leading us to new pathways. There is no need to follow the initiatives in a linear way. Another example could start with the ‘reflection-in-action’ activity. We could pay attention to how our work is going, notice some things that then spawn into a desire to ‘make sense’ differently about what we are doing or what is happening. This could then move back into more ‘reflection-in-action’ that could lead to new efforts at sensemaking. In this example, only two of the initiatives predominate. From these two examples, it seems clear to us that these initiatives could seem very familiar to most of us. They are ways of describing everyday activities of living and acting in our worlds. They are human actions that help us make distinctions in our world,

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provide some pathways we could take, and give us confidence and hope that our worlds could be different. They operationalize living in the world with a certain level of intentionality. They do not produce ultimate answers; they provide direction and optimism that we can make a difference.

WHAT COMES FROM ‘RESEARCH AS DAILY PRACTICE’? There are numerous outcomes that we have experienced by utilizing the processes of Research As Daily Practice. Completed project descriptions can be found elsewhere (St George et al., 2015b; Wulff et al., 2015a; Wulff et al., 2015b). In addition to new knowledge and practices, the following items highlight what we believe are key qualities. 1 Conducting inquiry in a manner that is respectful of practitioners’ time and contexts. Pragmatic considerations (time, effort, money, material adjustments) of traditional research are too often downplayed. The more that the ‘research’ ideas can be embedded in our practice, the better for the practitioner and the more likely that those initiatives will be taken up. 2 Using research methodologies and processes that are compatible with the practices being examined (for example in our situation we use reflecting team processes or conversations for both our clinical work and our information collection/recording). The process of organizing data could be done in a myriad of ways, from the most technical to the most simple and hands-on. Ideally, we would organize our data/information in ways that mirrored what we did with the organized information (the researching resembles the actions that evolve). 3 Immediate uses of still-evolving knowledge in the practice context. There is no need to wait until the ‘results are in’ using this approach. The development of the information gathering and sense-making that evolve serves as a springboard to try out the ideas along the way. Once begun, Research As Daily Practice continues to regenerate itself – inquiries stimulate new

i­nquiries. Agencies who use this process are effectively understood as ‘learning communities’. Service delivery is melded with learning and growing on the part of the practitioners. In everyday life examples, we engage in trial-and-error processes that continue to refine what we know and what we do as we go along. Similar to the action research processes, we learn by doing and observing the effects. 4 A willingness to adjust inquiry along the way to better understand the issue of interest. The fluidity and responsiveness of methods of inquiry to what we are studying allows for better attention to the complexities of the issues we are trying to study. Just as practices need to be flexible to serve others more directly and effectively, so, too, researching and inquiry must have a plasticity. The curiosities that fueled the initial initiative keep those questions in the forefront – if our chosen methods get in the way of the questions of interest, then our processes are transformed (as opposed to the reverse which often happens). Similar to Point 3 above, we benefit by an ongoing testing of what we know or expect in order to make adjustments. There is no need to get it ‘right’ the first time – we develop strategies through iterations of approximations. This is a process of continuous learning that is well-suited to the changed circumstances of life – a useful outcome or choice at one point will likely not stay that way. 5 This approach to research does not need extra money and the entanglements that come with it.

YOU TRY We invite you to take a scenario in your life now, whether professional or personal, and give this process a try. • What issue or concern in your life could use some further examination? (Choose something that is important to you and defies a simple solution.) [Attending to Curiosities] • What are the elements or parameters of that issue or concern that you consider to be most important? What needs to be considered? What preferences do you bring into this issue? What are the drawbacks or limitations of this issue in your life? [Speculating]

We Are All Researchers

• Who else could help or is involved with this decision? What value could others bring to you in this deliberation? Where should you begin? How can this issue be of mutual benefit to both you and others? [Enlisting Partners and Gathering Information] • What particular and specific information do you need (even information you might not like)? How can you locate information that you do not already possess? [Gathering Information] • Given all of the information collected, how do you make the greatest sense of it? How did you weigh the contributions of each piece of information? Did you leave some information out or minimize it? [Making Sense] • What is your first action step? How do you put your decision into action? How will you handle roadblocks or doubts with your initiative? [Reflecting-in-Action]

CODA We wanted to emphasize the importance of all of us being active researchers in our daily lives in order to figure out the best ways forward. We have been concerned about the exclusive ‘professionalization’ of certain behaviors/practices that, in fact, we all share in living our lives. Our concerns expressed in this paper are part of larger forces in our world today that lead toward greater and greater specialization of human activities. The challenge we see is to embrace what specialized skills can do for our world without simultaneously denigrating the performance of the skills of those considered ‘less proficient’ (within an expert-based set of criteria). How can we celebrate the most renowned dancers of our world without devaluing the dance performances of those who are less proficient in dance? How can we enjoy world-class athletes while at the same time relishing persons who engage in sports with limited athleticism? We want to valorize each of us for the work we do to achieve the best we can for our lives and for the lives of those around us. We all use research skills in highly proficient ways

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within our everyday lives in an effort to make our lives and relationships better.

REFERENCES Anderson, H. (2014). Collaborative-dialogue based research as everyday practice: Questioning our myths. In G. Simon and A. Chard (Eds.), Systemic inquiry: Innovations in reflexive practice research (pp. 60–73). Farnhill, UK: Everything is Connected Press. Bohm, D. (1996). On dialogue. New York, NY: Routledge. Epston, D. (1999). Co-research: The making of an alternative knowledge. In Narrative therapy and community work: A conference collection (pp. 137–157). Adelaide, South Australia: Dulwich Centre. Farley-Ripple, E., May, H., Karpyn, A., Tilley, K., and McDonough, K. (2018). Rethinking connections between research and practice in education: A conceptual framework. Educational Researcher, 47(4), 235–245. Gergen, K. J. (2009). Relational being: Beyond self and community. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Gergen, K. J. (2015). An invitation to social construction (3rd edition). Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Kuhne, G. W., and Quigley, B. A. (1997). Understanding and using action research in practice settings. In B. A. Quigley and G. W. Kuhne (Eds.), Creating practical knowledge through action research: Posing problems, solving problems, and improving daily practice (pp.  23–40) (New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, No. 73). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. McNamee, S., and Hosking, D. M. (2012). Research and social change: A relational constructionist approach. New York, NY: Routledge. Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York, NY: Basic Books. Shotter, J. (2007). Not to forget Tom Andersen’s way of being Tom Andersen: The importance of what ‘just happens’ to us. Human Systems: The Journal of Systemic Consultation & Management, 18, 15–28.

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Shotter, J. (2014). Methods for practitioners in inquiring into ‘the stuff’ of everyday life and its continuous co-emergent development. In G. Simon and A. Chard (Eds.), Systemic inquiry: Innovations in reflexive practice research (pp. 95–123). Farnhill, UK: Everything is Connected Press. Simon, G. (2012). Praction research: A model of systemic inquiry. Humans Systems: The Journal of Therapy, Consultation & Training, 23(1), 103–124. St. George, S., Wulff, D., and Tomm, K. (2015a). Research as daily practice. Journal of Systemic Therapies, 34(2), 3–14. St. George, S., Wulff, D., and Tomm, K. (2015b). Talking societal discourse into family therapy: A situational analysis of the relationships between societal expectations and parent–child conflict. Journal of Systemic Therapies, 34(2), 15–30.

Witkin, S. (2017). Transforming social work: Social constructionist reflections on contemporary and enduring issues. London: Palgrave. Wulff, D., and St. George, S. (2014). Research as daily practice. In G. Simon and A. Chard (Eds.), Systemic inquiry: Innovations in reflexive practice research (pp. 292–308). Farnhill, UK: Everything is Connected Press. Wulff, D., St. George, S., and Tomm, K. (2015a). Societal discourses that help in family therapy: A modified situational analysis of the relationships between societal expectation and healing patterns in parent– child conflict. Journal of Systemic Therapies, 34(2), 31–44. Wulff, D., St. George, S., Tomm, K., Doyle, E., and Sesma, M. (2015b). Unpacking the PIPs to HIPs curiosity: A narrative study. Journal of Systemic Therapies, 34(2), 45–58.

8 To Know and Not to Know: Dialogic Social Inquiry Rocio Chaveste and M. L. Papusa Molina, with Christian Lizama, Cynthia Sosa, and C a r o l i n a To r r e s

… what the occasion calls for, and in the manner called for (Harlene Anderson)

The writing of this piece requires going back to a conversation between Papusa and Cynthia, one of the students involved in this process. Papusa was at the time, and still is, the Research Methodology professor in all the MA programs at the Kanankil Institute.1 She came from a feminist background in research, but she was teaching the class without paying attention to socio-constructionist and collaborative-dialogic practices. While teaching her class, Cynthia asked her, ‘Why do we have to do semi-structured interviews or another type of qualitative approach when writing our thesis? It feels awkward in the context of the institute.’ So, the conversation continued: ‘What do you suggest?’ ‘Well, do you know Janice DeFehr? She is writing her Ph.D. dissertation with Harlene as her academic Advisor. She is proposing a way to approach research from a social-dialogic perspective.’ ‘Is there

something I could read about it?’ ‘Well – Cynthia answered – let me write to her and ask if she is willing to share with us her manuscript.’ Cynthia did ask, Janice did share, and a whole adventure started for us at Kanankil. The related conversation happened in 2008. Eleven years later, we got together with Cynthia, Carolina, and Christian and talked for about an hour and a half about writing their MA thesis from a perspective that we have started to call Dialogic Social Inquiry (from now on referred to as DSI). The three of them had graduated from Kanankil, and nowadays are professors at the Institute. The topics of their theses are entirely different: Cynthia (2013) on women’s leadership, Carolina (2016) on families living with a disabled child, and Christian (2013) on couples’ infidelity. The intention is to share with the reader the experience they had when facilitating their inquiry process, and how do we do ‘relational research’. We are writing it in quotation marks because, in a certain way, we

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consider that all research is relational. As you may be aware, the introduction to this section already explains relational research as understood by social constructionist practitioners. However, the type of relational research we would like to address in this chapter lies in the type of relations and dialogues we establish among all the people who participate in the inquiry process, including the potential readers, as well as some of the methodological implications. We will share how we conceptualize DSI anchored in a dialogic process – described by Jaakko Seikkula (2003), among others, as ‘one in which answers are more important than questions. Yet this new utterance, with its answers, is not an end of the conversation, but a new question aimed at promoting the theme under discussion. It is the theme itself – not the individuals participating in the conversation – that guides the dialogue’ (p. 89). Vicente Sisto (2008) refers to this shift as the change concerning the relationship with the other in the process of producing research. From being a process of gathering data placed on a subject, considered as an object, it is now considered a process of dialogic production between two subjects positioned differently. What is produced emerges, therefore, from this relation. (p. 114)

So, the five of us sat around a table with a recorder at hand three months ago, and a conversation started with one simple question: ‘how was the experience of writing your thesis from a Dialogic Social Inquiry approach?’ Cynthia, who started this process at Kanankil, led the way, saying: ‘it was like creating and constructing … it was very rich, very free’. ‘Very organic’, Carolina followed and continued: It was transformative in several ways, and reflected in some of my diverse identities: as a researcher, it meant moving from a quantitative paradigm to this one; as a mother, it helps me expand my stories of and how I assume my motherhood; as a therapist, I started to have more points of view from which to look upon these stories; as director of a special education center, it allowed me to get closer and more involved with the families in decision-making processes; etc.

Christian took some time to respond and let the conversation flow. After a while, he said: ‘I lived it very differently.’ He went ahead and described how, while he was writing his thesis, he was in parallel writing a novel. His description of the process was about dialogues that got generated between the two pieces: ‘the dialogues had a life of their own  … I realized that one made the other more creative’. Rocio reflected: ‘… a process that generated other processes’.

HOW DO WE DO IT? When invited to write this piece, the editors asked us to provide a ‘how-to’ piece based on our experience. So, what is the process the students follow to do their research? Are there different steps? How do they begin? We could say it very simply. We start from a collaborative-dialogic stance (Anderson, 1997, 2009, 2013). In our case, the students have already a full year of introduction to different concepts and frameworks to facilitate psychotherapy practices. Among these are social construction and relational practices; reflecting process; the concepts of social poetics and spontaneous response (Shotter, 2008); the concepts of withness (Hoffman, 2007; Shotter, 2010) and radical presence (McNamee, 2015); and as part of a philosophical foundation, they have read Rorty, Bakhtin, and Wittgenstein. So they start from a position of knowing some things about dialogue and generative processes but also assuming a not-knowing position as described in the many writings of Harlene Anderson. It is also important to notice, that DSI is not methodologically but dialogically and contextually driven, as Janice DeFehr describes in her dissertation and other pieces of work (2008, 2009, 2017a, 2017b; DeFehr et al., 2012). In Kanankil, we are not pretending to talk about others, their contexts, and their texts, but with others, their contexts, and their texts.

To Know and Not to Know: Dialogic Social Inquiry

Inquiry Process We agree with Bodiford and CamargoBorges (2014) when they propose that a piece of research needs some design. They, for example, ‘design research’ based on four different principles: (1) research as relational and collaborative; (2) research as useful and generative; (3) the organic and dynamic aspect of inquiry; (4) engaging in complexity and multiplicity. In the same way, using the collaborative-dialogic philosophical stance proposed by Harlene Anderson based on a ‘not knowing position’ (2009, 2012), we follow some guidelines when facilitating research processes at Kanankil. The steps described are, more than anything, moments that help us engage all participants in each step of the inquiry process.

Constructing the Research Question(s) Inspired by Madelyn Blair’s Essay in two voices (2011), we ask the students to choose a partner to accompany them in the construction of their inquiry question(s). The intention is to engage in a dialogue that will help them clarify their ideas. They start by each of them writing 300 words based on a question/issue that intrigues them about their daily practice. They exchange these, and within a week, each one responds with a reflection on their partner’s proposal of 150 words that helps to focus the main ideas. Each one reads the reflection on her/his ideas and narrows the field of inquiry to 75 words. They exchange these words, and now the partner reduces the main ideas to 30 words. After a week, they exchange again, and each person writes her/ his inquiry question(s).

Inviting Co-researchers Once the main inquiry question(s) gets defined, the student invites three participants who have some experience with the theme to participate in the process. We call these individuals co-researchers and conversational

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partners interchangeable; we also refer to the researcher as a facilitator of the inquiry process or the research. In this phase, students present their intentions to the other participants and together explore a series of issues that have to do with the ethical aspects of the relationship.

Relational Ethics Sheila McNamee (2018, p. 364) refers to relational ethics as one that ‘centers attention not on individuals and their isolated actions but relational processes of engagement. In other words, a relational ethic focuses on what people do together and what their “doing” makes. Thus, there is – by necessity – a relative nature to ethics. I refer to this relational ethic as relational responsibility’. She expands to distinguish the difference between the traditional code of ethics and relational ethics. The difference, however, is that rather than champion a dislocated code of ethics as the truth, our relational focus provides us with the resources for seeing a standardizing ethical code as coherent within a particular community (i.e., usually a specific professional community, such as the law, healthcare, mental health, education). Our challenge is to respect the professional code of ethics to which we are bound and simultaneously maintain respect and curiosity for the diverse and complex moral orders created in the lives of those with whom we work. Important to note here is that the potential for incommensurate lifeworlds is enormous. Furthermore, as each of us is immersed in multiple communities simultaneously, the potential for difference is expanded even further. Each of us embodies multiple and often contradictory and/ or incommensurate moral orders. We live in language; this is what distinguishes us from other creatures. (p. 367)

Once the guests have agreed to participate, they decide, where and how the conversations will take place – in person, blogging, by skype/zoom conference; individually or in a group; the kind of agreements they would like to have during the process; what names will be used – the participants could opt to have their legal names or choose those by

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which they want to be identified; ‘ownership’ of the knowledge generated; the possibility of editing what was said and how was it said; the use of the information – just for the thesis or if an article could be written about it; the length of time that this inquiry will take; and any other item they deem it necessary to clarify. These relational moments are the beginning of what McNamee and Hosking (2012) suggest is an inquiry, from a socio-constructionist and collaborative perspective, which can be described as a social practice resting on an action driven by the individuals working together. All these conversations are recorded and, preferably, videotaped.

The First Round of Conversations Once the place and time of the first conversation are set, it takes place without a script or guide, but the participants follow the path that emerges as the conversations flow. Harlene Anderson (2014) explains this very clearly in the following paragraph: Participants in collaborative-dialogue are always on the way to learning and understanding and being careful to not assume or fill in the meaning and information gaps. In other words, participants mutually ‘inquire into’ something that has relevance for them. This learning, understanding, and carefulness require responsiveness in which a listener (who is also a speaker) is fully attentive and present for the other person and their utterances, whether expressed orally or otherwise. This also requires being aware of, showing acknowledgment of, and taking seriously what the other person has said and the importance of it. … This aim to learn and understand does not refer to asking questions to gather or verify information, facts, or data. Questions, as is any utterance, instead are posed as part of the conversational-dialogical process: to learn and understand as best one can what the other person is expressing and hopes will be heard. It is a responsive, interactive process rather than a passive one of surmising and knowing the other and their words based on pre-understanding such as a theory, hypothesis, or experience dialogical social beings as suggested by Bakhtin (1986), Buber (1970) and Wittgenstein (1953) and by Shotter’s interpretations and extensions of Bakhtin’s and Wittgenstein’s perspectives. (p. 68)

Cynthia, reflecting on her conversations, says, ‘… the way it evolved, much more open, much more focused on seeing what will happen’, Carolina added ‘… other voices came in, and these voices invited other voices. Once, in the middle of a conversation, a third person came into the room, and then the co-researchers [people with whom I was having the conversation] raised the opportunity to invite them because they were talking of disability that is not normally spoken … it transformed the conversation into what ended up being, the story of three different families’. They went on to describe how the conversations that emerged were utterly different from what could have imagined at the beginning. Kenneth Gergen (2014) suggests that the interview is a complex relational process and can unfold in ways that either invite or suppress the respondent’s offerings. With the interviewer’s keen sensitivity to the relationship and a continuing flexibility, respondents may supply far richer and more illuminating views than can ever be obtained through standardization. (p. 50)

Carolina comments on how she felt ‘a bit uneasy, a bit distressed because I was used to doing it in a more structured way.’ However, they described how, in general, the conversations were flowing, were very comfortable. It is important to mention that not all conversations took place in the same manner. Some were in person, others via different platforms, and other participants, like Christian, used blogs and social media.

Transcribing and Responding Once all the first round of conversations have taken place, then the students transcribe all the recordings. We suggest that the facilitators of the research do this exercise. When listening to the voices, new inner dialogues emerge; we notice words, ideas, and nuances that we did not pay attention to when the conversation happened. It also helps the responding processes. In a way, the transcription is the starting point of this process. It allows us to take notes, write follow-up

To Know and Not to Know: Dialogic Social Inquiry

questions to help clarify, add our inner dialogue, and start bringing in voices from books, articles, daily life encounters, movies, songs, etc. Janice DeFehr (2008) describes this stage as part of her dissertation process, as follows: Narrating an account of the dialogue, for me, means telling a story of the dialogue’s emergence from start to ‘finish,’ voice-by-voice, moment-tomoment, as accurately as I can. I narrate the dialogue from my ‘dual’ vantage point within it, first as a participant in the live spoken dialogue, and second, as a listener responding to the recorded conversation many months later. Not every word uttered in the original dialogue is included in the narration, although all words within quotation marks are written exactly as I hear them spoken. At the same time, additional words appear that were never part of the original spoken dialogue: my response to the dialogue recording expands the narration at various junctures. As I develop an account of the dialogue, I participate in the interchange with my colleagues once again. I cannot help but respond – with acknowledgment, questions, replies, additional ideas, and also, with feelings. Without a plan to guide me, I respond into the dialogue again for ‘another first time’ (Garfinkel, 1967, p. 9). My goal in narrating the dialogue is to invite involvement and active response, from readers of this text, and from myself. The production of a tightly coherent narrative end product is not a priority for me as I write. (p. 12)

Our guests to this article share with us how they did it. Christian mentioned how he never knew what his responses were going to be, and the dialogues had a life of their own: ‘… suddenly, very theoretical ideas appeared, they simply appeared as a response to all that was said in the conversation’. During this transcribing/responding process, the students start weaving what Cynthia describes as a multicolored shawl that will end up being the result of the inquiry. Carolina describes responding as very organic. ‘[How something] makes you feel, how does that emotion emerge … how that reading, that anecdote, that thing that you just heard, that can be the result of anger, of joy,

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or something very tender … then I think that all the multiplicity of emotions and thoughts that arise, in a very spontaneous way, mean that I am responding’. Cynthia also describes how responding was a constant ‘I allowed myself to respond by saying I am feeling this … a responsive process, rather than a process of analysis … for me to respond, is the process’. What takes place at this stage, is what Shotter (2008) describes as spontaneously responding to those words that touched/moved the facilitator during the conversations.

Returning to the Conversational Partners Once the transcription/responding is done, the students return all these writings to the participants. The participants are asked to read everything in preparation for another round of conversations. It is important to mention that such reading takes place if the participants can do it. Once, we had a student who worked with Mayan women belonging to a cooperative who produce honey and derivatives from it. Those women did not know how to read and write and just spoke Mayan. The DSI facilitator translated everything into Mayan and read it to them so they could continue the process. We imagine that something similar could be done for visually impaired people where the transcriptions and responses could be read into audio and made available for them to listen to. Once the co-researchers have read and/or listened to the transcription and responses to the first conversation, then a second conversation gets scheduled. Many times, when the first conversations happened individually, the participants ask the facilitator if they can have this second conversation as a group. The facilitator checks with all those involved, and if all of them agree, then the second conversation takes place as a group. It is important to consider that if one does not accept or is even hesitant, we continue with individual conversations.

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Following-up Conversations The follow-up conversation is facilitated, starting with just one question: ‘What do you think about the transcription of our previous conversation as well as my responses/ reflections on it?’ As with the first conversation, there is no script to follow. The dialogue gets generated based on the responses that the co-researcher provides to this first question. For our thesis at the MA level, the students usually facilitate just this second round of conversations. However, if at any moment any of the participants, co-researchers or facilitator, feel that they need other conversations, they take place following the same pattern: conversation, transcription/spontaneous response by the facilitator, reading by the co-researchers, follow-up conversation. In a way, the dialogues get constructed always based on previous dialogues.

The Writing Process Once all the participants agree that they have said all that they wanted to say, at least for the moment, the students at Kanankil start writing the first draft of their document. The document in itself will contain at least, the following: (a) the introduction: the description of the initial intentions as well as the transformation they went through; (b) methodology: the way in which the students facilitated the inquiry including the conversation/responses and their theoretical foundation; (c) the dialogues: what was produced as the results of the conversations/responses; (d) the learnings: what happened to them during the process of inquiry; (e) textual references.

The Dialogues We invite the students to start writing the document with the dialogues. We frequently described this part as a weaving process. There are at least three threads that the facilitator brings together when writing this part: the voices of the co-researchers, his/her inner

dialogues, and the voice of other authors who have facilitated research on the subject. She/ he begins responding to all the conversations as a whole and, at the same time, observing the patterns that emerged from them. The patterns serve as a guide for the traditionally called review of the literature. As with any dialogue, on this process of ‘weaving’ there are moments of what Christian calls creation ‘… and if I think about the process, the process ended up feeling like creation’. At this, Rocio responds by saying, ‘There are three words that I have been listening to: one is a response, another is the process, and the other is creativity’. Cynthia jumps and shares, ‘I agree … since you do not develop a methodology with previously established steps, but you live a process of curiosity and inquiry around a particular topic, for me, creativity is required to integrate and/or present all the information that emerges from the conversations’. Once the students feel they have finished with this part, and before starting writing anything else, they return this piece to all the co-researchers for their responses, critique, and eventual approval. If any changes are suggested, those are made and rechecked with the person who made the suggestions until everybody is satisfied with this section.

Methodological Aspects of the Process Once they have the dialogues piece done, the facilitator starts with this section that in more traditional settings is called ‘the methodology’. Janice DeFehr describes DSI as ‘… situationally-driven, rather than methodologically-driven, uniquely local, rather than located “out there” and applied’ (2008, pp. 314–315). In other words, the students in this section describe the different moments of their inquiry process. The choices they made, how did they do it, and the rationale and theoretical underpinnings of their process. Cynthia, when responding to the transcription of our conversations for this article,

To Know and Not to Know: Dialogic Social Inquiry

shares with us the following reflection: ‘After reading the first paragraphs of our conversation about relational research, I think that it is a free process, that everyone is building on it. I would like to emphasize the word freedom, which I think is a major difference with the traditional methodology, as mentioned by Carolina, in which there is a structure already established. However, it makes me think if, in order to carry this process, people should feel and live this freedom’.

The Introduction In this section, the students describe the initial intentions for this inquiry, and the aspects of their daily practice and/or their personal life that motivated them to do it. They usually go back and read the first writings they shared with their partners when they were trying to define the research question(s) and describe even their first set of ideas. They also explain how the question(s) got transformed during the inquiry process and the rationale for that transformation whenever that happened. For example, Carolina shares with us how she was very clear about her topic being the experience of living with a son or daughter with a disability. However, something happened along the way that almost changed her focus. She explains it as ‘… one of the parts that most impacted my life, was motherhood. So when my son was born, I wanted to talk about all those things that are not said, when you have a child … also, I said, at this time, I hear about disability, but what I really want to respond is about motherhood. In the end, although it is not as expressed as such, the topic of the thesis finally had a broader vision of an identity that arose at the moment that I never thought that it would appear when I started, that is being a mother’. It is also in this section where the students describe who the co-researchers are, what were the ethical agreements they had for this inquiry at the beginning as well as the changes that such agreements went through and their causes. They talk about the time it took them

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from beginning to end, and briefly describe the contents of each chapter or section.

The Learnings In this section the students describe what they learned during the entire process: the personal and intellectual transformations they went through; the aspects of the process that were the most challenging; how the context in which they facilitated the process shaped some aspects of it; what were the aspects that in retrospect they could have done differently; what learnings they could incorporate into their professional practice; and any other comments that they deem necessary. Once they consider that the entire manuscript is complete, they return the entire piece to the participants for further reflection. The participants could, at this stage, suggest changes, additions, and further comments. We remember a thesis where after completing, the student gave it to the co-researcher to read, and in response, he got 11 pages writing of what the whole process meant for this individual. After talking with his thesis advisor, they decided to include the piece as the last part of the thesis.

CONCLUSION There are many ways to approach relational research. Kenneth Gergen, in his article on research as future forming (2015), invites us to explore new routes, new ways to understand our daily practice. The most productive route in this case is not to embark on a disjunctive, imaginary world – a world of inquiry beyond the reach of contemporary researchers. Rather, it would seem more promising to examine current and emerging practices with future forming potential. If such practices can be illuminated in terms of this potential, a new consciousness may be germinated. New and more potent practices may be stimulated. In certain respects, then, the present offering may serve as a mid-wife to a movement in the making. A voice

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may be given to an otherwise unarticulated sensibility, thus giving form and function to future undertakings. (p. 305)

Reflecting on Gergen’s words, we would like to suggest that dialogic practices, being in psychotherapy, education, organizational development, or research, are creating a new way of approaching the complexity in which we are living; it is through dialogue that we will create the future for the seven generations to come. We have seen already results of these practices in vastly different projects like Imagine Chicago conceptualized and facilitated by Bliss Browne (1998, 2002, 2005, 2009) based on Appreciative Inquiry; the work of Jakko Seikkula (2002, 2003; Seikkula et  al., 1995) with Open Dialogues when working with schizophrenic patients that has extended beyond Finland and the rest of Europe, to the United States and Latin America; and the dozens of projects developed by members of the International Certificate of Collaborative-dialogic Practices (ICCP) in 18 different countries. We think it is fitting to close this offering of our inquiry practice, aware of the continuous changes happening as new voices and reflections join, with the voice of Carolina. After having read what me and Christian and Cynthia said, I am left thinking that for me, relational research is a living, generative, relational process of mutual discovery, framed by freedom and uncertainty in each of the participants, which hits us and transforms us. A unique process for each one of the inquirers in each one of the inquiries that he/she gets engaged in. Therefore, it seems that we can speak of processes of dialogical inquiry rather than relational research as that which is done in a single way. The ways, the approaches, will be decided by the same participants during the emerging process. I am also thinking about the therapeutic aspects of dialogue, and therefore, about Dialogic Social Inquiry. Even if this is not part of the intentions, it seems to be one more of the responses of this transformational process.

Note 1  The Kanankil Institute is a postgraduate institution located in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico.

Founded in 1999 it offers Masters programs in Psychotherapy, and Families and Couples Therapy. The whole curriculum is designed from a socio-constructionist and a collaborative-dialogic perspective. The founder, the administrators, and most of its professors, are Taos Associates.

REFERENCES Anderson, Harlene (1997). Conversation, language and possibilities: A postmodern approach to therapy. New York: Basic Books. Anderson, Harlene (2009). Collaborative practice: Relationships and conversations that make a difference. In J. Bray and M. Stanton (Eds.), The Wiley handbook of family psychology (pp. 300–313). New York, NY: Wiley. Anderson, Harlene (2012). Collaborative practice: A way of being ‘with’. Psychotherapy and Politics International, 10, 1002. Anderson, Harlene (2013). Collaborative learning communities: Toward a postmodern perspective on teaching and learning. In B. J. Irvy and G. Brown (Eds.), Handbook of educational theories (pp. 515–527). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. Anderson, Harlene (2014). Collaborative dialogue-based research as everyday practice: Questioning our myths. In G. Simon, and A. Chard (Eds.), Systemic inquiry: Innovation in reflexive practice research (pp. 60–73), Farnhill, UK: Everything is Connected Press. Blair, Madelyn (2011). Essay in two voices. Baltimore, MD: Pelerei, Inc. Bodiford, Kristin and Camargo-Borges, Celiane (2014). Bridging research and practice: Designing research in daily practice. AI Practitioner, 16(3), 4–8. Browne, Bliss (1998). Lessons from the field: Applying appreciative inquiry (S. Hammond and C. Royal, Eds.). Plano, TX: Practical Press, Inc. Browne, Bliss (2002). Cultivating hope and imagination. Journal of Future Studies, 7(1), 115–134. Browne, Bliss (2005). Imagine Chicago: Cultivating hope and imagination. In C. Newnes and N. Radcliffe (Eds.), Making and breaking children’s lives (pp. 151–168). UK: PCCS Books.

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Browne, Bliss (2009). An inspired future: The significance of city-wide conversations in Chicago. AI Practitioner, 11(2), 28–33. DeFehr, Janice (2008). Transforming encounters and interactions: A dialogical inquiry into the influence of collaborative therapy in the lives of its practitioners. Doctoral dissertation. Retrieved from www.taosinstitute.net. DeFehr, Janice (2009). Incarnating Dialogic Social Inquiry: Embodied engagement, sensation, and spontaneous mutual response. Paper for a workshop, Constructing Worlds Conference, Copenhagen, August 23, 2009. DeFehr, Janice (2017a). Navigating psychiatric truth claims in collaborative practice: A proposal for radical critical mental health awareness. Journal of Systemic Therapies, 36(3), 27–38. DeFehr, Janice (2017b). Bodily, in a ‘Living’ way. International Journal of Collaborative-Dialogic Practices, Special Issue, 7(1), 13–15. DeFehr, Janice et al. (2012). ‘Not-Knowing’ and ‘assumption’ in Canadian social services for refugees and immigrants: A conversational inquiry into practitioner stance. International Journal of Collaborative-Dialogic Practices, 3(1), 75–88. Gergen, Kenneth (2014). Pursuing excellence in qualitative inquiry. Qualitative Psychology, 1(1), 49–60. Gergen, Kenneth (2015). From mirroring to world-making: Research as future forming. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 45, 287–310. Hoffman, L. (2007). The art of ‘withness’: A new bright edge. In H. Anderson, and D. Gehart (Eds.), Collaborative therapy: Relationships and conversations that make a difference (pp. 73–79). New York: Routledge. Lizama Valladares, Christian (2013). Lo infiel: diálogos sobre la construcción de la infidelidad. Tesis para obtener la Maestría en Psicoterapia. Instituto Kanankil, Mérida, Yucatán, México. McNamee, Sheila (2015). Radical presence: Alternatives to the therapeutic state.

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European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling, 17(4), 373–383. McNamee, Sheila (2018). Far from ‘anything goes’: Ethics as communally constructed. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 31, 361–368. McNamee, S. and Hosking, D. M. (2012). Inquiry as engaged unfolding. In Research and social change: A relational constructionist approach (pp. 63–86). New York: Routledge. Seikkula, J. (2002). Monologue is the crisis – dialogue becomes the aim of therapy. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 28, 283–284. Seikkula, Jaakko (2003). Dialogue is the change: Understanding psychotherapy as a semiotic process of Bakhtin, Voloshinov, and Vygotsky. Human Systems: The Journal of Systemic Consultation and Management, 14(2), 83–94. Seikkula, Jaakko et al. (1995). Treating psychosis by means of open dialogue. In S. F­ riedman (Ed.), The reflecting team in action: Collaborative practice in family therapy ­ (pp. 62–80). New York: Guilford. Shotter, John (2008). Conversational realities revisited: Life, language, body and world. Chagrin Falls: Taos Institute. Shotter, J. (2010). Social construction on the edge: Withness thinking & embodiment. Chagrin Falls: Taos Institute. Sisto, Vicente (2008). La investigación como una aventura de Producción dialógica: La relación con el otro y los criterios de validación en la Metodología cualitativa contemporánea. In Psicoperspectivas. CL: Individuo y Sociedad, Volumen VII, año 2008. Sosa Infante, Cynthia (2013). Ser mujer: diálogos intergeneracionales. Tesis para obtener la Maestría en Psicoterapia, Instituto Kanankil, Mérida, Yucatán, México. Torres Báez, Lilia Carolina (2016). Conversaciones familiars alrededor de la discapacidad. Tesis para obtener la Maestría en Psicoterapia, Instituto Kanankil, Mérida, Yucatán, México.

9 Transmaterial Worlding as Inquiry Gail Simon and Leah Salter

At the core of the chapter is this simple narrative: we live in language and in a material world. When we research human life, we cannot see it or investigate it as separate from all else around us, whether ‘man-made’ and/ or naturally occurring. Social constructionist inquiry studies how we use language to construct stories of self and other, of material and apparently immaterial, of that which is animate and apparently inanimate. The idea that humans alone story the world is anthropocentric. The world also stories humans. We are all involved in a worlding process (Barad, 2007) where the stories we generate have consequences. Inquiry that draws on social constructionist principles is guided by an ethical imperative to address practices of power by asking how stories are generated, how some truths are propagated over others, by whom, to what end. We aim to understand the relational effect of stories and how some stories carry more weight than others in different contexts.

Transmaterial worlding describes researcher activity as storying a diverse material world. It is a way to attend to the human condition and the vitality of other matter, to the interconnectedness between humans and non-humans, to life beyond species and life beyond what appears as death. ‘Worlding’ describes the constant process of intra-becoming within and between species and matter (Barad, 2007). As an approach to inquiry this includes not just observing, it includes challenging, perturbing, disrupting, transforming. There is no stasis, only movement. It involves a particular commitment to exploring incoherence between stories lived, stories told, stories ignored and stories rewritten (Cronen and Pearce, 1999; McNamee, 2020). Deconstructing the relations in dominant discourses enables us to see how and why some voices (human or non-human) succeed in their stories being promoted and sold in some contexts over others. This has the potential to render visible the context and connection between everyday activities and

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their local and global contexts (Simon, 2012, 2013; Simon and Salter, 2019). Research then becomes an opportunity to understand and disrupt power relations in order to challenge and reduce injustice. We offer examples of transmaterial worlding as a form of social constructionist inquiry and suggest signposts for how social constructionist research in a transmaterial world can honour societal, cultural, professional and other kinds of situated knowledge and knowhow. These signposts propose coherent ways of validating and rendering transparent how we appraise what matters in social constructionist inquiry. In this chapter, we extend social construction (i) to resituate the concept of social in the posthuman to broaden who/what counts as worthy of study and inclusion as a research participant; (ii) to recognise that social constructionist theory can be used for controlling self-interest in contrast with what we are calling co-construction which foregrounds collaboration and shared ethical meaning-making practices; and (iii) to introduce the concepts of transmaterial worlding and co-inhabitation as onto-epistemological understandings of relationships, movement, meaning-making practices, the influence of power between human and non-human parts of our worlds.

MORE THAN THEORY Social construction is more than a theory of communication, it is a theory of theories. It invites us to explore how realities about people, places, intention and matter are constructed, by whom, to what purpose, and with what affect. Theory and research methods can be understood as products of their era, of their culture, of professional, social, political and economic agendas. If knowledge practices are inseparable from the contexts out of which they emerge, then we must accept that language is never innocent or neutral. Recognising the presence of power

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relations and which realities have more influence over others is critical to transmaterial worlding as a form of inquiry. Social construction is a form of qualitative research, more specifically post-positivist inquiry. Given the post-positivist recognition that one always affects the context one is studying, it is important to direct that influence and deliberately set out to constructively and collaboratively change the site of inquiry through the doing of research. Social constructionist researchers not only declare their bias but put it to work and offer rich transparency as rationale, background and learning for the study. This is not simply a trend in research. It connects to concerns expressed by oppressed and colonised groups of people who have been researched and had all manner of falsehoods, intentional or otherwise, written about them, which have often led to the development of policies which have served to oppress these groups further and render invisible issues of concern facing those communities (Clifford and Marcus, 1986; McCarthy and Byrne, 2007; Reynolds, 2019; Simon, 1998; Tuhiwai Smith, 1999; Visweswaran, 1994). Narratives need understanding in the context of their production. We need to study historical contexts that gave rise to them and to explore how contemporary contexts continue to invest in fostering some stories over others. Stories don’t just happen. Someone is promoting and fostering them. Structures such as political parties, newspapers, TV channels and ‘news’ stations are partisan vehicles for those people or institutions with often a hidden vested interest in social relations being maintained or challenged. Some people’s cultures, values and local knowledges are reproduced and revitalised through language networks over others and become easily solidified into codes of normalcy which become policy and legislation. Consequently, social construction does not offer simply a science for studying the social use of language with an attendant method of analysis, it asks why some narratives are in play more powerfully than others

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and in whose interest. It invites researchers to consider how social groups can participate in language games to challenge destructive practices of power, and what other methods of communication and power are available to those wanting equality and justice, and at what cost to all those with interests. Victims of injustice, their advocates, professionals, academics the world over struggle for their truths to be taken seriously in a world which uses 21st-century technologies to amplify dominant discourses and fan preferred truths to generate simplistic dismissals of what, in another era, would have counted as fact. Theories have been influenced by the unacknowledged ideological assumptions about the superiority of white people, particularly men and their ‘normal’ ways of living in the world. First person and co-constructionist research act as a counter-movement to decolonise research practice (Dillard, 2000; Lather, 1994, 2007; Madison, 2012; Pillow, 2019; Simon and Salter, 2019; Tuhiwai Smith, 1999; Wade, 1997). Social construction has offered a longstanding critique of ‘truths’ (Foucault, 1979; Gergen and Gergen, 2002; McCarthy and Byrne, 2007; McNamee, 1994; McNamee and Gergen, 1992) as a product of the most powerful people, institutions and cultures. The theory of social construction has been appropriated by the latter resulting in language games with no relational ethics and no reliable ‘truths’ (McNamee, 2004, 2020). ‘Truth’ is not simply subjective but has the potential to be systematically subject to intentional manipulation. While social construction falls into a post-positivist paradigm, it can be utilised in positivist or post-positivist ways. We make a distinction between aboutness research (Shotter, 1999, 2011) and co-constructionist research (Simon and Salter, 2019). Aboutness research is when a researcher uses the theory of social construction to study or deconstruct what meaning others are making with each other, positions them as an observer outside of a system and creates distance between

researcher and that which is being studied. Research participants are not included in the meaning-making processes. It subscribes to an idea that knowledge can be extracted or manipulated for others. In co-construction, the researcher uses the theory and ethical imperative implicit in social constructions that meaning is made with others. The researcher makes their inquiry alongside and with other research participants, exploring discursive practices from within the doing of them. Co-construction involves studying mutual and reflexive meaning-making processes while engaged in the doing of them.

SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION AS CO-CONSTRUCTION We propose co-construction as offering a clear ethical term to describe social constructionist research with social justice politics. Co-constructionist research allows us to co-research from an alongside or within position. It encourages us to acknowledge the inevitability and impact of power relations in making something together. Social construction is not owned by those with any one group of people with specific political leanings or social conscience. It is an ideology which can be used to play significant political or interpersonal games to protect those in power and their resources. It is, in itself, neither ethical nor unethical. Co-constructionist inquiry encourages situated research where researcher and participants collaborate, are transparent and open, and work towards creating a culture of co-production and transformation. It can be a result of negotiated and collaborative inquiry (Anderson, 1997; Anderson and Gehart, 2007; McNamee and Hosking, 2012) reflecting decolonial practice and epistemic witnessing (Pillow, 2019). Research as a listening and witnessing activity can be seen as an act of resistance (Salter, 2017a, 2018; Wade, 1997; White, 2007), can support transformation through personal and

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collective story-telling, and can be a form of co-production (Linds and Vettraino, 2008; Salter and Newkirk, 2019; White, 2007). For example, the question, ‘What are they making with each other?’ is different from ‘How am I constructing what they are doing?’ and ‘What are we making with each other?’ When researchers position themselves as observers external to the observed, they must identify how they are co-constructing meaning from what they (think they) have observed. When researching reflexively from within living moments, they can inquire into their inner dialogue, with co-participants and co-respondents, to check meaning. This is co-construction.

REFRAMING ‘SOCIAL’ INCLUSIVITY We propose that transmaterial worlding can be understood as embracing all forms of communication between and beyond human forms. It steps away from an anthropocentric focus so that ‘social’ extends beyond human, reframes language to include transmaterial multilingual communication and sets all these relations within a critique of institutional discourses and material structures. We integrate the concern of protecting the ecology of the planet. This involves our understanding research as an onto-epistemological activity fluidly situated in a range of emergent transmaterial communicatory activities. Transmaterial worlding as a form of inquiry requires that we re-think our relations with-in our environment, that we re-position ourselves from in-habiting or co-habiting the world (both separate us from other materiality) to co-inhabiting (Simon and Salter, 2019). Co-inhabitation emphasises not simply collaboration and intra-action (Barad, 2007) but a humility to re-position humans as living in a vital-emergent-disappearing world as well as alongside and as vital-emergentdisappearing matter.

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MATERIAL-DISCURSIVE PRACTICE In transmaterial worlding, we understand researching linguistic practice as a form of mattering. There are no final conclusions – though there may be useful knowledge – and the need to attempt to describe journeys of knowing in which contextualised, situated ways of knowing extend or close down ways of accounting and the potential for transformation of participants. Transmaterial worlding is a process of moving, constructing, deconstructing, reconstructing and reviving stories which include the voices of those normally heard through privileged channels and the voices of marginalised, silenced or exterminated peoples, places, human and non-human, across many matters, across context, across time. Inevitably, material changes depending on where the describer is standing, how they are dressed, how the light is falling or arranged (Simon and Salter, 2019). Any ‘apparatus’ that is used, is part of the research and therefore part of the world that is being co-constructed (Barad, 2007). Discursive mattering is inevitably influenced by the limits of the describer’s own apparatus – cultural lenses and filters which frequently result in a reproductive mattering of dominant heteronormative, white supremacist narratives and practices (Chen, 2012; Pillow, 2019). How we configure ‘other’ people, places or things can happen through taking an aboutness position and become an act of colonisation in attributing meaning or interpreting meaning. Acts of colonisation separate the knower from their knowing and know-how, leading us into binary constructions of ‘us’ and ‘them’, and stories of people who apparently know nothing. Histories are lost and communities fractured. People are silenced in a myriad of ways. This has resulted in unmitigated loss of indigenous knowledge and contextual know-how. Colonised groups of people who have been researched have had all manner of falsehoods, intentional or

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otherwise, written about them which have often led to the development of policies which have served to oppress further and render invisible issues of concern facing those communities (Clifford and Marcus, 1986; Salter, 2015, 2017b; McCarthy and Byrne, 2007; Pillow, 2019; Richardson/Kinewesquao, 2018; Simon, 1998; Tuhiwai Smith, 1999; Visweswaran, 1994). This has resulted in catastrophic changes in societies and land ownership, such as loss of rainforests, sustainable communities, homelands, dunes, clean air, uncontaminated sites, the ozone layer and much, much more. So it becomes an ethical imperative to ask, ‘What and who are in focus?’ and ‘Why?’ and ‘How can other silenced voices or erased matters be animated, rendered audible through our research?’ Living in a transmaterial world, parts of which we have largely ignored messages from, we need to learn how to listen to relational communications in transmaterial relationships. Transmaterial worlding, as inquiry, is a process of co-constructing new ways of understanding, meaning-making and ways of being across human and non-human activity, motivated by a concern for social justice with the aim of challenging oppression, improving lives and promoting equality (McCarthy and Byrne, 2007; Reynolds, 2014, 2019; Salter, 2018). Transmaterial worlding as inquiry is not only a means of assessing and theorising what is happening, it involves doing something to improve the living conditions of people and the sustainability of our human and non-human environments and it means engaging in transformative activities.

DE-CENTRING HUMAN IN SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION How we expand social construction from a primary focus on inter-human discursive practice to include other forms of materiality requires a new world-in-view of transmaterial discursive practice. This includes a

review of what it means to be human as well as what/who is included in any study of discursive practice. In her writings on the posthuman, Braidotti critiques how the concept of human has had its own binary logic (2013). The human hero, Anthropos, typically male-white-western-heterosexual-heteronormative-blond-tall-strong-alive-sexuallyactive-reproductive-young and so on, considers himself the highest entity on the worldly pyramid with a right to be owner-controllernamer of all other matter both within and beyond his reach (Braidotti, 2013). All other life forms are considered by Anthropos as inferior to him, passive, possessable, in need of control and therefore ‘othered’. This narrative of superior self and inferior other perpetuates not only social inequality but negates and neglects the needs of other material elements of the planet. Naming, Mary Gergen reminds us, is always a political act (Gergen, 2001). As researchers, we need to pay particular attention to the onto-epistemology of how our stories of ‘self’ and ‘other’ influence narratives of being in the world, of worlding (Barad, 2007). What it means to be human has been changing. Humans are now techno-humans. To say we ‘have’ a phone perpetuates a distinction of separation, and ownership, between the human and the technological device. When we say, ‘My phone reminded me that …’ or ‘I messaged …’ these phrases still show phone and self as separate from each other and yet we have become fused with our gadgets (Haraway, 2004, 2015). Technology plays an increasingly significant role in how we interact in and with the world, how we communicate with others, in how our gadgets extend our memory, how we are remembered or lost by others, how we are identified by others, how we identify ourselves to our gadgets and remote systems, how we locate ourselves in the virtual-physical worlds, and how we are located by remote unknown others with or without our permission (Simon, 2010; Allinson, 2014).

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Bateson (1972) posed the question of where the point of separation is between the blind man, his cane, and the environment he moves about in. Bronwyn Preece enquires into the intersections between ecology and disability, asserting from a first person account, that, ‘I engage with the other-than-human world as alive … I do not segregate biota from abiota, organic from non-organic, the trees from the forest, the ocean from the machines, the stone from mountain’ (Preece, 2019: 76). Braidotti (2013) asked if prosthetic limbs are really ‘otherwise human’. These questions invite us to consider if the phone can be seen as simply an implement (not us) to navigate the modern world (out there)? Or are humans enabling the phones to go about the business of remote corporations while the dominant narrative is of the phone enabling its owner? The mobile phone may not yet be a microchip under the physical skin of a human, but the proximity of humans and their devices is becoming increasingly intimate. Braidotti suggests that the relationship between human and technology has been extended to ‘unprecedented degrees of intimacy and intrusion’ (Braidotti, 2013: 89). When we say we are inter-acting with someone or something, we are separating out parts of a relationship. The concept of ‘inter’ assumes ontological distinguishability between entities: things or people, apparently separate from ‘one another’, as configuring of ‘each other’, as doing things with ‘each other’. Gregory Bateson (1972) challenged the discursive practice of categorising, and therefore separating, subjects and things in a world which has the impact of obscuring relationality, highlighting differences over similarities and foregrounding thingness over relational activity. This separation of human and non-human can be understood as an epistemological error (Bateson, 1972). Nora Bateson asserts that transcontextual research is required to avoid these false separations. (Bateson, 2016). New materialist thinkers critique the anthropocentric narrative of human as separate from the world around

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them. According to Braidotti (2013) the posthuman subject is a ‘transversal entity, fully immersed in and immanent to a network of non-human … relations’ (Braidotti, 2013: 193). Karen Barad proposes that matter of all kinds is not separate but inevitably entangled. She says, ‘The very nature of materiality is an entanglement. Matter itself is always already open to, or rather entangled with, the “Other.” The intra-actively emergent “parts” of phenomena are co-constituted’ (Barad, 2007: 393). Barad explains that ‘humans enter not as fully formed, pre-existing subjects but as subjects intra-actively co-constituted through the material-discursive practices that they engage in’ (Barad, 2007: 168).

DECONSTRUCTING ANIMACY AND INANIMACY Part of the challenge for us as contemporary social constructionist, practice-based researchers, is to explore the language we use to describe human and non-human worlds so we can see that all matter is dynamic, agentive and communicative. New materialist thinkers encourage us to deconstruct the language of animate/living, and inanimate/dead (Bennett, 2010; Chen, 2012), viewing this as a social construction which has served to teach communities and their colonisers a disconnection between their immediate local and their remote global environments. Jane Bennett discourages the term ‘environment’ in order to highlight ‘vital materiality’ (Bennett, 2010: 112). She points out that ‘We are vital materiality and we are surrounded by it, though we do not always see it that way. The ethical task at hand here is to cultivate the ability to discern nonhuman vitality, to become perceptually open to it’ (Bennett, 2010: 14). Donna Haraway says: It matters what matters we use to think other matters with; it matters what stories we tell to tell other stories with; it matters what knots knot knots, what thoughts think thoughts, what

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descriptions describe descriptions, what ties tie ties. It matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories. (Haraway, 2016: 12)

A consequence of the anthropocentric narrative is to categorise matter as either animate or inanimate (Bennett, 2010). Rock is not inanimate, it is alive, and it hosts life, it protects life. It provides a platform for life. In terms of the time frame in which plants, animals and humans live, rock offers stability. We humans have a short life span compared to rock. Rock grows or changes in a relational world in mostly a much slower time frame to the life spans of humans, flora and fauna. We don’t notice the parallel time worlds. We think rock and glaciers are dead because they are not moving in ways we can perceive with our eyes. We tell ourselves simple stories. We say they are frozen, immobile, inanimate. But it is we who are frozen in time. Our own time frame. A human time frame (Simon and Salter, 2019).

THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF MATTER AND HUMAN AGENCY We humans have come to think of the material world as made up of matter to consume. Rosi Braidotti says that ‘Nature is more than the sum of its marketable appropriations: it is also an agent that remains beyond the reach of domestication and commodification’ (Braidotti, 2006: 47). Performanceresearcher, Jodie Allinson similarly challenges the advanced capitalist metaphor of environment as ‘consumable resource’ (Allinson, 2014). When natural resources become scarce, they become commodified. Indeed, the very language of natural resources speaks to an advanced capitalist view of nature as a resource to be utilised/colonised by humans – including those humans Anthropos deems to be inferior. People are forcibly moved or murdered, land is systematically stolen by those with special power, rain forests are left to burn to access rich

materials that lie beneath the ground, mountains are physically deconstructed to produce material for building houses or roads. Sand dunes, with their own ecologies hosting interdependent communities of creatures, plants and other dwellers, are disappearing with rising sea levels, tramping tourists and the need for sand to build tower blocks and new islands for economic purposes. This disappearance of matter – wait, no, let’s not use a passive term as it promotes dissociation from our responsibilities for these actions – let’s talk of matter being disappeared by human activity, directly (for example, cutting down forests, shooting migrating birds) and indirectly (for example, increases in greenhouse gasses causing temperature increases and glaciers to melt). And yet technology has adopted the language of nature to naturalise itself: twitter, web, stream, cloud, amazon, apple, for example. The large corporations who own the mouthpieces of social media both facilitate and obstruct bridging between local communities and the global materiality; the storying of the materiality of lives can build or destroy community investment in sustainability beyond what counts as ‘now’ or ‘here’ or ‘me’ or ‘you’. Barad says, ‘it is possible for entangled relationalities to make connections between entities that do not appear to be proximate in space and time’ (2007: 74). Braidotti argues that we cannot use the same language to create solutions that has been used to create the problems we face (Braidotti, 2013). But what language do we use? Climate activists have used the language of ‘climate emergency’ to jolt people into an awareness that time is running out for effectively protecting the earth’s ravaged ecology. However, language in itself is not enough. Urgent messages about the environment are frequently refuted by those whose short-term interests are served by, for example, deforestation. There are many examples of how language is used against activists to undermine their campaigns, often using pathologising mental health discourses to dismiss powerful

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speakers especially when from oppressed groups. We need to understand how those not concerned with social justice are using language to maintain an imbalance of power and appropriating the language of the ‘natural’ to continue with their endeavours. There is a challenge then in social constructionist inquiry to include a presence of other contexts which offer a broader context for the smaller, immediate issues to make visible the implicative influences of changes within our environment on human life. What characterises the movement in and between these levels of context is local reflexivity which asks, ‘What is happening here?’ and global reflexivity which asks, ‘How does our experience here connect with what else is going on out there?’ (Simon, 1998, 2012, 2014).

TRANSMATERIAL RESEARCH QUESTIONS Transmaterial worlding as inquiry asks investigative questions such as: ‘How can we show what matters, how it matters, and to whom it matters?’ ‘How can we show others what is being constructed, how and with whom?’ ‘How can we use our understanding of communication to show how relations in the world are being created?’

The how can we show questions are not innocent or decontextualised research questions. They reflect some anxiety that facts and findings alone will not be accepted as evidence. They anticipate an increasingly sceptical audience. Members of the public see politicians fighting with scientists over who is telling the truth. Black and indigenous communities struggle to have their realities of systematic and institutionalised abuse taken seriously by those in positions of influence. Evidence using what was traditionally considered robust research methods is no longer enough. On the one hand, methods often

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reproduce colonising values that serve to reproduce material which does not reflect lived experience, for example, of oppressed and minority peoples. On the other hand, approaches that do reflect experiences of minority or oppressed peoples are often critiqued for being too subjective and insufficiently rigorous. These questions then also need including to address the voices of human and also of non-human life forms. ‘How is material being defined?’ ‘Which voices are being included or excluded?’ ‘How are they represented?’ ‘What negotiations are involved in the process of knowledge generation and knowledge sharing?’

There are different kinds of power to consider in transmaterial worlding as a method of inquiry: 1 The power to influence how people configure realities through discourse and narrative; 2 The power to create structures which solidify and embody those realities; 3 The power to deconstruct and reconstruct material and linguistic structures; 4 The power to recognise that truths are not representative of one’s own, other people’s or the material environment’s experience; 5 The power to deliberately seek out first person experience and alternative truths.

In order for research to make a difference, researchers need to ask ‘What are the governing contexts that have given rise to such a problem?’ ‘How are imbalances of power maintaining this problem?’ ‘How can this research disrupt the power relations that prevent social-justice-driven change?’ ‘Which voices need to be heard and how can we extend what we can hear and see?’ ‘Who is best placed to represent issues and how and with what support?’

Social constructionist research needs to draw on systemic and posthuman understandings of context and power to explain

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1 Why change is difficult to effect; 2 Why challenging the social construction of language is in itself not going to result in systemic change, desirable, sustainable change over tokenistic gestures; 3 How to create change and why it might be difficult.

Using questions such as these, transmaterial worlding offers a form of inquiry which integrates a concern for the ecology of the planet into the concept of social.

EXAMPLES OF TRANSMATERIAL WORLDING AS INQUIRY What then can research look like in a material world in which the matter of materiality of people’s lives and the environments in which we/they live can be storied or researched but not always heard and acted on? Here are a few examples of transmaterial worlding which use a range of systemic questions to bring forth both human and beyond human knowledges, to explore narratives and act as transformational practice by inviting new and empathic ways of knowing. Research driven by concern for young people at risk in their neighbourhoods could extend the framework of contextual safeguarding (Firmin and Hancock, 2018) to include human and non-human voices and understand research as transformative of people, places, discourses and power structures: • If the voices of stairwells in housing estates were included as research participants, what would they say works well about them as spaces to allow effective intimidation of young people by people who lead them into trouble? • How can research support young people to redesign the stairwells in their block of flats and empower them to make their views heard by those in power to make changes? • How can research map where local people, landlords and local organisations say the threshold is between personal monetary gain and social gain? And how can research bring forth their

ideas for what can be done where doing nothing is not an option?

Research into the impact of mountain climbing on Everest could ask climbers, guides and travel agents questions designed to disrupt common tourism practice by enhancing transmaterial empathy and imagining more eco-sensitive positioning: • How could the snow at the bottom of Everest make its experience of being transformed by climbers heard in ways that climbers changed their practices? • How might human and non-human stakeholders in Everest map the tipping point between profit or gain of the individual, and the wellbeing of the mountain and its indigenous communities? • What kind of pre-booking preparation could there be for climbers to empathise with the mountain and its surrounding ecology before making a decision to book their trip? • If climbing Everest was no longer an option for more than a few people each month, what would others do who did not win a ticket in this lottery?

An inquiry into how current residents are affected by illness and lost relatives through radioactive toxicity brought into their worlds by local factories or nuclear plants (see the moving ethnographic research by Cathy Richardson/Kinewesquao (2018)) could ask: • Do the spirits of your ancestors speak to you about their experience or yours? How do they communicate? What do they advise you to do? • What are the languages that you feel local government officials are most likely to listen to when local people express worry about their sickness? • How can research support local people to teach government officials local knowledge and practices of knowing? • If local government officials understood your experiences and could listen to what the land has to say and took advice from your ancestors, what would persuade them to act on this understanding and knowledge? What would they see that convinced them that this had been a good thing to do?

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• How have you managed to keep alive practices that give life and hope?

These systemic questions invite relational reflexivity from the people being asked the question. The questions are based on an idea that questions are never neutral and are a contextual intervention for the person being asked a question (Selvini Palazzoli et al., 1980; Tomm, 1988). Some questions invite an ‘ethic of care’ in ‘imagining the other’ (McCarthy and Byrne, 2007). Others are hypothetical questions (Tomm, 1988), context-setting questions, appreciative inquiry, hope-oriented, narrative questions. Systemic therapy has a rich array of types of questions, a theory of transformation through dialogue and relational response-ability theories (for example, Burnham, 1992; Fredman, 2004; Hedges, 2005; McCarthy and Byrne, 2007; Tomm, 1988; Waldegrave et al., 2003).

SIGNPOSTING FOR TRANSMATERIAL WORLDING Underpinning this signposting is the notion that social constructionist research is inevitably and intentionally perturbing, disruptive, creative, generative, transformative and unexpected – not homeostatic, representational or eliciting of a single truth (Simon and Salter, 2019). These signposts can support the development of new research practice and new professional practice. The signposts are a fusion of: 1 Criteria for what counts as quality in qualitative research (for example, Bochner, 2000; Cho and Trent, 2009; Denzin, 2000, 2003; Ellis, 2000; Etherington, 2004; Richardson, 2000; Simon, 2018; Spencer et al., 2003; Tracy, 2010); 2 Social constructionist and systemic principles, values and theory (for example, Burnham, 1992; Markovic, 1993; McCarthy and Byrne, 2007; McCarthy and Simon, 2016 McNamee, 2004; Selvini Palazzoli et al., 1980); 3 New materialist theory (for example, Barad, 2007; Braidotti, 2011, 2013; Haraway, 2015, 2016).

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Research material… a shows critical consideration of where and how voices of transmaterial participants are included in the research; b extends communication to include multilingual transmaterial narrative; c understands research as an intervention that moves the reader to learn or do something differently; d employs creative strategies to tell authentic stories well; e clearly states a social responsibility objective which addresses real concerns for people, organisations and the communities in which they live, showing how the practice in the inquiry shows care for/transforms the lives of others; f asks daring questions intended to provoke social change and explores the power of narrative and discourse alongside discussion of whose voices and lives matter, and what counts as knowledge, evidence or relevance to the subject; g situates experience and description in power structures, local and global contexts, discursive and material systems, historic and contemporary experience, richly inclusive of material from other cultures, materialities, human and non-human systems; h provides intimate detail of relational communication from within activities; i offers an honest, transparent and reflexive account about the selection of material and interpretation and/or use of the material, why the researchers are doing this research, why now and with what intentions; j discusses relational ethics throughout the research process through a rich and overt consideration/critique of power relations, colonising practices, and differences in personal and communal experience, in research relationships and wider socio-political systems; k discusses and evidences how the research makes an original and impactful contribution to the field of social constructionist and systemic inquiry, to members of the public, or other professionals, communities or organisations.

CONCLUSION In this chapter we have set out how transmaterial worlding as onto-epistemological

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inquiry supports transformative research into relations between discourse and a transmaterial world. Transmaterial worlding as a method of inquiry has an important role to play in showing how language works in and between human and non-human relationships to maintain or disrupt practices of power that enable or prevent social justice. Co-construction as a form of inquiry and worlding process is an important tool in (i) understanding and supporting decolonial, new materialist strategies to show, extend and disrupt relationships between language and material structures, and (ii) locating human activity as co-inhabitation within a wider fluid sphere of human and non-human environmental context. Examples of systemic questions demonstrate transformative possibilities for generating new and old knowledges that impact on daily practice. Signposts are offered for co-constructionist inquiry as transmaterial worlding to support research which aims to transform lives and create sustainable futures. Transmaterial worlding encourages the development of new practices and is curious about accounts of the fluid and shifting connections between experience and explanation, between theory and practice, language and matter.

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Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Bateson, Gregory (1972) Steps to an Ecology of Mind. New York, NY: Ballantine Books. Bateson, Nora (2016) Small Arcs of Larger Circles: Framing through Other Patterns. Dorset: Triarchy Press. Bennett, Jane (2010) Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Bochner, Arthur P. (2000) Criteria against ourselves. Qualitative Inquiry, 6(2) 266–272. Braidotti, Rosi (2006) Transpositons: On Nomadic Ethics. London: Polity Press. Braidotti, Rosi (2011) Nomadic Theory: The Portable Rosi Braidotti. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Braidotti, Rosi (2013) The Posthuman. London: Polity Press. Burnham, John (1992) Approach, method, technique: Making distinctions and creating connections. Human Systems: Journal of Systemic Consultation and Management, 3(1) 3–26. Chen, Mel Y. (2012) Animacies. Biopolitics, Racial Mattering, and Queer Affect. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Cho, Jeasik and Trent, Allen (2009) Validity criteria for performance-related qualitative work for performance in/as qualitative inquiry. Toward a reflexive, evaluative, and co-constructive framework. Qualitative Inquiry, 15(6) 1013–1041. Clifford, James and Marcus, George E. (Eds.) (1986) Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Cronen, Vernon, E. and Pearce, W. Barnett (1999) Using CMM: The Coordinated Management of Meaning. Accessed 7 September 2019 from http://www.pearceassociates. com/essays/cmm_seminar.pdf Denzin, Norman K. (2000) Aesthetics and the practices of qualitative inquiry. Qualitative Inquiry, 6(1) 256–265. Denzin, Norman K. (2003) Performance Ethnography: Critical Pedagogy and the Politics of Culture. London: Sage. Dillard, Cynthia (2000) The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen: Examining an endarkened feminist epistemology in educational research

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and leadership. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 13(6) 661–681. Ellis, Carolyn (2000) Creating criteria: An ethnographic short story. Qualitative Inquiry, 6(2) 273–277. Etherington, Kim (2004) Becoming a Reflexive Researcher: Using Our Selves in Research. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Firmin, Carlene and Hancock, David (2018) Profiling CSE: Building a contextual picture of a local problem. In: H. Beckett and J. Pearce (Eds.), Understanding and Responding to Child Sexual Exploitation. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 107–120. Foucault, Michel (1979) Truth and power: An interview with Michel Foucault. Critique of Anthropology, 4(13–14) 3–6. Fredman, Glenda (2004) Transforming Emotion: Conversations in Counselling and Psychotherapy. London: Wiley. Gergen, Kenneth J. and Gergen, Mary (2002) Ethnography as relationship. In: Art Bochner and Carolyn Ellis (Eds.), Ethnographically Speaking: Autoethnography, Literature, and Aesthetics. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, pp 11–33. Gergen, Mary (2001) Feminist Reconstructions in Psychology: Narrative, Gender, and Performance. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Haraway, Donna (2004) ‘Cyborgs, coyotes, and dogs: A kinship of feminist figurations’ and ‘There are always more things going on than you thought! Methodologies as thinking technologies’. The Haraway Reader. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 321–341. Haraway, Donna (2015) Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making kin. Environmental Humanities, 6, 159–165. Haraway, Donna (2016) Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Hedges, Fran (2005) An Introduction to Systemic Therapy with Individuals: A Social Constructionist Approach. London: Palgrave Macmillan. McNamee, Sheila and Hosking, Dian Marie (2012) Transforming Inquiry: A Relational Constructionist Approach. London: Routledge.

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Lather, Patti (1994) Getting Smart: Feminist Research and Pedagogy Within/in the Postmodern. London: Routledge. Lather, Patti (2007) Getting Lost: Feminist Efforts Toward a Double(d) Science. New York, NY: State University of New York Press. Linds, Warren and Vettraino, Elinor (2008) Collective imagining: Collaborative story telling through image theater. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 9(2) May 2008. doi:http:// dx.doi.org/10.17169/fqs–9.2.400. Madison, D. Soyini (2012) Critical Ethnography: Methods, Ethics, and Performance. London: Sage. Markovic (then Radovanovic), Desa (1993) Prisoners of identity: A conversation with Dr Gianfranco Cecchin. Human Systems: Journal of Systemic Consultation and Management, 4(1) 3–18. McCarthy, Imelda Colgan and O’Reilly Byrne, Nollaig (2007) A fifth province approach to intra-cultural issues in an Irish context: Marginal illuminations. In: M. McGoldrick and K. Hardy (Eds.), Revisioning Family Therapy: Race, Class, Culture, and Gender in Clinical Practice, 2nd edition. New York, NY: Guilford Press, pp 327–343. McCarthy, Imelda and Simon, Gail (Eds.) (2016) Systemic Therapy as Transformative Practice. Farnhill: Everything is Connected Press. McNamee, Sheila (1994) Research as relationally situated activity: Ethical implications. Journal of Feminist Family Therapy, 6(3) 69–83. McNamee, Sheila (2004) Promiscuity in the practice of family therapy. Journal of Family Therapy, 26(3) 224–244. McNamee, Sheila (2020) Relational research (trans)forming practices. In: M. Ochs, M. Borcsa and J. Schweitzer (Eds.), Systemic Research in Individual, Couple and Family Therapy and Counseling (pp 115–124). European Family Therapy Association Series, Volume 5. Cham: Springer International. McNamee, Sheila and Gergen, Kenneth (Eds.) (1992) Therapy as Social Construction (Inquiries in Social Construction series). London: Sage. Pillow, Wanda (2019) Epistemic witnessing: Theoretical responsibilities, decolonial attitude and lenticular futures. International

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Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 32(2) 118–135. Preece, Bronwyn (2019) Performing Embodiment: Improvisational Investigations into the Intersections of Ecology and Disability. Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Huddersfield. Available at http://eprints.hud. ac.uk/id/eprint/34913 Reynolds, Vikki (2014) A solidarity approach: The rhizome and messy inquiry. In: G. Simon and A. Chard (Eds.), Systemic Inquiry: Innovations in Reflexive Practice Research. Farnhill: Everything is Connected Press, pp. 127–154. Reynolds, Vikki (2019) Justice-Doing at the Intersections of Power. Adelaide: Dulwich Centre Publications. Richardson, Laurel (2000). Evaluating ethnography. Qualitative Inquiry, 6(2) 253–255. Richardson/Kinewesquao, Catherine Lynn (2018) Relating to illness in therapy. Murmurations: Journal of Transformative Systemic Practice, 1(2) 14–26. Salter, Leah (2015) From victimhood to sisterhood – a practice-based reflexive inquiry into narrative informed group work with women who have experienced sexual abuse. European Journal of Psychotherapy and Counselling, 17(2) 402–417. Salter, Leah (2017a) Research as resistance and solidarity: ‘Spinning transformative yarns’– a narrative inquiry with women going on from abuse and oppression. Journal of Family Therapy, 39(3) 285–494. Salter, Leah (2017b) From victimhood to sisterhood part II: Exploring the possibilities of transformation and solidarity. European Journal of Psychotherapy and Counselling, 19(1) 73–86. Salter, Leah (2018) Acts of Resistance: A Reflexive Inquiry into Narrative Group Work with Women Who Have Experienced Abuse or Oppression. Unpublished doctoral thesis. University of Bedfordshire. Available at http:// hdl.handle.net/10547/623290 Salter, Leah and Newkirk, Jemma (2019) Collective storytelling for health: A three-part story. Storytelling, Self, Society, 15(1) 108–129. Selvini Palazzoli, Mara, Boscolo, Luigi, Cecchin, Gianfranco and Prata, Giulianna (1980) Hypothesising – circularity – neutrality: Three

guidelines for the conductor of the session. Family Process, 19(1) 3–12. Shotter, John (1999) Writing from within ‘living moments’. ‘Withness-writing’ rather than ‘aboutness-writing’. Fourth National Writing Across the Curriculum Conference: Multiple Intelligences, Cornell University, June 3–5. Shotter, John (2011) Getting It: With-ness Thinking and the Dialogical… In Practice. New York, NY: The Hampton Press. Simon, Gail (1998) Incitement to riot? Individual identity and group membership: Some reflections on the politics of a post-modernist therapy. Human Systems: Journal of Systemic Consultation and Management, 9(1) 33–50. Simon, Gail (2010) Self-supervision, surveillance and transgression. Journal of Family Therapy, 32(3) 308–325. Simon, Gail (2012) Praction research: A model of systemic inquiry. Human Systems: The Journal of Therapy, Consultation and Training, 23(1) 103–124. Simon, Gail (2013) Relational ethnography: Writing and reading in research relationships. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 14(1). Available at http://dx.doi.org/10.17169/ fqs-14.1.1735 Simon, Gail (2014) Systemic inquiry as a form of qualitative inquiry. In: G. Simon and A. Chard (Eds.), Systemic Inquiry: Innovations in Social Constructionist Research. Farnhill: Everything is Connected Press, pp. 3–29. Simon, Gail (2018) Eight criteria for quality in systemic practitioner research. Murmurations: Journal of Transformative Systemic Practice, 1(2) 42–60. Simon, Gail and Salter, Leah (2019) Transmaterial worlding as systemic practice. Murmurations: Journal of Transformative Systemic Practice, 2(2) 1–17. Spencer, Liz, Ritchie, Jane, Lewis, Jane and Dillon, Lucy (2003) Quality in Qualitative Evaluation: A Framework for Assessing Research Evidence. A Quality Framework. National Centre for Social Research, Cabinet Office, UK. Tomm, Karl (1988) Interventive interviewing: Part III. Intending to ask lineal, circular, strategic or reflexive questions? Family Process, 27(1) 1–15.

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Tracy, Sarah J. (2010) Qualitative quality: Eight ‘big-tent’ criteria for excellent qualitative research. Qualitative Inquiry, 16(10) 837–851. Tuhiwai Smith, Linda (1999) Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London: Zed Books. Visweswaran, Kamala (1994) Fictions of Feminist Ethnography. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Wade, Allan (1997) Small acts of living: Everyday resistance to violence and other forms of

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10 Researching Socio-material Practices: Inquiries into the Human/Non-human Interweave Ta n y a M u d r y a n d To m S t r o n g

Decades ago, Michael Polanyi (1966) wrote of there being a tacit dimension to much of what humans do and experience. This tacit dimension refers to taken-for-granted aspects of our experiencing and doing that occur below our attentional radar. Important for our considerations here is that such tacit experiencing and doing occurs because of the familiarities of our responsiveness to people and other features of our situations. Whether learning to pedal a bicycle or greeting a new colleague – beyond any initial awkwardness – these novel sense-making interactions often become familiar, lulling us into overlooking the tacit responsiveness required for enabling such interactions to recur. Should the familiar become tacit in these interactions, we can lose our sense of responding to how we are being responded to, unless such tacit interactions are disrupted or re-visited for new kinds of sense-making. This makes such interactions, or socio-material practices, interesting practitioner-research foci.

Interaction has been difficult to conceptualize for individually focused psychologists and socially oriented sociologists. Basically, it refers to the back-and-forth responsiveness that develops between people, or between people and material features in their situations. Goffman (1967) launched his microsociology suggesting that researchers look at the immediacies of everyday interactions as being ‘where the action is’. Garfinkel (1967) went a step further to suggest that everyday interactions – those recurring in the back and forth of people’s immediate responses to each other – were how they brought familiar order to their relationships. Translated to human interactions with material elements (e.g., technology, objects, geography), a more challenging and recent socio-material view theorizes how humans become situationally ‘entangled’ (Barad, 2007) with material features of their lives. Socio-material practices begin as responses to something new, in sense-­making interactions that develop according to how people

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and material elements respond to each other in recurring interactions over time. A considerable literature has been developing, highlighting how interwoven humans and material phenomena have become (e.g., Grosz, 2017; Hekman, 2010) or may have always been (Ingold, 2007). New ‘posthuman’ (Braidotti, 2013) or relational ontologies (Barad, 2007) are discussed within this literature, particularly as technologies become more central in our lives (e.g., Fry, 2018; Latour, 2013). This literature suggests that it is becoming increasingly hard to distinguish human influence from the influence of socio-material phenomena with which we interact, particularly when one adds in Polanyi’s tacit dimension. Therein lies a potentially interesting dilemma, as some practices, such as performed elegance or expertise (Dreyfus and Dreyfus, 1986) illustrate the usefulness of this tendency. However, a downside becomes evident when socio-material practices acquire an unwanted automaticity, such as when we become mindlessly ‘addicted’ to activities. Socio-material practices exemplify how humans routinely interact with material phenomena to reproduce experiences and relations, and effectively meld with these phenomena (e.g., technology, geographies, objects). Gregory Bateson (1972) similarly described how the practice of using a cane could seemingly develop into an extension of a visually impaired person using it. In this chapter, we focus on researching socio-material practices – those that conjoin humans with material elements of their situations. Our aim is to show ways to ‘zoom in’ (Nicolini, 2012) to research specific sociomaterial practices as concurrent doings, sayings, and relatings (Kemmis et al., 2017), while also ‘zooming out’ to research bigger picture influences sustaining socio-material practices. We conceptualize socio-material practices as recurrent ‘doings, sayings, and relatings’ (Kemmis et  al., 2017) that develop into inertias or ‘rhythms’ that persist in taken-for-granted ways that almost feel

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second nature. Henri Lefebvre issued, for us, a heuristic challenge for our inquiries: ‘When rhythms are lived, they cannot be analysed’ (2004, p. 88). Through clinical and researchrelated studies of ‘excessive behaviours’ we probe such rhythms through reflexive forms of sense-making, uncoupling how sociomaterial practices tacitly reproduce what can become unacceptably familiar.

SOCIO-MATERIAL PRACTICES A Pavlovian view of practice would probably stop at S-R (stimulus-response) habits, a focus of behavioural therapists for almost a century (e.g., Watson, 1925). This focus on ‘doing’ or the actions required for perpetuating a habit, omits any sayings and relatings. Sayings are what people say to themselves to justify or inform their doing of a sociomaterial practice – a normal target for cognitive therapists (Beck, 1979). Relatings tap into dimensions of value, affect, and goalorientation (or ‘teleoaffectivity’ – see Schatzki, 2010) that relate the person to the practice. Psychological language like ‘compulsion’ partly captures this component, which mindfulness and acceptance-focused therapists (e.g., Roemer and Orsillo, 2010) emphasize. Socio-material practices, however, seldom refer to the discrete doings, sayings, or relatings these approaches to therapy target. They are responsive and typically recur in broader networks or assemblages where they seemingly take on lives of their own. For Peter Sloterdijk (2013), ‘Every active person is dyed in the lye of their activities until the miracle of “second nature” takes place and they perform the near-impossible almost effortlessly’ (p. 321). Practices acquire their ‘second nature’ through becoming conjoined in networks and assemblages and then persist because they have a kind of life support system that extends beyond the person caught up as part of sustaining them.

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To illustrate, systemic therapy which sought to change unwanted family practices, tends to be up against other practices engaging the family beyond the consulting room (Dreier, 2008). Thus, a change focus on a specific practice may seem like bucking the tide for being part of a greater network or assemblage of practices.

RESEARCHING SOCIO-MATERIAL PRACTICES The pithy phrase ‘zooming out and zooming in’ (Nicolini, 2012) nicely encompasses our interests in tackling research questions in macroscopic and microscopic ways. Our backgrounds in ethnomethodology (e.g., Garfinkel, 1967; Heritage, 1984) had oriented us to micro-interactions through which humans negotiate a shared, but mostly takenfor-granted, sense of orderliness or familiarity. However, we were also drawn to making sense of larger historical and cultural influences on human interactions – particularly the hermeneutically oriented writings of Foucault (2011) or Ian Hacking. For Hacking (1999), some cultural phenomena acquire their salience in ‘ecological niches’, which in some way resemble the situations or assemblages we will describe in greater detail later. When researching socio-material practices, we think it is important to zoom in, to see how these practices are done in micro terms, while zooming out to consider macroinfluences that shape the salience or relevance of any socio-material practice.

Zooming In on Socio-Material Practices Socio-material practices typically begin in sense-making interactions, and for us that means looking beyond the brain. Others have claims on how we navigate and negotiate sense-making interactions, and not only other

humans (Garfinkel, 1967). Our smartphones show us how our use of them becomes interwoven with other social and material claims on our attention. Practices come out of how we initially make sense of such interactional claims or challenges in ways we can later develop as reliable responses helpful in negotiating such challenges to make them ‘acceptably familiar’ (Lock and Strong, 2010).

Zooming Out on Socio-Material Practices Researching socio-material practices is complicated because they seldom recur in isolation, and more commonly are sustained inside broader networks or assemblages. One needs to consider broader cultural and systemic influences shaping that recurrence (e.g., Tomm et al., 2014). In zooming out to research socio-material practices we alternate between considering their recurrence within assemblages and/or networks. The notion of assemblages comes from Deleuze and Guattari (1988) and addresses conditions under which phenomena like practices commingle and develop together. Assemblages have been used to conceptualize emergent health conditions (e.g., Duff, 2013) and political developments (Massumi, 2015). They function as ecologies inside which unpredictable developments emerge, even go viral, in ways unique yet consistent with their interactive elements. It took a particular convergence of factors like Facebook and Twitter, a cultural disgust for political prevarication, online editing tools, etc., for today’s creative political meme practices to develop on the Internet. Networks acquire a procedural familiarity enabling one interaction or practice to foretell the need to engage in a next familiar practice. This is a view some associate with cybernetics (Bateson, 1972) and entails tacitly knowing what to do next in a patterned sequence. However, there is usually an interpretive interactional gap that any practice stitches

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together (Latour, 2013) – a gap humans fill with their doings, sayings, and relatings. Often such gaps acquire a recurring sense that Guattari (1995) referred to as ‘machinic’. The familiarity and predictability of recurring practices inside networks makes them interesting and potentially liberating targets of critical reflection and reflexive inquiry.

REFLEXIVE RESEARCH OF SOCIOMATERIAL PRACTICES One aspect of reflexivity is that questions, whether asked in therapy or in research, are anything but neutral data-retrieval procedures. Karl Tomm’s seminal writing on reflexive questions in therapy (1987) paralleled how action researchers (e.g., Heron and Reason, 1997) saw questions potentially inviting consideration and enactment of new social realities – they could be ‘futureforming’ in Ken Gergen’s language (2015). Furthermore, reflexivity has an ethnomethodological meaning (e.g., Heritage, 1984) shared by process-oriented philosophers (Nail, 2019; Stengers, 2011); that posthuman life is normally in flux. Socio-material practices are ways humans responsively try to stabilize or bring familiar order to that flux. Thus, we sought to research socio-material practices without reifying them, and to instead find generative ways to identify and represent them. Clarke’s Situational Analysis (SA; Clarke et al., 2017) offers mapping procedures useful for zooming in and out to better understand socio-material practices. Macroscopically, John Shotter (2006) referred to ‘responsive orders’ that we see as stitched together by socio-material practices tacitly perpetuated in assemblages and networks of practice. Zooming in helps us look at specific sociomaterial practices, to revisit alternative sense-making that had become closed up or made seamless by such practices (Schegloff and Sacks, 1972). SA maps, in other words

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give us lenses for considering the actual and the possible.

RESEARCHING EXCESSIVE BEHAVIOURS Excessive behaviours are common, practised excessively and tacitly, and often experienced as unacceptably familiar, as ‘addictions’. We draw from examples of inquiries into excessive behaviours (Mudry, 2016), specifically gambling, to demonstrate how we have researched socio-material practices. We aim to show how to reflexively probe and uncouple the ways socio-material practices are tacitly reproduced to create and sustain gambling, so that individuals can better change practices they deem are no longer acceptable. In Tanya’s original study, participants who self-identified as feeling ‘stuck’ in, or having concerns related to eating, Internet use, or gambling were interviewed about specific practices they deemed important to sustaining or interrupting these concerns. Nicolini’s (2012) orienting questions were used to attend to the doings, sayings (beliefs, ideas, talk within the practice), timing, tempo, embodied choreography, objects, and place (see Mudry, 2016 for details). Through analysing interview transcripts, we zoomed out to examine participants’ social worlds and arenas to consider which conditions and practices were most relevant or salient to our inquiry, while zooming in to see how unacceptably familiar practices are sustained. For Nicolini (2012) ‘zooming in and out is achieved by switching theoretical lenses, the result is both a representation of practice and an exercise of diffraction whereby understanding is enriched through reading the results of one form of theorization through another’ (p. 219). Here we use data from an interview with one participant, ‘Tom Jackson’ (his chosen pseudonym), to illustrate how researchers might examine socio-material practices by zooming

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out and zooming in, through using lenses afforded by the earlier mentioned assemblage and network approaches.

Social Worlds Arena Drawing from Situational Analysis (SA, Clarke, 2005) we created our version of a social worlds/arenas map to depict gambling as a situation pertaining to individuals (Tom Jackson in particular) who gamble. In our social worlds/arenas map (Figure 10.1), we portray the actors engage in this situated form of coordinated action (gambling), as social worlds, or meso-level arena(s) where these actors have something at stake. While not exhaustive, four broad social arenas were identified in the map as salient to the situation of gambling: Mental Health and

Figure 10.1  Gambling social worlds/arena map

Addiction; Political; Personal and Community; and Gambling Industry. Within each of these arenas are actors that have a stake in gambling, some of which are in tension with others. For example, policy makers, research bodies, funding bodies, and government are situated and motivated within all four arenas. Tom Jackson lives in a jurisdiction where gambling is legal and regulated by the government, which receives tax revenues from gambling to fund service providers and treatment facilities for ‘problematic gamblers’. In seeking profit, the casino and gambling industry design casinos and games accordingly, to accelerate play, extend duration, and increase spending (Schüll, 2012). Such goals are in direct conflict with policy makers advocating for responsible gambling, who also benefit from the profits of the casino and gambling industry. Those who

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gamble (i.e., Tom Jackson), do so within a tension between the government’s role to help and protect their citizens, while profiting from the gambling revenues through taxation. Depending upon the participant, different social arenas may play a larger or smaller role in (i.e., have claims on) the practices in which they engage. If the participant uses mental health or addiction services, the mental health and addiction arena may be more relevant to investigate. If the participant gambles during work hours, or gambling harms their social relationships, the personal or community arenas (i.e., workplace, social relationships) may be relevant for the inquiry. Social worlds are not fixed, and the porosity of social worlds/arenas are depicted through the use of dotted lines. Tom Jackson’s social worlds involved formal counselling to reduce gambling, as well as Gambler’s Anonymous (peer-based 12-step recovery), both of which sit within the mental health and addiction arena and have stakes in him reducing gambling. Conversely, the casinos and developers of video lottery terminals (VLTs) (gambling industry arena) have a stake in increasing Tom Jackson’s gambling through technology and environment to increase play. Therein lies an important tension between Tom Jackson’s relevant social worlds, each with opposing stakes in him continuing to gamble. When Tom Jackson is engaged in practices that sustain excessive gambling, he does so within and as part of these social worlds. In light of our interest in socio-material practices, we focused on practices involving the Personal and Community (workplace, family, friends) and Gambling Industry (i.e., casinos and VLTs) social worlds.

Zooming Out: Assemblages of Practices We used an assemblage approach to attend to and identify the conditions and influences under which situated elements commingle

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and develop into socio-material practices, all occurring within and as part of social worlds. Given Tom Jackson’s social worlds, and our interview with him, we identified the following conditions and influences that likely converged and commingled to facilitate excessive gambling (Figure 10.2): Neoliberalism, media, gambling industry, government/political system, current economy, work/employment, health and mental health, and social network. For the purposes of this chapter, we focused on conditions and influences most related to Tom Jackson’s casino gambling, which directly attend to socio-material elements. However, conditions such as social network (i.e., recent loss of parents, lost connection to friendships due to working night shifts) and health and mental health (i.e., chronic pain and depression) are also major influences in the assemblage. Relevant to casino gambling are neoliberalism, technology, media, the gambling industry, and the political system/government. North America embraces a neoliberal ideology which privileges independence, capitalism, higher socioeconomic status, and, arguably, excessiveness. This translates to a desire to become and appear wealthy, often through excessive spending and consuming (e.g., cars, jewellery, clothing, fancy dinners, going to Vegas). The gambling industry is both a product of, and contributor to neoliberalism. The aim of the gambling industry is to maximize profit, while also promising the gambler the potential to win a jackpot (money is material). This industry uses technology in their materials to engineer player practices and experiences to perpetuate further play (Schüll, 2012). Casinos are designed to be exciting (lights and bells), glamorous, and disorienting in time and space, to keep consumers engaged in the practices. Video lottery terminals (VLTs) are also designed to be ‘addictive’, creating a trajectory towards continuous gaming productivity by ‘accelerating play, extending its duration, and increasing the total amount spent’ (Schüll, 2012, p. 52).

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Neoliberal Ideology

gambling industry

media

economy

government/ political

work social network mental/ health

Gambling Figure 10.2  Zooming out: assemblage

This fits clearly with Tom Jackson’s sociomaterial description of the casino as a ‘different world’ filled with excitement, fun, lights, and sounds. The current economic system creates a tension with the neoliberal ideal. In a neoliberal system, as smaller numbers of people become increasingly wealthy, more become economically disadvantaged without options to progress. Those who are economically disadvantaged are likely to be less satisfied with their ‘reality’; working very hard, in jobs they dislike, and earning less than required for comfort, let alone match the ideal performed in media. However, those who are economically disadvantaged are still under the influence of the neoliberal ideal, which creates conditions to accumulate wealth outside of their regular jobs; gambling at a casino is very lucrative. In the case of Tom Jackson, he talked about his experience of being in the casino as a ‘different world’, with lights,

sounds, and the potential to win money to make the pain and depression of his daily reality (Figure 10.3) ‘go away.’

Zooming In: Assemblage Instance From an assemblage view we can zoom in to a practice of interest (‘walking into a casino’, Figure 10.3) to examine how conditions and influences come together to commingle and create the possibility of gambling. Tom Jackson spoke about chronic pain, depression, grief over the death of his parents, as well as an inheritance (material required to gamble), working night shifts in an empty warehouse, and loss of social connection and leisure activities. Tom Jackson’s daily reality is sharply contrasted with what a casino has to offer: opportunities for excitement, escape, and the potential to win a fortune and escape daily reality. He described the casino as a

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Figure 10.3  Zooming in: assemblage instance

completely ‘different world’ – an escape that was exciting – with bells, sounds, lights – and huge potential to win. He spoke about a ‘big win’, which was exciting, and served as a distinct contrast and escape from the stress and depression he experienced in his life elsewhere. He described the small ‘high’ he experienced walking in to the casino and the enormous high (‘euphoria’) he experienced when he hit a jackpot. Going to a different world with anticipation of an enormous high is a logical option.

Zooming Out: Larger Network of Practices Zooming out to a networked view, we can tease apart the mechanics of the practice network, which might be useful for reflexively investigating how practices network together in familiar, tacit ways, engaged as second

nature. In contrast to a commingling and convergence of conditions in an assemblage view, a networked view feeds off procedural familiarity, practices become linked together in ways that seem predictable, one practice inviting the next. The more the practices are associated together, the more familiar the next step in the practice becomes. Hinge practices are those which are central to the perpetuation of a network of practices, a practice which, if altered, changes the network (Harré, 2009). Tom Jackson described certain practices that were important in his network of gambling practices. In Figure 10.4, we depict four hinge practices that network together to sustain gambling: cell phone practice at work, driving to the casino, walking into the casino, and playing the VLT. Note that other daily life/ home practices could also be included in Tom Jackson’s larger network of practices, and expanded upon for a more thorough analysis.

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Figure 10.4  Zooming out: network of practices

Tom Jackson described the VLT game on his cell phone as analogous to the VLT he played in the casino. Working the night shift alone, he played this game when he was bored, feeling lonely, or wanted a break. His engagement in the cell phone game was more than escape; however, what happened on the game (whether he won or lost) was associated with particular feelings and beliefs about his next steps. If he was winning in the game, he would go home after work, because he had ‘already won all of his wins’ (a superstitious ‘saying’ described in the next section). However, if he was losing, he knew he was ‘due for a win’ (another superstitious ‘saying’) and embodied anticipation of a win would be felt in his body. If he lost in his cell phone game, at the end of his shift he would drive to the casino (a few blocks away, on his route home). On the drive there (a hinge practice), he would be filled with anticipation, expectation, adrenaline, and excitement. He would walk into the casino (a hinge practice), which was a completely different world (compared to his warehouse job) – an escape that was exciting. The bells, sounds, and lights are all part of the socio-material ‘place’ of walking into the

casino, and the next hinge practice of playing on a VLT.

Zooming In: Hinge Practices From a practice perspective, we can zoom in to each of the socio-material hinge practices in a network to examine the doings, sayings, relatings, and actants (materials, place, and timespace). By ‘zooming in’ we attend closely to the details associated with accomplishing the practice. Doings are the actions of the practice, grounded materially in place and with things (actants). Sayings refer to what is said about the practice, the rationale for the practice, and what is said within the practice. Sayings are drawn from larger discourses or ways of understanding and doing the practice. Relatings are the emotional, embodied connections that glue the practice together. Relatings are teleoaffective and help describe how trajectories are formed within the practice towards continuation. Trajectories (telos = towards an aim, affective = feeling, emotion, embodied affect state) connect and perpetuate the practice in ways that become tacit. In Figure 10.5, we

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Figure 10.5  Zooming in: gambling practices

depict how doings (grounded socio-materially in things and place), sayings, and relatings comprise and sustain a practice. For example, we can zoom in to examine the hinge practice of walking into a casino (Figure 10.6), which was highlighted in Tom Jackson’s story as walking into a ‘different world’ (a ‘saying’ from a discourse of escapism). In Figure 10.6, we depict the socio-material practice of entering into this different world (casino), in contrast to the daily world he would like to shut out. In this example, place and timespace of the casino are particularly important from a socio-material perspective. Tom Jackson has an embodied, affective relationship to the casino (place) that feels exciting and fun, and where he experiences a small ‘high’ with potential (i.e., telos) for an enormous high. In this hinge practice, the potential for an enormous high (teleoaffective relating) is networked with the desire to play the VLT (to achieve that high), which is another hinge practice (interacting with the VLT). This practice of interacting with a VLT (Figure 10.7) is grounded in the materiality of the VLT.

The VLT is an important actant, the way in which it spins, the number of spins, how it is re-triggered, its timespace (2–3 mins), and the outcome (huge jackpot), all of which occurred alongside intense affective relatings (high, euphoria) which ‘made all that pain and depression go away’. These affective relatings became associated with the VLT through intensely positive affect. At the time of occurrence, and until deemed problematic, the sayings associated with this experience might centre on thrill, potential to win, excitement, and positive invitation to continue. In the retrospective account described here (after engagement in addiction treatment), Tom Jackson drew from an addiction discourse, when he likened his experience to cocaine or narcotics addiction (Figure 10.7). In these network examples we were able to highlight the complexity of the practices and analytically focus in on material actants, which might be typically implicit or ignored in research. Zooming out allowed us to view these practices as relationally integrated and situated in networks of practices, while by zooming in to hinge practices we could zoom

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Figure 10.6  Hinge practice: walking into a casino

Figure 10.7  Hinge practice: interacting with a VLT

in closely on the details of the accomplishment of the practice.

CONCLUSION As therapist-researchers we have sought reflexive methods of inquiry that help people

zoom in and out on the assemblages and networks that sustain particular practices. Seeing the questions and representations of any inquiry as reflexive or socially constructive, given what they might bring forth (Tomm, 1987), in this chapter we also presented considerations for researching socio-material practices in zooming in and zooming out ways. We drew heavily from Clarke’s (2005,

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Clarke et  al., 2017) Situational Analysis, a theory-methods package that uses maps to zoom in and out of situations and the practices (i.e., doings, sayings, relatings) that comprise them. Assemblages have indeterminate qualities, yet develop in ways that create particular conditions of possibility inside which a range of socio-material practices might develop. Corners of today’s Internet assemble highly distinctive practices that would have been impossible without the technology. Networked practices, in contrast, are sustained in patterned familiarities that are sequentially connected so that engagement in one socio-material practice almost foretells engaging in an ‘inevitable’ next practice. Whether researching assembled or networked socio-material practices we aim to make their conditions and predictable sequences for unacceptably familiar reproduction evident in ways that enable new thinking, dialogue and actions.

REFERENCES Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an ecology of mind. New York, NY: Ballantine. Beck, A. T. (1979). Cognitive therapy and the emotional disorders. New York, NY: Plume. Braidotti, R. (2013). The posthuman. Malden, MA: Polity. Clarke, A. E. (2005). Situational analysis: Grounded theory after the interpretive turn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Clarke, A. E., Friesen, C., and Washburn, R. S. (2017). Situational analysis: Grounded theory after the interpretive turn (2nd edition). Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Deleuze, G., and Guattari, F. (1988). A thousand plateaus (B. Massumi, Trans.). St. Paul, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Dreier, O. (2008). Psychotherapy in everyday life. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Dreyfus, H. L., and Dreyfus, S. E. (1986). Mind over machine: The power of human intuition

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and expertise in the era of the computer. New York, NY: Free Press. Duff, C. (2013). Assemblages of health. New York, NY: Springer. Foucault, M. (2011). The government of self and others: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1982–1983 (G. Burchell, Trans.). New York, NY: Picador. Fry, H. (2018). Hello world: Being human in the age of algorithms. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Gergen, K. J. (2015). From mirroring to worldmaking: Research as future forming. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 45, 287–310. doi: 10.1111/jtsb.12075 Goffman, E. (1967). The interaction ritual. New York, NY: Parthenon. Grosz, E. (2017). The incorporeal: Ontology, ethics and the limits of materialism. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Guattari, F. (1995). Chaosmosis: An ethicoaesthetic paradigm (P. Bains and J. Pefanis, Trans.). Sydney, AU: Power Publications. Hacking, I. (1999). Mad travelers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Harré, R. (2009). Wittgenstein’s therapies: From rules to hinges. New Ideas in Psychology, 27(2), 118–132. doi: 10.1016/j.newidea psych.2008.04.009 Hekman, S. (2010). The material of knowledge: Feminist disclosures. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Heritage, J. (1984). Garfinkel and ethnomethodology. Cambridge, MA: Polity. Heron, J., and Reason, P. (1997). A participatory inquiry paradigm. Qualitative Inquiry, 3(3), 274–294. doi: 10.1177/1077800 49700300302 Ingold, T. (2007). Lines: A brief history. New York, NY: Routledge. Kemmis, S. R., Wilkinson, J., and EdwardsGroves, C. (2017). Roads not travelled, roads ahead: How the theory of practice architectures is travelling. In K. Mahon, S. Francisco, and S. Kemmis (Eds.), Exploring education and professional practice (pp. 239–256). New York, NY: Springer. Latour, B. (2013). An inquiry into modes of existence. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Lefebvre, H. (2004). Rhythmanalysis: Space, time and everyday life. (S. Elden and G. Moore, Trans.). New York, NY: Continuum. Lock, A. J., and Strong, T. (2010). Social constructionism: Sources and stirrings in theory and practice. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Massumi, B. (2015). Politics of affect. Malden, MA: Polity. Mudry, T. (2016). Behaviour is in the practice: Examining excessive behaviours using a practice framework (Doctoral dissertation), University of Calgary, AB. Nail, T. (2019). Being and motion. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Nicolini, D. (2012). Practice theory, work, and organization: An introduction. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Polanyi, M. (1966). The tacit dimension. ­ Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Roemer, L., and Orsillo, S. M. (2010). Mindfulness-and acceptance-based behavioral therapies in practice. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Schatzki, T. R. (2010). The timespace of human activity. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Schegloff, E. A., and Sacks, H. (1972). Opening up closings. Semiotica, 8, 289–327. doi: 10.1515/semi.1973.8.4.289

Schüll, N. (2012). Addiction by design: Machine gambling in Las Vegas. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Shotter, J. (2006). Dialogue, depth, and life inside responsive orders: From external observation to participatory understanding. In B. Goranzon, M. Hammaren, and R. Ennals (Eds.), Dialogue, skill, and tacit knowledge (pp. 243–266). New York, NY: John Benjamins. Sloterdijk, P. (2013). You must change your life (W. Hoban, Trans.). Malden, MA: Polity. Stengers, I. (2011). Thinking with Whitehead: A free and wild creation of ideas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Tomm, K. (1987). Interventive interviewing: II. Reflexive questioning as a means to enable selfhealing. Family Process, 26(2), 167–183. doi: 10.1111/j.1545-5300.1987.00167.x Tomm, K., St. George, S., Wulff, D., and Strong, T. (Eds.) (2014). Patterns of interpersonal interactions: Inviting relational understandings for therapeutic change. New York, NY: Routledge. Watson, J. B. (1925). Behaviorism. New York, NY: W.W. Norton.

SECTION III

Practices in Therapeutic Professions

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11 Curiosity and Generativity: Welcome to Practices in the Therapeutic Professions Sally St. George and Dan Wulff

‘Practices in the Therapeutic Professions’ is a deliciously inviting and inclusive title, embracing many initiatives under the moniker ‘practices’. The term ‘therapeutic professions’ also beckons a wide range of professional endeavors that fall within the purview of ‘therapeutic’. Given this big tent of possibilities, we are pleased to present nine intriguing practices that may be new to you, or for those of you who may be familiar with the work and writings of these authors, you may find some important developments to existing practices. For us, social constructionism has always been a deep well we have turned to for expanding the arena of initiatives and practices that animate postmodern ideas into our everyday lives. We remember attending the inaugural international Taos conference in 1993 and attending a workshop by David Cooperrider (one of the Taos Institute founders) in which he had the participants (therapists and organizational development professionals) switch roles and use the skills

they had developed in their own field and apply them in the others’ field. The therapists had to figure how to convene a meeting of world religious leaders to forge and build interfaith collaboration. The organizational development folks set about trying to help a family in therapy forge and build collaboration as the family dealt with succession planning for their family business. Both groups were initially flummoxed – the therapists felt that the group of religious leaders was too large to engage, and the organizational development practitioners thought a family was far too small to be able to use their skills to make a difference. With David’s encouragement to think about our basic principles of valuing multiple realities and relationships, we all eventually stopped our grumbling and identified places where our skills were applicable in an additional context beyond what we had considered possible. We realized through our professional affiliations that we were languaging things differently, but with the same intent, hopes, and meanings. This experience

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of recognizing connections across seemingly disparate fields or applications illustrates the surprise and generativity that social constructionists cherish. As editors of this part of the Handbook, we are very pleased to introduce you to the section on practices in the therapeutic professions. We both teach in a graduate school of social work and have been working with families as couple and family therapists and with student therapists as supervisors for a long time. And what we completely agree on, firmly believe in, and work at every day, is that conversations must be sustained for us to reasonably expect to improve our world. Stress and tension in our world seems to be increasing and the challenges to maintaining openness to alternative ideas feels particularly acute. These are the times when the abilities to grow collaborations are most needed. We rely on social constructionist ideas to spur us on beyond the usual points of polarization, collapse, and shut-down. We believe that when the conversation stops/discontinues, we are in big trouble, but when we can design ways to hold and facilitate the conversations beyond disagreements, beyond dichotomies, beyond evaluations, we can generate hope, interest, energy, and engaged commitment. One could reasonably think that the grounding provided by social constructionist ideas would be warmly welcomed across time and place, but such has not been the case. The modernist traditions have created a firm stronghold across regions of the world and professions, resulting in a suspicion about ‘non-modernist’ understandings. Despite this modernist domination, we have continued to hold closely the fairness and utility of ideas such as multiple realities and multiple perspectives in our family therapy work, especially as demonstrated by individual family members in their interactions. Furthermore, we believe that multiple realities are particularly noticeable when we look at families in their sociocultural contexts. In each of the chapters in this section, you will be able to readily see attention to and appreciation of

multiple realities as opportunities for understanding and moving forward in our work. The chapters relate social constructionism to all levels of human interaction – from the individual, families, groups, communities, and beyond; from the historical, to the present, and into the future. When we listen to our clients talk, we repeatedly hear them talking about their relationships with each other. Relationships are our anchors to belonging, to hoping, to developing, to being valued, to dreaming, and to acting. Therefore, relational talk occupies our conversational space. Each of our authors in this section demonstrates their solidarity with this idea – you will read how each of them talks about generative conversation and transformative conversation. They show us why and how they keep the conversation going toward change, toward justice, toward difference and freshness – all to keep people connected to each other in ways that are fruitful and satisfying.

INTRODUCING THE CHAPTERS WITHIN In this section on Practices in Therapeutic Professions, you will find ideas and examples from a variety of modalities of therapy from individual, family, group, and community, in supervision, and from the fields of psychology, social work, family therapy, and psychiatry. You will also find presentations talking about what ‘social’ means, creating conditions for collaborating, engaging many people at once at the community level, and looking at ways in which we can stretch, expand, and create many more possibilities for living preferred and satisfactory lives together through the theoretical and applied cross-fertilization of ideas. From the field of social work, Stanley L. Witkin and Christopher Hall, who have been leaders of ‘social working’ from a constructionist stance, write about the crossovers and

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demarcations when social work practices are conducted from a social constructionist perspective (and when they are not). Their chapter draws attention to the word ‘social’ in social construction and in social work and how key that concept is to both. Despite their potential connections, the authors discuss how social construction has remained a bit detached from actionable value-based involvements and how social work is located within societal structures of a rather conservative outlook. Responding to this critique, Stan and Chris have described a number of practices of social work that have been informed (or could be informed more) by social constructionism. In her chapter, Harlene Anderson continues her writing on Collaborative-Dialogic Practice. While most authors discuss their practices by highlighting the theoretical constructions they make and the derivative actions they take, Harlene always reminds us that a Collaborative-Dialogic Practice is a stance, an orientation from which people come together in conversation in order to decide how to go forward. A sense of notknowing what will take shape, a genuine curiosity about the world and relationships, and a tolerance for uncertainty provide a context to assist the professional to meet with others and generate direction and momentum. Beyond the therapeutic potentials of this way of practicing, Harlene poses a challenge: ‘As practitioners, we are confronted with consistently keeping in mind that we are simply human beings in relationship with our clients, who are also human beings. We are left with what kind of person do we want to be?’ Dora Fried Schnitman writes about Generative Dialogues through which participants can stimulate unanticipated possibilities in the face of presenting problems/ issues. Through their dialogue, the therapist and the client develop ways of going forward that emanate from their interconnections. Through illustrations, Dora reveals how seeds of the future are in the dialogues

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of the present, not only for the client but for the therapist as well. The coming together of the therapist and the client provides the context and opportunity for each to evolve their thinking about their work together and their lives beyond their work together. The use of the terms generativity and multiplicity are apt in this chapter, as new ideas and new ways to imagine the future path and the steps along the way are stimulated through the therapeutic relationship. Jasmina Sermijn develops the notion of witnessing in narrative therapy to include ‘symbolic’ witnesses and ways that symbolic witnesses can develop connections between clients to create a sense of community. This practical application of using witnesses in therapy responds to those situations when including other people in therapy is difficult, impossible, or inadvisable. Jasmina expands this narrative element by telling the story of how symbolic witnesses have come into being, demonstrating how innovations in practices can be noticed, nurtured, and developed beyond the initial application. By sharing examples from her practice, Jasmina illustrates how using symbolic witnesses can become a step along the way to creating connections between people, helping people to become less isolated. Emerson F. Rasera and Carla GuanaesLorenzi apply social constructionist ideas in the practice of group therapy, which traditionally has been aligned with psychodynamic theories and approaches. The authors clearly discuss practical ways in which social constructionist ideas can be effectively utilized in group therapy. They emphasize the importance of encouraging the generated dialogue to ‘find its own way’ – supporting the dialogues to develop without the specialist/expert shaping the process in their own preferred ways. This form of facilitation is aided by the social constructionist ideas of multiple realities and encouraging multiple voices to help group members chart their own courses forward. Applying social constructionist ideas to therapeutic group work

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presents profound possibilities as they do in other types or forms of therapeutic practice. In her chapter, Lois Holzman walks us through the history of social therapeutics, explaining that this is a practice marked by taking therapy out of the therapy office and moving it into a ‘transdisciplinary practice of relating to people of all ages and life circumstances as social performers and creators of their lives’. Reading this chapter is like running a movie in our mind’s eye as we watch how therapy, according to Lois, is transformed ‘from a non-diagnostic therapy to a postmodernized socio-cultural psychology of development to a new approach to social-cultural change known as performance activism’. Lois’ account of this evolutionary and revolutionary work offers ground-breaking perspectives, ideas, and practices that come from constantly learning from one’s work, from never staying static. Challenging the status quo is never easy and Lois presents the many professional and societal shifts taken to push the limits of current understandings and practices. In Marilene A. Grandesso’s words, ‘ICT [Integrative Community Therapy] was progressively organized as a critical postmodern approach sensitive to communitarian relationships, fostering feelings of solidarity, compassion and respect for the other.’ Marilene is one of the most well-known proponents of this community version of therapy, taking many of the social constructionist principles and practices into much larger group work contexts. The carefully organized and culturally grounded work of ICT reaches further into community dynamics than we are accustomed to seeing. This large-scale work has enormous implications for communities and cultural collectives. Beyond addressing specific issues of concern, ICT stimulates community development and capacity building. Transformation of our worlds/communities is seen in Marilene’s work in strikingly pragmatic ways that are at once focused, personal, warm, and public. ‘Standing for community and solidarity in the face of neoliberalism’s insistence on individualism and competition can be powerfully

transforming.’ This sentence concludes Jill Freedman and Gene Combs’ chapter and it gives us chills – impelling us to jump in and work hard to make sure that we all recognize that not all people’s suffering is because of poor choices or personal deficiencies. In their chapter, Jill and Gene demonstrate a variety of narrative therapy processes that strip away the conflation between neoliberal discourses and mental health troubles affecting relationships, without ever using the word, neoliberalism. Many of us have slid down the slippery slope of traditional approaches to psychotherapy where it is common to blame the victims of the unjust and unreasonable conditions of our collective lives. Jill and Gene help us revise our understandings of the problems that people present to us in therapy and show the level of transformation possible by attending to the infusion of these discourses into professional and daily life. Karl Tomm, well-known in the fields of psychiatry and family therapy, offers a provocative chapter, arguing that ‘the complementary paradigms of social constructionism and bringforthism provide sufficient “tentative knowledge” for us as therapists to make choices and become proactive, even in the absence of certainties’. He invites us to ponder how we, as therapists, decide what to pursue in therapy – what are the ‘truths’ we operationalize in the therapeutic encounter? What grounding do we occupy to make the decisions we make regarding what we talk about and what we do with clients. Karl discusses the potentials of social constructionism and bringforthism to navigate this issue about what ‘truth’ or understandings we choose to embrace and pursue. Be prepared to feel a little unsettled as you ponder his ideas and your own positioning.

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE Despite all the technology and innovations available to us, we do not see the human need

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and search for belonging going away. We believe that people will always have the need to connect, to be heard, to be in relationships, and to attend to those relationships. We also see that social constructionist practitioners will continue the turn toward social justice by attending to fairness in our small and daily interactions. One of the perils we see in our world today is the trend toward polarizing into a few camps or tribes. Facing an unparalleled number of possibilities and choices can feel overwhelming, and a move toward a simpler world may appear enticing. A proliferation of ideas may seem like too much and a desire may grow to limit choices – to reassert dichotomies, to pick between ‘this or that’. This limiting of options (rather than expanding options) would reduce the potential to improve our world, a circumstance that would maintain the inequities and marginalization that a majority of persons on the planet persistently face. This analysis of the present and the forecast into the future makes the case for continuously finding applications for social constructionist ideas, especially the inclusion of multiple ideas and perspectives, using language that is inclusive and appreciative of varied ideas, and being clear in our decisionmaking. If these ideas can be made manifest

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in our everyday personal and professional worlds, we can provide evidence for their continued applicability, utility, and development as we work together toward creating a better world. Practitioners with boundless creativity and ingenuity find a home in social constructionist thinking and it is applying these ideas in our lives that justifies and encourages us to continue to nurture and develop those ideas. These performances of social constructionist practices provide verification of the importance of those ideas in our world. The world is made better by social constructionist thinking if that thinking spurs actions. The performances of social constructionist thinking outlined in this section underwrite the importance of social constructionist ideas now and into the future. If we hope to continue the evolution of social constructionist thinking in a skeptical world, the products of that thinking need to proliferate. Social constructionist thinking does not predict an end or a completion – it is always unfinished, worthy of more reflection, and capable of re-direction. This helps us to create pathways to respond to uncertainty and challenges that cannot be foreseen, an indispensable resource in contending with what may lie ahead.

12 Social Construction and Social Work Practice Stanley L. Witkin and Christopher Hall

The overall aim of this chapter is twofold: first, to inform readers about fundamental tenets of social work practice and their congruence with social constructionist positions and concepts, and second, to illustrate how social constructionist concepts have informed (or could inform) different social work practices. Although social workers are a significant provider of services across a range of social issues, they have not been highly represented in the social constructionist literature. Therefore, this chapter addresses this lacuna by describing how social construction does and can influence social work practice. The chapter begins with a discussion of how social work practices are inclusive of, and differentiated from, other practices, for example, group work or psychotherapy. Following this exposition, we discuss similarities and differences between social work and social construction, for example, the meaning of ‘social’. This is followed by illustrations of how social constructionist

concepts are (and have been) used to inform social work practice issues such as cultural competence and practice approaches addressing a range of issues. These illustrations will be gleaned from the existing literature (e.g., Witkin, 2012) and from Chris Hall’s own practice.

THE PROFESSION OF SOCIAL WORK Social work as a profession emerged in the early 20th century. Like other professions, social work is characterized by professional education requirements, mission and goal statements that express its benefits to society, self-regulation through a code of ethics, professional organizations that promulgate and oversee professional requirements, and a specialized body of knowledge. This last characteristic has been a source of contention between those who would and would not grant social work full professional

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status. The basis for this disagreement is that social work has historically drawn from a number of disciplines given its broad range of activities and inclusive view of human functioning. Although such comprehensiveness may be viewed as a strength, the perceived absence of an integrative theory and unique knowledge base has been used to argue against social work’s professional status (e.g., Larkin, 2006). Social work has a distinctiveness: a contextual view of human behavior, a social justice mandate, and marginalized and oppressed groups as its primary constituency. Once again, however, opinions vary on the degree, the nature, and the importance of its distinctiveness depending on one’s orientation and interests. Social work’s distinctive qualities will also vary depending on whether the focus is on its written mandates or how it is practiced, that is, what social workers do. Social work also portrays itself as a socially progressive profession primarily through its written positions on social justice and human rights, race and ethnicity, poverty, and social change. In contrast, the profession is relatively intellectually conservative. By this we mean that its research and analyses largely reflect modernist perspectives. This conservatism seems related to social work’s historical struggle to achieve legitimacy and status in the academy and the more recent neo-liberal trends that have become ascendant in academic institutions. Most illustrative of this conservatism has been the dominance of positivistic assumptions in practice and research reinforced by the priority placed on acquiring external funding for research. Therefore, although we will provide illustrations and examples of how a social constructionist orientation can influence social work practice, this should not be taken to mean that such an orientation is representative of practitioners or academics. This situation exists despite the congruence of social constructionist and social work perspectives and ideas, as we will discuss.

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What is Social Work? Similar to the question, ‘What is social construction?’, social work resists a simple, straightforward definition. Social work’s contextual inclusiveness of persons and environments, its myriad practices, ranging from psychotherapy to social advocacy, its strong foundation of values and ethics, and its pluralist theoretical base, eludes succinct definition. Every such effort is inevitably partial, underrepresenting the complexity and comprehensiveness of social work practice. As social constructionists know, a case can be made for not having an authoritative definition; for example, its static nature and the dangers of calcification, over-simplification, and the silencing of alternative viewpoints (Witkin, 2012). On the other hand, such definitional vagueness for a profession like social work leaves it vulnerable to misunderstanding and stereotypes such as the portrayal of social workers as altruistic do-gooders without expert knowledge or skills. Such representations generate a climate in which it is difficult for social work to establish its professional legitimacy. A question that arises in relation to the ‘What is …?’ question is whether social work practices differ from practices of other professions. To put it another way, does ‘social work’ function as an adjective when placed (grammatically) in front of practice or research (Witkin, 1998)?1 The answer, from our perspective, is yes and no. There are some practices such as therapy, group work, or research that can look very similar. Sometimes however, the use of a common language for practices can conceal features that differentiate them. For instance, social work’s person and environment orientation leads practitioners to address social issues even when engaged in individual-oriented practice like therapy. A good example of this is provided by Wulff and St. George (2012), who in the context of family therapy, address social issues of violence and feminism. While practitioners in other fields (e.g., psychology)

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might do something similar, for social workers this is more a professional mandate than a supererogatory act. A similar argument could be made for social workers’ mandate to serve marginalized populations rather than a focus on the ‘worried well’ (Specht and Courtney, 1995). Of course, this does not mean that all social workers actually practice in these ways; however, it is how the profession represents itself. We turn now to an exploration of the congruencies and incongruencies between social work practice and social construction. We also point out how social work might benefit from a more social constructionist perspective.

SOCIAL WORK AND SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: CONVERGENCE AND DIVERGENCE2 Given the prominence of the word ‘social’ in social work and social construction, it would be reasonable to assume a high degree of congruity and commonality. Although there is considerable overlap in the issues that social work and social construction address, social work takes up these issues via a values and political position, whereas social construction tends more toward philosophical, especially epistemological, rationales (e.g., Hacking, 2000). In this section we enumerate and discuss some of the important areas common to both. Readers should keep in mind that while the following issues are presented individually, they are interrelated.

Valuing Multiple Perspectives and Voices Both social work and social construction value diversity of perspectives and beliefs. For social work, advocating for those who hold marginal views and amplifying silenced voices is necessary in order to move toward

a pluralistic, more equitable social order. ‘[S]ocial workers believe that it is important for those who are silenced – for whatever reason – to have a voice. We also tend to believe that those who are marginalized in society have a perspective that is valuable for the rest of us to hear’ (Witkin, 1999, p. 7). For social constructionists, claims of universalism and transcendent Truth are suspect as they necessarily stem from particular historical, cultural, and social positions (Gergen, 1994). Therefore, such claims must be dislodged and alternative discourses legitimized. These alternative discourses are often associated with groups whose voices have been silenced, ‘marginal to existing practice and dismissed by the hegemonic system of meanings and practices as irrelevant or bad’ (Weedon, 1997, p. 35).

Contextual Understanding The inseparability of persons from their environments has long been a hallmark of social work (e.g., Gitterman and Germain, 2008). A course in ‘Human Behavior and the Social Environment’ is a staple in virtually all US social work programs. Environment in social work texts typically refers both to aspects of the physical environment (e.g., substandard housing) and social environments (e.g., racism). A relatively recent trend has been to extend ‘environment’ to encompass the natural environment, in particular the dangers engendered by issues such as pollution and climate change (e.g., Alston, 2015; Crews and Besthorn, 2016; Gray and Coates, 2012). This trend has led to the terms eco-social work and green social work (e.g., Dominelli, 2012). Similarly, social construction focuses on the historical, cultural, and social contexts of beliefs. For social constructionists, persons are not only affected by environments, but generate them. Additionally, for social constructionists what we might call relational and linguistic environments are emphasized. Relationships are the bases of

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understanding and beliefs and language bring them into ‘the real’ (Gergen, 2015). The notion of natural environment tends to be more complex as what we take to be natural is also considered to be a social construction. This does not mean that social constructionists are not aware of or concerned about environmental issues; however, there is not an explicit value position that claims this as an issue that must be addressed.

Values and the Promotion of a More Humane and Just Social Order Social work was borne from a value stance regarding the poor classes and those who were socially marginalized and excluded. This value-based foundation provides the rationale and justification for social work practice. It also provides the mandate for social workers to work toward a more humane and equitable social order. The most common expression of this position is the promotion of human rights and social justice. Social constructionists, although taking values as an unavoidable part of any practice, generally have a less definitive position regarding a specific, explicit value stance. That is, although social constructionists would favor the explication of value positions inherent in various practices, they are more circumspect regarding specific values. This seems to be a result of social construction’s concern about elevating any particular position to Truth. Social constructionists walk a fine line here since values are inevitable. In this case, the issue is how explicitly one’s value position is articulated and whether that position is treated as a social construction. Finally, while social work and social construction prioritize the promotion of a more humane and just social order, social construction is less explicit, thereby leaving room for multiple perspectives on what these concepts might mean.

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Adopting a Critical Stance Social work encourages criticality primarily from its value and political positions. Its criticality does not often extend to epistemological issues. For instance, it is more common to find publications that critique social policies for their consequences for marginalized groups, than to question the epistemological bases for various beliefs. This does not negate the importance of social work’s critical stance; however, it does limit its ability to respond to issues in innovative and potentially transformative ways (Witkin, 2017). In contrast, social construction’s criticality is primarily epistemological and less overtly value-based and political. For social constructionists, following Foucault, questioning what is assumed or taken-for-granted has the potential to reveal operative discourses and how they generate what is taken to be real or mask power relations, making it difficult to generate alternatives. Social construction’s problematizing stance can make visible what is assumed and seemingly natural thereby making it available for examination.

The Meaning of ‘Social’ and its Expression in Practice Although the social figures prominently in both social work and social construction, its meaning and expression are somewhat different. The origins of the social in social work stem from volunteer efforts in the late 19th century to address poverty in the context of the Industrial Revolution (Stuart, 2019). This social environment remains central for social work. Its meaning has expanded over the past 50 years to include environments produced by oppressive ideologies such as racism, sexism, and homophobia. Social environment also reflects practices such as community organizing and social development. The social in social construction reflects more of a philosophical position, one that takes relationships rather than individuals to be

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primary. Within social construction, the concept of persons, minds, and knowledge are generated by social processes (Gergen, 2015). ‘For example, for social constructionists, persons are social not only because they are socially interactive, but because they are socially constituted’ (Witkin, 2012, p. 32). Whereas in social work the individual (within a social context) is often taken to be the unit of analysis, for social constructionists the relationship is primary. Also, social construction uses ‘social’ to index how beliefs and perspectives are expressions of factors such as historical contingencies and community norms and practices.

Science and Research Differences between social work and social construction are most pronounced in their respective positions on research. For social work, conventional research (e.g., experiments, surveys, statistical analyses) is seen as most authoritative. Critiques of such research are largely internal, focused on methodology, methods, and analysis as opposed to the assumptions or claims of the research itself. Social work’s historical legacy has shaped its relatively conservative position concerning research, for instance, regarding research findings as establishing truth or in the case of practice, effectiveness. In contrast to the above, social construction takes issue with the authoritative claims of conventional research and encourages equal status for alternative forms of inquiry. Additionally, social constructionists are more likely to focus on how what we take as truth functions in terms of its implications for social life. Research generated truths receive their authority through social processes rather than their veridicality about reality (McNamee and Hosking, 2012).

SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST INFLUENCES ON SOCIAL WORK Although social construction remains somewhat marginal within social work, it has had

some influence on important social work issues and practices. In this section we provide some examples of how a social constructionist orientation has been used to reconceptualize social work issues and how it has influenced practice. Although practice is most often used synonymously with micro-level practices (e.g., clinical work), it is important to note that social work practice also occurs at mezzo (e.g., organizations) and macro levels (e.g., policy). These are rarely independent. Thus, when we discuss social constructionist contributions to social work positions on evidence-based practice and cultural competence, two current and influential approaches to practice, these changes have implications for practices at all levels.

Evidence-based Practice The evidence-based practice (EBP) movement spans multiple professions, such as medicine, psychology, and social work. It has also spawned ‘cottage industries’, most notably organizations such as the Cochrane Collaboration that summarize the available evidence on different practices and provide recommendations to practitioners regarding the degree to which a practice is evidence-based. Within social work, EBP has gained wide acceptance both in the academy and in practice. In academic circles the argument for EBP centers around the superiority of research-based knowledge and the ethical obligation of practitioners to draw upon this knowledge in their practice. This has led social service organizations to promote their services as evidence-based, resulting in the EBP label becoming a marketing tool used to communicate to potential clients that they will be receiving the best available services, backed by science. From a social constructionist perspective, EBP’s underlying assumptions, its widespread endorsement, claims, and politicization, generate some troubling issues.

Social Construction and Social Work Practice

Although on the surface the idea of EBP seems laudable, to use the best available evidence in collaboration with the client to develop a treatment plan, its meaning in use and underlying philosophical foundation bears closer inspection. Social construction encourages a problematizing orientation toward commonly held beliefs and concepts. Rather than accepting such concepts and beliefs as given or the way things are, social constructionists interrogate meanings, origins, use, and most important, benefits and harms. Social construction also encourages analysis from a relational perspective. When applied to EBP, a number of issues emerge. For example, I (Witkin, 2017) problematize the meanings of EBP, raising questions such as: Should early meanings of the concept – those attributed to the originators – be privileged? Is the meaning of EBP found in its definition or in how it is practiced? Is the concept of EBP static or does it change as social conditions change? Regarding application, I explore the difference between EBP use in practice versus its use in research, the latter being more circumscribed and uniform. Also related to application are the complexities of assessing whether an evidence-based treatment is appropriate for a particular client. EBP is a multidimensional concept derived from different kinds of inquiry with different research participants in different settings, presenting different problems, and using different measures. Ironically, when practitioners rely on summary evaluations from organizations like the Cochrane Collaboration, they are moving away from an evidence-based approach toward a more authority-based approach (Goldenberg, 2009). Consequently, applying the recommended procedure involves a leap of faith in the summarizing organization. The issue of what counts as evidence can also be viewed as a political issue. For example, Denzin (2009) asks, [W]ho has the power to control the definition of evidence, who defines the kinds of materials that

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count as evidence, who determines what methods best produce the best forms of evidence, whose criteria and standards are used to evaluate quality evidence? (p. 142)

The response to these questions is inevitably political, subject to the vicissitudes of power relations within the context in which EBP is being applied. From the EBP perspective, evidence is a form of knowledge. Such knowledge depends on the means by which it was generated. Therefore, research-based knowledge is most authoritative, trumping knowledge generated from other activities such as practice. From a social constructionist perspective, knowledge can be considered a status given to information. Its credibility will depend on the traditions of the knowledge community to which it is applied. Thus, for practitioners, knowledge generated within the context in which it will be used, and which is sensitive to client differences, is more relevant, robust, and useful. Moreover, it is generated within relationships and will reflect the dynamics of those relationships. Therefore from this standpoint, it is practice that should be the primary site of knowledge generation (Witkin, 2015).

Cultural Competence Social work practice, like practice in related fields, is influenced by constructs that signify cherished value positions. One such construct is cultural competence. Within social work, cultural competence is primarily seen as expressing respect for cultural, ethnic, and race differences, and is therefore a critical dimension of practitioners’ knowledge and skill. This position has led to numerous training programs aimed at equipping practitioners with the requisite knowledge and skills to be competent in various cultures. The social constructionist informed social work practitioner acknowledges the value of sensitivity and knowledge of cultural and other forms of difference and their importance to relationship development; however, this is not

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synonymous with being ‘competent’ in a culture. In fact, for social constructionist informed practitioners the very notion of cultural competence is not assumed, but problematized, generating questions such as the following: What does it mean to be competent in a culture? How is such competence conferred and what privileges are given to its holders? What does this construct imply about culture (e.g., that it can be reduced to a set of competencies)? They also challenge the notion of cultural homogeneity and cultural inertia. People internalize and represent cultural values and ethos in different ways. Also, cultures are dynamic, they change over time. Finally, competency is an individualistic concept. As such it ‘underemphasizes the social, relational context of social work practice as the site where meanings are negotiated and realities generated’ (Witkin, 2017, p. 79). A social constructionist orientation could shift the practitioner’s stance from cultural competence to ‘cultural humility’, from knowing the traits or qualities of a specific group to remaining open, curious, exploratory, and respectful of the myriad ways that clients have come to understand and express culture. For practitioners, a useful extension of cultural humility is narrative humility in which the idea of fully comprehending or mastering another’s story is put aside in favor of ‘remaining open to their ambiguity and contradiction, and our own role in the story … how the story attracts or repels us because it reminds us of any number of personal stories’ (Das Gupta, 2008, p. 981). An important implication of this approach is that it extends beyond people perceived as culturally different to the conditions that influence and shape the stories we hear (Holstein and Gubrium, 2008).

of foregrounding relational understandings. Social workers and their clients are understood as existing in a mutually influencing, meaning-making relationship. Micro practice is re-envisioned from the achievement of traditional goals of client behavioral change brought about by behavioral reinforcement, cognitive processing, or other clinical mechanisms to transformational change in which clients re-construct and experience themselves and their worlds differently through collaborative social worker–client relationships. Macro and mezzo practice is based in collaborative meaning-making about how problems and solutions to those problems will be understood. In this section we use practice examples to demonstrate these concepts. Because we view social construction as a sense-making framework rather than a prescriptive, method-oriented blueprint, we use the phrase ‘social constructionist informed’ social work practice. In this case, social construction is the guiding framework in the collaborative co-construction of problems and potential solutions. While there are practice models used within social work that are congruent with social constructionist ideas, for example, solution-focused (de Shazer and Dolan, 2012), possibility (O’Hanlon and Bertolino, 2013), and narrative (White and Epston, 1989), we focus more generally on how a social constructionist informed practice might guide social workers. Key social constructionist ideas that inform practice include that there is no inherent meaning in events, objects, or relationships; that meaning is applied to events, objects, and relationships; that meaning is controlled by language relationships; and that language and meaning are created in relationships (Hall, 2012).

SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST INFORMED MICRO- MEZZO-, AND MACRO-LEVEL PRACTICE

No Inherent Meaning in Events, Objects, and Relationships

Social construction, as applied in social work practice, is not a set of techniques but a way

The above premise shifts social constructionist informed social work away from objective assessments designed to discover the truth of

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things into the realm of collaborative exploration in which meaning and understanding are explored and created relationally. Specifically, social workers are invited to adopt an open mindset in which assumptions of meaning are acknowledged. This position has been described in various ways by social constructionist informed scholars as looking with planned emptiness (Middleman and Wood, 1990), adopting a not knowing position (Anderson and Goolishian, 1992), and taking a curious stance (O’Hanlon and Beadle, 1999). This premise is most clearly seen in macro and mezzo social work through collaborative community and agency approaches (Wood and Tully, 2006) and in research through constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014) in which social workers seek to engage in collaborative and non-expert oriented ways of practice and research to reach agreed-upon constructed outcomes, collaborative change, and constructed meaning. In micro practice the premise that meaning is not inherent can be liberating for clients because when definitional space exists it becomes possible to change meanings that may have been problematic. For example, the current trend in social work is to place the word ‘trauma’ on past challenging events. Using the word trauma may be totalizing in the sense that it blocks out alternative and possibly preferred meanings from being discovered or created. By approaching events without preconceived ideas of meaning, definitional space is created. Phrases that clients have used to free themselves from the idea of trauma include ‘a moment of growth’, ‘a rite of passage’, ‘forged by fire’, ‘a spiritual awaking’, or ‘an unwanted expansion of self’.

Meaning is Applied to Events, Objects, and Relationships With the absence of the assumption of inherent and static meaning of events, objects, and relationships, alternative meanings can be

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explored and created relationally. Preferred meanings and exceptions to the problem as conceived are prominent ideas in social constructionist informed models of practice (Anderson and Gehart, 2012; DeJong and Berg, 2012; O’Hanlon and Weiner-Davis, 2003; White and Epston, 1989). From this position social workers might ask questions such as the following: How can we understand the problem? How did this problem come to be understood in this way? Are there other ways to understand it? Such questions naturally lead to an exploration of meaning and who participates in the construction of that meaning. Social construction emphasizes the contextual and relational creation of meaning, and perspectival questions are designed to emphasize, explore, and develop hoped-for futures by focusing on the perspective of the other: If your grandfather were here what ideas might he have about the problem? Would your favorite teacher agree about this conclusion? These are questions designed to explore the meaning brought to life events and identity conclusions. At the mezzo level a social worker might work with an impoverished community to recapture and make public its historical and current identity by organizing a public space where local artists can display their work; assisting the public sharing of neighborhood history and stories; facilitating a space for local poetry, music, and self-expression; and documenting and sharing the positive history and development of the community. Each of these examples is a definitional act in which preferred meanings and identity conclusions are offered publicly.

Meaning is Controlled by Language Relationships For social constructionists, language constitutes what we take as real. Language is the vehicle by which cultures communicate and weave the fabric of our relational understandings of the world. How practitioners

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and clients name things matters. Collaborative language systems (Anderson, 1995) and open dialogue (Seikkula et al., 2006) are two examples of approaches that use the idea of language and word choice as the cornerstone of meaning-making and change. The constitutive influence of language encourages the social constructionist informed practitioner to explore, challenge, and expand word meaning. A practice example would be interrogating with a client the assumed negativity of a word choice such as ‘anxiety.’ Might there be positive aspects of anxiety? Additionally, is anxiety the only way to name what the client is experiencing? What would be the implications of naming the experience something else? This example illustrates a way to escape the limited understandings of language and expand word choice and meanings in ways that have the potential to collaboratively establish new meanings in the lives of clients and relationally transform them.

Language and Meaning are Created in Relationships The premise of the negotiation of meaning is one that resonates strongly within the social justice history of social work. All forms of social work practice are built on the values of challenging oppression and empowering clients (NASW Code of ethics, 2017). From a social constructionist perspective, challenging meanings and how those meanings were constructed, including who may benefit and not benefit from the construction of those meanings may assist clients to free themselves from dogmatic and harmful ways of understanding and being (Hare-Mustin, 1994). For a discussion of social constructionism and the NASW Code of Ethics please see Witkin (2000). Oppression may be seen in this light as a co-opting of truth, a monopolizing of meaning that marginalizes alternatives to that truth, and a subsequent recruitment of others into this mono-truth.

Common social justice areas from social work practice include gender, race, nationality, economic, and sexual discourses. Social constructionist informed practice seeks to explore and make visible the ways in which significant meanings in clients’ lives have been constructed and maintained. Such dialogue may include who participates in the construction, the benefits and harms to the client and others, and the possibility of creating new meanings that would be more liberating. Often clients may not realize that they are living their lives by ideas that they have received and then internalized. By breaking these ideas down and making them visible there is an expansion of definitional space for clients to begin to collaboratively co-construct new ways of being. At the macro level social workers assist in organizing groups to challenge and change social discourse and policy that may be oppressive in the lives of clients. The discourse of failed parenting is one example in which client negative beliefs are often internalized and treated at the micro level. Macro social work unpacks the idea of parenting to include a recognition of oppressive social practices such as the unlivable minimum wage, lack of affordable childcare, discriminatory hiring practices, underfunded neighborhood schools, and other forms of oppression. Macro social workers advocate with their clients for policy and discourse change while also deconstructing internalized beliefs to create definitional space for the development of preferred identities. With the recognition that language and meaning are negotiated, the social constructionist informed social worker may also view models of practice as cultural language constructions. Models of practice have specific theories that guide them (e.g., cognitive, behavioral, psychodynamic) and these theories have language systems with words created specific to these approaches (e.g., automatic thoughts, conditioning, Id, Ego). With the realization that models of practice are constructed languages of meaning and that language and meaning are negotiated, social

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workers and clients can openly decide if they would like to collaboratively use a model of constructed language to understand problems and solutions, if they would like to combine them, change them, or not use them at all.

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preferred community narratives (Irving, 1999), re-envisioning the child welfare system (Parton, 2014) and assisting in the development of new identity conclusions with trauma survivors and perpetrators (Hall, 2011; Keenan, 2012). The result is a stronger, more ‘social’ social work.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS Social constructionist informed social work practice expands social workers’ use of the social beyond its typical parameters to include a foregrounding of relationships and a critical stance toward language and meaning. Social workers recognize that meanings are constructed in relationships and that meaning, identity, and the events that we privilege or marginalize in our lives and the cultures in which we exist forge the ways in which we experience the world. Because these meanings are not inherent or static, they can be explored, taken apart, modified, changed, abandoned, and re-envisioned; succinctly put, they could be otherwise. Through this relational, collaborative practice, clients as well as social workers can transform the way they see the world and themselves. Additionally, social construction’s problematizing of dominant discourses and taken-for-granted beliefs generates the possibility of alternative understandings and practices. Social work practice assumes a revitalized use of the social, blending the stratification among macro, mezzo, and micro levels. For instance, social constructionist informed discussions bring to light the effects of privileged discourse in the lives of clients and invite social workers and clients to consider how they have been influenced by macro- and mezzo-level constructed values, and how these constructs manifest at the micro level. Empowerment, a key tenet of social work, occurs as clients let go of potentially unhelpful and oppressive ways of experiencing the world and co-construct new, more preferred ways-of-being. In this case, clients are not only individuals, but can include working with communities to create

Notes 1  A similar question could be raised about social construction. 2  This section is adapted from Witkin (2012).

REFERENCES Alston, M. (2015). Social work, climate change and global cooperation. International Social Work, 58(3), 355–363. Anderson, H. D. (1995). Collaborative language systems: Toward a postmodern therapy. In R. H. Mikesell, D.-D. Lusterman, & S. H. McDaniel (Eds.), Integrating family therapy: Handbook of family psychology and systems theory (pp. 27–44). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Anderson, H., & Gehart, D. (Eds.). (2012). Collaborative therapy: Relationships and conversations that make a difference. New York, NY: Routledge. Anderson, H., & Goolishian, H. (1992). The client is the expert: A not-knowing approach to therapy. In S. McNamee & K. J. Gergen (Eds.), Therapy as social construction (pp. 25–39). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Charmaz, K. (2014). Constructing grounded theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Crews, D., & Besthorn, F. H. (2016). Ecosocialwork and transformed consciousness: Reflections on eco-mindfulness engagement with the silence of the natural world. Journal of Religion & Spirituality in Social Work: Social Thought, 35(1–2), 91–107. Das Gupta, S. (2008). Narrative humility. The Lancet, 371, 980–981. DeJong, P., & Berg, I. K. (2012). Interviewing for solutions. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning.

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Denzin, N. K. (2009). The elephant in the living room: Or extending the conversation about the politics of evidence. Qualitative Research, 9(2), 139–160. de Shazer, S., & Dolan, Y. (2012). More than miracles: The state of the art of solutionfocused brief therapy. New York, NY: Routledge. Dominelli, L. (2012). Green social work: From environmental crises to environmental justice. Boston, MA: Polity Press. Gergen, K. J. (1994). Realities and relationships: Soundings in social construction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gergen, K. J. (2015) Invitation to social construction (3rd edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Gitterman, A., & Germain, C. B. (2008). The life model of social work practice: Advances in theory and practice. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Goldenberg, M. J. (2009). Iconoclast or creed? Objectivism, pragmatism, and the hierarchy of evidence. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 52(2), 168–187. Gray, M., & Coates, J. (2012). Environmental ethics for social work: Social work’s responsibility to the non-human world. International Journal of Social Welfare, 21(3), 239–247. Hacking, I. (2000). The social construction of what? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hall, J. C. (2011). A narrative approach to group work with male batterers. Social Work with Groups, 34, 175–189. Hall, J. C. (2012). Honoring client perspectives through collaborative practice: Shifting from assessment to collaborative exploration. In S. Witkin (Ed.), Social constructionist informed practice (pp. 38–71). New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Hare-Mustin, R. T. (1994). Discourses in the mirrored room: A postmodern analysis of therapy. Family Process, 33, 19–33. Holstein, J. F., & Gubrium, J. A. (2008). Narrative ethnography. In S. Nagy Hesse-Biber & P. Leavy (Eds.), Handbook of emergent methods (pp. 241–259). New York, NY: The Guilford Press. Irving, A. (1999). Waiting for Foucault: Social work and the multitudinous truth(s) of life. In A. S. Chambon, A. Irving, & L. Epstein (Eds.),

Reading Foucault for social work (pp. 27–50). New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Keenan, M. (2012). Opening space for hope in a landscape of despair: Trauma and violence with men who have sexually abused minors. In S. Witkin (Ed.), Social constructionist informed practice (pp. 240–277). New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Larkin, H. (2006). Social work as an integral profession. AQAL: Journal of Integral Theory & Practice, 1(2), 2–30. McNamee, S., & Hosking, D. M. (2012). Research and social change: A relational constructionist approach. New York, NY: Routledge. Middleman, R. R., & Wood, G. G. (1990). Skills for direct practice in social work. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. National Association of Social Workers (NASW). (2017). NASW code of ethics (Guide to the everyday professional conduct of social workers). Washington, DC: Author. O’Hanlon, B., & Beadle, S. (1999). A guide to possibility land: Fifty-one methods for doing brief, respectful therapy. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. O’Hanlon, B., & Weiner-Davis, M. (2003). In search of solutions: A new direction in psychotherapy. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. O’Hanlon, S., & Bertolino, B. (2013). Evolving possibilities: Selected works of Bill O’Hanlon. New York, NY: Routledge. Parton, N. (2014). The politics of child protection: Contemporary developments and future directions. New York, NY: Macmillan International Higher Education. Seikkula, J., Aaltonen, J., Alakare, B., Haarakangas, K., Keränen, J., & Lehtinen, K. (2006). Five-year experience of first-episode nonaffective psychosis in open-dialogue approach: Treatment principles, follow-up outcomes, and two case studies. Psychotherapy Research, 16(2), 214–228. Specht, H., & Courtney, M. E. (1995). Unfaithful angels: How social work has abandoned its mission. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster. Stuart, P. H. (2019). Social work profession: History. In C. Franklin (Ed.), Encyclopedia of social work (pp. 1–15). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ acrefore/9780199975839.013.623

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Weedon, C. (1997). Feminist practice and poststructuralist theory (2nd edition). Malden, MA: Blackwell. White, M., & Epston, D. (1989). Literate means to therapeutic ends. Adelaide, South Australia: Dulwich Centre. Witkin, S. L. (1998). Is social work an adjective? Social Work, 43(6), 483–486. Witkin, S. L. (1999). Constructing our future. Social Work, 44(1), 5–8. Witkin, S. L. (2000). Ethics-r-us. Social Work, 45(3), 197–200. Witkin, S. L. (Ed.). (2012). Social construction and social work practice: Interpretations and innovations. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Witkin, S. L. (2015). Issues in researching professional practice: Deriving knowledge from professional practice. In J. Fook,

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V. Collington. F. Ross, G. Ruch, & L. West (Eds.), Researching critical reflection: Multidisciplinary perspectives (pp. 109–118). New York, NY: Routledge. Witkin, S. L. (2017). Transforming social work: Social constructionist reflections on contemporary and enduring issues. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Wood, G. G., & Tully, C. T. (2006). The structural approach to direct practice in social work: A social constructionist perspective (3rd edition). New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Wulff, D., & St. George, S. (2012). Family therapy with a larger aim. In S. L. Witkin (Ed.), Social construction and social work practice: Interpretations and innovations (pp. 211–239). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

13 Collaborative-Dialogic Practice: A Relational Process of Inviting Generativity and Possibilities Harlene Anderson

SETTING THE SCENE Collaborative-Dialogic names my practice whether its context is therapy, education, consultation, organization development, or research. I think of what I do and how I do it as a practice based on an interwoven assemblage of abstract assumptions that inform a process that is distinct to each client and each meeting with them. Explicitly, the professional adapts their responses to the uniqueness of each client and the members of their system, talking with them about what is important for them with the intent that the encounter will generate transformative potential. For me, this approach has proven successful in therapy, education, consultation, research, and organization development. Assumptions form the conceptual framework that orients me in particular ways of being and becoming with people I encounter in various disciplinary and cultural contexts. I purposely use the word assumptions, rather

than theory, because I consider the framework more philosophical than theoretical. Philosophy addresses the living of the activities and challenges of everyday life. Theory, on the other hand, informs techniques and skills designed to achieve a particular result or resolution. Although both philosophy and theory influence how we understand and experience the other and their situation or circumstance, theory often involves ‘proven’ or unquestioned truths that inform planned results, which in turn require learned techniques and skills to achieve. Theory inherently focuses on, or perhaps inadvertently draws our attention toward, sameness. I do not suggest that theories are not useful and should never guide us. Rather, I want to emphasize the natural spontaneous quality of everyday living, and the uniqueness and peculiarities of each person and their situation. Collaborative-Dialogic Practice is one among several postmodern psychotherapeutic approaches – such as anticipation

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dialogue (Seikkula and Arnkil, 2018), community and network meetings (Grandesso, 2015; Seikkula and Arnkil, 2018), narrative (Freedman and Combs, 1996; White, 2011), open dialogue (Olson et al., 2014), and solution-focused (de Shazer, 1985) – that are rooted in family therapy (Anderson, 2016). These therapies are distinguished by a departure from pre-formed ways of thinking about human beings and their relationships and interactions with each other and about the professional as an expert knower with an objective reality. All the above are responses to our fast-changing and shrinking world in which people are migrating across borders (geographic and otherwise) and demanding to participate in policies and decisions that influence their present and future lives. The roots of Collaborative-Dialogic Practice date to the late 1950s, when a multidisciplinary team in the psychiatry department of a university medical school created a research project in which they met with a patient and their network (a combination of members of the patient’s family and their social and back-home professional systems) to learn each person’s perspective on the patient, their problem, and recovery (MacGregor et al., 1964). The team believed that more knowledge about the patient, their problem, and the family would help them have a more accurate diagnosis and treatment plan, and therefore, more successful therapy. The team first met with all members of the patient’s network in an opening conversation, followed by smaller sub-system conversations. The conversations continued with each conversation informing the membership and focus of the next. Between conversations, the team met to share what they were learning, discuss next steps, and determine who would facilitate each conversation in the next round. Overtime, the team identified several factors that influenced the success of this new intensive and exploratory three-day therapy, which they named Multiple Impact Therapy (MIT). One important factor was

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the ‘self-rehabilitating family processes’ that developed in the brief intensive treatment process (MacGregor, 1962). According to the team, this process was successful because: • each conversation informed the next including its membership and focus; • the patient and members of their system provided useful expertise and resources for the treatment team; • continually making room for and exploring differences proved more valuable than striving for consensus; and • practitioners and practice scholars can learn from their work if they take time to pause, identify and reflect on their new learning.

Subsequently, the practice involved a continuous reflective-reflexive process (Schön, 1983) of finding new language and concepts to help understand and learn from their new experiences. New language influenced changes in practice and vice versa. As the early MIT practice developed further, it gained structural similarity to what became classical systemic family therapy. At the same time, it began to veer conceptually toward the language and theory of social construction theories as well as dialogic, contemporary hermeneutic, and postmodern philosophical assumptions (Anderson, 1997a; Anderson and Goolishian, 1988a). Over time, this new direction led to the abandonment of the notion of family therapy. As a term, ‘family therapy’ had outlived its usefulness and was no longer an accurate descriptor of the practice. The collection of approaches and modalities once referred to as family therapy offered a conceptualization of human systems that was applicable beyond the family to any human system regardless of numbers of people or relationships therein. As the practice transformed so did the conceptual framework. Intense interest in language generated a shift away from thinking in terms of static human systems such as individuals, couples, or families, to people coalesced in language (Anderson, 1995; Anderson et al., 1986). The practice

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further evolved from concepts of human systems as distinguished by social structure to human systems as language systems distinguished by language in its broadest sense and eventually to collaborative language systems. As these ideas began to coalesce, it seemed appropriate to delete the notion of systems altogether and highlight the notion of a ‘withness’ practice, doing with each other. Each shift moved away from hierarchically structured professional–client relationships to ones that were more equitable and that recognized the expertise brought by both practitioner and client. The practice has been referred to as systemic, collaborative language systems, collaborative, and now, Collaborative-Dialogic Practice (Anderson, 2019).

COLLABORATIVE-DIALOGIC PRACTICE TODAY The features of current CollaborativeDialogic Practice are based largely in a conceptual framework associated with a collage of abstract philosophical assumptions, including Gadamer’s contemporary hermeneutics (1989), Bakhtin’s dialogism (Holquist, 1990), Lyotard’s postmodernism (1979), and Gergen’s social constructionism (1985, 1999). In the early 1990s, John Shotter’s interpretations of the works of Bakhtin, Merleau-Ponty (1968), Vygotsky (1962) and Wittgenstein (1953), among many others, led to a new focus on relationality and dialogue that influenced the definition of our conceptual framework as ‘perspective orienting assumptions’ (Shotter, 2016). The perspective orienting assumptions include seven interrelated assumptions (Anderson, 1997a, 2012, 2015), the most primary of which are: 1 Holding a critical attitude toward inherited knowledge; 2 Avoiding generalizations; and

3 Accepting the local knowledge or the life expertise of the other.

The assumptions inform the practitioner’s action-guiding sensitivities, that is, the considerations that orient them on how to perform, respond, and live ways of being and becoming. Relationship and dialogue became the centerpieces of the framework. This led to the notion of conversation partners (professional and client) who jointly participate in the client’s story-telling and re-telling process. None of the conceptual framework assumptions stand alone. They are woven together and form the heart of the practice, the philosophical stance. Philosophical stance refers to the practitioner’s position, attitude, manner, and tone of being with – i.e., ways of being, talking, listening, acting, responding, and thinking – with each other. Social construction and dialogue philosopher John Shotter and family therapist, Lynn Hoffman (2002, 2007), influenced by literary critic and philosopher, Mikhail Bakhtin (Holquist, 1990), refer to Collaborative-Dialogic Practice as a withness practice. The philosophical stance includes seven features that function as navigational concepts which can be put into action in different ways depending on the person(s) and the circumstances of the conversation. The features include (a) shared inquiry, (b) relational expertise, (c) not-knowing, (d) being public, (e) uncertainty, (f) mutual influence, and (g) everyday ordinary life. These features were identified through practical experience and research on the characteristics of helpful and not-so-helpful therapy and therapists (Anderson, 1997a). In the following section, I will describe each feature in detail.

Interwoven Features of the Philosophical Stance (a) Shared Inquiry Shared inquiry refers to the interactivity of practitioner and client jointly engaging to

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explore the focus of the consultation (i.e., the client’s agenda). Inviting another into shared inquiry begins with meeting and greeting them so they feel welcomed. A hospitable welcoming establishes the tone for a generative relationship and conversation. I want to be a welcoming host and a welcomed guest, as both relationships are critical to fostering generative conversations. This requires an ability to be spontaneous and flexible in engaging with others. It also means avoiding prescribed behaviors and expectations. The host–guest metaphor is one of several I find helpful in describing the practice and its philosophical stance. The client brings a precious gift: the stories of their life. I want to accept the gift, but I do not want to take it from them. I want to gaze upon it and begin to ask questions about it. I think of the gift as a storyball composed of narrative fragments of their life story. I invite you to imagine a storyball composed of pressed-together shredded paper. When it is presented, you only see the part of the ball that the client presents. You cannot see through it or estimate its total circumference. This is where the client prefers to start. I trust that the client will tell me what is comfortable for them, and what they think is important for me to know, at any moment of the conversation. For instance, if a client comes in and starts talking about last night’s ball game, I engage with them. This does not mean that the entire session focuses on the game or other topics most might think of as chit-chat. I had a client who always began our meetings with something about baseball. His baseball story always led to something else, like the time it led to his road rage while driving to the stadium. I simply think of it as, ‘This is the client at this moment’. It is like the client takes me on a helicopter ride and they show me the landscape they want me to see. They may fly us to a spot and hover there for quite a while, or they may fly to three places briefly and then return and hover over the second one. I want to follow the client’s lead and pace, and to honor their preferred

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way of showing and storytelling. The client’s stories are not linear. Rather, they are like rhizomes, dynamic and multidirectional; one can easily branch to others in unexpected ways. This approach contrasts with the idea that the therapist can pre-determine what information is critical and pre-structure questions to gather it. My questions, comments, and bodily movements are informed by the conversation and my way of participating in the storytelling. My intent is to always be in a process of learning and understanding what the client wants me to know as best I can. I remain attentive and eager to learn what the client thinks is important for me to know and understand. I keep in mind that I can never learn and understand everything, and that what I learn and understand is my own interpretation of the client’s story and my experience of them. My colleague, Harry Goolishian, and I began to refer to our questions as conversational questions and stressed the importance of our questions maintaining coherence with the client (Anderson and Goolishian, 1988b) and moving within the client’s language (Anderson, 1997b). My questions do not seek answers, rather, they are invitations for the other to speak. I think of the client’s response as simply that, a response. Even though a client may ignore or not answer a question, no response is a response. The conversation begins as a unidirectional activity in which the practitioner is a curious learner and the client is a teacher. This process naturally shifts into a mutual back-and-forth learning together inquiry as the client catches the teacher’s contagious curiosity. As the client listens and responds to the speaker’s curiosity, they become interested in the topic of conversation in ways they have not been before. This cultivates a generative process of the client wondering, questioning, and considering their story from a different perspective. It is in the dynamic, interactional process of trying to understand from the client’s perspective that clarified

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or fresh meaning is developed for both client and therapist. As Shotter (2008) suggests, ‘Our words have not meaning in themselves, nor is it a matter of them occurring in a context, nor is it a matter of a speaker’s intentions. Meaning is created by, with, and for people in the collaborative meetings with each other’ (p. 2). Shared inquiry involves the interlinked doings of speaking, listening, responding, and hearing. For instance, I speak to invite the other to speak, so that I can listen to them. I respond to what I think I have heard, because I want a sense that I have understood what they hoped I would. If not, I want to give them an opportunity to correct me and clarify. Hearing is part of the listening, speaking, and responding process, a rhizomatic-like process that is dynamic and multidirectional.

(b) Relational Expertise Relational expertise coincides with the premise that knowledge and meaning specific to the client and their situation is created through the storytelling process – that is, the dialogic interactions between practitioner and client. The client brings valuable resources to the encounter: their experiences, beliefs, and know-how. Practitioners bring their unique expertise in inviting and maintaining a collaborative relationship and generative conversation. Each expertise is distinct and equally important; the practitioner is a process expert and the client is the content expert. A collaborative practitioner’s expertise is in how to invite and engage with others in a generative conversational process and how to invite and use the client’s expertise. Importantly, it is not solution or interpretation expertise.

(c) Not-knowing Not-knowing suggests thinking about knowledge and its use as proposed by the conceptual framework of this book. When taking a position of not-knowing, each client and their life circumstance is new for the therapist. This means that meeting each client is like meeting

a foreigner who teaches you their language, customs, and rituals. In other words, the therapist remains careful not to bring an expert theoretical map on which they place and sort out the client’s story. This is particularly tempting when we experience a client’s perspective or behavior as illogical, illegal, or ill-informed. Learning from and with the client is critical to the dialogic process. Not-knowing is sometimes mistaken for denying or withholding expertise and experience. But this would be impossible, because the therapist’s expertise and experience is always there. As Harry Goolishian and I said, ‘The therapist is always prejudiced by their experiences, but they must listen [and respond] in such a way that their pre-experience does not close them off to the full meaning of the client’s description of their experience’ (Anderson and Goolishian, 1992, p. 30). Importantly, when offering knowledge (e.g., comments, suggestions, questions) the practitioner considers the intent, attitude, tone, and timing of the offering. They also pay careful attention to how the client responds, and maintains coherence with the client’s response, not judging it appropriate or otherwise. Therapists sometimes try to make sense of seemingly nonsensical or irrational things from their expert theoretical maps or clinical experiences. Instead, I want to try to remain curious and understand from the other’s map, believing it is logical from their perspective or truth. I find that if I can remain curious, what at first appears as nonsensical to me does make sense from their perspective. I shift my own reality to the background, and in so doing, am less likely to impose blame, judgement, or shame. Such imposition often generates what can be interpreted as client denial, dishonesty, or resistance. This does not suggest that I ignore or approve their reality, but that I have no desire to challenge it. I want to remain respectful. Continuous curiosity and trying to understand are part of the interconnected process of speaking, listening, hearing, and responding.

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(d) Being Public Being public refers to the belief that it is important for the practitioner to share their inner thoughts. Clients want to know what their therapist is thinking, writing in their notes, or telling their supervisor (Anderson, 1997a). In my research on clients’ experiences of helpful and unhelpful therapists, clients often commented on wanting to know what was behind the therapist’s questions and comments. They reported that some questions were intrusive or inappropriate. They also reported that sometimes a therapist seemed to ask the same question repeatedly, yet slightly differently. One man said he felt he could not get the answer right, and if he only knew what the therapist wanted to know that he could have answered it. Clients also expressed curiosity about the therapist as a person. As human beings, it seems fitting for the practitioner to be open. I suggest that we consider where therapy traditions such as forbidding self-disclosure come from and their relevance in today’s world. Interestingly, we are in a world in which the client could dig through the therapist’s social media profiles, reviews, and other digital dust to generate conceptions of who the therapist ‘really is’ or what they ‘really think’. I will add this caveat: this is not to suggest that a therapist or any other practitioner share their most personal lives, but rather to consider what it is like to be human.

(e) Uncertainty Uncertainty – ambiguity, confusion, unknowns – fills Collaborative-Dialogic Practice. As a withness practice, the Collaborative-Dialogic approach involves client and therapist mutually determining the destination and the paths to reach it. Though it is likely that a client arrives with a pre-set destination, this can – and often does – change along the way. Envisioned pathways and endpoints can easily be veered from and new ones can emerge as conversation partners go along and re-adjust with each other. Therapy may be a process of bringing forth something totally unexpected,

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or it may uncover something subtle and nuanced, but it is not trying to discover or validate some pre-existing thing we ‘know’ is there. This requires being able to live in and trust uncertainty, that is, to embrace vagueness, ambiguity, the unknown, and unpredictability. Uncertainty is part of life and all creative processes. Certainty has the potential to make us overconfident in our expertise and inhibit our spontaneity, risk-taking, and openness to challenge and change.

(f) Mutual Influence Mutual influence suggests that change is a two-way, not one-way, street. Though most would agree that people generally seek consultation to help them change something or somebody, the therapist is not a changeagent. Whether through therapy or related people-centered practices based in a relational-dialogic process, some degree of transformation will occur among both practitioner and client. Transformation is inherent in the dynamics of dialogue. Dialogue requires the therapist to be open to and acceptant of the otherness, the distinct uniqueness of the other person (Shotter, 2010), that is, the difference they bring to the relationship and conversation. This allows the therapist to suspend judgements, biases, and opinions and try to understand the other from their perspective. It also requires the therapist to be fully present, interested, and engaged as a human being. If the therapist acts as if they are performing a role, they will not be able to hear the client and respond in a manner coherent with their client’s otherness. The practitioner must be equally aware of the client’s influence on them as they are concerned with their influence on the client. What matters most is the client’s own evaluation and punctuation of when and if change has occurred. It is not for the therapist to make this determination. In our Western world, we often expect change or transformation to be something big enough to notice. We think we

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can pinpoint when it occurred and assume it happens in our moments together. However, change can be unnoticeable to an observer and even the person experiencing it. Change can happen over time – sometimes long after the moments of its beginning.

(g) Everyday Ordinary Life Everyday ordinary life overflows with an abundance of experiences, emotions, successes, failures, dreams, and disappointments. Through my experiences meeting people in diverse cultures and parts of the world, I developed a more positive attitude about human beings, both collectively and individually. Most people everywhere want similar things. Though expressed differently, with various meanings and in varying degrees, people want to live satisfied lives, have good relationships, and secure sustenance. Most people I meet seem to be coping as best they can when we consider the current global challenges. Each person, regardless of their life history or current situation, has their unique and sometimes invisible strengths and resources. Each person wants a say in decisions that impact their lives. In general, human beings want to belong, feel appreciated, and be respected.

are simply human beings in relationship with our clients, who are also human beings. We are left with what kind of person do we want to be? I am reminded of a quote from John Shotter, which includes his edit to emphasize the importance of humanness as we relate with our clients to enhance the possibility that they may become the person, the ‘who’, they want to be: I shall take it that the basic practical moral problem in life is not what to do but what [who] to be. (Shotter, 1993, p. 118)

As I pause, an ever-lingering thought remains. Collaborative-Dialogic Practice, since its roots in the 1950s, has and will continue to evolve. Though I will participate in its future, it will be particularly influenced, as it has been, by the touches of creative and adventurous practitioners, including you the reader, as we ensure that we maintain our humility and respect for the people we serve and that our work is relevant to them and our changing world. My experiences to date, meeting practitioners in diverse disciplines, contexts, and cultures encourage my hope that the possibilities which CollaborativeDialogic Practice offers beyond the borders of family therapy will continue to be realized as we all try to contribute to a better world.

CONCLUSION Social construction theory runs counter to the dominant discourses most of us live and have been trained in. Regardless of a practitioner’s proclivity for social construction theory and practice, it is a challenging shift to embrace and even more challenging to perform. We are trained, for the most part, to be a knowing expert and to perform that role, that is, to be the person that our professional discourses prescribe. In the end, we are all human beings who, to some extent or another, love, succeed, fail, and fear. As practitioners, we are confronted with consistently keeping in mind that we

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Anderson, H. (2012). Collaborative relationships and dialogic conversations: Ideas for a relationally responsive therapy. Family Process, 52(1), 8–24. Anderson, H. (2015). Collaborative therapy. In E. Neukrug (Ed.), Sage encyclopedia of theory of counselling and psychotherapy (pp. 203–205). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Anderson, H. (2016, October). Engagement in dialogue: Some brief unfinished thoughts. Context, 147, 3–4. Anderson, H. (2019). Collaborative-dialogic family therapy. In L. Loräs & O. Ness (Eds.), Family therapy: Handbook I (pp. 199–212). Bergen, Norway: Fagbokforlaget. Anderson, H., & Goolishian, H. (1988a, Spring). Conversations at Sulitjelma: A description and reflection. American Family Therapy Association Newsletter, 35, 31–36. Anderson, H., & Goolishian, H. (1988b). Human systems as linguistic systems: Evolving ideas about the implications for theory and practice. Family Process, 27, 371–393. Anderson, H., & Goolishian, H. (1992). The client is the expert. In S. McNamee & K. J. Gergen (Eds.), Therapy as social construction (pp. 25–39). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Anderson, H., Goolishian, H., Pulliam, G., & Winderman, L. (1986). The Galveston Family Institute: A personal and historical perspective. In D. Efron (Ed.), Journeys: Expansions of the strategic–systemic therapies (pp. 97– 122). New York, NY: Bruner/Mazel. de Shazer, S. (1985). Keys to solutions in brief therapy. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. Freedman, J., & Combs, G. (1996). Narrative therapy. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. Gadamer, H-G. (1989). Truth and method (2nd edition, J. Weinsheimer & D. G. Marshall, Trans.). New York, NY: Continuum. Gergen, K. J. (1985). The social constructionist movement in modern psychology. American Psychologist, 40(3), 266–275. Gergen, K. J. (1999). An invitation to social construction. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Grandesso, M. (2015). Integrative community therapy: A collective space of dialogical conversation and collaborative exchanges. In E. F. Rasera (Ed.), Social constructionist perspective on group work (pp. 123–133). Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute. Hoffman, L. (2002). Family therapy: An intimate history. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. Hoffman, L. (2007). The art of ‘withness’: A new bright edge. In H. Anderson &

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D. Gehart (Eds.), Collaborative therapy: Relationships and conversations that make a difference (pp. 63–69). New York, NY: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group. Holquist, M. (1990). Dialogism: Bakhtin and his world. New York, NY: Routledge. Lyotard, J-F. (1979). The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge (G. Bennington & B. Massumi, Trans.). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. MacGregor, R. (1962). Multiple impact therapy with families. Family Process, 1(1), 15–29. doi: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/ 10.1111/j.1545-5300.1962.00015.x MacGregor, R., Ritchie, A. M., Serrano, A. C., Shuster, E. C., McDanald, E. C., & Goolishian, H. A. (1964). Multiple impact therapy with families. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Merleau-Ponty, M. (1968). The visible and the invisible. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Olson, M., Seikkula, J., & Ziedonis, D. (2014, September 21). The key elements of dialogic practice in open dialogue: Fidelity criteria. Version 1.1. http://umassmed.edu/psychiatry/globalinitiatives/opendialogue/ Schön, D. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. London, UK: Temple Smith. Seikkula, J., & Arnkil, T. E. (2018). Dialogical meetings in social networks. New York, NY: Routledge. Shotter, J. (1993). Conversational realities: Constructing life through language. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Shotter, J. (2008). Conversational realities revisited. Chagrin Falls, OH: The Taos Institute. Shotter, J. (2016). Speaking, actually: Towards a new ‘fluid’ common-sense understanding of relational becomings. Farnhill, UK: Everything is Connected Press. Shotter, J. (2010). Social Construction on the Edge: ‘Withness’ Thinking & Embodiment Chagrin Falls, Ohio: Taos Institute Publications. Vygotsky, U. S. (1962). Thought and language (E. Hanfman & G. Vakar, Eds. & Trans.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. White, M. (2011). Narrative therapy: Continuing the practice. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical investigations (G. D. M. Anscombe, Trans.). Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell.

14 Generative Dialogues: Creating Resources and Possibilities in Therapy Dora Fried Schnitman

INTRODUCTION This chapter presents a generative perspective in therapy as a means to foster transformation through dialogical creative processes. It will examine how a generative dialogue allows participants, therapists and clients, to create resources and new possibilities together in the face of problems, conflicts, and challenges. Self and relationships are renewed, and a viable and sustainable future emerges. Dialogue, here, is approached as a generative creative process. How do we foreground generative processes? By using the concept of generative dialogue to refer to the gradual creation of something new in human relationships. Key to that process are generative moments where the subtle and the emergent are discerned and expanded to create new meanings and actions through reciprocal responsiveness in dialogue. An alternative nucleus is formed, one

that can be developed into privileged contexts for interpretation and practice. Inquiries focus on how these moments were, are, or can be generated. What types of dialogic and relational coordination foster the inception of something new emerging and its subsequent consolidation? How does that become a context that keeps new possibilities alive and allows them to effect transformation (Fried Schnitman, 1998, 2002, 2004)? The construction of futures as part of change requires acting upon current circumstances in order to explore how to access these futures. The possibilities created in generative dialogues become virtual realities which, once created, can be actualized, provided they are sustained by transformative processes. Such processes contribute to actions that lead to existential alternatives and new and diverse realities, as well as forms of living. Emerging generative processes reorient us toward an ecology of creation.

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GENERATIVE PERSPECTIVE AND DIALOGUE We propose a generative perspective for therapy that relies on the emerging possibilities of dialogue as a platform to construct possible, realizable futures when clients bring problematic or stagnant situations for consultation. Through joint participation, reciprocal inclusion, and responsiveness in dialogue, the participants in therapy (professionals and clients) co-create alternatives to approach the problematic situations. Dialogue is the means and the instrument for this process (Fried Schnitman, 2008, 2015, 2016). The generative dialogue centers on what participants in therapy can construct, creating unprecedented possibilities, and on the active exploration of how the problematic situations relate to emerging resources and possibilities as new territories in dialogue. It focuses, then, on dialogue’s capability to build intersections, forging a path through the emergent resources, the options that become available, and the problems that led to the consultation. The enactment and the progressive implementation of the new possibilities with an eye to a viable future are equally important for a generative dialogue. Working with the creative potential of dialogue offers a view of the landscape of relational constructionism in action. Generative dialogue expands the process from a problemcentered focus to the creation of new possibilities, increasing the skills of participants and providing them with additional resources to work with what is emerging. One of the first implications of this perspective is that it enables a focus on the future, on incipient possibilities that can be amplified – or nonexistent ones that can be created – thus contributing to new client alternatives. Therapists and clients are involved in a generative process and work simultaneously to develop resources in the present while constructing a long-range vision for the future and enacting it as new ways of living. The clients learn to

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learn about themselves by clarifying, exploring, and reaching their emerging resources and possibilities through a process that leads to transformations and a viable future.

DIALOGUE AND GENERATIVITY: CREATIVITY IN DIALOGUE Dialogue alludes to the co-creation of meanings and joint social actions by, and among, a certain number of participants. A dialogue is a co-constructive, interpersonal process involving diverse voices and resonances in which people jointly create meaning. Dialogical confluences are transformative processes in dialogue that extend over time, for example in therapy, allowing new perspectives, actions and ways of living to emerge (Gergen, 2009). Bakhtin postulates that when a dialogue occurs, a multi-vocal unit is configured. Each dialogue is unique, according to the author, and takes place in a specific context and time, while meaning emerges from this uniqueness; in each dialogue, diverse voices and dialogues coexist (Bakhtin, 1981, 1986; Morson and Emerson, 1990). Whether these prove coherent or contradictory, generativity will make use of this complexity. A generative perspective is thus based on dialogue between people and their unique relationship. The responsiveness and attentiveness of participants are features of being in dialogue: participants can express and acknowledge their participation not only through words but also through reciprocal indications of connection, inclusiveness, and participation. Everything in dialogue, not only words but embodied language, tone, intonation, and gestures, is formulated with a purpose and addressed to the other. There is a reciprocal recognition of the other as a dialogue participant. Bakhtin stresses the capacity of dialogue to create meaning. People address and respond actively to an other, addressing their listener with purpose and anticipation. Participants

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shape dialogues from the outset and any other party to this dialogue is also taken into account and involved in the formulations. The other may be not only another person, but also oneself, another dialogue or the one in progress, a topic, a group. Dialogues involve multiple dialogues, voices, and projects, with centripetal and centrifugal forces. At the same time, each dialogue is connected to a network of dialogues in context and in time. When the complexity of dialogue is connected with timeline links, every dialogue is both facilitated and limited by these preceding and future links. Some of these links may be distant from the current conversation, others closer. These links intersect and resonate with what was spoken in the near and distant past, creating novel possibilities. Participants always produce something new and unique in the moment; there are renovated echoes of the past, and at the same time, new contributions in the present. This is conveyed by the particular form of expression and the singularity of the context in which something is formulated, including the dialogue itself. Besides their connections to the past and present, dialogues also intersect with what might be said in the near and distant future. We can then identify an anticipated future in the current dialogue and establish links with what has not yet been said and what could be said in both a near and distant future. Other links are also feasible between dialogues. A generative perspective actively creates novel networks and links that enable dialogic creativity in the moment and generative confluences over time in order to foster transformative processes. At any point, people may engage in highly diverse and potentially converging (or contradictory) dialogues.

worlds. In these generative conversations, people are integrally involved in exchanges, interweaving ideas, thoughts, perspectives, and feelings. In and through dialogue, self and relationships emerge and can be modified. When a therapist meets clients, she enters into a dialogue aware of their specificity and uniqueness, the problems and hopes they bring. She is attentive, responsive, and aware of the client responsiveness in order to work towards constructing a creative and productive dialogic relationship. The generative perspective prioritizes the recognition of the emerging opportunities and innovations unique to each process. By allowing generative moments to be discerned, the participants’ new resources and possibilities can then be useful to develop alternatives, new narratives, and learning. We call this an emerging generative process. In this process, therapists and clients actively work together to explore the situation they endeavor to transform. As unprecedented possibilities can be produced in dialogue, participants in a therapy process become more proactive, utilizing their own inquiries and reflections to improve comprehension and action as they occur. In this sense, the participants become creative authors of each single process, focusing on the specific activities that generate new possibilities as working platforms for transformations. This generative capacity of dialogue enables unanticipated possibilities, transforms potentialities into new existential realities, and gives the therapy experience some of the openness and open-endedness associated with learning and creativity.

‘God has Spoken’ EMERGING GENERATIVE PROCESSES IN THERAPY Dialogues and confluences in dialogue are formative processes of selves and social

Excerpts from a therapy case illustrate these concepts in action. A student in the Graduate Degree Program on the Generative Perspective and Professional Practice, senior family therapist, and conflict mediator,

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Cristina Ruffino, PhD in Psychology,1 brings this consultation to the class to explore generative dialogues. Daniela (D) had contacted her to request a session, at her psychologist’s recommendation. She mentioned that her immediate family regularly contacts her psychologist to complain about her. She is 39-years-old, has been in therapy since age 26, and is taking medication under psychiatric care. She will continue with individual therapy and medication. At the interview, the family, who also runs a business together, begins to share their problems, mentioning frequent arguments, accusations, and growing animosity towards D. The family is very critical of D; her brother describes her as unbalanced and impulsive. He has come to the interview at his parents’ request, but has no expectations that their relationship will change. The father wants to avoid the fighting, and sees D as someone impetuous who makes unnecessary remarks. The mother complains of the overall animosity, that her son is too inflexible and her daughter too emotional. D says that her brother misinterprets everything she says, that they fight constantly and are not on speaking terms. She adds that her father does not understand her. Sometimes she cannot stand herself and has felt increasingly alone and ignored by them, leading her to wish she were dead. She mentions different psychiatric diagnoses (borderline, bipolar, currently depression). She adds that she has attempted suicide several times. Two weeks earlier, in fact, she planned to jump out the window of an apartment the family owns. After writing her suicide letter, she went into the building but could not enter the apartment because the combination lock had been changed. Therapist: D, how would you explain the failure of such a carefully planned suicide attempt? [Interested, the T creatively searches for alternatives and presents a question that may lead to possibilities.] D: God saved me. [Responsive, new meaning ‘God’s voice’ and presence has emerged

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within the framework of a protective relationship.] T: (to the family) Do you also believe God saved her? They nod. [The family is responsive and convergent.] T: D, what does God know about you that made him decide you had to go on living? [Begins to search for a perspective that draws in self-appreciation, exploring meanings, resources and possibilities.] D: I don’t know. T: (to the family) Before we continue discussing the problems you are having, can you tell me what God knows about D, that she doesn’t know, that made him decide she had to go on living? [Respectfully moves from problems to possibilities, including other descriptions that will help D perceive or expand on her perception of herself and on family relations.]

Each family member – even the brother – mentions different resources and positive contributions D had made to the family or business. In their narratives, they craft an emergent description of both D and of the family relations that was diverse and full of possibilities, moving away from a focus on the mutual accusations and fights. [Confluences in dialogue, links between different dialogues and contexts and an emerging personal and relational intelligibility.] T: (to D): Do you agree with these descriptions? [Explore whether she recognizes herself in the novel description with resources and the caring and appreciative relationships.] D: I do, but I had no idea that my family knew. [Confluence in meaning, shared intelligibility, crafting of a new identity narrative for D here and in family relationships. Descriptions that acknowledge resources, express appreciation and respect for D, and lay the groundwork for new meanings, resources and personal and relational possibilities.]

The family maintains these productive modes for two more sessions. In the fourth session, the family reports a fight over business decisions; D wants innovations, but her father and brother do not want to change the business which is very successful. In the discussion of the fight, the brother chides her and

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returns to the accusations he had made in previous sessions. When the therapist asks how he thinks that D feels, he says that he does not care, that she could die and stop being a nuisance to the family. D ‘explodes’ and answers that she cannot take being blamed again and will kill herself, but not fail this time. The therapist proposes individual interviews with D to explore what it was about this accusation by her brother that made her explode when she had retained her composure and balance in the face of previous accusations. In the individual sessions, the dialogue focuses on her life. Talking about the fight with the brother and how it related to her suicide attempts, D says, ‘My brother wants to get rid of me and my father sides with him.’ T: I wonder, what makes you so obedient to your brother? (D does not understand.) T: How can you stop being the way others describe you? Your brother said you are unbalanced, crazy, and you – who until that moment were doing very well – behaved as he described you. How did you lose sight of the resourceful, balanced person you can also be? [Inviting D to search for her resources and possibilities.] D: I always did my father’s bidding. I studied what my father wanted to fit in the family business – not what I wanted to study. [Responsive and reflexive, shared intelligibility.] T: Now that you can see the difference, that you can choose according to your wishes, what would you choose? [Expanding her possibilities in search of personal and more satisfying options.] D: It doesn’t matter. It’s too late. [She doubts but is responsive.] T: Perhaps you can reconnect with your wishes and explore possibilities in your networks. [Creative initiative linking dialogues from different contexts and times to foster the client’s creativity, resources, possibilities, and life itineraries.]

Next session: D: There is one opportunity with a friend from college that interests me related to art that I will explore. [Responsive, generative dialogues with herself, her interest, her life, and

her networks indicate transformative processes and confluences with the therapist towards a viable future.]

We can see an emerging intelligibility, changes, and a new life emerging for D. The therapist and D work on how D would approach the family with her renewed perspective on herself and her life. In the three final family sessions, the family explores different ways of understanding work. D shares some choices she has made about her life with her family without making or being subjected to any criticism or accusations. She is calm and sure of her decision and wishes to retain her family’s support and her share of the company. In a follow-up conversation one year later, she is doing very well. ‘I don’t know why I was so insistent on being involved in the family business when there was no room for my resources and the best of myself.’ Now, she is living an independent, productive life, studying abroad to become a museum curator, and enjoying her life. The impact of violent conflict is very painful, and not limited to the persons directly involved. Violent conflict breaks up the very tissue of interpersonal relationships. A generative perspective and its practices for facing crisis and conflict help people to recover their resources and relationships, to reconnect to what has meaning for them, to re-orient their lives, and to restore personal and social integrity. An emphasis on resources and the collaborative construction of alternatives facilitates spaces of recovery and coexistence. When recognized, these survival strategies can be expanded to transform identity and social bonds that go beyond the initial resources and have an impact on personal, relational, and political agendas (Fried Schnitman, 2010).

WORKING WITHIN THE GENERATIVE PROCESS When people explain what has led them to consult a therapist, they often provide a

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one-dimensional and problematic version of themselves and their circumstances (problem node). The professional must be aware of this; she meets the clients at the interactive moment, and takes their difficulties into account as well as their expectations, resources, and hopes. As the process advances, the therapist pays attention to how clients can expand on this initial moment, further exploring other contexts of life while being attentive to emerging instances, alternative resources, and novel elements in the dialogue that are not part of the problematic situation or actively creating them. The question is how to make the clients’ other voices audible and available to contribute to create new ones that may enrich their possibilities. Whatever emerges from the complexity of dialogue, the links between dialogues, and the diversity that characterizes humans, guides these explorations. By welcoming this diversity and paying attention to the resources that appear, participants can advance towards emerging possibilities and life alternatives. This dialogic fabric takes the form of a network with the different novel resources and possibilities that emerged in the process; in turn, they are interwoven and synthesized, increasing the productivity and creativity of the process. Clients and therapist engage in a dialogue with confluences and convergences over time when they build a novel intelligibility that contributes resources (i.e., meanings and innovative ways of understanding and acting in specific contexts). Generative moments are variations or minor events occurring in the dialogue that can give way to the creation of new perspectives and possibilities. They may be introduced by client or therapist, or simply emerge in dialogue. The therapist is very attentive to reciprocal responsiveness and will bring these emerging moments into the dialogue. If the clients, in turn, are responsive, and validate and expand on the emerging moment, it can turn into a generative moment, which will be confirmed and expanded further through supplementation and responsiveness in dialogue.

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When this occurs, these generative moments articulate new perspectives and actions in the dialogue and the client’s life, enabling paths towards transformations. In these cases, generative cycles can be further expanded into diverse areas of the client’s life, bringing more opportunities and learning to fruition. New self and relational narrations emerge. When the generative cycles further generate novel, productive meanings and life possibilities, they can develop into a generative matrix. The generative matrix combines meanings of the emerging perspectives, values, narratives, and novel actions that enable the transformations of people and their relationships both now and in the future. It promotes more productive, viable futures in relation to what motivated the client to seek therapy. When opportunities to innovate appear as novelties in the dialogue through these emerging moments and events, the clients also recover or expand resources from their life contexts. Client or therapist can propose incorporating creative processes to build resources or open up possibilities. The resources and possibilities that appear in the process are further interwoven in dialogue, and forge alternative paths. The recognition of these transformations, and reflections on them, give way to new narratives and generative learning for all participants, including the therapist. An alternative life design is created contextually, in the specifics of each therapy process, transformative and enabling devices are created, opening up a field of study of transformations in which we can discern open networks, wholes that are gradually woven over time and that synthesize heterogeneous circumstances, interactions, or contingent results within the process itself.

CREATION OF A GENERATIVE PROCESS: A WORKING PLATFORM The therapist’s first generative actions focus on creating a dialogue with clients that

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establishes reciprocal responsiveness and a mutually inclusive, trust-based relationship. When the therapist and client acknowledge their reciprocal relationship, they develop an accepted relational reference. In the context of creating this bond, as the generative moments and cycles described above take place, clients feel engaged in a relationship that provides them with a different perspective on themselves. No longer limited to problems or inadequacies, their perspective is thus expanded to encompass resources, possibilities, self-trust, and incipient trust in the process. In their confluences in dialogue, therapist and clients jointly build a working platform which connects problems with resources and possibilities and gives meaning to the direction the process is taking. The term working platform refers to a ‘consensus’ in dialogue and coordinated actions on the issues at hand. In short, it is a process that connects problems, resources, and possibilities over time in the direction of a viable future, within the framework of a relationship in which participants recognize the other/s as parties in dialogue. As problems, resources, and possibilities are named and connected during the process, the links between them provide a sense of direction and understanding of how each event relates to the working platform. These possibilities and resources are transformational, helping the client advance towards a possible future and new ways of living. This mutual agreement on the direction they are headed is not the result of the professional applying a certain model or strategy; it is simply part of the same process of creating resources, possibilities, and new forms of living through reciprocal responsiveness and recognition. The working platform provides a domain for the dialogue between participants, a project for what therapy is going to be about, a direction and purposes in context. This is a process that creates a relationship, a framework, a direction, and a sense of relevance that can be expanded or modified as therapy progresses.

During the generative dialogue the reciprocal responsiveness configures virtual dialogic agreements (e.g., convergences and confluences) in the therapist–client relationship and clarifies the purpose of each resource or possibility. Along the way, the transformations can be seen in both the perspective of the clients and in their enactment, as their way of living is progressively redesigned. This pragmatic dimension is an integral part of the process.

ILLUSTRATING THE PROCESS: FROM ‘BEING FROZEN’ TO GENERATIVITY The following example illustrates generative processes in training and therapy. A student in the Graduate Degree Program on the Generative Perspective and Professional Practice, Diana Torres, is a Master in Clinical and Family Psychology, and a university professor in Colombia. In searching for her own and her client resources, she presented this case to the group.

First Session: ‘Being Frozen’ Therapist: What brought you to therapy? N: (looks down and then smiles shyly) I met this girl 2 years ago and well, it’s weird, because I only saw her once. I went out with some people from school and she came along. Afterwards, I walked her home, asked her for her number, and she gave it to me. But when I called to ask her out, she said she couldn’t that day, and told me she’d call me, but never did. Every day since, I think what would have happened if I had done something different. I know this sounds bad, like I’m sick or psycho. What woman would want to be with me if she knew about this? It’s crazy but I can’t stop it. I cry constantly, thinking, dreaming about her (sighing). I have to get her out of my head. [Problem node and hopes.]

The therapist expands the dialogue into other aspects of N’s life (school, work, family relations). N is not working right now. The

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youngest of three siblings, he quit school a semester before earning his degree in graphic design. He does not have many friends and spends most of his time in his room crying about everything he wants but hasn’t achieved. During the session, he expressed his desire to change. [Expectations.] N: Still at home at my age! I need a change. I need to work, make money, and get a girlfriend. I can’t go on like this. (His eyes are brimming with tears. He cracks his knuckles.) [Expectations.]

In the therapist’s conversation about this case with her colleagues in the generative group, she comments that the client seems stuck. She cannot find any resources on his part that would allow progress in the timing he expects. He is requesting help and has hopes to move on. She fears that it might take longer. She feels trapped because she wants to help him but doesn’t know how at the pace he needs. The group comments that she has only described problematic aspects and asks whether N mentioned any resources. The therapist says N mentioned that he likes manga (Japanese comics) but she dismissed it because she could not see it as a resource. The group clarifies that manga is art and suggests she inquiries into it and invite N to use manga to draft a proposal for his future in search of openings.

Second Session: Changing. Establishing a Relationship. The Generative Process Begins with Moments, Cycles, and a Working Platform T: Talk to me about your art. I want to learn more about manga. (Her tone is inviting and interested.) [Exploring if art is a resource that might provide possibilities.] N: OK, well manga art (sitting up straighter in the chair) is sort of like comics. I love it and I know I’m good at it. I never quit doing manga. I’ve done a lot with it and I keep getting better.

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T: How is it that your voice, posture, and well, your whole attitude changes when you talk about your art? [The therapist notes the emotion, change in posture, positive tone, and N’s continued dedication to his art over time as an emerging moment, and expresses her recognition and interest. She is expanding resources.] N: Oh yeah? (blushing and smiling, looking pleased). I hadn’t realized that. [Generative moment.] It’s just something I really like, a place where things flow for me. [He adds that he recognizes the differences in himself. This generative moment is expanded to newer moments and generative cycles, when he adds that with art, ‘things flow’.] T: You say that things flow for you through art and I can see that’s true. In fact, I was thinking about how some famous actors say similar things. That’s what it feels like with you, what do you think? [She explores his art creatively, discovering new meanings and reaffirming his feelings. Personal and relational emerge beyond failure, loneliness, and isolation. She expands the generative cycles and begins building a working platform that links problems, resources, and possibilities.] N: (with enthusiasm). Totally. When I’m with people talking about my art, things flow better and I can get to know people. [Responsive, N begins an emerging, novel self-narration. The therapist advances on building the working platform further. They are developing a shared intelligibility through confluences in dialogue.] T: What would you say to making a manga that is about precisely how you would like your life to be? [T proposes a timeline that extends beyond his current difficulties into the future.] He begins to draw with great care, making a self-portrait filled with light and expressing desires for his future. [Several generative cycles emerge in the story and later, in his everyday life.]

Third Session T: How did manga become part of your life? N: (smiling) Well, when I was seven, I saw my brother drawing manga and I’ve been drawing ever since (his chest swells). [He proudly responds to the proposal, validating and expanding on it. Manga art is an encompassing resource in his life.]

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This dialogue allowed the therapist to link past, present, and future, since manga art has always been part of his life and is something he plans to do in the future. It is a generative tool that elicits change in the moment and is also a resource for the future. These generative moments and cycles enrich and expand the working platform. Later, N becomes proactive and productive, initiating an ongoing self-exploration. [New generative cycles appear and expand the working platform, creating possibilities, such as a job search, new art-related initiatives, new relationships, and an end to crying over times when he felt like a failure, including the incident with the girl two years earlier.]

Fifth Session: Revelation T: (after almost an entire session in which N has not mentioned the girl) I have a question. What allowed you to go the whole session without mentioning the girl? And you know what I think? If I hadn’t asked this question, you would not have. N: (smiling proudly, his eyes shining) I didn’t bring her into the session. Truth is, it didn’t seem that important, since I’m working on trying to find a job and posting things on my YouTube channel (where he has a cartoon series). She comes to mind from time to time, but she’s not as important anymore.

N talked about his art and about changes. He has been sending out his résumé, getting ready for a manga show, and promoting his art. He appears enthusiastic and in high spirits in regards to current and future possibilities, acknowledging them with appreciation and pride. The active exploration and construction of a future with actual changes in his way of living is visible, as are the emotional transformations associated with his new ‘realities.’

Seventh Session: Generating New Knowledge and Learning T: Let’s talk about the fact that you couldn’t get this girl out of your head but in the last

session, she didn’t come to your mind. If these were different sections or chapters in the book of your life, what title would you give them? [This metaphor explores what emerged in therapy and has been consolidated as new ways of living.] N: The first chapter would be the moment when I came for the first session and I’d call it ‘Being frozen’. And I’d call the second chapter in my story ‘Changing’ because that’s the way it feels; I don’t get depressed so much, I don’t cry, I’m making up for lost time and taking steps to make changes in my life, because I feel better but I want to achieve more. [Novel resources and possibilities are included in the narrations and reflexive learnings; transformations are part of generatively pondering changes in his life.]

Although the entire process incorporates a transformation at multiple levels of the self, the client’s relationships, resources and ways of living, the enactment of novel possibilities radically changes the motive for seeking therapy, materializing new ways of life.

Therapist Reflections Something different emerged within me and for my client in the second session, something I referred to as a ‘generative bridge and an outburst of resources.’ N came with his own problem node, and I had my own problem node with respect to the case. I was unable to see that N had resources or that my resources would help him. For me, the outburst of resources came when I received feedback from my colleagues and began relating to the client from the perspective of his resources, giving N the possibility to tell his story and live through a tool that allows things to ‘flow’ for him, manga art. That is to say, both of us experienced an outburst of resources that triggered change. On the other hand, when the problem node connected to new possibilities and a potential future, a generative bridge emerged. N could return to past situations that used to be problematic or negative and connected to them from another place, in the context of a working platform and enabling nodes. This allowed him to be in touch with his past experiences while also connecting to a potential future.

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Follow-Up: Strengthening Generativity The therapist reports that she had five additional sessions with N. Besides showing his artwork at two major manga exhibitions, N is building a name for himself in that world, and is much more confident of his capabilities. The issue of the girl he said he was obsessed with is no longer part of the panorama. N has made a powerful transformation that can be seen in his posture, his expression, and his life narrative, which emphasizes possibilities. He has found creative solutions to his problems and also creatively sought out opportunities. He is earning money. [A transformed and active life matrix of enacted resources and possibilities has changed his way of life.] One year after, he has a formal job at a design company and is working towards establishing a manga art project.

THERAPISTS AND CLIENTS: BUILDING FUTURES The generative perspective in therapy heeds dialogue’s creative resources and possibilities. This approach is future-oriented and distinct because of the emphasis it places on the ability of the professional to be an active participant in dialogue and to respond creatively and innovatively to what emerges through it. For the therapist, that means getting involved in the relational field and developing a practice grounded in creativity, generative research, collaboration, and relational responsibility (McNamee, 2015a, 2015b; McNamee and Gergen, 1998; Morales et al., 2015). Through dialogue and collaboration, professionals and clients work together to question unresolved and difficult problems and challenges, to assess and co-create emergent resources, and to craft and implement new

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possibilities, alternative futures, and novel ways of living. In other words, they address what clients are grappling with from a perspective geared to transformation, and they do so by focusing on the present moment, and not on pre-knowledges. This requires that professionals recognize uniqueness and felt experience, and grasp each person and their specific circumstances. This dialogic approach at once fosters and invites creativity and co-participation giving rise to complex and nonlinear options. Multiple voices are engaged, and limitations and underlying assumptions questioned to enable clients to reauthorize and re-signify their lives. Through the examples in this article, we see how change is constructed and oriented in dialogue, and problems tied to possibilities for innovations and for reflexive generative learning; new dialogic knowledge is fostered to accompany the process and to expand resources for the sake of transforming participants’ lives. The professional’s participation is aesthetic insofar as it reflects the client’s particularities and idiosyncrasies, and ethical insofar as it responses to their request and needs.

Note 1  I would like to thank Cristina Ruffino and Diana Torres, the therapists who work on the cases described in this paper, for their cooperation.

REFERENCES Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays by M. M. Bakhtin (M. Holquist, Ed.; C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Trans.). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Bakhtin, M. M. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays (C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Eds.; V. W. McGee, Trans.). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Fried Schnitman, D. (1998). Navigating in a circle of dialogues. Human Systems: The

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Journal of Systemic Consultation & Management, 9(1), 21–32. Fried Schnitman, D. (2002). New paradigms, new practices. In D. Fried Schnitman & J. Schnitman (Eds.), New paradigms, culture and subjectivity (pp. 345–354). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Fried Schnitman, D. (2004). Generative instruments of CMM. Human Systems: The Journal of Systemic Consultation & Management, 15(1–3), 153–164. Fried Schnitman, D. (2008). Generative inquiry in therapy: From problems to creativity. In T. Sungiman, K. J. Gergen, W. Wagner, & Y. Yamada (Eds.), Meaning in action: Constructions, narratives and representations (pp. 73–95). Tokyo, Japan: Springer. Fried Schnitman, D. (2010). Perspectiva gene­ rativa en la gestión de conflictos sociales [The generative perspective in the management of social conflicts]. Revista de Estudios Sociales, 36, 51–63. Fried Schnitman, D. (2015). Proceso generativo y prácticas dialógicas [The generative process and dialogical practices]. In D. Fried ­Schnitman (Ed.), Diálogos para la transformación: Expe­ ­ riencias en terapia y otras interven­ ciones psicosociales en Iberoamérica  – Volumen 1 [Dialogues for transformation: Experiences in therapy and other psychosocial interventions in Latin America – Volume  1] (pp. 53–81). Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute/WorldShareBooks. Fried Schnitman, D. (2016). Perspectiva e prática generativa [The generative perspective and practice]. Nova Perspectiva Sistêmica, 25(56), 55–75.

Fried Schnitman, D., & Schnitman, J. (2000). La resolución alternativa de conflictos: Un enfoque generativo [Alternative conflict resolution: A generative perspective]. In D. Fried Schnitman (Ed.), Nuevos paradigmas en la resolución de conflictos: Perspectivas y practicas [New paradigms in conflict resolution: Perspectives and practices] (pp. 133–158). Buenos Aires, Argentina: Granica. Gergen, K. J. (2009). Relational being: Beyond self and community. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. McNamee, S. (2015a). Practitioners as people: Dialogic encounters for transformation. Metalogos, 28, 1–25. McNamee S. (2015b). Radical presence: Alternatives to the therapeutic state. European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counseling, 17(4), 373–383. McNamee, S., & Gergen, K. J. (1998). Relational responsibility: Resources for sustainable dialogue. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Morales, E., Torres, P., Solís, S., & Ayala, Z. (2015). Diálogo, performatividad y generatividad en la psicoterapia [Dialogue, performativity and generativity in psychotherapy]. In D. Fried Schnitman (Ed.), Diálogos para la transformación: Experiencias en terapia y otras intervenciones psicosociales en Iberoamérica – Volumen 1 [Dialogues for transformation: Experiences in therapy and other psychosocial interventions in Latin America – Volume 1] (pp. 85–104). Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute/WorldShare Books. Morson, G. S., & Emerson, C. (1990). Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a prosaics. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

15 How Symbolic Witnesses Can Help Counter Dominant Stories and Enrich Communities of Concern Jasmina Sermijn

When clients enter the therapy room, they often feel as if they are enclosed in a world of problems. Fixed problem stories and identities fill the room, obscuring the possible rich and changeable identity stories from view. By searching with their clients for elements that do not concur with the problem stories, narrative therapists try to create room for richer and more preferred stories. During the last couple of decades, a richness of new ideas and maps has emerged and evolved which can help narrative therapists trace preferred stories with their clients and maintain those stories through documenting and retelling stories via definitional ceremonies. In these ceremonies clients are invited to tell and retell their stories for a public of relevant outsider witnesses. Utilizing the social constructionist idea that identity is a relational project, the more that preferred stories are seen and recognized by others and the more these stories are connected in relationships, the greater the chance there is for these

stories to be kept alive and put into daily practice. For clients who become isolated socially and/or emotionally it is often difficult to find ways to re-connect. They may live within impoverished networks where they do not have many contacts to fall back on or they may not make use of the networks they have. In the work with these clients in which finding relevant others who can recognize the preferred stories and who can help them keep these stories alive is difficult, risk exists that new identity stories will live only in the therapeutic space and not in the daily lives and relationships of clients. In this chapter I search for alternative ways to create a public for clients who are isolated. I will introduce the idea of working with symbolic witnesses. As further explained in this chapter, symbolic witnesses offer an alternative for situations in which the invitation of live outsider witnesses seems difficult or impossible. The reader will meet Anna and Vasalisa and will experience (a) how

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symbolic witnesses can help support and maintain preferred self-stories, and (b) how symbolic witnesses can create links between the lives of clients by constructing symbolic communities of concern that provide a counterweight to isolation. By introducing the concept of symbolic witnesses, I hope to make a contribution to the social constructionist practices that de-individualize problems and help clients to connect to that which they find valuable in life and to communities to share these values with. Hi, I am Vasalisa. In this chapter, you will get to know me as a ‘symbolic witness’. Are you not sure what that is? I’m not surprised, because I’m not that well-known. I was created by chance when a therapy client did not have any persons to invite to a session to serve as ‘outsider witnesses’. The term ‘symbolic witness’ refers to the fact that I’m a non-living witness who can be called in to a therapeutic process. My most important assignment is to help clients keep to their preferred stories. Next to that, I try to reconnect clients with others by creating a symbolic community wherein stories can be shared. I’ll tell you more about that later! Continue reading now, as the author of this story, Jasmina, will illustrate several narrative ideas to help you place my identity within the broader terrain of social constructionist, narrative practices. See you soon, Vasalisa

ANNA, THE SEARCH FOR PREFERRED STORIES AND THE IMPORTANCE OF WITNESSES A(nna): I really feel, every minute, how everything in me says: STOP! I can’t go on this way, getting up, being exhausted, to drag myself on as if I’m 150 kilos… To go into the office every day anew, knowing that I won’t be able to complete the work I need to do. I just can’t take it anymore… T(herapist): I hear you say: ‘everything in me says STOP… you can’t take it anymore…’ A: Yes, it needs to stop, this isn’t the life I want to lead… and still there is something that makes me go on (cries). T: SOMETHING makes you go on … can you help me understand what that SOMETHING is?

A: Well, say I would stop tomorrow, how should I explain that? To my boss, my colleagues, mother? Should I tell them I can’t deal with it anymore, that I don’t succeed in working as much as the others do? Everyone in our company works at a 200% level, should I tell them that I fail, that I’m not a real career woman?

This segment of a conversation with the 35-year-old Anna shows how people can get stuck in dominant stories that tell them who they should be, how they should shape their life. Dominant societal ideas around work and professional identity inscribed themselves into Anna’s thinking and feeling, and she gets stuck in what White calls ‘problem saturated stories’ (White, 1995; White and Epston, 1990). Being ‘imprisoned’ in problem saturated stories goes together with negative identity conclusions, feelings of powerlessness and failure. In Anna’s story, it is clearly visible how ‘exhaustion’ and ‘inability to continue’ is considered by herself as her own fault (‘I fail’), which leads to negative identity conclusions (‘I’m not a real career woman’) and feelings of powerlessness (‘I don’t know how to get out of this’). Narrative therapists try to help clients to deconstruct these problem saturated stories and to create space for richer and more preferred stories. They do this by searching from the first session for story elements that the client finds valuable in their life. As most of these elements are not in the foreground, this requires a specific position of listening and questioning by the therapist. The therapist opens their eyes and ears, poses questions at internalized discourses, hunts for exceptions and values, and tries to connect these together into richer story lines. T: You say you’re not a ‘real career woman’, can you explain what signifies a ‘real career woman’ to you? A: That you put in 200% effort, that your work is your priority, that you only want to improve. My work is my life, I have done nothing else. My career has always been the priority.

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T: Tell me if I’m wrong, but based on this description, it seems to me that you sound like a proper career woman? A: Yes, I guess so… T: Could it be that you’re actually wondering if you want to be this ‘real career woman’? A: Yes, that’s the real question, I do what I have to do, what is expected of me, but this does not make me happy… (cries). T: The fact that you feel unhappy seems to be saying something about your desire for more happiness. What are the moments in which you do feel happy? A: Last Sunday the sun was shining, and I thought, today I’m not going to open my computer. I went to the baker’s, I met my neighbors there, we chatted together and once home I made a nice breakfast for myself. T: Sun, no computer, to go to the bakery, meet with the neighbors, and chat. What does that tell you about what makes you happy? A: The little things in life, the contact with other people, I want more of those things in my life…

The dominant story of the ‘real career woman’ is questioned and together with the therapist, Anna is able to re-position herself towards internalized dominant societal discourses. By doing that, space is created to explore alternative stories that connect better to the way Anna wants to lead her life. For example, when Anna says ‘it does not make me happy’, she refers implicitly to the fact that she does have an idea of what makes her happy. Her description of ‘last Sunday’ sheds light on those moments in which more desired stories were already present and this offers connections to bring out stories that have been hidden away by the problem. But how can we make sure that once the space for richer self-stories is created, the problem story will not take root again? How can we help clients to hold the ‘storiesthey-want-to-live’? In both collaborative and narrative literature there are several indicators that can help us work with these questions. For example Anderson (2012; Anderson and Jensen, 2007) describes the importance of inviting as many different voices as possible into the therapy

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room. The polyphony of voices (see also Gergen, 1996; Sermijn and Gergen, 2017) can act as a counterweight against the risk of falling back into a monological truth or dominant story, and it creates a multiverse of possible meanings. White and colleagues (e.g., White 1999) describe the power of inviting outsider witnesses inside the therapy room. Outsiders can be helpful in recognizing preferred self-stories and the continuous enriching of possible identities. The basic idea is that people are ‘relationally constructed beings’ (Anderson, 2012; Combs and Freedman, 2016; Gergen, 2009; McNamee and Gergen, 1999); self-stories/identities are continuously co-­constructed within interactions with others (Meyerhoff, 2007). In this way, the creation of self-stories can be viewed as a ‘relational practice’ (Weingarten, 2013) as opposed to an individual matter. This also means that the more the preferred self-stories are seen and recognized by others, the more chance there is that clients can keep these stories alive and transform them into everyday practice. However, in some contexts it is neither obvious nor possible to invite outsiders. Working with outsiders requires the uprooting of several dominant societal stories connected to ‘therapy’ (e.g., confidentiality, secrecy) (see also Sermijn and Gergen, 2017). Sometimes clients prefer not to challenge these ideas and to maintain the protective walls of the therapy room. There are some clients who are willing to break open these walls, but their social network is quite limited to draw upon. For example, the social network of Anna mainly consists of her mother and a few colleagues. The conversation in which the therapist explores the relationships between Anna and her mother and Anna and her colleagues, shows that none of them can be invited as external witnesses at that point in time. Anna: My mother? No! She doesn’t understand it. I see her maybe three times a year and if I tell something about my feelings, she’s always got an answer that is not helpful. Next to that, I don’t have any other family

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and friends, I never had ‘real friends’ (crying) … Colleagues, well, that is impossible. We are a small company, ‘each for himself’ is the main rule. To talk to my colleagues about my struggles is really not safe at the moment. It could cost me my job. The only one I really talk to about it is you.

The client’s rich self-stories will be brought to life through the eyes of the therapist, with the risk of the latter becoming too central. This situation is what collaborative and narrative therapists wish to avoid; they try to decentralize the therapist and to reconnect clients with a multitude of relational contexts that help them shape and live the stories they wish to live. But how can we do that in situations in which people do not have many contacts to fall back on? How can the therapist avoid becoming the central witness in the life of clients?

INVITING SYMBOLIC WITNESSES: THE BIRTH OF VASALISA A: Last time, I really intended to keep to my preferences, to stick to the things that I find important in life, but as soon as I leave here, I lose it. I should be able to put you in my inside pocket (laughs). T: What difference would that make? A: When I’m here with you, I know and feel what I want. If you were in my inside pocket, you would do what you do here. You’d say, ‘Wait a minute Anna, what you’re deciding now, is that connected to what you want, or is it because you think that you have to…’ T: Do I understand correctly that you need a voice that invites you every now and then to take a moment and think about the choices that you make, about the things that you do and especially with what you really want? A: Yes, otherwise I’m just doing what I think is expected of me. Once in the rat race, I don’t even think about what I want anymore. T: I suddenly am thinking about the story of Vasalisa the Wise (Estès, 1992), do you know it? A: Never heard of it. T: The story is about a little girl who gets a puppet from her dying mother. The mother says that she should hold the puppet

whenever she is afraid or she has lost her way. The puppet will then guide her. The puppet in the story is symbolic for the girl’s own strength and voice.

The story of Vasalisa opened a creative entryway within this conversation, a portal to think about how Anna could keep alive the stories she wishes to live outside of the therapy room. As an analogy to the story, a small Matryoshka doll was introduced that was given the name Vasalisa, who became a symbolic witness present during the sessions with the specific assignment to help Anna keep to her preferred voices, choices, and stories in everyday life. A: I kept her close. She even slept beside me and she really helped me. T: It’s so good to hear that you have become such a good team! Would it be okay if we let Vasalisa talk, so she can tell us what she has noticed? Can you please take Vasalisa’s position and tell us from her perspective what she’s noticed? How did she notice that you tried to keep to your wish to take a break from your work to consider what it is that you want? A: I find it a bit strange, but OK, let’s try it… V(asalisa): The first thing I think about is the moment that Anna told her mother to stop deciding for her what is good for her. I was in her pocket when her mother told her it was time to go back to work. She held me tight and said calmly, ‘Mom, I know how you think about it, but I want to ask you to stop giving me advice, because it does not help me. I will not go back to work at this moment because I need a break.’

The segment above shows how Anna – with the help of Vasalisa – succeeds in keeping to the preferred self-stories outside of the therapy room. Besides that it shows also how explicitly inviting Vasalisa’s voice inside the therapy room de-centralizes the voice of the therapist. By taking Vasalisa’s position and speaking from her perspective, Anna alerts herself to preferred voices and self-stories and acknowledges the actions she took to keep alive the desired stories. This idea connects to Karl Tomm’s (1987, 1989) ‘internalized other interviewing’ as

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well as to Anderson and Jensen’s (2007) experiments with ‘as if listening and reflecting’. In both methods clients are invited to listen and speak from specific inner voices ‘as if’ they were that voice. The client moves to taking a first person position as ‘the other’ speaking from an ‘I’ position and back to a third person position once more, speaking about the person. In this way a client is both an insider as well as an outsider to his/her own story. In their recent work about ‘insider witness practices’ Carlson and Epston (2017) highlight the importance of being both an insider and an outsider to one’s own life. When we only live ‘inside’ our stories we experience ourselves not as authors but as characters of ‘an already finalized script’ (Morson, 1994, 89) who have a limited capacity for freedom and agency beyond the freedom and agency that is already afforded us by the author of the story. (p. 23)

By bringing Vasalisa in as a symbolic witness and personator of the preferred inner voices of Anna, and by inviting Anna to listen and speak from the position of Vasalisa, Anna is able to move back and forth between an insider’s and an outsider’s position. In this way Anna is not only a main character in which she dwells but also an author with ‘the authorial agency’ (Morson as cited in Carlson and Epston, 2017, p. 23) to give direction and meaning to the events that take place in her life story.

narrative therapists (e.g., Epston and White, 1992; White, 1995; White and Epston, 1990) indicate the importance of documenting these stories. Written documents support the memory because ‘they endure through time and space, bearing witness to the work of therapy and immortalizing it’ (Freeman et  al., 1997, p. 112). Even though narrative documenting mainly refers to documenting through therapeutic letters, the idea can be extended to all written documents (e.g., Fox, 2003; Newman, 2008). Regardless of the shape of the document, the goal is always to locally capture preferred stories and actions. Anna chooses a digital diary in which she records each action she takes in her preferred direction. Each action is named and described from both the voice of Anna and the voice of Vasalisa. Here is a section out of her diary. Action: took a train to work. Had a conversation with my boss about what I’d like to see changed. Vasalisa was in my pocket, held her tight. Anna: ‘I exercised in making public what I find important in life: work + time to do other things (enjoying free time, contact with others, sport, …). I experienced this as really difficult. At a certain moment I felt caught again in the dominant expectations of the career woman.’

Hi, here I am again. So, in the meantime, did you get an idea of who I am? Can you see how I invite clients to take an outsider’s position to their own lives and problems and how this helps them to re-author and enrich their stories? How I help them to become authors of their own life-narratives? Could you take something from it? Great! Don’t be too quick though; the following part will show you that I am also a good story archivist. Catch you later. Vasalisa

DOCUMENTING: HOW VASALISA HELPS TO CAPTURE PREFERRED STORIES AND ACTIONS In the search for how therapists can help clients to keep alive their preferred life stories,

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Figure 15.1  Anna’s diary

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Vasalisa: ‘Anna persevered. Regardless of the stress, she took the train, entered the office and went to her boss. At first, she was placid, but in the end she said very clearly, “No, I will not start working full time again, because I want to have time for other things that I find important.” You could see from the boss’s face that he didn’t expect that. He tried to convince Anna, but she stayed clear and that helped him to accept what she said and to think about it.’

From an ‘as if’ position Anna was able to look at and reflect on her own life experiences, allowing her to leave the perspective of ‘Anna as the already finalized character’ (Morson, 1994, p. 89) in her own life story. While Annaas-Anna was caught in the problem story, Anna-as-Vasalisa was able to focus on her preferred ways of living. By this documenting of preferred actions and voices, a kind of open archive was created that could continue to grow. The archive becomes a counter-balance against forgetting preferred stories or being overshadowed by dominant stories. This documenting also invites clients to go into an ongoing conversation with the written in which they can re-position themselves continually to their preferred stories and desires. Hi, What do you think of my archivist qualities? Do they inspire you to become also a kind of archivist? Great! You say you have still some questions? You tell me that the story you just read makes clear how symbolic witnesses are helpful in re-connecting clients to their preferred ways of living, but not to other people? You are wondering how I am able to create links between the lives of clients, links which help to go against isolation and solitude? OK, let us research this wonderment and continue our story. In the next part you will learn more about my ability to create symbolic communities of concern in which people who became isolated are reconnected with others. Vasalisa

VASALISA AS A RE-CONNECTING FACTOR: LINKING LIVES AND CO-CREATING SYMBOLIC COMMUNITIES OF CONCERN The above experiences with Anna made sure that Vasalisa became a resident within our

therapy center who is regularly invited as a symbolic witness in conversations with clients. One of her strengths is to change her shape from Matryoshka to finger puppet to a stone or even a self-fabricated necklace. She takes the shape that clients want her to have, yet her role is the same. She helps clients to connect with their preferred ways of living and to keep to the stories-they-want-to-live outside of the therapy walls. In time she became an important guest in the lives of several clients, and she built up a résumé that is shared among clients at our therapy center.

Segments from Vasalisa’s Résumé Name: Vasalisa; Nicknames: Senata, Matryoshka, Puppet, Coach, … Sex & shape: Changeable Lives in: Resident at Hestia – Centre for Systemic Therapy – but likes to travel Studies: School of Life

Some References of Hosts:

Anna: Vasalisa is a great life companion. The last year she stood at my side to fight against all the societal ideas that are connected with being a ‘real career woman’. She helps me to hold on to what I want, mostly in situations in which I feel I get overwhelmed by other people’s expectations. Each time I take a step forward in the direction I want to take, I document it by taking a picture and Vasalisa is always there as a witness. Together we created a digital diary with preferred stories and pictures. When it really gets tough, I look at those pictures and it gives me courage to go on. Nel: Yes Anna, you’re right. Vasalisa really helps you to hold on what you want. I replaced the puppet by a necklace I made myself. I made a necklace with a paperclip. That paperclip is a symbol for what I wish to maintain: for myself to speak up to others, in a clear way, especially in those moments I feel I’m losing my voice. Patrick: For me, as a man, a necklace or puppet were not done. I have chosen a stone. I still take it with me, I have carried it in my pocket for about a year and a half… I take it with me to meetings I have to facilitate or when I have to speak in front of an audience. The stone helps me to contradict the voice that thinks I won’t be able to do it and it helps me to reflect on my own actions.

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Through her involvement with many people, Vasalisa succeeds in breaking down the walls between the therapy room and the outside world, and the walls between clients. She weaves invisible threads of connection by means of which a symbolic ‘community of concern’ (Madigan and Epston, 1995) is cocreated in which clients’ local knowledges around countering specific problems can circulate. With each new acquaintance between a client and Vasalisa, the therapist gives the client Vasalisa’s résumé as a gift through which experiences can be shared. It is in this way that clients are invited to become symbolic witnesses in each other’s lives. In an implicit way they acknowledge each other’s preferred self-stories and this enriches their previously impoverished networks. Reading how others have worked with Vasalisa as a witness often has an inspirational effect and it creates a feeling of connection with others, especially around those aspects that people find important. For example, Nel’s idea to replace the puppet with a paperclip necklace was taken up by a different client: ‘That’s a great idea, that paperclip! I lost my puppet twice already. Thanks for the hint, Nel’! (Amelie) Through exchanging the résumé, clients request to get into contact with each other with the goal of sharing their experiences about certain topics or struggles. If both parties agree, we look at how this exchange can happen. Hilde, a 42-year-old woman, also searches for ways to counteract the forceful power of the dominant story of ‘the career woman’. While reading Vasalisa’s résumé she got curious about Anna’s story and asked the therapist if it is possible to contact Anna and to share experiences. The therapist informed Anna about this question and after discussing several possibilities, Anna chose to invite Hilde (through the therapist as an intermediary) to start an e-mail conversation about her experiences with Vasalisa. This is what Hilde thinks about this e-mail conversation: ‘I kind of found it exciting.

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After all, you are mailing with someone you don’t know. Anna was clear in that she only wanted to share her experiences with Vasalisa, and that felt right to me. We’ve emailed a few times with each other, and the exchange has inspired me. It was helpful to see how others struggle with similar themes and how they cope with that.’

To be Continued From the contact between Anna and Hilde, the idea to create a ‘digital community of concern’ grew, expanding it by opening it up to other people who are interested. Anna, who is comfortable in the digital world, started a secure webpage where other clients (through their therapist) can get access to post their experiences. At the moment, there are approximately 10 clients who also have connected in this way. In addition, there are a couple of people from the clients’ networks who also have access. The website offers an archive in which ‘client wisdoms’ (Epston, 2001) or insider knowledge of those who consult therapists are acknowledged and can circulate outside the closed therapy room. The archive contains fragments of the résumé of Vasalisa – letters, pictures, and artwork that highlight rich alternative stories to the dominant discourses around the career woman. Via this webpage, a symbolic community of concern was co-created in which clients share information with each other and support each other. The lives of clients are linked, problems are de-personified and placed back into the realm of culture and society. Anna comments on the website: ‘At the start we didn’t know how this experiment would evolve. But now, a few months later, I see the power of it. Each time the therapist sends me an e-mail with the message that she met someone who is interested in the webpage I feel a leap of joy, because I know how important it is to have the opportunity to share experiences and to know that what you

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wrestle with is not only a personal thing but a struggle against troublesome and sometimes oppressive societal structures and ideas. This understanding and sharing of ideas provides us with the strength to hold on to those aspects in life that we find really valuable. And these exchanges with other people draw a thread that helps me feel less alone.’ Hi, I suspect that by now you have gained some insight into who I am and how I can contribute to therapy as a symbolic witness. Should you still have questions, or if you wish to use my expertise, know that you can always invite me as a guest by sending an e-mail to: therapiecentrumhestia@ gmail.com Bye, Vasalisa

REFERENCES Anderson, H. (2012). Collaborative relationships and dialogic conversations: Ideas for a relationally responsive practice. Family Process, 51, 8–24. Anderson, H., & Jensen, P. (2007). Innovations in the reflecting process: The inspirations of Tom Andersen. London, UK: Karnac Books. Carlson, T., & Epston, D. (2017). Insider witnessing practices: Performing hope and beauty in narrative therapy: Part two. Journal of Narrative Family Therapy: Ideas and Practices in the Making, Release 1, 19–38. Available at: http://www.journalnft.com/uploads/9/4/4/5/94454805/ jnft_2017_full_release.pdf Combs, G., & Freedman, J. (2016). Narrative therapy’s relational understanding of Identity. Family Process, 55(2), 211–224. Epston, D. (2001). Anthropology, archives, coresearch and narrative therapy. In D. Denborough (Ed.), Family therapy: Exploring the field’s past, present and possible futures (pp. 177–182). Adelaide, South Australia: Dulwich Centre. Epston, D., & White, M. (1992). Consulting your consultants: The documentation of alternative knowledges. In D. Epston & M. White (Eds.), Experience, contradiction, narrative and imagination: Selected papers

of David Epston and Michael White, 1989– 1991 (pp. 11–26). Adelaide, South Australia: Dulwich Centre. Estés, C. P. (1992). Women who run with the wolves: Myths and stories of the wild women archetype. New York, NY: Ballantine. Fox, H. (2003). Using therapeutic documents: A review. The International Journal of Narrative Therapy & Community Work, 4, 26–36. Freeman, J., Epston, D., & Lobovits, D. (1997). Playful approaches to serious problems: Narrative therapy with children and their families. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. Gergen, K. (1996). Metaphor and monophony in the twentieth-century psychology of emotions. In C. Graumann & K. J. Gergen (Eds.), Historical dimensions of psychological discourse (pp. 60–82). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Gergen, K. (2009). Relational being, beyond self and community. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Madigan, S., & Epston, D. (1995). From ‘spychiatric’ gaze to communities of concern: From professional monologue to dialogue. In S. Friedman (Ed.), The reflecting team in action: Collaborative practice in family therapy (pp. 257–276). New York, NY: Guilford. McNamee, S., & Gergen, K. J. (1999). Relational responsibility: Resources for sustainable dialogue. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Meyerhoff, B. (2007). Telling one’s story. In M. Kaminsky & M. Weiss (Eds.), Stories as equipment for living: Last talks and tales of Barbara Meyerhoff (pp. 28–59). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan. Morson, G. S. (1994). Narrative and freedom: The shadows of time. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Newman, D. (2008). Rescuing the said from the saying of it. Living documentation in narrative therapy. International Journal of Narrative Therapy & Community Work, 3, 24–43. Sermijn, J., & Gergen, K. (2017). Spread the wings of your therapeutic potential: A reflective process with Ken Gergen. International Journal of Collaborative Dialogical Practice, 8(1), 57–68. Tomm, K. (1987). Interventive interviewing: Part II. Reflexive questioning as a means

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to enable self-healing. Family Process, 26(2), 167–183. doi:10.1111/j.1545-5300. 1987.00167.x Tomm, K. (1989). Externalizing the problem and internalizing personal agency. The Journal of Strategic and Systemic Therapies, 8(1), 54–59. doi:10.1521/jsst.1989.8.1.54 Weingarten, K. (2013). The ‘cruel radiance of what is’: Helping couples live with chronic illness. Family Process, 52(1), 83–101.

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White, M. (1995). Re-authoring lives: Interviews and essays. Adelaide, South Australia: Dulwich Centre. White, M. (1999). Reflecting teamwork as definitional ceremony revisited. Gecko: A Journal of Deconstruction and Narrative Ideas in Therapeutic Practice, 1, 55–82. White, M., & Epston, D. (1990). Narrative means to therapeutic ends. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.

16 Contributions of Social Constructionism to Group Work E m e r s o n F. R a s e r a a n d C a r l a G u a n a e s - L o r e n z i

As can be seen throughout this Handbook, social constructionism can be found in different fields of professional practice and presents varied characteristics. From seeking alternatives to empiricist, representational, and essentialist perspectives on knowledge in the human and social sciences, professionals found in this epistemological and practical discourse the justification and inspiration for the creation of different ways of working. They did not develop an application for the theory, as if social constructionism required a certain form of practice, but took this discourse as a way of explaining and supporting what they did. More than this, they accepted the invitation to consider social constructionism in action and created useful ways of caring for people. Just as social constructionist discourses are multiple, so too, are the practices that can be identified with them. There are both authors who define themselves as constructionists, and practices that bear a productive resemblance to the constructionist concerns,

emphases, and concepts, although they are not defined this way. Similarly, there are many well-developed approaches, as well as situational interventions or specific ideas that constitute a heterogeneous set of contributions to professional practices. This is what Gergen and Ness (2016) analyze in describing how different practices put different constructionist sensibilities into action. As examples, the authors point out that the emphasis on action is a specific dimension worked out by Holzman’s social therapy (Holzman and Mendez, 2003), while the polyvocal emphasis is a specific dimension of Andersen’s reflecting teams (Andersen, 1991). Thus, although these authors do not name themselves as constructionists, the practices they develop constitute creative ways of putting constructionist emphases into practice. In spite of this diversity, in the context of the care professions, Gergen and Ness (2016) point out that social constructionism favors a series of shifts in the therapeutic orientation towards flexibility, and awareness of

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the construction, collaboration, and sensitivity to values, which promote certain forms of practice that emphasize the production of meaning in relationships, the relational network, multiple perspectives, potentiality, and pragmatic effects. The description of these characteristics does not serve to classify true constructionist practices; however, it functions as a beacon that illuminates and facilitates navigation through a varied set of possibilities. In the field of group work, specifically, constructionism is also present. We can comprehend this presence in two ways: either by explaining the social construction of the group or by proposing different ways of performing the group as a social construction (Rasera and Japur, 2018). On one hand, social constructionism invites us to review the historical development of the ways of defining the group. This task shows how the group as a therapeutic practice was created in different ways by authors and professionals linked to different theoretical orientations. Each of these ways responds to specific social needs and produces a certain group ontology with particular forms of functioning (DeLucia-Waack et al., 2013; Guanaes-Lorenzi, 2017). We can understand how different social and historical contexts contribute to different understandings of group processes. As examples, we can reflect on how the post-war context contributed to Lewin’s concerns about the influence of the group on the development of individuals, with an emphasis on how authority and leadership relations dynamics are developed inside groups (Lewin, 1997). Or we can reflect on how particularities of the Latin American historical and social context influenced the emergence of communitarian and political perspectives on group work (Martin-Baró, 1989). To review the historical process in which diferent group theories emerge allow us to reconsider the idea of the group as a taken-for-granted entity, and to consider how different discourses emerged at different times, institutionalizing the group and sustaining particular modes of practice.

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On the other hand, the social constructionist discourse produced specific ways of facilitating the group. Thus, the constructionist vocabulary present in the field of psychotherapy, especially that of family therapy, produced resources that were also used in group work. Accordingly, we can find uses of narrative therapy (Hill, 2011; Laube, 1998; Monk et al., 2005), of the collaborative approach (Becvar et al., 1997; Grandesso, 2015), of solution-focused therapy (Kvarme et al., 2013; Sharry, 2001), or of reflecting processes (Chen and Noosbond, 1999; Cox et al., 2003) in the field of group work.1 In general, this way of working did not produce ontological questioning nor re-description about what the group is. However, in addition to the use of certain resources already present in other therapeutic proposals, the constructionist discourse also allowed a re-description of what constitutes the group and its form of organization. Therefore, the group can be defined as a discursive practice, a way of creating realities through language, that produces certain forms of relationship among its members. It may be an invitation to reflect on a participant’s life story and to understand it differently through a careful conversational interchange based on a sense of confidentiality. In a different way, the group may be an opportunity for the participants to learn recent developments about the health situation they face, through instructions and orientations of the group therapist, and an encouragement to act as a peer educator within their community. So group work has different meanings depending where, why, how, and who is involved. The idea of the group as a discursive practice emphasizes how group work is characterized by the negotiation of a group contract that delimits some forms of organization and possibilities of interaction, by a view of the problem and change as being constructed in language, by the understanding of the therapist’s practice as a conversational partnership, and by the ethical-political analysis of its way of functioning (Rasera and Japur,

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2018). That is, to conceive the group as a discursive practice means shifting attention to how we produce the group in the process of social interchange. This is what we intend to show in this chapter. Considering the multiplicity of the constructionist discourse and its different practical inspirations, the aim of this chapter is to describe the contributions of social constructionism to group work in the therapeutic context. This analysis will be based on four points: (a) the focus on language and the meaning-making process; (b) the valorization of collaborative, dialogical, and reflexive stances in the organization of the conversation; (c) the analysis of the identity implication of the group process; and (d) an ethical-political concern about group work. These points can be understood as dimensions of group work, with it being possible to analyze the same group therapeutic practice from each of them. Furthermore, from a theoretical-methodological perspective, they are completely interrelated, their distinction being a didactic resource aimed at the reflection on the constitution of the group work guided by the social constructionist discourses. The selection of these points responds to an attempt to highlight a certain field of constructionist group work without enclosing it in a single definition of a ‘therapeutic model’. Here we present each of these points and some characteristic illustrations. These points were selected based on both the central assumptions of social constructionism (Gergen and Ness, 2016), and on our own previous experience in articulating such notions to group practice (Guanaes, 2006; Rasera and Japur, 2018).

THE FOCUS ON LANGUAGE AND THE MEANING-MAKING PROCESS The social constructionist discourse in the field of therapy values the meaning-making process and a view of language as action.

Therefore, the goal of the therapy is not focused on changing behaviors, ways of perceiving and thinking, or specific attitudes. The proposal is to create dialogic conditions for the creation of preferable meanings for those involved in the therapeutic process. In other words, the proposal is to create conditions for the construction of alternative narratives for the people involved in the therapeutic process, which can relationally sustain new ways of life. This is done by recognizing that language is not innocent (Andersen, 1991). To transform meanings is to transform identities and practices. The constructionist view of language emphasizes its constructed and constructive aspect, that is, it recognizes a historical and social dimension of the vocabularies used by people, as well as the performative power of the use of language, through which activities are developed and realities and relationships constructed (Gergen, 1994, 2009). In the field of group work, the attention to language is present both in the definition of the problem and in the therapeutic change. Accordingly, in relation to the definition of the problem, there is no a priori description established by the expert knowledge of the therapist, however, it may have different versions depending on how the participant is involved in the situation. The definition of a problem is relationally co-constructed. This process of definition and review of the problem is facilitated in group work because of the exploration of different perspectives regarding the problem according to each of the participants, which combats a naturalized view about its cause and origin, as well as its continuity independent of the meanings constructed by the people. In a group, one participant’s view of the problem, for example, grief, illness, or marital separation, comes across another participant’s view of the problem, facilitating the perception that there are different ways of understanding and therefore different ways of facing a supposed common problem. Participants enrich the dialogue with themselves by listening to

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others, holding their views less tightly and opening themselves to new possibilities. Group work illustrative of the construction of the problem in language is presented by Quintas (2013). In describing the group work developed with chronically mentally ill people in the outpatient setting of a psychiatric hospital, the author discusses how the labels and diagnoses that define the problems experienced by the participants limit their life experience. She presents how group members actively talk about psychiatric labels, questioning and demystifying them. In a collaborative and dialogical group conversation, she shows how the description of a problem depended not only on the expert diagnosis, but on how it was constructed and reviewed in the negotiations between the participants about their different ways of life. The author discusses how attention to the use of language becomes a significant daily practice performed by the therapist and by the participants in constructing the group reality and that of the participants’ own lives. In relation to therapeutic change, this occurs through the changes in meanings. Depending on the therapeutic approach used, these processes are understood from different concepts such as dialogue, authorship, and narrative, among others. McCune (2010) facilitated a therapeutic group called ‘Recognizing Resilience’ with parents of young people involved in the use of alcohol and other drugs. Through collaborative practices, over six sessions, she pointed out how parents could revise their narratives saturated by the problem regarding the parenting of young people involved in substance use. Through group conversations, in which parents felt heard and safe, they were able to realize that ‘it could be worse’ (McCune, 2010, p. 98), there is ‘more than one explanation’ (McCune, 2010, p. 98), looking at what ‘they have been through and how to keep going’ (McCune, 2010, p. 101), among many other issues. Consequently, ‘parent participants released the tensions provoked by negative descriptions of uncertainty and

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not-knowing, and by practicing acceptance and re-authoring hopefulness, parents became free to experience uncertainty of the ups and downs as an experiential process’ (McCune, 2010, p. 104). It is not a matter of directly changing the behavior of young people in relation to substance use, but of producing new meanings that can then generate feelings of acceptance and hope that change the way their families live. Similarly, in a group with people experiencing processes of marital separation, carried out over 11 weeks, and guided by the contributions of social constructionism and narrative practices, Jiménez and Ruíz (2015) analyzed narratives at the beginning and end of the group therapy and reported how the participants were able to broaden these narratives by reviewing the complaint that motivated the therapy, resignifying past experiences, and constructing future potentials beyond the problem. According to the authors, group members were able to review shared social discourses related to marital relationships that made them suffer, and thus generated new meanings on being alone, on the right and pleasure of taking care of oneself and on learning from past mistakes in ‘a narrative that involved co-responsibility, argumentation, a feeling of liberation and even enjoyment’ (Jiménez and Ruíz, 2015, p. 85). As in the work of McCune (2010), therapeutic change is defined by the narrative transformations facilitated through the group conversations. These three illustrations of group work that focus on the use of language highlight how meanings are produced relationally through micro- and macro-social processes and describe how the groups allow a review of the social discourses used for making sense of an experience, connecting the process of problem definition to that of therapeutic change. In addition to defining the problem and the construction of therapeutic change, language is also the privileged means of action of the therapist. The use of language gives support to the development of therapeutic postures that lead to group change, as presented below.

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THE VALORIZATION OF COLLABORATIVE, DIALOGICAL, AND REFLECTING POSITIONS IN THE ORGANIZATION OF THE CONVERSATION From a social constructionist stance, therapeutic work with groups involves investment in the construction of a specific interactive space which enables the people to engage in a joint action of production and negotiation of meanings (Shotter, 2008). The facilitator has to invest in creating a good atmosphere so that dialogical communication between the participants of the group can take place. As in other domains, the practice of the group therapist has benefited from the incorporation of social constructionist assumptions, with emphasis on the contributions of collaborative, reflective, and narrative practices. Applied to group work, in different contexts these ideas have allowed the development of creative actions, committed to the legitimation of differences, with greater democratization of the voices present and presented in the dialogue, including that of the therapist. This commitment, in our view, is compatible with positions historically present in the group work, especially those sensitive to the importance of the group as a mechanism for producing greater interchange among people, reducing social isolation, and constructing networks of solidarity and empowerment. From collaborative practices we highlight as a special contribution the emphasis given to the dialogical process, which results in at least two orientations for practice. The first refers to the therapist’s participation in the dialogue, being sensitive to how meanings are produced in the joint action. This orientation allows the group therapist to act as a conversational partner, rather than a specialist (Anderson, 1997). The second refers to the therapist orientation to the ongoing interaction, in order to relationally produce responsive understandings (Shotter, 2010).

This emphasis allows both the group therapist and the participants to talk with people, and not about them (Anderson, 2012). These two contributions are relevant because they enable the group therapist to break away from the ‘technicism’ present in the field of group work, which is sometimes present due to the premature or inadvertent use of group dynamic techniques. It also avoids the therapist’s ‘specialism’, which leads him/her to insufficiently reflect on how much the theories themselves engender certain forms of relationship and dialogue within the group. Alternatively, a collaboratively oriented group therapist is attentive to the progress of the conversation, focusing on the quality of the interactions established among the participants, including him/herself. In this way, the group therapist is able to reflect both on what is said, and on the form of the ongoing conversation and effects of what is said on it. This type of posture illustrates the analysis developed by Guanaes (2006). In a study of a support group in the context of mental health, the author explored the types of interaction among participants, situating dialogue as a quality of the therapeutic communication. Thus, the author states that ‘the therapeutic nature of the group constitutes a construction that is possible or not in the interactive moment itself’ (p. 91) and depends on the quality of the dialogical exchanges established among its participants. In addition to this broad orientation for the developing dialogue, we consider it particularly important for the work of group facilitation to adopt a reflecting position, sensitive to the importance of legitimizing and exploring the diversity of voices present in a dialogue. For the professional, it is necessary to invest in the construction of good circumstances so that these voices can not only appear, but, as they intertwine, allow new orders of meaning. One way to promote reflecting processes is through the use of reflecting teams, in which professionals join the therapeutic system, under certain

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conditions, to offer reflections and contribute to new paths in the therapeutic conversation (Andersen, 1991). As a proposal to use reflecting teams in group therapy, Chen and Noosbond (1999) described a set of guidelines on how and when to use them. The authors present productive methods of using language to promote reflection and practical procedures for the use of reflecting teams. They consider the use of reflecting teams to be especially useful at times when the group process seems stagnant. For example, in situations of high tension between group members, when a productive dialogue is not possible, the coordinator may invite the reflecting team to participate in the conversational process. Through the participation of reflecting teams, it is possible to stimulate the analysis of the group process and to help the group in its conversational dilemmas.

THE ANALYSIS OF THE IDENTITY IMPLICATION OF THE GROUP PROCESS An important contribution of social constructionist ideas refers to the problematization of the essentialist and individualist tradition of comprehension of the self, placing personality and its redefinition as a relational enterprise (Gergen, 2009). Thus, understanding how people relationally produce certain selfdescriptions is an important action for the group facilitator, who can direct his/her attention to which personal descriptions are legitimized or questioned in the group interactions. Next, we offer some examples of how this happens. An analysis of how actions developed in the group context itself contribute to the construction of certain identity narratives for the participants was developed by Peretti et  al. (2013). Analyzing transcripts of group therapy sessions conducted at a public mental health outpatient clinic, the

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authors observed that, typically, conversations in which the participants related their emotional difficulties to social issues were poorly explored in the group context. For instance, the moments in which the group participants argue that their problems (e.g., anxiety) were related to social issues (such as living in violent environments, or having a lack of opportunities due to few public policies towards poverty or education) were not explored in depth. On the contrary, the therapist would privilege investigating the subjective or emotional causes of the problem. This kind of discursive choice of the therapist would result in conversations among the group participants in which they reflect on their own responsibility in the maintenance of the problem. Based on a critical view of the individualist tradition, the authors discussed the effects that this type of action generates for the participants (who are described as people who do not have enough resources to face the adversities of life) and for the group itself (which cannot be constructed as a context for reflection and construction of citizenship). In addition, we consider the contributions of positioning theory, which allows the self to be comprehended as a discursive and relational achievement (Harré and van Langenhove, 1999), as particularly useful for working with groups. Positioning theory has been used in various contexts as a resource for understanding the dynamics of social episodes. The position concept guarantees the comprehension of the dynamism involved in the construction of the self, from the ways in which individuals relationally assume and attribute to others certain positions in the use of language. In working with groups, understanding how certain positions are negotiated and legitimized in group relationships constitutes a useful resource for analyzing how certain moral orders are sustained among the participants, supporting certain conversational realities. In the last example, for instance, the storyline that emotional difficulties are individual (e.g., located inside

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people), allows the therapist to describe the participants ‘as people who have difficulties managing stressful situations’ (position). Thus, helping them to understand their emotions was considered by the group therapist as the only possible therapeutic action. However, Peretti et al. (2013) point out other conversational possibilities. What if these same participants were positioned as activists, fighting for having their rights as citizens respected? The work of Rapizo (2015) exemplifies how the intentional exploration of different positionings in the configuration of group processes can function as a therapeutic resource. Recognizing that experiences with divorce are still experienced in isolation in our society, the author assembled mothers, fathers, and children from different families involved in divorce proceedings in the same group, in order to encourage the exchange of experiences. According to the author, unlike the homogeneity proposed in the literature, the exploration of the different discursive positions in the group, that is, those differently occupied by mothers, fathers, and children, potentialized the exchanges between the participants, allowing new experiences in relation to divorce to be explored through group conversations.

AN ETHICAL-POLITICAL CONCERN ABOUT GROUP WORK This emphasis of constructionist group work refers to the consideration of the ethical and political effects stemming from the objectives and ways of organizing the group. It surpasses the prescriptive ethics of the codes of professional conduct, consisting of a form of relational responsibility in action (McNamee and Gergen, 1999) that goes beyond the care of the person, potentializing the collective action and the transformation in the ways of understanding the self and social life.

This ethical-political concern can be noted in three different ways. First, the negotiation of goals and the way of organizing the group can be re-described. Typically, from a biomedical perspective, professionals assume a specialist position and are responsible for the group’s composition, the definition of its objective, and the group’s functioning structure. However, from a constructionist perspective, these processes can be negotiated with the group participants, from a collaborative and co-responsible posture. In relation to the short-term support groups developed by Rasera and Japur (2018), the authors discuss how the group composition process can be negotiated with the participants. Accordingly, in a stage of preparation for the group, with individual interviews between therapist and patient, the participants are described to each other regarding demographic characteristics and general motivation for therapy, allowing participants to imagine the group composition but avoiding confidentiality issues. At the same time, the therapist investigates the meanings produced regarding possibilities and challenges imagined for the group interaction. Usually, these conversations do not conclude in favor of one participant over another but allow the recognition of possible interactional difficulties and an opportunity to address them. These difficulties may be due to different ways of life and, consequently, motivations for therapy. Talking about them in preparatory interviews assists clients in the process of openness and curiosity about each other, facilitating group conversations. This type of practice, on one hand, promotes the engagement of all the participants with the group work potentializing its effects, while on the other, questions traditional prescriptions about the group composition and seeks to democratize decisions that are traditionally performed exclusively by the therapist. Second, the encouragement of participants’ self-organization is another feature valued in social constructionist perspectives to group work. Therapeutic group work related to the

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constructionist discourse often contributes to the participants developing actions beyond the internal composition of the group. These range from the continuity and expansion of mutual care among the participants beyond the group session to the development of social movements and organizations that aim for the transformation of society. It is a questioning of an alleged distinction within/outside the group and the affirmation of the multiplicity of the self and of the political character of the group work. The examples presented next can illustrate this practical dimension. Working with a group of people diagnosed with mental disorders Villares (2015) and Villares and Pimentel (2015) describe how the ABRE (Brazilian Association of Relatives, Friends and Schizophrenia Patients) and the ‘Speech Community’ group were created. From group meetings with users of a mental health service, their family members, and interested professionals, the authors narrate how the participants founded a nongovernmental organization and developed mutually supportive actions and projects to combat stigma in mental health. These group meetings were developed supporting the collaborative posture of dialogue as a motor for collective action that contemplates the different knowledges of those involved. In the activities promoted by that Association, those with mental disorders assume the position of protagonist, developing public education projects and occupying new social places, such as lecturers or consultants. This is a way to comprehend that the meanings about the illness are produced socially and relate to the forms of organization of the social life that go beyond an individual dimension. These two projects illustrate that the opportunity for participants to organize themselves collectively promotes new ways of life. Thus, in addition to individual change, the possibilities created by the project contribute to changing social discourses about what living with a mental illness can mean. Third, to assume an ethical and political concern in group work means to resist

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pathological and stigmatizing discourses when working with people. From a deconstructive position about the self, the group, and the world, many group proposals offer practical ways of producing alternative discourses about life. The creation of these alternatives can emphasize both the internal context of the group, by seeking a change in participants’ self-narratives, and the external context of the group, by expanding social discourses about certain experiences. Significant to this effort, Hedtke’s (2012) work consisted of a short-term support group proposal for bereaved people from a social constructionist approach to mourning. Through six group encounters of conversations inspired by narrative practices, she promoted ‘remembering conversations’ that encouraged bereaved people to remain relationally connected to their dead loved ones through stories and memories. Through this type of group work, she questions the traditional view, often pathological and guilty, that people need to say goodbye and emotionally detach themselves from deceased people, sustaining a story of loss in which the deceased no longer participate in their lives. Seeking the resignification of the discourses about auditory hallucinations, the Hearing Voices Movement also provides an illustration of group work related to social constructionism that led to a critical questioning of pathological and stigmatizing discourses (Corradi-Webster et al., 2017). The Hearing Voices groups promoted by the Movement are groups that support the people who hear voices, their family members, and professionals who seek to share experiences and construct new meanings and ways of dealing with the voices. By conceiving the issue of hearing voices as a social difference, this kind of group aims to resist a negative and psychopathological view that promotes only the silencing of the voices (Romme and Escher, 1989). Beyond the work developed inside the group to promote support to voice hearers and their families, it

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is important to consider the group meetings as part of a social movement, committed to social change, that is, committed to the transformation of the way society views and treats people who hear voices. The negotiation of the objectives and the way of organizing the group, the encouragement of the participants’ self-organization and the critical effort in relation to pathological and stigmatizing discourses are only some forms of the manifestation of a political and ethical concern in group therapy. In the field of constructionist studies and practices, the ethical debate becomes the central aspect in seeking the replacement of a description of a reality supposedly independent of the socially shared vocabularies by collective efforts for the relational creation of preferable social realities. As presented, group work offers various possibilities for the accomplishment of this enterprise.

constructionist discourse, bring specificities that re-dimension their practice. As you can see from the various studies and illustrations presented, group therapy guided by social constructionist discourses is a field with great development possibilities. Thus, future studies in this field can contribute to the emergence of alternative ways of conceiving group process, proposing creative and liberating ideas on issues such as composition, development, and group facilitation. As we see, there is much room to explore the richness of adopting a relational sensibility in the development of group work.

Note 1  An exception to this form of approach between social constructionism and group therapy is Social Therapy as it presents a specific proposal, strongly based on group work, which re-dimensions its understanding and its practice, as can be understood through the chapter on this theme in this Handbook.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS The exploration of the contributions of social constructionism to group work in the therapeutic context from these four points demonstrates that there is no single model and therefore avoids the assertion of a true form of constructionist group work. In this sense, these points presented in this chapter can be understood as discursive options that, like other group theories, can be used in the effort to keep the conversation going on. The focus on conversation sustains the idea that these resources must not be used in a technicist way or without a cultural sensibility. These points do not cover the totality of contributions of social constructionism to group work; however, they illustrate the invitation for social constructionist therapists to consider the possibilities of group work, and the potentialities of the constructionist discourse for group therapists. They show how group therapies, while sharing characteristics with other therapy formats influenced by the

REFERENCES Andersen, T. (Ed.). (1991). The reflecting team: Dialogues and dialogues about the dialogues. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. Anderson, H. (1997). Conversation, language and possibilities: A postmodern approach to therapy. New York, NY: Basic Books. Anderson, H. (2012). Collaborative practice: A way of being ‘with’. Psychotherapy and Politics International, 10(2), 130–145. Becvar, R. J., Canfield, B. S., & Becvar, D. S. (1997). Group work: Cybernetic, constructivist and social constructionist perspectives. Denver, CO: Love. Chen, M., & Noosbond, J. P. (1999). ‘Un-sticking’ the stuck group system: Process illumination and the reflecting team. Journal of Systemic Therapies, 18(3), 23–36. Corradi-Webster, C. M., Santos, M. V., & Leão, E. A. (2017). Construindo novos sentidos e posicionamentos em saúde mental: Grupo de ouvidores de vozes [Creating new meanings

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and positionings in mental health: Hearing voices groups]. In E. F. Rasera, K. Taverniers & O. Vilches-Álvarez (Eds.), Construccionismo Social en acción: Prácticas inspiradoras en diferentes contextos [Social construction in action: Inspiring practices in different contexts] (pp. 167–193). Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute. Cox, J., Bañez, L., Hawley, L. D., & Mostade, J. (2003). Use of the reflecting team process in the training of group workers. Journal for Specialists in Group Work, 28(2), 89–105. DeLucia-Waack, J. L., Kalodner, C. R., & Riva, M. (2013). Handbook of group counseling and psychotherapy. London: Sage. Gergen, K. J. (1994). Reality and relationships: Soundings in social construction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gergen, K. J. (2009). Relational being: Beyond self and community. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Gergen, K. J., & Ness, O. (2016). Therapeutic practice as social construction. In M. O’Reilly & J. N. Lester (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of adult mental health (pp. 502–519). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Grandesso, M. (2015). Integrative community therapy: Constructing possibilities in community contexts through dialogue and shared knowledge. AI Practitioner, 17, 33–37. Guanaes, C. (2006). A construção da mudança em terapia de grupo: Um enfoque construcionista social [The construction of change in group therapy: A social constructionist approach]. São Paulo, Brazil: Vetor. Guanaes-Lorenzi, C. (2017). Recursos para facilitação de grupos em um enfoque construcionista social [Resources for group facilitation in a social constructionist approach]. In M. A. Grandesso (Ed.), Práticas colaborativas e dialógicas em distintos contextos e populações: Um diálogo entre teoria e práticas [Collaborative and dialogical practices in different contexts and populations: A dialogue between theory and practices] (pp. 399–418). Porto Alegre, Brazil: CRV. Harré, R., & van Langenhove, L. (1999). (Eds). Positioning theory: Moral contexts of intentional action. Oxford, UK: WileyBlackwell. Hedtke, C. L. (2012). Folding memories in conversation: Remembering practices in

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bereavement groups. Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute. Hill, N. L. (2011). Externalizing conversations: Single session narrative group interventions in a partial hospital setting. Clinical Social Work Journal, 39(3), 279–287. Holzman, L., & Mendez, R. (2003). Psychological investigations: A clinician’s guide to social therapy. New York, NY: Brunner-Routledge. Jiménez, A. P. S., & Ruíz, P. T. (2015). Análisis de la psicoterapia grupal construccionista en procesos de separación de pareja [Analysis of postmodern and constructionist group psychotherapy]. Psicología Iberoamericana, 23(2), 77–85. Kvarme, L. G., Aabø, L. S., & Sæteren, B. (2013). ‘I feel I mean something to someone’: Solution-focused brief therapy support groups for bullied schoolchildren. Educational Psychology in Practice, 29(4), 416–431. doi.org/10.1080/02667363.2013.859569 Laube, J. J. (1998). Therapist role in narrative group psychotherapy. Group, 22(4), 227–243. Lewin, K. (1997). Resolving social conflicts & field theory in social science. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Martin-Baró, I. (1989). Sistema, grupo y poder [System, group, power]. San Salvador, El Salvador: UCA. McCune, S. A. (2010). Privileging voices of parents influenced by their adolescent’s relationship with substances: Interpretive description of generative dialogue in a collaborative group process. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Tilburg University, Tilburg, the Netherlands. McNamee, S., & Gergen, K. J. (1999). Relational responsibility: Resources for sustainable dialogue. London: Sage. Monk, G., Drewery, W., & Winslade, J. (2005). Using narrative ideas in group work: A new perspective. Counseling and Human Development, 38(1), 1–14. Peretti, A. G., Martins, P. P. S., & GuanaesLorenzi, C. (2013). The management of social problems talk in a support group. Psicologia & Sociedade, 25(spe), 101–110. https://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0102-71822013000500012 Quintas, C. S. (2013). Ohana and the creation of a therapeutic community. Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute.

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Rapizo, R. (2015). Group work with people from divorced families: Opening space for dialogue and conversation. In E. Rasera (Ed.), Social constructionist perspectives on group work (pp. 33–42). Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute. Rasera, E. F., & Japur, M. (2018). Grupo como construção social [Group as social construction] (2nd edition). São Paulo, Brazil: Noos. Romme, M. A., & Escher, A. D. (1989). Hearing voices. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 15, 209–216. Sharry, J. (2001). Solution-focused groupwork. London: Sage. Shotter, J. (2008). Conversational realities revisited: Life, language, body and world. Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute.

Shotter, J. (2010). Social construction on the edge: With-ness thinking and embodiment. Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute. Villares, C. C. (2015). ‘Comunidade de fala’ – Contando histórias de superação nos transtornos mentais [‘Community of speech’ – telling stories of recovery in mental disorders]. Nova Perspectiva Sistêmica, 53, 120–124. Villares, C. C., & Pimentel, F. A. (2015). Collaborative processes can create social change in schizophrenia. In E. Rasera (Ed.), Social constructionist perspectives on group work (pp. 91–100). Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute.

17 Constructing Social Therapeutics Lois Holzman

Social therapeutics is a 40+-year-old methodology for reinitiating the development of persons and communities through activating their capacity to play, perform, philosophize, and, in that process, create new ways to be, see, and relate. It is also social activism that takes the activity of ongoing social-emotional-cultural-intellectual development to be necessary for world-changing. In other words, to paraphrase Marx (1974), the changing of the world and of ourselves is one and the same task. Social therapeutics originated in social therapy, the psychotherapy developed in the 1970s by Fred Newman (Holzman and Mendez, 2003). In subsequent decades, social therapy practices expanded from New York City (NYC) across the United States, and was taken out of the therapy office, ­becoming  – by the 21st century – the transdisciplinary practice of relating to people of all ages and life circumstances as social performers and creators of their lives. Social therapeutics continues to be practiced and advanced at

the East Side Institute (Institute) headquartered in NYC, and worldwide by hundreds of scholars and activists; psychologists, counselors, social workers, and therapists; educators and youth workers; doctors and nurses; social justice artists and advocates and community organizers. This chapter shares highlights from the decades-long process of broadening and transforming the methodology from a nondiagnostic therapy to a postmodernized socio-cultural psychology of development to a new approach to social-cultural change known as performance activism. There was no plan to this process. It was not rational or systematic. Rather, the process emerged from what we saw happening, both on the ground in our own activities and in the broader culture. It derived from the activity of building organizations that challenged the way established institutions do things and in organizing people to build with us and create institutions and activities that humanize rather than harm.

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Social therapeutics is greatly influenced by Karl Marx, Lev Vygotsky, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, all of whom had radically social understandings of human life and activity. To them, how we feel, see, understand, speak, and relate are not merely social in origin but social when enacted, or in our preferred language, performed. Connections between social constructionism and social therapeutics abound: the shared perspective that cognition, emotion, values – indeed, all aspects of human life – are socially constructed through the relational processes people create; the joint concern with meaning and how it is constructed: generating and promoting collaborative and appreciative practices; and honoring the human capacity to play and perform and glimpsing their vast potential to create new possibilities. In addition to these family resemblances, social constructionism and social therapeutics have a shared history. From the 1990s on, Taos Institute founders and East Side Institute founders have partnered in several joint ventures, including co-producing a conference and conducting workshops and conference presentations (Gergen and Gergen, 2012). Social therapeutics is immeasurably richer from these connections.

A THUMBNAIL SKETCH OF SOCIAL THERAPY Originating as part of the social-cultural change movements of the 1960–70s, social therapy was similar to other new psychologies of the time: it tied the ‘personal’ to the political; it engaged the authoritarianism, sexism, racism, classism and homophobia of traditional psychotherapy; and its reason for being was that living under capitalism makes people emotionally sick, while the hope was that therapy could be a tool in the service of progressive politics. The distinguishing feature of social therapy was its engagement of the philosophical

underpinnings of psychology and psychotherapy. It rejected explanation, interpretation, the assumption of self-contained individuals, the notion of an inner self that therapists and clients need to delve into, and other dualistic foundations of traditional psychology, underpinnings that are familiar territory for social constructionist scholars and practitioners. The primary environment for social therapy was and remains the group. Groups vary in size, with 10–20 people being optimal. Groups are heterogeneous, with people of varying ages, ethnicities, sexual orientations, professions, backgrounds and life styles, and ‘presenting problems’. (Some social therapists also run family, teen, and children’s groups.) Most social therapists run their groups for 90 minutes weekly. Groups are ongoing, with new people joining and others leaving at will. Unlike most group therapies where the group serves as a context for the therapist to help individuals with their emotional problems, in social therapy the group – not its individual members – is the therapeutic unit. People come into social therapy, as they do most therapies, wanting help. They want to know ‘what’s wrong with them’, how to fix it, and to feel better. The social therapist will tell them that social therapy is not designed to help them with their individual problems or to make them feel better. It is, rather, designed to help them develop, that is, to generate qualitative transformation, to create new emotional growth through participating with their group members in building something together – namely, their group. This ongoing process is effective in deconstructing the deep-rooted senses of self and identity and reconstructing the concept of social relationship. The great thing about individual therapy is that you know you’re the most special person in the room. In group, it’s not about being the most special person in the room. It’s about what you can give to the group. That means you have to think about whether or not special is something that helps you emotionally in therapy or in your life. (East Side Institute, 2010)

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THE DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY – ANOTHER THUMBNAIL SKETCH Throughout social therapy’s first few decades, Fred Newman would often say words to this effect: You can’t understand social therapy – or its effectiveness in helping people in emotional distress – separate from the community which builds it and which it builds. Newman was the creator of social therapy and the architect of its community’s many projects from the 1970s until he passed away in 2011. He was also my intellectual mentor and partner in understanding and teaching social therapy, articulating its conceptions and practice in terms relevant to a variety of political, philosophical, and psychological traditions, and bringing its methodology, social therapeutics, well beyond the therapy room. The type of community Newman was referring to, which we are building to this day, is fluid and always emergent. It is not defined by location, membership, or social identity. In the 1990s we began to call it a ‘development community’ – that is, a community that supports the building and development of community and, thereby, the people who participate in it (Newman and Holzman, 1996). Furthermore, the activities and goals of such a community are generated simultaneously (as tools-andresults, Newman and Holzman, 1993). The realization that we were building a development community came many years after its beginning. A working-class New Yorker and Korean War veteran who went on to receive a PhD in Philosophy of Science and Foundations of Mathematics, Newman was radicalized during the social upheavals of the 1960s, like millions of others. He resonated with how movements were challenging the Western glorification of individual self-interest and with grassroots communal experiments to transform daily life. He felt the need to confront America’s failure to deal with its legacy of slavery and racism, as the African-American remained poor and shut out of America’s prosperity.

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Newman taught philosophy at US colleges and universities for a few years and then, skeptical that social change would come from the university campus, he left academia with some student followers. They set up community organizing collectives in working-class neighborhoods of NYC and became involved in welfare rights organizing. During the 1970s, their work took two directions: organizing in the poorest, mostly African-American, communities to activate and empower people politically; and engaging the subjectivity of community organizing and the mass psychology of contemporary capitalism.

ENGAGING MASS PSYCHOLOGY AND TACTICS TO TRANSFORM IT It was during this time that I met Newman and his fellow activists. I had a post-doc at Rockefeller University, working in cultural psychologist Michael Cole’s Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition. Our work there confronted the invalidity of the experimental method of cognitive psychology (Cole et al., 1979). If psychological theory and findings are generated in the laboratory (or under experimental conditions designed to replicate the laboratory), how can they be generalized to everyday life? Did they have any ‘ecological validity’, and if not, could we develop a methodology for a psychology that was ecologically valid? Newman and I came from different places: I from developmental psychology and linguistics research and Newman from philosophy of science and community organizing. We shared the same dreams for a world without poverty, and while different, our training and life experiences had convinced us both that psychology as a discipline and as popular culture desperately needed to be transformed. With its individualistic focus, claim to objectivity, emulation and imitation of the natural sciences, and dualistically divided worldview, mainstream psychology was

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an impediment to social development and social activism. My own work in language development and the Cole Lab research were rejections, in practice, of the biases of social science conceptions and method. Newman’s social therapy was a rejection, in practice, of mainstream psychology and psychotherapy. My activism up to this point consisted of anti-war marches, impotent fury at my own parents’ racist behavior, and never voting for a Democrat or Republican. But empowering poor people politically and engaging the mass psychology of capitalist culture felt ‘right’ to me somehow, even though I had no knowledge of or prior thinking on either. I began to participate in the group’s activities and soon was founding, with Newman and a handful of others, the New York Institute for Social Therapy and Research (NYISTR), a precursor to the current East Side Institute. The NYISTR, opened in 1978 on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, lived up to its name. Newman and five to seven therapists he trained had busy social therapy practices. My work focused on research, education, and training. Therapy was provided on a sliding scale and during our first years we told incoming clients, ‘Our aim is to end poverty and we’re asking you to pay as much as you can’. We developed a two-year therapist training program and graduated 8–12 lay people and credentialed social workers yearly as social therapists. We held classes and workshops, and sponsored guest speakers and forums on topics in psychology, culture, and education with leading NYC-based progressives. We published a journal, Practice, in the 1980s. From 1977 to 1987 we held an annual ‘Marxism and Mental Illness’ day-long event with audiences in the hundreds and guest speakers from the psychological and cultural left of the time. We ran a K-12 school, the Barbara Taylor School, a merger of Vygotskian learningand-development theory and the progressive traditions of African-American community schools from 1985 to 1997 (Holzman, 1997). We launched a national organization,

the Association of Progressive Helping Professionals. In NYC, members went door to door asking people for financial support to bring social therapy to poor communities. Inviting strangers to support our activities was and remains a mainstay of the Institute and the development community. From the beginning, the Institute and the organization of its community have remained independently funded and built by hundreds of volunteers. In the early 1980s we opened social therapy centers (‘community clinics’) in Harlem, the South Bronx, Lower Manhattan, and Brooklyn. For four years, we worked to impact the health and mental health of NYC’s poorest. We did free blood pressure screening on the streets and invited people to build ‘Healthy Clubs’ with us. We went door to door in public housing to introduce our Stop Abusive Behavior Syndrome program with a free workshop. Our therapists attracted a small number of people who stuck with social therapy. However, we never were able to achieve a critical mass to break through the stigma of therapy in poor and working-class communities, especially communities of color. Our community clinics weren’t organizing enough people to build with us nor were they attracting enough people to social therapy to have a significant impact on the communities. This organizing effort was a wonderful failure. While we failed to build sustainable centers for social therapy in poor communities, we made our mark as unique health and mental health professionals – a group of people of mixed ethnicities and genders who spoke with people on the streets and at their doors, and delivered an invitation and a very radical message. We also experienced first-hand how successfully the psychological establishment socialized people to the idea that emotional distress is an illness, and what the shame and stigma that this produced among poor people looked like. Perhaps a better tactic would be to try to influence the social workers and other mental health professionals who

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worked in traditional institutions in these neighborhoods. In 1988 we closed the community clinics and began developing ways to attract more people to formally train as social therapists. In addition to our therapist training program, we designed weekend training workshops, a scholarship program, and supervision. Dozens of social workers, addictions counselors, and others trained with us and added social therapeutic elements to their practices in mainstream institutions.

PUTTING SOCIAL THERAPY ON THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST, POSTMODERN AND CULTURALHISTORICAL MAP In the midst of all of this activity, Newman and I looked at social therapy and the other organizing work of the community through philosophical, cultural, and political lenses. During this early period, we primarily studied our activities through the lives and works of Marx, Wittgenstein, and Vygotsky and their political, philosophical and psychological followers, critical pedagogists, and Black psychologists. We presented our work at psychology and education conferences and published in academic journals, but our engagement with academia began in earnest in the early 1990s with the invitation from the editors of a Routledge series to write a book on Vygotsky. This offer gave us the opportunity to articulate (and in that process, discover) the contributions we believed Vygotsky and Wittgenstein were making to a new psychology. It also helped us realize our responsibility to engage with and build relationships with researchers and scholars if we were serious about transforming the mass psychology of US culture. With Lev Vygotsky: Revolutionary scientist, Newman and I presented ‘our Vygotsky’, cautioning readers to approach the book not as about Vygotsky, but rather as what we took to be his revolutionariness and discoveries from

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the vantage point of ‘who we are and what we have done’ (Newman and Holzman, 1993, p. x). We saw in Vygotsky’s writings that human individual, cultural, and species development is always social, produced by and producing activity which is qualitative and transformative (unlike behavioral change, which is particularistic and cumulative). We took Vygotsky to be a forerunner to constructionism and social therapeutics’ psychology of becoming, in which people experience the social nature of their existence and the power of collective creative activity in the process of making new tools for growth (Holzman, 2009). We brought Wittgenstein into our exploration of Vygotsky’s work to see what they might teach us if the two of them were synthesized. Their critiques of dualism, especially inner–outer and objective–subjective, despite stemming from different concerns and in different contexts, were remarkably similar and powerful. They both spoke of language as activity and offered alternatives to the correspondence theory of ­language – Wittgenstein’s language games and Vygotsky’s language completing, not expressing, thinking – that helped us see the dialectic of thinking–speaking and the development of meaning making. Wittgenstein wrote of games and Vygotsky of play. We put their insights together and saw how human development happens and how it is stifled. Their radical ways of exposing the limitations of modernism, in both its Western science and Marxist manifestations, were all the more remarkable for them being modernists (Newman and Holzman, 1993, 1996)! In subsequent writings, Newman and I advanced our synthesis, showing it in our community-building and social therapeutic practices, and sharing our understandings with varied psychological, therapeutic, educational, and political audiences (e.g., social constructionists, cultural historical researchers, and critical psychologists). Since Newman’s passing (2011), my colleagues and I have continued to bring our Vygotsky, our Wittgenstein, and the methodology they

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contributed to creating into other fields, including second language learning, play research, healthcare, higher education, and organizational development.

Method as Tool-and-Result Vygotsky believed that the subject of psychology should be what is unique to human individual, cultural, and species development – activity. Human beings do more than respond to stimuli, acquire societally determined and useful skills, and adapt to the determining environment. We engage in qualitative and transformative social-cultural activity; we create (socially construct) culture. We transform both ourselves and the circumstances determining us. Human development is not an individual accomplishment but a socio-­ cultural activity. Science’s objectivist epistemology would not work to study activity, for it denies science itself as a meaning-making activity and treats human beings as natural phenomena. A natural science psychology contains ‘an insoluble methodological contradiction … it is a natural science about unnatural things’ and produces ‘a system of knowledge which is contrary to them’ (Vygotsky, 2004, p. 198). What was needed was a non-dualistic method, a precondition of which was a nondualistic conception of method, one in which ‘the method is simultaneously prerequisite and product, the tool and the result of the study’ (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 65). Rather than method being a tool to be applied, Vygotsky’s method is an activity that generates both tool and result at the same time and as continuous process. Tool and result are elements of a dialectical unity/totality/whole. Newman and I called this tool-and-result methodology (Newman and Holzman, 1993).

Creating Zones of Development Another feature of our methodology is creating zones of proximal development (ZPDs).

The zone of proximal development is typically described as the difference between what a child can do alone and with a more skilled other. But it is much more – and other – than that. It is part of Vygotsky’s argument that learning and development are a dialectical unity in which learning does not follow but ‘leads’ development (Vygotsky, 1978, 1987). He asserted the socialness of the learning-leading-development process and the role of joint activity and collaboration in children’s lives. He understood development (qualitative transformation) as a collective accomplishment – ‘a function of collective behavior, a form of cooperation or cooperative activity,’ and a ‘collective form of working together’ (Vygotsky, 2004, p. 202). In more contemporary social constructionist terms, development grows from responsiveness and relationality. When Newman and I put this together with what we understood to be Vygotsky’s tool-and-result method, we saw the ZPD as collective activity whereby the creating of the ‘zone’ simultaneously produces the learning-and-development of the collective. It is dialectical, tool-and-result activity, simultaneously the creating of the zone (environment) and what is created (learningand-development). This new understanding of a developmental way of working together/development, we believed, should not be confined to childhood, which was Vygotsky’s focus, but had broad implications for reinitiating development across settings and the life span.

Playing and Performing as Meaning-Makers Aided by Wittgenstein, Vygotsky’s unpacking of the young child’s language-learning ZPD is illustrative of the interplay of relationality and responsiveness with the being/ becoming dialectic space in which meaning is constructed and in which social therapeutics works and plays.

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When babies begin to babble, they are speaking before they know how. The speakers around them create conversation with them by accepting and responding to their babble as if they understood it. They relate to them as fellow speakers, feelers, thinkers, and makers of meaning. This is what makes it possible for very young children to do what they are not yet capable of. The babbling baby’s rudimentary speech is a creative imitation of the more developed speakers’ speech. At the same time, the more developed speakers ‘complete’ the baby, and the ‘conversation’ continues. Completion is the partner to imitation in the language-learning ZPD. Completion is a rejection of the common expressionist or pictorial view of language, that is, when we speak, we are expressing ourselves (our thoughts, feelings). Speaking is not the outward expression of thinking; thought ‘is not expressed but completed in the word’ (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 251). The relationship between them is dialectical; each is part of a unified, transformative process that entails thinking–speaking. Newman and I broadened this insight of Vygotsky from the individual to social units. It occurred to us that if speaking is the completing of thinking, if the process is continuously creative in social-cultural space, then the ‘completer’ does not have to be the one who is doing the thinking. Others can complete for us. Indeed, if they didn’t, how would very young children be able to engage in language play, create conversation, and speak before they know language? Creative imitation and completion create the relational and responsive ensemble performance of conversation, it turns out, among people of all ages and cultures. Meaning is social; it emerges in people’s activity. In speaking together, we use the linguistic tools we have available to us, but the meaning we create together is not identical to those tools; rather, the tools help us create the result (the new meaning, jointly created). Our conviction that ‘meaning emerges in activity’ owes something to Wittgenstein in

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addition to Vygotsky. While most readers of Wittgenstein take him to locate meaning in use, we take Wittgenstein at his word when he wrote, ‘the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life’ (Wittgenstein, 1953, p. 11). This is both consistent with and adds to Vygotsky’s focus on the joint activity of creating the language-learning ZPD. Additionally, completion and creative imitation are moves within a kind of language play, a language game, in Wittgenstein’s sense. The last feature of Vygotsky’s psychology I want to share was critical to our engagement with postmodern and cultural historical psychology and to the development of social therapeutics as a new approach to social-cultural change known as performance activism.

Play and Performance When discussing the role of play in early child development, Vygotsky (1978) wrote, ‘In play a child always behaves beyond his average age, above his daily behavior; in play it is as though he were a head taller than himself’ (p. 102). What is it about play that actualizes the ‘head taller’ experience? Might some of these features be present in activities we do not typically identify as play? Are there experiences that actualize the ‘head taller’ experience for people across the life span? While Vygotsky’s understanding of play as essential for development never went beyond early childhood, we were eager to make use of what we believed to be an important discovery of his to support the development of people of all ages. In an essay on the development of personality, Vygotsky (1997) noted that the preschool child ‘can be somebody else just as easily as he can be himself’ (p. 249). Vygotsky attributed this to the child’s lack of recognition that s/he is an ‘I’ and went on to discuss how personality and play transform through later childhood. This astute observation of the young child’s performance ability struck home.

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The other grouping of people who are ‘just as easily someone else’ are performers on the stage. In the theatrical sense of the word, performing is a way of taking ‘who we are’ and creating something new through incorporating ‘the other’. With little children, relational activity that embraces the being/becoming dialectic creates a newly emerging speaker; on the stage, it creates a newly emerging character. Influenced by Vygotsky’s search for method and the powerful impact of the theater on people both on and off stage, Newman and I came to see performance as a new ontology, both the process and product of human development. People are performers, not only thinkers and knowers. Performing as someone else (being oneself and other than oneself) is the source of development – for Vygotsky, at the time of life before ‘I’ and its socially constructed fixed identity; for older children and adults throughout the life course. Social therapeutics has evolved, over the decades, into a conscious effort to revitalize this human capacity and to organize and support performance as a new kind of social activism and as a humanizing mass psychology. It may well be, as Descartes believed, that ‘I think, therefore I am’. (This, it seems to me, is the modernist bias of mainstream psychology.) Social therapeutics has a different aphorism: ‘We perform, therefore we become.’

‘COMPLETING’ THE PERFORMANCE TURN Vygotsky was not the only catalyst for our ‘performance turn’. So were hip-hop and theater. They came to us and us to them through our community and political organizing. Just as social therapy emerged as part of a larger, multi-faceted engagement of society with an eye towards transforming it, the journey from social therapy to social therapeutics

to performance as a new form of social activism was inseparable from community and political organizing efforts to recreate the-world-as-it-might-be – more equitable, democratic, cooperative, peaceful, and developmental. During the 1970s, the development community participated in the mass movements of the time: the peace movement, defense of political prisoners, solidarity movements in Central America and Africa. We worked to build independent labor unions and became active in left-of-center electoral politics. As with social therapy, we tried a lot of things, many failed, a few got traction. We did most of our community organizing among people living in poor AfricanAmerican and Latino neighborhoods of NYC. By the end of the 1970s our most successful mass organizing effort was the New York Unemployed and Welfare Council, a union/advocacy group for people on welfare. The Council at its height had approximately 10,000 members. It was the organizing of the Council that first established a base for our development community in the poorest strata of New York City’s African-American and Latino communities, a connection that remains active to this day. The Council did not survive far into the 1980s, but the base it established would become the foundation of the New Alliance Party (NAP), an independent pro-socialist electoral party that had some success in NYC in challenging the Democratic Party’s lock on the Black, Latino, Jewish, and gay communities, and which eventually had active chapters in 28 states. In 1988, NAP ran Dr Lenora Fulani – a developmental psychologist whom I had met at Michael Cole’s Lab and who directed our Harlem social therapy community clinic – for president of the United States. Thanks to an intense national organizing effort, Fulani became the first woman and the first African-American to be on the presidential ballot in all 50 states – and she did it as an independent, an effort that included gathering 1.3 million ballot access signatures

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by volunteer supporters. (The development community remains active in independent politics, currently through efforts to develop a movement of independent voters – over 40% of the US electorate – in partnership with other Americans to reform the US political process.) During the Fulani campaign hundreds of New Yorkers fanned out across the country to lead ballot access and fundraising efforts. Some of them were trained social therapists, many more had been/were members of social therapy groups. As a result, new social therapy practices were established in a dozen cities around the country, some of which – in San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia and Atlanta – took root and continue to this day. The Council was also the catalyst for the All Stars Project (ASP). Council members repeatedly asked our organizers to do something for their children who had nothing to do but hang out on the streets and get in trouble. We went to the young people and asked them what they wanted to do. They said they wanted to put on talent shows. This was the period of hip-hop’s emergence, and youth in the Black and Latino communities were eager to showcase their break dancing, rapping, and other performance skills. Our organizers and the young people (and some of the parents) worked together to produce a talent show, then another, and another. In addition to performing, the young people were soon producing, ushering, running the tech, and organizing their friends and neighbors to attend. At each talent show, participants were told from the stage, ‘If you can perform on stage, you can perform in life.’ The ASP has grown into a national leader in afterschool development, reaching 20,000 young people in New York City, Newark, Jersey City, Chicago, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Dallas. Groups inspired by the All Stars model are active in Atlanta, London, Tokyo, and Uganda. In addition to the Talent Show Network, the ASP currently sponsors other afterschool development programs for youth – the Development School for Youth,

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Youth Onstage! and Operation Conversation: Cops & Kids – as well as a free universitylike school, UX, attended primarily by working-class adults. The methodology informing ASP is performatory in the social therapeutic sense – the focus on development, the use of group building to create an environment of cooperation, the developmental value of play and performance to create new possibilities, meanings, versions of oneself, and relationships. Additionally, as an independently funded non-profit organization, the ASP was built by volunteers and is financially supported by individuals, many of whom are also involved as volunteers. Bringing inner city youth together with business and cultural leaders, academics, police officers, and other caring adults creates dozens of overlapping ZPDs where everyone grows. This methodology shifts the focus from cognition (for example, people who are different from each other need to be taught to be tolerant; remediation is needed to develop skills in people who lack them) to the collaborative activity of creating something new together, whether it be a new relationship between rich and poor, understanding mental illness as socially constructed, how to listen to others, or what to do when you want to fight. The entry of theater into our community also played a catalytic role in broadening social therapy into social therapeutics. The Castillo Theatre (originally a part of the Institute) was founded in 1983 by a handful of artists active in our organizing projects who wanted to contribute more by starting a cultural center. Over the years Castillo has produced hundreds of socially and philosophically engaged plays, some of them inspired by people and activities of the ASP and the Institute. In 1986, Castillo’s founders invited Newman to direct a play. He was 51 years old at the time and went on to direct dozens more. He also became a prolific playwright, writing 40+ plays (including ‘therapy plays’ featuring Vygotsky, Wittgenstein, Freud, Marx, and postmodernists and modernists).

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Castillo also created an improv troupe that, under various names, continues to this day. Newman began to see social therapy groups in a new way – as pieces of theater. The ensemble building necessary to put on a show shares features with the social therapy group building its group. The social construction of meaning emerges in activity in both social therapy group talk and in creating a production, where script, characters, set, lighting, and costumes come together to create the play. Our experience creating theater and bringing performance to inner city youth corroborated Newman’s and my hunch that Vygotsky’s insights about young children were applicable throughout the life span. The potential to perform ‘as if a head taller’ is always there. On talent show stages and theatrical stages, young people and adults were performing other than who they were (different versions of themselves and made-up characters) – and developing in the process.

THE PSYCHOTHERAPY ESTABLISHMENT CLOSES RANKS AND SOCIAL THERAPY OPENS ITS ARMS The following bits of history were not causally connected. New York was one of the last US states to require a license to practice therapy. This allowed us and other alternative practices to not only see clients but to also provide training to those who showed promise, whether they were credentialed or not. We trained dozens of lay people from the mid-1970s through the 1990s, many of whom remain in practice to this day, and the development and expansion of social therapy across the United States in the late 1980s to early 90s depended on it. But this changed with the turn of the century. In the name of professionalization, the therapy world became smaller overnight. Between 2003 and 2005, legislation requiring the licensing of professionals who

practice psychotherapy or counseling went into effect in New York State. What soon followed was further legislation restricting where practitioners who were eligible for licensing could accumulate supervised practice hours. The result was a narrowing of available psychotherapeutic and counseling approaches and limitations on the kinds of institutions practitioners could be exposed to during their training and early years of practice. This, in turn, resulted in reducing the number of treatment options – as well as understandings of emotional distress – available to the public. Credentialed professionals available to people seeking help in clinics, schools, and community centers were restricted in what type of therapy they could offer, and aspiring practitioners fresh out of school were exposed to fewer and fewer approaches. This legislation severely limited who the Institute could train to people who were already credentialed and eligible for licensing as social workers, mental health counselors, or psychologists. Further, we were not willing to change how we worked so as to meet the requirements (specific diagnoses and types of session records) for being a placement for professionals to get ‘their hours’. Consequently, the numbers in our two-year Therapist Training Program dwindled to one to two every few years. At the same time, awareness of and interest in social therapeutic methodology, our conceptualization of play and performance, ‘our Vygotsky’ and our Wittgenstein– Vygotsky synthesis was growing. It was becoming known internationally and within various scholarly traditions as a method of social engagement and personal transformation. Face-to-face and Internet connections with people developing or searching for new ways to build community, heal trauma, engage the devastation of poverty, and transform the learning model blossomed. Also growing was what we would come to call the performance movement. We discovered that an increasing number of people worldwide

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were experimenting with the creative arts and performance approaches to psychological and social issues. Among scholars, colleagues of ours were also coming to appreciate the potential of performance, including Ken and Mary Gergen and Sheila McNamee. Through a series of conversations in 2000 and 2001, we and the Taos Institute decided to host a conference on performance together. We called it Performing the World (PTW). One hundred and twenty people from 14 countries came together in October 2001, for this three-day experiment in performing a conference. Since then, the Institute has hosted nine more PTWs (since 2008, in partnership with the All Stars Project), each with 300–500 participants from dozens of countries (Friedman and Holzman, 2014). The international interest in social therapeutics, as well as the 2001 PTW, showed us that there was a critical mass that wanted us to find a way for them to train with us. We responded, and two years later in 2003, the Institute launched The International Class, a 10-month course of study in social therapeutics. The International Class combines virtual study and conversation with three immersive residencies at the Institute. In 2019 we graduated our 15th cohort. As of this date, there are 143 alumni from 30 countries. They come from psychology, education, social work, theater, dance, music, creative arts therapies, counseling, medicine, humanitarian aid, and community organizing. Some have established positions at NGOs or in universities. Others are grassroots community workers. Some have explored the use of play, improvisation, performance, theater, or other creative arts and storytelling in their work. Some are pioneers and innovators. Others are radicals in spirit and impassioned about bringing about profound social change. All are committed to empowering individuals and communities, whether they are involved with refugees, marginalized communities, homeless and poor youth, prisoners, or therapeutic, rehabilitation, and educational institutions.

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With The International Class, social therapeutics has become global. While all of our graduates have taken something of social therapeutic methodology into their lives and work, some of them, inspired by our development community, are building performatory social therapeutic organizations and development communities. These include five graduates living on the Mexico–US border in El Paso and Ciudad Juarez. Their organization, Performing Communities de Esperanza, is a binational, bilingual, and multicultural community coalition that promotes human development through play, performance, and social therapeutics. Another example is two graduates, one from Greece and the other from Denmark, who have brought PTW to Europe with their bi-annual Play, Perform, Learn, Grow conferences. Their founding conference in 2018 had a particular focus on the challenge Europe faces as millions of refugees and immigrants arrive at its shores. About 10 years into Performing the World and The International Class, after experiencing their steady growth, we realized that social therapeutics was becoming a methodology for a new kind of social activism – performance activism – which is neither resistance nor reaction; not a negation of what is, but a positive becoming of what can be. Since the first social therapy group was held over four decades ago, social therapy has changed and yet remains the same. It is still practiced as a therapy and at the same time it has broadened into social therapeutics and performance activism. Through all of its changes occurring in the midst of the world’s changes, its reason for being – living under capitalism makes people emotionally sick – and its goal – engaging the subjectivity of community organizing and the mass psychology of contemporary capitalism – have gotten stronger. The best future I can imagine is one in which social constructionism and social therapeutics are the ways of the world, and thus, no longer need to be named.

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REFERENCES Cole, M., Hood, L., & McDermott, R. (1979). Ecological niche-picking: Ecological invalidity as an axiom of experimental cognitive psychology. New York, NY: Rockefeller University. Retrieved from http://lchc.ucsd.edu/ People/MCole/Ecological-Niche.PDF East Side Institute. (2010). How do you feel being in a therapy that’s not about you? Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=czN33b2CA7E&t=12s Friedman, D., & Holzman, L. (2014). Performing the World: The performance turn in social activism. In A. Citron, S. AronsonLehavi, & D. Zerbib (Eds.), Performance studies in motion: International perspectives and practices in the twenty-first century (pp. 276–287). New York, NY: Bloomsbury. Gergen, M., & Gergen, K. J. (2012). Playing with purpose: Adventures in performative social science. New York, NY: Routledge. Holzman, L. (1997). Schools for growth: Radical alternatives to current educational models. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Holzman, L. (2009). Vygotsky at work and play. New York, NY: Routledge. Holzman, L., & Mendez, R. (2003). Psychological investigations: A clinician’s guide to social therapy. New York, NY: Routledge.

Marx, K. (1974). Theses on Feuerbach. In K. Marx & F. Engels, The German ideology (pp. 121–123). New York, NY: International. Newman, F., & Holzman, L. (1993). Lev Vygotsky: Revolutionary scientist. London, UK: Routledge. Newman, F., & Holzman, L. (1996). Unscientific psychology: A cultural-performatory approach to understanding human life. iUniverse. (Originally published, 1996, Westport, CT: Praeger.) Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky: Vol. 1. New York, NY: Plenum. Vygotsky, L. S. (1997). Conclusion; further research; development of personality and world view in the child. In The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky, Vol. 3. New York, NY: Plenum. Vygotsky, L. S. (2004). The collective as a factor in the development of the abnormal child. In R. W. Rieber & D. K. Robinson (Eds.), The essential Vygotsky (pp. 201–219). New York, NY: Kluwer Academic/Plenum. Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical investigations. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

18 Integrative Community Therapy: Creating a Communitarian Context of Generative and Transformative Conversations Marilene A. Grandesso

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go farther, go together. (Anonymous)

Working within communitarian contexts can present a new challenge to many professionals interested and involved in facilitating generative and productive conversations. Community, as a space of relationships ever open, can be understood as the network of relational exchanges between its members in a range of complex and unpredictable interactions. In the contexts of community life, people position themselves in relation to each other, building meanings of themselves, of the community itself and of the world in which they live. The complexity of community work stems from the diversity of contexts, the multicultural aspect of their organizations, especially in countries such as Brazil, and the idiosyncrasy of experiences. Working in community contexts demands of professionals a constant positioning of openness to the unexpected and continuous reflection, so that the diversity of local wisdoms

can be respected and, at the same time, professionals can act as facilitating agents of social transformation. Many community work approaches have been dedicated to psychosocial (Ansara and Dantas, 2010), psychoeducational (Minto et al., 2006), and political-activist (Carvalhal and Flexor, 2015) purposes. With regard to social constructionist discourse, the Public Conversations Project (Herzig and Chasin, 2006), Imagine Chicago (Browne and Jain, 2002) and Social Therapy (Holzman and Mendez, 2003), are some successful initiatives to be emphasized. However, in the communitarian mental health field, particularly the field of therapy, significant references or outstanding works cannot be found, especially using a social constructionist approach. Throughout this chapter, therapy is understood as a social practice in which participants engage in purposeful conversations, searching for alternatives to their dilemmas and problems in ways that strengthen

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their sense of agency and empowerment. Traditionally, in the context of mental health, therapy processes are carried out with individuals, couples, and families with little reference to community engagement. Most of the time, individuals, couples, and families seek therapy when distress, unrest, or grief lead them to search for help. However, this is not the case when we talk about working therapeutically with a community, having the community as the client. Here are a few questions we pose while considering community therapy. How do we invite community participants to be part of a collective therapy, share their personal experiences, grief, and dilemmas in a communitarian context? This is not a trivial question, as it proposes a differential engagement, going beyond conversational contexts organized by confidentiality and privacy. How do we encourage generous and empathic listening in order to foster a community therapy process based on collaboration and dialogue? A collaborative and dialogical conversation is grounded in a philosophical stance (Anderson, 2007) through which people are able to experience being welcomed by the other as part of more horizontal relationships of respect and non-judgment. How do we generate transformative conversations of collective authorship in such a way that every participant can be part of a common construction of transformative meanings in a non-hierarchical way? How do we construct a reflexive stance to favor full usage of current resources, giving rise to new possibilities while, at the same time, widening the sense of personal and community agency? In community therapy processes, how do we value local knowledge and the participants’ connections with cultural values while building a humanized practice? How do we facilitate dialogical conversational processes among large groups in order to favor a polyphonic chorus arising from the present voices? These and other questions gave rise in this practice to the generative context that will be presented here.

INTEGRATIVE COMMUNITY THERAPY (ICT): THE HISTORY OF A PRACTICE Integrative Community Therapy (ICT) was developed by Adalberto de Paula Barreto (Barreto, 2008) in a community of high social vulnerability, the slum of Pirambu, situated in Fortaleza-CE in northeast Brazil, in the mid-1980s. The work was carried out in partnership with the Human Rights Association of Pirambu, which was coordinated by Airton Barreto, a lawyer and also Adalberto’s brother, along with the Dean of Extension of the Department of Community Health of the Federal University of Ceará (Barreto and Lazarte, 2013). ICT emerged amid the complexity of challenging contexts where poverty prevailed, trying to find answers and possibilities for action to the demands of each moment. So, it was developed step-by-step as a practice into action, taking shape as a singular and generative approach that can be put in practice in the most unusual contexts and with different community systems. At that time Barreto, a psychiatrist, anthropologist, theologian, and family therapist, was directing an internship for residents in social communitarian psychiatry where they could see the population on an outpatient basis. Reflecting on his practice, Barreto realized that he was medicalizing poverty and suffering as if they were pathologies that should be treated as mental illnesses (Barreto et al., 2010). Besides, he considered it a dehumanizing procedure as it placed a social-relational problem on the individual. Barreto was also utterly dissatisfied with the dependence that this type of treatment could promote, as people who sought the service became at the same time a hostage to a specialist who diagnosed the disease and prescribed medication to them. This ultimately became what Foucault (1998) named ‘the docile bodies’, that is, people who were subjected to treatments aimed at changing them outside

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(by default) of their circumstances, knowledge, and possibilities of choice. Moreover, most of those people seeking services were migrants who went to the big city dreaming of a better life with more dignity. From a dream to a nightmare, these seekers realized that they came from misery and arrived at a deeper misery as they were without a job and their home and they faced the loss of their supportive networks from the places where they were born as well as their cultural meanings and connections. It was common that these migrants would become homeless, get addicted to alcohol and other drugs, engage with crime, front all kinds of human degradation, and at best, live in slums, such as Pirambu, under poor hygienic conditions. Some questions built up the generative context in order to construct a new practice, which could counter these situations that generate chronicity. Among them, Barreto (2008) asked himself: • How to alter a practice that generates dependence to one that fosters autonomy and personal agency? • How to reclaim cultural values and knowledge derived from the insider knowledge that everyone brings in their own stories? • How to circulate the knowledge in such a way that relations among people could enhance their resources by exchanging alternatives to facing life demands? • How to get back cultural values and ancestral knowledge, if we take into consideration the miscegenation of races with different cultural traditions of the Brazilian population? Denying or underestimating cultural traditions entails selfdenial, since, as relational beings (Gergen, 2009), we build our identities and the sense of who we are from relationships with others significant in our multiple contexts of life. • How to develop a practice carried out with large groups of people, not only to meet endless demands from people in distress, but also to harness the resources of the communities in which they live?

These considerations represent some of the uneasinesses that laid the bedrock for a

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paradigmatic shift, withdrawing the focus from the individual and the problem of each one to place it inside a common world built on relationships. Today, after more than 30 years of practice, ICT has spread out throughout Brazil, some countries in Latin America, Europe, Africa, and now it is part of the Brazilian health policy. As a special way of conversing, ICT coordinates a multiplicity of meanings, all of which are attributed to community participants’ shared experiences, demonstrated as a humanizing practice in accord with relational ethics of coordinating multiple discourses (McNamee, 2018). On the foundation of this practice there is the consideration of the person who generates meaning for his or her own existence and the belief that insider knowledge, built on the praxis of living, offers a means to a worthier future. There is, too, the belief that people in conversations in their own communities can reach possibilities that they would not be able to develop if they lived in isolation (Grandesso, 2005). According to Paulo Freire (1983), no one is so ignorant that he or she has nothing to teach, and no one is so wise that they have nothing to learn. ICT was progressively organized as a critical postmodern approach sensitive to communitarian relationships, fostering feelings of solidarity, compassion and respect for the other. This approach is based on values of collaboration, acceptance of differences, inclusion and Paulo Freire’s ideas of unity in diversity (Grandesso, 2014).

COMMUNITY AS A CONVERSATIONAL CONTEXT In consonance with social constructionist discourse, community can be understood as a social construction, displaying itself as a relational space where people engage in multiple and complex interactions in language, constructing and sharing meaning regarding their sense of self and of the world they live

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in (Grandesso, 2009, 2015a). Conversations that stem from collaborative and dialogical relationships in ICT put forward a sense of belonging in a community context, mainly when arranged as a space of talking, sharing everyday experiences, and listening generously. ICT practice favors empowerment and a sense of inclusion and belongingness for all persons. Every place where people can face the other eye-to-eye and have possibilities of respectful listening can be considered conducive to an ICT practice. Rounds of ICT practices have been taking place in public spaces such as squares, parks, clubs, hospital waiting rooms, schools, organizations, prisons, and many other types of institutions, thus moving out of conventional office and outpatient clinics. These practices moved away from the traditional private appointments at medical outpatient clinics in favor of public spaces and a co-participative approach. The very idea of keeping narrated stories private was challenged as personal storytelling began to happen in a public context. Besides this, people were recognized as experts in their own circumstances and lived experiences, organizing a more collaborative and polysemic practice.

ICT AS A CONVERSATIONAL PRACTICE: GUIDING SENSIBILITIES The human being knows how to make new roads out of obstacles because life can be reborn in the space of a crack. (Ernesto Sábato, quoted in Pakman, 2018, p. 19)

The ICT methodology has as one of its sensitivities the consideration of the person as an author of his or her stories and the organizer of his or her experiences in relational exchanges that he or she constructs inside language. The person, accepted as naturally resilient, is considered a relational being who is able to learn from his or her own adversities through reflexivity and possibilities of

creative action in the relational dances in which he or she takes part (Anderson, 1997; Grandesso, 2014). A community practice empowers people, families, and social organizations to recognize and develop their own capabilities, getting out of the isolation that constant suffering tends to create. Suffering, in all its facets, tends to keep sufferers at bay; it places them at the margins of social life and reduces and weakens both the links between people and the possibilities for collaborative exchange and learning and for mutual help. In response to suffering, ICT proposes inclusiveness and a collective space where organic connections, often overlooked, can set off a collaborative process that weaves novel meanings and possibilities together through language. (Grandesso, 2015b, p. 35)

Another guiding sensibility of ICT practice is the focus on potentialities and resources rather than on deficits, diagnostic categories, and patterns of normality or functionalities that tend to identify people as dysfunctional. By making transformative possibilities noteworthy instead of problems and solutions, ICT gets closer to Appreciative Inquiry practices (Cooperrider et al., 2003), with emphasis on building other possible worlds. ICT invites an appreciative eye and focuses on the best of people and communities, that is, those positive components that can act as levers in the construction of change (Grandesso, 2015b). When suffering is repetitive or continuous, people tend to take on the responsibility for their own evils, as if they were to blame for their own misfortune, many of which are the result of degrading conditions in the macroeconomic social and cultural context and of the unrighteous consequences of inequalities and social unfairness. The discourses that guide ICT conversations are of an appreciative nature, focusing on the future as an open space for more dignified and socially fair life alternatives. ICT favors a sense of empowerment as it recognizes and legitimizes the community and the person’s knowledge as a knowledge

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of a ‘third type’ (Shotter, 1993), acquired in the flow of life, often as learned strategies while facing the harshness life presents. ICT invites one to explore, through the exchange of learned experiences and relationally useful possibilities, more liberating and humanizing alternatives of life. Another ICT guiding sensibility is favoring collaborative and dialogical relationships. Thus, the conversational scenario proposed by the ICT methodology invites openness, flexibility, respect, and coexistence with differences. The word, integrative, in ICT ‘qualifies this approach as an inclusive proposal, in which the polysemic choir of shared stories harmonizes the voices that come from different cultures, socioeconomic levels, ethnic backgrounds, preferences in the field of beliefs and stances taken in the world’ (Grandesso, 2014, p. 172). ICT proposes a relational orientation, attention to cultural values, an attention to relational ethics (McNamee and Gergen, 1999), and a social constructionist orientation to collaboration and dialogue (Grandesso, 2014, 2015a). The organization of the conversational space as collaborative-dialogical sets ICT as a social practice in which participants’ joint action through witnessing (Anderson, 1997, 2007, 2017; Shotter, 2010) strengthens the sense of belonging and community for collaborative learning. The conversations organized by ICT practice, woven as a net of shared experiences, enable new constructions of meaning for lived experience. By listening to the other in an open and respectful way, a common fabric in language is constructed through which the people present can recognize their individual uniqueness as ‘I,’ as well as recognize the other in their otherness, and the collectivity as ‘us’, in a new relational unity (Grandesso, 2015a). Conversational exchanges among participants in an ICT practice build new ways of thinking, feeling, and acting and attributing meaning to what can be understood as a community in itself. A person, as part of a community can be

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recognized by name and as part of a collective identity.

DESCRIBING ICT PRACTICE: METHODOLOGY Wanderer, your footsteps are the road, and nothing more; wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking. By walking one makes the road, and upon glancing behind one sees the path that never will be trod again. Wanderer, there is no road… (Antônio Machado, Campos de Castilla [Plains of Castile], 1912)

ICT can be understood as a social and political practice as it promotes humanizing social transformation and critical reflection (Freire, 1983; McNamee and Gergen, 1999; Pakman, 2010). Although each conversation is unique and unpredictable, ICT is a goal-oriented practice whose methodology comprises five stages, each one with a specific proposal, defining a singular context of conversation. Following these stages, the community therapist can invite small and large communities,1 up to hundreds of people, so that the conversation can start, develop and come to a final moment, building meanings on a narrative fabric that displays itself as sequentially meaningful as an always open dialogue. The process as a whole, although it is specific to each context, usually lasts about 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Stage One: Welcoming and Warming Up The ICT process starts at organizing the space, even before the community is present. As a good host, the community therapist builds a scenario that is as comfortable as possible in order to welcome the participants. The therapist begins welcoming those who are present, introducing himself or herself and their team (in case there is another therapist working as a facilitator of the processes), and in a few words makes it clear that the

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purpose and uniqueness of this conversation is welcoming suffering and exchanging experiences so that everyone can be listened to and respected, and learn with others. A welcome song can help build an atmosphere of relaxation and connection. Next, taking advantage of the community space as a context of legitimizing identities and lives, the therapist invites people to celebrate some important event, achievement, or commemorative date. Each participant who wishes to can say his or her name and what he/she is celebrating that day, thus configuring what Michael White (Grandesso, 2011; White, 2004, 2007) considers to be a definitional ceremony, a kind of identities recognition ritual that gives visibility to some significant situation for the persons concerned. Putting their accomplishments into language in front of a community, each person can transform the commonplace into the exotic. This also allows language to construct an astonishing reality which otherwise would have no visibility. Such practice contributes to new versions of participants as competent in addition to favoring an ontology of hope. (Grandesso, 2015a, p. 128)

The community is usually invited to propose a song to celebrate the events they shared. This moment contributes to building an affective atmosphere, generating a possibility of trust so that people can be comfortable to share their personal issues. To this end some conversational agreements are proposed to guide the conversation: 1 Speaking in the first person, using ‘I’ in recognition that one can only speak from one’s own experience, in concrete, non-theoretical or conceptual terms. This discursive form allows for placing local and insider knowledge as evidence. 2 Holding silence to respectfully and attentively listen to the other. Silence favors a double listening: listening to the other in their otherness and listening to him or herself as a shared experience by the other that can foster associations in the field of each one’s lived experiences. 3 Positioning oneself as a respectful conversational partner and therefore no judging, no interpreting,

and no advising. The ICT does not propose itself as a mechanism to solve problems, but to share and exchange experiences. 4 Sharing songs, poems, jokes, and popular sayings from popular culture that are related to the context of the current conversation. These forms of language have been very useful, offering other metaphors to the construction of new meanings.

This stage ends with some relaxation dynamics, a game, or a joke, inviting playfulness and strengthening closeness and trust to begin the next stage that will involve a higher level of participants’ exposure.

Stage Two: Choosing a Theme for Conversation At this stage the therapist invites participants to present a personal matter they would like to talk about. As it is a community context, a public space, people are alerted to talk about something they feel comfortable exposing about themselves. So, secrets have no room in the ICT context. Inspired by Paulo Freire’s (1983) pedagogy, the conversation organizing theme should be chosen by the community and it will function as a gateway to share experiences and reflection. The therapist encourages people to say their names and to briefly explain what they would like to talk about. Situations of everyday life that become worries, problems, and dilemmas are generally presented as proposals for conversation. Many people present questions about relational conflicts, alcohol and other substances abuse, family or social violence, abandonment, and several kinds of discriminations. After some topics are offered, the therapist summarizes the proposals and invites people to share the one that has touched or resonated with them the most. From there, a choice is made by polling, to represent the community interest, allowing a collective commitment and a shared responsibility for the conversation that will start. The therapist ends this stage thanking people who brought forward their themes.

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Stage Three: Contextualizing the Theme This stage fulfills two functions, understanding the meaning of the lived experience of the person who presented the theme, and, from this understanding, organizing a reflexive question that may resonate with the present community. This question should invite people to share learning experiences and competencies developed in similar situations to the person who is in the center of the conversation. We begin by inviting the person whose theme was chosen to talk, using his or her own terms to elaborate on what he or she would like to share with the present community about what he or she is living. At this moment anyone can ask questions. But as ICT does not propose to solve problems, questions are directed to understanding the meaning of the experience for the person, to understanding how that situation affects the way that person is seeing himself or herself, his or her relationships, and future perspectives. It is up to the therapist to take care of conversational agreements so that questions are to invite reflection, avoiding in this way pedagogical, critical, or disrespectful questions. Once the meaning of the lived experience is understood, the therapist expresses his or her thanks and places the person outside the conversation so that he or she can take part in the next stage and listen reflexively, inviting his or her internal dialogue (Andersen, 1991).

Stage Four: Sharing Local Knowledge At the beginning of this stage, the therapist proposes to the community the question that was built in the previous stage, inviting everybody to reflect. This question can be more generic, such as ‘Who has already lived a similar situation and how did you cope with it? What has helped you? What have you

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learned from going through it? What have you discovered from that experience that can be helpful for your life?’ Questions like these invite a harvest of experiences in similar situations to those shared by the protagonist during contextualization, presenting the community’s abilities and competencies related to that specific case. However, the question could be metaphorical in nature, promoting common meaning from a diversity of life situations. Take for example, a situation in which a lady shares a theme about how difficult it was being criticized by her mother and by her adolescent daughter, feeling pulled in opposite directions. The question for the group was translated to, ‘Who has ever felt like a rag doll pulled by both arms and how could you handle this situation?’ This question gave way to a bountiful collection of community strategies to deal with conflicts, values, beliefs, and demands of life. This harvest stage is the longest in ICT, and it builds up an atmosphere favorable to the empowerment of a community, due to the rhizomatic effect of listening to their own stories while listening to the stories of others. By coming into contact with one person’s stories of competence, other persons can be awakened to memories of their own competencies. While the community continues sharing their knowledge, the therapist can prepare to organize it into a collective document (Denborough, 2008), which can remain as memories from that community or be shared with other related communities.

Stage Five: Closing Ritual For the closing moments, ICT promotes a collective reflection, theoretically inspired by Freire’s action-reflection-action (Freire, 1996). Usually, we invite participants to stand in a circle, close to each other in a subtle sway, metaphorically proposing that life is a movement and that together we can support each other. We invite them to a last

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reflection and sharing. The therapist offers his or her own ideas and appreciative comments on the conversation of that day, and asks one last question: ‘What are you taking from here today?’ ‘Where were you transported to by the conversation we held?’ ‘What did you learn?’ ‘What did you enjoy?’ Therefore, this is one more opportunity for reflection, by putting into language the new learnings and meanings constructed, and also a moment for collective appreciation. We conclude this stage with a song or a short dance, proposed either by the community or the therapist.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS Having worked as a community therapist since 2002, I have witnessed the transformative power of collective conversations that are organized by ICT. In different contexts, different community organizations, different values and cultures, different age groups and life conditions, the ICT dialogical practice has favored adding and promoting possibilities to creative and transformative actions where they did not seem to exist before. ICT invites a kind of creative and transformative action promoting a singular kind of conversation that sets the scenario in which the community by itself acts, making the difference. Many research projects have been developed about the effectiveness of ICT in Brazil, especially in the context of health policy, with regard to mental health and integrative and complementary practices (Ferreira Filha and Lazarte, 2019; Ferreira Filha et al., 2015; Reis and Grandesso, 2014). The results have encouraged us to move forward, building on a growing enthusiasm with this type of community work with its micropolitics of inclusion, equity, and humanization of relationships. As a social practice, ICT, according to Freire’s pedagogy, favors the problematization of the reality experienced and critical reflection, presenting itself as a

productive and hopeful possibility for the promotion of citizenship and the empowerment of people and the communities in which they live.

Note 1  As a community therapist I conducted an ICT with 1400 policewomen as part of a celebration of 50 years of our organization in Brazil.

REFERENCES Andersen, T. (1991). The reflecting team: Dialogue and dialogues about dialogues. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. Anderson, H. (1997). Conversation, language and possibilities: A postmodern approach to therapy. New York, NY: Basic Books. Anderson, H. (2007). The heart and spirit of collaborative therapy: The philosophical stance – ‘A way of being’ in relationship and conversation. In H. Anderson & D. Gehart (Eds.), Collaborative therapy: Relationships and conversations that make a difference (pp. 43–59). New York, NY: Routledge. Anderson, H. (2017). A postura filosófica: O coração e a alma da prática colaborativa [The philosophical stance: The heart and spirit of collaborative practice]. In M. A. Grandesso (Ed.), Práticas colaborativas e dialógicas em distintos contextos e populações: Um diálogo entre teoria e práticas [Collaborative and dialogical practices in different contexts and populations: A dialogue between theory and practices] (pp. 21–34). Curitiba, Brazil: CRV. Ansara, S., & Dantas, B. S. (2010). Intervenções psicossociais na comunidade: Desafios e práticas [Psychological interventions in community: Challenges and practices]. Psicologia & Sociedade [Psychology & Society], 22(1), 95–103. Barreto, A. de P. (2008). Terapia comunitária passo a passo [Community Therapy step by step] (2nd edition). Fortaleza, Brazil: LCR. Barreto, A. de P., & Lazarte, R. (2013). Introdução à terapia comunitária integrativa: Conceito, bases teóricas e método

INTEGRATIVE COMMUNITY THERAPY

[Introduction to Integrative Community Therapy: Concept, theoretical basis, and method]. In M. O. Ferreira Filha, R. Lazarte, & M. D. Dias (Eds.), Terapia comunitária integrativa: Uma construção coletiva de conhecimento [Integrative Community Therapy: A collective knowledge building] (pp. 24–42). João Pessoa, Brazil: Editora da UFPB. Barreto, A. de P., Grandesso, M., Denborough, D., & White, C. (2010). Community therapy: A participatory response to psychic misery. The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work: Speech and Narrative, 4, 33–41. Browne, B., & Jain, S. (2002). Imagine Chicago – Ten years of imagination in action. Chicago, IL: Imagine Chicago. Carvalhal, M., & Flexor, M. H. O. (2015). Democracia e ativismo político-social no contexto dos ciberterritórios [Democracy and political and social activism in the context of cyber territories]. VII Seminário Internacional Dinâmica Territorial e Desenvolvimento Socioambiental: Terra em Transe: [VII International Seminar Territorial Dynamics and Social and Environmental Development: Land in Trance]. Cooperrider, D. L., Whitney, D, & Stavros, J. M. (2003). Appreciative inquiry handbook. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler. Denborough, D. (2008). Collective narrative practice: Responding to individuals, groups, and communities who have experienced trauma. Adelaide, SA, Australia: Dulwich Centre. Ferreira Filha, M. de O., & Lazarte, R. (2019). Terapia Comunitária Integrativa e a pesquisa ação/intervenção: Estudos avaliativos [Integrative Community Therapy and action/intervention research: Evaluative studies]. João Pessoa, Brazil: Editora UFPB. Ferreira Filha, M. de O., Lazarte, R., & Barreto, A. P. (2015). Impacto e tendências do uso da Terapia Comunitária Integrativa na produção de cuidados em saúde mental [Impact and trends of the use of Integrative Community Therapy in the production of mental health care]. Revista. Eletrônica de Enfermagem [Internet] Electronic Journal of Nursing, 17(2), 172– 173. http://dx.doi.org/10.5216/ree.v17i2.37270 Foucault, M. (1998). Vigiar e punir: Nascimento da prisão [Discipline and punish: The birth of

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prison], 18th edition. Petrópolis, Brazil: Editora Vozes. Freire, P. (1983). Pedagogia do oprimido [Pedagogy of the oppressed]. São Paulo, Brazil: Paz e Terra. Freire, P. (1996). Pedagogia da autonomia: Saberes necessários à prática educativa [Pedagogy of autonomy: Necessary knowledges for educational practice]. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Paz e Terra. Gergen, K. J. (1994). Realities and relationships: Soundings in social construction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gergen, K. J. (2009). Relational being: Beyond self and community. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Grandesso, M. A. (2005). Terapia comunitária: Contexto de fortalecimento de indivíduos, comunidades e redes [Community Therapy: Strengthening context for individuals, communities, and networks]. Família e comunidade [Family and Community], 1(2), 103–113. Grandesso, M. A. (2009). Terapia comunitária: Uma prática pós-moderna crítica [Community Therapy: A critical postmodern practice]. Nova Perspectiva Sistêmica [New Systemic Perspective], 33, 53–63. Grandesso, M. A. (2011). Terapia comunitária integrativa e terapia narrativa: Ampliando possibilidades [Integrative community therapy and narrative therapy: expanding possibilities]. In M. H. Camarotti, T. C. G. Freire, & A. Barreto (Eds.), Terapia comunitária integrativa sem fronteiras: Compreendendo suas interfaces e aplicações [Integrative Community Therapy without borders: Understanding your interfaces and applications] (pp. 196– 224). Brasília, Brazil: Integrated Community Health Movement – MISMEC/DF. Grandesso, M. A. (2014). Terapia comunitária como prática coletiva de conversação: Construindo possibilidades de trabalho com sistemas amplos [Community therapy as collective practice of conversation: Constructing possibilities of work with large systems]. In C. Guanaes-Lorenzi, M. S. Moscheta, C. Corraqdi-Webster, L. Vilela, & L. Souza (Eds.), Construcionismo social: Discurso, prática e produção de conhecimento [Social constructionism: Discourse, practice

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and knowledge production] (pp. 171–185). Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Instituto NOOS. Grandesso, M. A. (2015a). Integrative community therapy: A collective space of dialogical conversation and collaborative exchanges. In E. F. Rasera (Ed.), Social construcionist perspective on group work (pp. 123–133). Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute. Grandesso, M. A. (2015b, February). Integrative community therapy: Constructing possibilities in community contexts through dialogue and shared knowledge. AI Practitioner, 17(1), 33–37. Herzig, M., & Chasin, L. (2006). Fostering dialogue across divides. Watertown, MA: Public Conversation Project. Holzman, L., & Mendez, R. (2003). Psychological investigations: A clinician’s guide to social therapy. London, England: Routledge. McNamee, S. (2018). Profissionais como pessoas: Encontros dialógicos para transformação [Professionals as people: Dialogic encounters for transformation]. In M. A. Grandesso (Ed.), Colaboração e diálogo: Aportes teóricos e possibilidades práticas [Collaboration and dialogue: Theoretical contributions and practical possibilities] (pp. 75–95). Curitiba, Brazil: CRV. McNamee, S., & Gergen, K. J. (1999). Relational responsibility: Resources for sustainable dialogue. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Minto, E. C., Pedro, P. P., Cunha Netto, J. R., Bugliani, M. A. P., & Gorayeb, R. (2006).

Ensino de habilidade de vida na escola: Uma experiência com adolescentes [Teaching life skills at school: An experience with adolescents]. Psicologia em estudo [Psychology in Study], 11(3), 561–568. Pakman, M. (2010). Palabras que permanecen, palavras por venir: Micropolítica y poética em psicoterapia [Remaining words, words to come: Micropolitics and poetics in psychotherapy]. Barcelona, Spain: Gedisa. Pakman, M. (2018). El sentido de lo justo: Para una ética del cambio, el cuerpo y la presencia [Sense of fairness: For an ethic of change, body and presence]. Barcelona, Spain: Gedisa. Reis, M. L. A., & Grandesso, M. A. (2014). O significado da capacitação em terapia comunitária integrativa na vida dos terapeutas comunitários [The meaning of training in Integrative Community Therapy in the life of community therapists]. Temas em educação e saúde [Themes in Education and Health], 10, 89–115. Shotter, J. (1993). Cultural politics of everyday life. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Shotter, J. (2010). Social construction on the edge: ‘Withness’ thinking & embodiment. Chagrin, OH: Taos Institute. White, M. (2004). Narrative practice and exotic lives: Resurrecting diversity in everyday life. Adelaide, SA, Australia: Dulwich Centre. White, M. (2007). Maps of narrative practice. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.

19 Individuals in Competition or Communities in Connection? Narrative Therapy in the Era of Neoliberalism Jill Freedman and Gene Combs

In his writing (e.g., White, 2001) and teaching around the turn of the century, Michael White called our attention to metaphors that had to do with ownership and personal property. Here’s an excerpt, recently transcribed from one of his lectures (White, 2018, 2:07): How many of you have resources, personal resources? … The whole idea that we have these personal properties is associated with the development of modern liberal theory. … One of the cornerstones of liberal theory was … the recognition and preservation of the individual’s right to own property, to possess property. It also preserved the individual’s right to capitalize on their property … by mining it, and to bring to the surface these resources, or [to] cultivat[e] their property to improve its assets. Now around the same time, there was this new idea that … we have a self that’s like personal property that we can own in the same way that we can own actual property: land. And so we can actually mine the self to discover the resources and bring those resources to the surface, and put them into circulation. How many of you have found yourself in situations where you had to dig deep, to get in touch

with your resources and to put them into circulation? Internal miners in the group? [laughter] These are relatively new understandings … this is all part of a tradition that … is often referred to as structuralist: action in life as a surface manifestation of some element or essence that comes from the center of who we are. And these ideas are now taken for granted. … That is almost never questioned. … I think it’s important to understand that these ideas have been developed and constructed in history and in culture. If we understand that, we’re not chained to the ideas; we’re not tied to them. We can think outside of them.

In the 20 years that have passed since the words above were spoken – under the influence of neoliberalism (Davies, 2015; Harvey, 2005; Thomas, 2016) – the pressure for each of us to take ownership of, and capitalize on, our personal properties has grown, and our failure as individuals to succeed as we compete with each other in the ‘free market’ has become increasingly pathologized as some sort of individual deficit: ‘anxiety’,

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‘depression’, ‘ADHD’, ‘burnout’, or ‘being a taker instead of a maker’. A basic and general practice in narrative therapy is to be aware of, and to critically reflect on, metaphors like ‘properties’ and ‘resources’ and how they shape our perceptions. Sheila McNamee (1996) commented on these and similar metaphors in her classic paper on the social construction of psychotherapy. In order to escape the limitations of any system of metaphors, we must stop taking them for granted – we must see them as metaphors instead of ‘facts’ (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980).

NEOLIBERALISM The term ‘neoliberalism’ has been around since the 1930s but is still not widely understood. Even though it often elicits eye rolls or glazed expressions, we use it because it is the most comprehensive label we have found for the dominant construction of political and economic reality in the ‘developed world’ during the last 40 years. The ‘liberal’ in neoliberal does not refer to liberal social policy; it refers to liberal (unrestricted) economic policy – the policies favored since the time of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher – sometimes referred to as ‘trickle down economics’ or ‘vulture capitalism’. The neoliberal worldview treats monetary return on investment as the most highly valued measure of success, and it conceptualizes each of us as an entrepreneur in the world market, in competition with every other person – each of us as a tiny corporation. Neoliberalism values competition, efficiency, and individualism in the management of privately owned resources. Its highest value is the pursuit of monetary wealth. The metaphors of neoliberalism, which White was calling our attention to, pull us away from any focus on community, collaboration, or caring for each other’s welfare. Stephen Metcalf (2017) puts it this way:

Peer through the lens of neoliberalism and you see more clearly how the political thinkers most admired by Thatcher and Reagan helped shape the ideal of society as a kind of universal market (and not, for example, a polis, a civil sphere or a kind of family) and of human beings as profit-and-loss calculators (and not bearers of grace, or of inalienable rights and duties). … Still peering through the lens, you see how … pervasively we are now urged to think of ourselves as proprietors of our own talents and initiative, how glibly we are told to compete and adapt.

This pressure to compete, to take individual responsibility, and to become ever more efficient in managing our personal properties affects us in ways that have us show up in therapists’ offices, mental health clinics, and hospital emergency rooms. But the effects are not usually perceived as anything other than our daily reality. Neoliberal policies and management practices strongly invite us to focus on individuals, and away from social and cultural pressures. Instead of ‘unreasonable workload’, we see ‘poor stress management’. Instead of ‘fear and worry due to financial insecurity’, we see ‘depression’. If we are to help people escape the constraints of neoliberalism, we must understand enough of how it has been constructed that we can expose its workings. Without this sort of critical reflection, it is difficult for people who consult with us to glimpse possibilities for community, connection, and mutual caretaking. Returning to the metaphors of ‘property’ and ‘ownership’, it may be useful to remember that there once was such a thing as ‘the commons’ – the mutually used and managed land shared by a village. As mercantilism and the Industrial Revolution began to edge out feudalism, laws were enacted allowing for the enclosure, partitioning and selling of commonly-held land. Farmers were forced to become renters, and the owners of their property became landlords. Property owners could buy and sell their properties (land, sugar cane, cotton, rum, woven cloth, people who were enslaved) on the open market.

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As economists from Marx (1867/1981) to Piketty (2014) have pointed out, profits were extracted from the labor of farmers, distillers, weavers, people who were enslaved, and other non-owners, increasing the wealth of owners at the expense of workers. Fast forward two centuries, and we have George W. Bush promoting the ‘Ownership Society’, in which nearly all aspects of life are managed as private properties and traded in the free market (with bankers and hedge fund managers skimming off profits from every trade). Renters become impoverished. But the social, historical roots of their poverty are invisible within the metaphors of neoliberalism. Poverty gets storied as due to a lack of merit. According to George Monbiot (2017), Neoliberalism turns the oppressed worker into a free contractor, an entrepreneur of the self. Today, everyone is a self-exploiting worker in their own enterprise. Every individual is master and slave in one. This also means that class struggle has become an internal struggle with oneself. Today, anyone who fails to succeed blames themselves and feels ashamed. People see themselves, not society, as the problem. (Kindle location: 806)

Neoliberalism shapes governments to create new properties, to privatize once-public resources so that they can be traded and capitalized upon. Higher education becomes a business; healthcare is managed as if hospitals are factories where doctors and nurses work on assembly lines. In the world of the free market, profit is the greatest good – the only meaningful measure of success or worthiness. In his book, The Happiness Industry, William Davies (2015) describes how, from the 1970s onward, the healthcare industry has been influenced by neoliberalism. He documents the interlocking interests of the pharmaceutical industry and the American Psychiatric Association, where a majority of the authors of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM 5) are also highly paid as speakers for drug companies. These relationships swing the focus of psychiatry more and

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more toward individual, biologically based, diagnoses (for which drugs are proposed as the primary treatment), and the psychological state of the individual becomes a target for the accumulation of capital. In this world, it seems at times that disorders are defined into existence to further the market for drugs. Davies also describes how corporate workplaces – with their neoliberal focus on maximizing financial return to investors, winning the competition with other companies, and holding individuals responsible for the management of their personal properties – are outsourcing all responsibility for the increased stress of their work environments. A whole ‘happiness industry’ has grown up, offering stress management classes to profit from servicing the socially constructed needs of corporate wage slaves. A New York Times op-ed (Whippman, 2016) puts it this way: This is a kind of neo-liberalism of the emotions, in which happiness is seen not as a response to our circumstances but as a result of our own individual mental effort, a reward for the deserving. The problem is not your sky-high rent or meager paycheck, your cheating spouse or unfair boss or teetering pile of dirty dishes. The problem is you. It is, of course, easier and cheaper to blame the individual for thinking the wrong thoughts than it is to tackle the thorny causes of his unhappiness. So we give inner-city schoolchildren mindfulness classes rather than engage with education inequality, and instruct exhausted office workers in mindful breathing rather than giving them paid vacation or better health care benefits.

The discourses of neoliberalism, with their attendant metaphors of ‘individual ownership’ and ‘management of our personal properties’, are not the only discourses that we strive to understand and deconstruct in narrative therapy, but they are very frequent sources of problems. In the rest of this chapter we will examine some of the specific ways we seek to assist people in the social construction of lives in which community, connection, and reciprocal caring are valued over individualism, competition, and maximally efficient return on investment.

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The first step is to listen to people’s stories with curiosity about how neoliberalism (among other discourses) might be implicated in the hardships and limitations they are facing. We need to be able to discern those discourses as discourses before we can ask questions that offer the choice of other metaphors, storylines, and possibilities for living that are shaped by other intentions and values.

DECONSTRUCTION In narrative therapy we are interested in telling and re-telling the preferred stories of people’s lives (e.g., Freedman and Combs, 1996; White and Epston, 1990). Sometimes, in order to see through problems so that we can find not-yet-storied alternative experiences, it is important to deconstruct the discourses that support the problems. To deconstruct (Freedman and Combs, 1996; White, 1991), we ask questions that we hope will unpack a discourse or create gaps in it. Successful deconstruction shows how something was constructed, implying that it could be constructed differently. We have not found it useful to take a stand against neoliberalism in our therapy conversations or to teach people about it as a part of their therapy. What often does help is to engage in a conversation that deconstructs some of the discourses involved in neoliberalism. For example, Margaret and Al came to therapy after Al lost a high-paying executive job and had begun to interview for a new position. Al and Margaret had very different views of their situation. Although Margaret appreciated the home and neighborhood and lack of worries about their financial future that Al’s career had afforded them, she was also aware of difficulties it had caused. Their two young children had already changed neighborhoods and schools three times, and their moves had caused the loss of more

than one set of good neighbors and friends. Margaret was happy with their current home, not far from where her parents and sister lived, where she had been able to reconnect with some old friends. She wanted Al to limit his current job search to the Chicago area. Al thought that Margaret took his success for granted. He was proud of his career to this point, and of the sacrifices he had made – and was willing to continue to make – for his family. I (JF) began a deconstructing conversation by asking Al to tell me more about the sacrifices. He said they included long hours of work, which had him missing family activities. They left him little time to relax at home. When I inquired further about the effects of the long hours, Al and Margaret talked about not only the money the hours earned, and the lack of worry about the financial future, but also about the strain on their relationship, and how Margaret was turning more and more to her extended family and less to Al – which left Al feeling isolated and Margaret fearful of moving to follow a job. Although I did not use the word ‘neoliberal’, we learned that neoliberal ideas about success were making it seem that if Al did not compete for the ‘best’ job and always be ready to move anywhere, anytime, to fill it, his reputation would suffer, and fewer positions would be available to him. We traced how these ideas operated in his work context, how he was recruited into them and how, over time, they put him in the position of having to choose between a high salary (with its accompanying prestige) and family closeness. We also revisited and re-examined the plans and ideas Al and Margaret developed when they decided to marry and create a life together. I asked if they still treasured the hopes they had then for their relationship, their children, and their life together. They did. We then looked together at where ‘ideas of success’ had taken them as a family. This was clearly not the place they had planned on. These conversations were not easy but they were worth it, as they put Al and Margaret

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together, and in a position to decide jointly about Al’s next job. They would choose not only according to financial reimbursement, but by how the new situation would fit with the life of connection and cooperation that they desired.

UNPACKING IDENTITY CONCLUSIONS Michael White (2001) called our attention to the usefulness of questioning the conclusions we come to about each other’s identity, even when we draw positive conclusions. When we say that a person ‘is resilient’ we are orienting to ‘resilience’ as a property that the person possesses. Such orientation to ourselves and others as the managers of personal properties de-emphasizes and hides the histories and relationships that have led to our gaining skills and abilities that we subsequently perceive as evidence that we have particular properties. We find it useful to deconstruct identity conclusions, whether they are positive, like ‘resilient’ and ‘creative’, or negative, such as ‘lazy’ and ‘dependent’. We strive to unpack the relational and process aspects of these labels, rather than leaving them misunderstood as possessions. White (2007) thought of identity conclusions as ‘internal state understandings’, which he distinguished as different from ‘intentional state understandings’. Internal state understandings are those descriptors of personal qualities or traits that treat them as things that reside inside individuals. Intentional state understandings focus not on qualities that people ‘have’ inside, but on the hopes, dreams, desires, commitments, and intentions that words such as ‘resilient’ reference – and on the relationships and activities that support and flow from those intentions. Simply accepting that a given person ‘is resilient’ does not offer the same possibilities as those that appear when we examine resilience (or any other property) as an intentional state. Leaving identity conclusions

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packed up supports a neoliberalism-tinged politics of haves and have-nots. ‘Resilient’ people in such understandings are constructed as more deserving than the lazy, dependent, moochers who lack resilience. When we focus carefully on what people give value to, the relationships they participate in, and the activities that make them appear to ‘have’ a given property, we help them step out of individualism and possessiveness and into a world of relationships and mutual support. Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault (1977), we develop ‘histories of the present’ that trace the stories of the relationships, actions, and meaning-making that have led people to be labeled as resilient, or inventive, or in possession of some other personal property. When we look for previously unexamined and unrecognized intentions and relationships, we can develop new stories in which ‘properties’ are experienced as relational rather than individual. • We can ask where people learned to show a certain quality or property. • We can ask who would have noticed the interactions labeled as (for example) ‘resilient’ if they had been present to see them. • We can trace stories of mutual support and alliances that made the interaction possible. • We can identify the knowledges and skills involved in exhibiting what had previously been thought of as a property, and then trace the relationships in which the knowledge and the skills have been transmitted, shared, and appreciated.

These histories then can be used to scaffold a different understanding of how the knowledge, skills, and abilities are aspects of a person’s identity within the person’s present relational context. Similarly, negative identity conclusions can be unpacked and located in historical, relational understandings. This opens possibilities for new actions and new relationships that can support more positive understandings. For example, in a supervision meeting, Caroline expressed frustration with James,

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a young man who had been diagnosed as HIV positive and who she was seeing for ‘case management’. She said that although she had counseled him about the importance of consistently taking his medication, he was not compliant, and not very bright, and had put himself in medical jeopardy by not strictly following the recommended medical regimen. I (JF) asked Caroline if she could name the problem that she was struggling with in her work with James, and she replied that James did not care about himself, had a low IQ, and was a drain on the system. When Caroline persisted with this description (although I had asked externalizing questions, she was still labeling James as the problem) I said I felt uncomfortable with our conversation because it felt disrespectful to characterize someone the way we were characterizing James. I wondered if we could find a way to talk that we would be happy to use in front of James, one that was not blaming of him. Caroline answered that I had misunderstood her. She told me that she was not the kind of person who blamed people she worked with, so this could not be what was happening. We now had two sets of identity conclusions to unpack. The positive identity conclusion that Caroline made about herself obscured the negative identity conclusions she was using to characterize James. When, to unpack her conclusion, I asked Caroline what she meant by ‘not the kind of person who blamed people she worked with’ she said that she was understanding and caring. I asked about her history of understanding and learned that her grandmother always believed that Caroline meant well, even though she was often in trouble with her parents about things she did. She gave examples of times that this had happened. I asked what skills she had learned from her grandmother. After some thought she said, ‘knowing there are two sides to a story, asking questions instead of assuming, and affiliating with people I love’. Then I asked what

it was that she understood about James. She was quiet for a moment, then said, ‘I’ve taken some shortcuts. I have to rethink this. But our caseload is high. There isn’t much time to think.’ After the unpacking conversation, Caroline did take time to think and to act. The next time we met she told me that exploration of James’ ‘noncompliance’ revealed that his medication required refrigeration. Since James did not have a home, refrigeration was a huge obstacle. As a gay African American man, James had a history of double marginalization. Having grown up in the projects, in a neighborhood with lots of violence and little opportunity, he dropped out of school early. When he contracted the HIV virus, his family shunned him. What Caroline initially described as ‘not very bright’ she was now thinking of as the effects of a context that did not support education. The idea that James did not care about himself because he did not regularly take his medication began to fade when she remembered that he regularly attended counseling and group meetings at Caroline’s agency. Caroline asked James why he attended these meetings. He told her how important it was to be with others facing similar struggles, saying that this gave him a sense of belonging. It also supported hope that he could make a difference for others in the group and that maybe things would be better in the future. All these intentions and relationships were invisible until ‘not compliant’ was unpacked. Unpacking Caroline’s positive identity conclusions (that she was understanding and caring) led her to unpack the negative conclusions that neoliberalism had led her to form about James. As she got more in touch with his history and culture, she stopped seeing him as not intelligent. As she worked on finding a way for him to keep his medication refrigerated she experienced his appreciation and willingness to take steps on his own behalf, as well as his desire to make a difference for others.

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LINKING LIVES THROUGH SHARED PURPOSES Instead of individualism and competition, the narrative worldview, and social constructionist worldviews in general (e.g., Gergen, 1990; St. George and Wulff, 2016), focus on interdependence and the collaborative sharing of experience (White, 1997, 2003). Narrative work often includes the circulation of documents (Freedman and Combs, 1996; Freeman et al., 1997; White and Epston, 1990), the formation of leagues (Epston, 1999; White and Epston, 1990), and, of course, the telling and retelling of preferred stories. David Epston (1999) described himself as the archivist of the Anti-Anorexia Anti-Bulimia League of New Zealand. In that role, he shared documents, tapes, and art work among people he worked with, thereby enrolling them as members of the league. From the early days of narrative therapy, narrative therapists have worked to find ways like Epston’s to share insider knowledge and to help people have the experience that they are not alone in their struggles – that the problems they face are not due to internal properties, but to the larger socio-cultural context, which has caused similar problems for others as well. We offer the following story as an example of how narrative therapists link people’s lives as they struggle with similar problems. David Epston had shared documents from the Anti-Anorexia League with us, and I (JF) then shared one of these – a diary entry from Heather – with Ann, a woman who was consulting with me. We then sent this off to New Zealand. Dear David, I am meeting with Ann of Chicago and she asked me to tell you that bulimia has been giving her a hard time so she is glad to find out about the archives of the Anti-Anorexia (Bulimia) League. We were reading Heather’s Anti-Anorexic Diary and Ann could really identify with the feeling that anorexia/bulimia is your best friend. She said that she really identifies with Heather’s description of the

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friendship and that she is now in the position of really relying on it. In fact, before the session Ann was thinking of telling me that bulimia had tricked her into thinking it was her best buddy, her one and only friend. This made her think she had to stick by it because she feels if she gives it up she has nothing or no one to fill the gap and that feeling even makes her feel more worthless. As she explained how bulimia makes her see her situation it moved her to tears. When I asked Ann if it made her feel less alone to know that Heather had a similar experience she said, ‘Yes, but I want to know what she has done to fight it or overcome it.’ I suggested that we write to you and ask if you would be willing to ask Heather this question for Ann. We have written this letter together and hope that Heather will choose to respond. If you think another member of the League knows something about this that would be helpful we would welcome hearing about that too. It would be fine for this letter to be available to explain Ann’s question to Heather or other members of the League. Yours Anti-Bulimically, Ann and Jill

This began a series of letters between Ann and the Anti-Anorexia League with Ann posing questions and League members sharing hard-won knowledge. At one point, in response to one of these letters, we received this fax from Rosemary, a member of the League. Dear Ann and Jill: David has shown me the questions you recently sent him and we thought my very new and now ongoing communication with Bulimia might be of use to you. You ask: ‘What kind of things do you say when you talk back to Bulimia?’ For me undoubtedly the most important step in fighting the battle was to assign another personality to Bulimia. Bulimia is another entity and not me. That way I experience Bulimia as a kind of evil force, quite separate from myself. I then don’t think of myself as doing the Bulimia with the attendant self-disgust but rather that Bulimia is trying to exert power over me to do it. So when the urge to binge comes along, I say things like: ‘No you are not going to get me this time.’ ‘No you are not going to do this to me.’ ‘You are trying to make me do something I don’t want to do.’ ‘Clear off. I don’t want you and I don’t need you!’ I have not found this an easy process but the more I talk to Bulimia, the more I am aware that it doesn’t like being addressed.

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The letter continues with more insider knowledge. After receiving the letter, Ann told me of an incident in which she found herself pulling food out of the refrigerator in preparation for a binge. She grabbed the letter and with one hand propping open the refrigerator door and the other holding the letter, she read Rosemary’s words as loud as she could, over and over again, until finally she closed the refrigerator door and left the kitchen. Ann said it was as if she were joined by other women on the other side of the world who stood with her and let her know it was possible to get through the moment without bingeing. When neoliberalism has us in its grasp, we cannot see outside the walls of our little corporations-of-one. Linking lives helps us break free.

OUTSIDER WITNESS GROUPS Another narrative practice that facilitates linking lives through shared purposes is outsider witness groups (White, 2005). This is what Michael White called his adaptation of the reflecting team practices originated by Tom Andersen (1987; White, 1995, 2005). Outsider witnesses to a narrative interview respond to four themes, which we summarize below along with the questions they imply: • Identifying the expression. (What stood out to you from the interview?) • Describing the image. (Does this give you a different picture or idea of the person or family?) • Embodying responses. (What about your life experience made this stand out for you? What is it you resonate with?) • Acknowledging transport. (How will it make a difference for you to have witnessed this interview?)

We will focus here on the third and fourth themes. The third theme encourages witnesses to respond as people, rather than as bearers of expert knowledge, as people with

life experience that resonates with what the people at the center of the interview have described. It joins them in the pursuit of similar values and purposes. The fourth theme brings alive the two-way nature of the witnessing experience. It is not only the people at the center of the conversation who are affected by the therapy conversation; the witnesses are affected as well. This mutuality stands in strong contrast to the individualizing, competitive effects of neoliberalism. When we have included outsider witness groups in our therapy, people at the center of the conversation invariably feel joined and they describe the experience as being very helpful.

COLLECTIVE DOCUMENTS Another narrative practice that focuses on community and interdependence is the making and sharing of collective documents. It has been shaped and refined by David Denborough and Cheryl White in their work with communities (Denborough, 2008; Denborough et al., 2008). The documents they facilitate are worked on in a group context and feature themes from the community as well as words from the participants. Other narrative therapists, such as Jennifer Freeman (Freeman et al., 1997) and David Newman (2016a; 2016b) create collective documents that insiders add on to one at a time as they gain hard-earned knowledge. As an example, we include a snippet from a document of the add-on type below, which we, along with the people who come to see us, have been compiling over the last couple of years.

Changing Our Relationships with Fear and Worry Fear and worry can take over life, keeping us from making the choices we want to make, coloring our view of the world and making our lives miserable. Here are some of the ways we have changed our

INDIVIDUALS IN COMPETITION OR COMMUNITIES IN CONNECTION?

relationships with fear and worry and put ­ourselves back in charge. This is an ever-growing document. The more people who add their experiences, the more people it will be relevant for.

1 The most important thing I’ve learned is to pay attention to the very earliest signs of fear and worry. For me, that usually means a slight twinge in my stomach. If I start breathing slowly and deeply I can usually get in touch with what’s going on for me and then I can decide what to do. If I don’t pay attention I end up with overwhelming feelings and no choice. I’m immobilized. My advice is to notice when it is at a 1 if panic starts at 8. 2 The thing that helps me most is music. When fears or worries come I put them to music, something joyful, with a beat. Then they seem different, sometimes funny even. 3 It is your mind, so you can picture something different or say something different. 4 The thing I’ve learned is that if I feel worry or panic I’m probably screaming at myself. If I talk to myself the way I would to a friend I calm down. 5 Fear for me had to do with worry I would make the wrong decisions. I trusted other people’s opinions but not mine and I would go in circles of indecision and worry about the consequences. The thing that made a difference was putting pictures of myself all over my apartment. Instead of the worry going around and around in my mind, I would look at a picture of me and ask ‘What do you think?’ Looking at images of me helps me know what I think about things. This puts an end to worry. 6 Telling myself things that are important to me puts the worry in its place. If the worry says, ‘You spent too much time with your boyfriend and not enough time at your job’, I say, ‘Relationships are more important than money,’ and they are. The key here is asking myself ‘What do you value more? Does that have to do with the choices you are making?’ 7 I discovered that without even knowing it there was this frozen image of trauma that flashed through my mind and then I had all the feelings that went with it. It helped me to visualize how I got past that moment. It sort of diffused the association. 8 My advice is to find a way to put this in perspective. I made a collage with the most

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important things being the biggest. When worries start, I look at the collage.

The full document has 26 entries at this time. We hope we have included enough for you to sense its breadth and its grounded usefulness.

CONCLUSION Sometimes neoliberalism seems so insidious and ever-present that in order to resist its influence we must ‘dig deep, to get in touch with our resources and to put them into circulation’. Then we remember that we are not alone. Our narrative friends and commitments help us in this struggle. One of our guiding intentions as narrative therapists is to help people vividly experience joining their lives with others in pursuit of creating a more generous and interconnected world. We approach our work with the intention of bringing forth and circulating stories of inclusion, partnership, community, and caring. Standing for community and solidarity in the face of neoliberalism’s insistence on individualism and competition can be powerfully transforming. We believe that narrative and social constructionist practitioners will continue to develop networks and ways of working that are based in community and solidarity. We hope that over time our endeavors will shift the dominant discourse away from neoliberalism’s focus on the greedy management of individual resources.

REFERENCES Andersen, T. (1987). The reflecting team: Dialogue and metadialogue in clinical work. Family Process, 26, 415–428. Davies, W. (2015). The happiness industry: How the government and big business sold us well-being. Brooklyn, NY: Verso. Denborough, D. (2008). Collective narrative practice: Responding to individuals, groups,

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and communities who have experienced trauma. Adelaide, Australia: Dulwich Centre. Denborough, D., Freedman, J., & White, C. (2008). Strengthening resistance: The use of narrative practices in working with genocide survivors. Adelaide, Australia: Dulwich Centre. Epston, D. (1999). Co-research: The making of an alternative knowledge. In Narrative therapy and community work: A conference collection (pp. 137–157). Adelaide, Australia: Dulwich Centre. Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish. New York, NY: Pantheon Books. Freedman, J., & Combs, G. (1996). Narrative therapy: The social construction of preferred realities. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. Freeman, J., Epston, D., & Lobovitz, D. (1997). Playful approaches to serious problems: Narrative therapy with children and their families. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. Gergen, K. J. (1990). Therapeutic professions and the diffusion of deficit. The Journal of Mind and Behavior, 11(3, 4), 353–367. Harvey, D. (2005). A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Marx, K. (1867/1981). Capital. New York, NY: Penguin Books. McNamee, S. (1996). Psychotherapy as a social construction. In H. Rosen & K. T. Kuehlwein (Eds.), Constructing realities: Meaning-­ making perspectives for psychotherapists (pp.  115–140). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Metcalf, S. (2017, August 18). Neoliberalism: The idea that swallowed the world. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www. theguardian.com/news/2017/aug/18/neoliberalism-the-idea-that-changed-the-world Monbiot, G. (2017). Out of the wreckage: A new politics for an age of crisis [Kindle]. Brooklyn, NY: Verso. Newman, D. (2016a). Explorations with the written word in an inpatient mental health unit for young people. International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, 4, 45–58.

Newman, D. (2016b). How we deal with ‘way out thoughts’: A living document … Ways of talking with young people about suicidal thoughts. International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, 4, 59–65. Piketty, T. (2014). Capital in the twenty-first century. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. St. George, S., & Wulff, D. (2016). Community-minded family therapy. In ­ S. St. George & D. Wulff (Eds.), Family therapy as socially transformative practice: Practical strategies (pp. 9–23). AFTA Springer Briefs in Family Therapy. Thomas, P. (2016). Psycho politics, neoliberal governmentality and austerity. Self & Society, 44(4), 382–393. Whippman, R. (2016, November 26). Actually, let’s not be in the moment. New York Times, November 26. Retrieved from https://www. nytimes.com/2016/11/26/opinion/sunday/ actually-lets-not-be-in-the-moment.html White, M. (1991). Deconstruction and therapy. Dulwich Centre Newsletter, 3, 21–40. White, M. (1995). Reflecting teamwork as definitional ceremony. In M. White, Re-authoring lives: Interviews and essays (pp. 172–198). Adelaide, Australia: Dulwich Centre. White, M. (1997). Narratives of therapists’ lives. Adelaide, Australia: Dulwich Centre. White, M. (2001). Narrative practice and the unpacking of identity conclusions. Gecko: A Journal of Deconstruction and Narrative Ideas in Therapeutic Practice, 1, 28–55. White, M. (2003). Narrative practice and community assignments. International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, 2, 17–55. White, M. (2005, September 21). Outsiderwitness responses. In Michael White workshop notes. Retrieved from http://www. dulwichcentre.com.au White, M. (2007). Maps of narrative therapy. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. White, M. (2018, June 25). Michael White, narrative therapist: Funny moments [video file]. Retrieved from vimeo.com/260519508 White, M., & Epston, D. (1990). Narrative means to therapeutic ends. New York, NY: W.  W. Norton.

20 Post-Truth and a Justification for Therapeutic Initiative1 K a r l To m m

INTRODUCTION

What is Post-Truth?

As we as therapists become more aware of how ‘realities’ are socially constructed and that ‘alternative truths’ are possible, we become more uncertain about how to proceed in therapy. Although uncertainty has significant benefits, especially in loosening one’s entrapment in a limiting or problematic truth, too much uncertainty can become a liability. When clients ask for help, we need to respond, and in doing so we need to accept a ‘reasonable truth’ to guide our initiatives. But which truth? When is it appropriate to privilege one constructed reality over another? In this chapter, I propose that the complementary paradigms of social constructionism and bringforthism provide sufficient ‘tentative knowledge’ for us as therapists to make choices and become proactive, even in the absence of certainties.

In 2016 the term ‘post-truth’ was named the word of the year by the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).2 Its use had suddenly increased by over 2000% from 2015. The OED defines post-truth as ‘circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’.3 It appears that claims about truth, trustworthiness, alternative facts, misinformation, and ‘fake news’ are drawing more and more attention and scrutiny. Some contemporary philosophers are suggesting that partly because of the widespread availability of social media, we have entered a new age of post-truth in which we can readily find on the internet whatever ‘evidence’ we need to confirm our pre-existing beliefs (McIntyre, 2018). Some commentators see this as an alarming cultural development in that arbitrary claims of truth are

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increasingly being exploited for nefarious political ends. They suggest that post-modernism and social constructionism may have prepared the ground for this problematic global development (Ball, 2017; D’Ancona, 2017; Sim, 2019).4 Others see post-truth as an inherent aspect of the human condition since our species (homo sapiens) began constructing knowledge. Indeed, patterns of interpersonal persuasion and propaganda have probably been with us since civilizations came into existence some 10,000 years ago. Perhaps it is time for therapists to take concerns about the nature and uses of truth more seriously. In this chapter, I will begin with a theoretical exploration about knowing ‘the truth’ and then end with a clinical situation where alternative truths could be distinguished.

What is the Place of ‘Truth’ in Systemic Therapy? As systemic therapists we have come to value multiple perspectives and alternative realities as opposed to a single objective truth. One reason for this is that if we privilege objectivity and accept something as objectively ‘true’ we are then stuck with it, and our degrees of freedom regarding therapeutic change are automatically limited by that truth. Another reason is that the more we believe that something is ‘true’ the more we feel justified in imposing that truth upon others. ‘Believing’ inevitably predisposes us to try to dominate others with our truth, sometimes to the extent of perpetrating violence. Most therapists abhor violence of any sort. So if we loosen our grip on any assumed objective ‘Truth’ we reduce the risk of therapeutic violence in the process of doing therapy. In systemic work we typically avoid making claims of objective truth and try to maintain openness to alternative possibilities. Indeed, we often actively contribute to co-constructing preferred realities

and alternative truths that we think might be more helpful than what a client or family already believes (Tomm et al., 2014). A skillfully articulated ‘alternative truth’ potentially opens space for new understandings that enable therapeutic change.

Does a Systemic Commitment to Alternative Realities Place us in the Domain of Post-Truth? As uncomfortable as this might feel to us as therapists, I would like to suggest that it actually does. Most systemic scholars avoid the kinds of research that generate facts. But if we do not have any facts, how can we know what is true? And if we do not know what is true, how do we know how to act in therapy? Most, if not all, therapies are grounded in emotions and beliefs. If our work as systemic therapists is based on beliefs, rather than on facts, how should we decide among alternative realities to intervene in the course of providing therapy? One response to the dilemma of multiple realities is to ‘decide not to decide’ on any one of them. I am not aware of any therapy approach that champions this stance. If there were one, it probably would be soundly criticized for hiding behind uncertainty and avoiding clinical responsibility. And as the proverb goes, ‘If you don’t stand for something, you risk falling for anything.’ Another response has been to adopt an active stance of ‘not knowing’ which reflects curiosity and is manifest by asking questions. There are different versions of curiosity and, depending on the disposition of the interviewer, the kind of questions asked can have very different effects (Tomm, 1988). For instance, compassionate curiosity about the suffering of the other can create an experience for the other of being deeply heard and understood (Anderson and Gehart, 2007). Exploratory curiosity can generate alternative perspectives and contrasting possibilities (Cecchin, 1987). Investigative curiosity can

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have judgmental and demeaning effects (as in a stigmatizing assessment interview). The relational effects of not knowing, curiosity, and questioning can easily be overlooked or obscured. Indeed, therapists can ‘hide behind their questions’ and avoid offering an opinion when they adopt a not knowing position. While the active listening associated with not knowing can be very validating for clients in being deeply heard, when applied naively it could contribute to anxiety-provoking uncertainty. Uncertainty begets indecisiveness which can be paralyzing: clients don’t know what to do. Such indecision becomes especially problematic when prompt action is expected or required. When urgent action is called for in dayto-day living, most adults act decisively on the basis of intuitive knowledge, and ‘know’ what to do. For instance, if a small child playing in front of us were about to run into oncoming traffic, we would immediately act to restrain the child. Indeed, the failure to take such action would be deemed callous and unethical. Clients typically come to us because they are suffering and want change, often urgently. They want us to do something. If as therapists we choose to act, what course of action should we take? Among the various ideas, beliefs, and values that we can coconstruct, which should we use to inform our actions? Socrates was often described as a wise man because ‘he knew that he did not know’. If we adapt his wisdom and come to ‘know that we don’t know anything with certainty’, then it follows that ‘we don’t know with certainty that we don’t know’, which means that ‘maybe we do know something’. This recursive kind of ‘knowing something’ inevitably remains tentative, but it offers an advantage over pervasive uncertainty and the certainty of not knowing. I am proposing that the ‘maybe we do know something’ position is a sufficient basis for therapists to take initiative in an era of post-truth. The ‘maybe knowing’ stance points to foundational questions about what can be

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known and what we can legitimately claim to know. Yes, our emotions and beliefs do have major influences on what knowledge we come to. But just what kind of knowledge does systemic thinking privilege? What kinds of practices are supported by systemic knowledge? Is a systemic perspective merely a preferred worldview or does it reflect a certain paradigm of knowledge?

WORLDVIEWS VERSUS PARADIGMS A worldview (Weltanschauung) may be regarded as a loose set of beliefs about fundamental aspects of reality that ground and influence a person’s perceiving, thinking, knowing, doing, and the storying of his or her life. A paradigm is a more rigorous constellation of concepts, values, perceptions, and practices shared by a community which informs a particular version of reality and which becomes a basis for the way a community organizes itself (e.g., in professional work or research activities). There are at least as many worldviews as there are persons in the world but there are only a limited number of paradigms. Worldviews are largely acquired non-consciously in the experience of living, whereas paradigms are acquired through deliberate study of a particular perspective. Different paradigms arise from contrasting approaches to systematically understand how relevant knowledges can be acquired. In my opinion, it is reasonable to regard social constructionism and bringforthism as two complementary paradigms of systemic knowledge.

The Paradigm Dialog by Egon Guba Guba describes a paradigm as a core set of beliefs that guides patterns of thought and action into particular directions or pathways. He claims that the answers to the following

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set of three basic questions can produce a particular paradigm (Guba, 1990): 1 The ontological question: What is the nature of the ‘knowable’ (i.e., what is the nature of ‘reality’)? 2 The epistemological question: What is the nature of the relationship between the knower (the inquirer) and the known (what is knowable)? 3 The methodological question: How should an inquirer go about generating knowledge about what is knowable (i.e., about reality)?

The answers to these questions may be explicit, but often remain implicit. In his 1990 book, Guba5 explicated answers to these questions for several paradigms including positivism, post-positivism, and constructivism. My colleagues and I have been trying to explicate some paradigms that are more systemic, such as social constructionism and bringforthism. A current leading figure in social constructionism is Ken Gergen, whose work is already well known in the systemic community (1999, 2001). The notion of bringforthism as a paradigm is not yet as widely recognized, although the work of Humberto Maturana (from which it is derived) has attracted considerable interest from systemic thinkers. Maturana offers an explanation for how knowledge arises in us as complex, cognizing, living systems (Maturana and Varela, 1979, 1987). In the spirit of trying to become more rigorous about the nature of truth and of truth-making, what follows here are my tentative answers to Guba’s three questions for these two systemic paradigms.

A Social Constructionist Paradigm Ontology: Relativist Realities exist in the form of multiple constructions, socially and experientially based, local and specific, dependent on social consensus within the communities in which they arise.

Epistemology: Inter-Subjectivist Inquirers enter into relationship to jointly inquire into and co-construct what can be

known. Findings are a creation in a process of social interaction between two or more persons co-constructing narratives of reality.

Methodology: Deconstructive/ Co-constructive Universal truths are deconstructed through argumentation and scholarly debate, while alternative local truths are co-constructed through collaborative conversation in relationships.

A Bringforthist Paradigm Ontology: Multiple Realities Each reality is that which an observer is structure-determined to bring forth as ‘real’ in his or her living.

Epistemology: Subject Dependent An observer, arising at the unique intersection of a particular biological body with an idiosyncratic socio-cultural drift, interacts within a specific niche through which he or she comes to know about his or her situation and story.

Methodology: Recursive Reflection Distinctions, descriptions, explanations, intentions, choices, and actions are reflexively examined through (internal and external) languaging and emotioning.

Expanding the Paradigm Dialog Associated with Guba’s three basic questions and their answers are implicit values and ethics which contribute to the actual politics in our relationships with each other as human beings. To clarify these implicit issues, a former student, Faye Gosnell, and I decided to add two more questions, namely an axiological question and a political question, to each paradigm. Axiology is a branch of philosophy that studies values and ethics (Bahm,

POST-TRUTH AND A JUSTIFICATION FOR THERAPEUTIC INITIATIVE

1993). So in addition to Guba’s three core questions we can go on with: 4 The axiological question: What is considered ‘good’, ‘better’, ‘bad’ or ‘worse’ (within this paradigm) and how should we create, manage, and change our relationships with each other within this ‘reality’?

Working within any particular paradigm influences the manner in which we as professionals practice, and what we might do or not do in therapy. So we need to address this additional issue. 5 The practical/political question: What are the possible, probable, and improbable ramifications of this paradigm in our actual patterns of living together, and in our professional practices?

In combining Guba’s and our questions we could mark the social constructionist paradigm with the following priorities: • • • •

Ontology: Relativist Epistemology: Inter-subjectivist Methodology: Deconstructive/Co-constructive Axiology: Collaborative Co-construction. It is ‘good’ to enter into relationship and collaborative conversation to go on together and to accept multiple realities and possibilities; it is ‘good’ to privilege stories of liberation and empowerment; it is ‘bad’ to avoid relationship, to oppress, to shut down conversation, to silence, or to otherwise marginalize others. • Politics: Collectivism. In our interactions we privilege inclusiveness; we co-construct something jointly though collective performances that do not marginalize or oppress; we accept joint responsibility for the descriptions and narratives we use and what follows from them.

In the same way we could expand our view on the bringforthist paradigm as follows: • • • •

Ontology: Multiple realities Epistemology: Subject dependent Methodology: Recursive reflection Axiology: Enact loving relatedness. It is ‘good’ to open space for the existence of the other as legitimate in relation to the self; it is ‘bad’ to remain indifferent about the experiences and condition of the other.

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• Politics: Place objectivity in parenthesis. We adopt a relational attitude of accepting and caring for others as they exist in the present moment, and act always to increase options (including the option to reduce options); we strive to maintain an awareness of, and accept full responsibility for, one’s own distinctions, the personal stories they are woven into, the actions that follow from those distinctions and stories, and for their consequences.

DO THESE SYSTEMIC PARADIGMS PROVIDE A JUSTIFICATION FOR THERAPEUTIC INITIATIVE IN OUR POST-TRUTH ERA? I am prepared to take a stand here and say, ‘Yes, they do!’ Both social constructionism and bringforthism accept multiple realities and alternative truths. Both give priority to relationship over individualism. Both are committed to ‘adding life to life’. In other words, whenever we find ourselves in a clinical situation in which we see an option to create an alternative reality that could diminish pain and suffering, and/or enhance wellness, we should take the initiative to act to privilege that ‘helpful truth’. At the same time however, that helpful truth is held tentatively. Both social constructionism and bringforthism actively attend to the immediate and remote consequences of any initiatives taken and propose seeking alternative truths whenever the relevant consequences appear to be more problematic than helpful. Both paradigms are useful in supporting constructive initiatives in systemic therapy. What then are the main differences between these two systemic paradigms? In some respects they reflect two sides of the same coin. Social constructionism posits relationship itself as the foundation out of which realities are constructed. It gives priority to what takes place in the interpersonal space between persons. A major strength of social constructionism is foregrounding how social interaction and collaboration are instrumental in creating knowledge. It does

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not, however, explain how the social actors come to exist in the first place. When a therapist wants to foreground the origins and status of the actors, who through their interaction come to generate knowledge, the bringforthist paradigm becomes more helpful. Bringforthism posits cognizing biological organisms in relationship with other living organisms as the foundation out of which realities are constructed. It gives priority to understanding how individual persons, through their evolution and living, become capable of bringing forth distinctions and generating realities in their social interaction. In the absence of living organisms, there can be no interactive relationships to start with. The necessity for the continuity of biological living provides bringforthism with a significant justification to prioritize initiatives that preserve the state of living, which ultimately enables the relationships through which knowledge is constructed. Each one of us as a human being occupies a unique position of knowing how to survive at the intersection of a gigantic history of biological drift in evolution and a gigantic history of socio-cultural drift in society (Maturana and Varela, 1987). Together the social constructionist and bringforthist paradigms leave us as human beings prepared with the biological and social knowledge we need to act ‘spontaneously’ to stop the child from running into traffic. By extension, they also provide us with guidance to act ‘intuitively’ to take initiative in more complex situations of responding to human suffering in therapy. How these paradigms are relevant may become more apparent when applied in an example from family therapy.

ALTERNATIVE ‘TRUTHS’ IN A CLINICAL SITUATION What follows is a composite scenario of a common family situation (drawn from clinical work with many families) to illustrate the applicability of some of the theory. A

fictional 15-year-old adolescent, let’s call him John, was referred by the family physician for therapy when the parents sought help for the boy’s ongoing disrespectful behavior and a recent suicide threat. The parents reported that over the past year John had become increasingly defiant with yelling, swearing, and occasional violent outbursts whenever they limited his screen time or insisted he first complete his homework. For the past six months he had been refusing to comply with house rules or complete his chores. The physician diagnosed him as having an ‘oppositional defiant disorder’ (APA, 2013, p. 462) and referred him for treatment. When the boy refused to attend individual therapy, the parents sought family therapy. When the family arrived at the clinic, John was obviously in a bad mood. He grudgingly lagged behind his parents to enter the therapy room with his hoodie up, covering his head. At first, he failed to respond to the therapist altogether. He ignored her offer of a handshake and as the interview began refused to respond to her questions, even simple questions about school. In contrast, the parents were quick to give example after example of John’s defiant behavior and his failure to comply with their requests. They provided volumes of evidence to support their ‘truth’ that John was disrespectful. The father described the boy as ‘a spoiled brat’. The mother felt indignant about John’s betrayal of her efforts to get him to comply by protecting him from his father’s anger. The suicide threat had emerged after the father confiscated his cellphone when John kept texting his friends despite several reminders to do his homework. The parents provided further evidence to support the physician’s ‘truth’ of a mental disorder by detailing an extended history of oppositional behavior going back several years. All the while, John sat there with his body slouched in the chair, hoodie over his head, glaring at the parents intermittently. Upon hearing their story and witnessing the interaction between John and his parents,

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the therapist distinguished a problematic pattern of ‘imposing coupled with protesting’ in the relationship between them.6 This systemic distinction by the therapist could be regarded as an additional ‘truth’. In listening to the parents’ stories of past events, she noted that the more the parents engaged in criticism and controlling practices (based on their truth that John was disrespectful), the more John engaged in overt or covert protest. She speculated that John experienced his parents’ control efforts as unfair which activated his protest, and that the parents experienced his protest as disrespectful which activated more pressure to get him to concede. The systemic truth of ‘imposing coupled with protesting’ did not match the physician’s professional truth about John having an oppositional disorder, nor the parents’ lay truth that John was disrespectful. Nor did it match John’s own ‘truth’ (which emerged later when he joined the conversation) that the parents were ‘unfair’, ‘rigid’, and ‘mean’ (in that they did not allow him to hang out with his friends, they took his phone away, and they nagged him incessantly). The social constructionist paradigm helps us understand how these different realities arose. Each truth had a coherent and understandable origin that was relative to its unique social context. The parents’ truth arose predominantly from their respective families-oforigin in which children were expected to be obedient and respectful of their elders. The physician’s truth arose largely from his professional socialization into DSM diagnosing practices (APA, 2013). The therapist’s truth arose out of her immersion in the IPscope framework of systemic understanding (Tomm et al., 2014). And John’s truth arose out of talk with peers and explorations on social media about controlling parents. Each truth emerged in a different social domain and could be seen as a reflection of a social construction of meaning in each of those domains. From a bringforthist perspective, the multiple realities in this clinical situation were

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all subject-dependent. The truth held by each person depended on their unique ecological drift in giving meaning to what they were experiencing. The bringforthist paradigm also helps explain how each family member was structure-determined to persist in privileging their reality within their biological and social drift in living. For instance, within the phylogenetic context of the family life cycle the parents ‘knew’ they had to guide their offspring away from bad habits and towards good routines to increase their child’s chances of future success. The father brought forth John’s disrespectful and defiant behavior as antisocial and felt compelled to get his son to submit to appropriate social authority and become a responsible citizen. The mother distinguished John’s failure to comply (despite her protective nurturance) as disrespectful betrayal and concurred with the father’s authoritarian stance. Their phylogenetic and socio-cultural ‘knowledge’ about child-rearing propelled them to impose their truth upon him. In contrast, John’s biopsychosocial drive to emerge into adolescent autonomy necessitated his rejection of what he experienced as his parents’ excessive control. He felt compelled to assert his own truth. He became increasingly biased to notice the injustices among their behaviors. His distinctions of their unfairness bolstered his angry outbursts against their restraints to his freedom and provided him with an experience of momentary autonomy. In the meantime, the systemic therapist who had been trained to notice and bring forth relational realities, selectively distinguished the coupled reciprocity of the family members’ actions that generated, maintained, and/or amplified the problematic interpersonal pattern in the family system.

Which Reality or ‘Truth’ Should the Therapist Privilege? While each of these several realities could be seen as equally legitimate within each of the

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social contexts in which they were constructed, they are not equally desirable in therapy. So what is the answer to the axiological question in this clinical situation? Which truth is better? Why is it better? And then, what is the answer to the political question? How should a therapist proceed to privilege her preferred truth? The process and consequence of privileging one truth over another is always significant and is often risky. Each presumed truth has implications for what could be considered legitimate action. The parents’ action to impose discipline (e.g., limit John’s screen time) was justified on the basis of their truth that John was being disrespectful. Unfortunately, their initiative to do so activated John’s truth that his parents were being unfair and mean. John’s action to mount a protest on the basis of his truth of parental unfairness was then also justified. His protest however amplified their view that he was disrespectful. Neither John nor his parents recognized the systemic reciprocity in their interactions that maintained what the therapist distinguished as her truth of a problematic interpersonal pattern. The physician’s diagnosis of oppositional defiant disorder justified the referral for therapy (which John did not want). The parents’ truth and the physician’s truth were closely aligned, namely, to regard the oppositionality as located within John, adding more collective pressure for him to concede (which collided with his truth and fueled his impulse for more autonomy). His apparent moodiness at the beginning of the initial interview could be seen as a protest not only against the parents and their unfair alignment with the physician, but also against the anticipated alignment between the parents and the therapist. In this situation, the therapist’s ‘maybe knowing’ intuition was to favor her systemic truth of ‘imposing coupled with protesting’. Favoring this truth does not mean that it was viewed as ‘more true’, but that

it was axiologically ‘better’ than the other truths. That is, it was regarded as therapeutically advantageous in terms of its pragmatic effects. First, locating the problem in the interpersonal space rather than in any one of the participants undermined the legitimacy of individual shaming and blaming, and helped reduce entanglements in painful emotions of frustration, anger, shame, and guilt. Second, it helped maintain ‘therapeutic neutrality’ (i.e., the therapist not siding with any one family member against another). This neutrality pertains to equal acceptance of persons; not acceptance of problems. When John experienced her being neutral towards him, he abandoned his protest against the anticipated coalition against him. He felt freer to speak his protest about the parents’ unfairness. Third, it incorporated and affirmed some aspects of each party’s truth. No party was completely wrong and each party was partially vindicated. Fourth, it transcended the credibility gap among the contrasting truths presented by family members. Prior to embracing the systemic version of the truth, the parents could not accept as credible John’s claim that they were being unfair. And John could not accept as credible their claim that he was being disrespectful. As the therapy unfolded what became increasingly credible was the contingency between imposing practices and protesting practices. Indeed, it was not just the parents who had tried to impose their truth upon their son, John had also tried to impose his truth of their meanness upon them. The coupled invitations of imposing and protesting went both ways (see Figure 20.1). And fifth, the systemic truth implicitly proposed some common ground on which they could move forward together. That is, they could collaborate in jointly liberating themselves from the problematic pattern of conflict about opposing truths and together co-construct healing and wellness interaction patterns7 to replace the problematic pattern.

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imposing

parents limiting screen time

John rejecting their limits

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protesting

John demanding more fairness

parents rejecting John’s demands

Figure 20.1  The coupled reciprocities in the systemic therapist’s preferred ‘truth’

Enacting the Systemic Politics of Taking Initiative for Therapeutic Change The therapist ‘knew’ that the probability of therapeutic change in the family system might be greater if her systemic truth could be recognized and embraced. But how could such an alternative truth be brought forth without being disrespectful towards the other truths that already existed in the family? Initiatives by her to convince them of her ‘better truth’ could be experienced by any family member as an imposition. This might activate some opposition and risk replicating the problematic pattern within the therapeutic system by ‘adding fuel to the fire’ of arguing about the truth. In other words, the therapist’s first political challenge was to avoid imposing her ‘maybe truth’ upon the family. Thus the therapist actively restrained any impulses to criticize the incessant criticism of the parents or to challenge the son’s disrespectful behavior. Hence the basic ethic: ‘first do no harm’. In the social constructionist paradigm we privilege inclusiveness, so another priority for the therapist was to engage John to participate in the conversation. The therapist’s initial efforts to connect with him were

rejected. Persisting in her initiatives of social civility as a way to include the young man could also have been experienced by him as impositional. Thus the social constructionist stance would suggest searching for alternative ways to include him. In the bringforthist paradigm we privilege ‘caring for others as they exist in the moment’. John appeared to feel tyrannized by critical judgments at the beginning of the session and clearly felt extremely miserable. The therapist took his condition seriously and chose to implement practices of acknowledgment as a way to selectively bring forth respect instead (Tomm and Govier, 2007). The axiological and political aspects of both social constructionism and bringforthism justified the therapist’s initiative at this juncture. Taking action to generate respect was justified because it was better than passive witnessing of judgmental practices that generated more conflict. She began by acknowledging John’s discomfort in the situation. She proactively acknowledged that it probably was not his choice to come to the meeting, and that he had come against his will. She also acknowledged the parents’ underlying concern for John’s physical safety and for his academic success. She went on to construe John’s physical presence as evidence of his willingness

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to accept his parents’ request that he attend the session even though it clearly was not his priority to do so. The therapist further acknowledged John’s implicit maturity and generosity in being able to ‘do something he really did not want to do’, namely, to attend the session. The therapist then invited the parents to also acknowledge John’s attendance as significant. When the father accepted this invitation and thanked John for coming, John finally chose to participate in the conversation. While he began by pouring out a great deal of pent-up frustration by bitterly criticizing his parents’ restrictive practices, he was at least beginning to participate in the conversation. The therapist’s initiatives then shifted to acknowledge John’s developing autonomy and to selectively draw out legitimate aspects of John’s protests from among his criticisms of his parents’ parenting practices. She also asked about the good intentions behind the parents’ choices to discipline John and drew attention to the unintended negative effects of those choices. At the same time, she began drawing connections between the protesting and imposing so that the systemic truth of ‘imposing coupled with protesting’ began to emerge more clearly and took shape in the minds of all three family members. None of them wanted this pattern to dominate their relationships. All of them became more receptive to alternative ways of interacting that were more acceptable. Ultimately, they were successful in escaping the problematic pattern and their relationships improved significantly. Full details of the therapeutic practices entailed to bring forth the systemic nature of the problem and to co-construct more wellness are beyond the scope of this chapter. Suffice it to say that a core ethic guiding this therapeutic process was invitation, not imposition. Recognizing that a systemic perspective is ‘better’ justifies its legitimacy as a preferred basis for action. Withholding ‘better knowledge’ when family members are suffering could be seen as unethical. Yet

justification for taking therapeutic initiative does not mean justification for imposition. As systemic therapists we draw upon knowledges from the domains of both social constructionism and bringforthism to coconstruct respect and wellness in both the family system and in the therapy system. Justification in this context means taking initiative to invite others to share in our ‘healing knowledges’, not imposing those knowledges, nor withholding them.

POSSIBLE FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS In this emerging era of post-truth, I anticipate expanding conversations and public debates about many facets of truth, the legitimacy of competing truth claims, investigation into practices of misinformation, patterns of truth checking, and clarification of different actions that could be taken on the basis of alternative truths. With the advent of electronic media and the immediacy of communication, human beings have never before had so many tools to interconnect and address these issues. It remains to be seen which emerging truths might be most supportive in guiding our global cultural drift towards ‘better worlds’. The survivability of human life on our planet may well depend on us ‘maybe knowing’ about ‘good truths’ and taking collective initiatives based on those truths.

Notes 1  This paper is an extended version of a keynote for the Systemic Spirits Conference at the 30th anniversary of ÖAS (Austrian Association of Systemic Therapy) in Vienna in April 2019. The abbreviated version was published in German as K. Tomm (2019), Das Postfaktische und eine Begruendung für therapeutische Initiativen. Systeme. Interdisziplinaere Zeitschrift für systemtheoretisch orientierte Forschung und Praxis in den Humanwissenschaften, 33(2), 119–132. 2  See: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/word-ofthe-year/word-of-the-year-2016 (02.05.2019)

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3  See: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/ post-truth (02.05.2019) 4  A nice overview in The Guardian bookshop (see: https://guardianbookshop.com/catalogsearch/ result/?q=post-truth-506757) and a prudent review of these three paradigms is given by Nick Cohen in The Guardian book review from May 21, 2017 (see: https://www.theguardian. com/books/2017/may/21/post-truth-evan-davismatthew-dancona-james-ball-fake-news-nickcohen-review) 5  An overview on Guba’s work can be found at OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc.: http:// www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n80167018/ (02.05.2019). 6  These kinds of problematic relational interaction patterns have been described as ‘Pathologizing Interpersonal Patterns’ or PIPs in Tomm et  al. (2014). 7  The nature of these Healing Interpersonal Patterns (HIPs) and Wellness Interpersonal Patterns (WIPs) are also outlined in the book on interpersonal patterns by Tomm et al. (2014).

REFERENCES American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th edition). Washington, DC: Author. Anderson, H., & Gehart, D. (Eds.). (2007). Collaborative practice: Relationships and conversations that make a difference. New York, NY: Routledge. Bahm, A. J. (Ed.). (1993). Axiology: Science of value. Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Rodopi. Ball, J. (2017). Post-truth: How bullshit conquered the world. London, UK: Biteback.

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Cecchin, G. (1987). Hypothesizing, circularity, and neutrality revisited: An invitation to curiosity. Family Process, 26, 405–413. D’Ancona, M. (2017). Post-truth: The new war on truth and how to fight back. London, UK: Ebury. Gergen, K. (1999). An invitation to social construction. London, UK: Sage. Gergen, K. (2001). Social construction in context. London, UK: Sage. Guba, E. (1990). The paradigm dialog. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Maturana, H. R., & Varela, F. J. (1979). Autopoiesis and cognition: The realization of the living. Boston, MA: Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Maturana, H. R., & Varela, F. J. (1987). The tree of knowledge: The biological roots of human understanding. Boston, MA: New Science Library, Shambhala Press. McIntyre, L. (2018). Post-truth. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Essential Knowledge Series. Sim, S. (2019). Post-truth, skepticism & power. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Tomm, K. (1988). Interventive interviewing: Part III. Intending to ask lineal, circular, reflexive or strategic questions? Family Process, 27, 1–15. Tomm, K., & Govier, T. (2007). Acknowledgement: Its significance for reconciliation and well-being. In C. Flaskas, I. McCarthy, & J. Sheehan (Eds.), Hope and despair in narrative and family therapy (pp. 139–149). New York, NY: Routledge. Tomm, K., St. George, S., Wulff, D., & Strong, T. (Eds.). (2014). Patterns in interpersonal interactions: Inviting relational understandings for therapeutic change. New York, NY: Routledge.

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SECTION IV

Practices in Organizational Development

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21 When Social Constructionism Joins the Organization Development Conversation Diana Whitney

Organization Development (OD) came of age with the flourishing of industry and a bold vision of progress through science. Its purpose was to support executives, managers, and supervisors in their efforts to enhance organizational effectiveness by applying human science knowledge to organizational issues such as motivation, productivity, and efficiency. A primary question posed by early OD researchers and practitioners was ‘How do we create change in hierarchically structured, routinized organizations?’ The answer was to be found in the applied behavioral sciences: change the behavior of people – individually and in small groups – to change the organization. Early OD interventions centered upon objective, data-based, diagnosis of problems (who and what needed to be changed). These interventions, directed by organizational leaders with the help of OD professionals, sought to change the behaviors of employees and other stakeholders. At the heart of OD was the assumption of behavioral change as the means and the end to

organization change. For more on the origins of OD than can be presented here, read noted OD consultants, Billie Alban and John Scherer’s thoughtful narrative, ‘On the Shoulders of Giants’, in Practicing Organization Development (Alban and Scherer, 2005). The context of OD practice changed dramatically as the modern era of industrialization veered toward postmodernism, the digital information age, and globalization. The vision of progress pivoted in response to a loud global wake-up call for sustainability. Widespread challenges to authoritarian leadership and bureaucratic organizing have emerged, with masses of people, both inside organizations and on the streets around the world, demanding to have a voice in their own futures. Today leaders, change agents and organizational consultants in all sectors of life from business to healthcare to religion are being challenged by stakeholders with visions of social equality, economic justice, environmental sustainability, and human

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well-being. They are facing demands to engage and accept large numbers of diverse people in the co-creation of futures that give meaning, dignity, and coherence to their lives. These challenges prompt OD professionals and the leaders they support to ask, ‘How can we engage with multiple, diverse people and groups of people to co-create mutually beneficial preferred futures?’ As is often the case, practices of the past are not suited to the needs of changing times. Answers to this question and others of relevance today, can no longer be found in the applied behavioral sciences. The authors and editors of this book posit that human and organizational change practices based upon the principles of social construction are suited to address the complex organizational challenges of our time. The purpose of this section and the eight chapters it contains, is to highlight practices – derived from social constructionism such as relational responsibility, collaboration, dialogue and appreciative inquiry – that can be used to successfully inform human organizing and change. The eight chapters constitute a compendium of ideas for applying social constructionist ideals to the area of organizational life. They cover a broad range of practices, answering questions relevant to leaders and change agents today, such as ‘How can relational responsibility help people, groups and whole organizations flourish?’, ‘How can relational practices support learning, leadership development and coaching processes?’, ‘How can constructionist approaches engage large numbers of people in conversations creating and re-creating their preferred futures?’, ‘How can significant social values such as inclusion, democracy and harmonious coherence be designed into organizing processes and structures?’, and ‘How can relational processes be used to address complex, globally challenging issues such as sustainability?’ Each chapter answers one or more of these questions by describing ways that social constructionist theory has been applied to situations ranging in impact from the personal

to the public. In some chapters you will find ideas and practices for stimulating learning and development among people within organizations. Lone Hersted’s chapter defines relational leading and suggests role playing as an essential interactive process for leadership development. Haesun Moon offers the field of coaching a way to understand and improve how coaching works, with a constructionist orientation to language, questions, and attention to the process of relational meaning making. In Gitte Haslebo’s chapter you will discover how to work with an intact team to shift narratives from individual blame to relational responsibility. In other chapters you will find practices for engaging large numbers of diverse stakeholders. The chapter written by Johan Hovelynck, Marc Craps, Art Dewulf, Koen Sips, Tharsi Taillieu, and René Bouwen focuses upon practices and conditions for bringing diverse people, groups and organizations together in conversation to resolve complex multi-actor issues. Amanda Trosten-Bloom and Barbara E. Lewis provide an overview of Appreciative Inquiry as a conversational process that can be used to engage large numbers of people in creating their preferred future. In their chapter Ginny Belden-Charles, Morgan Mann Willis and Jenny Lee describe the evolving nature of relational organizing and share practices that enhance relational responsiveness and foster personal, organizational, and societal wellbeing. Danielle P. Zandee points to micro relational constructionist practices as a viable means to social innovation. In their chapter, which serves as a capstone for this section, Gervase R. Bushe and Robert J. Marshak introduce the notion of dialogic organization development. They differentiate it from classical diagnostic organization development and put forth the idea that constructionist practices, at their best, enable generative change. Taken together the ideas put forth in these chapters suggest an evolution in the field of OD. It is for each reader to discern: how might these ideas and practices be added to your existing repertoire? Or are they an

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imperative to significantly transform your practice into what we might call constructionist organizing?

SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST THEMES The chapters in this part illuminate four significant themes, each a way that social construction theory joins the OD conversation and informs the practice of social organizing and change. The first locates the place of organizing, and hence of change, as patterns of communication, networks of conversation, and narrative realities that are continuously being created and recreated through relational interactions. Of interest to social constructionists are the many ways that we talk our worlds into being and how organizational members and stakeholders engage with one another in conversation and collaboration, leading to their preferred futures. Organizing processes are of more interest than organizations. Leading is more noteworthy than are leaders. And prototyping is more intriguing than the prototype. Social constructionist practices for organizing and change come alive in communication, they guide practitioners to join with others in learning and co-creation. The second theme prominent in this section centers on relational processes as the locus of understanding and authority. All that is meaningful to organizational life, work, roles, and results is derived from relationships. From a social constructionist perspective, agency and authority reside not with individuals but rather in relationships among people, groups, organizations, and communities. For constructionists, the world is a sea of relational possibilities. We seek to enhance relational responsibility, relational resonance, and relational responsiveness among people within organizations and across organizational boundaries. An essential question in social constructionist organizing is, ‘who else needs to be involved?’ We live and work with the

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mantra, ‘it takes two to tango’. Whenever one person is singled out for reward or blame, we wonder, who else was involved, who is the partner? How did they do it together? All life and all work are done with others, together. Social construction invites us to study and enhance how we go forward together. The third theme arising from the chapters in this section is the notion of embracing and working with diversity, of people and cultures, of stakeholder groups, and of ways of knowing, thinking and being in relationship. Constructionist organizing resides in and emerges from, fluid, improvisational processes that recognize and work with multiple voices and visions of possibility. Unlike traditional organizations and leadership that sought to ‘command and control’ people, and reduced variance in systems through standardization and commonalities, constructionist organizing celebrates and struggles with the challenges of multiplicity. Practices that seek to recognize, hear and honor diverse perspectives, respect the dignity of all people, and facilitate conversation, collaboration and co-creation among differing, and at times conflicting, stakeholders, position constructionist organizing as viable for addressing complex, global issues such as healthcare, economic justice, gender equality, and sustainability. The fourth theme highlighted throughout this section is the move from the diagnosis and repairing of problems to the co-creation of mutually beneficial preferred futures. OD practices emerged and have been built upon problem-solving as a dominant means of understanding and making meaning out of life situations and ways of organizing. The act of seeking problems, leads to the articulation of problems. This, in and of itself, has become a limitation to innovation and the creation of thriving organizations. In contrast to the OD deficient approach, constructionist practitioners join with members of an organization or community in dialogues that affirm strengths, best practices, and highperformance patterns as a basis for imagining

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and designing preferred futures. While conversations about problems tend to demoralize and lead to blame and shame, conversations about strengths and preferred futures energize, inspire, and lead to collaborative commitments. Constructionist practices meet the call for diverse engagement by including diverse people and groups in collaboration and in the co-creation of mutually articulated preferred futures.

CHAPTER OVERVIEWS In each chapter in this section, case examples illustrate how practices rooted in social construction enhance and draw upon the strengths of relational interdependency, shared responsibility, conversational meaning making, and collaborative learning and co-creation leading to desired futures. Taken one by one, these practices each can be seen as broadening the repertoire of OD practitioners and hence enhancing the field of OD. Taken together, however, they seem to raise a question of essence, ‘Are change agents working from a social constructionist stance practicing OD or might we better describe the way they work as organizational constructionism or even constructional organizing?’ I will let you, the reader, be the judge of this. As you read the eight chapters in this section, reflect upon whether the theories, assumptions, and practices described can add to your OD practice or whether they invite you into an entirely new genre of organizational consultation and change. In her chapter, ‘Relational Ethics in Organizational Life’, Gitte Haslebo tells us that the assumptions we hold are socially learned, that they guide the ways we perceive, think and feel about things, and that they are taken for granted, thus hard to change. She makes a distinction between organizational culture and performance based on assumptions of realism and those based upon social constructionism. She outlines the differences

in Table 22.1, ‘Key assumptions about knowledge and morality’. ‘Realism,’ she says, ‘presumes the existence of an exterior world with properties which are independent of the observer’s thoughts and perception’. With social constructionism, knowledge resides and is shaped in relationships; neither knowledge nor what is considered truth are separate from the relational contexts through which they emerge. Conflict, she contends, emerges when people operating from differing sets of assumptions, or epistemologies, work together without understanding each other’s assumptions. Efforts to resolve conflict can either magnify the conflict or enable learning and systemic solutions. She presents one of the clearest cases I have read that illustrates social construction practices used in conflict resolution at work. The case shows the power of moving from blaming an individual as the locus of a problem to relational responsibility and the collaborative search for systemic communication dynamics in a contentious situation. In this case, the results are striking. As the one person who was previously designated as the problem is understood, team members recognize their part in the dysfunctional pattern and what they can do to take responsibility for ongoing success. Furthermore, her case shows how individual blame is further diminished when the need for policy change is recognized and implemented. Lone Hersted, in her chapter, ‘Working with Relational Leading and Meaning Making in Teams of Leaders’, offers a well-studied understanding of relational leading. She has written a superb explanation that makes the notion relational leading understandable and at the same time practical. She describes relational leading as a shared activity based on principles of dialogue, multivocality, co-creation, and meaning making. She goes on to say, when working with relational leading, special attention must be given to the development of communication skills, which are best developed interactively.

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She then provides an example from a project, funded by the Danish Ministry of Education, where she and colleagues used role playing to support leadership development in teams of mid-level leaders at 38 vocational schools. Through role playing, leaders were able to explore different ways of communicating from within the unfolding dynamics of relationships. This enabled them to move away from old bureaucratic and formal ways of communicating and they began relating to others in more improvisational and spontaneous ways, thus widening their communicative repertoire and relational leading capacities. Hersted’s chapter makes the important point that social constructionist practices are not separate from how we live and work together; indeed, they are the very practices by which we relate on a day-to-day basis in all aspects of life. The development of relational leading stems from reflection of unfolding relational dynamics of which we are a part, and the communication patterns that inform them. Haesun Moon makes it clear in her chapter, ‘Coaching: Using Ordinary Words in Extraordinary Ways’, that learning occurs in relationship, and that the practice of coaching is no exception. After discussing the significance of coaching as a booming business and field of study, she tells us that much has been written substantiating the viability of coaching and yet little has been written about how coaching works. Her chapter brilliantly fills this gap. She discusses how coaching works from a constructionist stance, by presenting sections on the role of language and how questions and formulations work. In each section she draws us into the process of coaching with alternative examples of what a coach might or might not ask or say. In this way she demonstrates the ongoing conversational and improvisational nature of coaching. Moon makes a unique contribution to the field of coaching with her introduction of ‘The Four Quadrant Model of Coaching’. Based upon constructionist ideals, it is a straightforward format for understanding

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coaching dynamics. It describes life narratives as existing on two continuums, time – past to future – and content – positive to negative. It offers coaches, consultants and leaders seeking to support others’ well-being a way to move conversations from problems of the past toward preferred futures. Her examples illustrate how, by joining with others in conversation, witnessing, and inviting them through questions and reflection to change their life narratives along the two axis of the Four Quadrant Model, we can make a positive difference in the lives of our clients, colleagues, and friends. In their chapter, ‘Relational Practices for Generative Multi-Actor Collaboration’, Johan Hovelynck, Marc Craps, Art Dewulf, Koen Sips, Tharsi Taillieu and René Bouwen make the case for relational practices when working with stakeholders engaged in complex issues such as sustainable development. Their chapter on multi-actor collaboration illustrates both the needs and the benefits of collaboration among groups of people, each having different perspectives and ideals related to an important social issue. Their literature review highlights five compelling collaborative practices: constructing a domain of interdependency; constructing complementarity from differences; developing commitment for collective responsibility; creating a referent structure for governance; and developing a generative process for social learning. They illuminate the effectiveness of these practices by weaving a case of sustainable drinking water in the Andes throughout the chapter. Their research and practice led them to three overarching conditions for successful multi-actor collaboration. Each alone is important for collaboration. Taken together the notions of developing a generative connection, generative confrontation, and supporting emergent commitment provide a foundation for working with complex issues that no one person, group or organization can resolve. They offer a clear blueprint for facilitating multi-actor collaboration.

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Ginny Belden-Charles, Morgan Mann Willis and Jenny Lee’s chapter, ‘Designing Relationally Responsive Organizations’, takes us on a well-charted journey of organizing from a social constructionist perspective. They set the stage by describing social changes and forces impacting the business world today, concluding with the need for leaders and change agents to look beyond traditional forms of organization structure to new definitions and ways of organizing. They point us in the direction of network organizing and share the remarkable case of Allied Media Projects (AMP) in Detroit, a network organization that has cultivated relational practices in their work. They offer stories of their experiences at AMP to introduce six practices that support relational responsiveness: Purposeful Belonging, Listening Relationally, Inviting the Whole Self, Seeking Meaningful Coherence, Surfacing Deep Differences, and Collaborative Reflexivity. Belden-Charles, Willis and Lee write that because work is intimately bound up within relational and interactional discourse, organization design cannot be divorced from relational effectiveness. They say, ‘Instilling relational practice shifts the idea of organization design in significant ways. … Rather than analytical, problem-focused and engineering design solutions, practices for relational responsiveness must be developed, adopted and reinforced throughout organization life.’ Their claims are at the same time bold and practical. They point out that by focusing on the quality of relationships, leaders and change agents can enhance a network’s relational organizing effectiveness and learn, respond, and adapt to the many changing conditions we all face daily. This chapter presents a much needed, clearly articulated, departure from our traditional understanding of organizations as bureaucratic, hierarchical structures. It is based on the powerful idea that we live and work in relationship and hence the best way to enhance our organizing is through relational responsiveness.

Experienced Appreciative Inquiry (AI) consultants, Amanda Trosten-Bloom and Barbara E. Lewis, illustrate ways of taking social constructionist ideas to scale within intact organizations and among multi-stakeholder groups. In their chapter, ‘Large Scale Appreciative Inquiry: New Futures Through Shared Conversations’, Trosten-Bloom and Lewis provide an overview of Appreciative Inquiry practices and then discuss ways of taking AI to scale by increasing numbers of people and conversations. Their ‘seven considerations for large scale AI’ is a meaningful addition to the field of AI which clarifies practices that are essential for leaders and change agents seeking to engage large numbers of people in organization change. The many case examples woven through the chapter, demonstrate the power of appreciative, value-based questions, relational inquiry, and large-scale conversations to enhance organizational effectiveness and to transform organizational cultures. In a departure from traditional OD which targets human behavior as the means to change, Trosten-Bloom and Lewis, reveal the power of conversations as the means and end of organizational change. After sharing stories of thousands of people being involved in large scale processes for strategic planning and organization transformation, they write that large scale AI is more than worth the effort. They conclude by saying, ‘In short, large scale Appreciative Inquiry enables people with different voices, backgrounds, and perspectives to speak, listen, learn, imagine, and create – together. Conversation leads to understanding, understanding to insight, insight to imagination, and imagination to action. Thus, powerful connections – forged through conversation – pave the way to promising new futures.’ In her chapter, ‘Zooming in on the MicroDynamics of Social Innovation: Enabling Novelty Through Relational Constructionist Practice’, Danielle P. Zandee describes how Organization Development (OD) can play a role in enabling much needed social

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innovation (SI) by adopting a relational constructionist stance centered on micro practices that are issue oriented. She clearly describes and provides examples of relational practices used to stimulate SI in two settings, each focused upon a social issue of importance: one based on citizen participation in creating municipal happiness; and the other on mobilizing self-managing teams for sustainable healthcare. Through these cases she illuminates micro relational constructionist practices, such as: the practice of identifying and discussing the complexity of social issues as itself a process of social construction and change; an appreciative approach partnered with dialogue about tensions and conflict to reveal and transform power dynamics; and one-on-one conversations with the potential to alter political agenda setting. In each case she shows how small dialogic OD leverage points can be located and used to create SI. Zandee’s case work is impressive. What I find most inspiring, however, are the lessons she draws from bridging the literature with her experience. She issues a bold challenge to OD practitioners to take a leading role to address the pressing, complex issues that so urgently need attention today. She tells us that practical theory can help OD practitioners better work within connected patterns of interactions undertaken by actors across organizational boundaries. And, to my mind, most significant is her plea for ‘a more critical OD practice that actively seeks to deconstruct unhelpful power dynamics’. All doable, according to Zandee, from a relational constructionist stance. Leading OD scholars, Gervase R. Bushe and Robert J. Marshak build upon their seminal work distinguishing Dialogic OD from traditional problem oriented, diagnostic OD. In their chapter, ‘Social Construction and the Practice of Dialogic Organization Development’, they provide five criteria for all OD practice, and go on to illustrate, in principle and practice, how dialogic approaches, based on social constructionism, meet these criteria. They align constructionist

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practices with OD when they write, ‘change results from “changing the conversations” that shape everyday thinking and behavior by, for example, involving more and different voices, altering how people talk to each other, challenging and/or disrupting limiting patterns, and/or by stimulating alternative narratives or generative images to re-story current realities.’ Bushe and Marshak elevate the conversation about OD and social construction when they introduce their ‘generative change model’. Their research into current practices of large scale change such as Appreciative Inquiry, Future Search, Open Space and the Art of Hosting shows that successful organization transformation processes flow through a common series of activities or organizing conversations. What they call the generative change model involves six dialogic processes: identifying the adaptive challenge; framing a possibility focused purpose statement; engaging diverse stakeholders in generative conversations; stimulating self-organizing innovations; learning from successes and failures; and embedding successful innovations. Their case example illustrates generative change and offers insights for others seeking to align their OD practice with social construction principles.

CONCLUSION The chapters in this section touch on a myriad of issues relevant to human organizing and change, such as leading, ethics, coaching, collaboration, design, large scale change, and social transformation. They do so from a social constructionist stance and highlight ways social construction shifts the practice of OD. I identified four themes emerging from the chapters, each an important conversation between social construction and OD, as consultants, coaches, and leaders seek to find coherence in their practice. First is the shift from focus upon

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organization structures to human organizing as dynamic patterns of communication, networks of conversations, and narrative realities that are ever adapting. The second shift is from individual behaviors to relational practices, such as responsibility, relational resonance, relational responsiveness, and relational leading. Third is the shift of emphasis from controlling variance and diversity to embracing diverse, polyphonic ways of knowing and the people who embody them. And finally, the fourth shift is from diagnosis and repairing problems to the cocreation of mutually beneficial preferred futures that serve the well-being of society and the environment as well as organizational owners. Earlier I posed the question, ‘Do the chapters in this section add to the repertoire of OD practices available or are they theoretically different enough to warrant, perhaps even demand a new field of practice – ­constructionist organizing?’ As the chapters

in this section indicate, this is a question that is vibrant and ongoing. It is my hope that these chapters will prompt OD practitioners to explore the epistemology of their practice and to seek relational coherence with clients and colleagues in order to give voice to otherwise oppressed people, while upholding democratic ideals and co-creating preferred futures. As for me, having read and supported the writing of this part, I now wonder, ‘How might a notion of relational power help us shift the world from authoritarian dominance to a world that works for all?’

REFERENCE Alban, Billie, T. and Scherer, John, J. (2005) ‘On the Shoulders of Giants: The Origins of OD’. In W. J. Rothwell and R. Sullivan (Eds.), Practicing Organization Development: A Guide for Consultants. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., pp. 81–105.

22 Relational Ethics in Organizational Life Gitte Haslebo

INTRODUCTION The starting point for this chapter is the idea, that epistemology, theory and practice cannot be separated from each other and dealt with as independent matters. The majority of the literature on management, leadership and organizational development however operates from a division between theory and practice: the first step is to know the theory, the second is to learn how to apply it. Noted social psychologist, Kurt Lewin questioned this understanding in his widely recognized saying ‘There is nothing so practical as a good theory’ (Gergen, 1994, p. 50). This point can be stretched by adding epistemology and stating that there is nothing so practical as a helpful epistemology. In the important book An Introduction to Social Constructionism the author offers this definition: ‘Epistemology is the study of the nature of knowledge’ (Burr, 1999, p. 86). An epistemology concerns assumptions about the generation and functioning of knowledge. What

assumptions do we have about where to look for knowledge and about the way knowledge is created? Under what circumstances can we trust our knowledge about what is real, rational and good? There are a number of competing views of knowledge. As pointed out by Kenneth J. Gergen the challenge is not to find out which view is ‘true’, but to raise the following question: ‘What are the gains and losses to our way of life that follow from each view? In what sense do these discourses contribute to our well-being and in what sense do they obfuscate our ends? And indeed, this discussion itself should have no terminus’ (Gergen, 1994, p. 79). This question is actually an ethical and moral one inviting moral deliberation centerstage. This chapter raises the question whether some basic assumptions about knowledge and morality are more helpful than others when it comes to moral concern and moral conflicts in organizational life. The basic assumptions from two different epistemologies: realism and social constructionism

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will be compared (see Table 22.1). In many organizations assumptions from both epistemologies live side by side or in conflict with each other and offer very different options for managers and employees. What a manager, an employee or consultant happens to draw on in a specific situation, can make a world of difference as to the events that follow (Pearce and Littlejohn, 1997).

THE DYNAMICS OF BASIC ASSUMPTIONS IN ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURES Edgar H. Schein’s work on developing ideas to understand and change organizational cultures has been widely recognized and used around the world. He defines the term organizational culture in this way: I will argue that the term ‘culture’ should be reserved for the deeper level of basic assumptions and beliefs that are shared by members of an organization, that operate unconsciously, and that define in a basic ‘taken for granted’ fashion an organization’s view of itself and its environment. These assumptions and beliefs are learned responses to a group’s problems of survival in its external environment and its problems of internal integration. (Schein, 1985, p. 6)

Schein underscores some very important points about the workings of basic assumptions in an organization. • First, basic assumptions are a learnt product of shared experiences in a group. • Second, the learning is implicit and not put into words. Nonetheless the basic assumptions guide the group’s members as to the right way to perceive, think and feel about things. • Third, basic assumptions are difficult to change, as they are taken for granted and have dropped out of awareness.

However, Schein does not deal with the connection between different basic assumptions and epistemology. This chapter takes a big step in illuminating this connection

and exploring how specific basic assumptions in organizations shape different moralities. Essentially, epistemology concerns convictions about what it takes for us to think that we understand something, for instance a problem, a critical comment from a colleague or the main challenge for the organization. Under what circumstances can we rely on convictions about what is real, rational and good? Realism and social constructionism offer very different answers to this question.

ETHICS AND MORALITY IN THE ORGANIZATIONAL SETTING Life in organizations is characterized by complexity, unpredictability, and different perspectives and versions of reality. No wonder that coordinating the management of meaning often is difficult (Pearce and Littlejohn, 1997). Even though the intentions are usually good, organizational members might experience hurt, humiliation and disrespect, and moral conflicts pop up in unexpected ways in the organization. Many everyday situations unfold so quickly that we operate on autopilot and pick what seems like the only available option. In other situations organizational members can make space and time for ethical reflections – often motivated to do so by a strong sense of a moral dilemma and the belief that the choice of action can have a great impact on others and the organization. There are a number of ways in which organizational members address situations of moral conflict. One approach might be to turn to classic ethics theories, such as virtue ethics or the ethics of duty, which offer universal guidelines and categorical requirements for moral behavior. These ethics theories are an integrated feature of Western history and culture and part of the basis for the ethical reflections of organizational members. The universalistic way of thinking about ethics has led to

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great efforts in many countries to formulate general ground rules for an organization or a professional group, hoping that knowing the ground rules could guide action in morally difficult situations. A second approach is to rely on one’s gut feeling and intuition: ‘I did this because it just felt like the right thing to do.’ We cannot explain in words why we did what we did. This ethics approach is related to the notion of remaining authentic (true to our feelings), open (sharing our feelings) and honest (telling the truth about our feelings). These particular ethical values are often at play in organizations. The ideal of relying on subjective gut feelings as the basis for a moral choice springs from the assumption that there is a truth and that this can be found in the mind of the individual. Both the universalistic and the gut feeling approaches run into trouble by creating fights about who has the right to define reality and morality. A third approach is what is called relational ethics. Taking this path requires abandoning the universal definitions of true and false, good and bad, right and wrong and the gut feeling approach, turning instead to an emphasis on co-construction of meaning, coordination of actions and mutual relatedness among organizational members. This path was elaborated in the book: Practicing Relational Ethics in Organizations (Haslebo and Haslebo, 2012). One of the important points in the book is, that it is not a strong argument for the moral quality of an action to state that my intentions were good. Instead, organizational members have a moral obligation to consider the likely impact of their own actions and take responsibility for these together with other organizational members.

REALISM AND COMMONSENSE MORALITY Realism presumes the existence of an exterior world with properties which are

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independent of the observer’s thoughts and perception. In this line of thinking it is possible to describe ‘things out there’ and their workings in an objective and unambiguous way. There is a clear distinction between an objective (real) and a subjective (mental) world, and it is possible to use language to make a precise and reliable link between the two. The belief is strong that language can be used to describe, uncover and explain the causal links underlying phenomena ‘out there’ in an objective and precise way. Realism is based on a number of assumptions about how we go about acquiring knowledge and reach an understanding of the world (Burr, 1999). The main points are the following: • The aim is to reach objective and universal knowledge and truth. • Science and investigation can uncover reality and reveal the connections between cause and effect. • Knowledge is an individual possession. • Language describes reality. • Neutral observation is possible. • Events are caused by the actions of individuals. • The individual is an autonomous entity. • The actions of the individual are governed by needs, motives, interests, feelings, etc. • The individual is accountable for his or her actions.

If these assumptions are strongly held in an organization managers and employees will take it for granted that the organization, a manager, a team of employees, a problem, etc. can be described and explained independently of the perspectives of the person, who is describing and explaining. It is, however, necessary that descriptions cover the facts in a correct and precise way and that explanations are based on an analysis of the connections between cause and effect. The key question is WHY. Only when the cause is detected, will it be possible to act in a proper way. When it comes to actions that are difficult to understand, it is important to search for answers to the WHY, looking into the

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needs, motives, interests and feelings of the individual. The assumptions in realism not only determine what are intelligible ways of knowing and understanding, but also the moral obligations that have priority. In order to be a clever, rational and good manager one must be able to distinguish between true and false descriptions of reality, between honest opinions and lies, between good and bad actions, between good and evil intentions, etc. Within the framework of realism, a good manager must have the courage and skills to hold the individual accountable for his or her actions and place guilt on the right person.

CASE EXAMPLE PART ONE: THE REQUEST FOR CONSULTANCY Let me draw on a consultancy task I worked on some years ago. I was contacted by the technical director of a private company. The technical director explained that he needed help to deal with a conflict that had been going on for about a year. The conflict revolved around the service manager, who had been employed in the company for 24 years. After a merger four years ago the technical director had ‘inherited’ the service manager. In connection with the restructuring, the technical director was told that the service manager was competent but temperamental and sometimes prone to ‘lashing out’. Initially, the technical director had been preoccupied with other tasks, and it seemed the service manager was doing okay. However, over the past year or so there had been incidents that suggested something was not right. Several members of the service manager’s team had left the company because they were unhappy with their working conditions. The deputy manager of the service manager had recently requested a talk with the technical director. In this talk he said the climate in the team had deteriorated to the point where he personally found it almost unbearable. On

many occasions, team members would spend the day virtually holding their breath, anxious to see whom the service manager would turn on next. The technical director had spoken with the service manager, who felt that everything was fine, except that some of his team members were seriously underqualified. The technical director said that he was personally very bothered by the conflict. It was important for him that the employees felt that they were being treated right, so he found it quite upsetting to have frustrated, unhappy and critical employees reach out to him. In our talk about the scope of the consultancy the technical director said that he considered this a last call. Unless the service manager realized that he needed to change his behavior, redundancy was clearly on the table. However, this was not the outcome the technical director wanted, in part because the service manager was very competent in his field and had been with the company for a total of 24 years, in part because former directors might have ignored and thus enabled his gruff manner, and in part because top management considered resignations an admission of failure. There had to be a way to resolve this conflict, although he could not see how. By the end of the preliminary talk we determined that the five managers on three levels should be included in the consultancy process: the technical director, the three managers on the next level (including the service manager) and the service manager’s deputy. The consultancy was designed to include three half-day sessions with the group in my office and one final session with the technical director alone. The entire process was to be completed within a month.

Commonsense Morality in Action The word ‘conflict’ plays an important role in this showcase. When the word is used within a commonsense framework it creates a logical force to find out, who the parties are, who started the conflict and what the

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opposing needs and interests are about. ‘Logical force’ is an important concept from Pearce’s work on communication. It catches the insight that taken for granted assumptions define the correct action in a very compelling way (Pearce, 2007). When the problems in an organization are urgent, with many negative effects, it is a moral obligation to do something about it. But what? When the basic assumptions from realism are in play, it becomes a strong moral obligation to take steps to uncover the truth about the problems, which in this showcase is a conflict. Important questions must be answered like the following: • Who started the conflict? The service manager or some of the employees? • Are the many complaining employees telling the truth? • Why does the service manager not recognize that there is a conflict? • Why does the service manager behave in such a gruff manner? • Who is to blame for the conflict?

The urge to blame is very strong. Gergen puts it this way: ‘In the Western culture we have a pervasive tendency to hold individuals morally accountable for their actions’ (Gergen, 2009a, p. 120). Holding accountable leads to a search to find the guilty person, which must be done by collecting facts in a neutral way. In many organizations realism and these moral obligations will lead to the decision to hire a consultant, who can make an investigation in order to find the right answers to the questions in an objective and neutral way. This could be done by individual interviews, which are believed to give good conditions for obtaining honest answers. The request from the technical director was open as to epistemology. The problem story had elements from realism and the obligations to know more, but not the ‘truth’. The technical director had a strong feeling that the situation was a point of important ethical concern. Pearce coins this a bifurcation point,

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in which the choice of direction is considered decisive for coming events (Pearce, 2007). That gave me the opportunity to design a consultancy process with inspiration from social constructionism and relational ethics.

SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM AND RELATIONAL ETHICS Social constructionism is an epistemology that has been under development for more than 30 years. Important forerunners were the well-known books: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Kuhn, 1962) and The Social Construction of Reality (Berger and Luckmann, 1966), both of which challenged foundationalist views of scientific knowledge. With the establishment in 1993 of the Taos Institute as a virtual organization operating around the globe, a rich development of social constructionist ideas and practices accelerated and inspired researchers, practitioners and authors in a growing number of countries in most continents. The basic assumptions about knowledge and morality are very different from those based on realism. In order to make it easy to compare the assumptions I have put the previously mentioned assumptions into Table 22.1 and added the corresponding and very different assumptions from social constructionism. When navigating in organizational life in accordance with the key assumptions in social constructionism the WHY questions disappear and are replaced by HOW and WHAT questions, for instance: How did we create the understanding that this is a conflict? What other ways to understand the events could there be? What do we want to co-create as regards better cooperation in the department? What communication patterns could we use? How does each organizational member contribute to the communication pattern? And so on. The possibilities for WHAT and HOW questions are endless. They build on the idea of co-creation of meaning and action

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Table 22.1  Key assumptions about knowledge and morality Realism

Social constructionism

Knowledge and truth must be objective and universal

Knowledge and ‘truth’ are shaped in culture, relationships and contexts Science and investigations deal with what certain groups agree to define as knowledge Knowledge resides in relationships Language creates our understanding of reality Any observation is made from a particular vantage point Events are co-created in patterns of communication

Science and investigation can uncover reality and reveal the connections between cause and effect Knowledge is an individual possession Language describes reality Neutral observation is possible Events are caused by the actions of individuals The individual is an autonomous entity The actions of the individual are governed by needs, interests, feelings, etc. Individual accountability

and relational responsibility (McNamee and Gergen, 1999). This way of thinking leads to a second order morality, in which focus is not on good or bad, but on through which processes we can create the good. ‘In the case of second order morality, individual responsibility is replaced by relational responsibility, a collective responsibility for sustaining the potentials of coordinated action. To be responsible to relationships is, above all, to sustain the process of co-creating meaning’ (Gergen, 2009b, p. 364). Relational ethics is a second order morality. The ideas and practices in relational ethics were unfolded in the book earlier mentioned (Haslebo and Haslebo, 2012). This book offers a thorough exploration of how key social constructionist concepts like context, relationship, narratives, appreciation and empowerment are connected with moral obligations in relational ethics. Relational ethics in organizational life can be illustrated as a flower with five petals each showing a moral obligation – see Figure 22.1. A moral obligation is very different from a rule. Whereas a rule defines a specific action, a moral obligation can guide ethical reflections in complex situations, in which it is difficult to choose a good step towards a desirable future.

The individual can be constructed in many ways by the positioning in narratives Individual actions can be understood in different ways dependent on relationships and context Relational responsibility

CASE EXAMPLE PART TWO: THE CONSULTANCY PROCESS So how did it go? Very briefly, the three sessions were structured as follows: the first was about setting the stage in order to get the process started and to give the five participants a chance to tell their individual stories and listen to the others’ feedback. The second session was about elaborating on the stories and opening the space for new understandings, while the third was about determining how each participant could contribute to changing the undesirable pattern of events, making commitments and planning how to inform the employees about the sessions and the commitments. The initial phase was the hardest part. The mood was very bleak, and no one was keen to say anything. There was hardly any eye contact among the participants. The technical director began by outlining his reasons for seeking outside assistance. He made it clear that situations had arisen that top management found unacceptable, and which would have to change. Then he handed over the responsibility for the process to me. It proved necessary to spend about an hour clarifying the context for the sessions, including my role as a consultant, and to make the ground rules explicit.

Relational Ethics in Organizational Life

In particular, it was necessary to spend time talking about the implications of confidentiality and non-disclosure. Confidentiality was defined to mean that the sessions were to serve as a free space, meaning that nothing that was said during a session could ever be used in a different context later on. The participants could speak freely, without fear that something they said might be included in their personnel file and thus potentially used later in a disciplinary context. The technical director was very aware of the ethical aspects of the process. Non-disclosure was interpreted to mean that for the duration of the consultancy, everyone had to abstain from sharing with others what was going on and what they or any of the other participants had said. During the final group session, we needed to spend some time to consider how to inform others in the organization about the process and the results. This consultancy process contained two particularly interesting moments that would be crucial in ensuring a positive development. The first moment occurred towards the end of the first session, when both the technical director and the deputy manager acknowledged the service manager for his significant professional expertise and high-quality performance, and when he encountered understanding from everyone that he might ‘erupt’ when he found that others were riding roughshod over his quality standards. The moment the service manager felt that he was being understood and acknowledged for standing up for something valuable, he underwent an almost physical transformation. He relaxed, opened up and contributed in a manner that was lively and engaged. The second moment arose during the second session. We had spent some time exploring how the different stories were interwoven. At some point, it became clear that the actions or inaction of several individuals contributed to creating the course of events that led to a situation where the service manager ‘erupted’. The big shift in understanding happened with the insight into this shared co-creation of

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and responsibility for an undesirable course of events. Following this, the participants got together around a new shared language to discuss ‘situations that entail the risk of a volcanic eruption’. This language proved very useful in shifting the focus from an individualized problem to a shared responsibility. The language was useful, even if the metaphor was less than perfect. In real life, there is precious little we can do to influence what a volcano does. That was not the case here: Everyone could play a part in predicting, preventing and attempting to stop a volcanic eruption. The final session was a very productive process where a wide range of possible courses of action were formulated and discussed. For instance, it was decided to launch a project to elevate some of the service manager’s quality standards to corporate policy and thus relieve him of having to wage a personal battle in defense of quality. On a personal level, the participants agreed on a secret signal that anyone could give the service manager if they noticed the early signs of a ‘volcanic eruption’. The signal was a secret single word that the uninitiated would not be able to guess the meaning of. A year later I received a call from the technical director about a different issue. As we talked, he mentioned that the participants still remembered the word, and that to his knowledge it had been used a couple of times. All the managers in the service department were still working in the company.

Relational Ethics in Action In a social constructionist perspective it is important to pay careful attention to language and consider which key words to use and to work reflexively with the meaningcreating processes. Some words can be very strong, as they activate certain dominant narratives. The word ‘conflict’ is one of them. ‘Conflict cannot be avoided and must be thought of as an opportunity to build rather than destroy relationships. For many participants, this is a foreign concept. For them,

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conflict by definition threatens relationships’ (Littlejohn and Domenici, 2001, p. 12). But it does not have to be this way. In this consultancy assignment the technical director introduced the word conflict in his initial request, and it was a key word in the preliminary session in the discussion between director and consultant. However, when the technical director opened the first session the word ‘conflict’ was replaced by the wording ‘situations that are unacceptable and have to change’. This change in words was a very important shift, putting relational responsibility centerstage instead of individual accountability and guilt. In what ways were the moral obligations brought into action in this consultancy process? The beginning of the first session was especially important in order to make it possible for all the participants to take social responsibility for the context. A thorough discussion of which ground rules would be needed in these specific sessions was important to create a shared understanding of the purpose and possibilities and to give each participant a secure place in the process. To do so was especially important in this case, where the stakes were high and the final outcome unknown and unpredictable. In the first session each participant was given the opportunity to tell his story about important events in the service department, while the others were listening and asking exploratory questions. The stories had some similarities, but also showed many differences. Focusing on the differences stimulated great curiosity, surprise and respectful comments, like this one: ‘Wow, I did not know, that you experienced the event in that way’. The participating managers and the relationships among them were part of each other’s stories. The dialogic obligation to honor relationships was clearly in play. The two other managers and the service manager’s deputy all had direct experiences with the service manager’s ‘explosions’, while the technical director did not. All

participants had some information about the critical employees who had complained about the service manager’s rude manner and had resigned. On this background the risk was high that the service manager would be positioned as a bully and the colleagues and employees as victims, and that the bully would be punished and eventually excluded (Haslebo and Lund, 2015; Lund, 2017). This, however, did not happen. On the contrary, the service manager was positioned as a manager with high quality standards and one who was fighting for the company. Both the shared responsibility for the positioning of each other and the obligation to inquire into the value to the work community were activated by the dialogic processes. Attention to the positioning powers in communication is of utmost importance in relational practices (Haslebo, 2003). During the second session comparing experiences and reflections on situations where the service manager ‘erupted’ helped to discover that the other managers, who often did not do anything, also had a responsibility, and that everybody involved had a certain scope of action possibilities. This new insight activated the obligation to interact as morally responsible agents – not only in the present moments, but also in risky situations in the future. Dialogic processes pave the way for reflexivity. Monk and Winslade put it this way: ‘Reflexive practices help to make what we are barely aware of more obvious, and therefore more available to our conscious efforts to change’ (Winslade and Monk, 2001, p. 121). The concept ‘moral obligation’ is a relational concept describing qualities in relationships and the interconnectedness among people and stories. What is interesting to note is that moral obligations do not reside in the individual participant but are brought alive in the dialogic processes being co-created by the consultant, technical director and the managers. The participants did not first receive teaching in social constructionist concepts and relational ethics and then encouraged to

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Social responsibility for the context

Obligation to interact as morally responsible agents

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Dialogic obligations to relationships

Relational ethics

Shared responsibility for positioning

Inquiry of value to the work community

Figure 22.1  Moral obligations in relational ethics

try to practice the new knowledge. They were right away invited into dialogic processes, in which it was possible to calibrate their understanding of events and actions with each other. And they grabbed this opportunity.

PERSPECTIVES ‘We do not suffer from an absence of morality in the world. Rather, in important respects we suffer from its plentitude’ (Gergen, 2009b, p. 356). This is also the case in organizations: organizational members can draw on many different and competing moral obligations. The decisions as to which communication pattern is used in a complex situation with strong moral concerns are quite decisive. When investigations of who is accountable and at fault are chosen, the

communication is monological. The moral atom is the individual, and the risk of blaming, punishing and excluding is high. When dialogic processes are co-created, the moral obligations from relational ethics can flourish. When this happens many times in an organization, the chance will increase that basic assumptions and moral obligations from realism will be challenged and changed. Focusing on relational ethics holds promising perspectives for the further development of ideas and practices in management, leadership and organizational development, as it can strengthen the mutual relatedness among organizational members and the coordination of meaning and action. But how can we make this happen in organizational life? This chapter has shown a wide scope of action possibilities. Let me sum up some of the most important points:

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1 The ‘choice’ of assumptions about knowledge and morality in a specific situation can make a world of difference as to future events. 2 As assumptions are culturally generated in the organization and often not made explicit, the ‘choice’ is often incidental. 3 The ‘choice’ of basic assumptions from social constructionism will invite the organizational members involved to practice the moral obligations in relational ethics. 4 The showcase leads to the surprising discovery that careful and mutually respectful dialogic processes help the participants to practice relational ethics, even though they do not know the theory behind it. 5 The showcase leads to the interesting hypothesis that participation in dialogic processes can lead to a shift in basic assumptions from realism to social constructionism, gradually making it possible to put the new assumptions into words and pave the way for a change in organizational culture.

What are the implications for the future development of social constructionist practices in organizational life? The answers are not the traditional ones: more theoretical education, more training of the individual manager, more instructions, more guidelines on ethical behavior, and so on. What we need to focus on is how we can create contexts in the ongoing organizational life in which dialogic processes can flourish even in rough times. How can we sustain the processes of co-creating meaning, and how can we restore and repair relationships even when they have been damaged? Morality does not reside in the individual, but in the co-creation of processes, relationships and communication patterns. That is what we need to focus on in the future.

REFERENCES Berger, P. & Luckmann, T. (1966). The Social Construction of Reality. New York: Doubleday/Anchor.

Burr, V. (1999). An Introduction to Social Constructionism. London: Routledge. Gergen, K. J. (1994). Realities and Relationships: Soundings in Social Construction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gergen, K. J. (2009a). An Invitation to Social Construction. London: Sage. Gergen, K. J. (2009b). Relational Being: Beyond Self and Community. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Haslebo, G. (2019). Relationer i organisationer – en verden til forskel. 2nd edition. København: Dansk Psykologisk Forlag. Haslebo, G. & Haslebo, M. L. (2012). Practicing Relational Ethics in Organizations. Chagrin Falls, OH: A Taos Institute Publication. Haslebo, G. & Lund, G. E. (2015). Practicing Relational Thinking in Dealing with Bullying in Schools. In: T. Dragonas, K. J. Gergen, S. McNamee & E. Tseliou (Eds.), Education as Social Construction. Chagrin Falls (pp. 168–191), OH: Taos Publications Worldshare. Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Littlejohn, S. W. & Domenici, K. (2001). Engaging Communication in Conflict. S­ystemic Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Lund, G. E. (2017). Making Exclusionary Processes in Schools Visible. PhD dissertation, Twente University, the Netherlands. McNamee, S. & Gergen, K. J. (1999). Relational Responsibility: Resources for Sustainable Dialogue. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Pearce, W. Barnett (2007). Making Social Worlds: A Communication Perspective. Oxford, UK and Australia: Blackwell Publishing. Pearce, W. B. & Littlejohn, S. W. (1997). Moral Conflict: When Social Worlds Collide. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Schein, E. H. (1985). Organizational Culture and Leadership: A Dynamic View. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Winslade, J. & Monk, G. (2001). Narrative Mediation: A New Approach to Conflict Resolution. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

23 Working with Relational Leading and Meaning Making in Teams of Leaders Lone Hersted

INTRODUCTION In recent years, an increasing interest has been paid to the relational aspects of leading and some scholars have even started using the term relational leading as a specific understanding of leadership. This movement is highly influenced by the dialogical turn in both social and human sciences and, in relation to this, social constructionist ideas. Relational leading is linked to a relational understanding, which puts dialogue at the center of organizational life and understands leading as a shared activity, where people work together to move the organization forward, rather than it being the result of a single person’s achievement. This understanding moves away from the traditional image of the strong, heroic leader. This chapter discusses fundamental aspects of relational leading seen from a social constructionist stance and their implications for practice. This chapter also provides the reader with an illustrative example

from an action research practice with a team of leaders (officially appointed managers) at a vocational school. Finally, a series of important ethical attention points, in relation to this practice, and further implications for the practice are shared.

WHAT IS RELATIONAL LEADING? Around a decade ago, Kenneth Gergen and I started discussing this theme, and we decided to write a little book with the title Relational Leading: Practices for Dialogically Based Collaboration, which was published a few years later (Hersted and Gergen, 2013). The book was based on a series of workshops with managers where we used roleplaying for the enhancement of dialogic and relational capabilities. But what does relational leading mean? In the following, I will unfold my understanding of the term.

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Within a social constructionist view, an organization can be understood as a web of conversations, conversational flows (Gergen, 2012) or a confluence (Hersted and Gergen, 2013) through which people interact and coordinate with each other. These conversational flows are carried out among people and groups who have different points of view, different presupposed assumptions, and different ways of understanding their tasks and their surroundings. Here we find multiple understandings and variations in locally and relationally constructed realities. Within a relational view, these different understandings and realities are not stable but always in movement. This means that through microprocesses of conversations and interaction, understandings, meanings, and opinions are developed and modify over time. Relational leading is not a matter of attempting to control these understandings (which would be an impossible effort) but of acknowledging and working with and within diversity and complexity. Within a relational view, polyvocality is seen as necessary and enriching, contributing to decision making and enhancing organizational knowing, learning, development, and creativity. Relational leading builds on the notion that, through dialogical interaction and collaboration, we can create new ways of moving forward together while accepting that, in an organization, there will always be different voices and interpretations at stake. Viewing organizations as webs of conversations, conversational flows, or a confluence of conversations contrasts with the view of the organization as an ultimately rational, controllable, and efficient machine. My approach to relational leading is built on an understanding of leading and organizing where communication is seen as a continuing process, emergent and open, and where people attempt to construct meaning together through coordinated action (Gergen, 2009) or joint action (Shotter, 2008, 2010b). In this view, meaning is not something preconceived and preplanned, rather it emerges and develops through dialogue, interplay, interaction,

and co-creation (see also Hersted, 2016; Hersted and Gergen, 2013). Relational leading understands leading as a co-created activity and pays special attention to dialogue and relationships in organizational life (see also Cunliffe and Eriksen, 2011; Gergen and Hersted, 2016; Hersted, 2016; Hersted and Gergen, 2013; Ospina and Uhl-Bien, 2012). In a relational perspective, sense making, decision making, and leading, are seen as unpredictable, emergent processes. In an organization, there may be formally appointed managers, but the activity of leading is a collaborative practice. Thus, leading in this view is not embodied in an independent person who controls the organization, but emerges out of a relational process. Rather than attempting to control the organization, relational leading is about moving with or within these emerging relational microprocesses. As written elsewhere, there are no leaders ‘independent of the relationships of which they are a part’ (Gergen and Hersted, 2016, p. 178). In my account on relational leading inspired by social constructionist ideas, I attempt to move beyond the traditional leader–­follower division as questioned and criticized by Hosking (2006). I prefer the verb leading rather than the noun leadership because I see it as a process and an activity where organizational members are relating to each other in shared ongoing action. As mentioned earlier, there may be formally appointed managers, but, in a constructionist understanding, the task of leading is a co-created, shared activity. This also includes taking a process perspective, rather than understanding the organization as something stable. While taking a process perspective, we view the organization as in a constant state of becoming, a state of ongoing change rather than stability. As Shotter puts it, we are living in ‘an unfinished, still developing world’ (2016a, p. 61) and ‘we are a part of the making’ (2016a, p. 67). Being ‘part of the making,’ as Shotter (2016a) points out, also implies that we, as organizations and

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individuals, contribute to the world making and that we are responsible for the ways in which we, as organizations and individuals, relate to our surroundings. The conditions of rapid and ongoing contextual change in the surrounding world call for new forms of leadership and new ways of organizing. At the same time, any organization is constantly changing from within. Relational leading puts major emphasis on continuous emergent change. Change, within this perspective, is seen as an ongoing process where actors are constantly ‘reweaving their webs of beliefs and actions to accommodate new experiences’ (Tsoukas and Chia, 2002, p. 580). This view contrasts with traditional approaches to leadership that are often dominated by the attempts of privileging stability, order, and routine that are controlled from a top-down position. These traditional approaches often understand organizations as structures. As previously mentioned, I see an organization as a confluence of conversations and coordinated actions. Relational leading represents a shift in our understanding from seeing people, objects, and organizations as independent entities to viewing everything as connected in a relational, responsive process. From a relational perspective, we are all interrelated with each other and we are always in the process of coordinating meaning and constructing our reality. In daily organizational practice, we are embedded in relationships which continuously develop through our daily interactions.

PRACTICES OF RELATIONAL LEADING Today many organizations are depending on people who have different kinds of skills, competences, and educational backgrounds; who are expected to be capable of working across disciplines and professions. We see a movement from unification toward diversity and an increasing request for collaboration across professions. The leader today has lost

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his or her monopoly on knowledge and needs to take the knowledge and experience of others into account in the meaning- and decision-making processes. Furthermore, he or she needs to negotiate with employees concerning specific organizational decisions, usually with officially appointed representatives from various groups of employees, for instance, work councils, staff committees, and labor unions. In order to succeed, new ways of relating, involving, and communicating are required. Within a social constructionist perspective, we consider relationships as a fundamental condition and as something which we constantly construct and develop through relationally-responsive processes (Shotter, 2006, 2008). And, in these processes, we attempt to make meaning together. Thus, moving within relationally-responsive processes becomes a matter of finding new pathways together and teaching ourselves ‘thinking in duration’ (Shotter, 2008, p. 501), which means seeing everything as interrelated and fluid. It is a matter of navigating in a continuous state of becoming, where we need to learn how to move within fluidity, complexity, and unpredictability without having the answers and conclusions beforehand. Therefore, relational leading involves curiosity, listening, responsiveness, improvisation, and reflexivity, including our capability to question our presupposed assumptions. When relational leading builds on the understanding of leading as a shared activity, basic principles such as dialogue, multivocality, co-creation, and meaning making become crucial, and special attention is paid to the development of capabilities in communication. It is, to a great extent, a matter of taking part and engaging dialogically in a relational process where relational leading puts the main focus on what is going on in the interplay among people and draws attention to everyday conversations in organizational practice. Leading is seen here as reflexive participation in a dialogically based process of mutual meaning making or sense making – a

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process of continuous coordination among organizational members. Karl Weick (1995, 2001) was the first scholar who emphasized the important role of sense making in the process of organizing. Whereas some scholars understand sense making mainly as an individual, cognitive process (Klein et al., 2006), others see it as inherently discursive and social (Maitlis, 2005; Weick, 1995, 2001; Weick et al., 2005). Weick et al. (2005) explain that sense making is where meaning is materializing through language and where ‘situations, organizations and environments are being talked into existence’ (p. 409). These scholars point out that sense making, to a great extent, is a relational activity concerning organizing through communication. Within a social constructionist understanding, sense making – or meaning m ­ aking – is primarily seen as a social process because a main assumption here is that through conversations and embodied interaction people co-construct their understandings and interpretations of their social world. In organizations, and in our daily life, we make sense of our experience through stories, narratives, and dialogue. We co-create collective narratives to create shared meanings around experiences and episodes and, as Gergen (2005) points out, narratives connect characters, actions, and plots with biography and history. Constantly things are happening in the organization that we cannot predict or control. We are thrown into a series of unpredictable, unknown events, and we seek the answer to our question: ‘What’s the story?’ (Weick et  al., 2005, p. 410). In particular, there is a need for thoughtful sense making when an incident does not correspond to our understanding of the world, for instance when we experience disruption understood as radical organizational change. In these situations, we experience an urgent need for making sense, so that we will become capable of acting and adjust ourselves to the new situation. Therefore, sense making is not only

retrospective, but it also concerns how we can navigate here and now into the future. Seen from a social constructionist standpoint, sense making is not just simply a matter of being a good storyteller but more a question of being a good facilitator of and contributor to meaning-making dialogues. Leading, within a relational view, becomes to a great extent a matter of facilitating and engaging in dialogues for sense making in, for example, groups and teams. This requires the willingness to offer space for multivocality and being capable of tolerating and navigating in dissensus. In line with Shotter’s thoughts (2006, 2010b), it is a matter of working from a withness approach rather than an aboutness approach; being and talking responsively with people, rather than making decisions above their heads. Here the leader’s capability of entering into dialogue as a resourceful conversational partner (Shotter and Cunliffe, 2003) becomes crucial, as well as her or his willingness to put him/herself at the disposal of others for questioning and meaning making. Likewise, it is important to offer the organizational members and stakeholders the necessary space for expressing themselves, uttering their concerns, doubts, worries, and critical viewpoints. This is an ongoing special task for the appointed leaders in the organization, not only in periods of radical change, but in daily organizational life as well.

HOW CAN RELATIONAL LEADING BE DEVELOPED? AN EXAMPLE FROM PRACTICE Most leadership development programs focus on the individual leader. In my experience as a researcher, educator, and organizational consultant, there is a need for working with learning in groups or teams of leaders where they can train their capability of communicating, reflecting together, collaborating, and creating new ideas jointly. This can be done, for instance, through action learning

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and action research (e.g., Hersted and Frimann, 2019; Raelin and Coghlan, 2006). The following presents a brief example of how it is possible to work with leadership development and meaning making through roleplaying with a reflecting team within the frame of action research. The approach is based on an understanding of leadership as basically relational, dialogical, and unscripted, which means that leading cannot be learned from manuals and recipes. Rather, it is a matter of developing capabilities in what could be called unscripted leadership (a term borrowed from Gagnon et al., 2012) and finding generative pathways in responsive relationships from within (Shotter, 2005, 2006, 2010a, 2010b) challenging situations in the organization. While working from the notion of relational leading, I am interested in finding how we may ‘sensitize leaders to the impact of their interactions and enable them to become more reflexive and ethical practitioners’ (Cunliffe and Eriksen, 2011, p.  1428). This idea of ‘sensitizing’ leaders to become more aware and reflexive concerning their engagement in relationships has informed my action research practice for several years, where I include the use of roleplaying for leadership development (Hersted, 2016, 2017, 2019). The following example derives from a project where we worked with leadership development in teams of mid-level leaders (managers) at 38 vocational schools. The project was externally funded by the Danish Ministry of Education, and the overall aim of the project was to develop leadership in practice and sustain the development in the 38 leading teams. The inquiry was inspired by action research. In one of these vocational schools, the group of seven leaders wished to work with the development of their communicative and relational capabilities in relation to their leading practice. Only two of the seven leaders had been working at the school for more than two years, so they were relatively new to each other.

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Within this frame, we agreed to work with challenging communicative situations in their leading practice. In these challenging situations, the leaders found themselves stuck in degenerative communicative patterns loaded with tension and conflict. Therefore, it was crucial to find new ways of relating, communicating, and navigating in response to the current situation. In other words, it was necessary to make sense and find new ways of moving forward. First, we had to create a frame for reflexivity (Cunliffe, 2002, 2004) and learning in a supporting and nurturing atmosphere. We agreed to use an inquiry based on roleplaying and a reflecting team to experiment with new and more generative pathways to move thoughtfully forward in challenging and bewildering situations. The central guiding question in the group of leaders became, ‘How can we, as leaders, develop our communicative and relational capabilities to create a better organization?’ Related to this guiding question, we worked with the theme of sense making, which became important to the group due to impending cost savings initiatives and minor organizational changes. The leaders were in doubt about how to navigate and communicate with the employees in this situation and many questions emerged, such as, ‘How would the cost savings and organizational changes affect the organization and the employees?’, ‘What to say and how and when to say it?’, ‘What kind of burning questions could the employees possibly have in this situation?’, ‘How could they, leaders and employees, make sense together through dialogue?’ To put it simply, ‘How could they move forward with people in generative ways?’ The leaders were interested in discussing and finding pathways concerning how they could facilitate meaningful dialogues with the employees and each other in relation to the new situation and engage in these dialogues in supportive ways as resourceful conversational partners. How could they navigate reflexively in these difficult circumstances? In addition, how could

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they be responsive and recognize their own and the employees’ emotions and memories from previous cost-cuttings? How could they meet and resonate with these emotions in generative and nurturing ways instead of attempting to push them away? Of course, the answers to these questions could not be scripted. However, through roleplaying, we created a frame for improvising different scenarios and trying out different ways of communicating in these kinds of challenging situations. The leaders picked up and staged scenarios that they had recently experienced themselves and found challenging or bewildering or caused them to be stuck. Here are some examples of themes they decided to work with: (1) engaging in sense-making dialogues with groups of employees concerning the cost savings; (2) mediating conflicts in teams of employees; (3) entering into dialogues with teachers due to claims from students; (4) facilitating dialogues for development and knowledge sharing in teams of teachers; (5) facilitating dialogues to sustain the inclusion of newcomers in the organization; and (6) facilitating dialogues for creativity and innovation in the teaching programs. I had the role of facilitator of the process. Figure 23.1 illustrates the different phases in the process. As illustrated in Figure 23.1, we included working with a reflecting team (consisting of colleagues from the team of leaders) to create a space for collaborative reflexivity among the participants (see also Hersted, 2018, 2019). This way of working with a reflecting team was inspired by the systemic family therapists from the well-known Milan school and the Norwegian psychiatrist and family therapist, Andersen (1991). With the reflecting team, we paid special attention to the use of discourse, metaphors, and the kinds of spaces the remarks among the participants opened up and, likewise, closed down. Furthermore, we discussed possible alternative scenarios: What else could have been said/done? Figure 23.2 illustrates the set-up with the use of the reflecting team.

When we communicate, we metaphorically co-create generative or degenerative scenarios (Gergen, 2009; Gergen and Hersted, 2016). Sometimes we find ourselves caught in fixed and destructive patterns or, as Gergen (2009) formulates it, dangerous dances. If we see a remark as an invitation, how then, can we respond to it in a thoughtful way? Through the roleplaying scenarios we created different shifts in the ‘dance’ and tried to find new openings in the conversation while taking into consideration that, in any kind of conversation, the conversational partners must be thoughtful and reflexive concerning the possible ripple effects. With the use of roleplaying, we explored the following: How can we express the things which are difficult to say in such a way that all involved keep their dignity and are able to continue working together? How can we listen in such ways that the people involved are encouraged to speak and how can we communicate in ways that encourage people to listen? How can we, as leaders, assist organizational members in sense-making processes in times of rapid change? When using the term discourse, we also included the embodied dimensions of communication. It is my experience that roleplaying, in particular, can help participants become more aware of their bodily expressions and sensations and encourage participants to pay more attention to other people’s embodied and responsive ways of acting as well. As Shotter (2010a) points out, ‘we do not need to refer to a mental schematism (a theory or a model) in order to act in a skillful manner; we simply need to act continuously in response to our sense of our current situation’ (p. 279). It is my experience that roleplaying can contribute to enhancing and refining this kind of responsive, relational sensitivity which Shotter refers to, because, in roleplaying, participants need to respond to each other and improvise all the time. In sum, roleplaying is all about relationships and responsiveness.

Figure 23.1  Discovering new ways of relating by use of roleplaying with reflecting team

(10–15min.)

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Figure 23.2  Roleplaying with reflecting team in bewildering situations

Shotter (2016b) emphasizes that, ‘all communication begins in, and continues with, our living, spontaneous, expressive-responsive (gestural), bodily activities that occur in the meetings between ourselves and the others and othernesses around us’ (p. 127). Unfortunately, in programs for management education, emphasis is often put on cognitive approaches to learning, and the bodily dimension is ignored. The work with communicative scenarios through roleplaying offers an integrated approach because it includes embodiment, reflexivity, playfulness, improvisation, responsiveness, and collaboration. In relation to our work with roleplaying, we can talk about embodied sense making while understanding bodily utterances and reactions as entirely integrated in human interaction and communication. As argued by Cunliffe and Coupland (2012), embodied sense making constitutes a significant part of organizational

life because we are touched by each other in our daily interactions in the organization. Through roleplaying, the leaders engaged in responsive relationships and developed different ways of communicating from within the unfolding dynamics of relationships instead of strategically trying to plan and control conversations. They started moving away from old bureaucratic and formal ways of communicating and began relating to others in more improvisational and spontaneous ways. Little by little, they discovered that they had a broader potential than they initially thought, and, in this way, they widened their communicative repertoire.

Outcomes of the Project At the end of the project, all seven managers participated in individual interviews of 30–40 minutes each, where they expressed

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their feelings and reflections concerning the experience. Some of the common points in their commentaries was that the roleplaying with the reflecting team had supported them both at an individual level as leaders and as an entire management team. They explained that the roleplaying had helped them in:

be responsive, adjust to the emerging scenarios, and adapt to each other. Here they develop their capability of saying yes to each other (Barrett, 2012) and coordinate in joint action as if they were a group of improvisational jazz players.

• Improving their capability for considering different perspectives other than their own; • Developing relational capabilities; • Engaging in sense-making dialogues with other organizational members; • Developing bodily awareness; • Sensing openings in the conversation; • Developing capabilities in improvisation and risk-taking; • Developing reflexive capabilities by giving and receiving feedback; • Developing responsive ways of engaging with others; • Increasing the level of trust and collaboration in the team.

ETHICAL ATTENTION POINTS

In summary, it is my experience that this way of learning through roleplaying with a reflecting team can contribute to sensitizing participants in their relational engagement and improve their capabilities of entering into and facilitating dialogues as resourceful conversational partners. It can help participants to sense openings in conversations, to become more responsive in their relationships with others, and to improvise and navigate without scripts instead of attempting to predict the situation. It is about engaging in living relations, being responsive and moving with the process, rather than trying to control it. Furthermore, the project has shown that, this kind of training can help leaders engage in sense-making dialogues with other organizational members, for instance, in confusing situations or even crises. In addition, it can contribute to the development of trust and confidence in a group because participants move to the edge of their comfort zone and allow themselves to take risks and show their imperfections and vulnerability. When engaging in roleplaying, which is based on improvisation, participants need to

Working with roleplaying in organizations is not an innocent activity because memories, emotions, and energies become activated. Therefore, in the following, I emphasize some basic ethical points to which we should attend that have emerged and become formulated during my practice. These may inspire others who consider working with roleplaying for learning and development in organizations: • Embrace polyphony – include multiple voices, multiple perspectives and multiple selves. • Avoid stereotyping the other, which means avoiding the construction of closed and static identity conclusions (working from the idea that we have multiple selves). • Always recognize the unique otherness of the other and be responsive to him/her. • Use withness-thinking instead of aboutnessthinking, which means that we must work with people while simultaneously challenging and questioning the presupposed assumptions and established truths (in the group and one’s own). • Continue being curious, keep wondering, and asking questions. • Always be creative and look for new openings in the conversations. • Avoid imposing initiatives on anyone, but work with people in a relationally-responsive way. • Always be respectful if some participants do not wish to participate directly in the roleplaying. Be creative and offer other ways to participate, for example, by taking part in the reflecting team, taking notes, or making drawings in relation to the process on a shared poster. • Always work from within the zone of proximal development. • Ensure that all participants feel comfortable during and after the process.

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IMPLICATIONS FOR LEADERSHIP AND LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT IN THE FUTURE Relational leading emphasizes the development of relational and dialogic capabilities, not only among officially appointed managers but also among employees because leading, in this view, is seen as a shared practice. The case described shows that if we wish to help organizational members develop a high degree of reflexivity and help them become more capable of relating, communicating, coordinating, improvising, and adjusting to what emerges in relationally-responsive and responsible ways, learning through roleplaying with reflecting team can be one way to go. However, there may be many other ways as well, and I can see an enormous potential in action learning and action research where leaders and employees work closely together in dialogically based settings to develop new ways of strategizing, organizing, and coordinating. In this way, leading can become even more relational, more engaging, and to a greater extent become a shared practice based on multivocality and democratic involvement.

REFERENCES Andersen, T. (ed.) (1991). The reflecting team: Dialogues and dialogues about the dialogues. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Barrett, F. J. (2012). Yes to the mess: Surprising leadership lessons from Jazz. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press. Cunliffe, A. L. (2002). Reflexive dialogical practice in management learning. Management Learning, 3(1), 35–61. Cunliffe, A. L. (2004). On becoming a critically reflexive practitioner. Journal of Management Education, 28(4), 407–426. Cunliffe, A. L., & Coupland, C. (2012). From hero to villain to hero: Making experience sensible through embodied narrative sensemaking. Human Relations, 65(1), 63–88.

Cunliffe, A. L., & Eriksen, M. (2011). Relational leadership. Human Relations, 64(11), 1425–1449. Gagnon, S., Vough, H. C., & Nickerson, R. (2012). Learning to lead, unscripted: Developing affiliative leadership through improvisational theatre. Human Resource Development Review, 11(3), 299–325. Gergen, K. J. (2005). Narrative, moral identity and historical consciousness: A social constructionist account. In J. Straub (Ed.), Narration, identity and historical consciousness (pp. 99–119). New York: Berghahn Books. Gergen, K. J. (2009). Relational being: Beyond self and community. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gergen, K. J. (2012). Co-constitution, causality and confluence: Organizing in a world without entities. In T. Hernes & S. Maitlis (Eds.), Process, sensemaking, and organizing (pp. 55–69). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gergen, K. J., & Hersted, L. (2016). Leadership as dialogic practice. In J. A. Raelin (Ed.), Leadership-as-practice: Theory and application (pp. 178–197). New York: Taylor & Francis/Routledge Business & Management. Hersted, L. (2016). Relational leading and dialogic process (PhD thesis). Aalborg: Aalborg Universitetsforlag. Hersted, L. (2017). Reflective role-playing in the development of dialogic skill. Journal of Transformative Education, 15(2), 137–155. Hersted, L. (2018). Doing relational research through roleplaying. In C. Ø. Madsen, M. V. Larsen, L. Hersted, & J. G. Rasmussen (Eds.), Relational research and organi­sation studies (pp. 117–141). London: Routledge. Hersted, L. (2019). Developing leadership through action research with roleplaying. In L. Hersted, O. Ness, & S. Frimann (Eds.), Action research in a relational perspective: Dialogue, reflexivity, power and ethics (pp.  111–133). New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group. Hersted, L., & Frimann, S. (2019). Leadership development and organizational learning through dialogical process. In L. Hersted, O. Ness, & S. Frimann (Eds.), Action research in a relational perspective: Dialogue, reflexivity, power and ethics (pp. 75–92). New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.

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Hersted, L., & Gergen, K. J. (2013). Relational leading: Practices for dialogically based collaboration. Chagrin Falls, OH: TAOS Institute Publications. Hosking, D. M. (2006). Not leaders, not followers: A post-modern discourse of leadership processes. In B. Shamir, R. Pillai, M. Bligh, & M. Uhl-Bien (Eds.), Follower-centered perspectives on leadership: A tribute to the memory of James R. Meindl (pp. 243–263). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing. Klein, G., Moon, B., & Hoffman, R. (2006). Making sense of sensemaking 1: Alternative perspectives. Intelligent Systems, 21(4), 70–73. Maitlis, S. (2005). The social processes of organizational sensemaking. The Academy of Management Journal, 48(1), 21–49. Ospina, S., & Uhl-Bien, M. (2012). ­Introduction – Mapping the terrain: Convergence and divergence around relational leadership. In M. Uhl-Bien & S. Ospina (Eds.), Advancing relational leadership research (pp. xix–xlvii). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. Raelin, J. A., & Coghlan, D. (2006). Developing managers as learners and researchers: Using action learning and action research. Journal of Management Education, 30(5), 670–689. Shotter, J. (2005). Inside the moment of managing: Wittgenstein and the everyday dynamic of our expressive-responsive activities. Organization Studies, 26(1), 113–135. Shotter, J. (2006). Understanding process from within: An argument for withness-thinking. Organization Studies, 27(4), 585–604. Shotter, J. (2008). Dialogism and polyphony in organizing theorizing in organization

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studies: Action guiding anticipations and continuous creation of novelty. Organization Studies, 29(4), 501–525. Shotter, J. (2010a). Situated dialogic action research: Disclosing ‘beginnings’ for innovative change in organisations. Organisational Research Methods, 13(2), 268–285. Shotter, J. (2010b). Social constructionism on the edge. Chagrin Falls, OH: The Taos Institute Publications. Shotter, J. (2016a). Undisciplining social science: Wittgenstein and the art of creating situated practices of social inquiry. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 46(1), 60–83. Shotter, J. (2016b). Speaking, actually: Towards a new ‘fluid’ common-sense understanding of relational becomings. Farnhill: Everything is Connected Press. Shotter, J., & Cunliffe, A. L. (2003). Managers as practical authors: Everyday conversations for action. In D. Holman & R. Thorpe (Eds.), Management and Language (pp. 15–37). London: Sage. Tsoukas, H., & Chia, R. (2002). On organizational becoming: Rethinking organizational change. Organization Science, 13(5), 567–582. Weick, K. E. (1995). Sensemaking in organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Weick, K. E. (2001). Making sense of the organization. Oxford: Blackwell. Weick, K. E., Sutcliffe, K. M., & Obstfeld, D. (2005). Organizing and the process of sensemaking. Organization Science, 16(4), 409–421.

24 Coaching: Using Ordinary Words in Extraordinary Ways Haesun Moon

INTRODUCTION As one of the fastest-expanding industries worldwide with a multibillion dollar annual market value, coaching has generated a multitude of theories, methods, standards, and areas of application that permeate through various intersectoral and interprofessional boundaries with prolific success (Pappas and Jerman, 2015; ICF, 2016). Coaching is now one of the most cited leadership skills expected of a leader in healthcare, the corporate world, education, and the public or nonprofit sectors, and the demand for coaching and coach training has increased exponentially, especially in the last two decades (Maltbia et al., 2014). The burning question of the 1990s and early 2000s, Does it work? seems to have been answered with a surging increase in the number of outcome studies. Yet pursuing answers to the question How does it work? reveals just how scant database information is in a field still in its infancy.

Current research literature is dominated by outcome studies that report individual cognitive processing and internal (motivation, confidence, beliefs, etc.) changes. The relational and reciprocal nature of the dialogic process is still largely underrepresented in research and pedagogical considerations. Although the permeating nature of words in dialogues has been widely documented, systematic process studies that record interactional perspective and the impact of co-presence – the phenomenological sense of ‘being there’ with another person in place and/or time – are still only emerging (Co-presence, n.d.). In this chapter, I explore the core question of studying coaching as a dialogic process that co-constructs the notions of purpose, possibility, and progress – things ordinarily viewed together as an invisible or mysterious process. I also provide a new framework of coaching, The Dialogic Orientation Quadrant, derived from a Solution-Focused, interactional perspective, and offer a

Coaching: Using Ordinary Words in Extraordinary Ways

practice-based way to understand ‘how coaching works’.

DEFINING COACHING In a field considered to still be in its infancy in terms of academic rigour, the lack of a unifying body of knowledge and the use of overarching definitions make it difficult to distinguish coaching from other human development interventions. Defining coach as a noun, as a verb, and as a profession are tricky undertakings that perforce engage multiple perspectives from diverse root disciplines. Each of the root disciplines has its own knowledge base comprising both theoretical frameworks and best practices that inform the theoretical grounding of practitioners from a wide range of occupational backgrounds now working as coaches (Sherman and Freas, 2004; Grant, 2005; Brock, 2008). Such diversity in the domain of coaching gives rise to as many definitions and models as there are practitioners and researchers. The respective legacy fields of those now working as coaches seems to inform how they define coaching in four general areas: what the coach does; what is understood as the client’s progress; how the progress happens; and the protocol, boundaries, and usefulness of the interactions. A surge in the number of associations and researchers in recent decades has brought with it ever refined yet eclectic definitions of coaching as a conceptual bricolage of these diverse biases. For example, the Association for Coaching (n.d.) defines personal coaching as ‘a collaborative solution-focused, results-oriented and systematic process in which the coach facilitates the enhancement of work performance, life experience, selfdirected learning and personal growth of the coachee’. The embedded biases in definitions influence how people participate in coaching dialogue as well as how they afterwards evaluate and reflect on their practice.

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Along with the paucity of a unifying definition comes the increasing demand for more academic rigour in diversifying research. For example, influential authors like Grant illustrated heavy imbalance found in outcome studies relying solely on self-reporting and retrospective narrative, rather than rigorous examination of the coaching process. Grant (2006) acknowledged the diverse characteristics of coaching when he defined coaching as ‘collaborative, individualised, solution-focused, results orientated, systematic, stretching, fosters self-directed learning, and should be evidence-based, and incorporate ethical professional practice’ (p. 13). In this chapter, coaching is defined as a dialogic and relational approach to curate clients’ preferred interactions by exploring what might be wanted and identifying existing progress in that direction.

THE PROCESS OF COACHING Imagine, for example, that you are sitting with another person in a dialogue who tells you: I have been struggling with that for some time. I really want to see some positive changes, but I find myself going back to my old habits. I know I can do it and others seem to think that too, but for some reason, I don’t seem to be able to move forward as much as I want to.

How you respond might largely depend on the expected role and relationship you have with this person. Did you imagine the other person to be a friend, a family member, a client or a colleague? Other layers of relational complexities influencing your response may include micro-habits of one’s lifeworlds, dominant or binary narratives, existing interactional patterns, and so on. Our biases and assumptions direct our attention to specific parts of a narrative more so than other parts presented in that narrative. As dialogue participants, we discriminate, infer, interpret and

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organize information presented in and through narrative. How does one make moment-by-moment choices in dialogue with someone? How do those choices influence collaborative dialogue in a coaching context?

The Meaning-Making Before studying how coaching works, one needs to determine one’s perspective to see the phenomenon through. In studying how meaning is established or negotiated or transformed in and through dialogue, some may find themselves in alignment with the structural stance posed by authors like Kegan (2009): What ‘form’ transforms? This traditional stance generally privileges positivistic interpretations and explanatory standpoints (cognition, motivation, other conceptual frameworks, etc.). From this point of view, the role of a coach is to discover the ‘true meaning’ contained in and underlying the surface structure of words. The influence of the aforementioned root disciplines may contribute to the position of coaches doing the work of thoroughly-knowing – literally, the process of dia (thorough or through) -gnosis (to know). Others may sharply contrast this perspective with a post-structural perspective where meanings are co-constructed within particular interactional contexts, instead of seeing meaning as part of ‘deep structure’ waiting to be unearthed (Chomsky, 1968 and Saussure, 1959, as cited in Bavelas et al., 2014). Instead of studying the words used by coach and client as independent parts of a conversation, the interactional perspective places emphasis on how words and gestures function to create and augment meaning in a given interaction. In search of the interactional functions of a coach and a client collaborating in meaningmaking, post-structural therapists like De Shazer and his colleagues offer an alternative view where ‘the participant’s social interaction determines the meaning of the words

they are using’ (Bavelas et  al., 2014, p. 1,). Other communication researchers following De Shazer, such as McGee (1999; McGee et  al., 2005), pose questions like, How do therapeutic questions work? in search of how language functions in interactions acknowledged as collaborative meaning-making: the process called, literally, dia (through or thorough) -logue (words).

The Role of Language The interactional and collaborative process of meaning-making is referred to as co-construction. The term co-construction is also a central concept used in broader theories of social constructionism that presupposes ‘people, through their social and language interactions, continually create and rework the meanings that influence their lives’ (Bavelas et  al., 2014. p. 4; Gergen, 2009). According to this presupposition, the presumed process of a coaching conversation is to inductively observe new subjective meanings emerge in the collaborative interaction so that other narrative realities are made available. This supports De Shazer’s (1991) description of co-construction as an activity, not an abstraction. Yet the description of the activity in the literature largely remains that of a conceptual framework. Especially in a modality like coaching that prioritizes language as the primary tool for facilitating change, understanding how the tool works and refining its use is important for both pedagogical and practical reasons. Based on the assumption that words both shape and are shaped by social interaction, the coach’s role as an influential listener in the interaction may be seen as someone who attends to the client’s narrative with an intentional stance reflected in their responses. Bavelas and her colleagues (2000) call listeners co-narrators because their responses orient the narratives of their clients in the immediate social context. The main tools of co-construction in a dialogue offered by

Coaching: Using Ordinary Words in Extraordinary Ways

De Jong et al. (2013) include questions, formulations, calibration, gestures, gazes, and many more. We explore questions and formulations more closely in this chapter.

How Questions Work Although there are other interventions, the most frequently documented tool of coaching dialogue is questioning. The function of questions in a coaching dialogue reaches beyond information-gathering and the very act of posing a question may itself be an intervention. As Healing and Bavelas (2011, p. 46) propose, ‘all questions are “loaded questions”; the practitioner’s choice is how to “load” them with presuppositions that will be useful to the client’. A question suggests deliberate and alternative possibilities that both orient and constrain the respondent to answer within a spectrum of presuppositions embedded in the question. Take, for example, these popular opening lines from coaching demo tapes available online: • What brought you here today? • How can I help you? • What would you like to talk about today?

What do these questions presuppose? There are implicit assumptions of both roles and

process, and explicit requests for specific information embedded in the examples, as illustrated in Table 24.1. Though not an exhaustive list, we can clearly see the assumptions in these examples. It may not be surprising to observe a client accepting some or all of the embedded assumptions that then become part of the shared perspectives in the collaborative meaning-making. As presuppositions scaffold the shared perspectives between the coach and the client, using more useful presuppositions when posing questions should be an intentional process. Take, for example, the following opening questions from a Solution-Focused Brief Coaching session: • Suppose this conversation somehow turns out to be useful, what will tell you that it was useful as you go back to your life afterwards? • You must have a good reason to come here. What are your best hopes from this conversation? • What are some positive changes that you would like to notice as a result of coming here?

The embedded assumptions are clearly orienting and they ask the client to address specific aspects of his or her life that are relevant to the reason for the visit. The above questions orient the client’s attention in a way that is very different from the previous example.

Table 24.1  Embedded presuppositions Question

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Assumptions

What brought you here • Something happened in the past today? • That happening is related to or is what caused you to be here • You know what that is • It may not have been you volunteering to be here • You will tell me what brought you here How can I help you? • You need help (assumption about the client) • I can help you (assumption about coach’s role) • You know what help you need (building on the primary assumption ‘You need help’) • You will tell me how I can help (assumption of coaching process) • Talking about this would be helpful (assumption about proposed outcome) What would you like to • You want to talk talk about today? • You have a topic in mind • You will tell me • Talking about it would be useful somehow

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How Formulations Work Using all or part of what a client has presented is another co-construction tool coaches use when responding to client narrative, as evidence of understanding (or misunderstanding). Garfinkel and Sacks (1970) call such responses formulations in which ‘one participant describes, summarizes, explicates, or characterizes what another participant has said’ (p. 350, as cited in De Jong et  al., 2013). It is also known as reframing, normalizing, mirroring, echoing, etc. in language-based interventions like therapy and coaching. Although formulations have been traditionally and generally regarded as neutral and non-directive activities meant to clarify information or display understanding and empathy, the transformative quality of formulations was observed as early as the 1970s in studying the social functions of formulations (Heritage and Watson, 1979). De Jong et al. (2013, p. 26) take an even more radical view that ‘all formulations are influential choices rather than passive evidence of understanding’ since the practitioner omits, preserves, or adds to what the client presents. Returning to our earlier example of a client’s narrative: I have been struggling with that for some time. I really want to see some positive changes, but I find myself going back to my old habits. I know I can do it and others seem to think that too, but for some reason, I don’t seem to be able to move forward as much as I want to.

At this point, the coach needs to make a choice. That choice may involve omitting, preserving (verbatim or in altered form), or adding to what has been said. The choice and all subsequent choices influence the conversational contexts and shared perspectives accumulating in and through the interactions. Here are four response examples selected from many possibilities from coach practitioners: 1 So, it’s been a struggle for you. (you replacing I, deictically preserving the pronoun, preserved

ha(ve) been, preserved struggling as an altered form a struggle, added for you) 2 You keep going back to your old patterns. (you and your replacing I and my, added the words keep and patterns to replace habit, preserved going back to and old) 3 There is something blocking you from moving forward. (added there is something blocking you, preserved move forward in an altered form moving forward) 4 So, you want to move forward to see some positive changes. (you deictically preserving I, and preserved the client’s language move forward, want to see some positive changes in a rearranged order)

These four formulations are consistent with the practitioner’s espoused theory of how change happens (David (1986) and Philipps (1999) as cited in Korman et al., 2013). For example, the formulations made in the first example preserve the word struggle and this may reflect the coach’s assumption that the struggle is somehow related to the desired change. The second formulation seems to emphasize the persistent nature of the client’s patterns and the client may take this formulation as an invitation to further elaborate on old patterns they believe they continue to follow. While questions may explicitly request more information, formulations often orient the client’s attention and implicitly invite them to speak further on that particular content of the narrative. The third example illustrates a formulation where the coach adds the new information that was not introduced by the client: something blocking. The coach assumes a possible reason for the client not moving forward and attributes it to external factors. If accepted by the client, this assumption becomes a shared perspective between the coach and client. This particular perspective that the client is blocked by something is a significant departure from the initial client’s utterance that they know they can do it and they are not moving forward as much as they want. The fourth and final example shows a Solution-Focused coach responding to the client’s narrative. As seen in these examples, the coach’s embedded curiosity behind each

Coaching: Using Ordinary Words in Extraordinary Ways

formulation orients the client’s utterances and narratives, and the coach’s choice of formulation will influence the client’s next utterance. This is what I call interfluence.

THE FOUR QUADRANT MODEL OF COACHING When coaching is introduced as a questionbased practice, the reciprocal and interfluent nature of dialogue is easily overlooked as it quickly becomes about what the coach does or, more precisely, about what the coach asks. Studying individual elements of dialogue instead of interactional functions risks the practice becoming ossified as a formula instead of a rhizomic flow of meaning. While acknowledging the complexity of collaborative meaning-making and interfluential relations of coach and client in their situated contexts, making the co-construction process visible is possible with the aid of an appropriate framework. The following simple heuristic of interaction is called the Dialogic Orientation Quadrant (DOQ) and is intended to make the inductive observation of a coaching conversation simpler to organize.

Observation #1: Timeline of the Narrative There seems to be an inherent timeline in a narrative. We notice this timeline not only in

coaching dialogues, but in ordinary conversations with friends, family and colleagues. The time spectrum spans from past to future and, in some cases, the past goes back to a time even before we were born and the future far out to a point even beyond our own existence (Figure 24.1). In this model, the concept of now or the present is defined as the time the coach and client spend together, so the focus of the activity is not distracted by possible and irrelevant discussion about defining ‘the now’. In coaching, it has been generally believed that the coach should focus on the narratives about the future, however, there is an increasing amount of evidence available that challenges the very notion of focusing only on the future narrative (Oettingen et al., 2016).

Observation #2: Content of the Narrative In a conversation like coaching that can be more polarized than other everyday conversations, the content of narrative can be mapped along a spectrum somewhere between positive content and negative content, to borrow the terms used in the research method, Microanalysis of Face-to-Face Dialogue (Smock Jordan et al., 2013). Positive content includes the things people want to see continue, increase, and grow in their life: interactions, moments, experiences, thoughts, decisions, attitudes,

We can notate the timeline in the narrative introduced earlier as follows:

Past

Future

I have been struggling with that for some time (past). I really want to see some positive changes (future), but I find myself going back to my old habits (past). I know I can do it and others seem to think that too (past), but for some reason, I don’t seem to be able to move forward as much as I want to (past).

Figure 24.1  Timeline of narrative

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feelings, and hopes. At the opposite end is the negative content people want to see less of. Returning to our earlier sample narrative, we can notate the content as shown in Figure 24.2. As you may have noticed, mapping the content is not always as straightforward as mapping the timeline. This is, in part, because we are looking only at text here, devoid of other visible and audible acts of meaning. We might also find ourselves taking an evaluative stance when we assess the content as positive or negative in another person’s life. Figure 24.3  Dialogic Orientation Quadrant

Observation #3: Mapping the Narrative A simple quadrant is created when we overlap the timeline as the horizontal axis and the content as the vertical axis (Figure 24.3). Moving counter-clockwise from the top right, each quadrant bears a unique combination of the two axes:

• Quadrant 1 (top-right): positive content and future timeline, The Preferred Future • Quadrant 2 (top-left): positive content and past timeline, The Resourceful Past • Quadrant 3 (bottom-left): negative content and past timeline, The Troubled Past • Quadrant 4 (bottom-right): negative content and future timeline, The Fearful Future

I have been struggling (negative) with that (negative) for some time. I really want to see some positive changes (positive), but I find myself going back (negative) to my old habits (negative). I know I can do it (positive) and others seem to think that too (positive), but for some reason, I don’t seem to be able to (negative) move forward (positive) as much as I want to.

Positive Content

Negative Content Figure 24.2  Content of narrative

Coaching: Using Ordinary Words in Extraordinary Ways

Our nomenclature nods both to technical terms used in the field of coaching as well as to language used in everyday conversations. The name of the model takes into account both the quality and function – dialogic and orienting – of the coaching conversation: Dialogic Orientation Quadrant (DOQ) (Moon, 2019). We can now apply the quadrant to our narrative: I have been struggling (Q3) with that (Q3) for some time (Q3). I really want to see (Q1) some positive changes (Q1), but I find myself going back (Q3) to my old habits (Q3). I know I can do it (Q1, Q2) and others seem to think that too (Q2), but for some reason, I don’t seem to be able to (Q3, Q4) move forward (Q1) as much as I want to (Q1).

It may be useful to note here that this activity is meant as an approximation, similar to the metaphor popularly evoked by Korzybski when he describes a model as a map and not the territory. Minor variations between different raters undertaking the analyses are common and the scope of analysis may be even more microscopic or macroscopic than that provided here. A close examination of interactional activities like those shown above demonstrates the extent of congruence between what is espoused by a coach as their framework, and what is actually practised in their coaching responses in exploring the client narrative. As seen here in earlier definitions of coaching, it is generally agreed that coaching conversations explore future-focused timelines and client strengths and potentials (positive content). If coaching intervention tools like questions and formulations function to transform and shape meanings towards the direction of what is wanted in the future (Q1) and existing relevant experiences (Q2), what might be an appropriate response to the client’s narrative at this point? Although there is no set way of forming questions, a pattern nonetheless emerges when we observe coaching sessions by various practitioners. For example, a SolutionFocused coach is more likely to elicit and

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expand on the information in Q1 or Q2 with their questions and formulations. The Q3 and Q4 are less likely to be explored, though acknowledged, when expressed by the client. Experienced practitioners are able to use Q3 and Q4 information to orient a client’s attention to Q1 and Q2. Solution-Focused coaches may be more likely to respond to our sample narrative with one or more of the following: • So, you want to see some positive changes. What will you see? • So, you want to move forward. What will tell you that you are moving forward and in the right direction? • You mentioned that both you and others know that you can do it. What is it that others know about you that makes them believe that?

Notice that all responses are specific to the preceding narrative. The responses also preserve the client’s language that we have mapped in either Q1 or Q2 and an explicit request is made in each response to expand on the information captured in the formulation. When information is presented in all four quadrants, a Solution-Focused coach will rarely invite the client to explore Q3 or Q4. For example, it is very likely not Solution-Focused coaching if the coach responds in the following manner: • So, it’s been a struggle for you. How long have you been struggling with this? • You keep going back to your old patterns. What is getting in the way of breaking free from those patterns? • There is something blocking you from moving forward. What are your next steps that you need to take to get rid of these roadblocks?

These responses each consist of a formulation and a question. Clients and coaches build shared perspectives in moment-bymoment exchanges of visible and/or audible acts, and Bavelas et al. (2017) noted that more than 80% of agreement is visual and includes things like nods, smiles, and raised eyebrows, without audible cues.

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Observation #4: Orientation of the Narrative Perhaps, the most useful aspect of the DOQ is that it records the ephemeral nature of dialogue onto a tangible form. It makes visible the interactional patterns of language use and one can easily see how narratives are elicited, shaped and organized. The movement of client narratives can be mapped as clients consistently cooperate in answering the coach’s questions. For example, What brought you here? elicits further narrative from clients that can be mapped onto Quadrant 3: The Troubled Past, more often than not. In contrast, when asked, ‘Suppose this conversation somehow turns out to be useful, what will tell you that it was useful as you go back to your life afterwards?’ clients will most likely respond with narrative that can be mapped onto Quadrant 1: The Preferred Future. This pattern of client narrative corresponding to promptings from the coach, be they positive or negative in content, has been consistently observed, as documented by Smock Jordan et al. (2013). Similar observations can be made with the formulation/question pair, as shown earlier. Although the coach may not elicit Q3 and Q4 responses, the information presented in these quadrants needs to be acknowledged and not avoided. Returning to our sample narrative, here are alternate response options using Q3 and Q4 information: • So, it’s been a struggle for you. (Q3) How have you been coping as well as you have? (intended to elicit information in Q2) • You keep going back to your old patterns. (Q3) So, what does your new pattern sound and look like instead? (intended to elicit information in Q1) • There is something blocking you from moving forward. (Q3) Suppose the block somehow disappears, what will you notice that’s different or better about the way you are moving forward? (intended to elicit information in Q1)

The formulation part is consistent with the previous example, but the question part has

been modified and the intended direction of the questions are notated in terms of the quadrant. With this modification, one can easily imagine the client’s narrative following what the coach is seeking in their questions.

CLOSING THOUGHTS Departing from the notion of goal setting and the use of a goal-centred approach, coaching can be practised as the moment-by-moment co-construction of meanings centring around what client might want. The quality of the co-construction can be inductively observed using a communication heuristic like the DOQ. Current research initiatives and publications rely heavily on extrapolation and inference from psychological research. For that reason, closely examining real-world coaching interactions and describing what can be observed exercises and strengthens the listening and responding muscles of the coach. The DOQ renders such examination of one’s progress tangible by slowing down the observational process to a moment-bymoment choicepoint in the interaction. Kurt Lewin’s quote that ‘there’s nothing more practical than a good theory’ serves to illustrate the effect of the DOQ as a highly practical theory with diverse implications in the areas of coaching practice, pedagogy, and research, just to name a few.

Implications for Practice Using language as a transformative tool with individuals and groups has been well documented in other closely related fields like Appreciative Inquiry (Cooperrider and Whitney, 2005), which pays close attention to relational aspects of meaning-making. Studying one’s own practice from this interactional perspective using the DOQ enables both broad and in-depth examination of what

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actually happens in a dialogue. Mapping client narratives helps one to listen closely to the actual language of what the client says. Noticing one’s influential presence in orienting client’s narratives and paying close attention to how meaning gets co-constructed in the immediate interactions help practitioners to become observers of their own work.

conversations as phenomena is escalating. How meaning is co-constructed moment-bymoment in people reciprocating with both visible and audible acts of communication in their interaction is gaining more importance in studying coaching, and it should continue to take the central site of research moving forward.

Implications for Pedagogy

Ending with Beginning in Mind

Using the DOQ as a pedagogical tool to illustrate the learner’s progress throughout their learning is another good use of the model. If you teach dialogic approaches, the DOQ can serve not only as a practical illustration in class but also an assessment tool for measuring learners’ progress. For example, I often start a class by asking learners to record a short session with another learner. Without much introduction to coaching or related models, their recorded session in the beginning is established as their baseline of skills. As they continue learning the approach, they make subsequent recordings so that learners themselves can compare their recordings to observe progress in their learning. Having the recordings makes supervision and mentoring sessions much more tangible for both supervisor and learner, and the focal point of supervision and mentorship becomes about celebrating the learner’s progress and existing competence instead of correcting the wrong.

In this chapter, coaching as a dialogic process centred on meaning-making is introduced with a simple heuristic of interaction, the Dialogic Orientation Quadrant. As we end the chapter together, the burning question of ‘how will you use it’ remains. As we continue to engage in the sacred work of bringing about positive changes in the spaces we occupy, it is my best hope for you to take what you learned and initiate a meaningful difference in the very places that might be exasperating various relations. As I often say in the beginning of a coaching class, the effectiveness of a dialogue expands beyond what coaches do in session towards what clients do after the session. The idea of ending the chapter with your various beginnings in mind in your own contexts is lifegiving, and I certainly hope that you will continue to learn from every conversation you hold with yourself and others.

REFERENCES Implications for Research If a good theory is and should be practical, as Lewin said, it can also be said that there is nothing more theoretical than a good practice when we consider research as an inductive process of keeping one’s curiosity about how coaching works. While the field of coaching is saturated with outcome studies testing various hypotheses, the need for more inductive and emergent ways to study

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negative content in solution-focused brief therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy expert sessions. Journal of Systemic Therapies, 32, 46–59.

25 Relational Practices for Generative Multi-Actor Collaboration Johan Hovelynck, Marc Craps, Art Dewulf, Koen S i p s , T h a r s i Ta i l l i e u a n d R e n é B o u w e n

This chapter focuses on collaborative practices in multi-actor initiatives. These are endeavors in which actors with diverse backgrounds and often conflicting interests seek to resolve complex issues in which they are interdependent. Rather than claiming their ‘right’ through mere economic, political or legal means, they do so by creating spaces for shared identification of what is at stake and how to deal with this to the best possible interest of all involved. Opting for the complexities that come with multi-actor collaboration often includes the experience that simpler approaches are ineffective, or short-lived at best, and the conviction that a sustainable way forward requires valuing the interests of all involved. Our literature review and exploration of social constructionist practices suggest three core processes for generative multi-actor collaboration: connecting, confronting and committing.

THE NEED FOR MULTI-ACTOR COLLABORATION As it becomes increasingly clear that many complex issues related to sustainable

development cannot be adequately tackled without directly involving groups and organizations that have a stake in them, interest in collaboration between public, private and civil actors is growing (United Nations, 2015; Gray and Purdy, 2018). Initial interest in inter-organizational collaboration, such as supply chain networks and public–private partnerships, has broadened to include actors that are not formally organized, mostly local communities that are affected by these initiatives and influence their outcomes (Gray, 1989; Huxham and Vangen, 2005; Craps et al., 2004). The increased heterogeneity of actors involved in multi-actor settings enhances the so-called wicked nature of many sustainability challenges (Rittel and Webber, 1973). Such challenges have no definitive problemformulation as any problem involved can be considered a symptom of another problem, turning problem-formulation into the discovery of a web of problems. Hence wicked problems have no final solution. In fact, what is problem-solving to one actor may be problem-generation to another. Discussions

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and negotiations become even more complicated as actors argue over the meaning and significance of facts according to the value perspectives of their respective constituencies. Hence, actors typically settle for a temporarily satisfying situation within the limitations of the available resources, rather than a final solution. In what follows we first explore the relational challenges of multi-actor initiatives. We then propose that generative collaboration involves processes of connecting between the actors and issues at stake, confronting problem frames and committing to coordinated courses of action. We conclude with suggestions to enhance the generativity of multi-actor practices.

THE CHALLENGES OF MULTI-ACTOR COLLABORATION In her ground-breaking book on Finding Common Ground for Multi-Party Problems, Gray (1989, p. 5) defines collaboration as ‘a process through which parties who see different aspects of a problem can constructively explore their differences and search for solutions that go beyond their own limited vision of what is possible.’ Fundamental features of this type of initiatives include

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constructing a domain based on interdependency, constructing complementarities out of the differences, developing commitment for collective decisions, creating a referent structure for the governance of the domain, and developing a generative process for social learning.

Constructing the Domain of Interdependency Collaborative efforts start with an awareness of mutual dependencies. In most cases, several actors take the initiative to solve the problem as they see it and their interventions are ineffective due to causing unanticipated problems for others, who take action in turn. It is largely through the succession of unilateral initiatives and responses that the actors and interdependencies come into view, and the so-called ‘problem domain’ emerges. Hence, collaborative efforts tend to carry a history of conflict. Actors often identify each other through confrontation with the effects of each other’s one-sided measures and countermeasures. As these continue to lead to unsatisfactory results, the saliency of interdependency grows and eventually provides a drive to look into mutually beneficial solutions.

Sustainable drinking water in the Andes  A case of multi-actor collaboration focused upon the issue of sustainable drinking water is woven throughout this chapter as an illustrative example of the practices we discuss (Craps et al., 2004). The events started in the context of an escalating conflict between supporters and opponents of a project to build a dam for agricultural irrigation in a rural region of the Andes. A study by the project funders found that only 15% of the population reported having access to acceptable drinking water. With both project supporters and opponents complaining about the quantity and quality of the water, this created an opportunity to bring diverse actors together in an initiative to tackle water issues. A foreign NGO, specialized in water management and community organization, acted as convener. Due to the quality of its work and its participative approach, acknowledged by all actors, it was able to bridge the gap of mutual distrust between the indigenous communities and public authorities, which was rooted in a long history of colonial and paternalist relations. The initiative started with bilateral conversations between the convener and other actors. As a result, all actors agreed to sustainable drinking water as a priority and realized that they were unable to guarantee this by themselves. They hence started looking for complementarities in the capacities of the different participants in the initiative to cover all necessary technical, financial and organizational challenges.

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Constructing Complementarity from Differences Differences in interest, agendas and resources are an important threshold to collaboration. In the history of conflicts, suspicion that the joint initiative will serve some actors’ interests better than others’ is common. Yet these differences are the raison d’être for any collaborative initiative and also contain its potential. Gray (1989) argues that the ineffectiveness of single actor initiatives is largely due to a failure to understand issues and organize measures at the domain level. Hence the differences in actors’ background and input represent the collaborative advantage and constructively dealing with it is a crucial aspect of multi-actor collaboration (Vangen and Huxham, 2003). This involves acknowledging differences, accepting that all actors have legitimate interests, and attempting to construct a complementarity of differences

The actors involved in this case included various national and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), local governments, public agencies, funding organizations, universities and hundreds of indigenous community organizations. All framed the main challenges in their own preferred action logic, e.g. local communities emphasized their self-sufficiency, NGOs added the need for ecological sustainability, public agencies put emphasis on technical issues, funding organizations on long-term financial feasibility, and the convener stressed the need for inter-organizational coordination. Actors did not identify with one single frame, however, as they mixed elements of these different frames in their interactions with the others. This helped in developing more integrative frames, connecting different perspectives and interests. Large group workshops, inspired by the principles and practices of search conferences, soft systems methodology and appreciative inquiry, enhanced participants’ awareness of the common ground as well as the differences in their perspectives and interests, and stimulated their willingness to collaborate.

(Gray, 1989; Curşeu and Schruijer, 2017). The drive to do so is grounded in an important mutuality: the experience that any single actor lacks the authority or expertise to tackle the domain by themselves. Simultaneously, expectations and uncertainties about how specific viewpoints, interests and routines will be received in the heterogeneity of the multi-actor group arouses a hesitation to do so. This tension between drive and hesitation shapes the development of the collaborative process.

Developing Commitment for Collective Responsibility A third key challenge of multi-actor collaboration is the joint ownership of decisions. This means that actors take responsibility for reaching agreement and enacting agreedupon measures. Unlike litigation or regulation, where intermediaries devise and impose solutions, actors in collaborative initiatives take direct responsibility for the future direction of the domain. In terms of governance, this represents a form of self-regulation (Trist, 1983). Making this work hinges on the actors’ commitment to the collaborative platform and its decisions, which in turn hinges on mutual understanding and shared

Finding an adequate legal status that gives equal weight in the decision-making to the two most important actors, the municipalities and the local communities, proved a real challenge. The national legislation enforced choosing between two ‘single organization’ structures for drinking water management, i.e. a municipal company or a community cooperative, and excluded the possibility of a multi-actor structure. Lots of creativity and lobbying enabled developing and instating a consortium, as a third and ‘multiorganizational’ option, with shared decision-making power between municipalities and communities, and NGOs in a supporting role.

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sense of purpose, typically developed through joint inquiry into the domain and the diversity that shapes it (Bouwen and Taillieu, 2004). Varughese and Ostrom (2001) argue that group heterogeneity in this context is a matter of institutional design, crafting workable ground rules for collective action, rather than a hindrance to collective action.

Creating a Referent Structure of Governance In order to be effective, the actors need to create a workable platform for their collaboration and to manage their joint initiative. This may take the form of minimal ground rules for interaction, all the way to establishing an umbrella organization for the constituent network (Brown, 1991; Prins, 2010). Trist (1983) introduced the term ‘referent organization’ to designate this joint structure, which we adopt to mean any multi-actor platform characterized by recognized interdependency, self-defined purpose and explicit ground rules regarding membership structure, internal interaction and external representation. Membership structure concerns the question which actors are invited to collaborate and in what capacity. Much of the work on collaboration assumes some form of explicit, voluntary and mutually agreed-upon membership, although that is not always clear in practice (Huxham and Vangen, 2000, p.  778). Importantly, membership is between autonomous actors (Gray, 1989; Huxham and Vangen, 2000), which means that dependency is highly reciprocal. Smaller and more stable membership facilitates developing commitment to collective action, trusting that other actors also take responsibility (Ostrom, 2010, p. 556). Ground rules on internal interaction cover basic questions regarding agenda-setting, timing and location as well as agreements

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The local experiment with the consortium structure turned out to be so successful that this option was incorporated in the national law and promoted by the public water agency in the rest of the country a few years later. The convening NGO learned however that one should not just copy this legal multi-actor structure and transfer it to other places. An intense process of internal debates in and between the communities, and negotiations with the other actors, is necessary for the adaptation of the structure to the peculiarities of each context and for the appropriation of it by the involved actors. The collaboration resulted in service centers, managed by a multi-actor consortium, that provide technical and organizational support and capacity building, the supply of spare parts, and monitoring of the rural drinking water systems. Other issues, like environmental and health education, protection of water wells, river basin management, etc. are as well attended, according to the local interests. The centers are real meeting places between rural community people and professional people, where different kinds of experiences and knowledge are exchanged.

about type of interaction, confidentiality, joint decision-making, follow-up on implementation, etc. Ground rules regarding representation cover questions regarding who can act for the collective platform and in what capacity, for example on administrative matters or as a spokesperson.

Developing a Generative Process for Social Learning Several authors put forth the emergent nature of the collaborative process: initiatives take shape and evolve as actors interact over time (Gray, 1989; Thomson and Perry, 2006, p. 22). Two key characteristics of the multi-actor setting magnify the emergent nature of the process. First, there is no recognized decision-maker for the domain. Hence the work starts without a clear, pre-defined objective. Lacking a

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specific task, pre-established procedures and recognized leadership as reference points, the moment-by-moment interactions become the most salient benchmarks for the collaboration. This brings group dynamics to the ­foreground. Second, individuals in the collaborative initiative participate as representatives of their respective constituencies. Simultaneously connecting with people and concerns at the joint table and remaining connected with concerns in their actor group creates a tension known as the ‘two-table problem’ (Gray and Clyman, 2003, p.  401). This complicates group dynamics, as important forces in the collaborative process are not present at the referent table. In this context, ongoing learning about the collaborative process as well as the substantive issue is a condition for effectiveness. The group learns to collaborate by engaging in collaboration, the interaction itself providing an opportunity for learning how to proceed (Bouwen and Taillieu, 2004). As actors interpret each other’s behavior at substantive and relational levels, continuous problem-solving is interwoven with ongoing repositioning and fine-tuning of interactions. In the initial stages of collaborating, the task and task-structuring typically appear to be the only legitimate topics of conversation, hence insights in the collaborative process mostly remain tacit. As actors become comfortable addressing the quality of interaction more explicitly, the learning about how to manage issues together intensifies and opens new possibilities for action. This result is far from guaranteed, however, and heavily rests on developing the capacity to cope constructively with actor diversity (Vansina and Taillieu, 1997; Van Bommel et al., 2009). The critical impact of this process on developing collaborative advantage gave rise to a strand of literature and practice that frames multi-actor collaboration as a fundamentally interactive learning process (Bouwen and Taillieu, 2004; Pahl-Wostl

In 2017, 20 years after the first conversations, the Foundation ‘Premios Latinoamerica Verde’ selected the multi-actor consortium among 500 socio-ecological projects in the continent as the best example of sustainable water management: ‘Since its creation, it has managed to supply the resources efficiently, steadily and of high quality to all citizens, promoting the right to safe water and the protection of water sources.’

et al., 2007; Senge et al., 2007; Van Bommel et  al., 2009). Drawing on theory regarding organizational learning (e.g. Hosking and Bouwen, 2000), social learning (e.g. Wenger, 2000) and group development (e.g. Bouwen and Hovelynck, 2006), this strand largely informs our further presentation of the process tasks involved in domain-wide collaboration.

THREE PRACTICES FOR SUCCESSFUL MULTI-ACTOR COLLABORATION In what follows we develop the notions of connecting, confronting and committing as three practices for generative multi-actor collaboration. Building on the work of Lagrou (1984), we acknowledge the importance of these three tasks throughout the collaborative process yet simultaneously propose that connecting is a precondition for generative confrontation and that the interplay between connecting and confronting sets the stage for commitment. Generativity is understood as the capacity for generating new ideas and the commitment to carry them out (see also Bushe, 2013, p. 89; Cooperrider and Fry, 2010).

Connecting: Constructing the Domain by Gathering Actors Although conflict is often part of the run-up to multi-actor initiatives – as the sustainable

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drinking water case clearly illustrates – the collaboration starts by connecting in a new context, enacting the intention to move from unilateral action to a domain-wide concertation. This is not a merely relational task – as the word ‘connecting’ may suggest – but involves familiarizing oneself with the substantive issues as framed by different actors as well as with the actors themselves. In multi-actor collaboration, connecting also concerns the actor constituencies, and through them the domain. Several process characteristics contribute to developing generative connections, among which are the following:

front- and back-stage interactions, and different locations, each offering opportunities for frame clarification and development (Gray, 2007; Bouwen and Taillieu, 2004). • Ground rules facilitate connecting when supporting shared ownership of the initiative and containing risks of open interaction. Examples include agreements on convening and other roles, such as hosting or facilitating, on confidentiality and anonymity, on transparency with regard to bilateral concertation, on the temporary suspension of partial and bilateral agreements, on distinguishing between personal and constituent opinions, and others. As part of the referent structure, ground rules should be subject to joint reflection and revision.

• Convening power refers to the capacity to bring actors together to discuss the issue that ties and divides them. The convener may be a single actor, an initial coalition of actors, or an external third party such as a government agency or NGO – as in the drinking water case. Convening power hinges on credibility of intention, position in the domain, influence in the broader system, and a general capacity for relational leadership, which is beyond the scope of this chapter (Craps et al., 2019; MacRae and Huxham, 2001; Vangen and Huxham, 2003). • The issues at stake should be framed at the level of the domain. Maintaining a domain focus means that aims, interests and needs are eventually defined in terms of the interdependencies among actors rather than in terms of separate actors (Trist, 1983; Gray and Clyman, 2003). Domain-level framing includes sharing responsibility among the actors at the referent table, rather than passing responsibility to the convener. • Although presenting multi-actor issues as problems is strongly embedded in the multi-actor literature, Cooperrider and Srivastva articulate the drawbacks of such a problem perspective in their seminal article on ‘Appreciative Inquiry in Organizational Life’ (1987). The generative capacity of an appreciative stance in connecting with issues and actors has since been widely documented (Bushe, 2013; Fry and Hovelynck, 2010). • Bringing actors together in ways that support connecting to the shared domain, to each other’s constituencies and to the referent group involves an interplay of small- and large-group meetings,

Although the importance of connecting is not limited to the initial phase of a collaborative initiative, giving it due attention in the startup period tends to counter premature reliance on task-structuring methods. The latter is a common factor in collaborative failure. In terms of Dewulf (2019), the multi-actor initiative requires joint sense-making before focusing on decision-making. Both go along as events unfold yet making sense of what is going on and deciding on what to do are different processes, requiring different approaches: sense-making is about meaning, decision-making about choices. While both processes inform each other, some sequentiality is still in order. Understanding the distinction and relationship between both can help in withstanding uncertainty while exploring ambiguity, until the actors come to a sufficiently shared frame of what is at stake to start setting a direction.

Confronting: Addressing Differences While Maintaining the Connection As every problem frame implies some solutions and excludes others from being considered, disagreement in problemsetting is unavoidable. In direction-setting, however, conflict becomes more prevalent as

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decision-making implies discarding options brought up by one or more actors in favor of other options and different actors. Confrontation is necessary for exploring information and possibilities and for developing a vision to which actors can commit, hence collaboration hinges on constructively dealing with the conflicting views and interests involved. The prime condition for generative confrontation is to maintain the connection, both in a substantive and a relational sense. In plainer terms: it requires staying with the topic and staying in touch (Lagrou, 1984). The following process characteristics contribute to generative confrontation: • Complementarity of differences is more easily achieved at the level of underlying concerns and interests than at the level of concrete actions and positions, hence direction-setting starts by developing a shared vision for the domain (Gray, 2007; Bushe, 2013). This broad purpose serves as an agreed-upon reference point in dealing with conflicting interests when making and validating choices. • It is important to maintain awareness of the domain-wide interdependence and the unviable consequences of not dealing with the differences, which typically triggered the initiative. • Ground rules that support constructive confrontation include formulating conflict at a substantive level (Curşeu and Schruijer, 2017), in testable, contradictable statements (Bouwen and Taillieu, 2004) and at the referent table rather than in other fora. • As the formulation of collaborative goals may be rendered difficult by a variety of constraints imposed by their respective constituencies, the representatives’ joint learning about the ‘twotable’ tension may contribute to constructive confrontation. • Third parties may facilitate interactions or mediate in conflict situations when the actors themselves are not in a position to do so (Gray, 2007; Curşeu and Schruijer, 2017). Depending on context, such a role may be taken by government agencies, NGOs, action researchers or process consultants. While external facilitation often helps connecting in the initial stage of collaborating, it is common that this possibility

is considered only later, when there is sufficient commitment to the collaborative initiative yet sharper confrontation slows down initial progress.

The sustainable drinking water case illustrates several of these process characteristics, including the importance of a joint underlying concern and the mediating role of NGOs and local community leaders. Avoiding conflicts in interests and opinion may lead to false consensus or otherwise compromise decision quality (Curşeu and Schruijer, 2017), or lead actors to converge around a shared vision yet leave decisionmaking to bilateral negotiation (Vansina and Taillieu, 1997). Either way, it jeopardizes further commitment.

Committing: Developing Trust through Joint Action Commitment develops progressively throughout the collaborative process. In early stages, actors commit to meeting and connecting, in the sense described above. Depending on the reciprocity in this initial process, they later commit to a joint effort and, largely depending on the equity in investment and anticipated returns, commit to agreed-upon decisions. Commitment, trust and reframing are interrelated and emergent aspects of interaction (Sol et al., 2013) and are finally put to the test during implementation. Process characteristics that support commitment include: • Given the link between commitment and trust, structures and behaviors that support trust will promote commitment. Willingness to rely and depend on each other tends to shift from rather calculative to more relational trust depending on how reliable actors appear during interactions over time (Lewicki et al., 1998; van der Werff and Buckley, 2014). In multi-actor collaboration, it is important to appreciate both the connection and the distinction between trusting the individuals at the referent table and their constituencies (Schilke and Cook, 2013).

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The representatives serve as boundary spanners, meaning people that are a member of both communities, and focal points in a process of reciprocally assessing trustworthiness. In the case of the drinking water initiative, for example, the NGO acted as boundary spanner between the indigenous communities and the municipalities, while indigenous community leaders with a professional background played an important role as boundary spanners between their communities of origin and the professional actors (Craps et al., 2004). • In a domain without established leadership, the referent structure offers guidance for coordinating the joint effort. Yet structure may distract from purposeful commitment when it prematurely restricts the range of options to tackle the substantive issue and a formal and binding structure tends to hamper the emergence of relational trust. Hence the collaborative process seems best served by minimal structure (Termeer and Kranendonk, 2008). In plainer terms: as much as needed, as little as possible. • Commitment seems related to how agreements are followed up on more than to what specific rules are agreed. Hence ground rules for decisionmaking should focus on concerted action rather than on consensus. The question is not whether everyone fully agrees, but whether there is sufficient agreement for full commitment. • External communication about collaborative efforts and output fosters commitment as it generates feedback and urges the involved actors – representatives at the referent table as well as constituent leaders – to take a stand for their work in the larger domain. A clear and credible choice for the joint effort by the leaders of the actor groups is an important success factor for multi-actor collaboration (Senge et  al., 2007). In the drinking water case, for example, public expression of support to the collaboration by community leaders and the mayors of different municipalities helped mobilize broader commitment at different moments.

EPILOGUE: RECENT DEVELOPMENTS AND FUTURE CHALLENGES As market mechanisms, technological developments and political systems intensify interdependencies between communities and

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organizations at local, regional and global scales, multi-actor collaboration gains importance. Collaborating is demanding work yet the stakes in current sustainability issues are high (see e.g. Huxham and Vangen, 2005; Gray and Purdy, 2018; Senge et  al., 2007). Especially the initial stages of multiactor collaboration defy tried-and-tested approaches to managerial problem-solving and organizational decision-making and demand sufficient ‘process literacy’, i.e. an understanding of the intertwined substantive and relational tasks involved in the collaborative process, for success (Gray, 1989; MacRae and Huxham, 2001, p. 201). This chapter contributes to such understanding by indicating the type of settings that call for a multi-actor perspective, by describing the main working principles of multi-actor collaboration, and by proposing core processes that actors should attend to for collaboration to be generative, i.e. connecting to other actors and their construction of the issues at stake, confronting one’s own as well as others’ constructions in the light of the interdependencies that constitute the domain, and committing to coordinated courses of action.

REFERENCES Bouwen, René, and Johan Hovelynck. 2006. ‘The Group-in-the-Making: From “Group Dynamics” to “Relational Practices.”’ In The Social Construction of Organisation: Advances in Organization Studies, edited by D. Hosking and S. McNamee, 128–47. Malmö: Liber & Copenhagen Business School Press. Bouwen, René, and Tharsi Taillieu. 2004. ‘Multi-Party Collaboration as Social Learning for Interdependence: Developing Relational Knowing for Sustainable Natural Resource Management.’ Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology 14 (March): 137–53. Brown, David L. 1991. ‘Bridging Organizations and Sustainable Development.’ Human Relations 44 (8): 807–31.

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Bushe, Gervase. 2013. ‘Generative Process, Generative Outcome: The Transformational Potential of Appreciative Inquiry.’ In Organizational Generativity: The Appreciative Inquiry Summit and a Scholarship of Transformation, edited by D. D. Cooperrider, D. Zandee, L. Godwin, M. Avital, and B. Boland, 89–113. Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Cooperrider, David, and Ronald Fry. 2010. ‘Can Stakeholder Engagement Be Generative?’ Corporate Citizenship 38 (38): 3–6. Cooperrider, David, and Suresh Srivastva. 1987. ‘Appreciative Inquiry in Organizational Life.’ Research in Organizational Change and Development 1: 129–69. Craps, Marc, Art Dewulf, Monica Mancero, Enrique Santos, and René Bouwen. 2004. ‘Constructing Common Ground and ReCreating Differences between Professional and Indigenous Communities in the Andes.’ Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology 14 (5): 378–93. Craps, Marc, Inge Vermeesch, Art Dewulf, Katrien Termeer, Koen Sips, and René Bouwen. 2019. ‘A Relational Approach to Leadership for Multi-Actor Governance.’ Administrative Sciences 9 (1):12–23. Curşeu, Petru Lucian, and Sandra Schruijer. 2017. ‘Stakeholder Diversity and the Comprehensiveness of Sustainability Decisions: The Role of Collaboration and Conflict.’ Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 28: 114–20. Dewulf, Art. 2019. Taking Meaningful Decisions: Sensemaking and Decision-Making in Water and Climate Governance. Wageningen: WUR. Fry, Ronald, and Johan Hovelynck. 2010. ‘Developing Space for Diversity: An Appreciative Stance.’ In Relational Practices, Participative Organizing, edited by C. Steyaert and B. Van Looy 139–154. Bingham: Emerald Group Publishing. Gray, Barbara. 1989. Collaborating: Finding Common Ground for Multi-Party Problems. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Gray, Barbara. 2007. ‘The Process of Partnership Construction: Anticipating Obstacles and Enhancing the Likelihood of Successful Partnerships for Sustainable Development.’ In Partnerships, Governance and Sustainable

Development. Reflections on Theory and Practice, edited by Pieter Glasbergen, Frank Biermann, Arthur Mol, 29–48. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar. Gray, Barbara, and Dana R. Clyman. 2003. ‘Difficulties Fostering Cooperative Agreements in Multiparty Negotiations: Cognitive, Procedural, Structural, and Social.’ In International Handbook of Organizational Teamwork and Cooperative Working, edited by M. West, D. Tjosvold, and K. Smith, 401–22. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. Gray, Barbara, and Jill Purdy. 2018. Collaborating for Our Future. Multistakeholder Partnerships for Solving Complex Problems. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hosking, Dian Marie, and René Bouwen. 2000. ‘Organizational Learning: RelationalConstructionist Approaches: An Overview.’ European Journal of Work 9 (2): 129–32. Huxham, Chris, and Siv Vangen. 2000. ‘Ambiguity, Complexity and Dynamics in the Membership of Collaboration.’ Human Relations 53 (6): 771–806. Huxham, Chris, and Siv Vangen. 2005. Managing to Collaborate. London: Routledge. Lagrou, Leo. 1984. ‘Contact en confrontatie in groepsgesprekken.’ Leren en Leven met Groepen, (1330): 1–33. Alphen a.d. Rijn: Samsom Uitgeverij Lewicki, Roy, Daniel McAllister, and Robert J. Bies. 1998. ‘Trust and Distrust: New Relationships and Realities.’ Academy of Management Review 23 (3): 438–58. MacRae, Mairi, and Chris Huxham. 2001. ‘Collaborative Leadership: An Analysis of the Dynamics in Progressing a Collaboration.’ In Collaborative Strategy and Multi-Organizational Partnerships, edited by Tharsi Taillieu 199–207. Leuven: Garant. Ostrom, Elinor. 2010. ‘Polycentric Systems for Coping with Collective Action and Global Environmental Change.’ Global Environmental Change 20 (4): 550–57. Pahl-Wostl, C., M. Craps, A. Dewulf, E. Mostert, D. Tabara, and T. Taillieu. 2007. Social learning and water resources management. Ecology and Society 12(2): 5. Web. If you consider this incomplete, please use 12(2): 5–20. Prins, Silvia. 2010. ‘From Competition to Collaboration: Critical Challenges and

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26 Designing Relationally Responsive Organizations Ginny Belden-Charles, Morgan Mann Willis and Jenny Lee

INTRODUCTION Like connective tissue in the human body, relationships contain, stabilize and support all organizational functioning. Consider the number of interactions that happen in a workplace day by day: groups setting goals and solving problems, functional disciplines negotiating priorities, stakeholders sharing needs, project teams vying for resources. Interactions make up what might be thought of as a relational web of connection in organizations. The subject of this chapter is relational responsiveness – how an organization’s relational web responds to its constituents’ needs and its changing conditions. In this chapter we introduce six relational practices, based on relational constructionist theory, that we have found to enable relational responsiveness in our work. We begin the chapter by reimagining a view of organization design as relational practice. Next we introduce Allied Media Projects (AMP) in Detroit, a network

organization that has cultivated these practices in their work. Several of the relational practices will be introduced with a story of AMP experiences, which are highlighted in italics. We finish with suggestions for further research and a discussion of the potential of these practices for shaping more relationally responsive organizations.

ORGANIZATION DESIGN REIMAGINED Today’s conditions are changing the way organizations are structured and function. The term ‘VUCA’, coined in the late 1990s by the US military, describes conditions of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (Berinato, 2014). Under these unstable and rapidly changing conditions, organizations must function differently than their hierarchical predecessors designed for stability (Coyle, 2018). Networks, virtual

Designing Relationally Responsive Organizations

organizations, trans-organization alliances and cross-sector coalitions are just a few examples of new structures that have emerged in response to these changing conditions. Organization design is adapting to meet these challenges. Design processes that came of age in the 1980s and 1990s were rooted in a functionalist, ‘open systems’ view of the world. The focus was on analysis of work tasks, processes and systems (Nadler et  al., 1992; Hammer, 1990; Galbraith, 2009). Work was analyzed to identify inputs, transformations, outputs. Design experts analyzed process variances. The resulting design was a well-oiled machine, engineered for efficiency, problem prevention and achieving prescribed outcomes. Relational constructionist thinking offers an alternative way to view organizations: Relational perspectives do not adopt traditional organizational or management language of ‘structures’ and ‘entities’; instead they view organizations as elaborate relational networks of changing persons, moving forward together through space and time, in a complex interplay of effects between individual organizational members and the system into which they enter. (Uhl-Bien, 2006, pp. 661–662)

Seeing an organization this way foregrounds ‘relating’ as a central organizing activity. Rather than the alignment of organizational parts, it is the effectiveness of the relational web of connections that becomes the central design question. Instilling relational practice shifts the idea of organization design in significant ways.

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(See Figure 26.1 for a summary of significant shifts in focus from the open systems design approach to a relational design focus.) Rather than analytical, problem-focused and engineering design solutions, practices for relational responsiveness must be developed, adopted and reinforced throughout organization life. A relational design approach focuses on the quality of relationships needed to learn, respond and adapt to changing conditions. Work is intimately bound up within relational and interactional discourse and organization design cannot be divorced from relational effectiveness (Cunliffe, 2016). Through ongoing interactions in organization life, an organization’s identity and its culture are created. The practices we describe come from our experiences in applying a relational constructionist approach to organization capacity building. In developing the organization, the AMP leadership focused on creating and supporting conditions that would live their mission and be responsive to their network, their community and their changing needs and resources. AMP puts relationships at the center of the network: to create, connect and transform themselves from consumers of information to producers, and from objects within narratives of exploitation and violence to authors of transformation. At AMP the focus is on continuous learning and transformation. These practices have made it possible for AMP to scale up its reach and scope while shapeshifting its structure to respond to changing conditions and needs.

Open systems design focus

Relational design focus

Design based on analysis and alignment of processes, systems and outputs Design creates fixed structures for prescriptive outcomes in response to understanding a ‘known’ environment Design seeks alignment of the parts Design focuses on work processes for prescribed outcomes

Design based on practices for engaging intersecting webs of connection and quality of interactions Design creates emergent structures that are context dependent and responsive to changing conditions Design seeks coordinated meaning and action Design focuses on learning practices for transformational outcomes

Figure 26.1  Comparing open systems design with relational design

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AN INTRODUCTION TO ALLIED MEDIA PROJECTS, DETROIT AMP is a network organization whose mission is to cultivate media for liberation. AMP’s work exists in three major areas: (1) the Sponsored Projects program, providing support to over 100 organizations in Detroit and beyond, doing work that centers on media-based organizing; (2) the Allied Media Conference (AMC), which gathers media-based organizers from Detroit, across the country and, increasingly, the world for a weekend of workshops, gatherings, events and skill shares; and (3) the Speakers Bureau, which distributes the media and ideas of the AMP network to the wider public. AMP is a social system and an organizational structure that is always being designed in a participatory, evolutionary way to ensure that the work that we do and who does the work are in a symbiotic state of co-creation. To sustain our growth and evolution, AMP has come to rely on practices and principles that anchor our work and allow us to consistently

be adaptive to the emergent needs of our community of media-based organizers all over the world. AMP’s relational approach to organizing has been informed by Detroit activists, from James and Grace Lee Boggs, to Shea Howell, to Monica Lewis Patrick, and others who advanced the notion of a ‘Beloved Community’ in which we commit to love and struggle through relationship with one another (Boggs et al., 2012). It has been informed by the writing and organizing of women of color feminists, queer and trans liberationists, disability justice practitioners and many others who insist that to heal our relationships with ourselves and each other is revolutionary work. At AMP, our resilience lies in the strength of our relationships. We listen to James Baldwin (1964 p. 13) who wrote that, ‘the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out’. AMP’s Network Principles, formed and informed by our network, represent the root, or the undercurrent that buoys our call to action (see Figure 26.2).

AMP Network Principles • We are making an honest attempt to solve the most significant problems of our day. • We are building a network of people and organizations that are developing long-term solutions based on the immediate confrontation of our most pressing problems. • Wherever there is a problem, there are already people acting on the problem in some fashion. Understanding those actions is the starting point for developing effective strategies to resolve the problem, so we focus on the solutions, not the problems. • We emphasize our own power and legitimacy. • We presume our power, not our powerlessness. • We spend more time building than attacking. • We focus on strategies rather than issues. • The strongest solutions happen through the process, not in a moment at the end of the process. • The most effective strategies for us are the ones that work in situations of scarce resources and intersecting systems of oppression because those solutions tend to be the most holistic and sustainable. • Place is important. For the AMC, Detroit is important as a source of innovative, collaborative, lowresource solutions. Detroit gives the conference a sense of place, just as each of the conference participants bring their own sense of place with them to the conference. • We encourage people to engage with their whole selves, not just with one part of their identity. • We begin by listening. Figure 26.2  AMP principles 

Designing Relationally Responsive Organizations

RELATIONAL PRACTICES The six practices shown in Figure 26.3 and described below inform AMP’s structure, systems, policies, and skill building across the organization. Woven together, they have built and maintained a culture of relational responsiveness across the AMP network. They support a diverse and geographically dispersed group to learn, grow together and coordinate actions.

Practice #1: Purposeful Belonging ‘There can be no group unless people belong to it’ (Smith and Berg, 1987, p. 89). In their exploration of the paradoxes of group life, Smith and Berg describe the tensions that surround belonging in groups and the relationship between individual and group identity, each of which is continuously shaping

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the other. We cannot force belonging. We invite belonging through creating conditions in which people are welcomed, become engaged and ultimately commit to being part of the identity of the group. Two basic questions people ask regarding group participation are: (1) To what am I belonging? and (2) Will I fit in? (Smith and Berg, 1987). When a group’s purpose is articulated and meaningful, it creates a kind of lamplight that both attracts its members and lights the pathway forward (Coyle, 2018). A clear purpose establishes a boundary for who joins and who stays out. Boundaries, if thought of as a stopping point or a barrier to be enforced, can lead to exclusivity and disenfranchisement. But a collectively defined boundary that defines shared commitments and practices can create safety and inclusivity for members. Research shows that articulating purpose is key to productive collaboration (Cross, 2017). In addition to a

Figure 26.3  Practices for relational responsiveness in organizations

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clear purpose, organizations develop ways of working and relating, whether articulated or not. Belonging is strengthened when expectations for relating are made explicit. Having clear guidelines for relating means that ‘as conditions change there is a common understanding of what matters, a way to return to shared practice and behavior’ (Brown, 2017, p. 221). The emergent, ongoing organizing of the AMP network gathers a community who share a purpose and a way of being together. The engagement of this vast and diverse collection of individuals and organizations is important work across the AMP network. AMP’s principles are important touchstones because of how they have been created; from the lessons that were tested, adapted, applied, and honed together over time with network members.

Practice #2: Listening Relationally How AMP’s principles end is how all work at AMP begins. ‘We begin by listening’ is a starting point for a practice in how people receive themselves and one another. Listening is central to AMP’s capacity to learn and change. ‘The one thing I’ve learned from nature that influences how I organize the most is that I have to listen’ (Micha Cardenas in Brown, 2017, p. 224).

From an interpersonal perspective, relational listening involves multiple levels. There can be no dialogue without listening. More than just hearing another’s voice, effective listening starts with a recognition of another’s right to speak. And, in order to give consideration to what is heard, relational listening requires the listener to attend to his or her own inner voice and the filters shaping one’s hearing (Anderson, 2012). Relational listening is a ‘whole body’ process of noticing with all of one’s senses. Listening with the whole body is key to the experience of empathy (Coyle, 2018). The senses can act

as triggers, helping us notice how we are listening: what we take in, what we dismiss, and what reaction we are experiencing (Vannini et al., 2012). Our senses give us clues to the assumptions and beliefs we hold and how these shape our listening. Further, relational listening asks us to consider and be willing to be changed by what we hear (Anderson, 2012). While listening has been researched from an interpersonal perspective, not much exists on organizational listening in academic and professional literature. Beyond interpersonal skills, organizations need policies, structures, processes, technologies, resources and skills to develop cultures capable of addressing the scope and politics of listening at a large scale (Macnamara, 2015). At AMP, listening is embedded in organizational practice, from ongoing forums with network members to peer dialogue in performance reviews to how staff meetings are conducted to policy guidelines on how decisions are made.

Practice #3: Inviting the Whole Self There is a running joke at AMP that shortly after new employees join AMP, two things happen: first something about their appearance makes a drastic, fun(!) change. Wild haircuts, new tattoos, totally different clothing styles. A physical evolution. The second thing that happens is a collaborative connection. New staff inevitably connect with another employee to engage in collaborative, often creative projects outside of work. This is true across experience levels, interests and mediums. Some people have become DJs, taught by other employees; others have ramped up their writing and finished chapbooks, people cook and grow food together. None of it is expected or forced. Many of the collaborations generate work that impacts our program offerings and organizational norms. The fruit of interpersonal transformation impacts the way AMP is able to

Designing Relationally Responsive Organizations

function. It allows us to utilize the strengths, skills, and interests, outside of formal work roles, that lead to innovative approaches to organizational design and growth. An example of this practice was born from the historically rich relationship between the town of Idlewild, Michigan and Detroit. Three hours west of the city, Idlewild is a small, historical resort town that has deep roots in Detroit artists and creatives. Several AMP staffers were cultivating independent relationships with the town; road trips, camping trips and the like. A spark was collectively being cultivated within AMP. One AMP staffer decided to create a bridge of creative programming, hosting a small festival in the town – bringing Detroit artists to Idlewild to learn about the town’s incredible history and to share their work. The goal was an outgrowth of our practice of demonstrating the potential of a new, exciting idea by first showing its potential, and then growing it organically. The event was co-hosted and led by other AMP staffers – they supported with logistics, content, promotion – each contributing their skill sets to a festival that is now entering its second year. The outcome has led to a growing community of Detroiters in Idlewild, offering outdoor space for staff and network groups and shaping Idlewild’s growth plans in partnership with a committee of AMP staffers. Being in community means that we are in the ongoing practice of celebrating and creating new possibilities with each other. We explore the root causes of problems, brainstorm possibilities to address those challenges and generate outcomes that address challenges holistically, keeping those impacted in the center. This is our work: amplifying and incubating media-based organizing projects. The way we make change is the way we make room for full selves to be present and evolve. Who we are when we begin the work is inevitably changed by the work. Something radically shifts in how people relate when there is space for the whole self

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to be engaged in their work. A recent study suggests that the more employees can give of their whole selves, the more engaged they will be at work (Glavas, 2016). In most organizations we’re asked to leave parts of ourselves at the door. Those parts often contain what we are most passionate about and where our brilliance awaits. In the organization as machine, jobs are designed, and people are plugged in to fit. In a relationally responsive organization, we look for symbiotic ways to connect organization needs and opportunities with people’s talents and gifts. Creating space for the whole self requires an environment of trust and safety. Even subtle environments of judgment, blaming or ridicule diminish trust (Coyle, 2018). In communities that have been disenfranchised through histories of oppression and abuse, a whole-self environment creates possibilities for healing and transformation (Abdullah, 1999).

Practice #4: Seeking Meaningful Coherence In the beginning, we (AMP) were earthworms. Our job? To enrich the soil, making it fertile and rich; a healthy ground for all types of things to grow. The programs, challenges, lessons and successes all added to the nutrient-rich soil. As we grew, we went on to think of ourselves as a house of many rooms. Later, we became mushrooms, mycelium – a deeply connected web of living things, sharing resources and information to survive. A collaborative laboratory. A web. A roadmap. Our metaphors help create coherence across our diverse network. The metaphors we’ve cycled through range from silly to deeply scientific, from cliché to esoteric. Through them all, their function is to create an opportunity for our network to find our way forward in any moment together. Creating shared meaning is the essential function of media. Organizationally, we use

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this practice of making meaning to ensure our survival through different funding, political and social landscapes. Here is an example of how we use metaphor to create coherent direction: After 20 years of growing the Allied Media Conference, the home of our metaphors and our network, we knew we needed a break. We had reached over 3500 attendees and the limits of our organizational capacity – any bigger and we’d break wide open. As the hub of a network of thousands of participants, there was great fear in making the big decision to take a year off and commit to returning with a refreshed shape. The organizational need was not enough. As a network of networks, the story also needed to resonate within our community. To share this vision and need, we returned to our practice of exploring our identity through metaphor. Shortly after our last conference, we made an announcement: The Allied Media Conference was in chrysalis. That is, the process a caterpillar goes through to become a butterfly. The idea is familiar and accessible. More importantly, it was true. We had exhausted the possibilities of the form we had embodied to that point and needed, more than anything else, the time and space to become something new. The metaphor of Chrysalis became a pathway and it caught like wildfire. The practice of using metaphors helped us make the shift. Our network has responded positively: many of our partners have begun their own chrysalis processes, citing the example and story of AMP as a model of transformation. Creating meaningful coherence across a diverse and geographically distributed space is an important relational practice. AMP’s chrysalis image is an example of how AMP engaged its network to accept a significant turning point in the life of their co-created Detroit conference in order to transform that event for new conditions and needs. The power of generative images and metaphors have been discussed in dialogic organization development practice (Schön, 1979;

Cooperrider et al., 1995; Gergen, 1978; Marshak, 1996; Bushe and Storch, 2015). As a relational organization design practice, the ongoing use of images and metaphors can assist diverse groups rooted in different discourses to reach coherence and coordinated action. Generative images may also increase a group’s ability to produce new ideas and embrace change (Bushe and Storch, 2015). But sometimes, in our search for coherence across diversity, difficult questions arise; questions that a generative, metaphorical approach will not address. This leads us to our next practice.

Practice #5: Surfacing Deep Differences Allied Media Projects works at the intersection of communities faced with some of the harshest outcomes of social, economic, and political disenfranchisement. AMP employs our version of Courageous Conversations as a practice to connect our staff with the structural tools to hold and lead tough conversations. At their best, Courageous Conversations open channels of feedback, develop opportunities to connect with ‘leaders’ of AMP and incorporate the feedback into the way we build, design or iterate our programs. We are not afraid to journey into the unknown, so long as we are guided by our principles and the role we play as network conveners. We open ourselves to be impacted (but not destroyed) by information and to respond as a pivot towards growth. We share the outcomes in the forms of zines, links, connections; creating a feedback loop that allows our network to grow/evolve and be in continuous learning mode. Through this we generate collective language that informs future network agreements. One such example embodies a conversation that often brings organizations of any size to its knees: racial relations and representation. AMP’s office is in Detroit, a city that contains some of the most visceral examples of

Designing Relationally Responsive Organizations

US race-relations nationally. It is lovingly called ‘Upsouth’, a reference to its slow, country energy and culture. It also reflects a set of old political frames that stand in opposition to AMP’s network of diverse, brilliant media-makers, especially those within the city where we make our work. In 2017, after 10 years of holding the AMC in Detroit, we were getting clear messages from Black and Indigenous Detroiters that they felt overlooked and underrepresented at the conference, our network’s largest gathering space. AMP’s leadership understood that in order to continue to be doing our best and most mission aligned work, this feedback mattered. Our network, all members, hold us accountable to their needs. We took this feedback, offered context for the feedback and encouraged staff to respond. Leadership began by making contextualized space to listen. A conversation that more deeply probed these concerns revealed opportunities for internal reflection. Some of us felt the feedback framed as criticism was unfair or reductive. Some of us went directly into solution-creation. After a well-moderated open conversation with staff that made room for people to disagree, express disappointment or concern, we offered our community the same space to share. We began by listening. We did not react with demonstrations of our position, ‘evidence’ or retaliation. As a convener of people, it was consistent with our organizational culture to venture into the hardest types of conversations guided by our purpose and a practiced model of listening. The conversations ranged from official ‘listening sessions’ to informal one-on-ones, where we were able to gather this critical feedback: our language sometimes seemed elitist; we weren’t doing a good job of locally promoting the conference; and we were missing opportunities to highlight parts of our local community historically left out of the narrative of mediabased organizing. Surfacing these deep differences informed a change in our programmatic priorities, shifts in language, the

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creation of a glossary, and reminded us that in order to grow, we have to also be able to hold the hard things. Like our mycelium or fertile earth, the need to shift and change as a functional practice allowed us to hear feedback, internally and externally, and take up the changes it requires. Relational responsiveness requires acknowledging moments of tension: when people bring different perceptions of a shared situation, when they feel marginalized, hurt or angry or when the conversation turns to one of blame and judgment. In these high stakes situations, it takes courage to stay engaged in dialogue so that deep differences can be surfaced and examined. The skills required include creating a safe environment for dialogue, seeing mutual responsibility, respecting differences, and being able to differentiate our ‘stories’ from the actual facts of a situation (Patterson et  al., 2012; Stone et  al., 2011; Singleton, 2015). Surfacing deep differences requires courageous conversations; to enter the uncertainty and tension and accept the discomfort that occurs when we cannot get quick agreement or closure (Singleton, 2015). It takes courage and resilience to stay fully engaged in moments of conflict – physically, morally, emotionally, intellectually and relationally – long enough to reach the deep differences, uncover their origins and find the pivot points for growth. AMP’s experience of surfacing the community’s concerns regarding their representation at the Allied Media Conference is an example of how the prior practices build on one another. Using the AMP principles as guides for how to engage, they began by skillfully listening to others’ perceptions even though these were very different than their own. A willingness to listen and be changed by what they heard created new understanding regarding conference participation beyond what had been previously perceived. With their willingness to surface, take in and address these concerns, the AMP leadership demonstrated a level of responsiveness

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to their community that ultimately strengthened the sense of belonging across the AMP network.

Practice #6: Collaborative Reflexivity I received a call from my AMP partners to once again help them address organizational capacity. Given their recent growth, the many changes happening at AMP were complex and overwhelming; it was hard to figure out where to start. The conference had just finished, and participation had pushed the limits of what the current staff and structure could handle. A new Sponsored Projects Program was growing rapidly while still being designed. AMP had just purchased a new building and was in the process of determining how it would be used and remodeled. The organization had hit a major growth spurt and organization capacity was strained. Working with the project funder, we launched the project by completing their required organizational assessment as a first step. The assessment examined 80 different aspects of the organization in a group process that left everyone deflated and exhausted, especially organization leaders. To turn things around, I conducted individual interviews with AMP staff. I wanted to understand how staff saw their work, the pain points they were experiencing and how organization growth and capacity were impacting them. And I wanted to find out what they wanted us to address as part of this project. Staff pain points identified a set of needs that were grouped under the umbrella of Human Resources and organizational culture building. Staffing capacity was an issue. And, although everyone on staff was experiencing overload, it was AMP leaders showing the biggest signs of burn-out. The root issue seemed deeper than the scarcity of resources or staff, but rather the challenge of leading a larger and more complex organization.

So, the place we started was with the AMP leadership team. In a day of dialogue with AMP leaders we explored different images of leadership and how they viewed themselves as leaders. We engaged in a courageous conversation about how they were feeling about their work and explored possible causes of their real experiences of burn-out. The discussions were tough and powerful. The day resulted in several important outcomes: (1) Leaders examined what they needed for their work and their lives, sharing what they were willing and able to say ‘yes’ to in their work at AMP going forward, and where they each needed to say ‘no’; (2) Collectively they acknowledged the significant shift from being a start-up organization to a mid-sized organization, paving the way for new staffing models and a new structure; (3) The growth of the Sponsored Projects Program along with current resource models called for a change in AMP’s focus from being an incubator and grower of fewer projects, to AMP as a sponsor of many independent projects; (4) They faced and accepted the difficult reality that some leaders personally needed to move on from their leadership roles at AMP; (5) They recognized it was time for a redefinition of leadership work at AMP, time to develop new leaders and succession plans, and to increase capacity for shared leadership across the organization. Reflexivity is the capacity to see ourselves ‘in action’. It is ‘the activity of noticing and thinking about the nature of our involvement in our participation with each other as we do something together’ (Stacey, 2015, p. 167). In organizations, reflexivity is the ability of groups to explore a situation and how they may have collectively contributed to that situation. It involves a critical examination of history, context, prevailing beliefs and assumptions. As a practice, collaborative reflexivity builds capacity to humbly work with conflict and power dynamics. It requires taking collective responsibility for a group’s actions and for subsequently making change. Ongoing

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reflexive inquiry in organizational practice builds a discipline of noticing: what we want versus what we are doing; who we say we are versus how we are behaving; what we believe to be true, our biases and beliefs, versus what others are experiencing or perceiving. A reflexive dialogue about the work of leadership at AMP resulted in potent changes, not only in leadership approach and structure, but in a reframing of the organization’s work itself. Collaborative reflexivity draws on skills used in all of the preceding practices for collective transformation and co-creative work. For example, in the AMP leadership dialogue, a profound sense of belonging and friendship among AMP leaders supported a willingness to examine organizational leadership while also caring for one another’s individual needs. Their ability to listen, and surface deep differences helped them to share differing individual perceptions while collectively exploring the impact of their leadership on the organization. Discussing different images of leadership helped them be choiceful in examining the kind of leadership they wanted and needed in the organization. And, the resulting changes they made were guided every step of the way by AMP’s purpose and principles.

SUMMARY This chapter has focused on introducing six practices that support relational responsiveness: Purposeful Belonging; Listening Relationally; Inviting the Whole Self; Seeking Meaningful Coherence; Surfacing Deep Differences; and Collaborative Reflexivity. While relational practices have more often been studied in an interpersonal context, more research is needed to understand the organizational application and impact of relational practice. For example, an international study of organizational listening found that despite extensive rhetoric on the importance of twoway communication, the ‘architecture’ is

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missing that would support listening at a collective level (Macnamara, 2015). Research is also needed to understand the ways in which organizations introduce, reinforce, and sustain relational practice. Additional research would help us better understand the outcomes of these practices in supporting organizations to be effective in today’s networked, complex and fast-changing environments. Designing for relational responsiveness requires a reimagining of the ways in which we lead, structure and organize work together in organizations. Relational constructionist theory provides a pathway for understanding organizations, not as machines, but as relational networks with tremendous co-creative potential. Our experience at AMP shows us that it is possible to find ways of being and working relationally that support a worldview of interconnection, and in which we are mutually accountable and responsive to the needs of a changing world.

REFERENCES Abdullah, S. 1999. Creating A World That Works for All. San Francisco, CA: BerrettKoehler Publishers. Anderson, H. 2012. Collaborative relationships and dialogic conversations: Ideas for a relationally responsive practice. Family Process. 51(1): 8–24. doi:10.1111/j.1545-5300.2012.01385.x Baldwin, James (2008) “Nothing Personal”, Contributions in Black Studies: Vol. 6, Article 5. Available at: https://scholarworks.umass. edu/cibs/vol6/iss1/5.   Berinato, S. 2014. A framework for understanding VUCA. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr. org/2014/09/a-framework-for-understandingvuca (accessed November 8, 2019). Boggs, G., Kurashige, S., Glover, D., and Wallerstein, I. (2012). The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century. Berkeley; Los Angeles; London: University of California Press. Brown, A. 2017. Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds. Chico, CA: AK Press.

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Bushe, G., and Storch, J. 2015. Generative image: Sourcing novelty. In: Bushe, G., andMarshak, R. (Eds.), Dialogic Organization Development: The Theory and Practice of Transformational Change. Oakland: BerrettKoehler, 101–122. Cooperrider, D., Barrett, F., and Srivastva, S. 1995. Social construction and appreciative inquiry: A journey in organizational theory. In: Hosking, D., Dachler, P., Gergen, K. (Eds.), Management and Organization. Avebury: Aldershot, 157–200. Coyle, D. 2018. The Culture Code. New York: Bantam. Cross, R. 2017. Infographic: 4 ways high-­ performance organizations do collaboration better – i4cp. Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp). https://www.i4cp.com/ infographics/infographic-4-ways-highperformance-­organizations-do-collaborationbetter (accessed November 8, 2019). Cunliffe, A. 2016. On becoming a critically reflexive practitioner. Redux. Journal of Management Education. 40(6): 740–746. doi: 10.1177/1052562916668919 Galbraith, J. 2009. Designing Matrix Organizations That Actually Work. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Gergen, K. 1978. Toward generative theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 36(11): 1344–1360. doi:10.1037//00223514.36.11.1344 Glavas, A. 2016. Corporate social responsibility and employee engagement: Enabling employees to employ more of their whole selves at work. http://10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00796 (accessed November 8, 2019). Hammer, M. 1990. Re-engineering work: Don’t automate, obliterate. Harvard Business Review. July-August, 1990 104–112. Macnamara, J. 2015. Creating an ‘architecture of listening’ in organizations: The basis of engagement, trust, healthy democracy, social equity and business sustainability. Sydney: University of Technology. https:// www.uts.edu.au/sites/default/files/fassorganizational-listening-report.pdf (accessed November 8, 2019).

Marshak, R. 1996. Metaphors, metaphoric fields and organization change. In: Grant, D., and Oswick, C. (Eds.). Metaphor and Organizations. London: Sage, 147–165. Nadler, D., Gerstein, M., and Shaw, R. 1992. Organization Architecture: Designs for Changing Organizations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Patterson, K., Grenny, J., McMillan, R., and Switzler A. 2012. Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High. Singapore: McGraw-Hill Education. Phillips, C. 2017. Nothing personal: James Baldwin, Richard Avedon, and the pursuit of celebrity. ariel: A Review of International English Literature. 48(3–4): 13–28. doi:10.1353/ ari.2017.0035 Schön, D. 1979. Generative metaphor: A perspective on problem-setting in social policy. In: Ortony, A. (Ed.), Metaphor and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 137–163. Singleton, G. 2015. Courageous Conversations About Race: A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in Schools. Thousand Oaks: Corwin. Smith, K., and Berg, D. 1987. Paradoxes of Group Life: Understanding Conflict, Paralysis, and Movement in Group Dynamics. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Stacey, R. 2015. Understanding organizations as complex responsive processes of relating. In: Bushe, G., and Marshak, R. (Eds.), Dialogic Organization Development: The Theory and Practice of Transformational Change. Oakland: Berrett-Koehler, 151–175. Stone, D., Patton, B., and Heen, S. 2011. Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most. New York: Portfolio Penguin. Uhl-Bien, M. 2006. Relational leadership theory: Exploring the social processes of leadership and organizing. The Leadership Quarterly. 17(6): 654–676. doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2006.10.007 Vannini, P., Gottschalk, S., and Vaskul, D. 2012. Somatic work: Toward a sociology of the senses – sensory studies. Sensorystudies.org. http://www.sensorystudies.org/sensorial-investigations/somatic-work-toward-a-sociology-ofthe-senses/ (accessed November 8, 2019).

27 Large Scale Appreciative Inquiry: New Futures Through Shared Conversations A m a n d a Tr o s t e n - B l o o m a n d B a r b a r a E . L e w i s

This chapter shows how to collaboratively engage large numbers of people of radically diverse backgrounds – including those whose voices are not often heard – in clarifying and constructing their future using Appreciative Inquiry (AI). AI is a profoundly inclusive, strength-based, future-forming approach to organizational and community change that is distinguished by its capacity to inspire hope, commitment, collaboration and innovative action. The question of how to design and facilitate AI initiatives has been studied at depth for nearly three decades in writing, training programs and more.1 Because of this, the following chapter focuses on large scale AI: specifically how large scale approaches are distinguished from their smaller scale counterparts; and how these approaches enable people to forge new futures through shared conversations. Recognizing that the identity of human systems resides in the stories people study, share and organize around, we explore how large scale AI offers a way

forward for those who wish to engage dozens, hundreds or even thousands of people in creating and sustaining organizations and communities that work for all.

WHAT IS APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY? Appreciative Inquiry has been described as ‘the study of what gives life to human systems when they function at their best’ (Whitney and Trosten-Bloom, 2010, p. 1). It is a relational approach to organization and community change that has evolved out of three traditions – image theory, grounded/ action research, and social construction (Whitney and Trosten-Bloom, 2010, p. 49). In An Invitation to Social Construction, Ken Gergen suggests that conversations and relationships are instruments of creation: ‘As we speak together, listen to new voices, raise questions, ponder alternatives, and play at the edges of common sense, we cross the threshold

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into new worlds of meaning. The future is ours – together – to create’ (Gergen, 2009, p. 6). Indeed, as groups of people convene and converse, they inevitably construct prevailing narratives. Recognizing this, AI offers a structured, fully affirmative process that enables people to surface often-untold stories of success and construct new prevailing narratives. It helps people ‘see things with new eyes [and] co-create new understanding’ of what is good, right, and true (Camargo-Borges, 2019, p. 91). This in turn enables them to reinterpret – perhaps even reinvent – the way they see and understand the worlds that they inhabit. The process behind AI is known as the 4-D Cycle: Discover, Dream, Design and Destiny (Cooperrider and Whitney, 2005, p. 16). This 4-D Cycle can drive anything from a brief conversation to a multi-year, multi-stakeholder engagement; but the specifics of its application vary according to the purpose, scale and scope of the initiative. Below, we provide an overview of each of the 4D cycle phases.

Discover – Appreciating and Valuing the Best of What Is The purpose of Discovery is to ‘search for, highlight, and illuminate those factors that give life’ to human systems (organizations, communities, families, etc.) (Ludema et al., 2003, p. 10). Key activities include: selecting affirmative topics for inquiry; crafting questions; conducting interviews to gather both stories of success and images of what might be. People then make meaning of the data (using narrative analysis), and articulate what is known as the ‘positive core’ or ‘root cause of success’ of that which is being studied.

even better’ (Whitney and Trosten-Bloom, 2010, p. 177). Here, whole brained/whole bodied activities stimulate capacity for creative, out-of-the-box thinking, giving rise to new possibilities and making original connections between past experiences and future opportunities. Key activities include reflecting with others on the desired future, creatively enacting shared visions, and then identifying key elements or opportunities to embrace going forward.

Design – Determining What Should Be Design involves positive disruption: changing the way the things are done so that collective intentions are brought to life on an everyday, ordinary basis. Participants collaboratively recreate systems, structures and processes to leverage strengths and achieve their organizational ideals. Key activities include ideation, prototyping and crafting of principles (aka provocative propositions) that ‘stretch the status quo, challenge common assumptions, and suggest real possibilities for change’ (Ludema et al., 2003, p. 181).

Destiny – Innovating What Will Be Sometimes referred to as Delivery, this phase involves organizing the people, tools and resources needed to give form to the chosen design. Here, along with action planning, metric-setting and building implementation strategies, participants develop ‘plans and processes that encourage and nurture ongoing improvised action [our italic] by people across the system to ramp up a collective sense of destiny’ (Cooperrider and Whitney, 2001, pp. 611–630 in McQuaid and Cooperrider, 2018, pp. 161–162).

Dream – Envisioning What Might Be

The 4-D Cycle in Action

Dream involves ‘lift[ing] up the best of what has been and invit[ing] people to imagine it

Like many approaches to transformation, AI and the 4-D Cycle are scalable. They have

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been applied to everything from one-on-one conversations and small group gatherings, to large multi-day events, to months- or yearslong system-wide interventions (Whitney and Trosten-Bloom, 2010, pp. 25–30). Regardless of the application, AI and the 4-D Cycle enable people to experience the kind of ‘language shift that produces an attractive and empowering reality’ (Ford, 1999, p. 4) – and that ultimately releases new ways of seeing, knowing and acting.

TAKING AI TO SCALE From the beginning, AI practitioners understood that focusing on strengths, success and possibilities would enable people to discover what unites them and feel shared responsibility for action. They also acknowledged that giving voice to people ‘on the margins’ was a generative practice that paved the way to new realities. Putting these understandings into practice, they designed and adapted processes to engage more and more people of increasingly diverse backgrounds in positive, future-forming conversations. Over time, three particular frameworks evolved for taking AI to scale. All of the three – the mass-mobilized inquiry, AI summit and whole system 4-D dialogue – can be adapted, scaled or refined based on an initiative’s purpose, size, geographic area, and duration.

Mass-Mobilized Inquiry One of the first (or perhaps the best-publicized) mass-mobilized inquiries was Imagine Chicago. As part of a broader communitybased civic inquiry, founder Bliss Browne initiated a citywide conversation between youth and community leaders to gather stories and commitments related to the future of Chicago, Illinois (Browne, 1995). Later, Whitney and Trosten-Bloom named the

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approach, describing it as ‘a waterfall-like process for engaging large numbers of people in face-to-face conversations’ (Whitney and Trosten-Bloom, 2010, p. 36). Mass-mobilized inquiries often begin by delivering interview guides, summary sheets and trainings (in person or online) to an unlimited number of volunteer interviewers. As interviewers conclude a conversation, they invite their partner to interview others. This creates an infinite number of ‘ripples’ from what may be an initially small number of interviews. This ‘cascading’ design enables a wide variety of participants from varying backgrounds to engage with the process and ‘negotiate a common reality’ (Gergen, 2009, p. 118). Meaning is often made by a small, diverse group working on behalf of the whole, either periodically throughout the inquiry or upon completion of the project. Because members of this group are a microcosm of the whole, reflecting upon widely divergent stories and insights, they are equipped in unusual ways to make choices and coordinate action that takes into account multiple perspectives and realities.

Appreciative Inquiry Summit As Imagine-like initiatives were unfolding, a second approach for taking AI to scale was born. First described as a way to ‘bring Appreciative Inquiry, social construction theory and a philosophy of positive change to large scale interventions’ (Cooperrider and Whitney, 2000, p. 13), the Appreciative Inquiry summit is: A method for accelerating change by involving a broad range of internal and external stakeholders in the change process. It is typically a single event or series of events that bring people together to (1) discover the organization’s or community’s core competencies and strengths; (2) envision opportunities for positive change; (3) design the desired changes into the organization’s or community’s systems, structures, strategies, and culture; and (4) implement and sustain the change and make it work. (Ludema et al., 2003, pp. 12–13)

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AI summits bring large diverse groups of 50–1000 people into the same space for between 1 and 5 days. Working in small groups of 8 to 10 (each of which is a microcosm of the whole), participants self-manage through a series of tightly scripted conversations and activities. As small groups report out and present to the full group of participants, individual identity gives way to relational identity and connection. People begin to think, prioritize and make decisions from a position of wholeness. This, in turn, equips them to act collaboratively, in service of the greater good. One might describe this as a concrete manifestation of Gergen’s call for ‘a joint creation of meaning, … in which the parties … can create new realities and ways of relating … [and] generate … mutually congenial realities’ (Gergen, 2009, p. 122).

Whole System 4-D Dialogue Yet another way to take AI to scale is the whole system 4-D dialogue (Whitney and Trosten-Bloom, 2010, pp. 33–34). This often includes long-term, large scale combinations of one-on-one interviews, small group gatherings and online outreach in addition to summits. Taking place over a period of several months to a year or more, whole system 4-D dialogues can engage hundreds, perhaps thousands of people in generating new shared narratives that unleash hope and pave the way for positive new futures.

Engaging Hearts and Minds Harlene Anderson suggests that ‘Stories are mysterious; they are … unfamiliar and surprising…. [They] invite wonderment and curiosity whereas a problem … invite[s] solving and repairing’ (Anderson, 2003). Regardless of the design, large scale AI connects the hearts and minds of large numbers of people of diverse perspectives by bringing them together in the spirit of curiosity, to

hear and learn from one another’s stories of hope and experiences of success. This, in turn, prepares them to create new and more promising narratives and understandings. Through widespread conversation, dialogue and deep listening, people re-create the worlds in which they live and generate momentum for positive change.

SEVEN CONSIDERATIONS FOR LARGE SCALE AI What enables large scale AI to succeed? Experience with the methodologies described above, spanning a wide array of initiatives varying in geography and size, reveals seven questions that must be considered when taking AI to scale. For each question, we offer real-world examples of how different organizations and communities have responded to these questions: 1 Who should be involved, and why? 2 What purpose will compel a large number of people to actively participate? 3 What will connect people across differences? 4 What engagement strategy best reflects participants’ lifestyles and preferences? 5 How will large amounts of data be collected and integrated? 6 How will new participants validate and build on prior work? 7 What is the relationship between emergent activities and mainstream structures?

Who Should Be Involved, and Why? In small scale AI initiatives, consultants or change agents often take the lead in developing questions and processes. But large scale AI is purposefully designed and driven by representatives of the larger system. A key task for a large process, then, is to determine who should be involved, and why: to identify and establish a relational infrastructure that

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both engages the whole system (in the AI process) and supports implementation during and beyond the Destiny phase. In essence, this begins by engaging people and perspectives that reflect the whole system. Even before an initiative has launched, this commitment to engaging representatives of the whole has implications. A city of almost 90,000 people hoped to use large scale AI to develop a citywide strategic plan. But an initial three-person group of project leaders (convened to consider who to involve) realized something was wrong. While their community was roughly one-fourth Latinx, none of the project leaders had deep insight into or strong relationships with this part of the community. They invited a bilingual Latina to join the leadership team, thereby expanding their capacity to connect with people of Latin American descent. This early course-correction resulted in robust engagement of Latinx community members in development of the community’s future vision (Roney, 2013). In addition to project leaders, many large scale initiatives involve a planning team as co-designers/facilitators of the AI process. At their best, these planning teams are a ‘microcosm of the whole’. In other words, they collectively mirror the larger system being affected (Whitney and Trosten-Bloom, 2010). Together, team members participate in facilitated processes that enable them to determine: what they’re trying to achieve (purpose); who needs to be involved (people); and how or what participants need to experience to achieve said purpose (process). By co-creating and facilitating the process, planning team members acquire AI skills, confidence, and relationships with one another. They learn how to use AI to address ongoing challenges and opportunities, and gain the capacity to serve as positive change agents. The Denver Museum of Nature & Science aspired to forge a more inclusive museum vision in partnership with people of color; but they didn’t yet have strong enough relationships with the targeted communities

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to achieve the levels of engagement they sought. Their solution was to prepare outreach ‘ambassadors’: people who were part of the communities in question, who would partner with the Museum both to design the initiative and attract community participation. One relationship at a time, they recruited and formed a planning team comprised both of staff (from different levels of the organization) and community members (representing the missing voices). Together, team members created interviews, branded the initiative, and hosted community meetings and a summit. Having formed and experienced positive, collaborative relationships with the Museum, many community members chose to stay connected. They continued to provide input on everything from design of a mobile outreach van, to development of an outdoor space, to radical redesign of exhibit space. An insurance company similarly engaged ambassadors, calling them ‘culture champions’. Their job was to facilitate community conversations involving every member of the company’s workforce. The content of these conversations fed directly into an AI summit, in which participants developed new cultural norms, systems and structures (TrostenBloom et al., 2015). Whatever the approach (a diverse planning team, outreach ambassadors, or culture champions), a foundational first step is establishing a relational infrastructure capable of reaching and engaging the whole system. This enables all those who need to be in conversation to be involved in creating the desired change.

What Purpose Will Compel a Large Number of People to Actively Participate? The purpose of a large scale AI initiative – like that of any AI process – is explicitly positive: something people want more of. The purpose must also be relevant for all parties whose future is being created.

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In addition, large scale AI processes are explicitly designed to attract large numbers of people with different perspectives. The more positive, relevant and compelling the purpose, the broader the engagement. Colorado Access (COA), an affordable health insurance provider, was threatened with reduced Medicare reimbursement because customer satisfaction was low (as reported on the annual CAHPS survey2). While company-wide connection to the mission was high, the 3600 Medicare members’ day-to-day experience was less than optimal. COA had less improve customer satisfaction scores to than a year to avoid budget-breaking penalties by improving customer satisfaction scores. It was essential that a broad cross-section of the workforce come together quickly to develop system-wide solutions. Rather than focusing on the problem of poor customer experience, they invited people to co-create a shared vision for service excellence. This purpose and process was compelling and meaningful to employees, customers and service providers alike.

What Will Connect People Across Differences? Large initiatives purposefully invite people of significantly different points of view to align around shared aspirations and actions. They call for creative integration: a bringing together of multiple – sometimes opposed – ways of seeing. As Sheila McNamee suggests, ‘Many of us feel the need … to understand, to connect. … The central requirement is for us to move beyond either/ or thinking … to step into and embrace the diversity of moral stances that we confront in today’s world’ (McNamee, 2008, p. 1). To achieve this connection and integration, large scale AI aspires to put relationships first by inviting people to share personal stories and perspectives … to feel pride in their own experience and wisdom and connect to a positive vision for the whole. The resulting foundation of trusting, uplifting relationships

enables people to move beyond ‘common ground,’ and seek instead higher ground. In 1996, 200 people gathered in San Francisco to consider how to form the organization now known as the United Religions Initiative (URI). Their opening activity – an appreciative interview – invited them to partner with someone they didn’t know, who was as different from them as possible. Since participants came from radically different spiritual, cultural and national backgrounds, summit organizers invited them to both honor their differences and connect to something greater through appreciative questions like these: Each of our communities of faith have special gifts – traditions, beliefs, practices, values – to bring to the arena of interfaith cooperation and action. As you think about your community of faith, what are some of its most positive qualities or gifts that make it capable of entering into cooperation with others to build something like a United Religions?

Beginning with this exploration of their own beliefs and texts, participants took the first step in forming the global grassroots interfaith network that was eventually chartered in 2000. Today, the URI involves 1010 ‘cooperation circles’ working in 108 countries, all in service of a compelling purpose: ‘to promote enduring, daily interfaith cooperation, to end religiously motivated violence, and to create cultures of peace, justice and healing for the Earth and all living beings’ (URI, 2019).

What Engagement Strategy Best Reflects Participants’ Lifestyles and Preferences? Reaching out broadly within an organization or community often requires reaching beyond those who are inherently interested in and available to spend time on the topic at hand, using different engagement approaches for different audiences. Ultimately, the most effective engagement strategy is tailored to

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potential participants’ lifestyles and preferences. Representatives of the whole system – planning team members, ambassadors or champions – ensure that engagement and outreach efforts are sensitive to what will work best for targeted populations. The Adams 12 Five star School District includes 4400 employees serving more than 39,00 students. It includes 50 school sites located in two counties and five cities. In launching its new strategic planning process, the district sought to engage students, parents, community members and staff at all levels, in all schools, in a way that fit with school schedules. With input from a planning team that reflected these perspectives, they designed a variety of processes to engage these different stakeholders. Principals and learning specialists were trained as ambassadors to facilitate a condensed two-hour AI process in every school, involving both staff members and students. They also hosted open community meetings and a large forum with nearly 100 Spanish speakers. An online data collection system enabled participants in the various gatherings to record what they were learning in a consistent database, in real time. Finally, online surveys reached those who could not participate in person. These early outreach efforts attracted diverse participation and generated enthusiasm for continued involvement. They encouraged and enabled more than 230 students, parents, community members and staff to participate in a one-day summit (that ended mid-afternoon to accommodate students’ and parents’ constraints). The summit’s goals were to validate what had been learned in the earlier engagement and identify priority strategies and actions. As the engagement concluded, School Board president Kathy Plomer commented on the effectiveness of the engagement strategy: Getting authentic community voice is one of the hardest but most important things you can do in a school district. Taking a risk to try a unique and inspiring process meant we did not just hear from a narrow slice of our community, but included and

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acted upon different voices that are not always heard. (Plomer, 2019)

Ultimately, more than 7000 people contributed to the district’s five-year strategic plan. Widespread understanding and support provided the foundation for a successful ballot initiative, which enabled funding of the plan’s priorities (Adams 12 Five Star Schools, 2019). In large national or international organizations, the engagement strategy must enable authentic integration of input from different geographic areas. Such organizations may design an extended period of local or regional inquiry, followed by a large summit involving all levels, all functions and all locations. Alternatively, they may host a series of regional AI summits culminating in an ‘integration’ summit where representatives of the regional gatherings, along with newly engaged team members, build upon the earlier gatherings and set direction for the whole. Yet another approach is to integrate inperson and virtual platforms, as was the case with World Vision’s classic large scale inquiry. Here, an online portal enabled representatives of a 20,000-member international workforce to respond to questions during an extended period of Discovery. Then, during a four-day AI summit, daily summaries were distributed to 100 regional groups in 52 countries. More than 4500 people commented virtually on these summaries, and comments were synthesized overnight and presented the following morning. This established ‘a spirit of collaborative participation far beyond the meeting room walls’ (McQuaid and Cooperrider, 2018, p. 209). In community building, the challenge may be to connect with large numbers of people scattered over a large geographic area. Imagine Nagaland reached out to adults and children in a region of 2 million people by using a mass-mobilized inquiry. They began by convening 70 people, a third of whom were children or young people of different

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tribal origins, who together represented stakeholder groups from all of the country’s geographic districts. Each member of this group conducted six interviews … then each interviewee conducted their own interviews. These one-on-one interviews enabled people throughout the region – even in remote areas – to participate. Eventually, representatives from the state’s eight districts came together face-to-face to build upon what they’d learned and complete the 4-D Cycle (United Nations Children’s Fund, 2002). In each of these examples, representatives of the whole designed engagement strategies that reflected participants’ circumstances and preferences. These thoughtfully designed strategies enabled diverse, sometimes disbursed participants to have meaningful conversations with one another, and to co-create new futures.

How Will Large Amounts of Data be Collected and Integrated? Large scale AI processes often involve an extended period of inquiry in which hundreds or even thousands of stories and recommendations may be generated. As combinations of interviews, focus groups, community conversations and surveys are taking place, participants and facilitators record and/or synthesize what they are learning. Data may include transcribed interview notes, summary sheets, and/or artifacts of group gatherings. Project leaders and teams must determine how faithfully to gather, organize and make meaning of this data. A diverse group of people (sometimes a planning team, sometimes a separate group of representative volunteers) makes meaning of this data through a collaborative process of reading, reflection and dialogue. First individually, then in pairs or small groups – perhaps using qualitative analysis software – people extract and prioritize key success factors, strengths, hopes and dreams for the future, along with ideas for how to move

forward. Often returning to the original interview notes, they identify stories that are both compelling and illustrative of the final themes. The outcome is a synopsis that captures the essence of what has been shared in a manner that is clear, uplifting and engaging for both those who have yet to contribute and those who have already participated. In a multi-lingual environment, this synopsis will be accessible to the full community of participants, regardless of native language. Later in the 4-D cycle, individual perspectives must be integrated. Participants may be asked to craft a vision statement, identify priority findings or actions, or organize for implementation. Targeted processes for reflection, integration and feedback enable people to hear multiple perspectives, provide appreciative feedback, and make choices or recommendations focused on the good of the whole. In short, large scale AI connects and integrates both people and data across differences, to create a unified sense of direction and action.

How Will New Participants Validate and Build on Prior Work? Large scale AI initiatives often take place over an extended period of time. People come and go, and consecutive gatherings must validate and build upon the work of previous activities or events. In effect, every ‘touchpoint’ becomes a miniature 4-D Cycle, with experiences and data from previous activities becoming part of the process. For example, the Discovery phase might refer back to the list of strengths (or positive core map) that was generated earlier; the Dream phase might begin with a review of art projects produced during previous gatherings; or design prototypes or statements from a summit might anchor follow-up Destiny activities. Referring again to the Adams 12 Five Star Schools strategic planning process,

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more than 3000 people reflected upon the district’s strengths and generated ideas to make their hopes and dreams for the district a reality. The planning team synthesized and streamlined strengths, then clustered ideas for the future into ‘focus areas’ for review and validation by the broader community (via an online survey). Then at the summit, the condensed and validated list of strengths served as topics for the opening interviews. Planning team members gave brief presentations about the final six ‘focus areas’, and participants self-organized to define and plan priority actions for the focus area that most interested them.

What is the Relationship Between Emergent Activities and Mainstream Structures? As inquiries lasting months or years conclude, new systems, structures and processes are launched – often by self-organized action or innovation teams. How, then, are these emergent teams connected with the organization’s or community’s formal hierarchy or structure? Each organization’s or community’s answer is different. Colorado Access’ whole system 4-D dialogue engaged more than 25% of its 500-person workforce, along with key customers and partners. It resulted in 16 implementation teams addressing issues such as: employee onboarding and training; member wellness and education; new and refined IT systems; knowledge management; and succession planning. These teams were then integrated with six existing strategic planning ‘work streams’ (that had formed pre-AI) in an ‘implementation launch’. There, team members from both the AI process and the strategic planning effort connected the two processes by developing charters for high priority initiatives and forming work groups to plan first steps. The result was widespread commitment, grassroots accountability, and accelerated implementation of the company’s strategic plan.

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LARGE SCALE AI: MORE THAN WORTH THE EFFORT Large scale AI might seem overwhelming. It is often resource intensive, and as suggested above, sometimes quite time-consuming. To be effective, consultants and system members design and facilitate processes in partnership with one another, which can tax the organizations’ people, time and talent. Community-based initiatives are often organized by volunteers, which adds the dimension of uncertainty to resource planning. Finally, tangible takeaways are only evident once the process is well underway; and may not be fully realized for months or even years after the process is complete. So why do some organizations and communities choose to make the investment to engage large, diverse groups of people in discovering, dreaming, designing and delivering change? They do so because the benefits more than outweigh the effort. These benefits include: • Authentic engagement of those whose voices are not often heard; • Trusting, collaborative relationships across large, diverse and disbursed systems; • System-wide transfer of knowledge and understanding; • Collective images of positive new futures; • A positive collision of ideas, resulting in breakthrough insights, energy and innovation; • A sense of shared responsibility; • Inspired collective action; and • Enhanced appreciative capacity, both individual and collective.

In short, large scale Appreciative Inquiry enables people with different voices, backgrounds, and perspectives to speak, listen, learn, imagine and create – together. Conversation leads to understanding, understanding to insight, insight to imagination, and imagination to action. Thus, powerful connections – forged through conversation – pave the way to promising new futures.

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Notes 1  For readers interested in exploring AI theory and practice at more depth, we offer the following resources: (1) Appreciative Inquiry: Change at the Speed of Imagination, Watkins, J. and Mohr, B.; (2) The Power of Appreciative Inquiry: A Practical Guide to Positive Change, Whitney, D. and Trosten-Bloom, A., at Appreciative Inquiry Commons: https://appreciativeinquiry.champlain.edu 2  The Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) is a series of patient surveys rating health care experiences in the United States. Results are used by Medicare – a federally supported health insurance program – to determine the level at which health providers will be reimbursed for services delivered.

REFERENCES Adams 12 Five Star Schools. (2019). Elevate. Retrieved June 4, 2019 from https://www. adams12.org/initiatives/elevate. Anderson, H. (2003). Listening, hearing and speaking: Thoughts on the relationship to dialogue. Retrieved from https://www. taosinstitute.net/Websites/taos/files/Content/ 5692909/ListeningHearing.pdf) (Accessed 19 August, 2020). Browne, B. (1995). Imagine Chicago: A Chicago case study in intergenerational appreciative inquiry [PDF file]. Retrieved from https://imaginechicago.squarespace.com/ videos-case-studies-publications-discussions (Accessed 19 August, 2020) Camargo-Borges, C. (2019). A-ppreciating: How to discover the generative core. In D. Njis (Ed.). Advanced imagineering: Designing innovation as collective creation. (pp. 90–104) Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. Cooperrider, D., & Whitney, D. (2000). The appreciative inquiry summit: An emerging methodology for whole system positive change. OD Practitioner, 32 (1) http://facultylibrary.dmcodyssey.org/wp-content/ uploads/2016/04/Whitney-D-and-Cooperrider-The-Appreciative-Inquiry-Summit-An-

Emerging-Methodology-for-Whole-SystemPositive-Change.pdf” (Accessed 19 August, 2020). Cooperrider, D., & Whitney, D. (2001). A positive revolution in change: Appreciative inquiry. Public Administration and Public Policy, 87, 611–630. Cooperrider, D., & Whitney, D. (2005). Appreciative inquiry: A positive revolution in change. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler. Ford, J. D. (1999). Organizational change as shifting conversations. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 12(6):480–500. Gergen, K. (2009). An invitation to social construction (2nd edition). London, England: Sage. Ludema, J., Whitney, D., Mohr, B., & Griffin, T. (2003). The appreciative inquiry summit: A practitioner’s guide for leading large-group change. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler. McNamee, S. (2008). Transformative dialogue: Coordinating conflicting moralities. Retrieved October 20, 2019 from https://mypages. unh.edu/sites/default/files/sheilamcnamee/ files/transformative_dialogue-_coordinating_ conflicting_moralities.pdf McQuaid, M., & Cooperrider, D. (2018). Your change blueprint: How to design and deliver an AI summit. Victoria, AUS: Michelle McQuaid Pty Ltd. Plomer, K. (2019). Case studies – Adams 12 Five Star Schools. Retrieved November 14, 2019 from http://rockymountainpositivechange.org/ Roney, K. (2013). Focus on Longmont: Becoming an appreciative city. Appreciative Inquiry Practitioner, 15 (4), 49–61. Trosten-Bloom, A., Wilson, S., & Real, K. (2015). From ‘best’ to ‘even better’: Rapid relational results at ARAG North America. AI Practitioner, 17 (3): 57–67. United Nations Children’s Fund. (2002). The state of the world’s children 2002. New York, NY: Bellamy, C. United Religions Initiative (URI). (2019). Retrieved June 7, 2019 from https://uri.org Whitney, D., & Trosten-Bloom, A. (2010). The power of appreciative inquiry: A practical guide to positive change (2nd edition). San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.

28 Zooming in on the MicroDynamics of Social Innovation: Enabling Novelty Through Relational Constructionist Practice D a n i e l l e P. Z a n d e e

INTRODUCTION This chapter explores how Organization Development (OD) can play a role in enabling processes of social innovation. Though the idea of social innovation (SI) is not new, it has been rejuvenated since the early 2000s as a hopeful response to pressing and complex societal challenges such as sustainable healthcare, city livability, refugee integration and affordable education. SI is fundamentally about fulfilling human needs and improving social relations through new practices of organizing, governing, and working. Conceptually, it often has a political and ideological connotation of engaging the more vulnerable and marginalized actors in a search to improve their situation and to create a more just, inclusive society. Indeed, terms like emancipation, participation, and empowerment are commonly used in the SI literature. Here we find a direct link with the humanistic values and democratic ideals on which the OD field was founded, and which

remain embedded in contemporary OD methods such as appreciative inquiry and ­ large group interventions (Bushe and Marshak, 2009). Because of such overlapping agendas, OD may be well positioned to help envision and enact the necessary innovations in the social domain. However, to fully embrace this role, the OD field will need to develop new repertoires for thought and action. The premise of this chapter is that OD can enable SI, when it embraces a relational constructionist stance, when it becomes issuefocused, and when it anchors change in daily practice. Relational constructionism emphasizes how actors relate in the construction of social reality through processes of ongoing interaction (Lambrechts et al., 2009). By making our processes of relating primary, we become attentive to their generative potential. Through how we interact we may uphold tradition but are also free to innovate and transform (Gergen, 2009, p. 49). Thus, relational constructionist practice emphasizes the importance of improving the quality of our

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interactions as both the focus and outcome of SI. Such improvement may be facilitated by OD practitioners who help involved stakeholders to find innovative solutions for the social problems that they are facing (Zandee, 2015b). Indeed, when actors meet to handle complex issues of high mutual concern, they have reason to explore the quality of their collaboration. Those complex issues are not abstractions, but problems that ultimately play out in the work that needs to be done in the primary process of organizations. Nurses in urban hospitals, teachers in neighborhood schools and police officers on patrol are confronted with the consequences of, for instance, city poverty and healthcare reform. OD that zooms in on their experiences and challenges, can nurture the emergence of SI within the micro-dynamics of daily action. In what follows, I first give a theoretical framing of what social innovation entails and how the concept can relate to OD theory and practice. I propose that the strongest contribution of OD lies in enabling social innovation at the micro-level of daily interactions, through the novelty-seeking interweaving of dialogue, experimentation and reflection. This theoretical framing will then be used to explore two concrete examples of how OD facilitation may bring out the innovative potential of such micro-dynamics. These examples focus on the issues of citizen participation and healthcare transformation. In the last section of this chapter, lessons will be drawn for the innovation of OD as a social practice.

THEORETICAL FRAMING: ABOUT SI AND OD In times when (European) welfare states are retreating, governments and policy makers embrace SI to handle societal challenges in ways that uphold the fulfillment of citizen needs. The assumption is that empowered and creative actors in civil society can drive

the necessary societal change in areas where the public and private sectors fail to deliver (Avelino et al., 2019; Moulaert et al., 2017). Whether this assumption holds true or not, there is a notable search for the renewal of social practices and a heightened research interest in the topic. Meanwhile, the conceptual framing of SI remains rather ambiguous and definitions vary. Definitions from the field of government and public policy seem dominant and commonly include the satisfaction of an insufficiently met human need, an improvement in social relations and/or a shift in power, within the broader context of moving towards more democratic societies and communities (Avelino et  al., 2019; Moulaert et al., 2017). In the field of management and entrepreneurship an emphasis on the ‘social’ in innovation seems relatively new (van der Have and Rubalcaba, 2016). For OD however, the embrace of SI feels more like a reacquain­ tance than a discovery. Appreciative inquiry, for instance, was originally conceptualized as action research with the generative capa­city to develop knowledge for SI (Cooperrider and Srivastva, 1987). In fact, action research as a foundational OD approach, has always focused on solving pressing issues in a ‘spirit of collaboration and co-inquiry’ with the higher aim of social liberation (Bradbury, 2015; Coghlan and Shani, 2018, p. 4). No wonder that action research is promoted as a pathway to SI (Moulaert and MacCallum, 2019). Both take ‘practice’ as the focal point for change. From an OD perspective, practice refers to the reality and the daily work of practitioners that seek help for their change efforts. In the realm of SI, practice is also understood in more theoretical terms. The field of practice theory (Nicolini, 2012) takes practices, rather than practitioners, as the unit of analysis in efforts to understand how ­activities unfold, become standardized and intertwined with other practices. Such practices are, for instance, defined as ‘accepted ways of doing things, embodied and materially mediated, that are shared between actors and

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routinized over time’ (Vaara and Whittington, 2012, p. 287). Where practice theory accepts that discursive practice is essential for the construction of social reality, it resists the idea that discourse alone can explain all features of organizational life (Nicolini, 2012, p. 8). In other words, social practices are seen as the habitual ‘sayings and doings’ (Schatzki, 2002) that we engage in with others. Practices such as teaching a class are understood as situated, relational, embodied and material in that they include the use of artifacts such as laptops and attendance lists. The practice lens is fruitful for the discussion of how OD might enable SI for two specific reasons. First, it allows for a connection with a relational constructionist stance through its focus on how activities are performed and understood by interacting actors. Meanwhile, the emphasis on the material and performative quality of social practice permits constructionist OD approaches to oscillate between dialogue and action. Second, the focus of practice theory on ‘how activities are embedded in broader societal or macro-institutional contexts’ (Vaara and Whittington, 2012, p. 287), enables a systemic understanding of SI in which small-scale, local innovations may eventually interlock into large-scale social change (Moulaert et  al., 2017; Westley and Antadze, 2010). This assumption invites OD approaches that make the daunting work of handling complex issues tangible and doable in searching for small ‘adaptive moves’ (Schein, 2016) in daily action. OD facilitators who embrace the potential of small, perhaps even mundane, change efforts for social innovation, will seek to punctuate the habitual activities of embedded actors. Inviting involved actors to look anew at what they do and say, implies the development of their reflective capacity to question assumptions, perspectives, patterns and contexts (Cunliffe, 2016; Marshall, 2011; van Wijk et al., 2019). When actors understand that and how their taken for granted reality is of their own making, they can mobilize their power to create and utilize opportunities for change.

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As stated earlier, SI is currently defined in numerous ways. For the remainder of this chapter I adopt the definition of SI as ‘changing social relations, involving new ways of doing, organizing, framing and knowing’ (Avelino et al., 2019, p. 197; Haxeltine et al., 2016, p. 20). This definition allows for a constructionist and relational exploration of SI as a process that can be enabled by OD facilitation. It nicely brings together all elements of a relational constructionist approach to OD that combines sayings and doings in inquiry whilst seeking to alter and improve relationships by co-creating novelty around pressing issues of mutual concern.

ENABLING SI: EXAMPLES OF MICRO-LEVEL OD PRACTICE In this section I give examples from my OD practice where social challenges such as government reform are the focal point of ­ innovation. In adherence to how Avelino et  al. (2019) define SI, the examples show how in small-scale settings a change in social relations, with new doing, organizing, knowing and framing can be nurtured through OD interventions. How can OD help involved actors to talk, experiment, and reflect together in ways that enable novelty? The examples show how OD, as a relational constructionist practice, can draw from a broad repertoire of methods to help build knowledge and collaborative capacity for social innovation.

Citizen Participation in Search of Municipal Happiness A rural municipality somewhere in the Netherlands has made the well-being of its citizens the focal point for social change. Calling themselves the municipality of ‘small happiness’, they have decided to reach out to their citizens to co-create a positive living environment for all. To make such

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co-creation possible (Voorberg et al., 2015), they chose appreciative inquiry as an approach to constructively change both internal municipal practice and citizen engagement. Some years after the start of this initiative, they host a day-long summit around ‘working towards happiness’ where likeminded municipalities can meet to share success stories, strategies and challenges concerning citizen participation in government reform. In my role as one of the moder­ ators, I partner with a municipality that welcomes the fresh perspective of summit participants on one of their persistent issues, namely the relocation of coffee shops away from their inner city. This municipality actively seeks a change in social relations in that they want to work with rather than for their citizens on topics of local governance. They see the summit as a great opportunity to experiment with this aspired practice and introduce the coffee shop case in order to learn how to engage in thoughtful stakeholder dialogue (new knowing). In the Netherlands so-called coffee shops are – under strict conditions – allowed to sell small amounts of cannabis to adult customers for their personal use. So why does the municipality have a problem? Their coffee shops have a regional function and serve customers that come by car to the narrow streets of the city center. There are complaints about traffic and litter. Relocation to the suburbs seems to be the solution but does not happen. Who wants a coffee shop as a neighbor? Moreover, the police warn of criminal activity when the new location is too remote. Somehow the relocation is a recurrent issue on the political agenda. It gets attention but is never resolved. To break the status quo, the municipality wants to gather all stakeholders to collaboratively handle the issue (new organizing). Rather than imposing precooked plans, they seek a ‘learning’ strategy (Hisschemöller and Hoppe, 1995) which entails high citizen participation in both problem diagnosis and decision making (new doing). This is a daring approach. But it fits

the intent to create mutual trust, interdepen­ dence, and commitment among the municipality and its citizens. In line with the summit objective, they take collective happiness as the guiding value (new framing). During the summit, I facilitate two subsequent 90-minute workshops in which I take a dialogic OD approach. I collaborate with two members of the municipality, who introduce the coffee shop case and then engage with workshop participants to learn from their insights and feedback. In the first workshop, I invite the participants to explore the issue from multiple perspectives. They are asked to map all stakeholders with their perceived interests, demands, worries and wishes. The main purpose of this exploration is to obtain clarity around the following questions: ‘What are the differences between stakeholders that lead to tension and friction?’ and ‘Where, in those differences, can we find openings to solve the issue?’. The second workshop is designed to practice with conversation in which the mapped tensions and openings can be made productive in handling the intended coffee shop relocation. This design is based on the principles of ‘deep democracy’ (Kramer, 2018; Mindell, 2002), a dialogic approach that engages with conflict as opportunity and incorporates the wisdom of the minority in decision making. The outcome of the first workshop is somewhat surprising. Participants who are familiar with appreciative inquiry, reframe the issue as a bigger opportunity to engage citizens in creating vibrant neighborhoods in which coffee shops have their place. Participants without an appreciative background, engage in a critical questioning of the case and declare the relocation a non-issue. They see the apparent political – rather than practical – appeal of attending to controversial issues such as drug selling and use. They warn that acting on such political promises may actually create the problems that people fear. Though participants took two contrasting diagnostic approaches, they both result in downplaying possible tensions between stakeholder groups. Hence, I adjust

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the design of the second workshop. Rather than practicing the constructive use of differences in dialogue, participants are invited to ponder the idea of the relocation as a non-issue. Could a seemingly controversial issue be resisting feasible solutions because it simply lacks a shared sense of importance and urgency? If that’s the case, what can be done to take it off the political agenda? Soon the workshop participants zoom in on helping the municipal representatives to prepare for a constructive confrontational meeting with the responsible alderman back home. The question becomes how to have the pivotal conversations that we tend to avoid. The workshop ends with a reflection on the strengths and vulnerabilities of citizen engagement. The general feeling is that inclusive, learning dialogues can enliven democratic values and enhance collective happiness. In this example, OD practice enabled a learning approach to SI in three different ways. First, it worked from the premise that the identification of social issues is in itself a process of social construction (van Wijk et al., 2019, p. 905). Rather than inviting citizens to help solve a predefined issue, workshop participants were asked to first diagnose the issue’s complexity, relevance and scope. Second, it took a critical appreciative approach by focusing on happiness and well-being whilst not shying away from tensions and conflict. This allowed for the illumination of politics and power relations that are a focal point of SI. Third, it delved deeper into the microdynamics of SI by zooming in on how a 1-on-1 conversation may alter the practice of political agenda setting. This shows how through thoughtful, small dialogic OD, leverage points for innovation can be located and utilized.

Mobilizing Self-Managing Teams for Sustainable Healthcare in the Neighborhood In countries such as the Netherlands, governments struggle to uphold the level of citizen services that European welfare states are

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known for. Maintaining universal healthcare, for instance, is a real challenge which forces the entire healthcare system to transform. For this transformation, many healthcare providers take guidance from a new concept of health as ‘the ability to adapt and self manage in the face of social, physical, and emotional challenges’ (Huber et  al., 2011). In this so-called ‘positive health’ definition the focus shifts to the resilience of citizens who are empowered to stay in control over their lives also when facing disease. This shift fits within a broader, international move towards ‘patient centric’ healthcare (Lifvergren and Zandee, 2017), which alters relational dynamics between healthcare professionals and their clients. Some years ago, I was invited by a healthcare organization to facilitate their efforts to provide ‘sustainable healthcare in the neighborhood’, meaning that they aspired to be people-centered, community-embedded and economically viable. Their services include homecare, protected living for elderly citizens and a rehabilitation center for specialized, integral care. In line with the concept of positive health, they wanted their change to be strength-based and grounded in the interactions between their professionals and clients in daily practice. As is documented elsewhere (Zandee, 2015a, 2015b), my engagement with this organization entailed a two-phase appreciative action research approach in which primary care professionals inquired into their own work. In the first phase a group of volun­ teers representing the different healthcare streams, conducted a small-scale appreciative inquiry into how they successfully handle dilemmas in taking care of their clients. Through this inquiry they became aware of their skills and actions and discussed with management how their professionalism could be utilized for the intended change. For the second phase, management decides to scale the appreciative inquiry approach from the individual to the team level. They see how this might help in the shift to selfmanaging teams in the primary care processes

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of their organization (new organizing). Like many other healthcare providers in the Netherlands, they embrace such selfmanagement as an innovative pathway towards healthcare transformation (Johansen and van den Bosch, 2017). The empowering of nursing teams simultaneously impacts social relations in terms of managerial– professional and nurse–client interactions. Both with the intention of making long-term care more human-centered and affordable. The second phase starts with eight teams that are interested in developing their selfmanaged practice from a strength-based perspective. Each team sends two representatives to a first meeting where we, a group of external and internal facilitators, introduce appreciative inquiry and assist participants in the tentative framing of affirmative topics to be further defined and explored by their teams. We urge them to choose topics of direct concern to their daily work with a focus on providing even better care for their clients. Our assumption is that through inquiry into such topics, teams may develop not only practical, solution-driven knowledge but also the intended capacity for self-guided performance. Hence the representatives are in the lead when they go back to their teams to facilitate small appreciative initiatives around self-chosen topics. These initiatives start with members interviewing each other to share best experiences with the topic and their future aspirations. For many nurses this is the first time that they look at their work through an appreciative lens (new framing). To support their inquiry, we provide the teams with a ‘toolkit’ that contains materials that explain and guide the appreciative process in terms of the discovery/dream/design/ destiny cycle. We also coach the representatives when they ask for our help. Because they invite us into their regular meetings, we can observe their existing capacity to organize themselves. Not only for their ongoing work, but also to inquire into and innovate that daily practice. This is clearly a lot to ask. We note that assistance is needed to perform

new managerial tasks which includes the attentiveness to team dynamics (new doing). In meetings with the organization’s leadership coaches, we discuss how this need for OD facilitation can be fulfilled in combination with our appreciative approach. Some months after the representatives initiate appreciative inquiry within their teams, they gather for a day-long workshop to reflect on the unfolding process. They share positive experiences with embedding appreciation in their work, for instance by starting team meetings with telling stories of meaningful encounters with their clients. They also share their difficulty with finding the time and energy to mobilize their team to engage with the intended inquiry. Progress is slow, and we adapt our facilitation to their pace. During a second workshop later in the year, representatives talk about issues such as intra-team frictions between older, experienced professionals and younger members who have been educated to make clients more independent of their care. We facilitate a dialogue around this and other emergent topics to see how differences within and between teams can be used constructively. In a more reflective mood, the group takes a meta-perspective (new knowing) and talks about the fragility of their team development efforts towards self-management. They note how addressing the sudden external pressure of a health inspection agency to improve the client filing system seems to overrule the managerial intention for professional empowerment. In a last workshop near the end of the year, the representatives discuss this issue and their concerns with higher management. How to proceed? In the spirit of appreciative inquiry, we hold on to what gives life. We invite them to use their team’s discovery materials as input for bold statements of their aspirations. With those in hand they discuss how the teams might, even in hectic circumstances, utilize small openings for self-propelled change. In this second example, OD facilitation was informed by the original action research

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framing of appreciative inquiry (Cooperrider and Srivastva, 1987). This nurtured the possible innovation of healthcare practices in several ways. First, it legitimized the microlevel inquiry of participating professionals into what they take for granted in their daily work. Such diagnosis helps embedded actors to develop the reflexive skill to question and change their habitual practice (van Wijk et al., 2019). Second, since action research commonly starts with the definition and selection of practice-based concerns, it informed topic choices that were team specific and yet connected to the overall affirmative topic of ‘sustainable care in the neighborhood’. The ensuing attention to multi-level change illuminated tensions caused by power differences that may stay hidden when OD facilitation is less concerned with the organization’s primary process. Third, the focus on daily professional–client interactions demanded that dialogue became intertwined with action. Nursing practices don’t change by talk alone. Hence, we worked more freely with the constructionist underpinnings of appreciative inquiry. Fourth, in the spirit of action research, intra-team change activities became the focus for cross-team reflection during a series of day-long workshops. Because these reflections were critical appreciative in tone, they enabled constructive dialogue about the relational issues that are part and parcel of SI.

LESSONS FOR THE INNOVATION OF OD AS A RELATIONAL CONSTRUCTIONIST PRACTICE The above examples show in small ways the effort it takes to move from talking about SI to the actual changing of practice in terms of new relations, talk and actions. By zooming in on what unfolds in processes of SI, the need for skillful and timely facilitation becomes apparent. Indeed, OD professionals have expert knowledge and skills in ‘how’ to make change happen. However, as a social

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practice it needs to innovate itself to fully play a role in bringing forth SI for societal transformation. Hence, I want to emphasize several lessons that can be drawn from the two practice examples (see also Zandee, 2015b). First, I urge the OD field to take a leading role in helping to address the pressing, complex issues that so urgently need attention. As shown in the healthcare example, the facilitation of action and reflection around such issues, give involved actors a common, tangible focus for the development of new practice. Meanwhile such issue-focused OD invites facilitators to pragmatically use and develop approaches that are best suited to guide next steps in unfolding processes of innovation. In the interest of intervention workability, I advocate an OD practice of thoughtful bricolage. Second, when issues of high mutual concern are anchored in daily practice, they will guide change activities that move beyond the ‘organization’ as the original domain of OD. Practice theory helps us to understand how ‘taking care of a patient’ is a connected pattern of practices that are undertaken by actors who cross organizational boundaries and often do their work in the ‘in-between’. OD for SI should guide those actors where they need to go. Third, I plea for a more critical OD practice that actively seeks to help deconstruct unhelpful power dynamics. Such positioning enriches the facilitation of SI by being attentive to how power plays out in interactions between involved parties. In both examples, such attentiveness enabled a shift in change agency from managers, alderman and consultants to those who are commonly the object of change – namely to nurses and citizens. Critical OD is deliberate in its empowerment of marginalized voices. Fourth, a further shift in agency is enabled through a systemic framing like ‘patient centric’ care (Lifvergren and Zandee, 2017). Such new framing permits OD facilitators to zoom in on ‘micro-systems’ of directly

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involved actors. Like in the nursing teams, interventions will focus on small-scale experimentation around the quality of professional– client interaction whilst paying attention to leverage points for larger scale change. However, moving beyond the mandate that was given in the healthcare organization, OD interventions would actively include patients in efforts to make their care sustainable. Fifth, for OD practice to truly enable SI as a pathway to societal change, it needs to develop approaches for the sharing and interlocking of local practice innovations. Clearly, the scaling of SI for impact beyond its primary context is a focal point for both theory and practice (Westley and Antadze, 2010; van Wijk et  al., 2019). From the examples in this chapter, one can discern two promising, interconnected approaches. The first is discursive in creating innovative texts and contexts to share new ways of framing and talking. The rural municipality showed such discursive agency (Zandee and Bilimoria, 2007) by organizing a conference based on the new vocabulary of ‘citizen happiness’ for government reform. The second approach is about creating platforms to enable ‘homeand-away’ learning practices (Lifvergren and Zandee, 2017) that focus on reflection for new action. In the healthcare organization such a learning platform was initiated for team representatives who would share their team (home) experiences in sessions away from their daily practice in order to gain insight and guidance for further team-based change. When platforms are issue-focused by design, they will bring together those with a direct interest in the social practices in need of innovation. OD facilitation during such meetings can concurrently pay attention to personal learning, collaborative action and the co-creation of transferable, innovative, practice-based knowledge. To conclude this chapter, I want to underline both the urgency of joint efforts to handle the issues that challenge global sustainability and human well-being, and the potency of OD practice to be of service in those serious

endeavors. We are standing at the crossroads of societal renewal or decline. Relational, constructionist OD practices are truly needed to help find our way through unknown terrains.

REFERENCES Avelino, F., Wittmayer, J. M., Pel, B., Weaver, P., Dumitru, A., Haxeltine, A., Kemp, R., Jørgensen, M. S., Bauler, T., Ruijsink, S., & O’Riordan, T. (2019). Transformative social innovation and (dis)empowerment. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 145, 195–206. Bradbury, H. (2015). Introduction: How to situate and define action research. In H. Bradbury (Ed.), Sage handbook of action research (3rd edition, pp. 1–16). London: Sage. Bushe, G. R., & Marshak, R. J. (2009). Revisioning organization development: Diagnostic and dialogic premises and patterns of practice. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 45(3), 348–368. Coghlan, D., & Shani, A. B. (2018). Conducting action research for business and management students. London: Sage. Cooperrider, D. L., & Srivastva, S. (1987). Appreciative inquiry in organizational life. In W. Pasmore & R. Woodman (Eds.), Research in organizational change and development (pp. 129–169). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Cunliffe, A. L. (2016). Republication of ‘on becoming a critically reflexive practitioner’. Journal of Management Education, 40(6), 747–768. Gergen, K. J. (2009). Relational being: Beyond self and community. New York: Oxford University Press. Haxeltine, A., Avelino, F., Pel, B., Dumitru, A., Kemp, R., Longhurst, N., Chilvers, J., & Wittmayer, J. M. (2016). A framework for transformative social innovation (TRANSIT Working Paper #5). TRANSIT: EU SSH.2013.32-1 Grant agreement no: 613169. Hisschemöller, M., & Hoppe, R. (1995). Coping with intractable controversies: The case for problem structuring in policy design and analysis. Knowledge and Policy: The International Journal of Knowledge Transfer and Utilization, 8(4), 40–60.

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Huber, M., Knottnerus, J. A., Green, L., van der Horst, H., Jadad, A. R., Kromhout, D., Leonard, B., Lorig, K., Loureiro, M. I., van der Meer, J. W. M, Schnabel, P., Smith, R., van Weel, C., & Smid, H. (2011). How should we define health? BMJ, 343:d4163 doi: 10.1136/ bmj.d4163 Johansen, F., & van den Bosch, S. (2017). The scaling-up of Neighborhood Care: From experiment towards a transformative movement in healthcare. Futures, 89, 60–73. Kramer, J. (2018). Deep democracy: De wijsheid van de minderheid. Zaltbommel, Netherlands: Thema. Lambrechts, F., Grieten, S., Bouwen, R., & Corthouts, F. (2009). Process consultation revisited: Taking a relational practice perspective. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 45(1), 39–58. Lifvergren, S., & Zandee, D. P. (2017). Healthcare transformation: Action research linking local practices to national scale. In H. Bradbury (Ed.), Cooking with action research: Stories and resources for self and community transformation (pp. 15–38). Portland, Or: AR+. Marshall, J. (2011). Images of changing practice through reflective action research. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 24(2), 244–256. Mindell, A. (2002). The deep democracy of open forums: Practical steps to conflict prevention and resolution for the family, workplace, and world. Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads. Moulaert, F., & MacCallum, D. (2019). Advanced introduction to social innovation. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. Moulaert, F., Mehmood, A., MacCallum, D., & Leubolt, B. (Eds.) (2017). Social Innovation as a trigger for transformation: The role of research. Brussels, Belgium: European Commission. Nicolini, D. (2012). Practice theory, work & organization: An introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Schatzki, T. (2002). The site of the social: A philosophical account of the constitution of social life and change. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. Schein, E. H. (2016). Humble consulting: How to provide real help faster. Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler. Vaara, E., & Whittington, R. (2012). Strategyas-practice: Taking social practices seriously. Academy of Management Annals, 6(1), 285–336. van der Have, R. P., & Rubalcaba, L. (2016). Social innovation research: An emerging area of innovation studies? Research Policy, 45(9), 1923–1935. van Wijk, J., Zietsma, C., Dorado, S., de Bakker, F. G. A., & Martí, I. (2019). Social innovation: Integrating micro, meso and macro level insights from institutional theory. Business & Society, 58(5), 887–918. Voorberg, W. H., Bekkers, V. J. J. M., & Tummers, L. G. (2015). A systematic review of co-creation and co-production. Public Management Review, 17(9), 1333–1357. Westley, F., & Antadze, N. (2010). Making a difference: Strategies for scaling social innovation for greater impact. The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal, 15(2), 2–19. Zandee, D. P. (2015a). Appreciative inquiry research review & notes: Strengthening AI as a generative process of action research. AI Practitioner: International Journal of Appreciative Inquiry, 17(1), 61–65. Zandee, D. P. (2015b). Feature choice: Sustainable OD as an issue-centric approach. AI Practitioner: International Journal of Appreciative Inquiry, 17(4), 9–16. Zandee, D. P., & Bilimoria, D. (2007). Institutional transformation through positive ­textual deviance. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 27(11/12), 469–482.

29 Social Construction and the Practice of Dialogic Organization Development Gervase R. Bushe and Robert J. Marshak

INTRODUCTION Organization Development (OD), as a field of scholarly inquiry and practice, emerged in the 1950s and became codified by the late 1960s. Three intellectual trends it sprang from were the transition from mechanistic models of organizing to organic, open systems, models (Burns and Stalker, 1961; Lawrence and Lorsch, 1969), the emergence of action research as planned change practice (Lewin, 1946; Lippitt et al., 1958) and the incorporation of humanistic social science into the practice of management (Argyris, 1957; McGregor, 1960) along with the invention of laboratory education (Bradford et al., 1964; Schein and Bennis, 1965). The social psychologist Kurt Lewin (1890–1947) is widely regarded as the intellectual founder of what came to be called OD. Lewin and his followers were interested in creating better teams, organizations, communities and societies by engaging their members in scientific self-study that would lead to better

social process and human relations. Many innovations in managerial practice (e.g., leadership training, team-building, survey feedback, diversity and inclusion, participative management, team-based organizing, action research, planned change) are a part of OD. In Bushe and Marshak (2009, 2014) we describe in depth the differences between foundational Diagnostic OD and those practices that we have grouped and named Dialogic OD, which emerged in the 1980s and have proliferated since. Unlike the inherent positivistic assumptions of Diagnostic OD, Dialogic OD is guided by a set of beliefs based on social constructionist and complexity science premises, intended to stimulate transformational change. Furthermore, transformational Dialogic OD approaches advance practices more associated with generative change rather than traditional planned change. In a VUCA world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity, where most strategic

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issues organizations face can’t be solved using traditional planned change practices, Dialogic OD is increasingly used to address complex organizational situations calling for a more emergent approach (Heifetz, 1998; Snowden and Boone, 2007). Unlike classical OD that assumes diagnosis of the factors and forces limiting performance is possible and necessary to formulate successful change interventions (Anderson, 2017), Dialogic OD practices eschew diagnosis in favor of engaging diverse participants in safe and stimulating containers where new possibilities emerge that alter socially constructed realities.

CRITERIA FOR OD PRACTICE There are at least five critical criteria that have historically served as guidelines to ensure OD outcomes reflect a search for the common good, and avoid explicit or implicit dominance, control or oppression. How these criteria are met has evolved in Dialogic OD practice, but the criteria themselves have remained and may well serve to define what distinguishes organization development from other organizational change practices. These are listed in Table 29.1.

Democratic Ideals Beginning with Lewin’s research and organizational interventions, organization development practitioners became some of the first to challenge the prevalent autocratic style of Table 29.1  Five criteria for all OD practices • • • • •

Democratic ideals Free and informed choice Widespread engagement in inquiry Widespread opportunities for meaningful influence Developmental movement

business leaders in the 1950s. From those beginning days all OD processes lean toward increasing democratization of the workplace; less in the sense of representative democracy and more in the sense of participatory democracy (Emery and Thorsrud, 1969). More recent Dialogic OD processes like Open Space Technology (Owen, 2008), where there is no authority structure and everyone has equal opportunities to influence outcomes, have greatly extended this democratic ideal.

Free and Informed Choice One of the main ways in which a more democratized organization is possible is through ensuring people have free and informed choice in decision-making and resulting actions (Argyris, 1970). This has many important ramifications. One is what we would now call transparency; people should have access to information that affects them, and their engagement at work should be predicated on being told the truth. Second, the decisions and actions they take should be freely taken, and change processes should avoid any kind of coercion, even subtle kinds. In addition to a moral stance, free and informed choice has the practical consequence that people’s commitment to decisions is greater and social organizing processes are more effective. These are similar conditions to what Habermas (1968) called ‘ideal speech acts’. Whereas Diagnostic OD practitioners attempt to follow these criteria by trying to occupy a neutral position apart from the systems in which they operate, Dialogic practitioners by contrast believe they are intrinsically embedded in the ways people make meaning and create social realities. Therefore, they must exercise a high degree of self-reflexivity to mitigate ways in which their rank and status might result in subtle forms of exclusion or coercion (Oliver, 2005).

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Widespread Engagement in Inquiry Another early contribution of Lewin and his followers’ research was to show that engaging those who have to change in processes of self-study and participation in decision-making reduced resistance to change (Coch and French, 1948). A signature value of OD is to engage individuals and teams in inquiry. In the initial formulations of Diagnostic OD this meant scientific forms of inquiry. A main differentiator of Dialogic (Cooperrider, 2012) OD has been the incorporation of other forms of inquiry, like appreciative inquiry, that are less based on the notion of ‘understanding as uncovering what can’t be seen’ (e.g., diagnosis), and more interested in the idea of ‘understanding as assigning meaning’ (Gergen, 1978). Additionally, traditional OD methods tended to engage people in small groups that represented the larger system. Dialogic OD practitioners, on the other hand, lean toward large group methods that seek to engage the ‘system-as-a-whole’ in events with large numbers of participants at the same time (Bunker and Alban, 2006).

Widespread Opportunities for Meaningful Influence Providing all system members with meaningful influence has been a hallmark of OD since its beginning, coming under different names, such as participation, empowerment, inverting the pyramid, and most recently, engagement. Traditionally, OD processes engaged employees in making proposals that were vetted by management so that changes were decided on by leaders with the input of others (Friedlander and Brown, 1974). Dialogic OD processes go further in proposing that leaders let changes emerge from the interactions of stakeholders, and instead of vetting proposals, support their emergence and invest in those showing the most promise (Bushe, 2020).

Developmental Movement Finally, OD has historically attended to psychological notions of ‘development’. Developmental models portray a sequence of stages or phases that individuals, groups and sometimes larger systems go through in a process of becoming ever more capable, integrated and whole. Recently, Bushe and Nagaishi (2018) synthesized three qualities of development that underlie OD processes at the individual, relational and organizational levels: (1) the more developed a system, the greater the level of self-awareness – it can talk to itself about itself; (2) the more developed a system, the less it is driven by reactive, non-rational processes and the more it is able to integrate emotion and reason; and (3) the more developed a system the more it is able to actualize its potential. We believe these criteria can and should be used to assess the quality and success of any OD effort, diagnostic or dialogic. Having established the essential values of any kind of organization development practice, we now turn to a description of the specifics of Dialogic forms of OD.

DIALOGIC ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT In recent decades the postmodern and linguistic turn in the social sciences, and the discoveries in non-linear and complexity natural sciences, have altered ideas about change and change practices. These have spawned methods like appreciative inquiry, open space technology, world café, art of hosting, and the conference model, to name a few (see Bushe (online) for a bibliography of Dialogic OD methods). We group and label as Dialogic OD those practices that explicitly or implicitly treat organizations as networks of meaning-making where individual, group and organizational actions result from selforganizing, emergent, socially constructed

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realities that are created and sustained by the prevailing narratives, relationships and conversations. From this perspective change results from ‘changing the conversations’ that shape everyday thinking and behavior by, for example, involving more and different voices, altering how people talk to each other, challenging and/or disrupting limiting patterns, and/or by stimulating alternative narratives or generative images to re-story current realities. Although easy to misconstrue, Dialogic OD is not simply about creating good dialogues or better exchanges of information. Dialogic OD practitioners explicitly or implicitly hold social constructionist (Barrett, 2015) and complex responsive systems perspectives (Stacey, 2015) about organizing processes. This results in very different ideas about leadership, organizing, and change from traditional OD and managerial perspectives. Consequently, Dialogic OD seeks to improve teams and organizations by engaging with the ongoing flow of conversations that continuously create, re-create and frame understanding and action (e.g., Barrett et al., 1995; Bartunek and Woodman, 2015; Nistelrooij and Sminia, 2010; Shaw, 2002; Whitney, 1996).

CHANGE PROCESSES IN DIALOGIC OD In other writings we have emphasized that what distinguishes Diagnostic and Dialogic practices are not so much the methods as the ‘mindset’ of the practitioners using those methods (Bushe and Marshak, 2014, 2015a). By mindset we mean the beliefs and assumptions about organizing and change that guide how a practitioner uses any particular method (Aguiar and Tonelli, 2018). Dialogic OD rests on a combination of social constructionist assumptions (Camargo-Borges and Rasera, 2013) and complexity science assumptions (Shemer and Agmon-Snir, 2019). Below, we

briefly review the key premises of what we call the Dialogic OD mindset.

Three Change Enablers Dialogic OD emphasizes discourse, emergence and generativity to foster or accelerate change (Bushe and Marshak, 2014, 2015b). Generativity creates change by stimulating new ideas and the motivation to act on them (Bushe, 2013a; Castillo and Trinh, 2019). Emergence creates change by disrupting stable patterns and creating opportunities for new thoughts and actions to emerge (Holman, 2015; Oswick, 2013). Narrative and discourse create change by altering the stories and symbols people use to make meaning of themselves and the situations they are in (Chlopczyk and Erlach, 2019; Marshak, 2020). For some practitioners this also means conceiving of organizations as in constant flux where there is no need to induce dissatisfaction to unfreeze and move a static system. Especially when working with larger groups, the role of the Dialogic OD consultant is not described as a ‘facilitator’ as it is in Diagnostic OD. Instead, the consultant is described by some as a choreographer or stage manager who helps to create a ‘container’ (Bushe, 2010; Corrigan, 2015) and designs and fosters conversations among the participants. Increasingly this role of the dialogic consultant is referred to as ‘hosting’ (McKergow, 2020) or ‘convening’.

Principle Beliefs The principle beliefs about change that form the dialogic approach (Bushe and Marshak, 2014, 2016) include: 1 Organizational ‘reality’ is a social construct that emerges through dialogic processes (Yu and Sun, 2012). What any particular group believes is ‘reality,’ ‘truth’ or ‘the ways things are’ is created, conveyed and changed through relationships, stories, narratives and other symbolic

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interactions. How things are framed and talked about becomes a significant, if not the most significant context shaping how people think about and respond to any situation. For example, how people interpret the motivations behind a leader’s statements comes more from how people they interact with talk about it, than the leader’s words themselves. 2 Language does more than simply convey information. Instead language creates, frames, sustains and transforms social experience, shapes organizational thinking, and influences resulting organizational behavior (Barrett, 2015). For example, a client who wants to ‘fix a problem’ may be operating from an implicit frame that assumes people are parts in a mechanistic system. A client who wants to ‘develop the group’ may be operating from an organic frame which implies that growth, health and well-being are necessary for success (Marshak, 2019). 3 Narratives are coherent storylines shared by a group of people that help them make sense of their world and provide a rationale for decisions and actions (Dailey and Browning, 2014). It is assumed that in any organization different narratives about the same things exist. Dialogic OD consultants do not work at deciding which narratives are ‘right’. Instead they seek to help people look at the consequences of the narratives they hold; understand the variety of narratives influencing situations; recognize which narratives are ‘privileged’ or suppressed; and/or support the emergence of new narratives (Swart, 2019). 4 Any organization at any one time is undergoing a variety of changes, at varying speeds, some intended and some unintended. Change is part of the continuous process of self-organizing that occurs in all human collectives. New organizational behaviors and practices result from emergent rather than directed processes (Silva and Guerrini, 2018). One does not plan for a specific change, but instead helps to foster the generative conditions that lead to new, adaptive ways of thinking and doing.

The conditions that lead to transformative generative change include most or all of the following: • Disrupting prevailing social realties by adding diversity of ideas, questions, actors, processes, and so forth to the existing situation. This

introduces new narratives and perspectives from which new social agreements can emerge. • Creating a ‘container’ that provides the right ingredients and space for participants to inquire together and makes room for both individual and collective expression through which old ways of doing things are contested and new possibilities emerge. • Emphasizing generativity rather than benchmarking, best practices and pre-packaged solutions. A generative process will produce new ideas that people want to act on (Bushe, 2013a). A generative image offers people novel ways of thinking and acting that they want to act on (Bushe and Storch, 2015). • Inviting the ‘whole person’ – not just the mind, but the physical, emotional, intellectual, and even spiritual aspects of self.

In sum, Dialogic OD practitioners assume groups and organizations are self-organizing, socially constructed realities that are continuously created, conveyed and changed through narratives, stories, images and conversations. The role of the practitioner is to help foster or accelerate new ways of talking, thinking, and interacting that lead to the emergence of transformational possibilities. This is usually done by identifying a purpose for the change that stakeholders care about, introducing greater diversity into conversations, hosting generative interactions that shift focus from problems to possibilities, fostering a container or space for different conversations to take place, and convening interactions intended to lead to useful outcomes.

DIALOGIC OD PRACTICE In Dialogic OD there is always need for a clear sponsor with ‘ownership’ of the situation to be addressed (Bushe, 2013b). A key difference in Dialogic OD from ‘change management’ is that the sponsor usually does not have a ‘vision’ of an end state they are driving toward. Instead what is needed is what Schein (2016) calls an ‘adaptive move’.

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Typically, sponsors are responding to some problem, concern, or challenge but don’t know exactly what changes will effectively address the situation. What is essential is that they can enunciate a ‘purpose’ (described in more detail below) that is meaningful to them and those who will have to change (Bushe, 2020). A purpose might identify something external to the system (e.g., meet the needs of a new customer demographic) or internal to the system (e.g., increase collaboration between groups). Sponsors engaging Dialogic OD methods must be willing to experiment and ‘try things and learn as we go’, launching many different experiments in accomplishing the purpose. Although there are a variety of Dialogic methods and approaches, all assume that change requires a change in the prevailing patterns of narratives and conversations. Some Dialogic OD processes work at the individual and small group level, and can be less formal and structured (see Bushe and Marshak, 2015b: Marshak, 2020). Here we will focus on the more structured approaches that operate at the large group and organization levels.

Structured Dialogic OD and Generative Change Structured approaches to Dialogic OD involve one or more events that are designed to produce a change in core narratives and stimulate self-organized innovations. These events are designed to enhance relationships and enable more creativity and engagement. Generative images and questions are used to elicit new ideas (see Bushe, 2020 for examples). These in turn lead to consideration of new options and changes previously unimagined. Involved participants make personal, voluntary commitments to new behaviors and projects. After the event(s), new thinking, connections and talking allows people to make new choices in day-to-day interactions. There may be self-organized group projects

stimulated during the events, but the transformation in the social construction of reality comes from participants altering old narratives and evolving new attitudes and assumptions as they make sense of their day-to-day interactions. Our research suggests that when structured Dialogic OD practices, like appreciative inquiry, future search and art of hosting result in transformational change, they more or less follow a common sequence of activities which we call the ‘generative change model’ (Bushe, 2020; Marshak and Bushe, 2018), as shown in Figure 29.1.

Identify the Adaptive Challenge Dialogic OD processes are most appropriate for addressing complex adaptive challenges (Heifetz, 1998) while diagnostic, planned change approaches are more suitable for what Heifetz calls technical problems. Technical problems can be operationally defined and lend themselves to application of expertise to identify optimal solutions. When implemented, the problem stays solved until something else changes. Adaptive challenges, on the other hand, are more complex, where cause–effect relations can only be discerned in retrospect. Addressing such challenges require changes to the social construction of reality. Adaptation will require experiments, wrong turns and learning from failure as well as success. Research suggests that such problems are better managed by stimulating many bottom-up experiments or pilot projects, seeing what works, and then scaling up and embedding those that do (Bushe and Nagaishi, 2018).

Reframe the Adaptive Challenge into a Future-focused Purpose Statement that Identifies What the Relevant Stakeholders Care About and Will Attract Their Interest and Effort A common purpose (or shared identity) makes it possible for a large group of people

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Figure 29.1  The generative change model Source: Bushe (2020).

to self-organize for the common good without directive or facilitative leadership. Without a common purpose, collaborative relationships are unlikely to form. A purpose is different from a vision, goal or objective, all of which identify a preferred future state. A purpose identifies what the group or organization is trying to do every day, and in many cases there is no expectation that they will ever completely accomplish that purpose. A sponsor cannot choose any purpose and hope to stimulate generative change, however. They have to frame the adaptive challenge in a way that captures what the majority of stakeholders inherently care about. Sponsors may have the power to compel some people to engage, but probably not all the people who are key stakeholders. More importantly, compelling engagement

violates conditions for ideal speech acts, and people who don’t want to be engaged are unlikely to make a contribution. Depending on voluntary participation requires inviting people to events in a way that will attract them to come (for example, Axelrod, 2010 and McKergow, 2020). Bushe (2013a, 2020) has emphasized the transformative potential of framing a purpose statement in the form of a generative image. Generative images are a combination of words that identify the purpose being pursued in a way that is short enough to be easily remembered and sweet enough that they attract people into conversations. Most importantly, by their very nature they open up new vistas for thinking and acting. For example, inviting airline employees to inquire into ‘exceptional arrival experiences’ generated a

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host of innovations that the prior conversation on lost luggage had not (Whitney and Trosten-Bloom, 2010).

Design and Host Generative Conversations Among Diverse Stakeholders Increasingly, practitioners are emphasizing the need to include all the stakeholders who make up the system in events for successful Dialogic OD. This can result in events with large numbers of people – from hundreds to thousands. What differentiates them as Dialogic OD from other Large Group Interventions are the assumptions behind their practice and the choices that get made as a result. Holman (2013, p. 22) counsels us to ‘… look beyond habitual definitions of who and what makes up a system. Think of protesters outside the doors of power. What would happen if they were invited into an exploratory dialogue? Making space for different perspectives while in a healthy container opens the way for creative engagement.’ Weisbord and Janoff (2010) use the acronym ‘ARE IN’ to define who ought to be at dialogic events: those with authority, resources, expertise, information and need; to which Axelrod (2010) adds those opposed, and to open up to volunteers – anyone who wants to come. One area of common agreement in dialogic practice is the need to ensure the capacity of participants to engage in inclusive conversations as part of the change process. For example, the art of hosting emphasizes the need for ‘welcoming’, including the invitation to attend, the café-like setting with inviting tables to sit at, and so on, particularly when groups are highly diverse (Brown and Isaacs, 2005). An image common among Dialogic OD practitioners, is that of ‘container’ (Corrigan, 2015). ‘As hosts, our work is not to intervene, but rather to create a container – hospitable space for working with whatever arises’ (Holman, 2013, p. 22). Another area of agreement is designing and ‘hosting’ dialogic OD events, especially

those involving large groups, so that people can interact productively without the need for ‘facilitation’ (Storch, 2015; Weisbord, 2012). Often this is through conversations structured through specific questions designed to be maximally generative (e.g., Southern, 2015; Whitney et al., 2014), although it can also involve more self-organizing processes where participants identify the conversations they want to have, as in Open Space (Owen, 2008). Hosting is seen as a complex interplay of planning and adapting in the moment, with the host ready to lead when needed, with the intent to pass ownership to participants as quickly as possible (McKergow, 2020).

Stimulate Self-organized Probes, Pilot Projects and Innovations At some point the Dialogic OD process shifts from generative conversations to launching action. This might look like agreements among participants to work together differently, back on the job in the following days. Some dialogic practices focus on making sense of the variety of conversations and experiences that have occurred during events to provide guidance for moving forward. Some focus on getting people ready to launch new initiatives that have been stimulated by the event(s). Practice varies considerably among Dialogic OD practitioners, and is affected by the intentions of the initiative, as well as the expectations and culture of the group or organization. Often, rather than expecting collective agreement on singular action(s), practices may also make visible ideas or projects that small groups of people commit to pursuing. Additionally, people may discuss how they might act differently and then be encouraged to act on what they find most personally relevant and meaningful. One of the core differences between the generative change model and traditional planned change is the notion that you get more transformational change, more rapidly, when leaders do not decide what the

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right solutions are or search for consensus before taking action (Bushe and Nagaishi, 2018). Increasingly Dialogic OD events are designed to help people with similar ideas and motivations find each other, create prototypes, agreements, pilot projects, or proposals that they are encouraged to just go do. This utilization of emergent self-organizing is predicated on sponsors and stakeholders having a clear sense of common purpose and a clear set of boundary conditions for what innovations are acceptable.

Learn from Successes and Failures and Scale Up Successful Pilots What happens after dialogic events is as crucial as the quality of events themselves. Leadership is essential to recognize small, important change opportunities and work to amplify them into big, important changes. The extent of change depends on undirected, self-selected individuals and groups being motivated on their own to act differently at work given the new social realities that emerged during the dialogic event and are reinforced in everyday conversations following the event. Specific projects sometimes might require more coordinated action among team, organization, and/or community members, and in some Dialogic OD processes important changes do come from projects that are launched during events. After the events, change is facilitated by putting in place processes for monitoring and tracking the actual changes taking place so leaders can recognize and amplify desired improvements (Bushe, 2020; Roehrig et al., 2015).

A Case Example A Materials Handling group of close to 200 employees responsible for securing and distributing over 5000 items to regional distribution centers scattered across a wide geographical area, was faced with a very complex situation. For a variety of reasons, it

was difficult to ensure that the right materials were in the right place at the right time, and have both their internal customers and their employees follow the procedures and processes intended to ensure that. This caused daily conflict and stress for everyone. While employees wanted to provide good service to their customers, this was also an old, unionized organization where employees expected to be ignored and treated poorly, and cynicism was pervasive. The entire organization had a strong engineering-oriented culture and was used to numbers-driven, top-down leadership and a fear-based management style. There was very little collaboration between the three main functions in the Materials Handling group and a repetitive narrative was used to explain problems: ‘upstream takes its eyes off the ball, downstream is hoarding/hiding/ losing materials’. A new manager wanted to change a situation where ‘not getting yelled at was a good day’ for front-line employees. The management team thought getting employees and customers to follow procedures would do that, but past attempts to engage their customers in defining and agreeing to ‘the rules’ had not worked. With a Dialogic OD consultant, the leaders recognized that such a purpose would not be compelling to employees and unlikely to engage them in a substantial change process. Instead, they developed a generative image of creating ‘stress free customer service’. Breaking with tradition, they invited all levels of employees into a series of Dialogic OD events. At each, employees were encouraged to identify and self-organize ‘pilot projects’ they would be willing to champion that would increase stress free customer service. A few key criteria/boundaries for what could be proposed were given (e.g., could not increase headcount; had to work with the current IT system), and it was emphasized that projects were going to be seen as experiments, that they did not have to be successful, and what was important was that they keep learning what works and

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what doesn’t. Any pilots that met the criteria would be supported. After the first Dialogic OD event managers were astonished when over a dozen pilots were proposed. A coalition of shop floor and regional employees proposed reducing turnaround from the central warehouse to regions from three days to one, which would greatly reduce the stress of field store keepers. The management team did not think this was possible, and were suspicious about the motives for even proposing it, but they decided to follow the employees’ energy and see what was possible. A two-day event, now called a crewshop, was held to support this purpose. Soon after they accomplished one-day turnarounds. It took less than six months from the initial contact with the consultant for this profound change in organizational culture to take place, for the management team to reconceptualize their role from problemsolvers to ‘problem-setters’, and for the old narrative about upstream and downstream to be replaced with ‘the system is the problem’. By amplifying and scaling up one of the projects that emerged from this crewshop, they were able to transform what was, essentially, a pen and paper operation to a fully digitized (barcodes, scanners, wireless databases updated in real-time) warehouse in approximately 18 months. They did this without a vision, a plan, any training, or a budget. They did it through a generative Dialogic OD process. This case is described in detail in Bushe (2020).

CONCLUSION Dozens of Dialogic OD methods provide those interested in using a social constructionist lens for improving teams and organizations with proven processes. While each method provides useful tools and techniques, we believe there is an underlying Dialogic mindset and a generative change process that determines how successfully they are used.

Following any change method like a recipe, without understanding their underlying complex adaptive systems and social constructionist foundations, leads to hit and miss applications.

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SECTION V

Practices in Education

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30 Education as Relational Process and Practice: Introduction Thalia Dragonas

Constructionists challenge the traditional conception of knowledge and learning. ‘We have come to believe’, Gergen has argued time and again, ‘that knowledge lies somewhere within the complex configuration of propositions – descriptions, explanations, logics, principles, laws, formulas, and related forms of representation’ (Gergen, 2015, p. 49). The propositions highly valued, at least within the Western tradition, are those equivalent to universal truths outside of time and culture. The conviction that, by mastering these propositions, learners will move from a state of ignorance to that of knowledge pervades most educational systems. And the one to impart these propositions is the instructor – the ‘sage on the stage’ – who makes decisions upon their content, sequencing and timing. Even worse, in some educational systems it is state-controlled institutions that make such decisions. In this kind of learning environment, students are but passive recipients and classrooms become boring and uninspiring places.

The understanding of what learning is and how we learn changes as our theories develop. As Einstein posited, ‘Whether you can observe a thing or not depends on the theory which you use’ (quoted by Salam, 1990, p. 99). Thus, approached from a constructionist perspective, the dominant worldview about knowledge is inevitably re-examined; the positivist orientation is abandoned and knowledge can no longer be universal, objective and value-neutral. On the contrary it is contextually based, carrying implicit values that change across socio-cultural circumstance (Dragonas et  al., 2015). This re-orientation has important ramifications for educational policy and practice. According to constructionist thinking, there is no knowledge outside a relationship. In fact, constructionism in education places relationship prior to individual and any kind of ‘rational thought’ (Gergen, 2009). All knowledge dispensed in a classroom is a community achievement in the sense that both the terms by which the world is

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described and the objects of study have been agreed upon. Hence knowledge is by definition a social process and the primary aim of education is to facilitate relational processes. Espousing this view, learning no longer takes place in the mind of the individual learner; it is the result of relationships between teachers and learners, between learners themselves and between the classroom and its community, out of which mutual and continuous knowing can emerge (Gergen, 2009, 2015). To serve a constructionist perspective a new pedagogy must be implemented that presupposes a stepping out of preconceived notions of subject matter and teaching. The visions of the pioneers in the field of education have greatly impacted constructionist ideas and practices in the field. As early as the 1920s, the philosopher, educator and social reformer John Dewey (1924) argued that effective education comes primarily through active participation in social interaction. He described traditional learning as ‘imposed from above and from outside’, while his view of the classroom was deeply rooted in democratic ideals, promoting equal voice among all participants in the learning experience. Similar were the ideas of the psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1926) who saw the teacher–student relationship as an apprenticeship evolving within a community of practice. Thus constructionist-informed pedagogy is based on participatory, collaborative and dialogic practices. Most of learning happens when students think, talk, solve problems and negotiate collaboratively in a group process. The same is true of their instructors. In a collaborative situation there is co-action, and power no longer resides within the instructor, as is the case with the traditional classroom. There is mutual engagement whereby students and teachers actively participate in a process of mutual learning and meaning making. Shifting from the monologic to the dialogic classroom involves a move from pedagogy of consumption of content that must be learnt and then reproduced, to pedagogy of

creation. To this end a necessary precursor of learning is cognitive dissonance that encourages problem solving of real-world issues and negotiation of meaning. It also entails a shift away from an outcome-based approach, where tasks lead neatly and sequentially towards achievement of these learning outcomes. The steps and the knowledge to be learnt are known beforehand and meaning is prospective. On the contrary, when a conversation-centric approach is adopted, process prevails, meaning arises inductively, becomes more relevant and its value extends beyond what the lesson provides (Blewett, 2016). Such an orientation also applies to evaluation practices that require transformation towards the notion of process in learning rather than obsession with test scores of the successful or unsuccessful reproduction of a body of knowledge (McNamee, 2015). In the same vein, Blewett (2016) talks about a shift from ‘correct’ to ‘correcting’. Learning is a process that takes place in an emergent flow and correcting is ongoing rather than resting on predetermined patterns and paths about the content being correct. In traditional learning environments, teachers systematically treat mistakes as problems and dysfunctions of the cognitive process instead of utilizing them as a learning tool in an ongoing learning process (Sfyroera, 2003). In the same way that knowledge is not a fixed entity, curricula cannot be either. Cutting across disciplinary lines, encouraging crosscurricular work towards an integrated curriculum, and promoting project-based learning allows discovery of patterns and connections and encourages lateral rather than linear thinking, as formulated by de Bono (1970). Pertinently, Robinson and Aronica (2009) note that we are not used to ‘seeing synergies and connections but on making distinctions and seeing differences. This is why we pin butterflies in separate boxes from beetles – and teach separate subjects in schools’.1 However, more important for curricula development are questions of pragmatics. What does a given curriculum enable students

Education as Relational Process and Practice: Introduction

to accomplish in the world? And this question cannot be answered outside deliberation on issues of needs, values and possibilities. What is needed and by whom, whose values are in play, and what are the repercussions for society and the world (Dragonas et  al., 2015)? These questions unavoidably resonate with the Foucauldian notion that knowledge and power are inextricably intertwined. It is the work of Freire (1970) and later that of Giroux (2011), the founding fathers of critical pedagogy, which echo such reflections, suggesting the relationship between learning and power discourse, and highlighting the subjugating impact of traditional education. The aim of education in Freire’s ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’ is to transform oppressive structures by engaging the marginalized and the dehumanized to think critically about the connections between their individual problems and the social contexts in which they are embedded. This, in terms of pedagogy, translates to a move away from a teacher-centric towards a learner-centric approach and a shift of power as students are empowered to become active agents towards social change. Constructionist dialogues are also closely allied with the principles of subsequent education movements that incorporated Dewey’s and Vygotsky’s seminal ideas and are known as ‘progressive’ and ‘transformative’ pedagogies. Progressive approaches highlight the role of collaborative inquiry and the construction of meaning as central to students’ academic growth. The classroom is seen as a community of learning where teachers and students jointly generate knowledge (Kalantzis and Cope, 2008; Taylor, 2007; Flinders and Thornton, 2013). These principles are used to also promote learner engagement through the use of technology. The conversation between the learner and other members of the community in the web era consists not only of words but also of images, multimedia and more. This conversation forms a rich tapestry of resources, dynamic and interconnected, created not by experts, but by all members of

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the community, including learners (Downes, 2005; Cope and Kalantzis, 2015). Progressive and transformative pedagogy share the same instructional assumptions. They diverge with respect to social assumptions, the latter incorporating an explicit focus on social realities that relate to students’ experience. Critical inquiry is used to enable students to analyze and understand the social realities of their own lives and their communities, echoing Freire and Giroux (Cummins, 2004). Despite the fervor with which new learning models have been embraced by enlightened educators and policy makers, the evidence shows that traditional or transmission models persist and there is still a long way to go. Transformative pedagogies, that many theorists and educators advocate as essential for educational equity, are not even on the map of public concerns, noted Cummins in 2004. Fifteen years have gone by. One cannot claim that overall big steps have been taken towards knowledge being generated collaboratively between teachers and learners, nor that schools have stopped reproducing inequalities. However there are notable exceptions and what this section is aiming to do is showcase nine different initiatives, informed by social constructionist dialogues, from six countries across three continents. The reader will enjoy an eclectic array of relational practices where the introductory ideas mentioned above converge dialogically, opening to a world of new possibilities. Chapters in this section are grouped under five topics: school culture; appreciative pedagogy and school counseling; learning difficulties and disabilities; intercultural education; and evaluation. The boundaries between these groupings are by no means rigid. Chapters clustering under one topic may share constructionist practices with chapters under another topic, as is for example the case with Appreciative Inquiry or Action Research. The underlying theme in all chapters is that relational learning communities expand learners’ and teachers’ potential. Rolla E. Lewis,

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in his opening chapter, draws from the inspiring metaphor of landscaping a garden to introduce the term ‘lifescaping’ in order to describe cultivation of a relational school culture – hence the title ‘Lifescaping: Cultivating Flourishing School Cultures’. He conceives of lifescaping as a process of people-making in eco-relational terms. Lifescaping is theoretically grounded in social construction and is informed by methodological frameworks and practices such as Appreciative Inquiry and Participatory Action Research. It assumes a knowledge democracy pedagogy that includes active student participation in view of bringing about change extending beyond the school community. This orientation promotes inclusive conversations and autobiographical, collaborative and communal reflections. Lewis highlights lifescaping practices, drawing from stories shared among staff at the California State University East Bay, discourses of high school students, and use of action research towards a more meaningful school culture and climate. School culture equally concerns Gro Emmertsen Lund. The argument here is that school culture sets up values and the instruments to achieve them. It shapes identities on the basis of the available interactional resources, and, if disharmonious, may well determine the origin of children’s problems. ‘Creating School Harmony’ is about transforming disharmonious school culture into a harmonious one. The former prioritizes aggression and passivity while the latter challenges the dominant assumptions and entails appreciative language, active listening and a participatory learning process. Lund shows how disharmony may result in learners’ interactive troubles (conflicts, bullying, disputes and so on), while fostering a culture of learning, care, mutual understanding and positive relationships, students’ needs and lives can be responded to in inclusionary ways. She focuses on a particular case study whereby a Danish instructor, inspired by social constructionist thinking, reviewed her basic assumptions from individualistic to relational

and changed her practices in dealing with a ‘difficult’ student. She witnessed the change in school climate, the relationships between herself and her student and saw herself successfully responding to interactive troubles. Ingebjørg Mæland’s chapter ‘Creating New Futures Through Collaboration: Dropouts No More’, also largely deals with the transformation of school culture, this time towards the preparation of early school leavers for a meaningful working life. She tells the fascinating story of ‘YouthInvest’, a municipal, practice-oriented training center in Norway for youth aged 16 to 24 outside the formal education system, aiming to offer the prospect of catching up with missed learning opportunities. ‘YouthInvest’, drawing from constructionist theory, Appreciative Inquiry, and strength-based tools, creates a constructive and uplifting learning environment where classes and practical workshops are rooted in understanding and respect. Mæland passionately describes the development of this learning organization as a holistic, collaborative journey in which instructors, students and parents participated, and which was, by no means, an easy one. Steps forward were followed by steps backwards. Yet gradually, generative conversations and engaging methods such as appreciative dialogues, confidence-building techniques, and future mapping proved to have transformative power. ‘YouthInvest’ has become an educational experiment that has attracted national and international attention. Dawn Dole’s chapter largely elaborates on school culture but takes a more focused look into pedagogies that help educational communities operate as collaborative, appreciative and experiential learning/ teaching environments. In ‘Collaborative, Appreciative, and Experiential Pedagogy in Educational Settings’ she examines each such framework, analyzes how it is based on social construction theory, highlights their distinct practices as well as those principles where all three converge, and highlights the way they diverge from the traditional pedagogy model.

Education as Relational Process and Practice: Introduction

Dole digs into five examples employing these pedagogies. The cases she chooses to elaborate refer to: teacher education in the United States; the development of a plan for the future of a school district in British Columbia, Canada by engaging the entire community of stakeholders inside and outside of school; a project-based learning example in an inner city school in Minneapolis, Minnesota; a collaborative, appreciative learning space in Mexico City for students who have left formal education; and finally a collaborative leadership course in the same school. All five examples emphasize the power of dialogue, appreciation and co-creation. Michael Williams and John Winslade look at a specific topic – that of school counselors and their role in disciplinary issues from a constructionist perspective. In their chapter ‘School Counseling’ they talk about the way counselors, as a rule, tackle bullying unsuccessfully and they introduce, instead, the technique of establishing an ‘undercover antibullying team’ (UABT) as a means of transforming student relationships. The UABT adopts a no-blame approach that resists labels and categories. Williams and Winslade consider the act of bullying to be ‘the problem’ and not the person, refraining thus from pathologizing bullies. They view bullying as a relational problem that can only be confronted relationally. The technique avoids working with the bullied student individually but makes use of the peer group, utilizing peer pressure in a positive way. They illustrate the UABT technique by presenting in detail the case of a Maori girl being bullied in a school in New Zealand. The unfolding interaction between the counselor, the bullied student and the team of students involved, reveals the emerging transformative process in student relationships as well as the strength of the technique in constructing identities and relationships in the class community. Williams and Winslade share their vision of students being recognized and recognizing themselves not in terms of deficits, or problems, but in terms of possibilities for becoming.

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This same vision is pervading in the next two chapters of the section dealing with disability. Billington and Goodley in ‘Relief of Critical Educational Psychology and the Nomadism of Critical Disability Studies: Social Constructionism in Practice’, and Cameron in ‘Specific Learning Difficulties as a Relational Category: Reconstruction, Redistribution and Resistance in Higher Educational Practice’, take a critical stand towards the scientific classifications of disability that deny the person and impose restrictions on any possible becomings. Both chapters posit that social constructions of learning differences, disorders and disabilities are necessarily dependent upon the social constructions of learning. Billington and Goodley trace the developmental paths they traveled in psychology and disability studies, and their discontent with scientific notions of objectivity, of ‘truth’ and related assessment techniques of ‘disabilities’, typically trying to validate these scientific certainties. While their journeys were not exactly the same, it was their encounter with critical traditions and social constructionist ideas that allowed them to discover the notion of relationality between themselves and the other person – disabled or not. This turn transported them away from deficit models and enabled them to become agents of transformation in encouraging conditions that support well-being. The intellectual and personal journeys they have traveled allowed them to deconstruct disability as a medical object of intervention and consider alternative discourses of disability that are enabling and affirmative instead of disabling and pathologizing. Rather than focusing on the disparities between critical approaches and social constructionism, they celebrate the rise of a new language of disability and the recognition that disability demands relational ways of being and becoming. By the same token, Cameron is disconcerted by categories and definitions of ‘Specific Learning Disorders’ (SpLDs) being rooted in the biomedical model. Without

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denying the materiality of our existence, she asserts that SpLDs are inseparable from the social and the discursive. In espousing a social constructionist view she rejects learning disabilities and disorders pre-existing their definitions. It is language, relations and discourses among people, within a specific historical time and space, that mobilizes these definitions. Cameron argues that learning institutions value, promote and reinforce preconceived ideas of worth, and students who do not fit these ideas can easily become marginalized and placed in the deficit zone. The focus here is higher education in the UK. Drawing from her experience with dyslexic, dyspraxic and autistic university students, she suggests a number of social-constructionistinformed assessment and teaching practices for empowering SpLDs students. In reading Cameron’s experience, contrary to scientific prediction, with flourishing students from these groups, one cannot refrain from thinking of the inspiring teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg, who, speaking about Asperger’s, said: ‘That makes you different; that makes you think differently’. Difference is also the subject of the next chapter by Thalia Dragonas on ‘Intercultural Education: Empowering Minority Learners’. This time though the focus is on the marginalization and disempowerment suffered owing to learners’ cultural and linguistic diversity. As is the case with disability, the prevailing model is based on the notion of deficit and is exclusionary of students who deviate from the dominant culture, thus feeding underachievement and a sense of worthlessness. Multiculturalism and intercultural education are controversial issues, summarized here across the disciplinary perspectives of political theory, philosophy of education, education policy, linguistics and pedagogy. The shift from a monocultural approach in education to a pluralistic one invites a new conceptual orientation opened up by social constructionist ideas and reconsideration of power relations. A pedagogy of equity, benefitting not only subordinated minority

learners but all students, entails affirmation of students’ language and cultural background, appreciation of multiple voices and multiple understandings, active participation in dialogue, engagement in collaborative relations between all stakeholders, a process rather than an outcome orientation, and evaluation practices that are formative and not legitimizing the location of the ‘problem’ within students. Dragonas provides examples of practices highlighting such a pedagogy. She draws from experiences in bilingual education environments employing identityaffirming techniques and collaborative practices. Lastly, she elaborates on a 22-year-long intervention in the education of a territorial minority in Greece, whereby collaborative interactions with students, teachers, parents and the entire community led to structure and practice transformation. The final chapter of the section takes up a theme that has appeared, explicitly or implicitly, several times in this section – that of evaluation. Gill and Gergen in their contribution ‘Educational Evaluation: A Relational Perspective’ advocate for an evaluation that, contrary to the largely existing assessment methods that provoke anxiety and antagonism, serves to enhance meaningful learning through generative relationships between those who evaluate and those whose activities, experiences and practices are being evaluated. Traditional assessment is static, aiming to control, standardize and regulate, while relational evaluation is dynamic, aspiring to enhance learning progress and personal development, encourage continued participation in the learning process and promote dialogue and collaboration. Gill and Gergen illustrate relational evaluation practices drawing from examples in primary and secondary schools in the UK, employing techniques such as the Learning Review led by the child itself reflecting on his or her own learning journey and the Learning Agreement technique formed among a small group of students and facilitated by the teacher. They also describe the application of the relational

Education as Relational Process and Practice: Introduction

approach to teacher evaluation whereby teachers participate in small groups and observe, review and provide feedback to each other’s practices. Such a practice is currently being tried out worldwide. A last example of a relational orientation is that of the wholeschool evaluation, engaging all stakeholders in a collective, dialogic reflection of the school’s progress. All of the above examples of constructionist theory in action make a case for the foundational role of dialogue in the creation of knowledge and a shift from the individual mind of the student to a relational creation of meaning, reason and value. They provide alternatives moving towards a meaningful education, critical to the global future. Active engagement, collaborative learning, negotiation skills, co-inquiry and co-action are maximally congenial with demands for adjustment and innovation, inclusion and equity, as social complexity and inequality increase.

Note 1  https://www.act.click/blog/be-in-the-uncomfortable-place-tween (Accessed 8 August 2020)

REFERENCES Blewett, C. (2016). From traditional pedagogy to digital pedagogy. In M. A. Samuel, R. Dhunpath, and N. Amyn (Eds.), Disrupting Higher Education Curriculum, 265–287. ­Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Cope, B. and Kalantzis, M. (2015). Assessment and pedagogy in the era of machine-mediated learning. In T. Dragonas, K. Gergen, S. McNamee, and E. Tseliou (Eds.), Education as Social Construction: Contributions to Theory, Research and Practice, 350–374. Chagrin Falls, Ohio: Taos Institute Publications/WorldShare Books. Cummins, J. (2004). Language, Power and Pedagogy: Bilingual Children in the Crossfire. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

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de Bono, E. (1970). Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step. New York: Harper & Row. Dewey, J. (1924). Democracy and Education. New York: MacMillan. Downes, S. (2005). An introduction to connective knowledge. https://www.researchgate. net/publication/248290359_An_Introduction_to_Connective_Knowledge (Accessed 8 August 2020) Dragonas, T., Gergen, K., MacNamee, S., and Tseliou, E. (2015). Education as social construction: Introduction. In T. Dragonas, K. Gergen, S. McNamee, and E. Tseliou (Eds.), Education as Social Construction: Contributions to Theory, Research and Practice, ix– xxiii. Chagrin Falls, Ohio: Taos Institute Publications/WorldShare Books. Flinders, D. and Thornton, S. (Eds.) (2013). The Curriculum Studies Reader, 4rth edition. New York: Routledge. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed (trans. M. Ramos). New York: Continuum. Gergen, K. (2009). Relational Being: Beyond Self and Community. New York: Oxford University Press. Gergen, K. (2015). From propositions to practice: Pedagogy for life as a process. In T. Dragonas, K. Gergen, S. McNamee, and E. Tseliou (Eds.), Education as Social Construction: Contributions to Theory, Research and Practice, 49–61. Chagrin Falls, Ohio: Taos Institute Publications/WorldShare Books. Giroux, H. A. (2011). On Critical Pedagogy. London: Bloomsbury. Kalantzis, M. and Cope, B. (2008). New Learning: Elements of a Science of Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McNamee, S. (2015). Evaluation in a relational key. In T. Dragonas, K. Gergen, S. McNamee, and E. Tseliou (Eds.), Education as Social Construction: Contributions to Theory, Research and Practice, 336–349. Chagrin Falls, Ohio: Taos Institute Publications/WorldShare Books. Robinson, K. and Aronica, L. (2009). The Element: How Finding your Passion Changes Everything. London: Penguin Books. Salam, A. (1990). Unification of Fundamental Forces. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sfyroera, M. (2003). Το λάθος ως εργαλείο μάθησης και διδασκαλίας [The mistake as a

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learning and teaching tool]. Kleidiakaintikleidia.net, Εκπαίδευση Μουσουλμανοπαίδων [Education of Muslim Minority Children]. Taylor, E. (2007). An update of transformative learning theory: A critical review of the empirical research (1999–2005).

International Journal of Lifelong Education, (26) 2: 173–191. Vygotsky, L. (1926/1992). Educational Psychology (trans. R. Silverman). Florida: St. Lucie Press.

31 Lifescaping: Cultivating Flourishing School Cultures Rolla E. Lewis

The intention in this chapter is to offer a social constructionist pathway that can be used to help educators and other interested parties cultivate relational school cultures that support and encourage learning and foster student well-being. Growing out from Gergen’s (2015) action research and appreciative inquiry as future forming, Lewis and Winkelman (2017) portray lifescaping action research as ‘world forming in action; like gardeners landscaping, we can take an active role in creatively shaping the world’ (p. 16). Lifescaping action research enables students, parents, teachers, counselors, psychologists, administrators, staff, and other stakeholders to cultivate relational learning cultures. In a special issue of Educational Action Research titled ‘Knowledge Democracy and Action Research’ (Rowell and Feldman, 2019), Lifescaping is presented as a knowledge democracy pedagogy (Lewis et al., 2019). Knowledge democracy approaches are designed to foster engagement in schools as

an ongoing process that student participation, action to change something in a more desirable direction, and sharing the results with others in and beyond the school community (Hong and Rowell, 2019). Lifescaping action research positions educators with students and other stakeholders to construct more desirable learning communities and promote the development of innovative local knowledge and democratic practices in schools (Lewis and Winkelman, 2017). The gardening metaphor undergirding lifescaping emphasizes the eco-relational, a construct with roots in various theories – linked to notions like meshwork, connections, interbeing, networks, participatory – pointing to the interweaving and continuous interchange buzzing in and through us in life (Lewis et  al., 2019). Simply put, individuals and groups are constructed within relational ecologies, and human relational ecologies exist as part of living ecosystems where all life emerges (Spretnak, 2011). People are socially constructed relational

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beings (Gergen, 2009), and people are participants in relational webs with the rest of the living world (Spretnak, 2011). As the Covid19 pandemic showed the world, we are ecorelational beings, existing in interrelational webs with other people, and also within the web of life emerging from the physical environment (Lewis and Winkelman, 2017). Lifescaping shifts understanding school communities as moving toward some final and static destination or pre-defined position; schools are socially constructed and experimental knowledge democracies set in living ecosystems that are always in motion. Like gardens, knowledge democracies require continuous and ongoing effort to bring about what is possible in the present moment while maintaining what is vibrant and desired. First, before deepening the conversation about lifescaping, it is important to describe some theoretical groundings and limitations guiding the chapter. Second, we will look at three perspectives regarding school culture and climate emerging from the education industry and professional literature. Third, lifescaping action research will be surveyed.

GROUNDINGS AND LIMITATIONS This chapter grounds lifescaping in an action research family of approaches oriented to cultivate ‘participative communities of inquiry’ (Reason and Bradbury, 2008, p. 1). This branch of the action research family includes appreciative inquiry (AI), participatory action research (PAR), and youth participatory action research (YPAR). Cooperrider and Whitney offer AI as a ‘lifecentric’ positive revolution in change that draws upon the strengths of people and organizations to bring about desired change (2005, p. 1). Fals Borda (2006) advances PAR to bring about social justice with marginalized and poor people in a variety of international settings. Cammarota and Fine (2008) present YPAR as a revolutionary

process where youth address social problems affecting their lives and determine actions to rectify those problems. Lifescaping (Lewis and Winkelman, 2017) draws upon each of these approaches promoting social justice, ecological justice, knowledge democracy, and the eco-relational understanding that helps contextualize people by recognizing their relationship to each other, their families, organizations, and the physical environment they are part of. Most crucial in this branch of the family is that action research is never conducted ‘on’ others, nor necessarily ‘for’ others, but ideally ‘with’ others as coresearchers, collaborators, and participants, using such approaches as focus groups to ensure all voices are heard. Research rigor is not about implementing top-down evidencebased practice (EBP) designed to present totalizing educational interventions imposed on all; rigor is fostered via practice-based research evidence (PBRE) that builds knowledge as a continuous democratic process generated by listening to and acting to bring about a more desired world with others in educational communities (Rowell, 2019). Rearick and Feldman (1999) offer a framework for understanding the diversity within action research practices via three dimensions: theoretical orientation, purposes, and types of reflection. The lifescaping theoretical orientation is grounded in a social construction concerned with civil liberties, social justice, and ecological justice that does not rely upon top-down blueprints, heroic leaders, or grand plans to be implemented on or for others (Flaherty, 2016). Lifescaping action research seeks to disrupt what Graeber (2015) calls the ‘corporatization of education’ in order to bring about innovative locally determined and implemented participatory, democratic, and ecologically sound institutional practices (p. 24). The purpose of lifescaping action research is to offer a peaceful anarchism that begins by opening our eyes and ears, questioning hierarchies, exploring lived notions of autonomy, participation, freedom, equality,

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voluntary association, self-organization, mutual aid, and direct democracy – that is, living with others as a creative act. This orientation requires the courage to act ‘as if’ (Smythe, 2005). As Graeber (2007) points out, ‘Revolutionary action is not a form of self-sacrifice. … It is the defiant insistence on acting as if one is already free’ (p. 378). Bringing what we want into being is a creative process; it is not about finding heroic individuals or defining some all-encompassing scientific understanding. Suissa (2010) asserts, ‘the exact form which the future society will take can never be determined in advance; the creation of the harmonious, free society is a constant, dynamic process of self-improvement, spontaneous organization and free experimentation’ (p. 13). Any singular, totalizing plan such as evidence-based practice (EBP) determined in advance might silence or exclude important participants and possibilities, rather than bring about a more desirable world via inclusive conversations, compassion, and action. Lifescaping promotes inclusive conversations and multiple types of reflection – autobiographical, collaborative, and communal (Rearick and Feldman, 1999). Practitioners are oriented to reflect and be mindful of how cultural diversity informs, enhances, and challenges each person, in order to expand understanding of the ‘other’. For instance, graduate student researchers at California State University, East Bay (CSUEB) are encouraged to talk about and reflect upon differences by sharing stories, and visiting restaurants in neighborhoods where they are a minority, etc. Researchers are oriented to look at and reflect upon the diversity in their classrooms, and to note Bay Area schools frequently lack a majority. Schools may have a plurality of White, Black, Latin, Asian, Native American, Pacific Islander, and the minority group may be any race, depending on the school. Although practices can be extended to other settings, this chapter is limited to lifescaping stories and practices from the San

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Francisco Bay Area. For instance, in cultivating the lifescaping process at CSUEB among professors, four faculty wrote their own career development steppingstone stories that shaped their path to becoming a professor. Dr Dailey’s story about her father’s return from the Pacific after World War Two was instrumental in deepening our relationship; when his troop car with other African-American soldiers arrived in Texas, to make room for German prisoners of war, the Black soldiers were moved from passenger railcars into cattle cars with cattle (Lewis et al., 2017). Upon reading her story, participating faculty were aghast and made a commitment that our collective Lifescaping Project would focus on standing with oppressed others who lack voice. Another limitation in this chapter is that other possible social constructionist pathways addressing school culture are not explored (e.g., Dragonas et al., 2015; Gergen and Gill, in press). The social constructionist practices described are limited to focusing on the orientation, flexibility, and relational flow inherent in the four-phases of the lifescaping action research participatory inquiry process (PIP). Due to space limitations, the chapter will not address the lifescaping 4-R appreciative inquiry process, which foregrounds relationships (e.g., Maibaum, 2017). Lifescaping action researchers are oriented to look, listen, speak out, and act to change the things they see and hear, and to understand there is no such thing as a singular school culture. The next section explores ways school culture is defined and shares some discourses about how school culture is acted upon.

PERSPECTIVES: SCHOOL CULTURE AND CLIMATE DISCOURSES Gergen (2015) describes the difference between research that attempts to mirror and describe reality and research that seeks to

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guide action in forming a new reality. This section highlights and contrasts different perspectives about school culture and climate. First, it is important to consider how school culture and its challenges are defined and described in the school professional community. After that, we will briefly consider how data are used and the role of measurement and research in the school culture discourse.

Defining School Culture The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) defines school culture and school climate: ‘School culture refers to the way teachers and other staff members work together and the set of beliefs, values, and assumptions they share. School climate refers to the school’s effects on students, including teaching practices; diversity; and the relationships among administrators, teachers, parents, and students’ (ASCD, n.d.). ASCD defines culture as teacher and staff centric, whereas this chapter defines school culture as emerging within relational communities located in specific places undergirded by multiple living and storied values, beliefs, and practices expressed by students, teachers, and other stakeholders. ASCD defines school climate as ‘the school’s effects on students’, whereas in this chapter school climate develops from the quality of eco-relationships in the school – among students, parents, teachers, etc. – and critically, the belief adults and community elders have in the students’ capability to learn and to contribute to their community.

Data Discourse Schools have become data-driven. How are data used to talk about school culture? Data from a philanthropic education organization and a regional research center shed some

light on the data-driven discourse impacting school culture and climate. According to a survey of over a million students conducted by Youth Truth (n.d.), two-thirds of the students surveyed in the United States do not feel positive about their school culture. Another example of data that can drive discourse is drawn from students in California. Results from the sixteenth California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS) 2015–17 reveal three-inten high school students appear to suffer from chronic, debilitating sadness or hopelessness, and about one-sixth have contemplated suicide (Austin et  al., 2018). Other data from the CHKS pointing toward school culture include: (1) only six in 10 high school students feel their school is safe or very safe; (2) 28% of seventh graders, 17% of ninth graders, and 15% of eleventh graders ‘strongly agree’ across the five School Connectedness items on the survey; that is, the vast majority of students surveyed in California do not have a sense of connectedness with their school; and (3) of these same students, merely 19% of seventh graders and 15% of both ninth and eleventh graders feel they had Opportunities for Meaningful Participation at their school (Austin et al., 2018). The data being shared illustrate that students do not feel positive about their school culture, suffer from chronic sadness and hopelessness, lack connectedness, and feel there are few opportunities for meaningful participation.

Measurement and Research Discourses In the United States measurement is king when it comes to the national discourse and efforts to change school culture and climate. For instance, the National Center on Safe and Supportive Learning Environments makes measurement central to improving school climate (Osher, 2011). Their essential point is that continuous and ongoing measurement will help improve school climate. One problem described by researchers they cite is that

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the measures are not always consistent. In an elegant comprehensive review of 78 studies dating back to 2000, Berkowitz et al. (2017) examined whether a positive school climate can successfully disrupt the associations between low socio-economic status (SES) and poor academic achievement. Positive climate was found to mitigate the negative contribution of low SES on academic achievement. The researchers described positive school climates as marked by a supportive, caring approach from teachers; a sense of safety from violence and bullying; student connectedness in school; and parental involvement. Findings suggest that promoting a positive climate helps ensure greater equality in educational opportunities, decreases socio-economic inequalities, and enables more social mobility. In fact, the study concluded that a positive school climate has the potential to break the negative influences that stem from poor socio-economic backgrounds and to mitigate risk factors that threaten academic achievement. Still, the authors found great variation in the school climate definitions and measurements; they called for more exacting definitions and standard measures for school climate. The Holy Grail seems to be exacting definitions and standard measures to determine the Truth behind school climate and develop schools as monocultures. As expected, the researchers also call for more rigorous longitudinal, experimental, and semiexperimental research designs. There are more examples in the education discourse, but the question raised is: Do we really need more gold standard research to find out if positive school climates marked by a supportive, caring approach from teachers, a sense of safety from violence and bullying, student connectedness in school, and parental involvement are helpful to diverse students? There are challenges to developing diverse school cultures that support complementary knowledge fostering student well-being and learning power, especially when many schools

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are dedicated to focusing on standardized knowledge, fixing problem people, and other savior endeavors rather than fostering relationships, believing in students, teaching students something they find meaningful, etc. (Benard, 2004; Benard and Slade, 2009; Gergen and Gill, in press; Truebridge, 2014). The educational industry seems dedicated to developing monocultures where singular best practices are given from above by the state to increase academic performance, fix school culture, reduce gaps, save students, etc. The quest for best practices and for effective leaders within organizational structures feeds into developing monocultures of practice rather than living experiments in creating diverse relational learning cultures. Federal, state, county, city, philanthropic, professional, and other organizations pour energy and resources into finding the best way to address student problems, community problems, achievement gaps, gender gaps, racial gaps, digital gaps, etc. Funding agencies, well-paid consultants, marketers, academic researchers, philanthropists, and others promote monocultures of evidencebased practices and ‘gold-standard’ research that one critic says ‘crowds out thoughtful consideration of the usefulness of other kinds of evidences’ (Hong and Rowell, 2019, p. 130). Cultural change is directed for and from above the students, parents, teachers, counselors, and others having the most time and contact with the kids and the community. Action research offers an alternative more inclusive and democratic path to generating knowledge and cultivating school culture (Rowell, 2019). Action research supports varied approaches to construct engaged and vibrant school communities that experiment with bringing about the world they want; lifescaping action researchers listen to diverse voices, look for resources and at challenges in order to define action designed to confront challenges, build on resources, and cultivate a more desirable learning community. Lifescaping action research is offered as one alternative path to foster

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meaningful engagement to construct a more desirable school culture; a place where ecorelationships are primary, and a place where all are invited to participate in cultivating their learning community as a continuous and ongoing process.

LIFESCAPING ACTION RESEARCH Building on social constructionism and research as action (Gergen and Gergen, 2008; Gergen, 2006) and action research as knowing with (Gergen, 2009), lifescaping expands on Gergen’s (2015) understanding that action research is a process of world-making and future forming. Lifescaping seeks to bring innovative cultures into being. Lifescaping action research is one way to join with others in a local and specific school community to bring about a more desirable school culture and climate (Bradbury et al., 2019; Lewis, 2019; Lewis et al., 2017; Lewis et al., 2019; Lewis and Winkelman, 2017). Lewis et  al. (2019) present lifescaping action research as a knowledge democracy pedagogy grounded in three assumptions: (1) humans are learning animals who exist ecorelationally (Hong and Rowell, 2019; Korten, 2015; Lewis and Winkelman, 2017; Rowell and Hong, 2017); (2) schools are places where diverse multicultural stories co-exist and democracy can be explored in the ‘spaces in between’ (e.g., Graeber, 2007, 2015); and (3) schools are cultures that can be informed by strengths-based languages (e.g., Furlong, 2015) and the belief that all children can learn (e.g., Truebridge, 2014).

Lifescaping Action Research PIP The four phases of the participatory inquiry process (PIP) provide a structure for guiding lifescaping action research: PIP Phase One: Initiating Conversations and Identifying Challenges; PIP Phase Two:

Engaged Inquiry; PIP Phase Three: Collaborative Action; and PIP Phase Four: Community Assessment and Reflection. PIP Phase One: Initiating Conversations and Identifying Challenges opens the conversation at school about challenges and possibilities in the culture. Drawing on indigenous understanding, leadership is rooted in service and wisdom rather than power and authority (Kimmerer, 2013); rather than titles and big hats, ‘participatory leadership’ emerges from having the courage to take action as teachers, school counselors, and other non-administrators (Lewis and Borunda, 2006). Ethical action begins by listening deeply and mapping the world we want to construct (Lewis and Winkelman, 2017). After becoming oriented to lifescaping action research as a practice, researchers are encouraged to conduct the Ecology of Place Survey to help guide their looking and listening, and to develop a sense of mindful wonderment and curiosity about possible action research (Lewis and Winkelman, 2017, p. 86). The survey begins by looking first at the houses in the neighborhood where the school is located. What are they like? Bars on windows? Well-kept gardens? Then, one should look at the school and ask questions such as: What are the boundaries? Sidewalks? Fences? Fences topped by barbed wire? Are there plants and bushes? Blind spots where students can hide? Look at places that might be valued, such as the athletic fields, play structures, and field exercise equipment. Remember the basics; look at the restrooms. Are they clean, well-supplied, etc.? Is there graffiti? Look for the special; is there a school garden? Is the garden used to teach science or the culinary arts? Are there displays of student work? A school newspaper, magazine, television channel, etc.? Look at the school during its most alive time; what are the classrooms and hallways like during and after classes? Does the school seem like a beautiful and supportive community setting or more like a prison? The survey has more

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questions and suggestions, but the idea is to generate your own questions about the ecology of place at your specific school and to learn to assess such things as structural racism by looking at the number of Black students in advanced courses, suspensions, etc. The Ecology of Place Survey orients researchers to look and to listen. After looking and listening to others, initiate conversations and identify challenges with administrators, students, teachers, counselors, janitors, secretaries, aids, etc. At the same time, understand that researchers do not have time to interview everybody. Choose a few key individuals to talk to in order to hear their stories about the school; map each story’s plot, character, perspective, theme, setting, challenges, and strengths. Exploring and mapping the school’s positive core and community assets is vital and connected to these conversations. What is right with the school? What are the strengths? What is your (teacher, student, etc.) most memorable and life-rewarding moment at the school? In doing this, the researchers search for possible allies and resources, as well as new ways of seeing, describing, and moving the school story in a more desirable direction. The researchers look, listen, and dream about doing something to make a difference with others. After conducting an Ecology of Place Survey, the initial conversations can still lead in an unanticipated direction. During her conversations, Toy (2017) was asked by her elementary school principal to conduct her action research on the implementation of Second Step, a social-emotional learning (SEL) curriculum. In keeping with the notion of including multiple voices and perspectives, Toy agreed with the principal’s request as long as individual teachers could be interviewed about their current SEL curriculum and students could be asked about their SEL experiences at school. During Phase One, Toy (2017) identified allies and co-researchers during her conversations with select individuals about the challenges and assets in their school story. She also made

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adjustments to the conversational flow and unanticipated challenges in her unique school culture. She defined how to engage in deeper inquiry with students and teachers. Another example shows how Griffin (2017) found her high school had a very weak transition program for orienting incoming ninth graders to high school graduation and college admissions. Her lifescaping action research moved rapidly from initiating conversations with the principal and her supervising school counselors toward developing a Write Way curriculum and activities for ninth graders entering high school during the fall term. She designed a program with a fellow school counselor to help ninth graders see that they had adult allies who would orient them to the new high school setting, expectations for graduation, and requirements for college admissions. PIP Phase Two: Engaged Inquiry concentrates on fostering and deepening relational trust and creating dialogical spaces for those engaged in action research. Using the data from the Ecology of Place Survey, conversations deepen and generate dialogues where allies and co-researchers are nurtured and possible actions explored, selected, and developed. Researchers hone their key action research question with their participants and co-researchers: What is one thing we want to do to make this school a better learning community? Researchers read existing literature and look at resources as they sharpen their focus with others. For instance, Toy (2017) explored the literature, and began developing an array of questions to guide her conversations with teachers and students. She focused on very basic questions: Are teachers using Second Step, and to what extent? What do they like about it? What do they find valuable? Do students enjoy the lessons? Do students learn anything that they find to be valuable in their lives? Do teachers offer other types of social-emotional learning in their classrooms that they see as or more beneficial than Second Step?

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In another example, after initiating conversations and identifying challenges, Williams (2017) found adults framed cyberbullying as a significant challenge confronting students. In her conversations with students, they agreed, and a group of students expressed interest in becoming co-researchers in a youth participatory action research (YPAR) project. The lifescaping YPAR group began looking at the literature, talking about ways to reduce cyberbullying, and agreed to work as a team to survey students in the school about cyberbullying. Their action as a counselor and student research team concentrated on developing and conducting a survey and a report to the school community. PIP Phase Three: Collaborative Action involves implementing action research with participants to socially construct a desired group, classroom, school, or community (Gergen, 2015; Gergen and Gergen, 2008). Actions are taken and documented with papers, summary reports, PowerPoints, etc. Toy’s (2017) two-tiered focus group engagement exemplifies navigating the complex web of power involving her principal, teachers, and students. The principal wanted to have all the teachers implement the same Second Step SEL curriculum. Toy led one focus group of teachers and another group of students. With the teachers she discovered that most had their own SEL approaches and they were happy with the results. With the students, she found that they enjoyed some of the existing SEL activities in their classes, too. Toy’s actions resulted in conversations that shifted the principal to listening to the teachers and recognizing that simply imposing Second Step would not work. The conversation shifted to ways to integrate Second Step into existing SEL practices. Griffin’s (2017) straightforward delivery of the Write Way lessons and community building activities offers another example. She and her colleague met with all the ninth graders during the students’ health classes over a six-week span of time where students were engaged in group-building activities and

completing structured narratives designed to orient them to high school requirements and help them develop learning stories about themselves. PIP Phase Four: Community Assessment and Reflection is linked to promoting knowledge democracy in a school by sharing action research stories with members of the school community. Sharing is meant to help adapt, change, and grow the effort toward greater social and ecological justice. Examples of researcher result reports, PowerPoints, and other publications and resources are shared and reflected upon within and beyond the school community. For instance, Toy (2017) offered three ways of looking at her community assessment and reflection: (1) the published project paper; (2) a PowerPoint summary shared with her fellow graduate students and school community; and (3) a summary report for those not inclined to read the full report. Like her fellow lifescaping action researchers, her project stood as a marker of an action taken and to be built upon. Community assessment and reflection are vital because lifescaping action research is oriented to generate practice-based research evidence (PBRE) to be shared within the specific school community where the research takes place and with practitioners throughout the world via platforms like the Social Publishers Foundation (n.d.) and the Taos Institute Worldshare Books (n.d). Building upon that desire to share, the Lifescaping Project (n.d.) was developed with faculty at California State University, East Bay to orient educators to see, to hear, and to not be quiet about what they see and hear by standing with others to bring about a more desirable school culture.

CONCLUSION Lifescaping action research is one way to change school cultures by having professionals collaborate with students, teachers,

Lifescaping: Cultivating Flourishing School Cultures

counselors, and other stakeholders to bring about the school community they desire. At their best, schools are relational communities that support and encourage learning and student well-being; school culture consists of the living and storied values that undergird the community. School cultures are defined by stories – told from particular perspectives – and shared by both members and non-members. There are many, sometimes competing cultural stories in any school. Look at a school’s website or flyers, talk to the principal, go to the teachers’ lounge, talk to teachers, visit the student council, the cafeteria, or different groups in the playground, and talk to students. You will hear different stories; some seem designed to dominate and influence, some contested, and other stories linger as alternatives or even sparkling with possibilities for making new local meanings. Lifescaping is about engaging and participating with others in developing a democratic school culture and story that promotes learning power and well-being.

REFERENCES ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development). (n.d.). Topics: School Culture and Climate. Retrieved from http:// www.ascd.org/research-a-topic/school-­ culture-and-climate-resources.aspx (Accessed, 24 August 2019) Austin, G., Polik, J., Hanson, T., & Zheng, C. (2018). School climate, substance use, and student well-being in California, 2015–17. Results of the Sixteenth Biennial Statewide Student Survey, Grades 7, 9, and 11. San Francisco: WestEd. Benard, B. (2004). Resiliency: What we have learned. San Francisco: WestEd. Benard, B., & Slade, S. (2009). Listening to students: Moving resilience research to youth development practice and school connectedness. In R. Gilman, E. S. Huebner, & M. J. Furlong (Eds.). Handbook of positive psychology in schools (pp. 353–369). New York: Routledge.

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Berkowitz, R., Moore, H., Astor, R. A., & Benbenishty, R. (2017). A research synthesis of the associations between socioeconomic background, inequality, school climate, and academic achievement. Review of Educational Research, 87(2), 425–469. Retrieved from https://login.proxylib.csueastbay.edu/ login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login. aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1133356& site=ehost-live&scope=site (Accessed, 24 August 2019) Bradbury, H., Lewis, R. E., & Embury, D. C. (2019). Education action research: With and for the next generation. In C. A. Mertler (Ed.), The Wiley handbook of action research in education (pp. 7–28). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Cammarota, J., & Fine, M. (Eds.). (2008). Revolutionizing education: Youth participatory action research in motion. New York: Routledge. Cooperrider, D. L., & Whitney, D. (2005). Appreciative inquiry: A positive revolution in change. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publications. Dragonas, T., Gergen, K., McNamee, S., & Tseliou, E. (Eds.) (2015). Education as social construction: Contributions to theory, research, and practice. Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Books Publications/WorldShare Books. Fals Borda, O. (2006). Participatory (action) research in social theory: Origins and challenges. In P. Reason and H. Bradbury (Eds.), Handbook of action research: Participative inquiry and practice (pp. 27–37). London: Sage. Flaherty, J. (2016). No more heroes: Grassroots challenges to the savior mentality. Oakland, CA: AK Press. Furlong, M. J. (2015). Introduction to special issue school-based approaches to promote complete mental health: School psychologists working to foster students’ thriving well-being. Contemporary School Psychology, 19, 231–232. Gergen, K. J. (2006). Therapeutic realities: Collaboration, oppression and relational flow. Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute Publications. Gergen, K. J. (2009). Relational being: Beyond self and community. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Gergen, K. J. (2015). From mirroring to worldmaking: Research as future forming. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 45(3), 287–310. doi:10.1111/jtsb.12075. (Accessed, 24 August 2019) Gergen, K. J., & Gergen, M. M. (2008). Social construction and research as action. In P. Reason & H. Bradbury (Eds.), The Sage handbook of action research: Participative inquiry and practice (2nd edition) (pp. 159– 171). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Gergen, K., & Gill, S. (in press) Relational evaluation in education. Thousand Oaks, Sage. Graeber, D. (2007). Possibilities: Essays on hierarchy, rebellion, and desire. Oakland, CA: AK Press. Graeber, D. (2015). The utopia of rules: On technology, stupidity, and the secret joys of bureaucracy. New York, NY: Melville House. Griffin, M. (2017). A write way intervention: Successful transition into the ninth grade. In R. E. Lewis & P. Winkelman (Eds.), Lifescaping practices in school communities: Implementing action research and appreciative inquiry (pp. 137–144). New York, NY: Routledge. Hong, E., & Rowell, L. (2019). Challenging knowledge monopoly in education in the US: Through democratizing knowledge production and dissemination. Educational Action Research, 27(1), 125–143. doi: 10.1080/09650792.2018.1534694. Kimmerer, R. W. (2013). Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teaching of plants. Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed. Korten, D. C. (2015). Change the story, change the future: A living economy for a living earth. Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Lewis, R. E. (2019). Resilience in individuals, families, and communities. In D. Capuzzi and D. R. Gross (Eds.), Youth at risk (7th edition). (pp. 43–65). Alexandria, VA: American Counseling Association. Lewis, R. E., & Borunda, R. (2006). Lived stories: Participatory leadership in action. Journal of Counseling and Development, 84, 406–413. Lewis, R. E., Dailey, A., Jennings, G., & Winkelman, P. (Eds.). (2017). Lifescaping project:

Action research and appreciative inquiry in San Francisco Bay Area schools. Chagrin Falls, OH: WorldShare Taos Institute Publication (PDF Version 2017). http://www.taosinstitute.net/lifescaping-project (Accessed, 24 August 2019) Lewis, R. E., Herb, C., Mundy-McCook, E., & Capps-Jenner, N. (2019). Lifescaping action research pedagogy. Educational Action Research, 27(1), 75–90. doi: 10.1080/ 09650792.2018.1535446 (Accessed, 24 August 2019) Lewis, R. E., & Winkelman, P. (2017). Lifescaping practices in school communities: Implementing action research and appreciative inquiry. New York, NY: Routledge. Lifescaping Project. (n.d.). Taos Institute. Retrieved from https://www.taosinstitute. net/lifescaping-practices-in-schools (Accessed, 24 August 2019) Maibaum, L. (2017). Advocating with appreciative inquiry. In R. E. Lewis & P. Winkelman (Eds.), Lifescaping practices in school communities: Implementing action research and appreciative inquiry (pp. 145–151). New York, NY: Routledge. Osher, D. (2011). Making the case for importance of school climate and its measurement. National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environments. Retrieved from https:// safesupportivelearning.ed.gov/events/webinar/ making-case-importance-school-climate-andits-measurement (Accessed, 24 August 2019) Rearick, M. L., & Feldman, A. (1999). Orientations, purposes and reflection: A framework for understanding action research. Teaching and Teacher Education, 15(4), 333–349. Retrieved from https://login.proxylib.csueastbay.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost. com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ 590522&site=ehost-live&scope=site (Accessed, 24 August 2019) Reason, P., & Bradbury, H. (2008). Introduction. In P. Reason & H. Bradbury (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of action research: Participative inquiry and practice (pp. 1–10). London, UK: Sage. Rowell, L. (2019). Rigor in educational action research and the construction of knowledge democracies. In C. A. Mertler (Ed.), The Wiley handbook of action research in

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education (pp. 117–138). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Rowell, L. L., & Feldman, A. (2019). Knowledge democracy and action research. Educational Action Research, 27(1), 1–6. doi: org/10.1080/09650792.2019.1557456 (Accessed, 24 August 2019) Rowell, L. L., & Hong, E. (2017). Knowledge democracy and action research: Pathways for the twenty-first century. In L. L. Rowell, C. D. Bruce, J. M. Shosh, & M. M. Riel (Eds.), The Palgrave international handbook of action research (pp. 63–83). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Smythe, W. E. (2005). On the psychology of ‘as if’. Theory & Psychology, 15, 283–303. Social Publishers Foundation. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.socialpublishersfoundation.org/ (Accessed, 24 August 2019) Spretnak, C. (2011). Relational reality: New discoveries of interrelatedness that are transforming the modern world. Topsham, ME: Green Horizon Books. Suissa, J. (2010). Anarchism and education: A philosophical perspective. Oakland, CA: PM Press. Taos Institute. (n.d.). Worldshare books. Retrieved from https://www.taosinstitute.net/worldshare-books (Accessed, 24 August 2019)

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Toy, B. (2017). Exploring implementation of Second Step at a suburban elementary school: An appreciative participatory inquiry process. In R. E. Lewis, A. Dailey, G. Jennings, & P. Winkelman (Eds.), Lifescaping project: 2016 Action research and appreciative inquiry in San Francisco Bay Area schools (pp. 75–98). Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Publications/WorldShare Books. Truebridge, S. (2014). Resilience begins with beliefs: Building on student strengths for success in school. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Williams, M. (2017). Examining bullying through youth participatory action research. In R. E. Lewis, A. Dailey, G. Jennings, & P. Winkelman (Eds.), Lifescaping project: 2016 Action research and appreciative inquiry in San Francisco Bay Area schools (pp. 101–129). Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Publications/WorldShare Books. Youth Truth. (n.d.). The impact. Retrieved from https://youthtruthsurvey.org/ (Accessed, 24 August 2019)

32 Creating School Harmony Gro Emmertsen Lund

Education is at a crossroads today. Certain educational policies are oriented to positive goals and new practices, but much education policy is shaped by negative forms of public management, including deficit discourses, over-administration and individualistic thinking. This is seen not only in education policy, but also in educational practices, where the negative effects and implications are tangible. This chapter presents an argument for the importance of responding to interactive troubles in schools in ways that do not lead to exclusion, alienation or marginalization. Thus, it emphasizes the need for relational and restorative approaches to schooling, while highlighting how social constructionist assumptions can lead to inclusionary practices and more harmonious school cultures.

SCHOOL HARMONY AND DISHARMONY Harmony can be understood as a situation in which people live or work happily together

without major problems. This refers to social, racial and political harmony and more specifically to agreements of ideas, feelings or actions, or a combination of those. Finally, harmony can refer to situations in which people are peaceful and agree with each other, or when things seem right or fit suitably together. Thus, harmony produces good feelings. Conversely, disharmony produces negative feelings. Disharmony may be the result of interactive troubles and unsolved conflicts and aggression, which again may produce alienation and exclusion (Metzler et al., 2001). A school day can easily include conflicts, bullying, hurts, misunderstandings and other relational or communicational disputes, all under the category of interactive troubles. The term is derived from Smyth and Hattam (2004), who explain that interactive troubles occur when children and young people are prevented from fully participating in the school curriculum because of their failure to understand the cues of the teachers, while teachers often

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seem unable to make sense of students’ talk. Students caught up in interactive troubles in schools are often reprimanded, individually held responsible and perhaps expelled or otherwise punished. However, no school can be harmonious all the time, hence school communities can be more or less (dis)harmonious, (dis)functional, conflictual and stressful. Creating school harmony is not about creating a completely conflict-free school environment, although reducing the number of conflicts and their negative effects may be desirable. The aim is to respond to interactive troubles in ways that foster a culture of learning, care, mutual understanding and restoration of relationships, thus avoiding disharmony, exclusion, stigmatization and marginalization (Drewery & Winslade, 2005; Lund, 2017; Skiba and Peterson, 2000). Lund and Winslade (2018) argue that when responding to conflict and problematic behavior, school professionals engage in conversations and actions based on certain dominant assumptions and discourses. The assumptions and discourses that are at play and the way school professionals respond – what actions, practices, language and thinking they use – are important to subsequent events, to how relationships unfold, and, in the end, to the outcomes of the broader school culture (Lund and Haslebo, 2015; Shaw, 2007; Skidmore, 2004).

INDIVIDUAL-FOCUSED RESPONSES TO INTERACTIVE TROUBLES Traditional, individual and deficit-focused practices in dealing with interactive troubles in schools often silence and eventually exclude students and families (Lund, 2017). Smyth and Hattam (2004) argue that in many schools, behavior, attendance and progress were invariably construed as the individual responsibility of the students. Deviations invariably invoked retribution

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that resulted in predictable consequences, which were always couched officially in terms of failure on the part of the student to take personal responsibility. (p. 168)

Across the Western world, research has shown that for decades, and for school problems, especially, the explanatory model has been individualistic in its focus (Gergen and McNamee, 1999; Graham, 2008; Haslebo and Lund, 2014, 2015; Tetler et al., 2012). The unintended outcome is that students ‘not fitting the school standards’ are blamed for social, relational and structural problems (Smyth and Hattam, 2004; Winslade and Williams, 2012). Problem-, individual- and deficit-thinking in schools leads to practices and communication with negative effects and implications for relationships and student becoming, thus producing exclusionary outcomes (Lund, 2017; Lund and Winslade, 2018). Despite good intentions, processes and practices in schools are too often decided upon without involving students. Students’ perceptions, perspectives and ideas hold great promise, but are in general seldom integrated into school decision-making, and even less when it comes to dealing with interactive troubles. Giroux and McLaren (1992) argued that some conversations and practices make students and their parents voiceless in particular settings by not allowing them to speak. It is one thing to have a voice, but another to be invited to the table. Yet another is to feel safe about speaking, and some students silence themselves out of fear, hopelessness or alienation (Roman, 1996; Fine, 1990; Winslade and Williams, 2012). Schools produce and reproduce unequal opportunities for different students. Wexler (1992) showed how ‘good kids’ get detention, but ‘burn outs’ and ‘scum’ are processed, defined and recycled within the more serious punishment structure. Likewise, ‘elites’ and ‘stars’ are created in the corridors of schools. The types of selves produced are not random but set by the central image of the school and

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the organizational devices used to achieve its image. Through stratification, a binary division between those students who will become winners and those who will be losers is made. Even though the issues addressed bear historical proof, they are not solved. In my own research I did a thorough examination of the ways that schools respond to interactive troubles (Lund, 2017). This research shows that when individual-, problem- and deficit-thinking is in use, an exclusionary spiral evolves that breaks down relationships, mutes students and parents and excludes students from school. Further, the processes of responding to interactive troubles in such a way not only result in exclusion from school, but also in the privatization of responsibility on the part of the family, with significant consequences for its well-being. Lund and Winslade (2018) argue that there is a strong need for developing restorative cultures where responses to interactive troubles are inclusionary.

EDUCATION AT A CROSSROADS In many parts of the world, children and youth are seen as struggling in schools, and education professionals as being concerned about marginalization, level of drop out, and avoidance of the school-to-prison-pipeline. Reports of interactive troubles, diagnosis, bullying, violence, anxiety, stress, isolation, stigmatization, exclusion and dropping out are everyday news. In line with this, teachers and staff are struggling with individual performance indicators, high demands regarding student outcome, testing, competition, and increasing stress and frustration. School is not only about academic knowledge and skills but also about developing social skills and becoming a citizen in a society. School-age students are intent on negotiating the identity task of becoming somebody (Wexler, 1992; Smyth and Hattam, 2004; Winslade and Williams, 2012). School is

thus central for children’s and young people’s social and psychological development and vital for their mental health. Therefore, it is important for a school environment to be inclusive, appreciative and safe (Rasmussen et al., 2015) in order to produce a society that features similar values. This brings to mind questions about the moral purpose of education. Why do we do schools? What are schools for? How can we create inclusionary and sustainable learning communities? Such questions are contestable and widely debated internationally (Mourshed et al., 2014; Fullan, 2003; Zipin et al., 2015). In order for students to thrive, develop agency, and become skilled and responsible citizens, researchers claim that schools must create conditions for students to build positive images of themselves as someone worthy of, and contributing and important to, the school community (Tetler, 2011). If children and youth are struggling in schools, the latter are failing to create conditions for students to produce such positive self-images. From this viewpoint, a disharmonious school climate threatens the school’s ability to fulfill its moral purpose. Schools are increasingly realizing that traditional-, individual- and deficit-focused means of responding to conflicts and interactive troubles are not working. Furthermore, in a world where conflicts and disharmony constitute real threats, educational systems around the world face an increasingly important task. As a response to this, school professionals are more and more interested in questions such as how to create safe and peaceful schools and how to strengthen a school climate that nourishes relationships, learning and well-being. It seems there is a profound need to find ways of creating school harmony. Corcoran and Billington (2015) extend the dialogues in critical education, focusing on what they see as ideological and political socialization of all educational policies and practices. They are concerned with the impact of the industrial, mechanistic and individualist policies

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and practices that govern Western education. As they reason, if education is inherently a means of generating our forms of life, then ideological issues should not be hidden, but central to our forms of education. We should take responsibility for the ethical, moral and political nature of our discourse and relationships. In this respect, they propose that educational ontologies and epistemologies should be driven by the pursuit of psychosocial justice, thus contributing to the wellness of the human condition (Dragonas et al., 2015). These ideas spring from a social constructionist perspective, that ‘views the site of reality making within social process. In this sense, constructionism is neither child centered nor curriculum centered, but is relational. Relational process is at the center of effective education’ (ibid., p. xiii–xvi).

RELATIONAL PRACTICES IN MOTION Dragonas et  al. (2015) flesh out the enormous and far-reaching implications of social constructionist thinking for scholars and practitioners in education. If we approach knowledge as a social construction, a major re-evaluation of our traditions is invited, and a vast range of new possibilities and practices begin to emerge. Hereby, four important shifts in thinking are favored by the constructionist dialogues: (a) from foundational knowledge to pragmatic and contextually based knowledge; (b) from value-neutral knowledge to critical and appreciative sensitivity; (c) from knowledge as representation to knowledge as action; and (d) from an individualist to a relational orientation to education. With this epistemological shift, new ideas and practices are emerging and paving the way for creating school harmony. This is seen around the world where a range of relational practices is developing at a high speed: relational leadership practices and collaborative approaches such as Appreciative

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Inquiry and strength-based pedagogy and teaching (Cooperrider, 1999; Mæland and Hauger, 2011; Whitney and TrostenBloom, 2003), relational skills training programs and school community methods like CosmoKidz (Haavimb, 2015; Pearce, 2014) and Restorative Practices (Drewery et al., 2002; Kecskemeti, 2004; McGarrigle, 2005; The Restorative Practices Team, 2003), as well as conflict resolution approaches such as Narrative Mediation (Winslade, 2006; Winslade and Monk, 2000, 2007), and relational methods to transforming bullying patterns such as Anti-bullying Undercover Teams (Drewery, 2007; Haslebo and Lund, 2015; Jansen and Matla, 2011; Uppal, 2012; Williams, 2010; Williams, 2012; Winslade et  al., 2015; Winslade, 2013). What we are witnessing is a cross-national movement towards more relationally responsible ways of engaging in schools. School professionals can respond to interactive troubles in ways that offer students (and parents) positions with dignity, voice and agency, and that invite them into forms of relating in which students can develop positive self-images and become somebody. Such ways of responding to interactive troubles imply an advanced professionalism, which has developed in various educational settings around the world with inspiration from social constructionist ideas (Dragonas et al., 2015; Lund, 2017). With social constructionist ideas and practices, new ways of speaking, relating and interacting emerge; thus relationships change. And with this the culture of the school.

SCHOOL CULTURES Lund and Winslade (2018) argue that school culture operates to create social divisions through constructing different outcomes for different students. Some students are selected out in advance for marginalization on the basis of social class or race, for example.

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However, for others marginalization is produced as a result of interactive troubles that are handled in aggressive and exclusionary ways. In many schools, the culture often instructs teachers to determine the origin of problems in the nature of the child. In this way it produces problematic outcomes from schooling, which is what Skidmore calls “the within child deficitmodel” (2004, s. 33). A school culture sets up standards or values and social instruments to achieve them, moving and shaping identities and the interactional resources used in their accomplishment. Schein (1986) describes organizational culture as: A pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems. (p. 16)

According to Schein (1986) it is necessary to change the basic assumptions, if we are to change a culture of an organization. In their

research on early school leaving Smyth and Hattam (2004) named three different school cultures with significant implications for students; the aggressive, the passive and the active school culture. In schools with an aggressive school culture, they found the highest rate of drop-outs, also seen in schools with a passive culture. Both cultures evoked alienation, conflict, exclusion and stigmatization, however in different ways. Only the active school culture gave rise to inclusionary ways of responding to interactive troubles and, therefore, to some extent prevented early school leaving. Thus, the active culture can be understood as pro-active (Lund and Haslebo, 2015, p. 251) Table 32.1 presents the three school cultures by Smyth and Hattam (2004, pp. 162–163). The aggressive and the passive practices spring from positivistic basic assumptions, that is individual-, problem- and deficitthinking, while the pro-active practices spring from social constructionism, that is relational thinking and focus on shared responsibility and worthy processes of becoming somebody.

Table 32.1  The cultural geography of the school around early school leaving Dimension

‘Aggressive’

‘Passive’

‘Active’

School climate

Fear, silence, resentment Some students speak back Treated like children

Student voice Agency and culture of independence

Inclusion/ exclusion

‘Trouble makers’ removed Students’ own sense of justice not welcome Hierarchically determined Streaming undermines selfimage

Benign attitudes Habitual actions Struggling to come to grips with changing nature of youth Some students’ lives are written over Culture of dependence Treated indifferently ‘Ease out’ those who don’t fit

Curriculum construction

Students’ lives/ No space for dealing with emotions students’ emotions Behavior Policies and guidelines management adhered to and enforced Compliance demanded

An intention to deal with the relevance to students’ lives, but this is not translated into the curriculum

Those who traditionally fit the least are the most welcome!

Negotiable around student interests and lives Connected to students’ lives Respect for popular culture A socially critical dimension Acknowledgment of student emotions, Students are listened to but dealt with immaturely Atmosphere of trust Attempts to operate equitably, but the Behavior management generally school gets caught in contradiction regarded as a curriculum issue of wanting to operate differently, Student participation in setting but not having the underlying the framework philosophy. Self-fulfilling prophecy (continued)

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Table 32.1  The cultural geography of the school around early school leaving Dimension

‘Aggressive’

‘Passive’

‘Active’

Flexibility

Compliance demanded

Respectful of student commitment and need for flexible timetabling

Pedagogy

Condescending way of treating students Over-reacting and paranoid teachers

Gestures towards flexibility, but interpreted by students as inconsistency and lack of understanding Uninteresting classroom practices and boring curriculum Lots of (mis)management of learning processes

Pastoral care

No way of acknowledging harassment, sexism, racism, classism

Pastoral care but of a deficit kind Inadequate time, skill, structure and commitment

CREATING SCHOOL HARMONY Creating school harmony is about transforming the culture from aggressive/passive (disharmonious) to pro-active (harmonious). If we are to change a disharmonious school culture, it is – necessary to change the basic assumptions on which the aggressive/passive practices rely. Doing so means strengthening relational practices in order to foster listening, invite enunciation, express curiosity, use appreciative language and take on the ethical responsibility of helping all students to become somebody. Such transformation can be realized as an action learning process, since both learning and change processes are contextual and relational. Within the action learning process, there are various ways to change basic assumptions in the pedagogical praxis, one is to start challenging the dominant assumptions by exploring their effects and implications on praxis.

Enlarges cultural map for many students Students treated like adults Negotiation of content and assessment Actively connects with student lives Acknowledges importance of re-entry and alternatives

In the case of Sebastian, presented in Box 32.1, a teacher, Mrs. Sharon1, tells her story of how she changed her practices with inspiration from social constructionist ideas. In sum, what she did was to challenge her basic assumptions and exchange them with different ones likely to produce different processes and hence a different outcome. At Mrs. Sharon’s school, all the professionals had been involved in an action learning process. In teams and as a whole school approach the school professionals co-reflected on the pedagogical praxis and co-identified visions and ambitions for desired results. Based on this, they selected focal points for developing new praxis and co-created ‘try-out-actions’ individually and collectively. This learning process was repeated several times, sometimes with new focal points and sometimes redefining and improving the ‘try-out-actions’ and reflections on their effects and outcomes (Lund, 2020).

Box 32.1  Showcase: the becoming of Sebastian  The teacher: In my class I have this boy Sebastian. He is constantly commenting, making noise, teasing, playing the clown and trying to say funny things. In the beginning, his classmates laughed and found it amusing, but not any longer. Quite frankly, he was a pain in the ass. I was SO tired of him. I had to keep an eye on him all the time and repeat ‘sit down’, ‘be quiet’, ‘don’t interrupt’, ‘pay attention’, ‘stop this’, ‘stop that’. Often, I had to send him outside the classroom, to the play yard or even to the principal’s office. His family was informed and the school psychologist got involved. It was such a struggle and distress. I seriously considered how to get rid of him. He didn’t like me that much – perhaps because of the daily reprimands and the negative atmosphere created. I could see that we were (Continued)

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(Continued) heading in the wrong direction, but he had to start changing his attitude, otherwise I could not guarantee for the consequences. At the same time, I felt sorry for him, as I think he was not only a problem to me and the rest of the class, but to himself as well. We had initiated a whole school process at my school and started learning about relational thinking and relational practices. To my surprise, this was very interesting. One of my ‘try-out-actions’ was to work with this problematic student – not based on what I had previously done, but in radically new ways. With colleagues we had planned to do a school play. The students were to come up with ideas about the plot, the storyline, and so on. Sebastian acted out the same way as usual. Noisy, trying to make funny comments, not taking the play seriously. He suggested the most stupid things such as pink elephants flying around while peeing at the stage. Stuff like that. This time I had decided to respond differently. First, I had the feeling it made it worse – he seemed to overplay it in order for me to respond as usual. But instead, I listened to his suggestions and took notes and involved him and the others in considering how we could realize his ideas. I asked questions and gave compliments and acknowledged his contributions. This took place daily for a period of time. Slowly, his attitude started changing. His bad behavior decreased. His position in class changed a little. It felt like a miracle. I felt better. I didn’t fear going into class and I was much less frustrated. Something had changed in the relationships as well, between him and me, and between him and the others. Half way into the first week of the play project, Sebastian came up to me one day after class. He wanted to withdraw some of his crazy ideas from the play. He thought it might be too complicated to realize. I asked him which ideas and took notes of what he said, and we talked it through. The funny thing was, that his troublesome behavior was gone. He seemed responsible and positive towards our collaboration. He was actually quite nice and smart! Weeks after the atmosphere in the class is still much better. I really feel bad, when I think about what might have had happened, if things had continued the way they were before.

What we see in this particular case, is how the teacher offers Sebastian a new position, from being a troublemaker/clown to becoming a co-responsible contributor. The teacher is aiming to offer positive positions by using appreciative listening and speaking and the boy responds positively. In the transformed interaction with the teacher, Sebastian steps into a much more valuable position, which fortunately is accepted and well responded to by the students in the class. The teacher talks about it as a little miracle, but if we look at it as a learning and change process there are numerous good reasons for this to happen. First of all the case illustrates a shift in epistemology from positivism to social constructionism, also framed as a shift from individual to relational thinking. Table 32.2 highlights some of the basic positivistic assumptions within individual thinking, that are challenged and exchanged with assumptions from social constructionism and relational thinking, thus enhancing and paving the way for different praxis.

Changing the basic assumptions from individualistic to relational is what produces the positive outcomes. Not only did the teacher create new positions and possibilities for becoming a somebody on the part of the student, but she also changed her own position and options, the classroom climate and the relationships between herself and the boy, as well as between the boy and his classmates. Applying central ideas from social constructionist thought such as coming to see that the boy was not the problem, but the problem was the problem (White, 1989), she changed her praxis. By this, she succeeded in responding to interactive troubles in ways that create harmony instead of disharmony. Thus, the case above gives an example of how elements from an aggressive school culture can be changed into characteristics of a pro-active school culture. Smyth and Hattam (2004) found in their research that schools with a pro-active culture have the least exclusion, better teacher–student relationships and the fewest school problems. Schools with a

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Table 32.2  Basic assumptions that lead to actions, interactions, relationships and positions Individual thinking

Relational thinking

The student is a problem The behavior of the student is to be changed Attention is focused on the wrong behavior of the boy

The problem is the problem The interaction is to be changed Attention is focused on relationships and the effects of the teacher’s actions The teacher can try to change her communication and way of thinking The teacher is responsible for the positions she is offering students All students are competent and have good reasons for acting the way they do All students are doing the best they can – depending on the position they have Actions spring from relationships, positions and contexts

The boy needs to change The boy (and his parents) are responsible for his behavior Some students are not fit to go to school Some students cannot comply with school standards Actions are determined by personality, cognitive skills and upbringing A good school (teacher–student relation) is characterized by an obedience culture

pro-active school culture perform relational, dialogic and appreciative ways of interacting as well as respond to school problems and students’ needs and lives in inclusionary ways (Lund, 2020). Furthermore, the pro-active school culture is more learning-oriented than the aggressive or passive, which for a working community of professionals is important in order to produce new knowledge, reflection on praxis and co-creation and maintainance of relationally responsible school communities.

PERSPECTIVES FOR THE FUTURE Responding to conflicts and aggressions in ways that are creating harmony holds great potential for the future. Looking ahead at the contours of the 21st century’s worldwide challenges, it is evident that extensive geographical and environmental changes are to come. In line with these, we will see wide societal, political and educational changes. The educational crossroad concerns not only policy, structures and curriculum, but also cultures, pedagogy, practices and relationships. As Corcoran and Billington (2015)

A good school (teacher–student relation) is based on an appreciative learning culture

claim, education is inherently a means of generating forms of life, and therefore ideological issues should be central to our forms of education. This is much related to the moral purpose of education, relational responsibility and peaceful co-living. The impressive range of relational and restorative practices that are emerging all over the world are doing exactly that: setting center stage ideological issues to our forms of education. What they share is a keen interest in how relational thinking can qualify various school practices. Thus, the basic assumptions within Relational Thinking in Table 32.2 are contributions to the development of StrengthBased Approaches, CosmoKidz, Restorative Practices, Narrative Mediation, and AntiBullying Undercover Teams. The crossnational movement towards more relationally responsible ways of engaging in schools is greatly needed and holds promise not only for the future of education, but for a peaceful community of humans.

Note 1 People in the case are given other names for the sake of their anonymity

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disorderly objects. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 12(1), 7–33. doi. org/10.1080/13603110701683311 Haavimb, M. E. (2015). CosmoKidz – børns læring som drivkraft for skoleudvikling. In G. E. Lund & G. Haslebo (Eds.), Kulturudvikling i skolen – hvordan? (pp. 47–76). Viborg, Danmark: Dansk Psykologisk Forlag. Haslebo, G., & Lund, G. E. (2014). Relationsudvikling i Skolen. Viborg, Danmark: Dansk Psykologisk Forlag. Haslebo, G., & Lund, G. E. (2015). Practicing relational thinking in dealing with bullying in schools. In: T. Dragonas, K. Gergen, S. McNamee, & E. Tseliou (Eds.), Education as social construction (pp. 168–192). Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Publications Worldshare. Jansen, G., & Matla, R. (2011). Restorative practices in action. In V. Margrain & A. Macfarlane (Eds.), Responsive pedagogy: Engaging restoratively with challenging behaviour (pp. 85–109). Wellington: NZCER Press. Kecskemeti, M. (2004). Restorative conversations – Is changing ways of speaking enough to change relationships, discipline systems and school cultures? Paper presented at ‘New Frontiers in Restorative Justice: Advancing Theory and Practice’ conference, Centre for Justice and Peace Development, Massey University at Albany, New Zealand, 2–5 December. Retrieved 03.11.2019 from http:// restorativejustice.org/rj-library/restorativeconversations—is-changing-ways-of-speakingenough-to-change-relationships-disciplinesystems-and-school-cultures/5649/#sthash. w6rffW8n.dpbs Lund, G. E. (2020). Aktionsforskning som kulturudvikling – et spadestik dybere. In S. Frimann, J. B. Jensen, & M. S. K. Sunesen (eds.), Aktionsforskning i et læringsperspektiv (pp. 125–145). København; Danmark. Hans Reitzels Forlag. Lund, G. E. (2017). Making exclusionary processes in schools visible. Ph.D. dissertation, Twente University, the Netherlands. Lund, G. E., & Haslebo, G. (Eds.) (2015). Kulturudvikling i Skolen. Viborg, Danmark: Dansk Psykologisk Forlag. Lund, G. E., & Winslade, J. M. (2018). Responding to interactive troubles – Implications for school culture, Wisdom in Education, 8(1), Article 1.

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33 Creating New Futures Through Collaboration: Dropouts No More Ingebjørg Mæland

When an entire organization is aware of the positive dynamic possibilities for working together, anything can be achieved. (Jacqueline Stavros , 2005)

Student dropouts from upper-secondary schools has been a major challenge in Norway for over two decades. The Norwegian government has spent large sums of money on many different projects since then, yet the rate of dropouts has remained at the same level. After three years in upper-secondary school, three out of 10 students drop out (Markussen, 2010). Reegård and Rogstad (2016) point out that the consequences of dropping out of secondary school are not necessarily negative for all students. Some students go on to other kinds of activities and feel much better when they choose to leave the school. Yet, Reegård and Rogstad (2016), Markussen (2010) and Markussen et al. (2011) show that young people who leave secondary school early, have difficulty holding down jobs and are much more likely to become unemployed. In other words,

dropping out of school can contribute to social inequality. International research tells us that even though there are some differences among education systems, there are similarities in the number of students who drop out of schools (Markussen, 2010). Markussen shows that social problems can be a contributing factor to school dropout. Most dropouts occur among students who apply under special conditions, for example those with learning disabilities, students with minority backgrounds, and those who have substance abuse problems and/or psychiatric issues (Baklien et al., 2004). Recent research on social reproduction theory, however, has shown that half of the young people who drop out are brought up in middle-class families with no indicators of being at-risk or social marginalization (Emmertsen Lund, 2017). The big question in Norway has been: ‘What can the school and social services do to prevent students from dropping permanently out of school and work life?’ Social

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scientists often try to uncover the reasons for problems, and the search for successful programs is global. In this chapter I will describe a unique alternative to the existing ways of dealing with these challenges. The proposal is based on experiences from strength-based development work I have led since 2005 in our school named YouthInvest. We have focused on creating a learning environment that enables our students to wake up in the morning happily looking forward to coming to school to learn and have fun.

day-to-day life. These young people seem to have little energy and few resources left to concentrate on school subjects. There may also be issues with learning difficulties that have not been adequately dealt with, and a resulting sense of failure. For some, the experience of not being seen and understood means that they have lost faith in their ability to do anything.

AN INTRODUCTION TO YOUTHINVEST

Since 2005 YouthInvest has attempted to develop a constructive and uplifting way to build a school culture where everyone can trust and help each other. We have been guided and informed by a variety of theoretical and practical strategies over this period. Strategies from Appreciative Inquiry (Cooperrider and Srivastva, 1987; Cooperrider, 1990; Hauger et al., 2008; Mæland and Hauger, 2008), strength-based tools (Seligman, 2011; Fredericson, 2011; Biswas-Diener, 2010), and social constructionist theory (Gergen, 2009, 2010, 2015) have all played an important role. Relational understanding (Gergen, 2009, 2010, 2015; Emmertsen Lund, 2014, 2015, 2017) and practices of relational leading (Hersted and Gergen, 2013), have helped us to bring about a positive transformation in the school culture (Schein, 1998; Bushe, 2010a, 2010b). Informed by these ideas we have come to think differently about our school, the education system and about our young learning colleagues’ possibilities. New understandings have given us a wide space for new ways to work. They have challenged us to develop new skills, such as appreciative listening, meeting problems with understanding and respect, and replacing negatively focused questions with questions that promote learning and well-being. We have developed skills enabling us to act as equals in different and difficult situations. We see ourselves now as

YouthInvest is a municipal, practice-oriented and strength-based training center for young people aged 16–24, financed primarily by Buskerud County. The aim is to offer young people in upper-secondary school the opportunity to gain qualifications to study and to prepare for a meaningful working life. Over 220 students participate each year. There is a continuous intake of students over the entire school year, at five divisions located in different Municipalities of the County. YouthInvest offers practical workshops in such areas as handicrafts, mechanics and carpentry, as well as a pedagogical workshop providing teaching in Norwegian, mathematics, English, IT, and social studies. All teaching is based on the upper-secondary education curricula. The target group consists of young people who, for various reasons, are no longer participating in upper-secondary education. Some are uncertain about their educational options, and they need time to gain clarity and motivation before continuing. Some need to catch up in fundamental subjects such as Norwegian, mathematics and English before they are ready to cope with upper-secondary school or enter working life. Many young people have experienced a range of challenges in their lives. This means that time and energy have been devoted to coping with

RESOURCES FOR DEVELOPMENT: THEORY AND PRACTICE

Creating New Futures Through Collaboration: Dropouts No More

a learning organization (Senge, 2000; Bushe, 2010a). We share experiences from practice, upon which we reflect, learn, and then incorporate new understandings into our practice. Here we have drawn insight from Argyris and Schön’s (1978) concept of second order of learning and Nonaka and Takeuchi’s learning spirals (Fuglestad, 2006). We have used these various understandings and strength-based strategies at all levels of the organization – in meetings, classrooms, and in dialogues both internal and external. After 14 years, all of us want to continue to use these strategies, even though it is complex and sometimes hard work. For the most part it is enjoyable, interesting and exciting. It has been wonderful to feel how powerful it is to share common philosophical understandings, positive languages and dialogues. One might say we have experienced a kind of coordinated group flow ((Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). We see this as an ongoing organic development processes (Hargreaves, 2000; Hargreaves and Fullan, 2014) open to multiple voices in the process of meaning-making.

DEVELOPING THE SCHOOL: A COLLABORATIVE JOURNEY Before we started our strength-based learning journey, I sought the approval of my leader, the head of education in the county, and invited all my colleagues into the decision-making process. I wanted to involve the whole organization. I invited the division leaders and two or three colleagues from each division to take the main responsibility for the developmental work in their areas, and together we established what we called a core group. Knowledge from different parts of the organization and daily life of the school were of major importance. In my view, we need each other to develop, to experiment, and acquire new skills, and draw a new mindset and insights gained from practice. I believe one of the success factors in the

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development process was in involving everyone. The learning journey started with a twoday seminar for all colleagues where we engaged in the AI-process for the first time. We started by sharing narratives of success in our work with the young ones. We invited our colleagues to do an appreciative interview with a colleague from another division. That was a strategy we chose to start to develop a common culture across divisions and different subjects. Fifty stories were shared, and success factors identified from which we then created big dreams. Groups of six played with the dreams in different creative ways. Many of us felt a little outside our comfort zone. But the enthusiasm was high. This was followed by making our first plan to realize our dreams or mental pictures of our desired future. We chose those ideas that filled us with energy and enthusiasm and could give the best result or outcome for our young learning colleagues, for the school and the society. We described the dreams and our actions, in an action plan we called road map (to be described later). Then each division decided which part of the dream they found most exciting and useful for them, made their specific action plans, and chose the steps they wanted to take to achieve the desired future. I know that some organizations have experienced powerful enthusiasm the first time they engage in an AI-process. After a while the energy disappears (Bushe, 2010b) and it can be a challenge to continue. For example, through the first AI-process we discovered and established five core values: Well-being, Belonging, Trust, Credibility, and Availability. As we found, it is important that those involved decide together which values characterize their activities. However, after three months some of my colleagues started to complain about the AI-approach. They had a feeling AI was too naive, and it was hard to translate such values into daily life. Luckily, I had involved all of them before we started the learning journey. I asked them to remember we had agreed to try

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these strategies and mindset, at least for one year. We needed more time to check out if the new way of thinking gave more meaning and better results. When we try to think and work differently, there is an expectation that we will succeed and change everything at once. If not, it is easy to conclude the new strategies don’t work. Even though old strategies haven’t given expected changes or outcomes (Schein, 1998), it is easier to continue as usual. Slowly we have changed the way we think and practice, including the way we relate to each other, to our students, and the community. For example, when we start new projects, big or small, we ask: What do we want to create together and what do we want to happen, and whom do we want to be? It can be small questions in the beginning of a meeting, but also issues such as planning study visits, parent meetings, or large conferences. We often start the planning with appreciative dialogues in pairs and share ideas about what we want to happen. In planning a conference, for example, we might imagine what we want the participants to talk about on their way home, what the newspaper should write about us, what kind of photos we want to see, and so on. We play with the ideas in different creative ways. Sometimes we construct a desired front page of the newspaper or play a TV interview where different voices tell what a big success we have been. It is a big challenge for organizations to change their traditional understanding and logic into a totally new philosophical mindset. We could easily have given up. But we did not, and the results have been inspiring for all of us. The vision is: We learn together every day in a secure, strengthbased and humor-filled environment, enabling all the young people to find their way in the education system, so everyone can have a job, an income and a good life.

Students as Collaborators I want to emphasize especially the importance of collaborating with our students.

Through appreciative inquiry we discovered how important it is to involve our young learning colleagues and their voices in the developmental work and in other important tasks. They brought enthusiasm and creativity into the development work, and our dreams became more innovative. As an example, we decided to use AI to create a plan for ICT and invited the young ones to a hotel-conference to learn from best examples using digital equipment and social media. The young people had knowledge we didn’t have as well as generative ideas. The next day I had a meeting with a professor of ICT, and we realized that these are not pupils; they are our young learning colleagues. As one of the young people put it: ‘it is not about you and us, it is us together’. As students take more initiative and responsibility, the results are amazing. Their insights were the starting point for projects like our Learning Festivals and YoungInvest on tour. They have also inspired us to start a project where parents are involved in developing strength-based tools for families. Our young learning colleagues also tell us that the experiences make it easier for them to believe in their own dreams. When they discover how important their competence and knowledge are for us and the society, they start to believe more in themselves, feel more valuable (Mæland, 2016). They tell us that ‘all schools should be like this,’ and want all young people to experience the same joy of learning and sense of mastering.

APPRECIATIVE PRACTICES: MOVING TOGETHER In order to create a school in which all learning colleagues can reach their potential, it has been important for us to learn how to create inviting and generative conversations, and to develop tools that are engaging, uplifting, and useful for all learning colleagues alike. Three of these tools have

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been especially successful in our work: appreciative dialogues; the tree method; and road maps.

Appreciative Dialogues As we have learned from our appreciative inquiry work, the phrasing of a question has important consequences for what happens next. Depending on how a question is asked, the conversation can create friendships, feel energized, and generate new ideas – or not. In all our practices we try to be conscious of the way we inquire with each other, trying as best we can to use questions or comments that invite joy instead of heaviness. In one recent case, for example, a teacher phoned a girl one morning when she didn’t come to school and said: ‘Where are you? I miss you; I think, you have to come to us. We need you here and your beautiful warm smile.’ Half an hour later, the girl turned up and said: ‘Here I am with my beautiful warm smile for you.’ As the young people have taught us, if we ask them about the reasons they don’t come, they start to produce thousands of negative causes for not coming and they develop negative feelings. If students seem to be unmotivated, we might ask them to tell about a time when they had a good day at school, what they liked about it, and how we could create this kind of situation more often. When we ask such questions, and they really feel wanted, they start to think of positive instances, to feel more optimistic, and have a greater sense of motivation. If we want to use an AI-process in school or in class, we often use questions like this: How can we create a learning environment together, where everybody is looking forward to coming to school every day, to experience mastering different skills and the joy of learning, having fun and teaching skills for work and life?

We use the phrase, create this together because it emphasizes the collaborative way of working that is central to our program.

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In a future-forming vein, we also emphasize values and direction. This particular example illustrates the shift from discussing the ‘problems with dropouts’ to an uplifting learning challenge. With similar goals in mind, we also create discussions that focus on what brings success in learning, and how to use these success factors in creating desired futures. Here we employ generative question guides. We invite participants to conduct interviews in pairs. After the pairs have completed the appreciative interviews, we create groups with four, six or eight participants to share their stories and success factors. Based on the success factors, participants sometimes invent a metaphor to remind them of the success factors they find most important to give life to their desired future. Then they start to visualize the future and report on what they can see and feel and what they hope will happen. Influenced by Gergen’s (2010, 2015) idea of generative theory, we also like to ask ourselves questions like: ‘What kind of things do we take for granted?’, ‘Can we think differently?’ and ‘Are there some other ways to understand and give us better ideas to bring our desired futures into reality?’ When we have dialogues like this with our students, we often use the tree method.

Conversations for Confidence Building: The Tree Method The tree exercise is a form of conversation that draws from the AI model (Cooperrider and Srivastva, 1987) of organizational development. That model is built around five stages: Definition, Discover, Dream, Design and Destination. In our tree method we use the first three of these phases. To illustrate, if a youth is struggling with a problem, he or she may be invited into a conversation with a teacher. The teacher will take an appreciative orientation, thus trying often to turn the problem talk into talk about a desired future. For example, the teacher may help to shift ‘I haven’t been at school …’ to ‘How can we

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create a way, so you come to school every day and …?’ The desired future must be the young person’s wish, not ours, but here it serves as the definition. The teacher then draws a tree with roots, trunk, and crown. The desired future is written into the trunk. This should be worded in a short, concise manner. In the second phase, the young person would be asked to tell a story about his or her best experiences in school. We then ask questions to help them discover possible reasons for the success in the story. We ask such questions as: What was it that led to …? Can you tell a little more about that? At this stage it is important that the teacher doesn’t contribute with his or her own understanding or insights or try to moralize. It is essential to be patient in waiting for answers. The success factors are filled in at the roots of the tree, with positive experiences thus becoming roots. Multiple examples from the students furnish a range of energy-giving factors; these often build on each other. This accumulated impact can increase by continually asking: What do you mean by? What was it that made that happen? Through this process the students can realize they have the competence and ability to achieve the goals they set for themselves. In the dream stage of the conversation we ask future-forming questions, such as: ‘What do you think can happen if these energygiving factors could be present every day?’, ‘What will it mean in a positive way for you, your parents, or others?’ The answers are written in the crown of the tree, thus enabling students to envisage how their preferred future could be. It is very important to get the students to express what they see, what they hear, feel, etc. When the roots are filled with success factors, it is easier to have generative dialogues about realizing their dreams.

Constructing Visible Futures: The Road Map One of the main goals for appreciative student talks is to help students create a plan for

realizing their future dreams and goals. When an educational program is relevant to the lives that the young people envisage for themselves, the motivation for learning increases. As Cooperrider (1990) proposes, human systems move themselves towards images of the future. Drawing from medical research as well as research in psychology, anthropology and sports psychology, Cooperrider argues that future plans strongly affect the potential for change. Similarly, McAdam and Lang (2010) suggest that, because the ideas we have of our future influence the actions we take now, we should carefully attend to the mental images we have of our future. It is in this context that we have found it especially helpful to give these images a visible dimension. This is done by using what we call a road map. We begin with a discussion of the student’s dream for the future, and a blank sheet of ordinary paper approximately 1.5 meters long. The student’s dream is written at the top. It is important to take their dream very seriously. To give the student a reality check by saying ‘maybe that’s not really right for you’ quickly kills any initiative. Many students can tell us a lot about how they want things to be in 3, 5 or 10-years’ time. It is important to write this down exactly the way the student tells it looking into what they mean with the words they use, to get the clearest possible picture of what they want. During such dialogues the dream image often becomes very clear. Sometimes it takes several talks before the student manages to clarify his or her future dream and relate it to career and work. The dream should function as a compass that gives life direction, and the road map as an active vivid tool aimed to help young people visualize their future dreams. Based on these images, the young person can better see what steps they need to be take in order to realize a promising future. Concrete actions that students can take, and supportive measures from the teacher, parents and others involved, are also noted down in the plan. The visual road map makes it easier

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to hold continuity and direct attention to the goals, and the way dreams are transformed into concrete actions. Many students want to write themselves, but when the teacher does the writing, it can also be effective in showing that the teacher has been listening. We place the date of the conversation at the bottom of the paper and draw a timeline all the way up the paper. During periods when a student is lacking motivation, a ‘dream visit’ can help to refocus. Yet, there are also times when these young people wish to change their future dreams. This is an opportunity to create a new road map. We trust that the process itself, with student talks and career planning over time will help the young person understand and adjust their plan. This requires however that instructors are available the whole time, listening and asking guiding questions which encourage the student’s reflection. Close follow-ups and continuous contact with parents/ guardians and support agencies are included as an important part of using these tools. We try to ensure that everybody collaborates to support the students in achieving their goals. The road map can also be used in different situations, for example, to clarify career pathways, school subjects or situations in life the young person wishes to develop. For example, the road map can achieve good effects in areas such as reading skills, and indeed, in any subject or life area where students wish to improve themselves. In addition, the road map can be used in the workplace to promote organizational development and conversation among co-workers. We have successful experiences of carrying out road-map conversations with groups and even in an entire class where students inspire each other.

OUTCOMES AND PROMISING FUTURES Social constructionist and relational understandings have transformed the way we work

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in YouthInvest. The success of this orientation to education has attracted national and international attention. Yearly follow-up surveys show that within a year after participating in the program, between 75% and 85% of the young participants are in upper-secondary education or employed. More than 90% are involved in some form of positive activity. A socioeconomic analysis conducted by the international certification and classification body DNV GL in the period 2013–2017, found that for each Norwegian kroner that goes into YouthInvest, society receives the equivalent of four kroner in terms of what it would cost to support the school dropout. The analysis also showed a significant development in social and psychological capital among the young people who have participated in YouthInvest. This means that the young people are building significant resources for confronting future life challenges (DNV GL, 2014, 2017). These positive outcomes have also yielded additional support. The national Department of Education supported YouthInvest during 2010–2012 in an initiative to spread the strength-based way of thinking and working to other Norwegian schools. YouthInvest was also chosen as one of four (among 100 projects) to cooperate with the Norwegian Crown Prince Couple Foundation and has continued with this cooperation since 2011. Together with full support from the county’s politicians, YouthInvest has been able to increase its developmental work, and share the ways in which we work in a project named YouthInvest on tour. In this case, young learning colleagues have been qualified to lead Appreciative Inquiry processes and to share strength-based tools and theory in other schools, and in conferences in Norway and abroad. Our practices have indeed traveled, as many study groups visit YouthInvest every year. During the last three years, we have met about 5000 participants in different conferences or study groups, with highly satisfying results (Ness and Lorås, 2019). In 2017 Ashoka (a worldwide network) chose

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YouthInvest as a Change Maker school. In many ways this image says something about both our past and future. We do feel proud in what we have accomplished together, but we also feel it is important to continue our sharing. YouthInvest programs have now been established in six other counties in Norway. We have suggested to the government support for a national pilot. Our hope is ultimately to increase the interest in relational and social constructionist understandings and practices in all public schools. But we also know that we shall continue to learn through this process.

REFERENCES Argyris, C. & Schön, D. (1978). Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspective. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Baklien, B., Bratt, C. & Gotaas, N. (2004). Satsing mot frafall i videregående opplæring: en evaluering [Efforts to prevent dropouts from upper secondary school: and evaluation] (NIBR-rapport). Oslo: NIBR Biswas-Diener, R. (2010). En invitiation til positiv psykologi [An invitation to positive psychology]. København: Mindspace Forlag. Bushe, G. R. (2010a). Clear Leadership. Boston: Nicholas Brealey Publishing Bushe, G. R. (2010b). A Comparative Case Study of Appreciative Inquiry in Organizations: Implication for Practice. Revista de Cercetare si Interventie Sociala 29(1),7–24. Cooperrider, D. (1990). Positive imagine, positive action: The affirmative basis of organizing. In S. Srivastva & D. Cooperrider (Eds.), Appreciative Management and Leadership (pp. 91–125). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Cooperrider, D. & Srivastva, S. (1987). Appreciative Inquiry in Organizational Life: Research in Organizational Change and Development. Research in Organizational Change and Development (1), 129–169. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper, Perennial.

Emmertsen Lund, G. (2014). Relationsutvikling i skolen [Relational developments in Schools]. København: Dansk Psykologisk forlag. Emmertsen Lund, G. (2015). Sosialkonstruksjonisme i organisasjoner [Social constructionism in organizations]. København: Dansk Psykologisk forlag. Emmertsen Lund, G. (2017). Making Exclusionary Processes in Schools Visible: PhD Thesis, University of Twente, the Netherlands. Fredericson, B. (2011). Positivity. Groundbreaking Research to Release Your Inner Optimist and Thrive. Oxford: Oneworld Publication. Fuglestad, O. L. (2006). Leiing som kulturutvikling [Leading as cultural development]. In O. L. Fuglestad & J. Møller, Ledelse i anerkjente skoler (pp. 179–198) [Leadership in acknowledged Schools]. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Gergen, K. (2009). En invitation til social konstruktion [An Invitation to Social Construction], 2nd edition. København: Mindspace Forlag. Gergen, K. (2010). Relasjonell tilblivelse [Relational Being]. København: Dansk psykolo-gisk forlag. Gergen, K. J. (2015). An Invitation to Social Construction, 3rd edition. London: Sage. Hargreaves, A. (2000). Lærerarbeid og skolekultur [Teacher work and school culture]. Gjøvik: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag. Hargreaves, A. & Fullan, M. (2014). Arbeidskultur for bedre læring i alle skoler [Working cultures for bettering learning in all schools]. Oslo: Kommuneforlaget. Hauger, B., Højland T. G. & Kongsbakk, H. (2008). Organisasjoner som begeistrer [Organizations that inspire]. Oslo: Kommuneforlaget AS. Hersted, L. & Gergen, K. J. (2013). Relational Leading. Ohio: Taos Institute. Mæland, I. (2016). Å bli den man gjerne vil være, men ikke turte håpe på [Becoming who one wants to be, but didn’t dare hope for]. Masters thesis, Høgskolen i Sørøst-Norge. Mæland, I. & Hauger, B. (2008). Anerkjennende elevsamtaler [Appreciative conversations with pupils]. Tønsberg: Sareptas Forlag. Markussen, E. (2010). Frafall i videregående opplæring i Norge: Forskning, omfang. Hva kan gjøres og hva virker? [Dropout from

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upper secondary schools in Norway: Research, prevalence. What can be done and what works?]. København: Nordisk ministerråd. Markussen, E., Frøseth, M. W. & Sandberg, N. (2011). Reaching for the Unreachable: Identifying Factors Predicting Early School Leaving and Noncompletion in Norwegian Upper Secondary Education. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 55(3), 225–253. McAdam, E. & Lang, P. (2010). Anerkjennede arbejde i skoler [Appreciative work in schools]. København: Mindspace Forlag. Ness, O. & Lorås, L. (2019). UngInvest AIB on tour 2017–2018. En forskningsbasert evaluering [YoingInvest on Tour 2017–2018: a research report]. Trondheim: NTNU. Reegård, K. & Rogstad, J. (2016). De frafalne. Om frafall i videregående Opplæring

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[Dropouts: on dropouts from upper secondary school]. Oslo: Gyldendal Norsk forlag. Samfunnsøkonomisk analyse av prosjektene i Kronprinsparets Fond DNVGL [social economical analysis of the projects supported by the Crown Prince Couple Foundation in Norway]. Rapportnr.: 2014-0552. Schein, E. (1998). Organisasjonskultur og ledelse. Er kulturendring mulig? [Organisational culture and leadership: Is cultural change possible?]. Oslo: Libro Forlag A.S. Seligman, M. (2011). At lykkes. En perspektivrig positiv psykologi om lykke og trivsel [Succeeding: On positive psychology on happiness and well-being]. København: Mindspace Forlag. Senge, P. (2000). Schools that Learn. London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing.

34 Collaborative, Appreciative, and Experiential Pedagogy in Educational Settings Dawn Dole

If the structure does not permit dialogue, the structure must be changed. (Paulo Freire, 1996, p. 126)

Relationships matter! The relational process that we live with every day, in all parts of our lives, is what creates the world in which we live and provides meaning and purpose. In education and learning environments, it is the relational process full of dialogue, conversation, understanding, and meaning-making that is at the center of all that is happening which brings success to learners, students, teachers, and all participants in the educational setting. In this chapter we explore the collaborative, appreciative, and experiential learning pedagogies in education, all of which have at their core the relational process. It is important to clarify that we look at these pedagogies through the lens of social construction, which is a way of understanding and approaching the world. Social construction (Gergen and Gergen, 2004), that is, the creation of meaning, understanding,

actions and knowledge is generated and coconstructed through our collaborative and relational dialogues. When we explore and view the world through the lens of social construction, we understand that everything we know to be true and real has been constructed and agreed upon through dialogue, debate, co-research, inquiry, and other forms of cocreating knowledge and understanding. I will provide a simple overview and then share examples and draw upon these experiences to help you imagine your own educational systems where children, teachers, and educational communities operate best when all voices are participating, where collaboration is an everyday way of operating, and where appreciation and experiential learning are the primary modes of learning and teaching. These stories show new innovations and examples of education where the learners and teachers work in tandem to build an environment of mutual respect, trust, and exploration from which learning takes place as they work

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to tackle the complexities and challenges of our times.

COLLABORATIVE PEDAGOGY Collaborative pedagogy is a practice in education based on the theory of social construction where we work, explore, inquire, dialogue, and create together. It is a practice that promotes living in a world where all voices matter; where listening, sharing, and creating together are highly valued. Collaborative pedagogy involves groups of people working peer-to-peer and inter-generationally to solve a problem, complete a task, support each other in learning something new, develop future plans, or create a product. Educational researchers have found that through peer instruction, students teach each other by addressing questions, information and skills needs, misunderstandings and clarifying misconceptions. According to Gerlach (1994), collaborative learning is when participants talk among themselves and through the conversation learning happens. Learning as a social process is a naturally occurring social act. Smith and MacGregor (1992) explain that in the collaborative classroom, the lecturing/listening/note-taking process does not disappear completely, but it lives alongside relational processes that are based in dialogue with students discussing and actively working with each other to explore the course material. The goal for engaging in collaborative learning processes is to shift learning from a teacher-centered activity to one where students lead and engage with each other in learning and co-creating. The teacher introduces the circumstances needed and merely facilitates the experience. The students make the learning come alive and co-create meaningful knowledge by working together. In doing this, both the teacher and student become the learners through their reflection on the experience and sharing those reflections. They will take with them a

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plethora of ideas for continued collaboration in the future. Virginia Woodward (1985) describes her experience as a researcher working with a second grade teacher to explore students’ writing practices. The school year, for them, became a laboratory where together they studied the practices of student writing. However, the major learning took place in their collaborative dialogue and reflection. Neither one acted as the teacher or the researcher; together they were both the teacher and the researcher, and thus, both were ‘learners’. Learning flourishes in a social environment where conversation between learners takes place. In the collaborative learning environment, the learners are challenged both socially and emotionally as they listen to different perspectives, and are required to articulate, explain and defend their ideas. In so doing, the learners begin to create their own unique conceptual frameworks and not rely solely on an expert’s or a text’s framework. Thus, in a collaborative learning setting, learners have the opportunity to converse with peers, present and defend ideas, exchange diverse beliefs, question other conceptual frameworks, and be actively engaged. When this active engagement is infused with appreciation, a focus on strengths, an emphasis on creating together, and the valuing of the person and process, students are able to thrive.

APPRECIATIVE PEDAGOGY AND APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is a practice and framework, first created by David Cooperrider and colleagues from Case Western Reserve University, originally based in organization development (Cooperrider and Whitney, 2007). AI now extends into all aspects of society. AI is a process that begins with discovering, exploring and inquiring into the very best or most positive experiences of a person,

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classroom, school, organization, situation, project or meeting. The discovering, or the inquiry process, invites the group to reflect, analyze, and learn from these experiences. Stories of exceptional moments are shared. This leads to co-creating a vision or image of what is possible, based on the strengths and values found in the stories from the past. By the very nature of inquiring and then co-creating a vision together, a collaborative system begins to move in the direction of their most vivid imaginations. A participant of an AI process in a school in Australia said: The simplicity of the AI process surprised me, and the fact that I walked away feeling closer to all those people that participated in the session. When we build relationships, we are able to speak honestly with our peers without hesitation because of the mutual trust/care factor, it makes it easier to discuss work practices that require improvement in a non-threatening manner. (Williams, 2011, p. 11)

The Appreciative Pedagogy is a major shift as we strive to move from the traditional problem-solving way of working to one where strengths, appreciations, values, and positive questions lead the way. It is a practice of designing the teaching and learning process to focus on the learning strategies that bring out a person’s strengths, the strongest examples of when things are thriving and growing, and when learning is happening at its best. Whether it is a student learning something new, a group taking on a new project, a school beginning a new school year, or a school system that needs to find new space for a growing student body, starting with discovering the best of the past and exploring the strengths of a system, a relationship, a classroom, a school, or a person, can create the biggest, brightest, strongest future together. To appreciate is to increase in value. When we take time to notice and inquire into the best of a situation, person, activity, or experience, it helps us increase in value, grow and thrive as individuals, and, more importantly, as a collective group or community. We can

choose to create classrooms and schools where the hallways are buzzing with positive conversations. Imaginations can take off and people work together on exciting projects. A love of learning and working together makes the school and the classroom and everyone in it work towards being the best they can be. Yballe and O’Connor (2000) have written about this in their work in management education. In their article, they talk about how they have utilized Appreciative Inquiry and applied it in their management classrooms by focusing on student success, building or creating a positive vision for learning and experiencing management principles, then using that vision to create positive action, focusing on the social inquiry or collaborative inquiry process. They share how this has improved student learning and success in their management education programs. Using an Appreciative Pedagogy they conduct an Appreciative Inquiry into the typical topics covered in a management classroom. For example, in exploring teaming and teamwork as a management concept, they asked the students to inquire into their own very best team experiences and what made those experiences successful. They looked at practices of groups and teams that brought about success, happiness, pride and accomplishment as they explored real-life peak experiences. By sharing and reflecting on these real-life examples of highly effective teams, they were then able to dream about and then design additional ways of bringing about and creating highly effective and successful teams. Another example in the management classroom was when they invited the students to explore ‘the excellent organization’. When conducting an Appreciative Inquiry into exceptional organizations, students were asked to share their own examples of being part of an exceptional organization. They explored the characteristics of that organization, looking at relational patterns, language and conversation, behaviors and practices, policies and competencies, probing deeper

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for more details about each one and analyzing how these characteristics led to excellence. From this discovery, the students could then build an even more vibrant vision of the exceptional organization and design that organization. Yballe and O’Connor (2000) have summarized, from their experience, what they believe are the benefits of using Appreciative Pedagogy in the classroom: 1 There is more energy, positive attitude, and sustained interactions in the classroom. 2 Students feel a sense of safety and ease in classroom dialogues and conversations. 3 Having a positive focus in the classroom awakens the desire and nurtures curiosity to discover new things and possibilities. 4 There is a fuller more hope-filled view of the future. 5 Concepts and insights learned or explored have personal meaning and relevance. 6 There is a greater trust in the self, and one’s experiences as a learner are enhanced. 7 Skills and confidence are gained in using AI to analyze and solve problems or rather create possibilities. 8 It is easier to guide students to develop their competencies because of the close connection with personal experience. 9 A positive attitude is developed towards other students as knowledgeable, trustworthy, and capable. 10 A positive rapport and regard for the teacher is built, along with review and educational processes.

Michelle Obama, in her book Becoming (2018), shared a story about girls from a disadvantaged school and how, when they were given praise like ‘You matter’ and ‘You belong!’ and ‘You are amazing!’ their overall test scores and achievement significantly increased. There is power in affirming young people and learners. When we focus on strengths, praise, admiration, encouragement, and when we are excited about the inquiry, when we are alive with possibility, that is when we are best aligned to co-create the future together. So with Appreciative

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Pedagogy, focusing on strengths, exceptional moments, valuing skills, lifting up the person, group or school, we create the best possible learning environments for everyone. Appreciating and lifting up the students, teachers and everyone in the learning process provides an opening to create learning environments full of hands-on experiences. When we create opportunities for real-life experiences in learning settings this accelerates the learning, builds strong relationships and enhances collaborative capacity.

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING PEDAGOGY Paulo Freire, in Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968), discusses the ‘banking education’ concept, where teachers fill students with information, which then teaches students to be passive observers of reality. In contrast, project-focused learning or experiential learning pedagogy is where learners are fully engaged in creating their learning plan through real-life projects and situations. Freire expresses this dichotomy as follows: Banking education inhibits creativity and domesticates (although it cannot completely destroy) the intentionality of consciousness by isolating consciousness from the world, thereby denying people their ontological and historical vocation of becoming more human. Problem-posing education bases itself on creativity and stimulates true reflection and action upon reality; thereby responding to the vocation of persons as beings who are authentic only when engaged in inquiry and creative transformation. (1968, p. 65)

Project-based education, according to Freire, moves us in the direction of becoming fully human. Being fully human, we remember that it is the relational process that is at the center of all we do. When we talk about ‘reality’ in this instance, it is the reality of the experience in which the learners are living. In social construction, there are multiple realities – every one may see the experience, the situation, or the project from a different

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perspective. Giving time and space to explore and share these multiple perspectives is part of the experiential learning process. Experiential learning pedagogy is where knowledge and understanding are created through hands-on learning, action and practical applications, and participation in study that leads to real-life projects. It is a practice where students develop knowledge, skills, and values from direct experiences both inside and outside the traditional academic setting. Experiential learning includes activities such as hands-on learning, projects, internships, service learning, study trips, community work, and research into real-life problems or situations. The students create a well-planned experiential learning program that is done in collaboration with teachers, community members, other students, faculty and experts. Experiential learning creates opportunities for academic inquiry by promoting interdisciplinary learning, civic engagement, career development, cultural awareness, leadership, analysis, and intellectual skills. Students learn the skills of planning, reflection, critical analysis and synthesis through opportunities where they take initiative, make decisions, and are accountable for the results. Through this process students are engaged intellectually, physically, creatively, socially and emotionally. They are responsible for creating the learning, learning from mistakes and successes, and connecting the experience to the curriculum. In regards to student evaluation, instead of a grade or final evaluation by an outside source, the student develops a reflection process to add meaning and purpose to the experience. David Kolb (1984) designed the experiential learning cycle. The experiential learning cycle gives learners a framework to follow that begins with a concrete experience, moves them through making time to reflect, think about and analyze that experience, and then guides them to take what they learned into the next experience. Through dialogue, students and teachers learn to critically and appreciatively engage and reflect together,

and through this, become fully immersed in the learning process. When this is done in a collaborative and appreciative way in groups, learning becomes relevant, active and meaningful. This leads to a greater understanding of self, others and the world. Learning is inherently social in nature. The nature of the interactions among learners, the tools they use within these interactions, the activity itself, and the social context in which the activity takes place, shape learning. (Hansman, 2001, p. 45)

Let us look at this experiential learning cycle along with collaborative and appreciative pedagogies as they relate to schools and educational settings. Literally for any experience, be it a one-time conversation, a school project, a writing assignment, studying for a test, a study trip, a planning process, or a curriculum development process, this learning cycle can be applied and become an extremely helpful dialogic process. The basic premise here is that it starts with a concrete experience and moves into dialogues that explore strengths, what worked well, high points and peak moments, and then moves into analyzing together what worked well and why, what components of the experience led to success, and further moves the conversation to explore what was learned, what strengths to take forward, what should happen next, and how can the experience add to our future opportunities and inquiries. John Dewey (1944, p. 275) understood the benefits of eliminating the passive learning style, ‘There is no such thing as genuine knowledge and fruitful understanding except as the offspring of doing’. It is through the doing and experiencing that we learn. Since learning is a social process, we learn best in collaboration and in relation with others. As stated earlier in this paper, we live in a complex world that calls for us to work together, not individually. The major issues of our times will not be solved by an individual act or individual solution. They will be solved by major collaborations and a co-created vision of what is possible.

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FIVE STORIES THAT EXEMPLIFY COLLABORATIVE, APPRECIATIVE AND EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING PEDAGOGIES What follows are five stories that exemplify collaborative, appreciative and experiential learning practices. As you read them, begin to imagine your own educational settings and how you might bring collaboration, appreciation and experiential learning into your daily practice. The three pedagogies are intertwined in such a way that it is hard to imagine one without the other.

Story 1 – Collaborative and Appreciative Pedagogy in Teacher Education Paul Leslie works with teachers in training and uses a social constructionist theory which underlies the collaborative, appreciative and experiential pedagogies. Paul shared about the peer coaching and partnering program. In pairs, the teachers in training work together to develop a plan and set goals for themselves related to their teaching practices and methods in the classroom. They explore the various domains of teaching from preparation, to in-classroom teaching, to evaluation, and they focus on how the teaching and learning is happening. They set goals for working and supporting each other throughout the semester. The teachers observe each other in the classroom, watch what transpires and spend time giving each other feedback and support. They discuss how they are reaching their goals, how they are teaching and how learning is happening. Using the continuous learning cycle helps them think and explore more deeply and frames their conversations about the various aspects of their learning and teaching goals. Creating an experience, observing, reflecting, analyzing, and continued planning, all done together with their partner over and over throughout the year, builds collaboration and

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appreciation with a purpose. They look at the conditions they are creating in the classroom which foster student learning when it is at its best. They look at how, through the use of strengths and appreciation, student learning expands. They work from a belief that both teachers and students want to be better at whatever interests them, so creating a community of positive and active learning, where student-led learning often becomes the focus.

Story 2 – Collaborative and Appreciative Pedagogy in a School System and Community The Peace River school district in British Columbia, Canada, is a public school system serving kindergarten through grade twelve. In the early 2000s, this region of British Columbia saw rapid development and job growth. Because of this, the school district grew beyond its building capacity. Lesley Lahaye, the Assistant Superintendent and Larry Espe, the Superintendent at the time, worked together with the community to address this challenge (see Dole et al., 2014). They decided to use Appreciative Inquiry to engage with the people in the community as it was clearly aligned with their desire to honor the experiences and strengths of the community, teachers, and school administrators. They used AI over a two-year period to engage the entire community and all stakeholders in an action research and inquiry process focused on developing a plan for the future of the school district. The process included all stakeholder groups: students, parents, community members, support staff, teachers, administrators and business leaders. Through the AI process, they discovered ‘root causes of success’ in teaching and learning and took these powerful lessons and stories of exceptional learning into the planning process to address the overcrowded schools and increasing enrollment. They looked at

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what it meant to have strong student/teacher relationships, what hands-on practical learning looked like, what real-life applications of learning were all about, and how flexible and creative learning opportunities met student interests and needs. These stories and examples were collected from over 250 people. Using these stories of successful learning/teaching, the planning teams began to envision what the future of learning/teaching in the Peace River school district might look like. The two-year process included many opportunities to share, to build trust, and to create the future together as a community. The following attributes contributed to the successful revisioning of this school system: • Building relationships with a high degree of trust; • Focusing on the strengths of the system and everyone in it; • Discovering the best learning and teaching examples; • Making time for the inquiry and the plan to develop; • Appreciating differences and culture; • Involving all stakeholders in the conversations throughout the process; • Having a purpose and focus for the inquiry and the plan for the future; • Listening to all voices equally; • Being patient and open to new ideas as they emerge; • Trusting the process; • Living appreciatively, and being appreciative throughout the process; • Reflecting and building in opportunities to be in conversation using the continuous learning cycle.

Story 3 – Education as Life Itself: Project-Based Learning Sara Stocco Segar was a science teacher for nine years at the Jennings Community School, a low-income, inner city school in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Sara’s role was to work directly with the students. She was the lead teacher helping the students to develop their own projects and facilitated their learning process.

Students come to Jennings for an alternative to teacher-centered pedagogy. The school is required to fulfill the state standards and does this through student-directed, experiential learning. The school’s motto is ‘The World is Our Classroom’. Students experience learning by creating real-life opportunities for learning and growth, including traveling and study trips, building and using critical thinking skills in the way described by James William Norman (1922, p. 140), there has for years been a strong and growing tendency in the United States under the leadership of Dewey, and more recently of Kilpatrick, to find an educational method correlative of democracy in society with the belief that education is life itself rather than a mere preparation for life. At Jennings, the focus is on studentdirected project-based learning (PBL) which is a dynamic classroom approach where students actively explore complex questions of interest to them. They work with community experts, create an innovative final product, and share the outcome with an authentic audience. Through the experience of engaging and working with each other on real-world challenges, issues and meaningful projects, students build a creative and enthusiastic community of learners. An example showcasing this pedagogy is when they would travel to a specific location in order to experience science in real life. These travel trips have included studying the manatees and other wildlife in Florida, working on an organic farm in Colorado, and exploring volcanic activity and wildlife in Hawaii. An exciting part of these trips is that they are student-led, researched, planned, funded (through fundraising efforts), and documented. Another example concerns a student who was interested in skateboarding. For his project, he wanted to do a poster on Tony Hawk (a famous skateboarder). Copying and pasting facts to a board does not include the elements of PBL. After discussions with his teacher and the completion of a project plan, the project turned into creating his own skateboard brand. He collaborated with experts in

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the community and other students as he wrote a business plan and a grant proposal. He was awarded funding to build a screen printing shop to print his own t-shirts and skateboards. He worked with other students and experts to set up a website and host a launch party. He developed a large portfolio of skills and learning from this one project. He and the other students developed skills of creativity, ingenuity, leadership, management, marketing, fundraising, selling, collaborating, communicating, writing, accounting, economics, career readiness, planning, geometry, design, and electronics. Rubrics are an effective evaluation tool in PBL. With the student-directed philosophy of the school, students often created their own assessments that reflected their unique strengths, qualities and goals. Spending time reflecting on the work, the process, the experience and being in conversation with others about what is most important led to their evaluation process. From a strengths-based and appreciative perspective, this reflective practice and self-evaluation process includes questions like: 1 How were you able to meet your goals for this project? What strengths and skills did you draw upon to do this? 2 What were some challenges and how were you able to overcome them? What strengths did you possess to help you with this? 3 Of what were you most proud?

Project-based and experiential learning works well in every learning environment, including those that are subject-specific. Students can design projects around a topic chosen by the teacher. They can then design their projects around that topic using the components of PBL. The teacher becomes a facilitator, coach and mentor. Jennings teaches students to become problem-solvers, possibility seekers, and explorers. Learning through experience and project work, and engaging in collaborative reflection, builds community, relational capacity and a life-long love of learning.

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Story 4 – A School of Life: A Collaborative, Appreciative Learning Space Tamara Richter and Sylvia London collaborated in the design, development and implementation of an alternative high school in Mexico City. They shared their story of this school for students who have left the traditional educational systems. The school’s purpose is to give students another opportunity in life. Their motto is ‘Be who you are’. Sylvia and Tamara described how appreciation, respect, relationships, support, listening, collaboration, dialogue, responding, flexibility, strengths, reflecting, creativity, and experiential learning are the actions that permeate this school. The students work towards receiving their high school diploma by taking traditional courses through an online platform while at the same time working together with the teachers to develop Chai Life Classes, which are additional learning opportunities in music, psychology, yoga, finance, creative writing and art. Together the teachers and students discover, through dialogue and planning, how best to meet the needs and interests of all the students. They know that having everyone involved, in full collaboration, by creating a sense that ‘we are all creating this together’ and that ‘we make decisions together’ is key to their success. Their collaborative environment is based on conversation, listening and responding, honoring the learning space and creating experiences which allow them to appreciate and co-create whatever comes from those dialogues. The students and faculty strive to build meaningful relationships in order to create a culture where everyone is free to ask questions and respond. The teachers and students are equal members of the community. They are open, they are vulnerable, they are human, and they are willing to help each other. In this environment, students and teachers want to work collaboratively to support the learning process.

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The teachers are given training at the beginning of the year on positive psychology, positive education, collaborative practice and relational theory. They often start by using the VIA character strengths survey, developed by the VIA Institute (2019) to identify their strengths and explore how their own strengths enable them to support the students. Teachers engage in reflection with each other and explore ways to create a positive, appreciative school environment for everyone. They understand that students function well when they feel appreciated and have a sense of belonging. A new student, Anna, came to the school with many emotional challenges. She had school phobia and had not attended school for the past six months. On her first day at the school she did not even want to get out of the car. She was an amazing artist and for the first three months at this school she only wanted to participate in the painting classes. She would come three times a week and do nothing but paint and talk with the school principal. After three months, Anna, the teachers and administrators decided to create an exhibition of her artwork. They hung her paintings on the walls of the school for all to see, comment on, and share their appreciation for her art. Then, one day, after three months of coming to school just to paint, she said, ‘I’d like to try the online platform now.’ She became one of the most engaged students at the school. Giving her time to be herself, to be accepted and appreciated, gave her the chance to join in fully at the school.

Story 5 – Collaborative Leadership: A Relational Exploration into the Power of Conversation Ilana Reisz teaches a Collaborative Leadership course at Xavier Educational Academy in Houston, Texas. The school’s foundational philosophy draws upon post-modern, constructionist theory

in collaborative, relational, and dialogic practices. To create the path for the course, Ilana is guided by a combination of written and online works. Among them are Harlene Anderson’s ‘Tips for Putting Collaborative Leadership into Action’ (2011), Lone Hersted’s and Ken Gergen’s ideas on collaborative and relational leading from the books Relational Leading (Hersted and Gergen, 2013), and Relational Being (Gergen, 2009), as well as ideas about hosting effective dialogues from the various training programs. In this leadership course, Ilana and the students explore the collaborative and relational aspects of the conversations in which they are engaged. Class sessions typically begin with a question that is an invitation to open the dialogue. An example might be: What is a challenge that you successfully overcame? How did you overcome it, who was involved, what made it successful? Reflecting on questions and the dialogue that ensues helps the students recognize strengths they have and can utilize in the future. Through the course students gradually become aware of their role in hosting effective conversations. They explore how their posture of being open, respectful and curious influences their willingness to welcome diverse viewpoints and value others. Each semester the students participate in planning and facilitating a larger conversation. One semester the students co-facilitated a whole-school World Cafe (Brown and Isaacs, 2006) project. Questions guiding the World Cafe conversation revolved around the school’s strengths and what changes would make the school community even better. Data harvested in these World Cafe conversations was analyzed by students in the next semester, and then used to guide an Open Space (Owen, 2008) conversation, facilitated by the students, at the end of the next semester. The larger Open Space conversations involving students and teachers led to further ideas for resolving some concerns. The following semester, students planned and facilitated an activity that involved the middle school. They

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invited the younger students to participate in telling and sharing their story of Xavier. Using a set of symbols and images, students were invited to draw, and then write about, their experience at the school. The collaborative leadership students collected the stories to create ‘books’ which were distributed to the middle school participants, along with a reflective conversation about the entire experience. The fourth semester the leadership class project was a ‘conversation in the center of the room’. The project represented the culmination of conversations and reflections throughout the semester. Two students and two teachers held the conversation exploring the teachers’ Xavier story. Other students and teachers from the school were invited to observe and reflect on the conversations. The students led the conversation with curiosity, respectful inquiry, and deep listening. More than an interview, students also shared their own experiences. All participants reflected on moments in their shared times that were deeply meaningful to them. Those observing the conversations were asked to be attentive to specific aspects that may appear in the conversation such as the influence of personal history, the point of decision making, and how emotions may have played a role in decisions. At the end of the conversation, the observers were invited to discuss their reflection in small groups, and then share their observations. In the projects from all four semesters, the students were living experiences of inquiry, dialogue, analysis, relationship building, and engagement all related to collaborative leading.

CONCLUSION Collaborative, Appreciative and Experiential Learning pedagogies, as explored in this chapter and exemplified through the stories, show the power of focusing on the relationship through dialogue, co-creating, respect, appreciating, valuing, planning, and building

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together the schools and educational environments that foster practices where everyone is an equal participant in the learning process. People of all ages want to be seen, heard, participate and relate well with each other. It is part of being human. In every aspect of education we have the opportunity to create cultures, and provide experiences for all learners, teachers, community members, administrators, and parents that emphasize how together we co-create and socially construct knowledge and practices. This exemplifies the importance of valuing each other and keeping in the forefront how important it is that we live, work, learn and educate in community. Whether it is in teacher training or building school culture, in creating classroom methods and designing modes of evaluation and academic reviews, by working collaboratively, appreciating strengths, working towards increasing in value, and providing opportunities for experiential learning with reflection, we build our commitment to meet the needs of our youth and their futures.

REFERENCES Anderson, H. (2011). Tips for putting collaborative leadership into action. Houston Business Journal. https://www.bizjournals.com/ houston/ Brown, J., & Isaacs, D. (2006). The world cafe: Shaping our futures through conversations that matter. San Francisco, CA: BerrettKoehler Publishers. Cooperrider, D., & Whitney, D. (2007). Appreciative inquiry: A positive revolution in change. In P. Holman, T. Devane, & S. Cady (Eds.), The change handbook (pp. 73–88). Dewey, J. 1944 [1916] Democracy and Education. New York: Free Press. Dole, D., Godwin, L., & Moehle, M. (2014). Exceeding expectations: An anthology of appreciative inquiry stories in education from around the world. Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute Publications, Vol. 59, pp. 5–14. Experiential Learning Depot Blog. (2019). https://www.experientiallearningdepot.com/

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Freire, P. (1968). Pedagogy of the oppressed (trans. Myra Bergman Ramos) (20th Anniversary Edition). New York: Continuum. Freire, P. (1996). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Harmondsworth, London: Penguin. Gergen, K. J. (2009). Relational being: Beyond self and community. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Gergen, K., & Gergen, M. (2004). Social construction: Entering the dialogue. Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute Publications. Gerlach, J. M. (1994). Is this collaboration? In K. Bosworth & S. J. Hamilton (Eds.), Collaborative learning: Underlying processes and effective techniques, new directions for teaching and learning, Vol. 59, pp. 5–14. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Hansman, C. A. (2001). Context-based adult learning. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, (89), 43–52. Hersted, L., & Gergen, K. J. (2013). Relational leading: Practices for dialogically based collaboration. Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute Publications. Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development (Vol. 1). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Leslie, P. & Camargo-Borges, C. Narratives of Learning: The Personal Portfolio in the Portfolio Approach to Teaching and Learning. International Review of Research in Open and

Distributed Learning V. 18, N. 6., p.200-212. Athabasca University, USA. ISSN: 1492–3831. Norman, J. W. A Comparison of Tendencies in Secondary Education in England and the United States (New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1922), p. 140. Obama, M. (2018). Becoming. Danvers, MA: Crown Publishing Group. Owen, H. (2008). Open space technology: A user’s guide, 3rd edition. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Smith, B. L., & MacGregor, J. T. (1992). ‘What is collaborative learning?’ In A. S. Goodsell, M. R. Maher, & V. Tinto (Eds.), Collaborative learning: A sourcebook for higher education. National Center on Postsecondary Teaching, Learning, & Assessment, University Park, PA. VIA strengths finder (2019). https://www. viacharacter.org/character-strengths Williams, P. (2011). Pathways to positive education at Geelong Grammar School: Integrating positive psychology and appreciative inquiry. The AI Practitioner, 13(2), 8–13. Woodward, V. (1985). Collaborative pedagogy: Researcher and teacher learning together. Language Arts, 62(7), 770–776. Yballe, L., & O’Connor, D. (2000). Appreciative pedagogy: Constructing positive models for learning. Journal of Management Education, 24(4), 474–483.

35 School Counseling Michael Williams and John Winslade

We will articulate a vision of how counselors in schools might start from the assumption that students in schools are caught up in stories not always of their own making. It is a vision of how students might be recognized and come to recognize themselves, not so much in terms of deficits, or problems, but in terms of possibilities for becoming. To this end, it is necessary to understand what students say as actions upon the world, rather than as neutral representations of it. In accord with these actions, students always harbor intentions about exercising agency. To show how this works, we shall tell a story about bullying in a school using the undercover anti-bullying team approach that encourages students who have been doing the bullying to forsake bullying in favor of a much kinder set of responses. A counter-story to the one that leads to a bullying relation will be shown to arise. This is an actual story of practice. This story will illustrate how a school counselor can conduct his or her role in a way that is relevant to school discipline and to learning

but does not require counselors to give up on their facilitative role in schools. School counselors have usually shied away from disciplinary issues, arguing they should not be involved in applying sanctions to those who break the rules, because doing so would put them in a conflict of interest with getting alongside students in order to help them. We do not dispute this logic but we believe it is more useful to approach disciplinary issues in a way that uses counseling skills than to ignore such issues altogether and leave them entirely to others. The credibility of counselors in the eyes of other teachers often rests upon taking up opportunities to contribute usefully to the issues of most concern in the school. As Michel Foucault (2000) suggested, ‘the most intense point of a life, the point where its energy is concentrated, is where it comes against power, struggles with it, attempts to use its forces, and to evade its traps’ (p. 162). If school counselors engage with students in these points of intensity their

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relevance to the students and staff of a school will be seen and appreciated by all. One such issue is bullying. It is a key place where students come up against power and struggle with it. How can school counselors effectively tackle bullying in a way that does not conflict with their core roles? That question is what we will address in this chapter by outlining an approach to bullying that makes use of an undercover anti-bullying team. We shall illustrate it with a story drawn from the practice of the first author. The undercover anti-bullying team (UABT) is a no-blame approach to bullying that is more concerned with the pragmatic issue of interrupting the bullying interactions than with identifying someone to punish. It is not the only approach to bullying, not even the only social constructionist approach. A more common approach is to seek out the person who has done the bullying and punish that person. That is how it is done under zero tolerance, which is common in schooling. The logic behind this approach is that shipping out those who are the worst offenders will improve the overall climate in a school. The problem, according to an APA taskforce is that it does not work when it comes to reducing violence in a school (APA Zero Tolerance Task Force, 2008). Even the term ‘bullying’ itself is a construction loaded with meanings. This is the basis of an approach to bullying that carries a social constructionist label. The UABT approach resists attributing categories of personhood to participants in the storyline traditionally referred to as ‘bullies’, ‘bystanders’ and ‘victims’. Where this happens it is done only temporarily. This amounts to a recognition that bullying is a relational problem that happens between students, rather than the result of having a few bad eggs within a school that need to be rooted out. Treating the problem as a relational matter occurring between people in a story, enables the participants to step beyond any ascribed reputations or identity positions and address the aggression associated with bullying.

The punishment orientation, especially under the influence of zero tolerance (Winslade and Williams, 2012) is much more common and is about the automatic prescription of set punishments for particular behaviors without regard for contextual factors. As far as bullying is concerned, the usual logic is that those who practice bullying are assumed to be suffering under the weight of a deficit condition (Gergen, 1994) that drives them to do it. Commonly assumed culprits are compensation for a lack of self-esteem or insufficient empathy. As Michel Foucault (1999) claims, in this logic, ‘The individual already resembles his crime before he has committed it’ (p. 19). An alternative explanation, offered by Bronwyn Davies and her colleagues (Bansel et al., 2009; Davies, 2011; Ellwood and Davies, 2010) is that bullying amounts to the policing of dominant discourse (such as racism) and the punishment of those who do not conform to ‘category maintenance’ (Ellwood and Davies, 2010, p. 90) by being different in some way. Difference means that they do not conform to type. On this account bullying is not done by those who are compensating for a deficit condition but by those who are capable of policing a social norm by making sure that people stay in line with type. Robert Thornberg (2011) reviewed a series of qualitative articles on bullying and found that they consistently mentioned some form of difference as typical of those selected to become targets of bullying, but the review stopped short of recommending an approach to reducing or resolving bullying. Such a recommendation was offered in a Curriculum Review article (2014) in which the No One Eats Alone program was described as a bullying prevention program aimed at students who were likely to remain isolated and excluded with an emphasis on kindness and inclusion. This is a generalized prevention program rather than a specifically targeted one, however, and its results may or may not address actual bullying.

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The undercover anti-bullying process by contrast is specifically targeted and usually begins with a conversation between the school counselor and a student who has been bullied. Other promising approaches to bullying in schools are reviewed by Kousholt and Basse Fisker (2015). They distinguish between first-order approaches which concentrate on ‘bullying as part of individuals’ dysfunction’ (p. 593) and second-order approaches which concentrate on the ‘historically constructed structures of inequality’ (p. 594) which produce both victims and perpetrators of bullying, sometimes from among the same people. They are careful not to designate approaches to bullying as thoroughgoing examples of first-order or second-order thinking, preferring to reserve these labels for more partial elements. In their terms the undercover anti-bullying approach is focused at first on individuals but a deficit discourse is sidestepped by a concentration on changing relational aspects of bullying. These are understood as constructed by the social processes that produce the bullying but they are not assumed to be definitive or fixed. On the occasion featured here, two girls appeared at the counselor’s door, and one was sobbing. As they sat down, the counselor noticed that the girl who was crying had a large scar on her face and it looked like she had had some surgery on her top lip. The counselor gently asked them both their names. Rangi, who was still crying, explained through her tears how a boy in her class had been making fun of her face and teasing her about her family. The counselor asked if she would like to hear about an idea that might just stop the bullying. He explained how he had been using an undercover anti-bullying team and it had been successful in 100% of the occasions when it had been used. He explained that a team of students committed to supporting her could make the changes in relationships in the class. Cautiously, she agreed to try this approach, so he asked Rangi to tell him the story of the bullying.

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‘It was in mathematics’, she began. ‘We were all sitting down doing our work and he came up to me and started getting in my face. I told him to “piss off” and the group of boys at the back of the class kept pushing their nose down and their top lip up … throughout the rest of the period. The same boys kept on making faces.’

The counselor asked her whether these events had made her feel different. As an aside we think it is part of the counselor’s job to create an environment in which differences are accepted in the school. ‘It makes me feel different because of my facial features. I can’t help how I look. I was born this way,’ Rangi said. ‘What effects does this incident have on you?’ the counselor asked. ‘I was angry that I couldn’t do anything back. I felt the energy draining out of my body. I doubted that this school is safe for me, because this happened also at my last school.’ ‘How has all this affected your school work, Rangi?’ In asking this question, the counselor was interested in the construction of schoolwork in Rangi as a result of the bullying. ‘It makes me want to quit doing schoolwork. Especially maths.’

The counselor inquired further into how Rangi was responding to the bullying. ‘I want to give them a hiding. Last year, I did have a big fight and was charged with assault and decided I wasn’t going to fight anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not scared of nobody. Bullying is not a nice thing, because some people lose their lives over it.’

The counselor then asked her if she would mind telling him how she would like things to be. This presented an opportunity to open a different story of school. Rangi said, ‘I just want everybody to get along and laugh with each other, instead of teasing and mocking people. I want people to be kind to me and to others. I want the kids who bully me to see that what they do is wrong and they shouldn’t do it. I think the kids who witness the bullying should do something about it too.’

Let us pause to notice what has happened so far. The counselor’s first task has been to

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listen to the story of the bullying. He also introduces the idea of the undercover antibullying team and secures her agreement to proceed with setting it up. Next he asks about the effects of the bullying on Rangi. He is careful to write down in her own words what she says, so he can quote her exactly later to the undercover team. Then he asks Rangi what she would like to happen ideally. Again, he carefully writes down what she says, and avoids paraphrasing it into professional or adult speech. The counselor is careful to speak about the bullying as the problem and refrains from referring to the bullies as problematic people. This is the narrative practice of externalizing at work (White, 1989). It is captured in Michael White’s aphorism, ‘The person is not the problem; the problem is the problem!’ (White, 1989, p. 6). In this case, it translates as, ‘Neither the person on the receiving end, nor the person doing the bullying is the problem, the bullying is the problem!’ The aim of this practice is gradually to introduce a separation of the bullying from the identities of those who have done it. A consistent linguistic separation gradually leads to a conceptual one. It helps to avoid using a deficit discourse (Gergen, 1994) to describe either the victim or the perpetrator of the bullying. The first step in selecting the six members of Rangi’s class who will make up the undercover anti-bullying team is to seek Rangi’s input. Together, Rangi and the counselor selected six students in her class whom she felt would have sufficient status to change the relationships in the class. The aim of the team would be to stop the bullying and to change its effects on her. The counselor told her that this group needed to include the two students who were most active in bullying and the rest were to be students who had power and status in her class. Several things were important here. One was the surprising inclusion of the worst perpetrators of the bullying in the team. This is critical if the team is to do the job of changing relationships. Those who have been doing the

bullying can be just as influential in making someone’s life better as they can in making that person’s life unbearable. The shift from one to the other is a shift in social construction but is surprisingly not difficult for young people to make. Another important principle is that those who have been doing the bullying are outnumbered. Peer pressure is thus given a chance to have a positive influence, rather than a negative one. Finally, a teacher of the class would be asked to confirm each student in the team. As soon as possible, the counselor called the six students together. He assured them they were not in trouble and explained that there was bullying in their class and they had been selected for a special mission to eliminate it. They asked why they had been selected and he explained that the person who had told him the story had selected them as having insider knowledge of bullying and, therefore, would be well placed to stop it. However, he still did not immediately let them know the name of the person who was the center of the bullying. The counselor explained that, should they choose to accept their mission, they would be working undercover to seek out the bullying and do something about it. The undercover aspect appeals to many students, who take it quite seriously. It serves the purpose of getting the team members to think about what they are doing and not make it too obvious to others. The counselor also told them that they might come across other examples of bullying in the class and that they might use their powers to stop that as well. The counselor asked how they might keep their operations ‘undercover’ and together they explored those. It was not until all the team members had agreed to be part of the team that the counselor read out the story and revealed Rangi’s name to them. As he was reading it, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that students were looking at each other as if they knew all about this story. The perpetrators of the bullying are in a real bind here. The counselor

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does not name them and yet, if they refuse to take part in the work of the undercover team, they will out themselves. Some do so and some openly admit that they have been doing the bullying. Most however, sit awkwardly and without great enthusiasm agree to go along with the plan. If anyone starts to blame someone or to blame themselves the counselor quickly says, ‘We’re not here to blame anyone, just to make Rangi feel better.’ There was stunned silence when the counselor finished the story. The counselor next asked them to think of five things that would make Rangi feel better. Together they developed the plan that would form the foundation of their counter-bullying actions. They suggested the following: • • • • •

Treat her normal. Joke with her but not in a mean way. Give lots of compliments if she does things. Say hi to her and ask her how she is doing. Stand up for her.

When all these suggestions were written down the counselor asked which members of the team would take responsibility for each item on the plan. Then the counselor explained that, in recognition of their efforts, when the bullying was completely eliminated, they would each receive a certificate from the Principal and a food voucher from the canteen. The students who have been doing the bullying thus learn that the teachers and even the Principal are taking an interest in the work of the undercover anti-bullying team. It is only vaguely communicated but is usually enough for most to set aside the fun at one person’s expense and to concentrate on making this same person happier. And there is the added incentive of free food to tip the balance in this direction. The team members left the counselor’s office with excitement and determination to begin the plan immediately. They had a plan expressed in simple direct language as used by young people. It was also not an example

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of overreach. Could it make enough of a difference? That was the as yet unanswered question. The counselor spoke with Rangi two days later and asked her how she was doing. Her face lit up and the counselor noticed she was not holding her hand over her scar. ‘No one’s been teasing me. They’re all way nicer. They say hi to me now. It’s been weird’, she continued, ‘especially from what happened. I wasn’t expecting it. It’s happened real fast. I feel good about myself, because of hearing positive things, instead of negative things. Now the boys are doing it as well. They’re saying hi to me, as if they accept me.’

Nevertheless it was clear that the construction of Rangi’s identity in her classmates’ eyes and the positions from which she could relate to others had shifted. It was typical of what happens when undercover anti-bullying teams are used. It is not uncommon for the identity changes to start happening very quickly. However, the differences are not established enough to form a habit. Two things are important. The person who has been bullied is not required to confront the persons who have been doing the bullying face-to-face. So there is no need to learn karate or do weight training before the social construction of bully and victim starts to change. Second, the person who has been bullied is given the power to say when the undercover team has done its job and can be disbanded and given their rewards. The decision-making power rests with the student who has hitherto been in the most powerless position. In this way the analysis of the power to legitimate constructions is made significant. Rangi and her counselor decided that it was too soon to say that the bullying had stopped altogether. With the support of the counselor she decided she would wait a little longer. The counselor said that he would meet again with the team and hear their thoughts. The counselor asked the team the same question about how things had been going.

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Members of the team were keen to share their observations (in other words, their constructions of events). ‘She was hesitant about going to maths, but she’s fine now.’ ‘She’s more confident, she’s more talkative in class.’ ‘At first she thought the team would make things worse, but she told me that she feels more comfortable in class.’

Meanwhile, teachers reported noticing real changes in the class relationships and that Rangi seemed much happier and contributed to class discussions. Overall, there was a much better ‘atmosphere’ in the class. After a few more days, the counselor called Rangi up again. She was very positive about the difference the undercover anti-bullying team was making in her life. ‘They are all including me now. I don’t feel like a freak of nature. Even the boys ask me if I’m alright. I feel that it’s all over. It will probably not come back if we all get along.’

About the undercover anti-bullying team, she had this to say. ‘This is the only thing that has helped me out of all my experiences at being bullied. The only solution that’s worked. Everything else I’ve tried has only made things worse. You can tell them that I feel safer now.’

The third meeting of the counselor with the undercover anti-bullying team was the final meeting of the team before the award ceremony. It provided some insights about how the team had accomplished their mission and the counselor took care to record their remarks. The team had been doing their best to carry out their mission. From these and from Rangi’s comments the counselor judged that the team had done its job. It is typical of students to appreciate being asked to do something for someone else. They commented frequently in Winslade et  al.’s (2015) research that they are seldom asked to do this. Children respond to the stories of anguish and despair with a near-universal

desire to help. The undercover anti-bullying team provides a structure for them to act and a support team within which to do it. Very quickly previous relational positions of either aggression or passive inaction are put aside in favor of a relation of care and compassion. It is remarkable that children repeatedly report a sense of relief at being invited to participate in a different game, one in which they set the parameters of anti-bullying action and are responsible for the outcomes. Those who are otherwise positioned as bystanders, for whom there often seems little they can do, appreciate the legitimation of the opportunity to do something different. What they achieve is often more than what adults might, because adults are not members of the peer group. ‘It’s hard to talk to her, because we don’t have topics to talk about,’ the boys indicated. ‘They judge people about the way they look, how they dress. We’ve got to know her a bit more and she’s a good student.’ ‘It’s all based on if you care or if you don’t care. You have to treat others the right way.’

These were the kinds of constructions they were now making of relationships in their class.

THE DEFINITIONAL CEREMONY The concept of a definitional ceremony is owed to Barbara Myerhoff (1978). It was picked up for its therapeutic value by Michael White (2007). It is about the development of a ritual to strengthen the construction of an identity and make it definitional. The counselor organized the certificates and canteen vouchers and Rangi came to the ceremony to say thanks to the team for their work. She did not have to do so, however, and many in her position do not. During this ceremony, everyone was moved by the comments about how much they had all learned. They shared some biscuits the counselor had bought for the occasion and Rangi shook each person’s hand and presented them with their canteen

School Counseling

voucher and Principal’s certificate. It was very moving and tears were shed. We believe that this story illustrates how a counselor in a school can work indirectly with the construction of a student’s identity. To do so he has worked with, rather than against, lines of force (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987) found in the peer group. The undercover anti-bullying team format has given him the opportunity to arrange these lines of force in line with the relational outcome that he was seeking. In this way he is working to socially construct identities and relationships in a class community. As one article claims (Winslade et  al., 2015), undercover antibullying teams assume that bullying is a relational phenomenon (McNamee and Gergen, 1998) and they set about changing the relationship, rather than isolating and punishing the bully. The approach does not assume that the bully and the victim are any particular ‘types’ of person. It therefore does not construct the bully as defined by lack (Deleuze and Guattari, 1977). By resisting the temptation to pathologize students as bullies ‘by nature’, the counselor leads the team in uncovering a counter-story of support and care. The bullying relation is understood as a power relation instead of a failure to empathize, or lack of social perception. Michel Foucault (2000) famously defined power as ‘actions upon the actions of others’ (p. 390). It is a form of relation that individuals can step out of as well as step into. Undercover antibullying teams construct a scenario in which they are given a chance to step out. Members of the team may still exercise ‘actions on the actions of others’ but can do so in a way that is less damaging for the victim. The intention of doing the right thing is opposed to sitting back and watching one of their peers being tormented by others. Interest has come from many corners of the world since we first wrote about it (Williams and Winslade, 2007). Since then both authors have presented this work in many countries and it has been used successfully in Japan, Australia, Canada, Scandinavia, the United

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States and throughout New Zealand and elsewhere. In other contexts, counselors have been able to adapt the process to suit local understandings of relationships and have found that students always respond to what Jenkins (1990) has called ‘an invitation to responsibility’.

RESEARCH RESULTS In Winslade et al.’s (2015) article team members completed a brief survey at the end of the process and victims were asked parallel questions: • What do you remember most about being on the team? • How successful do you think the team was at the time in getting rid of the bullying? Please circle the number that best fits your answer [on a Likert scale of 1–5]. • How long do you think the effects of the team’s work will last? Please circle the number that best fits your answer [on a Likert scale of 1–5].

Table 35.1 presents the results of this brief survey. These data attest to the effectiveness of the undercover anti-bullying team approach. It is but one approach to one type of problem. It nevertheless shows a school counselor grappling with a problem to which discipline (usually punishment) is normally applied. Here, the school counselor is able to make a helpful contribution without compromising other relationships with students or finding himself in a role conflict. He uses the facilitative skills he has been trained in to have a transformative effect on student relationships. The bullying stops and is replaced with a different kind of relationship but no one is punished. The undercover anti-bullying team takes other approaches such as ‘the shared concern approach’ (Pikas, 2002), the ‘no-blame approach’ (Maines and Robinson, 1991) and approaches based on restorative practices to a new level of care where responsibility for positive relationships rests entirely in the

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Table 35.1  Success rate and expected longevity of outcomes as assessed by victims and team members Victims Mean rating on 5-point Likert scale How successful was the undercover team? How long-lasting do you expect its effects to be?

Team members

% rating success as ‘successful’ or ‘very’ successful

Mean rating on 5-point Likert scale

% rating success as ‘successful’ or ‘very’ successful

4.44

89.7%

4.74

90.6%

4.23

74.1%

4.53

76.0%

Victims (n = 27); Team members (includes bullies) (n = 138); All (N = 165).

hands of the team members. Apologies are not sought or required, but the authors have found that the team members often act out the logic of an apology, making it more meaningful and longer-lasting. The members are involved in acts of redemption and an opportunity to live with grace. The new story lives beyond the original event of the bullying and during the final definitional ceremony where new directions are brought forth, where attempts to change are acknowledged, and where credit is given for acts of kindness that continue a trajectory of kindness for all.

REFERENCES American Psychological Association Zero Tolerance Task Force. (2008). Are zero tolerance policies effective in the schools? An evidentiary review and recommendations. American Psychologist, 63(9), 852–862. Bansel, P., Davies, B., Laws, C., & Linnell, S. (2009). Bullies, bullying and power in the contexts of schooling. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 30(1), 59–69. doi:10.1080/01425690802514391 Curriculum Review. (2014). Partnerships for a safer, sounder school. Curriculum Review, 54(4), 10–11. Davies, B. (2011). Bullies as guardians of the moral order or an ethic of truths? Children & Society, 25, 278–286. doi:10.1111/j.10990860.2011.00380.x Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (1977). Anti-­Oedipus: Capitalism and schizophrenia (R. Hurley,

M. Seem, & H. R. Lane Trans.). New York, NY: Penguin. Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia (B. Massumi Trans.). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Ellwood, C. & Davies, B. (2010). Violence and the moral order in contemporary schooling: A discursive analysis. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 7, 85–98. doi:10.1080/ 14780880802477598 Foucault, M. (1999). Abnormal: Lectures at the Collège de France 1974–1975 (V. Marchetti & A. Salomoni Eds.; G. Burchell Trans.). New York, NY: Picador. Foucault, M. (2000). Power: Essential works of Foucault 1954–84: Volume 3 (J. D. Faubion Ed.). New York, NY: The New Press. Gergen, K. (1994). Realities and relationships: Soundings in social construction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Jenkins, A. (1990). Invitations to responsibility: The therapeutic engagement of men who are violent and abusive. Adelaide, AU: Dulwich Centre Publications. Kousholt, K. & Basse Fisker, T. (2015). Approaches to reduce bullying in schools – a critical analysis from the viewpoint of firstand second-order perspectives on bullying. Children and Society, 29, 593–603. doi: 10.1111/chso.12094 McNamee, S. & Gergen, K. (1998). Relational responsibility. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Maines, B. & Robinson, G. (1991). Stamp out bullying. Portishead, UK: Lame Duck Publishing. Myerhoff, B. (1978). Number our days. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

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Pikas, A. (2002). New developments of the shared concern method. School Psychology International, 23, 307–336. Thornberg, R. (2011). ‘She’s weird!’ The social construction of bullying in school: A review of qualitative research. Children & Society, 25, 258– 267. doi:10.1111/j.1099-0860.2011.00374.x White, M. (1989). The externalising of the problem and the re-authoring of lives and relationships. Dulwich Centre Newsletter, Summer (pp. 3–21). Adelaide, AU: Dulwich Centre Publications. White, M. (2007). Maps of narrative practice. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.

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Williams, M. J. & Winslade, J. M. (2007). Using undercover teams to restory bullying relationships. Journal of Systemic Therapies, 27(2), 1–16. Winslade, J. & Williams, M. (2012). Safe and peaceful schools: Resolving conflict and eliminating violence. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Winslade, J., Williams, M., Barba, F., Knox, E., Uppal, H., Williams, J., & Hedtke, L. (2015). The effectiveness of ‘undercover antibullying teams’ as reported by participants. Interpersona, 9(1), 1–99, doi:10.5964/ ijpr.v9i1.181

36 The Relief of Critical Educational Psychology and the Nomadism of Critical Disability Studies: Social Constructionism in Practice To m B i l l i n g t o n a n d D a n G o o d l e y

INTRODUCTION Social constructionism has been a valuable resource in our search for anti-oppressive forms of research and practice when challenging ableist and deficit models of the person, Dan in his work with disability researchers and activists and Tom in his work with young people, families and schools. Critical approaches have been crucial in exposing the damaging ways in which essentialist understandings of persons can be deployed in certain forms of psychological research and practice. These dangers are often recognized in the work of social constructionists, for example, ‘In the social domain, knowledge and power are inextricably interrelated’ (White and Epston, 1990, p. viii). The ‘relief’ in Educational Psychology practice refers to Tom’s experience on realizing that social constructionism offered a way of performing his work as a practitioner in a manner that accorded with his ideological and ethical principles.

The ‘nomadism’ in our sub-title relates to Dan’s analysis of the ways in which antioppressive research and practice with disabled people has had to rely on a variety of different theoretical and practical orientations.

CRITICAL EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY: A SENSE OF RELIEF IN RELATIONALITY Educational Psychology is conceptualized differently across the globe. In many countries (e.g. the United States, Canada) Educational Psychology is performed as an area of research focusing on aspects of learning, teaching and behavior in schools and school classrooms. In other countries, however (e.g. the UK, Australia), Educational Psychology can also denote an area of professional practice. This practice can take place in schools (for example, as in School Psychology), but in some countries practitioners can also work

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across a variety of other contexts, for example, youth justice (Corcoran, 2017), family well-being (Roffey, 2004) and with what elsewhere may be regarded as clinical issues, for example, specific psychopathologies such as autism (Billington, 2000, 2006, 2018). Tom has provided psychological assessments of young people in both care and educational settings in ways which are hopefully testament to social constructionist inclinations, and in this section takes the opportunity to reflect further on principles of application in his professional practice as an educational and child psychologist. The foundations for contemporary psychology are to be found, not in science, but in its development of technological and statistical models. In applied settings, the normal distribution curve has provided opportunities not just to assist with the segregation of young people but also to conceal individual qualities and strengths that lie beyond either the imagination or the ethical humanity of those measures: The capacity of any individual could be established in terms of their location along that curve; the intellect reduced to order … Binet transformed it from a technique for diagnosing the pathological into a device for creating a hierarchy of the normal. (Rose, 1989, pp. 138–139)

This is probably too hard on Binet for it was others who more ruthlessly utilized ‘rank’, ‘measurement’ and ‘category’ in order to fix any young persons within a hierarchical social framework (Billington and Williams, 2015). These performances are technological, however, and are weak in the contributions they make to any science of persons. Educational (child, or school) psychologists in practice have traditionally contributed to the social apparatus by performing assessment activities which, for example, might utilize measures to confirm a ‘difficulty’ or ‘disability’. This can too easily become a process in which the technician locates exactly what the test was designed to find. We maintain, in accordance with social constructionist

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principles, however, that the technician does not so much ‘discover’ an inert ‘thing-initself’ but rather performs a set of assessment procedures which contribute to the creation of the psychopathology. There is an alchemy in the manufacture of the psychopathology which is then inserted into an individual child (whether they agree or not) as an alienated object within their personhood. From this point in their lives the young person is thus under pressure to employ this more restricted vocabulary in the re-construction of what is at best a partial account of themselves in a process referred to by Ian Hacking as ‘classificatory looping’ (1995). Constructs such as ‘behavior’, ‘emotion’, ‘learning’, ‘ADHD’, ‘ASD’ and ‘Attachment Disorder’, while partial, swerve and sway, both in their denial of the person and in the restrictions they impose on any possible ‘becomings’. The science behind such categories invariably disappoints, tending first to locate and then to fix the young person within representations which are either inadequate, incomplete, or products of an impoverished science of persons (Kuhn, 1962; Feyerabend, 1975; Martin et al., 2010; Packer, 2011): I am sceptical of science’s presumption of objectivity and definitiveness. I have a difficult time seeing scientific results, especially as it concerns the mind [although this] does not imply diminished enthusiasm for the attempt to improve provisional approximations. (Damasio, 1994, p. xviii)

In its aspirations to become a natural science, psychology has frequently blustered in its arrogance, not only failing to see that its assessments produce only ‘provisional approximations’ but also failing in its performance always to establish the necessary pre-requisites for scientific inquiry and the discovery of naturally occurring phenomena. This is especially problematic when psychology seems willfully to ignore the complex conditions and variables comprising all human phenomena: the faculty [mind] does not exist absolutely, but works under conditions; and the quest of the conditions becomes the psychologist’s most interesting task. (James, 2010 [1890], vols 1 & 2)

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To illustrate, as a trainee psychologist Tom was required, as one of a group of other novices, to engage with a young person with learning ‘difficulties’/‘disabilities’. The actual procedures (based on a specific behaviorist intervention) were supposed to be simple, and the intervention was certainly crude in its conceptualization, in the manner of its intended delivery, and in its annihilation of both young person and trainee psychologist as persons. Looking back, Tom perhaps should have refused to take part but he was challenged on a number of levels that had the effect of positioning him at the time possibly as an incompetent psychologist or perhaps a social deviant. Whether as young person, trainee or supervisor we were performing a psychology which was ruthless in its erasure of all the complex variables of human functioning and relationality. The consequences for individual recipients of such practices can be hugely significant in young people’s lives; for example, ‘Gary’, was a young man who was excluded from school on account of violent behaviors. References to his ‘conduct disorder’ took no account of the violence to which he had been subjected for many years, leading to analyses which prompted inappropriate service responses. The possibility that ‘Mary’s’ learning difficulties may have been affected by the abuse she had suffered for much of her early childhood was not considered as foreground by the panel making decisions about her school placement. This panel wanted to remove her to another school, justifying their decision on the basis of arguments constructed upon a wholly inadequate conceptualization of human intelligence. Meanwhile diagnostic accounts of autism were to provide no indication as to the complexity I was to find during assessment work with ‘James’ (Billington, 2000). Indeed, the glimpses of a life he revealed to me unquestionably positioned me as learner under his tutelage in a reversal of accepted knowledge-relations.

Any discovery in the performance of psychological assessments is always subject to complex relationalities, but other concerns arose during assessment work, not least in relation to ethics, for example, in the absence of a more rigorous approach to the problematics of informed consent. The anger is still there, clearly, and it has remained impossible ever since to be insensitive to the potential of certain practices, conducted in the name of Psychology, to harm the recipients by those practices. There is a risk of harm, not only to the young person should we create accounts which erase other human potentialities (Billington, 2018), but risks too for the psychologist, for should we remain unaware of the impact of our own presence in any relational exchanges, the technologies we deploy in creating the young person (i.e. as ‘other’) might come to define the practitioner. This was not the new life envisaged when entering training, of course, so the sense of ‘relief’ came, first, in critical analyses of psychology (Parker, 1992; Burman, 2017 [1994]; Fox and Prilleltensky, 1997; Bird, 1999), and Tom was fortunate to be able to work with Erica Burman, Ian Parker and others attracted to the Discourse Unit at Manchester Metropolitan University. Taking deconstruction to Educational Psychology was challenging but the search was on for other forms of resistance (Burman et  al., 1994), which, in Tom’s case took in psychoanalysis (Bion, 1962; Mitchell, 2000 [1974]; Lacan, 1977) and ultimately social constructionism (Gergen, 1985; Shotter, 1993). Both critical psychology and social constructionism provided resources which hopefully steer the practitioner away from some of the most damaging procedures and might even facilitate a fumbling towards a more ethical practice. Working in tandem, critical psychology and social constructionism have prompted the development of approaches in which the outcomes are not pre-determined and in which the young person might become an active participant in the process.

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It has been too easy for the psychologist to position the young person only as an isolated non-learner without knowledge, and allow ourselves as adult teachers, therapists or psychologists to remain safe behind our professional barricades as a knower who has moved beyond the young person and perhaps even beyond learning. Tom has long noted in practice that diagnoses lose their precision and efficacy when targeted at an individual young person. The evidence of professional practice suggests that it has been the nature of the relationality between himself and the young person which is both a crucial variable and an ethical obligation, in the conditions under investigation (Billington, 2000, 2006, 2018). While the purely critical approach tended to fix Tom too (as rigidly oppositional and thus vulnerable and dispensable), social constructionism provided the ethical and theoretical justification for meaningful action within relational moments. In particular, social constructionist approaches to epistemology and ontology provoked Tom into proposing the following five questions as the proper unit of study (after Newman and Holzman, 1993) when conducting either practice or research with young people: How do we speak of children? How do we speak with children? How do we write of children? How do we listen to children? How do we listen to ourselves (when working with children)? (Billington, 2006, p. 8)

Speaking with, or listening to any young person in ways which genuinely allow that young person to express their own views and behaviors, itself creates a different relational space within which the psychologist and young person can operate. Of course, the destination of any exchange is uncertain, but one of the aims of the approach has been to enable the young people who are the objects of psychological practices sometimes to find their own ‘preferred narrative’ (White and Epston, 1990).

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While this approach might seem to exclude the young person referred to earlier that Tom encountered in training, who was either unable or unwilling to express himself via the spoken word, we are reminded of the possibilities within human exchanges that are articulated by the autistic writer Donna Williams, who had a clear sense of her own relational being (Gergen, 2009): My father had all the right responses, he simply sat within my presence … Bryn [friend] would simply come and exist in my company… (Williams, 1992, pp. 67 and 121)

Social constructionism combined with critical approaches can facilitate a richer, and we would claim more comprehensive evidence-based and scientific process in which the phenomena of future moments are yet to be encountered. We can work towards such practices in our assessments of young people by: • Investigating the processes and procedures which define young people only through measured lives; • Challenging deficit models of young persons; • Attending to the experiential (subjective, emotional lives of children and young people), the relational (the nature of human relations across communities, schools, families) and to matters of representation (‘discourse’, ‘narrative’, ‘voice’); • Designing curricula that are sensitive to the ways in which young persons are created through psychological practice and enable practitioners to become agents of transformation in encouraging the construction of environmental conditions that support young people’s well-being (Billington, 2019).

CRITICAL DISABILITY STUDIES AND INTENTIONAL NOMADS What has social constructionism given to the field of critical disability studies and, crucially, what can critical disability studies give back? These are questions of an intersectional manner. They also come from

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somewhere. This is a section of a chapter written from the field of critical disability studies; one that Dan has been involved with for over twenty years. Social constructionism has played a big part in the development of theory and practice in critical disability studies (Nightingale and Cromby, 1999; Goodley and Lawthom, 2006, 2007). And its sway continues to be felt; formatively, positively and productively. Social constructionism is but one theoretical persuasion that has been appropriated and applied by disabled scholars and activists to posit new ones of conceptualizing the meaning of disability. Social constructionism is, of course, not a monolithic entity. There are various formations and iterations of this perspective. These range from the critical realist to the relativist, from the empiricist to the theoretically preoccupied. Some have adopted social constructionism as a form of methodolatory (Mills, 1959). Think of those hardline discourse and conversational analysts who stick very rigidly to an excavation of the details of talk, rhetoric and argumentation (e.g. Potter and Wetherell, 1987). Others have taken to social constructionism as a useful analytical tool that they use in the service of their politics. Consider for example the ways in which third wave feminists subjected biologizing gender differences to deconstruction (Burman, 2017 [1994]). This diversity is, Dan would suggest, a strength. There is no doubt that weaving in and out of these distinct positionalities is an exercise undertaken by students and scholars alike. This journey leads some to settle; to find a strong position. One might, for example, adopt a relativist stance for the remainder of one’s days. For those of us working alongside mainstream cognitivist psychologists, our engagement with social constructionism means we exist as proverbial thorns in the sides of our colleagues who espouse biogenic and essentialist models of the person. Other adopters of various formations of social constructionism – and we

would happily place ourselves in this camp – engage in what Bill Hughes (2012) terms theoretical plunder. This is more of a nomadic journey as we travel through the social constructionist terrain in search of different locations – epistemological, ontological and methodological – that suit our needs at that time. Maybe it would be more proper to term this a kind of intentional nomadology: an ever-morphing form of theoretical travel where settling is associated with the kinds of questions we are wanting to address and the types of argument we want to have. This is, following Braidotti (2002, 2006, 2013), a nomadology that resists being forced into a fixed version of the constitution of the human. And an intentional nomad is perhaps always relativist in her/his/their leanings. In the arena of critical disability studies it is possible to identify many of these intentional nomads. They are made of activists and academics, researchers and practitioners, artists and provocateurs, all sharing the need to plot a route in terms of an engagement with disability. While all journeys are different – of course – there are some wellworn routes and maps followed. I will spend some time tracing these travels. At the heart of our travel stories is a wider intention of conceptualizing disability in ways that are enabling rather than disabling, affirmative not pathologizing. One map often followed is one that we might call a journey of deconstruction. This is a map that seeks to contest disability – or at least dominant, everyday, common-sense understandings of disability. The terrain being deconstructed is one already occupied by the figures of medicalization and psychologization. The latter complementary theory-practice epistemes powerfully govern the mundane and everyday ways in which disability tends to be understood. In this space disability is understood as a problem requiring a solution. Disability is a human failing requiring fixing. Disability is a tragedy requiring a happy ending.

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These solutions are wrapped up in the practices of rehabilitation, cure and prevention. Disability appears as an object requiring a response. And the responses of psychologization and medicalization treat disability as a medicalized artifact and psychological subject needing medical and psychological treatments. At times, of course, this space is one that disabled people readily occupy. Disabled children and their parents will, from their very early days, be called into the space of the clinic and consultancy room. Diagnoses will be given; prognoses offered. And these diagnoses and prognoses will be used by families to make sense of the present day and the future. Labels will be drawn on in order to access key services. Problems occur, however, when these diagnoses are used in essentialist ways: reducing children to mere disability categories, psychological conditions and medical objects of intervention. Our intrepid intentional nomads, armed with the philosophical offerings of social constructionism, seek to tear down these totalizing totems or, at the very least, destabilize their individualizing foundations. This is not some kind of mindless nihilism. Deconstruction involves a careful engagement with the discourses of psychologization and medicalization that tend to dominate the world of disability. This involves analyzing those institutions that are serviced by the psychologization and medicalization. Another map that we can identify in the critical disability studies literature is one associated with a journey of regeneration. This responds to the ‘what next’ after deconstruction. These nomads take seriously the practices of social constructionism and consider what alternative discourses of disability can be constituted that are of service to disabled people and social justice. They consider what might be reoccupied in the space left after deconstruction. Directions are offered from disabled people and their representative organizations, not least through the promotion of

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social and cultural models of disability. These counter-discourses to psychologization and medicalization approach the object of disability as a phenomenon constituted in social and cultural practices and disabled people as carriers of disability. Central to this work is the language of disability. Dominant cultural and discursive imaginaries tend to know disabled people in terms of dehumanizing nomenclature of lack. Impairment, handicap, and deficit occupy the cultural imaginary that is drawn upon by disabled people through which to understand themselves. As Lacan (1977) made clear: the symbolic culture in which we draw on language through which to understand who we are is always alienating. It is particularly alienating because disability is constituted as the absence of humanity, the opposite of capacity, the dependent other to the preferred independent subject. Our regenerative nomads pause for thought to ask how might we recast disability as something other than de-human? The third journey wheeled and walked by our intentional nomads is that of an affirmative path. Social constructionism is sometimes misrepresented as a deeply cynical position only interested in deconstruction, rejection, negation and opposition. Yet, social constructionism is deployed in critical disability studies to reconstitute the language, discourse and culture of disability. To propose that discourse is constructive, that language constitutes the very objects and subjects that it speaks of is to take seriously the centrality of language to the human condition. Consequently, critical disability studies has given rise to a new language of disability. One of these is associated with crip theory (McRuer, 2002, 2006), which emphasizes the disruptive, productive and affirmative qualities of disability. Hence, where we recognize that disability and dependency are often elided we want to consider the ways in which dependency might be re-appropriated as a language of possibility. When disability

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enters human relationships and the associated language emphasizes dependency, then we can consider the human imperative for relationality. An approach that emphasizes requiring one another in a moment of relational ethics is not only a practice emphasized by social constructionists (Goodley, 2020) and feminists (reference), but also a linguistic imperative emphasized by critical disability scholars (e.g. Reindal, 1999; Shakespeare, 2016; Goodley, 2014). Disability demands relational ways of being and becoming in the world. And if this sounds a little too psychological or essentialist then let us recognize that when disability enters as an object or subject of linguistic consideration then it inevitably brings with it a preoccupation with relationality. It seems particularly cruel, then, that disability has often been ignored by the social constructionist literature. One wonders if disability is an embodied and psychical phenomenon too far for some social constructionists (see Shakespeare, 2016). This not only underplays the contributions of disability – it also fails to advance their social constructionist project. Now these are two tragedies.

CONCLUSION Social constructionists and proponents of social constructionism must attend to why they engage with this perspective and the possible practical applications. Social constructionism came to us as a necessary theoretical narrative (or collection of stories) through which we were encouraged to question damaging psychological practices associated with young and disabled people. By living these theoretical stories we are empowered to contest dominant pathological discourses that constitute disabled and young people as objects of psychological intervention oftentimes rolled into idealizations of cure and rehabilitation. Social constructionism resets

the place from where to start to understand and work. There are tensions between social constructionist and critical approaches, but we find in both, not merely theoretical principles, but resources that open up opportunities to resist oppressive ways of performing personhood that can be circulated within certain forms of psychological assessment practices with young as well as disabled people. For the practitioner and the researcher, both social constructionist and critical orientations invite the formation of relational sites in which subjectivities are acknowledged and which seek to avoid imprisoning the young or disabled person as a mere object of enquiry.

REFERENCES Billington, T. (2000). Separating, losing, and excluding children: narratives of difference, London: RoutledgeFalmer. Billington, T. (2006). Working with children: assessment, representation and intervention, London: Sage. Billington, T. (2018). Psychological assessments of young people in family courts: relationality, experience, representation and the principle of ‘do no harm’. Qualitative Research in Psychology, doi: 10.1080/14780887.2018. 1456589 Billington, T. (2019). Mental health discourse in education: why practitioners need theory. 18th Biennial International Society for Theoretical Psychology, Copenhagen, 26 August. Billington, T. and Williams, T. (2015). Education and psychology: change at last? In I. A. Parker (Ed.), Handbook of critical psychology (pp. 231–239), Abingdon: Routledge. Bion, W. (1962). Learning from experience, London: Karnac Books. Bird, L. (1999). Feminist questions about children’s competence. Educational and Child Psychology, 16(2), 17–26. Braidotti, R. (2002). Metamorphoses: towards a materialist theory of becoming, Cambridge: Polity Press.

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Braidotti, R. (2006). Posthuman, all too human: towards a new process ontology. Theory Culture & Society, 23(7–8), 197–208. Braidotti, R. (2013). The posthuman, London: Polity. Burman, E. (2017 [1994]). Deconstructing developmental psychology (3rd edition), Abingdon: Routledge. Burman, E., Aitken, G., Alldred, P., Allwood, R., Billington, T., Goldberg, B., Gordo-Lopez, A., Heenan, C., Marks, D. and Warner, S. (Eds.) (1994). Psychology discourse practice: from regulation to resistance, London: Taylor and Francis. Corcoran, T. (2017). Are the kids alright? Relating to representations of youth. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 22(2), 151–164. Damasio, A. (1994). Descartes’ error: emotion, reason and the human brain, New York: Penguin Putnam. Feyerabend, P. (1975). Against method, London: Verso. Fox, D. and Prilleltensky, D. (Eds.) (1997). Critical psychology: an introduction, London: Sage. Gergen, K. J. (1985). The social constructionist movement in modern psychology. American Psychologist, 40, 266–275. Gergen, K. J. (2009). Relational being, New York: Oxford University Press. Goodley, D. (2014). Dis/ability studies, London: Routledge. Goodley, D. (2020). Disability and other human questions, London: Emerald Publishing Ltd. Goodley, D. and Lawthom, R. (Eds.) (2006). Disability and psychology: critical introductions and reflections, London: Palgrave. Goodley, D. and Lawthom, R. (2007). Disability studies and psychology: emancipatory opportunities. In S. Gabel and S. Danforth (Eds.), Disability studies in education: a reader (pp. 12–24), New York: Peter Lang. Hacking, I. (1995). The looping effect of human kinds. In D. Spencer and A. J. Premack (Eds.), Causal cognition (pp. 351–383), Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hughes, B. (2012). Concluding chapter. In D. Goodley, B. Hughes and L. Davis (Eds.),

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Disability and social theory: new developments and directions (pp. 186–198), London: Palgrave. James, W. (2010 [1890]). Principles of psychology, vols 1 & 2, Mineola, NY: Dover Press. Kuhn, T. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lacan, J. (1977). Ecrits, London: Routledge. Martin, J., Sugarman, J. and Hickinbottom, S. (2010). Understanding psychological selfhood and agency, Springer Science and Business Media: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-14419-1065-3 McRuer, R. (2002). Critical investments: AIDS, Christopher Reeve, and queer/disability studies. Journal of Medical Humanities, 23(3/4), 221–237. McRuer, R. (2006). Crip theory: Cultural signs of queerness and disability. New York: New York University Press. Mills, C. W. (1959). The sociological imagination, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mitchell, J. (2000 [1974]). Psychoanalysis and feminism: a radical reassessment of Freudian psychoanalysis, New York: Basic Books. Newman, F. and Holzman, L. (1993). Lev Vygotsky: revolutionary scientist, London: Routledge. Nightingale, D. J. and Cromby, J. (Eds.) (1999). Social constructionist psychology: a critical analysis of theory and practice, Buckingham: Open University Press. Packer, M. (2011). The science of qualitative research, Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Parker, I. (1992). Discourse dynamics: critical analysis for social and individual psychology, London: Routledge. Potter, J. and Wetherell, M. (1987). Discourse and social psychology, London: Sage. Reindal, S. M. (1999). Independence, dependence, interdependence: some reflections on the subject and personal autonomy. Disability & Society, 14(3), 353–367. Roffey, S. (2004). The home–school interface for behavior: a conceptual framework for co-constructing reality. Educational and Child Psychology, 21(4), 95–108 Rose, N. (1989). Governing the soul, London: Routledge. Shakespeare, T. (2016). Disability rights and wrongs revisited, London: Routledge.

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Shotter, J. (1993). The cultural politics of everyday life: social constructionism, rhetoric and knowing of the third kind, Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

White, M. and Epston, D. (1990). Narrative means to therapeutic ends, New York: W. W. Norton. Williams, D. (1992). Nobody nowhere, London: Doubleday.

37 Specific Learning Difficulties as a Relational Category: Reconstruction, Redistribution and Resistance in Higher Educational Practice Harriet Cameron INTRODUCTION ‘Specific Learning Difficulties’ or ‘Specific Learning Disorders’ (both shortened to SpLDs) are two terms which gather a number of conditions and disorders within their grasp. One of the most recognised of these is dyslexia, a contested condition connected to particular difficulties in literacy. Although discourse around SpLDs is laden with the deficit-heavy language of the various Diagnostic and Statistical Manuals of Disorders and Diseases (DSMs), the acronym itself is used in education in a way that cuts across DSM lines. In practice, ‘SpLDs’ is sometimes used to include dyspraxia, ADHD and autism, even though these categories are not listed under the DSM5’s ‘learning disorders’ section (APA, 2013). Well-meaning educators sometimes use the alternative wording ‘Specific Learning Differences’ rather than ‘Disorders’ or ‘Difficulties’ in order to minimise the

negative association; however, the question still remains, different from what, or from whom? Although disability rights activists achieved much in pushing institutions to recognise disability as socially and environmentally constructed (Oliver, 2013), it will be no easy job to end the reign in education of the ‘normal’, gifted to us by an emerging 20thcentury Euro-American Psychology. In this chapter, I pay particular attention to the UK higher education context, because this is where my experience lies, both in research and in practice; however, my suggestions for practice are internationally applicable. I argue here (as I have elsewhere, e.g. Cameron and Billington, 2015a, 2015b) that SpLDs are socially constructed. By saying that SpLDs are socially constructed I do not mean that they do not exist. Socially constructed existence can be every bit as real as any other kind of existence. My position does not deny the material body, neurological happenings, or human interaction with a physical

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environment. Bodies, neurons, and the ways they develop, matter; but these things alone cannot constitute a specific learning difficulty, disorder, or disability; indeed, their nature is not separable from the social. The materiality of bodies and brains is entangled with the social and the discursive, rather than being the surface upon which the latter act (Barad, 2007). I begin by considering how SpLDs can come into being, morph, or even disappear, before bringing in some examples of current practice in UK higher education. I spend the remainder of the chapter sitting with the question: what might social constructionist practice look like for students identified with SpLDs in the UK and beyond?

HOW DO (SP)LDS COME INTO BEING? In much of the scientific literature, there is a focus upon what causes dyslexia, and other developmental conditions and disorders. From a social constructionist perspective, the question of cause (and effect) is problematic from the outset. It is problematic because the question itself makes certain presumptions about the nature of the category under investigation. Whilst Psychology would acknowledge it does not yet have all the facts about dyslexia, autism, or ADHD, it generally works under the assumption that science is taking us towards an ever-greater understanding of what are fundamentally neurobiological or neuro-psychological extant categories, even if it makes errors along the way. From this perspective, autism, dyslexia, and ADHD exist in individual brains, minds and bodies, awaiting full discovery and final definition. It makes sense from this point of view to look for a (biological, genetic, neurological, psychological) cause, to seek the true boundaries of a given category, to design tools of measurement, to map and predict its effects, and to design intervention. However,

from a social constructionist perspective, categories of SpLD do not pre-exist their definitions: their existence is rooted in the social, in language, and in the active relations between people, communities, ideas, spaces, discourses, places, histories and time. As such, the facts of SpLDs do not stay still: they are murmurations on a rotating skyline. There is much excellent work tracing the ways in which learning disabilities and disorders, along with ‘the disabled’ and ‘the disordered’ come into being in the spaces and discourses of education and society more broadly. For example, Ray McDermott (1993), offers a wonderfully detailed story of how a boy called Adam is acquired by the learning disability category through classroom dynamics and relationships; Amanda Melissa Baggs shows eloquently how her communicative style and relationship to the world became evidence of disorder and inhumanity (Baggs, 2007, 2013); and Mattias Nilsson Sjöberg (2017) follows the becoming of a child-with-ADHD via discursive and material relations in school. In previous work, I have discussed how constructions of dyslexia can be mobilised by dyslexic students in higher education as a means of positioning themselves positively in an environment where their difficulties with reading, writing and performing academically are presented as a continual threat to their human value (Cameron and Billington, 2015a, 2015b). However, these positionings are insecure, particularly for students of colour (Cameron and Greenland, 2019). It is even possible for students to have their diagnosis go out-ofbeing, to find that the difficulties they experience have been socially reconstructed. This disappearance might follow new diagnostic assessment (e.g. Cameron, in preparation) or the removal of a category from the diagnostic nomenclature (e.g. with the removal of Asperger’s Syndrome from the DSM5 (APA, 2013). Social constructions of learning differences, disorders and disabilities, are necessarily

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dependent upon the social constructions of learning, and of the learned person (Cameron, 2019) and connected to constructions of race (Mendoza et al., 2016). The disorders which are closely linked to the shifting concept of ‘learning’ are likewise inconstant. In the current era, and increasingly across the globe, ideas about learning and individual (un)intelligence, are tied to ideas about individual human worth(lessness) and shame (Cameron and Billington 2015a, 2015b). Universities are structured to capture presumed learning ability via the grade; and, as such, lecturers and students are condemned to make and remake the worth and shame of themselves and others (Cameron, 2019; Cameron and Billington, 2015a, 2015b). If students find it difficult to articulate their ideas in a seminar, if they find it hard to remember knowledge for exams, if they cannot read as quickly as their peers, if they do not find it as easy as their classmates to sequence ideas in writing, if they find it hard to organise their time, to concentrate in class, to navigate learning spaces, or to take notes in lectures, if their ‘knowledge’, way of speaking, or world view is not recognised as valuable, if they do not ‘fit’ in the higher education environment; if any of these things are named, seen, noted down, assessed, or discussed, especially by those in a socially dominant position, the way is paved for the production of a disorder and a disordered human. Naming the disorder and situating it within a person is much less disruptive to the hierarchical status quo than naming and changing the oppressive constructive relations in the wider socio-environmental web.

CURRENT PRACTICE? The structures for formal recognition and support of students identified with SpLDs in higher education in the UK often help to reproduce and reinforce ideas of individual psychological or neurological deficit. This is partly because access to formal supports and

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‘reasonable adjustments’ are granted only after formal diagnosis has been evidenced (or, occasionally, when there is formal evidence that diagnosis is soon expected). Diagnostic assessment for dyslexia, dyspraxia, ADHD, autism spectrum disorders, and similar, is based upon the identification of specific deficits via psychometric tests, or medical interview, administered or led by a suitably qualified practitioner. Confirmation of formal diagnosis allows disability services to contact academic departments so that adjustments can be put in place. A positive diagnosis can also be used to support a UK-based student’s application for Disabled Students’ Allowance (DSA), a fund which will pay for a full Needs Assessment. The Needs Assessor can recommend the funded provision of, for example, non-medical helpers (mentors, specialist teachers) and assistive technology, as well as the provision of adjustments for the student. These adjustments might include additional time in exams, additional tutor time, recognition of the student’s literacy difficulties in assessment, alternative assessment, allowance for the extension of coursework deadlines and extended library loans (see Cameron et  al. (2019) for a discussion of ‘reasonable adjustments’, unseen disabilities, and the 2010 Equality Act). Without a formal diagnosis, it is very difficult for students to access these supports. The upshot here is that many students who do not fit the narrow academic mould come to submit to the neuropsychological or medical model, at least to some degree, in order to make it past the gatekeepers to access anything like an even playing field for academic participation. In many cases this submission means accepting the results of an IQ test as evidence of underlying (in)ability, and coming to terms with their ‘poor working memory’ or ‘slow speed of processing’, as if those these were observable objects in their heads. The institutional structures re-establish the deficit each time the student begins a new module or unit of assessment. Furthermore, the fact that

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adjustments and accommodations are tied so tightly to diagnoses means that a firm line is drawn between those who qualify for specialist support and those who do not qualify for any specialist support. When a student falls just short of a diagnostic threshold, or if their diagnosis changes (see Cameron, in preparation), or if they prefer not to undergo diagnostic assessment, they are vulnerable to another set of dehumanising constructions: as lazy, or stupid, or both, and thus as undeserving of additional support. Higher education practice is largely bound to a model of individual summative assessment in the form of timed examination and written coursework, and to delivery of content via large, teacher-led lectures (though this does vary according to discipline). Higher education also operates as a market and is, correspondingly, a place of more impersonal relations than it might otherwise be (Weber, 1978). If we consider that a focus upon relations between people and environments is central to purposeful social constructionist practice (Gergen, 2009), then a marketoriented higher education is a problem. It is arguable then, that the most obvious route to social constructionist practice in higher education is the collective rejection of the market in defining human learning and human value. Given that this goal is not achievable by the individual educator, in my next section I make some smaller-scale suggestions for practice: small relational acts of reconstruction and resistance which might be enacted by a module leader, specialist teacher, or disability advisor.

WHAT MIGHT SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST PRACTICE LOOK LIKE? Social constructionist practice is relational practice; and as such is not a new idea at all. If we put Eurocentric world views aside, there is a wealth of writing around relational

modes of being and learning which is socialconstructionist practice in all but name (Steinem, 2004; Deloria, 1992). We do not need to reinvent the wheel here, but it may be helpful to think about how relational and social constructionist world views might be used to shape every-day pedagogical higher education practice in specific relation to students labelled with SpLDs or otherwise constructed as neurodiverse. I would like to undertake the consideration of practice with attention to the writings of Native American or First Nations scholars including Vine Deloria; disability self-advocates, for example, Melissa Amanda Baggs; educators sharing decolonising pedagogical practice such as Chris Emdin; as well as explicitly social constructionist authors such as Mary Gergen and Sheila McNamee. Part of what the works of these authors offer is a window on to a way of coming to know the world by coming to know and understand relationships: ‘everything is connected to everything else’ (Deloria, 1992: 40). Native American authors on this topic come together in their commitment to ‘respect, relevance, reciprocity, [and] responsibility’ (Kirkness and Barnhardt, 1991) in both teaching and research. It seems to me that these qualities are equally suited to guiding social constructionist practice with students diagnosed as learning disabled, autistic or attention deficient in the UK and beyond. In the sections below I add to this collection of Rs with ‘reconstruction’, ‘redistribution’ and ‘resistance’ as helpful constructs with which to frame a discussion of practice around teaching, assessment, diagnosis and specialist support practice in higher education.

Social Constructionist Practice in Higher Education Assessment and Teaching Global norming is melting the pleasure of knowing things. (McDermott, 2015: 338)

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University courses, modules and lectures are often designed around specific, measurable learning outcomes. Learning outcomes commonly take the form of brief, bullet pointed items which an individual student hopes to tick off once the unit of study is complete. Learning outcomes, in turn, are often drawn up under the disciplinary shadow of a university’s market-friendly promise of student ‘employability’ and over-exaggerated claims to produce the ‘ideal’ graduate. Assessment outcomes are fed into the construction of standards for the sector, and into the sinister system of global education ‘norms’. Assessments normally take the form of a written essay or a timed exam (with some wonderful exceptions). Students identified with SpLDs (alongside other ‘nontraditional’ students) can have difficulty with this design for a number of reasons. Dyslexic students, for example, often find it harder than other students to write quickly and with conventional grammatical accuracy, to order their ideas, to memorise information divorced from context, and to read or process instructions quickly (Mortimore and Crozier, 2006). They can also struggle with formal academic conventions, and with linear design of modules, with some research suggesting dyslexic students may have particular strengths in global processing; or in other words, a talent for seeing the whole picture rather than the parts (von Károli et  al., 2003). Autistic students, on the other hand, may find focusing on the detail rather than the whole to be preferable, and may have a good memory for what they are taught, but may experience low academic motivation (Gurbuz et  al., 2019) and may meet more challenges in communication with peers and lecturers in class (Anderson et al., 2018). It cannot be overstated that all dyslexic or autistic students will not experience these strengths and difficulties. Social constructionist practice must recognise that students diagnosed with neurodevelopmental conditions are a very heterogeneous group. One means of teaching and assessment will not suit all.

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Below I expand upon two concrete suggestions for enabling social constructionist practice in teaching and assessment which are sufficiently malleable that they embrace heterogeneity. Resist the language of learning outcomes. Instead, use individual and collectively negotiated learning directions Sometimes learning outcomes can be useful in providing unity for a module. However, this unity need not be lost if we change course. Rather than ‘At the end of this module, the student will be able to …’, I suggest language such as ‘Over the course of this module, students will be supported in their exploration of the relationships between x theories and x practices and to share their reactions to what they learn’. This will enable student and teacher, in dialogue, to focus upon elements of learning which cannot be contained in tick boxes and bullet points. Space for negotiation of learning direction is key, and learning directions may shift along the way: ‘[h]ierarchy … is minimised, and knowledge is viewed as co-constructed … shared both ways, negotiated, and jointly developed’ (Sutherland et  al., 2013: 375). This approach means becoming critical of the assumption that fixed, pre-determined learning goals are neutral and automatically good for everyone. Instead of drawing ‘nontraditional’ students ‘away from who they are’ to turn them ‘into something [they’re] not’ (Native American student in Kirkness and Barnhardt, 1991: 4), broad, flexible and negotiable learning goals would help enable modules to embrace a student’s knowledge, learning preferences, predispositions and life experiences. It would also shift the focus away from final outcomes and towards learning processes, and it is ‘in the process: what people are doing together’, argues Sheila McNamee, that knowledge and meaning emerge (Lugo et al., 2014: 386). A dyslexic student who first nurtured their relationship

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with the ‘big picture’ of a given topic, rather than with detailed specifics might negotiate a different learning direction to an autistic student who preferred to approach learning in clearly defined stages with a focus on finer detail. And they might choose different types of assessment which allow them to share their learning in a way that best suits their ways-of-knowing (see below). Reconstruct what counts as teaching and learning in higher education by offering varied possibilities for expression and participation with respect for how individuals differently communicate with, and relate to, one another and to the world. Offer choice in assessment, focus upon qualitative mutual feedback, and provide some opportunity to resubmit assessed work, without penalty, following reflection Stories count. (Deloria, 2004: xii)

I grew up in a white village in England with two, white academic parents who were biologists. Despite sustained academic mediocrity through school, the language of the Academy was woven into my soul, spread around the dinner table, and always in physical reach (books everywhere). In other words, I consider myself ‘pre-adapted’ to Western academic habitus (Bourdieu, 1990: 54). I benefited from my mediocrity through the freedom relative lack of expectation offered me: I was not hammered into the shape of ‘a bright student’, and I spent a lot of time in the woods. Now, when I do academic writing, I feel the comfort of home. I feel validated, valuable, and I love what a carefully composed sentence can do. I am extremely privileged to be able to communicate creatively in a way that is highly respected in educational institutions in much of the world. And this privilege is not a coincidence. I worked for many years with dyslexic, dyspraxic and autistic university students, helping them to figure out what a module was asking of them, and helping them to

push themselves into moulds not designed for them. My dyslexic students often flourished when I asked them to speak stories and to play with ideas in conversation, and withered when there was no space for recognition of the personal in the marking criteria. They could often feel and articulate the textures of ideas, and the connections between things, but had few chances to share these feelings. Their language ‘errors’, ‘slow’ speed of reading, and difficulties with sequencing meant they rarely gained the highest marks without all-consuming and anxiety-driven effort. My autistic students, contrary to the science, often felt enormous empathy with their fellow students, and took joy from being able to share their particular skills with others in their class, but group work was often not set up to allow contributions according to strengths. Traditional teacher-led, and, often notionally, student-led classrooms are not usually set up with neurodiverse students in mind. The dominant expectation of academic communication tends to be for seemingly objective, impersonal, fact-heavy discourse delivered in dry, emotion-free, white-canonfilled prose. The academy is replete with tacit rules and assumptions about who can say what, and how and where they can say it. Students who are not familiar, comfortable, or accomplished in following these rules, students who receive indignant reactions when they can follow these rules (see Cameron and Greenland, 2019), and students who find the implicit difficult to spot, are at a disadvantage and are constructed as less academic, and sometimes as a little less human (Cameron, 2019). Making room for students’ stories, poems, or other creative takes on phenomena in the classroom and in assessment is one means to more socially just practice (Emdin, 2016). Instead of multiple choice exams and standard essays we might recognise that ‘artistic and poetic reactions are as legitimate as measurements’ (Gergen and Gergen, 2008: 145). My suggestion, then,

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is that students be allowed to choose how to express their changing relations to the subject of a module: to choose assessment type. Moreover, if grades must be given, we might make them negotiable, and allow coursework to be reworked and resubmitted following dialogic feedback. Through the process of dialogue, a comprehension and appreciation for different ways of knowing and seeing the world emerge. It is this process that makes differentiated assessment and renegotiated standards possible because the outcome expectations are transformed by the process of inclusion. (Carjuzza and Ruff, 2012: 74)

Social Constructionist Practice in Higher Education Diagnostic and Support Practice Below I expand upon two concrete suggestions for enabling social constructionist practice in and around diagnosis and specialist support in higher education. Resist the bureaucratic requirement for full diagnostic assessments as keys to unlock the gate to adjustments and specialist support. Instead, use listening and dialogue as the route to recommendation of specialist resources For some students, a diagnosis of dyslexia following formal diagnostic assessment is experienced as a huge relief, as a ‘good thing’; for other students, it can be an exhausting and stigmatising experience, and students may experience both of these together, or each at different times (e.g. Cameron and Billington, 2015a, 2015b). The desirability or not of a formal diagnosis for dyslexia, ADHD or autism is bound up in a complex web of relations which stretches back to historical conceptions of feeblemindedness, madness, whiteness and colonialism; and which locks tendrils with the marketisation of human kinds in a globalising world (Rose, 1999; Tomlinson, 2012). My position is that, despite the limited

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resources made available, and despite the bureaucratic mess that may ensue, the need for a formal diagnostic psychological, psychiatric or medical report should not be a requirement in order that support and adjustment be put in place for a student. Requiring such a diagnosis places students in a position where they must undergo a series of normed psychometric tests (often including IQ type tests) and/or subject themselves to invasive personal questions from someone they do not know, in order to evidence their ‘disorder’. Instead, I consider that students should have the option of one or more informal conversations with a specialist teacher, disability advisor or psychologist to talk about what they feel they need and how that need can be met. The funding which would have been put towards diagnostic and needs assessment might be used to finance this support. What this approach says, essentially, is ‘Let’s believe the student when they say they are experiencing academic difficulties beyond what might be expected, and let’s help them.’ The keeper of the gate thus becomes a porous collection of human relationships, rather than a stamped document and a white coat. As such, students do not need to expose themselves to a report about their in-the-head cognitive deficiencies. Moreover, those who miss the threshold for diagnosis, or those for whom there is greater cultural stigma attached to seeking diagnosis, are less likely to find themselves stranded without support, and at risk of becoming merely ‘stupid’ or ‘lazy’ (Cameron, in preparation). Diagnosis does something and students should have genuine choice in whether to take that route. [T]he neuropsychiatric diagnoses of our time are redefining what it means to be a human being. The psychiatrization of (partly) school-related problems leads to situational and relational aspects being transformed into permanent flaws in individual traits … (Sjöberg, 2017: 602)

I propose we (educators, practitioners, psychologists, students) resist this redefinition.

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Nurture a relational view upon what SpLDs ‘are’ [D]iversity is linked not ranked. (Steinem, 2004: xviii)

Psychology, hand-in-hand with Education, constructs sets of generalisations about groups of students which lend themselves to reproduction in everyday learning and teaching spaces: autistic students will be like this, students with ADHD will be like this … and so on. Finer grained expectation is often set for neurodiverse students through the language of ‘severity’ (e.g. ‘mild dyslexia’, ‘severe autism’). Generalisations and stereotypes can shape the ways in which teacher– student and student–student relationships develop from the outset and can eclipse a more open coming-to-know of one another. What our lives are like for each of us, as the unique individuals that we are, is reflected back to us by our scientific psychology in terms of a ‘one-sizefits-all’ set of generalities. The unforeseeable ‘more’ that we each expect of ourselves as living beings, continually facing new, and in recent times, turbulent and unstable circumstances, is left unheeded. (Shotter, 2017: 40)

Students are invited to self-define according to the reductive terminology of psychological efficiency or deficiency. Those identified as learning disabled may then play a part in their own oppression, for example, by staying quiet in a university seminar for fear of sounding ‘stupid’ (Cameron, 2016). A goal for social constructionist practice, then, is to engage students in learning and teaching processes which nurture trust, connectivity, openness, emotional expression and storytelling so that individual students’ experiences, strengths and challenges can be shared. This trust is unlikely to develop without a focus upon shared activities and collective class goals alongside redistributed responsibility for learning. Tasks or assessments which ask students to work together on a project in ways which respect the individuals’ learning strengths, cultures and language

are a useful tool here. The aim is for what bell hooks calls ‘engaged pedagogy’ (1994), and Chris Emdin, ‘Reality Pedagogy’ (2016): both of these authors argue that emotional connection and mutual respect are essential for deep learning. This is not the same as student-centred learning (Burman, 2008). The idea is not to focus on the individual student but to nurture their relations with other students, with ideas, with the teacher, and even with objects (Yergeau, 2018). The individual then becomes a shifting, relational self whose strengths and difficulties are recognised as fluid and contextual, rather than fixed through psychometric testing.

CONCLUDING REMARKS In this chapter I have made a number of small-scale suggestions for social constructionist practice with particular attention to students identified as specifically learning disabled. These are tiny loose nails in a great iron machine. This practice must be part of a larger, global movement for connectivity and kindness, mutual recognition and responsibility, and decolonisation. There will ever be resistance, because ‘[q]uestioning academic practices is tantamount to acknowledging the lack of neutrality in academic rationality …’ (Carjuzza and Ruff, 2012: 75). And because maintenance of the myths of meritocracy and democracy is essential to the maintenance of current inequalities. As educators we should take care not to hold social constructionism aloft as the one true answer (McNamee, 2015), as ‘[i]t is when people claim the truth of their foundations that others are silenced, punished or eliminated’ (Gergen and Gergen, 2008: 146). Rather than assertion of the superiority of social constructionism, what underpins the sentiment of this chapter is knowledge that formal Western educational practice inflicts ‘soul wounds’ upon certain people whilst it upholds the power and privilege of others

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(Emdin, 2016: 27). Social constructionist practice, as relational practice, may make some small contribution to the prevention and healing of these wounds.

REFERENCES Anderson, A. H., Carter, M. and Stephenson, J. (2018). Perspectives of university students with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 48(3), 651–665. doi:10.1007/s10803-017-3257-3 APA. (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM5). Washington: American Psychiatric Association (APA). Baggs, A. M. (2007). In my language. (Silentmiaow). Retrieved from https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=JnylM1hI2jc [accessed 11.6.19]. Baggs, A. M. (2013). About. (Ballastexistenz). Retrieved from https://ballastexistenz.wordpress.com/about-2/ [accessed 11.6.19]. Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway: quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1990). The logic of practice. Trans. Richard Nice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Burman, E. (2008). Deconstructing developmental psychology (2nd edition). New York and Abingdon: Routledge. Cameron, H. (2016). Beyond cognitive deficit: the everyday lived experience of dyslexic students at university. Disability & Society, 31(2), 223–239. doi:10.1080/09687599.201 6.115295z Cameron, H. (2019). Bookishness, blue skies, bright hats and brickies: discourse and positioning in academics’ conversations around ‘academic intelligence’ and the ‘good’ student. Studies in Higher Education, 44(2), 318–332. doi: 10.1080/03075079.2017. 1364718 Cameron, H. (in preparation). ‘It’s been taken away’: an experience of a disappearing dyslexia diagnosis. Cameron, H. and Billington, T. (2015a). ‘Just deal with It’: neoliberalism in dyslexic students’ talk about dyslexia and learning at

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university. Studies in Higher Education, 1358–1372. doi:10.1080/03075079.2015. 1092510 Cameron, H. and Billington, T. (2015b). The discursive construction of dyslexia by students in higher education as a moral and intellectual good. Disability & Society, 30(8), 1225–1240. Cameron, H., Coleman, B., Hervey, T. K., Rahman, S. and Rostant, P. (2019). Equality law obligations in higher education: reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010 in assessment of students with unseen disabilities. Legal Studies, 39(2), 204–229. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/lst.2018.31 Cameron, H. and Greenland, L. (2019). Black or minority ethnic (BME), female, and dyslexic in white male dominated disciplines at an elite university in the UK; an exploration of student experiences. Race Ethnicity and Education, 1–19. doi: 10.1080/13613324. 2019.1579180 Carjuzaa, J. and Ruff, W. G. (2012). When Western epistemology and an indigenous worldview meet: culturally responsive assessment in practice. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 10(1), 68–79. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/ index.php/josotl/article/view/1737 Deloria, V. (1992). Relativity, relatedness and reality. Winds of Change, 7(4), 32–40. Deloria, V. (2004). Foreword. In Mankiller, W. and Steinem, G. (Eds.), Every day is a good day: reflections by contemporary indigenous women. Colorado: Fulcrum Publishing, xi–xiv. Emdin, C. (2016). For white folks who teach in the hood … and the rest of y’all too: reality pedagogy and urban education. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Gergen, K. (2009). Relational being: beyond self and community. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Gergen, K. J. and Gergen, M. M. (2008). Why we are not social constructionists: a dialogue in honor of Michael Mahoney. Constructivism in the Human Sciences, 12(1/2), 142–146. Gurbuz, E., Henley, M. and Riby, R. M. (2019). University students with autism: the social and academic experiences of university in the UK. Journal of Autism and

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Developmental Disorders, 49(2), 617–631. doi: 10.1007/s10803-018-3741-4 hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: education as the practice of freedom. London: Routledge. Kirkness, V. J. and Barnhardt, R. (1991). First Nations and higher education: the four R’s Respect, Relevance, Reciprocity, Responsibility. Journal of American Indian Education, 30(3), 1–15. Retrieved from https://www. jstor.org/stable/24397980. Lugo, N. V., Celis, R. A. and McNamee, S. (2014). Emergence and evolution of social constructionist ideas: a conversation with Sheila McNamee. Universitas Psychologica, 13(1), 381–390. ISSN 1657-9267. McDermott, R. (1993). The acquisition of a child by a learning disability. in Chaiklin, S. and Lave, J. (Eds.), Understanding practice: Perspectives on activity and context Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 269–305. McDermott, R. (2015). Does ‘learning’ exist? WORD, 61(4), 335–349. doi:10.1080/00437 956.2015.1112956 McNamee, S. (2015). Evaluation in a relational key. In Dragonas, T., Gergen, K. J., McNamee, S. and Tseliou, E. (Eds.), Education as social construction: contributions to theory, research and practice. Ohio: Taos Institute, 336–349. Mendoza, E., Paguyo, C. H. and Gutiérrez, K. D. (2016). Understanding the intersection of race and dis/ability through common sense notions of learning and culture. In Connor, D. J., Ferri, B. A. and Annamma, S. A. (Eds.), DisCrit: disability studies and critical race theory in education. New York and London: Teachers College Press, 71–86. Mortimore, T. and Crozier, W. R. (2006). Dyslexia and difficulties with study skills in

higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 31(2), 235–251. Oliver, M. (2013). The social model of disability: thirty years on. Disability & Society, 28(7), 1024–1026. doi: 10.1080/09687599.2013. 818773 Rose, N. (1999). Governing the soul: the shaping of the private self (2nd edition). London: Free Association Books. Shotter, J. (2017). Persons as dialogical-hermeneutical-relational beings: new circumstances ‘call out’ new responses from us. New Ideas in Psychology, 44, 34–40. Sjöberg, M. N. (2017). (Un)becoming dysfunctional: ADHD and how matter comes to matter. International Journal of Inclusive Education. 21(6), 602–615. Steinem, G. (2004). Introduction. In Mankiller, W. and Steinem, G. (Eds.), Every day is a good day: reflections by contemporary indigenous women. Colorado: Fulcrum Publishing, xv–xxvi. Sutherland, O., Fine, M. and Ashbourne, L. (2013). Core competencies in social constructionist supervision? Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 39(3), 373–387. Tomlinson, S. (2012). The irresistible rise of the SEN industry. Oxford Review of Education, 38(3), 267–286. doi: 10.1080/03054985. 2012.692055 von Károli, C., Winner, E., Gray, W. and Sherman, G. F. (2003). Dyslexia linked to talent: global visual-spatial ability. Brain and Language, 85(3), 427–431. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/S0093-934X(03)00052-X Weber, M. (1978). Economy and society: an outline of the interpretative sociology, Vol. 2. Berkeley, CA: UCLA Press. Yergeau, M. (2018). Authoring autism: on rhetoric and neurological queerness. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

38 Intercultural Education: Empowering Minority Learners Thalia Dragonas

THE RISE OF INTERCULTURAL EDUCATION The transformation of the student population in the classrooms, owing to the process of decolonization, the Civil Rights Act in the United States and the extensive displacement of people driven by political, social and/or economic motives, brought to the fore concerns as to how schools deal with cultural plurality. The prevalent monocultural model was challenged for ethnic minority1 students’ underachievement and devaluation of their self-esteem. Hence in the 1960s we witnessed the rise of the reformist ideology of multicultural education, which fueled discussions on how ethnicity, race, gender and class influence educational outcomes. Multiculturalism, and intercultural education in particular, is a subject of heated controversy across national boundaries and disciplinary perspectives such as political theory, philosophy of education, education

policy, linguistics and pedagogy (Banks, 1995; Parekh, 2000). As Cummins (2004: 4) says, ‘children are caught in the crossfire’ of dueling discourses regarding diversity and its implications for education. The controversy is encapsulated in the dichotomy expressed in the debate on assimilation versus integration. In political theory terms, the controversy is reflected in the communitarian versus liberal divide, i.e. the distinction between Taylor’s political philosophy (1994) as opposed to that of Rawls (1993). In the educational sphere, the dispute, exposed succinctly by Cummins (1996), focuses on whether minority students’ cultural and linguistic diversity is a potential resource rather than a problem and whether schools endorse an exclusionary/ assimilationist or a transformative/intercultural model. As far as public discourses are concerned, greatly led by state leaders, ethnic minorities are often scapegoated and accused of presenting a threat to the public order by remaining by their own volition outside the mainstream society. These discourses,

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multiplied many times over, fail to mention the institutional and attitudinal barriers excluding minorities (Cummins, 2015). The conceptualization and implementation of intercultural education practices are greatly modeled on the basis of the above debates. In their course, they have developed a long way from the incorporation of a static notion of culture in the ‘there and then’ to a theoretically based shift to the ‘here and now’ linking minority students’ academic underachievement to societal power relations and the need for transformation of educational and societal structures. In the early days we witnessed the celebration of difference (often the exotic) by ‘add on’ activities concentrating on traditions, religious events, food and music festivals, while leaving the curriculum intact (Deshpande, 1996; Moodley, 1995). These ‘multicultural’ initiatives not only failed to address inequalities but also masked them and cemented them further (Kalantzis and Cope, 1981; Kalantzis, 1987). Throughout the 1980s educators became increasingly aware that racism, dominating the structures of education and society at large, was responsible for minority children’s school failure. This realization led to the emergence of what is known as anti-racist education – a shift from the multicultural to the intercultural. Policies and practices, such as equity pedagogy, curriculum reforms, prejudice reduction materials and awareness raising teacher training, challenging discrimination at institutional or classroom level, were introduced (Gill et al., 1992). The socially driven critique of the antiracist movement was developed further into a critical literacy approach, which departed from the notion of cultural deficit where students failed because of cultural and linguistic biases of the school. Critical pedagogy focused on voice and agency, proposing a different direction for human subject formation than the dominant one in most schools (Shor, 2012). Informed by social constructionist ideas (Gergen,

2015a), the Freirean liberation pedagogy (Freire, 1970) and Bakhtinian constructs of dialogue and heteroglossia (Bakhtin, 1984), the critical approach shares the view that students’ inequality in power, privilege and options mirrors the inequality of power within the educational structures and practices. Translating the above discourses into a framework for reversing marginalized minority students’ school failure, Cummins (1996) introduced the concepts of negotiation of identities and that of transformative/ intercultural pedagogy.

Dialogic Theory towards an Empowering Pedagogy Before delving into specific interventions and their potential in restoring equity in the educational system, I would like to briefly unpack some of the above-mentioned theoretical concepts, focusing on the relation between power and dialogue, and draw similarities in their pedagogic orientation. In his Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire (1970: 33) applies the oppressors–oppressed distinction to education, advocating that education should allow the oppressed to overcome their condition and regain their sense of humanity. This pedagogy must be forged with, not for, the oppressed, making oppression and its causes objects of reflection by the oppressed. From this reflection comes the necessary engagement in the struggle for their liberation. (1970: 33)

Freire vehemently criticizes the concept of ‘banking education’ whereby students are viewed as empty containers to be filled by the teacher. Banking education minimizes or annuls students’ creative power, serving thus the interests of the oppressors who have no desire to see the world transformed (Freire, 1970: 60). Most importantly, liberating education breaks with the vertical patterns characteristic of banking education and establishes a dialogue between teacher and

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student, with students and teachers jointly co-creating knowledge (1970: 67). Conversely, anti-dialogical action serves the oppressor’s ends for manipulation and domination. In the same vein, critical pedagogy is based on the principles of democracy, equality, ecology and peace as sine qua non conditions for teaching against unequal status. Critical dialogue is essential here, as it is in Freire’s liberation pedagogy. Dialogue fits into a sequence of teaching-learning whereby the teacher studies the students before she/he is supposed to teach them (Shor, 2012). In practicing critical pedagogy, while instructors negotiate with learners a meaningful curriculum, social relations of discourse change in the classroom making possible an alternative construction of both teacher and student identities. Meaning making plays a central role here – meaning that is always socially and culturally contextual and is negotiated in interpersonal relations (Kalantzis and Cope, 2008). Thus, teaching and learning are dialogic, relational and constructionist acts. Likewise, Gergen talks about education as a relational process (2015a: 149–151) whereby attention shifts from the mind of the individual student to the kinds of relationships out of which mutual and continuous knowing can emerge. All knowledge emerges from a relational process that is dialogical. Similarly, the entire work of the Bakhtinian Circle (Bakhtin, 1986) is a critique of monologic learning in which the ideas and voices of the powerful are omnipresent. Life is, by its nature, dialogic, and the self is never whole since it can exist only dialogically (Clark and Holquist, 1984: 65). Dialogic learning takes place through an egalitarian dialogue in which arguments get exchanged in interactions free from power claims. From this dialogic perspective, difference is basic to the human experience. Accordingly, the engagement of a teacher with a student is necessarily a dialogic activity. Bakhtin’s credo is that ‘when dialogue ends everything ends’ (Bakhtin, 1984: 252). Cummins (2004:

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236) draws on Marcia Moraes’ use of the Bakhtinian-inspired perspective of reciprocal two-way dialogue between the oppressed and the oppressor, and argues for a dialogiccritical approach within bilingual education programs. Cummins (2004: 44) suggests that relations of power in the macro-interactions of the wider society, ranging from coercive to collaborative, influence the micro-interactions between educators, learners and their communities. In referencing coercive relations of power, he denotes the exercise of power by those who are dominant to the detriment of the subordinated. In the sphere of education, schools are dominant institutions that have required, for example, says Cummins, the subordinated minority groups to deny their cultural identity. In contrast, within collaborative relations of power, students are empowered to achieve more; teachers learn from their culturally diverse students and the acquisition of knowledge and formation of identity are negotiated. Power is created and shared within an interpersonal space where minds and identities meet. Gergen (2009, 2015b) very potently describes his own personal journey from being what he calls a traditional ‘propositional’ instructor to a social constructionist one. In this new conceptual territory, opened up by social constructionist ideas, multiple voices and multiple understanding are cherished, and knowledge becomes a process of relational praxis engaging students and teachers dialogically. There are clear commonalities in the above heady ideas, and there is convergence towards identifiable educational policies and instructional practices that are central to a pedagogy of equity benefitting not only minority marginalized learners but all students. Such practices promote affirmation of the language and cultural background of culturally diverse students; active participation in dialogue; acknowledgment and validation of learners’ previous knowledge; collaborative problem solving; relationships among

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all those involved in the educational process; community-based learning; and assessment practices that are formative and do not legitimize the location of the ‘problem’ within students. These practices are framed within quality education and invite high expectations from minority learners.

schools have in common is the strong value placed on linguistic and cultural diversity and an instructional approach that focuses on cooperative learning and peer tutoring. These examples point to the potential of identity affirmation and of classroom collaboration.

Identity-Affirming Techniques CONSTRUCTIONIST PRACTICES IN ACTION While schools overwhelmingly follow the model of traditional pedagogy where coercive power relations prevail, there are many examples, inside and outside the classroom and inspired by social constructionist ideas, that offer marginalized, minority students an empowering learning environment. The remainder of this chapter consists of such interventions, including my own work with Muslim minority students in Thrace, Greece. Necessarily, my choices are selective.

Bilingual Programs Cummins, the theorist of bilingual language development, has discussed extensively bilingual education, framing it within the interactions between educators and minority students that determine coercive or collaborative relations of power and hence failure or success. Thus many of the case studies informed by social constructionist principles in action that are presented here draw from examples in schools worldwide. Cummins cites the transformative experiences of three schools situated in New Zealand (Auckland), the United States (Washington, DC) and Belgium (Brussels) that illustrate what educators, students and communities can achieve when identities of subordinated learners become empowered (Cummins, 2004: 217–219). In all three cases, learners’ performance improved not only in language proficiency, but in overall literacy. What these

Cummins (2015: 20; 2004: 279) offers examples of techniques and activities engaging minority students in identity-affirming literacy. These students’ cultures, languages, religions have long been devalued. Creative writing and other forms of art are powerful tools in the exploration and transformation of identity. Identity texts (written, spoken, acted, painted or expressed in multimodal ways), where students write about experiences and events in their lives, are such a tool. Students produce meaning-focused texts, reflect on them, share them with multiple audiences, such as their peers, teachers, family and the broader community, receive feedback within this interaction and, consequently, their identities are dialogically reconstructed and projected into new social spheres.

Digital Literacies Kalantzis and Cope started working in Australia in the late 1970s in the fields of English as a Second Language and multicultural education. Their contribution has been seminal in putting together what is known as the ‘New London Group’ and in introducing the term ‘Multiliteracies’. In the age of increasing convergence of visual, audio, gestural and spatial modes of meaning in the new communications environment and pervasive multilingualism, Cope and Kalantzis (2016) explore the use of computing devices that mediate or supplement the relationships between learners and teachers. New learning environments are created transcending the

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traditional confinements of space and time. Within this new environment, learnable content is presented and assessed, spaces where students work are provided, and peer-to peer interactions are mediated. Cope and Kalantzis cite a number of case studies of computer-based learning approaches in multilingual classrooms, relevant to the changing universe of meaning making.2 These examples of technologybased learning environments relate interests, peer culture and academic achievement through hands-on production and collaboration in open networks. They reflect connectivity that is equitable, social and participatory. There is active knowledge-making, engaging learners as producers rather than simply knowledge consumers. There is promotion of collaborative intelligence focusing on the social nature of learning rather than the traditional emphasis on individual memory. This kind of learning occurs through a network of information in which peers can provide feedback to one another and can build upon each other’s knowledge by relating to one another.

A Multimodal Intervention Empowering the Muslim Minority in Greece For the past 22 years I have been co-directing a multimodal intervention taking place in Thrace, a North-East province in Greece bordering Turkey, where a territorial Muslim minority – Greek citizens, most of whom have a Turkish ethnic identity – reside. The Muslim minority, owing to the long-lasting conflict between Greece and Turkey, has suffered oppressive policies of rights violations. Hence this ambitious project has been taking place amidst antagonistic political interests and a power game of identity politics that have deep historical roots. Compared to the dominant population, the minority has remained in a marginal position and has been far more economically deprived and virtually

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uneducated, with very little knowledge of the Greek language. Thus, we have unwaveringly strived to contribute to the reversal of this group’s disempowerment through education, favoring dialogue and collaboration (Dragonas, 2014; Dragonas and Frangoudaki, 2014, 2020; Vassiliou and Dragonas, 2015; Dragonas and Vassiliou, 2017).3 A large, multi-disciplinary team intervened inside and outside the classroom. The formal education measures we designed involve the development of multiple educational materials for primary and secondary education and extensive in-service training. However, the informal measures go past the rigidities of formal education and draw from the principles of community learning. Ten Community Centers have been set up offering after-school, multimodal literacy classes of Greek as a second language to children of all ages; creative youth workshops that provide mixed minority-majority group opportunities in jointly constructing possibilities of living positively together; adult literacy; Turkish classes for Greek-speaking teachers; and a number of other ad-hoc learning activities. Additionally, four mobile units make daily visits to isolated communities engaging children in out-of-school learning experiences. Maturana and Varela (1980) assert that we can never direct a living system but only disturb it. Living systems respond to disturbances with structural changes by rearranging their patterns of connectivity so that people relate in ways they are not used to. In all these long years, we have been deeply concerned with how to ‘disturb’ the educational system addressing minority learners. Our disturbance entailed the introduction of information that contradicted old assumptions, presented issues from different perspectives, demonstrated that what people believe cannot be accomplished can be accomplished elsewhere; our project invited majority and minority teachers, parents, learners and other community members into the dialogue.

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I choose here to highlight some of the challenges we faced in disturbing the system and the way we went about dealing with those challenges.

Invitation to the Dialogue Our intervention originated from the Ministry of Education and the mandate was Greek language learning as a prerequisite for inclusion without clear indication whether the intention of the state plan was assimilation or integration. In these circumstances we entered the field as a top-down commission rather than a request made by the minority itself, thus the likely suspicion was that we were carrying out an assimilationist agenda. A further discontent resulted from the policy for Greek language improvement rather than the equal advancement of children’s mother tongue. Moreover, we represented the University of Athens, an institution far away from Thrace. In the symmetrical, parallel majority-minority discourses nurturing these dichotomous interpretations, we were perceived as alien outsiders, unable to understand the dynamics operant in the Thracian society. We were well aware that no intervention is successful if it is not conceived as a relationally constructed endeavor. Thus, in planning our intervention, we relinquished our roles as authorities and a priori ‘experts’. Instead we espoused the ‘not knowing approach’ (Anderson and Goolishian, 1992), adopting an interpretative attitude and relying on the on-going analysis of experience as it was occurring. We started by holding small group discussions with almost the entire teacher population (amounting to over five hundred) instructing minority children for two weeks. We practiced active listening to what was said and what was not said, aiming to chart their understandings of their role as teachers in this particular situation. The composition of the groups varied: all majority teachers, all minority, and mixed minority-majority. Every evening we held long, reflective debriefing meetings. Parallel majority and

minority teachers’ discourses were produced featuring splitting and explicit or implicit mutual blame. It was clear that teachers were socialized to see the world in opposing, exclusionary terms. We were witnessing Bakhtinian ‘monologism’ in action, denying the existence of another consciousness, of another I, with equal rights and equal opportunities (Bakhtin, 1984). Thus our task throughout was to move away from monologism and invite all parties involved into the dialogue by strengthening connection, negotiation and trust building. Teachers who were engaged in the out-of-school learning became part of an invaluable intercultural community of practice.

Community Learning An important challenge surfaced a few years later when it became clear that we had to move beyond the formal school – a rigid, homeostatic system providing little room for morphogenetic transformation. It was then that we created two Community Centers that gradually developed into 10. This new kind of real and symbolic learning structure stood between the formal education system and the local community, as well as between the dominant majority and the minority. The Centers represented a ‘third’ space that was meant to rupture the rigid boundaries set by the majority to exclude the minority and those defenses raised by the minority to protect itself. They were staffed equally by majority and minority personnel, the latter speaking the parents’ language. In the local conflict-ridden society, they found themselves striving, for the first time, jointly for a common goal. The Centers contributed also to the reversal of agency, i.e. we would respond to demands spelled out by the community coming to us instead of our going to them in a top-down fashion. A process of co-construction was generated. Coercive power relations were transformed into collaborative relations of power between the intervening team and the community. This process, identified by

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Cummins (1996) as empowerment, entailed bringing to light those who have been socialized to be invisible, and gave voice (singular or plural) to those accustomed to being inaudible. It allowed alternative patterns of interaction, thereby re-framing the power structure and promoting partnership in communitybuilding in mutually transformative ways.

Collaborative Practices Another challenge concerns the dynamics within the intervening team itself. What makes this project rather unique is the duration of a concerted, multi-disciplinary endeavor. In its first stages, our project triggered mixed emotions: suspicion from the local Greek authorities; anger, hostility and – at best – ambivalence on the part of the nationalists in the majority population; hesitation and timid hope in the minority; caution among its leaders. Establishing a relationship of trust was a long, arduous process, by no means linear. Steps forward gave way to steps backward and forward again. In any case, there can be no pure states of experience and transformation. Such dynamics required collaborative practices within the intervening team. Two similar parallel processes were taking place outside and inside the team. Thus, within the team, dialogic practices were nurtured; relationships were strengthened; creativity, mutual inquiry and critical thinking were encouraged; collective action and shared ownership were reinforced; agency was strengthened. A relational, instead of individual, leadership was practiced. The role of the leading team was that of coordinators of a network within a process of shared meaning making. As we were witnessing a flow of changes in the field, we were similarly witnessing creative transformation of the intervening team in a process of multi-being and becoming.

Challenging Traditional Pedagogy Minority children attend, for the majority of their primary schooling, separate primary schools, known as ‘minority schools’, with

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two separate curricula – one in Turkish and one in Greek. This is less so in secondary school. These schools are bilingual, but in essence they follow two parallel monolingual curricula offering low-quality education. The state school on the other hand is monolingual and monocultural imparting the indirect message that it is not a place for minority children. Some teachers, from the onset of the intervention, have monotonously supported that minority children are unfit to learn. Thus, students have been receiving disengaging messages about themselves as learners and their view of learning. All principles of traditional pedagogy are at work in both minority and state schools. In the out-of-school learning practices we apply, learners’ identities are valued through opportunities provided in expressing and sharing experience with peers and teachers (Dragonas et al., 2019). The pedagogy of multiliteracies was introduced, moving beyond the narrow focus on ‘reading’ and ‘writing’ (The New London Group, 1996). We thus encourage situated learning that promotes engagement with language in more meaningful and authentic contexts. Digital technologies are employed and are completely novel to this learning environment. Thus linguistic, audio, visual and dynamic modes of communication interface with traditional pen and pencil literacy practices. The formal language taught at school is supplemented with conversational language and written communication with enacted communication where there is room for voluntary language switching. The various activities provide a focus on children getting to know each other, learning from one another, and working collectively concerning issues that matter. This relational situation intrinsically motivates children to express their thoughts and share experiences with peers and teachers. Very young learners talk about themselves, their family, and their friends, and they elaborate on their favorite games, their preferred foods and things that are meaningful. As a minority teacher formulated it:

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Talking makes the difference. School is trying to teach them to write, but if they do not know how to talk, they have nothing to write about. This is the contribution of your intervention. They are encouraged to talk … I wish they had the courage to talk at school as well.

The educational material developed builds on children’s cultural and social identity and promotes critical literacy skills (Dragonas and Frangoudaki, 2008). This material was developed for second language learners, and it adopts an open-ended didactic methodology that depends on the learner’s circumstance. These materials promote a critical approach to knowledge, by encouraging argumentation and documentation while effectively promoting Greek language learners’ linguistic and cognitive development. This material respects and draws on students’ linguistic diversity, as both a right and a resource. We extensively use children’s literature to enhance comprehension and provide opportunities for peer and collaborative learning, as well as occasions for learners to talk to their teacher and to one another about their responses to readings. Stories build on children’s interests and strengths, motivate them and enhance their active engagement. Ferreiro (1985) contends that children learn a written language, not only when they are given frequent opportunities to acquaint themselves with texts, but also when these texts are approached from different perspectives, that of the reader, the writer, the actor, the puppeteer, the designer. Following this multi-entry point in unlocking a text, we encourage young learners’ thinking process, expression and participation in representing stories through drama, puppet-theater, digital narration and design of sets and costumes. An example is provided to highlight the way cognitive challenges and intrinsic motivations are infused into the interactions between teachers and students. It concerns learners in sixth grade (Dragonas et al., 2019). The Odyssey was the stimulus. Learners became familiar with the myth, the

plot, the heroes and the relevant vocabulary. In connection with the children’s version of the poem, learners watched related films and read comics. They then impersonated the heroes and enacted various scenes; designed their own costumes using everyday materials; devised ‘frozen pictures’ and ‘rewrote’ the text in their own way; made digital visual stories using the photo-story application; developed word search puzzles and crosswords using the new vocabulary they learned, and then shared all this with students in other classes; and made maps, inspired by Ulysses’ adventures, and used them for constructing board games. Finally, learners wrote different textual products, such as descriptions, instructions, diaries, and so on. Teachers reported that The Odyssey became an attractive topic, as learners, at each successive stage, searched for more information, in order, for example, to develop questions for their board game, or add more flavor to their acting; carefully observed details that would help them devise their ‘frozen pictures’; and made comparisons between the text and the film. Clearly minority students found The Odyssey interesting and emotionally engaging. They identified with Ulysses, empathized with his plight, got involved with the sequence of events, wishing in every possible way to warn him about what he would suffer next. They also identified with Telemachus, the son of Ulysses, who had not seen his father for years, as many of the minority children had not seen their immigrant fathers who live in Germany. This identification was very obvious when they were asked to put themselves in the position of Telemachus and write a letter to Ulysses. They all wrote letters to their dad, telling him how much they miss him. They also associated the Trojan War with the current war in Syria. They, thus, had the opportunity to express their anxiety about the devastating bombings in Syria. As the teacher noted: We compared a story we had recently read, called the ‘Whale that Ate the War’, with the Trojan

Intercultural Education: Empowering Minority Learners

Horse. They thought the former saved the city and stopped the war, while the latter prolonged it. Going back to an imaginary space, we pondered about which animal we would send to Syria to stop the war, and the children decided they would send the whale to save Syria!

These examples illustrate what Cummins (2000) means when he argues that the interpretation of comprehensible input must go beyond just literal comprehension, and extend into critical literacy. By this, he implies that students must relate textual and instructional meanings to their own experience, as minority children did when they wrote the letter to Ulysses, assuming the position of Telemachus, and critically analyze the information in the text or when they associated the Trojan War with the war in Syria; and they must use the results of their discussions and analyses, in some concrete intrinsically motivating activity or project, as in the dramatization students engaged in, the ‘frozen pictures’ they devised, or the photostories and the board games they created.

THE POWER OF SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM IN EDUCATING MINORITY LEARNERS All the above-mentioned practices, while they may be using different terminologies, converge in social constructionist ideas. They illustrate the implications of those ideas in educating minority learners. They are critical of traditional pedagogy, its passive learning environment and its subjugating impact. They endorse pedagogies that foster critical literacy and collaborative relations of power. They share the view that all good teaching is grounded in the lives of students. They highlight the value of relational learning, favoring dialogue and collaboration where students come to understand in action the significance of relationships and relational processes in education. Finally, they believe that a prerequisite for minority students’ empowerment as

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thinkers, communicators and citizens is the affirmation of their linguistic and cultural identities.

Notes 1  The term ‘minority’ is used here to denote marginalized and disempowered learners and not to distinguish between numerical majority and minority. 2  http://newlearningonline.com/literacies/chapter-15/ edtech-literacies-applications (Accessed 8 August 2020) 3  This is a very long and complex intervention impossible to summarize here. Interested readers can look up www.museduc.gr for documentation on all the activities, the materials developed, the measurable outcomes and the academic papers stemming from this work, as well as tracking minority learners’ process of empowerment. I limit myself to quoting that our project contributed to the reduction of the dropout rate of minority students from compulsory education from 65% in 2000 to less than 20%, while attendance surged by 69% at the lower secondary level and by 216% at the higher secondary level.

REFERENCES Anderson, H. and Goolishian, H. (1992). The client is the expert: A not-knowing approach to therapy. In S. MacNamee and K. Gergen (Eds.), Therapy as Social Construction, 25–39. London: Sage. Bakhtin, M. (1984). Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, trans. C. Emerson. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota. Bakhtin, M. (1986). Speech Genres and Other Late Essays, trans. V. W. McGee. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press. Banks, J. (1995). Multicultural education: Historical development, dimensions, and practice. In J. Banks and C. McGee Banks (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education, 3–24. New York: Macmillan Publishing USA. Clark, K. and Holquist, M. (1984). Mikhail Bakhtin. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University. Cope, B. and Kalantzis, M. (Eds.) (2016). E-Learning Ecologies: Principles for New

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Learning and Assessment. New York: Routledge. Cummins, J. (1996). Negotiating Identities: Education for Empowerment in a Diverse Society. Los Angeles: California Association for Bilingual Education. Cummins, J. (2000) Biliteracy, empowerment and transformative pedagogy. https://pdfs. semanticscholar.org/7a92/256ddf1ed0128d 7b7ef4641bf80f9ca76590.pdf (Accessed 8 August 2020) Cummins, J. (2004). Language, Power and Pedagogy: Bilingual Children in the Crossfire. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Cummins, J. (2015). The social construction of identities: Reflections on 21st century education in the light of the Charlie Hebdo slaughter. In T. Dragonas, J. Gergen, S. McNamee and E. Tseliou (Eds.), Education as Social Construction, 3–29. Chagrin Falls, Ohio: Taos Institute Publications/ WorldShare Books. Deshpande, P. (1996). Teacher training for ‘race’ equality: The British experience. A personal perspective. In T. Dragonas, A. Frangoudaki and C. Inglessi (Eds.), Beyond One’s Own Backyard: Intercultural Teacher Education in Europe, 221–230. Athens: Νήσος. Dragonas, T. (2014). The vicissitudes of identity in a divided society: The case of the Muslim minority in Western Thrace. In K. Featherstone (Ed.), Europe in Modern Greek History, 135–152. London: Hurst & Co. Dragonas, T. and Frangoudaki, A. (Eds.) (2008). Addition not Subtraction, Multiplication not Division: The Reform of the Education of the Minority in Thrace. Athens: Metaihmio [in Greek]. Dragonas, T. and Frangoudaki, A. (2014). ‘Like a bridge over troubled water’: Reforming the education of Muslim minority children in Greece. In V. Lytra (Ed.), When Greeks and Turks Meet, 289–311. Surrey: Ashgate. Dragonas, T. and Frangoudaki, A. (2020). The Project on the Education of Muslim Minority Children in Thrace, Greece: Stimulating the educational process and enhancing collaborative practices. In E. Skourtou, V. KourtisKazoullis, T. Aravossitas and P. P. Trifonas (Eds.), Language Diversity in Greece: Local Challenges with International Implications, 95–116. Switzerland: Springer Nature Group.

Dragonas, T. and Vassiliou, A. (2017). Educational activism across the divide: Empowering youths and their communities. Contemporary Social Science, 12, 1–2: 123–137. Dragonas, T., Dafermou, C., Zografaki, M., Assimakopoulou, I., Dimitriou, A., Katsiani, O. and Lagopoulou, V. (2019). ‘Language is freedom’: A multimodal literacy intervention empowering the Muslim minority in Greece. The International Journal of Learning: Annual Review, 26, 1: 1–15. Ferreiro, E. (1985). Literacy development: A psychogenetic perspective. In D. Olson, N. Torrance and A. Hildyard (Eds.), Literacy, Language and Learning: The Nature and Consequences of reading and Writing, 217–228. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed, trans. M. Bergman Ramos. New York: Herder and Herder. Gergen, K. (2009). Relational Being: Beyond Self and Community. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gergen, K. (2015a). An Invitation to Social Construction, 3rd Edition. London: Sage. Gergen, K. (2015b). From propositions to practice: Pedagogy for life as process. In T. Dragonas, J. Gergen, S. McNamee and E. Tseliou (Eds.), Education as Social Construction, 49–61. Chagrin Falls, Ohio: Taos Institute Publications/WorldShare Books. Gill, D., Mayor, B. and Blair, M. (Eds.) (1992). Racism and Education: Structures and Strategies. London: Sage in association with The Open University. Kalantzis, M. (1987). The Cultural Deconstruction of Racism: Education and Multiculturalism. Annandale, N.S.W.: Common Ground. Kalantzis, M. and Cope, B. (1981). Just Spaghetti and Polka? An Introduction to Australian Multicultural Education. Sydney: Social Literacy. Kalantzis, M. and Cope, B. (2008). Language education and multiliteracies. In S. May and N. H. Hornberger (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Language and Education, 2nd Edition, Vol 1, 195–211. New York: Springer. Maturana, H. and Varela, F. (1980). Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living. Boston: Reidel. Moodley, K. (1995). Multicultural education in Canada: Historical development and current

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status. In J. Banks and C. McGee Banks (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education, 801–820. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan. Parekh, B. (2000). Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory. New York: Palgrave. Rawls, J. (1993). Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press. Shor, I. (2012). Empowering Education: Critical Teaching for Social Change. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Taylor, C. (1994). The politics of recognition. In A. Gutmann (Ed.), Multiculturalism:

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Examining the Politics of Recognition, 25–73. Princeton: Princeton University Press. The New London Group (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66, 1: 60–93. Vassiliou, A. and Dragonas, T. (2015). Sowing seeds of synergy: Creative youth workshops in a multi-cultural context. In T. Dragonas, J. Gergen, S. McNamee and E. Tseliou (Eds.), Education as Social Construction, 192–212. Chagrin Falls, Ohio: Taos Institute Publications/WorldShare Books.

39 Educational Evaluation: A Relational Perspective Scherto Gill and Kenneth J. Gergen

School leaders, teachers, and students from around the globe voice frustration at finding themselves increasingly enslaved by exam scores, performance targets and school rankings. While aimed primarily at institutional accountability and raising educational standards, measurement-based systems of assessment have become counter-productive for teachers and students at all levels. As frequently asserted, schools are losing the capacity to engage students in meaningful learning. In countries, such as the UK and United States, test performance has slowly become the very aim of education. With mounting pressure to attain good grades, mental health problems among students have exploded in number. Teachers also suffer from the demands of standardization and the appraisal of their performance through the test scores of their students. These are among the critiques of the dominant place of measurement-based assessment in contemporary education.

No doubt, learning necessarily involves and requires evaluation. The question is how to separate the evaluative process and practices from the above-mentioned assessment tradition so that evaluation can truly serve to motivate and enhance learning, as well as contribute to the well-being of students, teachers, and the broader community. Drawing from a social constructionist theory, the present chapter outlines and illustrates an alternative approach to testing and grades. It highlights the fundamental place of relational process in education. Indeed, as many see it, the measurementbased assessment model is a byproduct of a longstanding metaphor of schools as factories. Responding to demands of industry and government in the late 1800s, mandatory public schooling was implemented. The factory served as a guiding metaphor for organizing and educating large masses of people from diverse settings (Jacobs, 2014). While efficient in its operations, there was always dissatisfaction. With time, the writings of

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many educational philosophers, such as Dewey (1932/1987) and Vygotsky (1962) in particular, provided an alternative vision of education, one that placed relationships at its center. There have been numerous further additions to this vision over the years, but with the emergence of constructionist dialogues on the nature of knowledge, interest in education as a social process was vitalized. Herein lay the generative context for the development of relational approaches to educational evaluation.

EDUCATIONAL EVALUATION FROM A RELATIONAL PERSPECTIVE From a relational perspective, it is within the process of relating that the world comes to be what it is for us. We draw from this process our understandings of the world, meanings, and values that inform our actions and shape our moral and ethical horizons (Gergen, 2009). Equally, it is within this process of relating that learning can be animated. However, traditional assessment practices, including testing and grading, subvert this very process of relating on which education and human flourishing depend. How are we to envision the alternative? How might it be realized in practice? Our focal interest has been illuminating meaningful forms of educational evaluation that draw strength from relational process (Gergen and Gill, 2020). Agreeing with McNamee (2015), whose work focuses on evaluation in higher education, we refer to this orientation as relational evaluation or educational evaluation from a relational perspective. We have intentionally chosen the term evaluation as opposed to such terms as assessment, examination, measurement or appraisal, because the latter all carry strong connotations of independent and objective judgment. Two key features in our conception of evaluation are highlighted here: first, is its

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focus on values and valuing. We emphasize evaluation as a process of valuing, or appreciating the value of something (Gitlin and Smyth, 1989). This enables us to replace the traditional focus of assessment on student deficiency – pointing to where students have fallen short of perfection – with an emphasis on potentialities, possibilities and opportunities for growth and well-being. The attempt is to build from strengths, thus fostering hope and engagement. This focus suggests that the evaluative process must privilege appreciative approaches (Cooperrider et al., 2001) and affirm the valuable aspects of the activities and experiences (Gill and Thomson, 2016). In doing so, evaluation continues to give life to learning, enhance well-being and enrich relationships central to learning. Second, is its focus on the process of coinquiry, that is, inquiry into (into the values and valuable aspects of learning activities and experiences) with those who are involved in learning. Evaluation emerges from generative relationships among those who evaluate and those whose activities, experiences and practices are being evaluated. It therefore cannot simply be a fixing of a grade upon someone for a piece of work, or a judgment of a person for a particular performance. Instead it must be a collaborative inquiry and even mutual inquiry where teachers and students enter into a dialogic exploration aimed at identifying and appreciating the meaningfulness of teaching and learning. Hence educational evaluation must engage those who are part of an educative activity – students, teachers, parents, administrators, and other stakeholders – in contrast to impersonal practices of measurement, as co-inquiry, evaluative inquiry and dialogue not only arise from the relationships among all, but, more importantly, as we shall soon see, they also serve to enrich these relationships. Appreciating life-giving and intrinsically valuable aspects of learning also means that the evaluative inquiry should be rooted in the common recognition of the learning activity’s aims and objectives, including a shared

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consciousness of what is being attempted in the evaluation process and why it is important. That is to say, questioning, listening, dialogue, reflection and collaboration will seek out what motivates the students in the learning activities and experiences and how they have continued to expand their interests and passion for learning. As we shall illustrate in this chapter, this relational orientation can be applied to evaluative practices that inquire not only into students’ engagement with learning , but as well to teachers’ professional development, and to to the functioning of entire schools.

MAJOR AIMS OF RELATIONAL EVALUATION In their current form, assessment practices such as testing and grading primarily serve the purposes of surveillance, control, and gatekeeping of standardization. The results have been a deterioration in the learning process and the dehumanizing of its participants. In the case of relational evaluation, we seek more promising ends. Three of these are particularly central, and while overlapping and interdependent, it is helpful to consider them separately. It is also useful to link them more specifically to the relational orientation just outlined.

Evaluation to Enhance the Learning Process If learning (and students’ development and well-being) is the primary focus of education, then forms of evaluation should not only value and promote learning, but also principally enhance the learning process(es). This means, at the outset, that evaluation should provide an opportunity for students to reflect on and appreciate the values of learning, and inspire students’ engagement in the learning processes. Engagement is relational.

In other words, students’ enthusiasm, curiosity, interest and care for learning tend to derive from relationships. At the heart of engagement and relationship lies values and valuing. By and large, value is co-created, often in dialogue, and when the value of an activity is appreciated by the students, they will be interested to improve learning, as well to explore and be maximally open to challenges in order to improve. Valuing and evaluation walk hand in hand. The preceding emphasis on dialogic and collaborative evaluation is thus reinforced. It is in just such contexts that teachers and students can inject learning activities with value and significance. In turn, evaluative inquiry and dialogue can cultivate students’ interest and curiosity, enthusiasm and care. This may mean a teacher asking questions that prompt the student to value their experiences, concerns, hopes, and dreams for the future. It may also mean teachers encouraging students to set directions for themselves and take an interest in relevant pathways, and helping students to reflect on their progress accordingly. The emphasis on co-creation of value may also be extended to the classroom as a whole. Students and teachers can explore together the objectives of learning and how they would collectively reach these objectives. An exploration as such may ideally include a focused discussion on what is worthwhile to learn, and who else might contribute to our learning, and how. This not only makes clear how valuable teachers’ offerings can be to students’ undertakings, it also sensitizes the students to the meaningful ways in which they can provide support to each other. Further, if discussion is sufficiently rich, students and the teacher together may expand their vision to include individuals outside the classroom and the bounds of the school who could assist them in learning and helping them improve. These deliberations might also center on how and what kind of evaluative process would support them in their pursuits.

Educational Evaluation: A Relational Perspective

Evaluation to Inspire Sustained Learning Engagement Engagement in learning should not terminate with the end of a unit, a course, or even a degree, but should be lifelong. A relational approach to evaluation thus necessarily encourages the continued participation in learning. Traditional assessment practices do little to accomplish this aim, as they establish the grade or test score as the conclusion of a learning period. By contrast, in its emphasis on inquiry and dialogue, relational practice may enable students to locate meaningful actions toward the next phase of their learning adventures. Given a course of study, what steps would follow? How would the student like to see these steps taken? Such questions may be posed, for example, in the ongoing reflection on one’s learning experiences, or during an overall evaluation at the end of a course of study or a project. Through inquiry and dialogue, teachers can cultivate an awareness of resources relevant to the student’s enthusiasms. Within a topic of interest, teachers might encourage students to look into relevant books, scan the internet, or speak to other teachers, friends, or family members. Such processes of inquiry and dialogue may be extended to help students achieve their long-term objectives. In these ways, learning becomes a meaningful part of a person’s life journey, and the evaluative process provides support to the unfolding voyage. Relational evaluation thus reverses the dulling effects of a factory model of education. By inquiring, valuing, and reflecting on learning processes and experiences, evaluation can inspire students to further care about and to become continuously responsible for their learning, personal development, and well-being.

Evaluation to Promote Relational Flourishing Contrary to traditional practices of summative assessment that undermine trust, friendship,

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and authenticity, and cause anxiety, alienation, and antagonism, a relational orientation to evaluation can significantly enrich human relationships and relational well-being. The emphasis is on forms of coordination in the evaluative processes that can breathe life into relationships and learning. While testing, grades and judgment reflect a subject-toobject relationship, a relational approach to evaluation thrives on a subject-to-subject relationship. Because relational evaluation is primarily lodged in dialogic and collaborative processes, as opposed to machine-like measurement, there is maximal opportunity for expressing mutual care. The very act of taking an interest in the student’s enthusiasm and excitement is already a sign of respect. As a class is invited into co-inquiry, its participants share their hopes and plans with one another, thus strengthening belonging and community. Similarly, as students offer their appreciation of each other’s efforts, they too are invited into a posture of mutual care (Mao, 2020). When such discussions emphasize progresses, growth and personal development, as opposed to deficit and inadequacy in the students’ qualities and capabilities, they may come to feel an abiding sense of support. In all of this, we move toward more generative forms of relating. Equally, relational evaluation can help build trust, between teacher and students and among students. In caring forms of coinquiry, students become more confident that the teacher has their best interests at heart and will protect and support them in pursuing what matters to them (as opposed to coercion). When students engage in evaluative dialogue, they will come to feel they can depend and count on each other to be supportive and present in their relationships. With relational strengths at the basis for evaluation, students can be open to critique, feedback and suggestions for improvement. In summary, the three aims of evaluation can only be realized through relational approaches, in dialogue and collaboration

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among all involved in the educative activities and processes. Our chief focus in this discussion has been the classroom. However, practices of relational evaluation are also applicable to contexts in which both teachers and schools are evaluated. Testing and grading are equally detrimental in both cases, and the benefits of relational evaluation should be no less available to teachers and to the school community as a whole. That is to say, educative evaluation invites the participation of all in processes of co-inquiry suffused with caring and trust. In doing so, the participants’ capacities for collaboration are refined. It thus follows that we may extend the relational approaches outward to include coinquiry within the wider communal, regional, national, and global contexts.

RELATIONAL EVALUATION IN PRACTICE In the wake of discontent with testing and grading, and the phenomenon of teaching-tothe-test, progressive and courageous educators from far and wide have experimented with alternatives. Many of the emergent practices share an emphasis on such relational practices as co-inquiry, dialogic reflection and deliberation, peer-evaluation, and appreciation of valuable aspects of learning. To illustrate and amplify the potentials of a relational orientation to evaluation, we offer four examples. The first two are classroom practices in primary and secondary schools; the third is a case illustrating a relational approach to evaluating teaching; and the last is an integrated approach to school evaluation.

Learning Review: Students as Co-Inquirers Learning Review (LR) as an evaluative practice has been introduced in many primary

schools in the UK. These 15-minute review meetings take place periodically over the course of a year, and are always led by the child. They are attended by the class teacher, parent(s)/caregiver(s), and, where possible, the school’s principal or headteacher. Children (as young as 9 years of age) prepare a presentation of their learning journeys. The presentation outlines their experiences of learning over time and reflects on their successes, challenges, and needs. It aims to help teachers and parents understand where the students are in their learning and what it may take to support them to progress further. LR is a relationally sensitive form of evaluation, applying a dialogic and collaborative approach to reflecting on and appreciating learning. It invites students to take an active part in evaluating their learning, prioritizes student voice, and incorporates teachers’ and parents’ perspectives. In this way, LR stands in stark contrast to the more typical parent/ teacher meeting where the teacher simply discusses the child’s levels of attainment in various subjects. Importantly, in preparing for the LR, the student learns to develop a language of appreciation, representation, and reflection. They describe in their own voice learning experiences over time, including interests, objectives, what they have learned, and how, and the ways they have overcome challenges and obstacles. This language can integrate stories, workbooks, art, PowerPoint, or other means that are helpful for the teacher and parents to understand and appreciate the child’s learning journey. Reflection on learning is multi-vocal, i.e. visual, verbal, and bodily. The more diverse the lenses employed to review learning, the richer the further engagement. As LR is not judgmental or punitive, students are more open to critically reflect on both their strengths and capacities to embrace challenges in learning. The review holds potential for further stimulating students’ curiosity in the learning processes and provides an opportunity for creativity.

Educational Evaluation: A Relational Perspective

Learning Agreement: Sustaining Interest in Learning Learning Agreement (LA) is an idea inspired by the work of the Self-Managed Learning College (Cunningham and Bennett, 2000), and now introduced in many secondary schools around the globe. The learning agreements are normally formed at the beginning of a semester/term among a small group of six students, facilitated by a teacher or a mentor. Following initial meetings of the group, each student develops an individual LA that reflects their personal interests, along with learning objectives as well as plans for achieving them. The LA is then presented to the group for peers’ and teacher’s comments and questions. Although called an ‘agreement’, it is effectively an informal ‘pact’ with the group. As it is rooted in relationships, the LA invites members of the group to respect each other’s intentions and honor the ‘pact’ in following identified pathways to learning. There are many variations of the LA, but often it is developed by students answering five questions focused on significant personal learning objectives and processes (Cunningham and Bennett, 2000). An initial question might be: ‘Where have I been in my learning journey?’ Here, attention is drawn to past experiences relevant to the student’s current interests and motivation. Such a question would be followed with: ‘Where am I now?’ To reflect on this question, students need to consider their current engagement in learning, and the direction in which they are heading. Next, students will consider: ‘Where do I want to go?’ Here they begin exploring their personal learning objectives. Having identified the destination, the students are then asked to imagine the voyage: ‘How will I get there?’ Here the challenge is to deliberate on the future learning processes, the relevant resources on which they might draw, and the responsibilities they must accept. The final question is more explicitly evaluative: ‘How will I know if I have arrived?’ This invites

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thoughtful reflection on the criteria for what counts as good learning, and how it is demonstrated (Cunningham and Bennett, 2000). Formulating a LA is not a self-contained event; instead, it serves as a starting point for subsequent reviews of the student’s learning processes and progresses. Each LA provides a basis for the student to think about their short-, medium-, and long-term learning objectives, and to evaluate their own hopes and plans accordingly. It also provides a framework within which the group engages in dialogue about learning, and collaborates and supports each other’s learning experiences. For instance, in a typical and regular group meeting during the semester, each student will share an account of progress in accordance with their LA. In this way, the LAs enable the group to respond to each other’s learning journey with feedback, support, insights, and inspiration. A special feature of the LA is that it creates a positive relationship among students. They sign the agreement in the presence of each other, thus entrusting responsibilities to themselves but also to their peers. As the group members offer support and advice to each other, appreciation of the relational process is enhanced.

Peer-Evaluation of Teaching Teacher appraisal has suffered much the same fate as student assessment. Standardized formats and the use of student test scores as indicators of teacher efficacy do little to enhance teaching, but instead, instead, they can simultaneously generate stress, a sense of oppression and ill-being. From a relational standpoint, as we have argued, evaluation should provide a positive experience of teachers’ learning, and sustain and inspire teacher engagement. It should provide the context and opportunity for teachers’ professional growth. There are many ways in which relational evaluation of teaching can support teachers’

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professional learning and development, such as peer-to-peer mutual learning, collaboration with students, appreciative inquiry, and action research (see Gergen and Gill, 2020). We take peer-evaluation as an example to illustrate an innovative move in this direction. Peer-evaluation or peer-feedback is a wellresearched practice, and has been implemented by many schools as an approach to the evaluation of teaching (Wilkins and Shin, 2011). In the peer-evaluation process, teachers usually form a small group of 3–4 and they take turns to observe, review, and provide feedback on each other’s practices. In some schools, the small group involves four teachers (as a team) who visit each other’s class, observing, reflecting, learning from and contributing to each other’s practices (Chism, 2007). For instance, following a classroom visit, there is usually an immediate debriefing dialogue between the two teachers. While the events are still fresh in mind, the observing teacher reflects on the observed lesson process, and shares thoughts and comments with regard to how well the students had responded to the practices, what they seemed to have enjoyed and appreciated most about the lesson, and how the teaching might have enhanced students’ experiences and their learning engagement. Then the two teachers would discuss and reflect on the classroom process from a professional learning perspective, for example looking at: what seemed to have worked particularly well and how; what was most pleasing for the teacher who was teaching and why; and what might be done differently the next time to further improve the practice. This kind of debriefing feedback can be extremely informative for both the observer and the observed. Periodically, the team might come together for more extended conversation about particular aspects of teaching. Such dialogue is meaningful in terms of both enhancing teachers’ practices, and enriching their peer-relationship. The process also builds trust as team members

collaborate closely to support each other’s learning. Relationship and trust can be the basis for the teachers to feel empowered to innovate, and further strengthen their practices. Peer-evaluation can be engaging and inspiring, speaking directly to teachers’ need for continuous professional development (CPD), and thus highlighting that relational approaches to the evaluation of teaching can in part enhance the teachers’ well-being and the flourishing of the team’s cohesion. No wonder exploration into these practices has expanded around the globe, from Europe and Africa to the Americas and the Asia-Pacific, pointing to a major alternative to assessment, one that links sustained professional learning to relational process (e.g. Pham and Heinemann, 2014; Msila, 2009; DarlingHammond, 2013).

Whole-School Inquiry as Evaluation Whole-School Inquiry is increasingly applied as an alternative to the measurement-based accountability agenda of school inspection. Whole-school inquiry can invite all stakeholders in the school to participate in a collective reflection on the school’s progress, and to envision together how to further advance its aims and support students’ learning. Here there is the possibility to combine three activities to bring about a relationally rich process of whole-school inquiry. First is the Evaluative Questionnaire, which includes thematic questions directly relevant to specific stakeholder groups. Within each theme, participants respond on a five-point scale to a series of statements tapping into their experiences. To illustrate, under the theme of learning, the children may be asked to what extent they like being in the school, feel safe, enjoy taking part in activities, find their work interesting, have friends, and can help others in school. Under the same theme, parents may be asked to what

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extent they feel their children are engaged, curious, interested, motivated to learn, developing appropriately, receiving support, and encouraged to contribute to others’ learning. Similarly, teachers will reflect on the extent to which students are motivated to learn, curious, asking good questions, making progress according to their needs and capabilities, working collaboratively, willing to take risks in project work, and being mindful of others’ interests and needs. The questionnaire responses can provide a wealth of information for subsequent discussion. An in-depth interview is the second approach, which can be used to supplement the questionnaires, thus adding details that put a human face to the numbers. The interviews might focus on experiences and perspectives related to different aspects of the shared school life. Reflection is sought from representatives of students, administrators, teachers, teaching assistants, and parents. The interview tends to be semi-structured around the main themes of evaluation, i.e. teaching, learning, community engagement and governance. The interviews can offer nuanced understanding of the school’s practices, as they are experienced by a wide range of stakeholders. A third component of the whole-school evaluation consists of focus-group dialogue. During the dialogue, the participants are invited to reflect on the results of the two preceding inquiries. It seeks participants’ analysis and insights into what the school has learned from the evaluative process, what the school community might need to change or improve, and how. Focus-group dialogue can be informed by appreciative inquiry practices, facilitated at different levels: at the classroom level where students join administrators and teachers in the reflection; at the school level where administrators and teachers focus on their own special concerns; and finally at the community level, where administrators, teachers, parents, and other stakeholders within the community come together to discuss the school’s progress. For a typical focus-group, the size tend to be limited to

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roughly 12–15 so as to encourage conversational depth. With this combination of practices, including questionnaires, interviews and focusgroup dialogue, the whole-school evaluation process can inspire the community’s curiosity about its processes, potentials, and also needs for change. A sense of collective responsibility is thus invited. In summary, these are but four examples of relationally rich practices of evaluation in action. They provide meaningful antidotes to the toxicity of measurement, and performance ratings. They also serve as invitations for further innovation.

TRANSFORMATION IN EDUCATION AND BEYOND We are scarcely alone in our concern with developing meaningful and implementable alternatives to the measurement-based summative assessment tradition. Congenial with many aspects of our relational approach are practices of empowerment evaluation (Fetterman and Wandersman, 2004), participatory evaluation (Whitmore, 1998), dialogic evaluation (Greene, 2001), responsive evaluation (Greene and Abma, 2002), and democratic evaluation (Ryan and DeStefano, 2000), among others. At the same time, while the way is being paved to replace testing and grading with humane processes of evaluation, far more is ultimately at stake. There is first the potential for transforming the culture of education, and second, the significance of this transformation for the future well-being of humanity. In the case of educational transformation, relational practices of evaluation represent an important step forward. However, evaluation constitutes only one of what are often considered the three core pillars of education, with pedagogy and curriculum as the remaining two (Bernstein, 1971). What is to be said about transformation in the latter? Here one

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must realize that discontent with the factory model of education has inspired widespread innovation in both cases, and that much of this innovation is congenial with the relational vision we have highlighted here. Notable, for example, are pedagogies of dialogue (e.g. Skidmore and Murakami, 2017; Matusov, 2009) and collaboration (e.g. Littleton and Mercer, 2013; Mercer et  al., 2019). In the case of curriculum, the major shift is away from standardization. Developments in emergent curricula are among the most prominent, along with the expansion of individually tailored curricula in forward-looking schools (Gill and Thomson, 2016). Such developments favor more dialogic relations between student and teachers, and between students and others who can support their learning journey. In effect, there are now available relationally enriched practices in both the domains of pedagogy and curriculum, but the development of such practices has been obstructed by the prevailing data-driven demand. Dialogic pedagogy and emergent curricula are at odds with the forms of standardization that testing and grading require. Thus, in replacing assessment practices with relational evaluation, we open the doors to the full flourishing of these innovations in pedagogy and curriculum. It is here that a new chapter in the history of education would begin. Such a transformation is also significant in terms of cultural life more generally, in schools and beyond. In the present case the potentials are profound. One of the chief reasons for establishing schools as production sites was that educated young people were needed to fill available jobs. Assumed was reasonable stability in job requirements, thus favoring a standardized curriculum, and testing as a form of quality assurance. However, we now live in a world of rapid and unpredictable change. In these conditions, standardization in education reduces the potentials of a society which is increasingly marked by diversity and multiplicity. In contrast, a flourishing world is where young people can

bring multiple talents, interests, and enthusiasms into the future-making conversations. Needed are capacities for appreciating and integrating different perspectives, collaborating, and innovating (Visse and Abma, 2018). It is to these needs that a relationally transformed education speaks most directly. There is more. In the emerging global conditions, the various cultures of the world are now thrust together as never before. Increasingly we confront conflicts among those with differing values, goals, religious beliefs, and honored traditions. Global survival and human flourishing will soon depend on skills in negotiating this terrain of difference, and capacities in co-creating a new world of harmony. A relational transformation in education should favor the development of precisely these kinds of qualities and capacities. We move here to the ethical dimension of relational evaluation, one in which the well-being of the relational process must be cherished above all.

REFERENCES Bernstein, B. (1971). Class, Codes and Control Theoretical Studies towards a Sociology of Language. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Chism, N. (2007). Peer Review of Teaching: A Sourcebook, 2nd edition. Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing. Cooperrider, D., Sorenson, P., Whitney, D. and Yeager, T. (2001). Appreciative Inquiry: An Emerging Direction for Organization Development. Champaign, IL: Stipes. Cunningham, I. and Bennett, B. (2000). Self Managed Learning in Action: Putting SML into Practice. London: Routledge. Darling-Hammond, L. (2013). ‘When teachers support & evaluate their peers’, Educational Leadership 71(2), 24–29. Dewey, J. (1932/1987). ‘My pedagogic creed’, School Journal 54, 77–80. Fetterman, D. M. and Wandersman, A. (Eds.) (2004). Empowerment Evaluation, Principles in Practice. New York: Guilford.

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Gergen, K. (2009). Relational Being: Beyond Self and Community. New York: Oxford University Press. Gergen, K. J. and Gill, S. (2020). Beyond the Tyranny of Testing: Relational Evaluation in Education. New York: Oxford University Press. Gill, S. and Thomson, G. (2016). HumanCentred Education: A Practical Guide and Handbook. London: Routledge. Gitlin, A. and Smyth, J. (1989). Teacher Evaluation: Educative Alternatives. London: Falmer Press. Greene, J. C. (2001). ‘Dialogue in evaluation: A relational perspective’, Evaluation 7(2), 181–187. Greene, J. C. and Abma, T. A. (Eds.) (2002). Responsive Evaluation (New Directions for Evaluation Number 92). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Jacobs, J. (2014). ‘Beyond the factory model’, Education Next 14(4), 34–41. Littleton, K. and Mercer, N. (2013). Interthinking: Putting Talk to Work. London: Routledge. Mao, Y-Q. (2020). ‘Cultivating inner qualities through ethical relations’, in S. Gill and G. Thomson (Eds.), Ethical Education: Towards an Ecology of Human Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 178–206. Matusov, E. (2009). Journey into Dialogic Pedagogy. Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science. McNamee, S. (2015). ‘Evaluation in a relational key’, in T. Dragonas, K. Gergen, S. McNamee and E. Tseliou (Eds.), Education as Social Construction: Contributions to Theory,

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Research and Practice. Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute Publications, pp. 336–349. Mercer, N., Wegerif, R. and Major, L. (Eds.) (2019). The Routledge International Handbook of Research on Dialogic Education. New York: Routledge. Msila, V. (2009). ‘Peer evaluation: Teachers evaluating one another for an effective practice’, International Journal of Learning 6(6), 541–557. Pham, K. and Heinemann, A. (2014). ‘Partners with a purpose: District and teachers union create an evaluation system that nurtures professional growth’, Journal of Staff Development 35(6), 40–47. Ryan, K. E. and DeStefano, L. (Eds.) (2000). Evaluation as a Democratic Process: Promoting Inclusion, Dialogue, and Deliberation (New Directions for Evaluation Number 85). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Skidmore, D. and Murakami, K. (Eds.) (2017). Dialogic Pedagogy: The Importance of Dialogue in Teaching and Learning. Bristol: Multilingual Matters Press. Visse, M. and Abma, T. A. (Eds.) (2018). Evaluating for a Caring Society. Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Vygotsky, L. S. (1962). Thought and Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Whitmore, E. (Ed.) (1998). Understanding and Practicing Participatory Evaluation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Wilkins, E. and Shin, E. (2011). ‘Peer feedback: Who, what, when, why, and how’, Education Digest: Essential Readings Condensed for Quick Review 76(6), 49–53.

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SECTION VI

Practices in Healthcare

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40 Political, Collaborative and Creative: Dimensions of Social Constructionist Health Care Practices Murilo S. Moscheta

Over the last centuries, modern medicine has produced a revolution in the way we take care of our health. In opposition to the mystical model that preceded it, modern medicine organized around the principles of science and thus endeavored to produce objective and universal knowledge by building an astonishing expertise on the human body. It is impossible to underestimate the optimism generated by modern medicine; it developed a body of knowledge and effective therapies for the treatment of so many maladies inflicting humanity. Science and technology emerged with ambitious promises to set us free from pain, disease and death. However, in its effort to be scientific, medicine asserted itself as an objective activity, thereby rejecting dimensions that could not be reduced to linear explanatory models. The same happened with other disciplines related to the health field such as nursing, psychology, pharmacology, and odontology. Undoubtedly, this tradition has offered us unparalleled health care possibilities and

successes, but its limits are already well mapped by contemporary critique. The costs of care are increasingly high, often disproportionate to the outcomes they promote. Access is unequally distributed and conditioned to vicious market dynamics. Specialties have become progressively isolated, hierarchical, and centered on the unhealthy body. Death is seen as an enemy to be conquered in a medical tradition populated by warlike metaphors (invading, bombing, winning, fighting, resisting, etc.). The relational dimension of care has progressively shifted to the background. The ability of caregivers to relate to the recipients of their actions has not evolved as much as the development of knowledge in the fields of anatomy, physiology, microbiology, pharmacology, and the technology used in care (from the stethoscope to the most powerful scanning equipment). It is in this context that attempts to rescue what we could call the human dimension of care has emerged in different countries. These are initiatives that seek to fill the

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deficits of the tradition of modern medicine by advocating, for example, for a broader and multi-determined definition of health, a contextually and culturally sensitive approach to patients, greater emphasis on comprehensive and integral care, a focus on interdisciplinary work, appreciation of primary care, prevention and health promotion strategies, and, especially, the rescue of the relational aspects of care. The chapters gathered in this section provide an intriguing and inspiring presentation of the potential of social construction in fostering care practices that are sensitive to these challenges. These are texts that address practices in different care settings such as hospitals, nursing homes, community groups, and medical schools, dedicated to different populations such as elders, bereaved people, LGBT, people named as addicts, professional health care teams and professionals in training. They illustrate the possibilities for action that unfold when we consider the relational dimension as the center of our care practices. In the chapter that opens this section W. Ellen Raboin and Paul N. Uhlig relate three stories that invite us to approach the world of health care, its complexities, and possibilities for transformation. With them, we begin to consider that contemporary practices of health care are the result of a long social process in which the development of modern scientific medicine plays a fundamental role. From a social constructionist perspective, the authors understand that a tradition is maintained and also transformed from everyday practices. The authors ask us to consider how we can use social constructionist resources to transform our practices in order to favor the construction of a new tradition in which relations are centrally placed. This would be the task of collaborative reconstructing of health care, for which the authors present and discuss relational resources such as: connecting, coordinating, collaborative decision making, learning, and development. The text is an invitation to consider the possibilities of building care spaces

centered on relationships, in which professionals, families, and users can more readily interact, collaborate, reflect together, enrich understandings with different perspectives, and appreciate the multiplicity and complexity present in each interaction. Following the reflections on how we can transform our health care practices, Karen Gold introduces us to Narrative Medicine in the next chapter of this section. Narrative Medicine is an approach that tries to overcome the objective and biomedical emphasis of traditional health care by considering the intersubjective dimension in daily care practices and the social and personal aspects of each patient’s history. It employs a method that challenges young practitioners to exercise their sensibilities with activities that include reading texts and poems, creative writing, and text interpretation practices. Gold articulates this pedagogy with the social constructionist concepts of relational responsibility and relational being to highlight how these notions can increase relational engagement and awareness in health care practice. It is a way of questioning the traditional objectivity that promotes distance and detachment as the necessary predictor of clinicians’ performances. Analyzing the way language plays a central role in Narrative Medicine practice, the author highlights the possibility of building care practices from an ethics anchored in relational processes in which resoluteness is not the only measure of their excellence. From a relational perspective, equally important would be to evaluate the way we practice care by exploring power imbalances between professionals and patients, to expand willingness to work together and to increase the resilience of professionals. In the third chapter, ‘Strengthening Our Stories in the Second Half of Life: Narrative Resilience through Narrative Care’, William Randall discusses the challenges of later life and ways in which narrative approaches can be useful in the ever-unfolding process of making sense of our lives. Starting from the premise that aging is not only a biological

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stage but also a biographical process, Randall highlights storytelling as a fundamental activity of later life. As he says, it is in later life that we feel the urge ‘to reflect on the proverbial story of our lives’. As narratives, our lives are permanently open to development and new meanings can always be in the process of becoming. And if the stories we tell about ourselves are not separated from who we are, that means we are also constantly open to change. However, cultural descriptions of aging can still be too focused on losses and on the biomedical discourse that is dominant in nursing homes, which can exacerbate narratives of decline. Therefore, although we are constantly creating and recreating narratives about ourselves, this task can be jeopardized by specific challenges of later life such as narrative loss, narrative deprivation, narrative disorientation, narrative incoherence, narrative disruption, narrative domination and narrative foreclosure. How could we face those challenges and foster the creation of narratives of resilience? Randall proposes ‘storylistening’ as a practice useful for creating a better context for elders to tell their stories. He defines it as ‘the art of attending closely to – and for – the stories by which we understand our identities and experience who we are’. He offers many illustrations of how storylistening can happen in various contexts, from nursing homes to hospitals. It is a resource especially useful in assisting patients struggling with depression, dementia, and isolation. The chapter helps us to understand the importance of fostering contexts that are supportive of narrative development and invites the practitioner to exercise listening skills in order to nurture narratives of resilience, growth and openness. Also anchored in the work of narrative, Lorraine Hedtke presents us with ‘From an Individualist to a Relational Model of Grief’. The text departs from the critique of the way traditional scientific models approach death and grief, usually from a perspective in which moving on, letting go and finding closure are privileged as the healthy and mature

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way of dealing with a loss. For many, these models amplify suffering as they encourage distance from the deceased, foster alienation from our relations, exacerbate loss for the bereaved, contribute to the pathologizing of grieving, and limit the possibilities of creating connections between the living and the dead. Inspired by the work of Michael White and especially Barbara Myerhoff and her work on re-membering conversations, Lorraine presents and beautifully illustrates a relational approach to grief in which connections can endure and thrive in the face of death through the stories we cherish. In these stories, we can construct meanings about the relationship after death, the values that built the importance of that relationship for the bereaved, their connections with others who can help them remember the deceased and, above all, the potential that these stories have in transforming the future. In this direction, not only the past is permanently open for interpretation but also the future depends on the way we cultivate these stories and bring the best they have to offer into the unfolding path ahead. In the fifth chapter, based on the methodological contributions of Appreciative Inquiry, Natalie B. May, Julie Haizlip and Margaret Plews-Ogan give us an interesting perspective on how an appreciative approach can transform the health care working environment and relations. With a long tradition in the field of organizational studies, Appreciative Inquiry (AI) has produced fascinating results by reversing the traditional problem-focused logic to develop the recognition of strengths, resources, and best skills. Instead of finding solutions to specific problems, AI practitioners invest in the development of resources that already exist, enhancing a particular team’s ability to work together, nurturing positive practices and stimulating the ability to dream. In this chapter, we can appreciate how AI resources can be applied to the health care field by following the fascinating experiences described by the authors at the University of Virginia. These experiences

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include different challenges and contexts such as: developing multidisciplinary teamwork in a radiology unit; elaborating the strategic planning of the medical library and a nursing school; and transforming the working environment in a physical rehabilitation unit. The authors note that work environments in the health care context can be stressful and that the biomedical tradition upon which these environments have been constructed focuses on results and data that perpetuate the construction of spaces in which relational aspects are rarely if ever considered. Single interventions can have their impact, but it is necessary to provide the means to sustain changes. In this direction, the authors develop the principles of AI and elaborate the concept of Appreciative Practices. Appreciative Practices aim to implement positive practices in such a way that they become part of the institutional culture. Attention to language, positive check-ins, curiosity, reframing and visualization are the positive practices the authors describe as useful in their work in health care contexts. Finally, they offer two examples that illustrate transformations in aspects frequently perceived as management difficulties in health care contexts: burnout and discriminatory behavior. In his chapter, ‘Populating Recovery: Mobilizing Relational Sources for Healing Addiction’, Pavel Nepustil invites us to question the phenomena of addiction and recovery, problematizing both processes from a social constructionist perspective. Initially, he offers us the basis for understanding the important conceptual disputes over the concept of addiction, highlighting how individualistic notions have been limiting our actions. Opening the space to consider both addiction and recovery as relational phenomena, Nepustil claims to consider these processes within an intricate web of relationships that cannot be reduced to the biological or familiar level. In this sense, professional interventions are necessarily more complex and require careful consideration of forces such as culture, oppression and privilege systems,

social determinants of health, and relationships with community members. To illustrate the possibilities of constructionist action in this area, Nepustil presents two practices. The first is related to therapy with a couple that he conducted himself in which he listens attentively and seeks to foster dialogue between the couple. This opens the door to the creation of a relationship in which recovery is more likely to flourish. He highlights the importance of working on addiction within relationships since often not only the individual who is identified as the addict is affected, but also the people in his or her life. In this way, Nepustil’s approach favors the creation of relationships that can support the recovery process once the therapy is over. In the second practice, Nepustil focuses on the potential of involving specialists by experience (i.e., people who once were considered addicts) as lay therapists in care systems. This inclusion affirms the importance of considering that the recovery process should not be lonely and, in this, we find the potential to foster relationships between people with similar experiences. Moreover, this way of working challenges the usual descriptions of people considered addicted by positioning them as responsible, capable, and zealous. It is a way of working that defies negative descriptions and, instead, centers collaboration and community relations as key resources for change. Both resources – collaboration and community relations – are also highlighted in the next chapter, ‘Health Care Practices for LGBT People’ in which Emerson F. Rasera and I review social constructionist practices in health care that question normative descriptions of sexuality. Although the LGBT acronym contemplates a wide range of experiences, it has been used as a generic term to refer to the experiences of people who challenge the rigidity of gender binaryism and/ or compulsory heterosexuality, and therefore live the consequences of discrimination and prejudice. Understanding sexuality and gender as social constructions leads us to revisit the historical processes by which norms and

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standards have been created with the prominent participation of medical and scientific discourse and thus have contributed to the privilege of some sexualities over others. In the contemporary scenario in which LGBT people must no longer have their life practices pathologized, it is necessary to reconstruct health care practices to allow the production of sensitive and effective care as well as the transformation of cultural and institutional contexts which recurrently produce the conditions of illness and precariousness. In this chapter, we discuss how social constructionist discourse has introduced tension and thereby contributed to LGBT health care in four domains: diagnosis; mental health care; health professionals’ training; and health promotion and disease prevention. For each of these domains, we offer illustrations and examples of practices originated in different countries that include dialogue facilitation, thematic workshops and group work, production of collaborative documents, narrative therapy and community work. Despite their differences, all these interventions acknowledge the political dimension of working with historically marginalized populations and the role of health care practices in changing a history of exclusion. The eighth chapter of this section starts by recognizing health care contexts as populated by situations of great emotional stress to professionals. Serious illness, important decisions, communicating unpleasant news to family members, loss and death are common aspects of professional work, and it is not an infrequent occurrence that emotional apathy emerges as a way to respond to all these stressors. However, from a social constructionist perspective it is important to argue that caring is a relational activity in which our ability to connect with each other is critical. In this sense, Edgardo Morales-Arandes’ chapter, ‘Mindfulness as a Generative Resource in Compassionate Healthcare’, begins with these intriguing questions: ‘How do they [health professionals] deal with the despair of patients and family members when they face

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uncertainty and potential calamity and loss? How do they keep from becoming numb, disconnecting from the relational worlds of their patients? How is it possible for them to be of service and help patients and family members maintain their humanity and integrity in the face of sickness, loss, and death?’ To answer these questions, Morales-Arandes invites us to explore the terrain of mindfulness, an area to which he has been dedicated for over 40 years. Although this practice has its roots in the Buddhist tradition, MoralesArandes’ perspective leads us to appreciate mindfulness in its possible intersections with social construction, and thereby highlights its relational dimension. It is a practice that privileges social interaction, relational meaning-making, interdependence and interconnection. The author presents mindfulness characteristics that bear similarities to social constructionist propositions in valuing the radical inclusion of the other, favoring horizontal relationships, compassion, relational responsiveness, attention to relational flow, awareness of how the relationship is unfolding and deep connection. The chapter not only helps us appreciate how the social constructionist intelligibility finds echoes in other traditions of thought, but it also offers a valuable resource for the development of caring relationships. In the author’s own words, ‘mindfulness awareness can operate as a relational presence and a way-of-being that shifts present-centered, open, and curious awareness from the individual to the changing manifestations of a relational field that includes the self, the other, as well as the relationship.’ In the following chapter, by Arlene M. Katz and Kathleen Clark, the reader will find an intriguing experience of including social constructionist resources in the writing of the text itself. The authors invite Elizabeth Jameson to participate in writing the chapter by reflecting on her experience of living with multiple sclerosis. Reading the text offers us a precious opportunity to exercise what the authors themselves argue as a fundamental resource for the transformation of care

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relations in an era dominated by biotechnology: listening to what the patient has to say. This is a call to break the silence that is present in care relationships and that produces the isolation of those who are in treatment and also those responsible for care. What if the waiting rooms were meeting places where people could tell about their experiences? What if health professionals did not shy away from looking at death, loss, and the incurable, and could, instead, find in these experiences the possibility of being curious and interested in the unique experience that unfolds before them? In her description of how she has sought ways to connect her personal experience with that of others, Elizabeth Jameson helps us recognize the experience of illness as an experience of the radical reconstruction of meaning. In her case, this reconstruction leads her to explore unusual territories such as artistic and narrative production. They are ways of breaking the silence that dehumanizes and isolates – a way of affirming the possibility of staying connected, even in circumstances of extreme loss, and together building spaces to appreciate the beauty present in imperfections. In the chapter, ‘Play Creates Well-being: The Contingency and the Creativity of Human Interaction’ that closes this section, Saliha Bava introduces the concept of well-being and leads us to consider practices of care beyond the institutionalized field of health care. Current research in this field indicates that relating and building relationships is directly linked to well-being, with significant impacts on health and morbidity. Anchored in social constructionist thought, Bava proposes that attention to the relational process is a way of actively creating well-being. To do this, we can use play, a resource that is so simple and so ignored in the experience of adults. Grounded in a communicational and relational perspective, Bava overcomes traditional understandings of play that reduce this activity to sports, leisure, mind games, and/or foreplay. She defines it as ‘the relationally creative process of trial and error by

which we co-create’. In this creative process, we are liberated from the identity prisons that confine us and we embark on a joint and improvised production that reaffirms our power to be a little more than we already are. Through dialogical imagination we recover our well-being by playing with the discursive forces that influence us, recomposing them in original ways and deactivating their unfavorable determinations. Thus, we assume the incomplete, dialectical, and permanently open character of our relationships as a field of improvisation and play in which we can try different forms of connection to our wellbeing. It is an invitation to consider that it is from within our relationships that we produce our sense of well-being as contextual, collaborative and coordinated; a ground of co-creation where we feel alive and happy. Despite their nuances and differences, the chapters in this section, more or less prominently articulate similar forces that deserve to be highlighted. First, these texts problematize the role of diagnostics in our care practices from a critical perspective on the diagnostic effects of control and subordination. This is most evident in the discussion of socially discriminated populations such as LGBT people and people who are named as addicts. In the two chapters that address these themes, the practices presented directly challenge the way health sciences have contributed to the construction of negative and oppressive descriptions and thus have cooperated in the production of forms of social exclusion and domination. However, we can also identify similar concerns in the texts about grief, aging and chronic illness. The criticism of diagnosis and its commitment to deficit discourse is already well established in the social constructionist literature that reveals the political effect of normativity. This criticism is here put into action through practices committed to the production of forms of care engaged in social transformation. Second, this collection of texts bets on the power of language as a way of transforming our care practices. These chapters assume

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communication as a shared activity in which meanings emerge from the interaction in constant openness to change. Therefore, the texts highlight dialogue, collaboration, attentive listening, sensitive and contextualized responses, attention to detail and the transformative power of narrative and storytelling. They challenge rigid power relations, stifled hierarchies, professional isolation and the resignation of those we inaccurately call patients. The political dimension and the collaborative dimension of these texts also signal a third dimension that I call creative. The practices presented here are oriented towards the creation of new relational scenarios in which

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life, illness and care may be different. They are not so much concerned with correcting or curing what would be supposed to be wrong since they do not resort to the narrow limits of normativity. Here, the opposite of normal is diverse. Nor are they concerned with affirming universal knowledge and static realities, but with recognizing the communal character of the meanings we construct, our relational dependence, and the openness to transformation present in each moment of human interaction. The opposite of real is the emergent. Thus, these are practices committed to dreaming other ways of living: unpredictable to some extent, diverse in many ways, and always relying on collaboration.

41 Collaborative Re-construction of Health Care W. E l l e n R a b o i n a n d P a u l N . U h l i g

This chapter focuses on how conversations and interactions in health care can be transformed by adopting an orientation of relational social construction; and how they can be intentionally reshaped to make something that responds to the evolving needs of society. By relational social construction, we mean the ways that experiences, meaning, and realities are co-generated among people in ongoing social processes (Dachler and Hosking, 1995). Just as traditional worlds of health care are socially constructed, new worlds of health care can be intentionally re-constructed. We follow a communication perspective, which understands social worlds as ‘made’ in contextualized patterns of interactions. This orientation invites us to look at the conversations and interactions in health care with a co-creative lens, and ask, ‘What we are making together?’, ‘How are we making it?’ and, ‘What is possible now, that wasn’t possible before?’ (Pearce, 2007). The communication perspective allows us to situate social

interactions as formative, locating agency for reformation within reach.

WHAT ARE WE MAKING TOGETHER? The Formative Landscape We begin by hovering over the landscape of health care: we hear, see, and feel many things – cries and suffering, happiness and relief, loneliness and connection, efforts to help, futility, success, joy, tears, new learning, anxiousness, yearning – every imaginable dimension of individual and shared human experience, and the miracles alongside. With every interaction, people are feeling and talking – and their interactions are making realities/worldviews/values/beliefs. Central to what is being made is meaning. Three stories help explore this landscape and the convergence of meaning making and action within. The stories are fictional but are

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drawn from actual events. The first two stories are from care experiences of the authors in the United States. The third story is based on a public performance art event in Quito, Ecuador (Cartagena, 2015).

Story 1: Jenae’s Story A young mother, Jenae, is hurrying to get her children off to school so she can go to the hospital to be with her father who is in an intensive care unit. She lifts her daughter and son into her car, pausing briefly to smooth her daughter’s hair and kiss her son’s head. At the hospital, Janae’s father is awake, straining to make sense of fragments of conversations that filter in through his partially open door. A group of resident physicians and their teacher are standing in the ICU hallway outside his room, talking about his care. The nurse caring for Jenae’s father, and a new nurse he is precepting, are down the hall giving medications to a different patient. Thirty minutes later Jenae reaches her father’s care unit. She walks down the hallway and into her father’s room with a cup of slightly warm coffee in one hand and a treasured leather satchel of books he asked for in the other. His eyes light up when he sees her, and she smiles back. He is a professor, only sixty, yet he looks twenty years older. She moves to his side and takes his hand. Jenae sees that her father’s bed sheet is still discolored with blood stains from yesterday. The last conversation she had before she reluctantly left for the night, was a promise from the night nurse that she would change the bed. The day nurses come into the room carrying new morning linens, but it is too late. Jenae feels guilty and is furious. She bites her lip to keep from crying and says nothing. Instead she asks, ‘Do you know when his doctors will be here?’ Her heart collapses when the nurse answers, ‘They have already left.’

Story 2: Alfred’s Story In a different part of the hospital, a distinguished looking gentleman with gray hair

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and a worn tweed jacket, shirt and tie is sitting in a chair pulled close by a hospital bed. The silver-haired woman in the bed has a soft blue knitted bed jacket gathered over her shoulders. Her head is resting on his arm. She is asleep. He is gently holding both of her hands. The woman stirs slightly and opens her eyes. ‘Alfred?’, she asks. ‘I am right here’, he replies. He turns and looks even more closely into her face and says again, ‘Right here’. She gives a little sigh, closes her eyes again, and relaxes into his presence. In other chairs, also close to the bed, a nurse and a doctor are sitting. Near them, completing a loose circle around the bed, stand a student nurse, several resident doctors, a respiratory therapist, a social worker, a chaplain, and a pharmacist. ‘Mr Wilton’, the pharmacist asks, ‘is there anything else that you or Rose need for now?’ Her manner is warm and the cadence of her question is patient. ‘No’, he replies, lifting his face to the entire group. ‘We are fine. The new medicine you recommended is helping. She is resting a lot better.’ The pharmacist, nurse, and doctor nod in unison to Alfred, look at one another, and then to the others in the room. The social worker speaks up, ‘Alfred, thank you for bringing the photograph of you and Rose at the cemetery at Normandy. We know how much it mattered to Rose to make that trip with you.’ Alfred’s eyes fill with tears and he holds Rose’s hands tighter. ‘She waited for me all those months’, he says softly. The chaplain moves to his side, resting his hand on Alfred’s shoulder. They settle back into their chairs, aware of Alfred’s gratitude. The nurse asks, ‘Does anyone have anything else? The group looks to one another, and to Alfred and Rose, holding an affirming silence. The nurse looks around the room, then at Alfred and Rose. She says, ‘If you don’t mind, we will stay here with you another few minutes. Just ask if you need anything else.’

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Story 3: Carmela’s Story Carmela moves up a winding path through grassy fields, leading from her village to the forested mountainside above. She is climbing toward a rocky ledge, barely visible several hundred meters ahead, emerging and disappearing in shards of mist and clouds. She is walking effortlessly – she is used to the altitude and terrain – but her heart is pounding … As Carmela climbs, she recalls the trip she made one magical day two years ago, to Quito, about 60 kilometers from her home. An acquaintance, Veronica, now her closest friend, invited her to come along on Veronica’s spur of the moment plan of hitchhiking to Quito and back. The plan worked. Leaving before dawn, with wrapped sandwiches in their backpacks, traveling by motorcycle and in the back of an open farm truck, the two women arrived in Quito just in time to achieve Veronica’s purpose for their journey: attending a public art performance in a bullring in Quito, where hundreds of men gathered and read aloud letters from women describing stories of personal trauma and violence. By the end of the day, the two women were back in their village, determined that they would somehow reproduce the readings in their own community. Two weeks later they held their first planning meeting. No one showed up. The next week they met again. This time a handful of friends joined them. They kept meeting every week, inviting anyone they knew. They posted messages, left literature in the town square, shared online videos, and went to churches and schools. They asked local media to support them. They kept meeting. A breakthrough happened one Tuesday evening when a man – a local barber and football hero – asked if he could speak in support of the project. The response was remarkable. The community awakened. Conversations appeared all over town. Women opened up to one another about long suppressed experiences. Men began to listen and talk, too.

Public awareness grew. Soon a date was set, and a place was chosen. Women wrote letters, and men volunteered to read them. The reading happened today. Carmela had been there until near the end, when she left and walked to this path. She had come down this same path 16 years ago, confused and ashamed. She had never been back. She trembled when she thought of the path and vomited once when she accidentally found herself near it. Today, however, during the readings, something shifted in her heart and body. She moved to the path and started climbing. … Carmela reaches the ledge. She presses her back against the jagged edge of the rock wall, feels it distorting her skin through her wool jacket. This time, though, she is the one pressing herself backward. Tears well like a waterfall from her eyes. She trembles, then stops trembling. She moves away from the wall, stands tall, raises her arms and opens them to the valley and her community below. She breathes deeply and peacefully, for the first time in 16 years. The experiences of care described in the stories are relational accomplishments that move from anxious to peaceful, confusing to comfortable, uncertain to familiar, disconnected to connected, individual to community, vulnerable to empowered. Relational accomplishments arise in and resonate with meaning systems that contextualize coordinated actions (Pearce, 2007). Meaning systems and associated commitments guide what matters most for those involved – patients, family members, and health care professionals alike. These include commitments to patient care, relationships, professions, making it to a sister’s wedding, and anything else that matters most to each person in each local context.

History of Traditional Health Care Traditional scientific medical practice traces its origins to models of care that were developed more than a century ago (Duffy, 2011).

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At that time, science was in the ascendancy. Diseases were thought of as afflictions that took many lives. The hope and promise that science could be applied with the intention of conquering disease and thereby producing health instead of affliction and death was near miraculous. Organized systems for doing that were developed, and practitioners, patients, and society joined forces around this model. The results were unprecedented and rewarding. Over time, this model spread worldwide, with all its strengths, and its vulnerabilities. In most major medical centers across the United States and internationally, this model remains the dominant approach to health care. Table 41.1 compares the central tenets of traditional health care with an alternative interpretive scheme. In the left column are presuppositions of the traditional medical model. In the right column are different interpretive schema based on an understanding of health as a generative, natural expression of human connections. The alternative model has different priorities and commitments. It views health and well-being as primarily being co-created in relationships.

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For all the benefits that column 1 approaches have brought – and there have been many – a parallel outcome has been a diminution of the human center in health care. This model is also producing unresolved global challenges: costs are high and increasing; quality is uneven; and experiences of care for those giving and receiving care alike are too often exhausting, alienating, and diminished in purpose and meaning (The Lancet, 2019). Over the last decades, examples of hope are emerging that indicate that relationally centered ways of working in health care can improve outcomes, increasing both patient and professional caregiver satisfaction, and revitalizing meaning in care experiences (Curley et al., 1998; Jenny et  al., 2017; Selleck et al., 2017; Li et al., 2018). These include impacts on the management of chronic disease (Brown et al., 2017); depression therapy (Gilbody et al., 2006; Melek et  al., 2018); length of stays in hospitals (Pacheco et  al., 2011); discharge conversations (Patel et  al., 2019); long-term cardiac functioning (Sandhoff et al., 2008); life with diabetes (Gucciardi et al., 2016); and satisfaction of families (Chen et al., 2018; Justice et al., 2016).

Table 41.1  Schemas in health care Traditional medical model Alternative schema Battle Illness Disease Deficient/Missing Abnormal Objective Rational Measured Truth Certain Loneliness/Isolation Individual Reduced/Split Apart Resist Inevitable Ending Destruction

Peace Well-being Strength Whole/Complete Diversity Lived/Experienced Intuited/Known Sensed Multiple Realities Relative Natural State of Connection Belonging Integrated Cycles of Life Journey

HOW ARE WE MAKING HEALTH CARE? Figure 41.1 illustrates cycles of social construction in health care. The figure connects these with relational preconditions and socially constructed resources, which are particular to social fields within which people interact, converse, learn, and create together (Uhlig and Raboin, 2015). Notice the inner circle representing the ongoing social construction of traditional health care. Entering at any point, conversations and interactions, experiences and sense making, meaning systems and commitments, and social practices are shaped by and help

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Figure 41.1  Social construction and re-construction of health care

create relational preconditions and socially constructed resources available in the social field. Notice, also, an outer spiral representing a divergent path from this traditional reconstruction – a path that may be deliberately taken and intentionally guided toward relationally centered ways of working. This alternative path, and all accompanying it, enriches the socially constructed resources of the evolving social field with newly made resources.

Social Fields A social field can be envisioned as a living, collective intelligence that grows among a group of people as they work and learn together. The experiences and connections that develop among people become familiar and available to people who create them together. People can draw upon these connections and shared history in their subsequent work. Many things become possible in a well-developed social field, and effortlessly so (Uhlig and Raboin, 2015).

Socially Constructed Resources Socially constructed resources are collective tacit knowledge, insights, and abilities that develop as people in a particular social field work and learn together over time. They include intangibles like a spirit of trying, trust, and knowing what to expect from one another. Consider, for example, teams that have identical individual abilities, yet one team is able to do things that the other team cannot. The exceptional team has access to more socially constructed resources, made together in their past interactions, which they can access in their work.

Relational Preconditions Intentional modifications of anything that shapes how relationships form among people can influence collaborative opportunity. Relational preconditions in health care environments include socially constructed values and beliefs that are not directly accessible. Examples of modifying relational preconditions include: organizing meetings

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across instead of within professions; making intentional choices about language used when talking about patients and other professions; intentional leadership actions that de-­emphasize hierarchy and promote psychological safety (Nembhard and Edmondson, 2006); positive actions to warmly invite and welcome newcomers, patients, and family members; changing routines to actively welcome, include, and engage patients and families in clinical care and decision making; organizing care environments to achieve greater consistency and continuity of relationships among those who work together; and many more. Over time, changes such as these reshape the formative conversations and interactions that happen in an environment; and, cycles of social construction will incorporate these and begin to make something other than traditional health care.

Where to Enter the Reconstruction If we enter the formative cycle of Figure 41.1 for traditional health care, considering, say, nurses, thinking about what is involved in becoming a nurse, we realize that for most of their training, nurses interact predominantly with other nurses during their formative professional education. If we consider the education of physicians or other professionals, we have the same realization. Education for the traditional health professions is largely accomplished within, rather than across, professions. Separate patterns of interactions continue in the traditional workplace environments in health care. Nurses talk formatively mostly with other nurses, doctors with other doctors, patients and families wait outside talking among themselves, and so on. Work patterns on most care units function in terms of separate professions, rather than bringing professions together, and keep patients and families separated from the care team. If relational preconditions are different, or are intentionally changed, the social

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construction process will make something different. From this perspective, the work of creating new approaches to care is disrupting how unwanted repeated patterns (Pearce, 2007) are made, and facilitating others.

WHAT ARE WE BECOMING AS WE RECONSTRUCT HEALTH CARE? Collaboration as a Desired Goal The primary commitment of the authors is collaborative reconstruction of health care. Drawing from the international literature on collaboration, Raboin (2010) identified a set of five social practices which she proposes are foundational to collaboration in health care. These collaborative social practices are intentional ways of (1) connecting, (2) c­oordinating, (3) inviting multiplicity, (4) making decisions collaboratively, and (5) learning and developing in a social field. The five collaborative social practices draw from and enrich the meaning systems and socially constructed resources of the social field (Figure 41.2).

Collaborative Practice # 1: Connecting Healing happens in human connections (Achat et al., 1998). The manifestations of healthy and healing human connections include eye contact, open body postures, smiles, touch, empathy, compassion for our human condition, and laughter. The power of invitations and inclusion. Inviting participation in the process of care is an act of healing itself. The oldest form of connecting collectively is a circle. When we stand or sit together in a circle, facing one another, strength, and energy are greater than if communicating by words only. Commitments in which patients and family members are intentionally included as (co) owners and (co)generators of care construct

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Figure 41.2  Collaborative practices in a social field

Connecting  Story 1 is an example of not connecting. The physicians are doing their work in isolation; the day nurses are not aware of promises made to Janae by the night nurse; Jenae and her father as patients/family are disconnected from everyone and everything else. The social field in which these groups were functioning supports connecting in silos only. Story 2 demonstrates rich connecting. Empathy, touch, patience, kindness, curiosity, inquiry, and reassurance are manifestations of connecting. Connecting in Story 2 enables everyone involved in Rose’s care to look each other in the eye when important decisions are being made. Story 3 shows connecting that is powerful, and newly made. Connecting in Story 3 brings community members together across divides of harm, pain, silence, and time in ways that create new awareness, safety, and healing. Veronica, Carmela, and others built a new social field in their community that reforms connecting.

new connections. The presence and contribution of each individual joining-in (Shotter, 1980) creates a shared sense of belonging. Belonging and inclusion are fundamental experiences of health for human systems (Hellinger, 2002). Mutual, generative connections. Colla­ borative ways of caring open up the experiences and the responsibilities of care to all participants, making caring mutual, reciprocal and generative rather than delivered from providers to a patient. Increased visiting hours in hospitals (Levy and De Backer, 2013) and invitations for patients and family to join quality improvement projects (Reinertsen et  al., 2008) are examples of the ongoing reconstruction of policy and the rethinking of who has the rights, privileges, and responsibility of caring. Connecting across professions. Much has been written internationally about various forms of interprofessional practice in health care (Reeves et al., 2017). Invitations to work together across professions, and structures for doing so, are reshaping practices across professions in the service of richer

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connections and of more holistic care. Efforts to improve interprofessional collaboration inform the ongoing discourse about teamwork in health care organizations (Eddy et al., 2016). Importantly, these efforts are moving upstream toward interprofessional education (Donnelly, 2019; Uhlig et al., 2018). Restoration and renewal. Socially reconstructing meaningful lives and deaths by commitments to relational connections through sharing, witnessing, valuing, and respecting one another makes sense in collaborative environments. Sharing meaning with others is a pathway for health care professionals to restore themselves in the otherwise draining work system inside health care organizations (Jenny et al., 2017); and for patients and families to strengthen other dimensions of wellbeing as well as physical health. Like love, care and respect, meaning-filled connections are a source of thriving.

Collaborative Practice # 2: Coordinating in Our Patterns of Interactions Coordinating  Story 1 – separate groups coordinating separately to achieve siloed purposes. Stories 2 and 3 – people coordinating collectively around human experiences to achieve shared purposes.

Simplifying the complexity of care. Efforts have been made in some health care environments to intentionally reorganize work to increase collaboration, enhance opportunities for professionals to be in the same room together, and to talk and work directly with the patient and family members. These changes have the effect of simplifying coordination, as people who participate in the collaborative process understand the care plan and their roles because they helped create it. Geographic co-location. Geographic colocation of patients with the team of professionals caring for them is an example of

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an intentional change that can be made to enhance coordination. In traditional hospital settings, it is common for the medical team to be assigned according to a call schedule; room location by availability; nurses assigned by unit; and other professionals, such as pharmacists or social workers, assigned by specific floors of a hospital. The end result is inconsistency regarding how people work together during day-to-day patient care. Reconstruction of bed flow and room assignments to create greater consistency of interactions furthers the ability of a care team to establish relationships, develop contextual resources, and establish meaning systems that nurture collaboration (Reeves and Lewin, 2004; Uhlig and Raboin, 2015). Other considerations. When coordination is incomplete and interactions contain incongruent meanings, care can be impeded or become transactional. When higher quality social coordination is in place, different kinds of communication and actions are enabled that increase dimensions of human-centered care, sometimes in ways that bypass traditional hierarchy. Hierarchy shifts embedded in new communication patterns may alter power relationships in ways that can be perceived as disturbing to the traditional social order in health care (Uhlig and Raboin, 2015).

Collaborative Practice # 3: Inviting Multiplicity Inviting multiplicity  Story 1 presupposes that the medical care team will have all the answers, and that the patient and his family member will be recipients of this professional expertise. Story 2 invites the experience and expertise of everyone in the room, including Alfred and Rose, in knowing how to care best for one another. Story 3 relationally constructs a new forum that brings people together in new ways, welcomes multiple voices, and relies upon the diverse experience and expertise of an entire community to support health and healing.

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Figure 41.3  Collaborative decision making: divergence, deliberation, and convergence to action

Social interactions that welcome diversity can lead to qualitatively richer moments (Mitchell et al., 2010). The intentional act of including different viewpoints changes the boundaries of the conversation in social interactions, opening new ways of talking about what is happening and what should happen in care practices. The ability of people in a social field to invite and welcome differing perspectives, and to respectfully hold open the kinds of interactions that generate initial divergence of ideas and opinions, is an essential part of collaboration. Holding open and honoring multiplicity is a collectively learned ability in the social field, requiring respect and patience to develop.

Collaborative Practice # 4: Collaborative Decision Making Collaborative decision making is a learned art that engages multiplicity, welcomes divergent interactions (i.e., brainstorming), deliberates collectively, holds open the possibility of multiple viewpoints, and converges respectfully on the next meaningful act, as illustrated in Figure 41.3.

Collaborative decision making  Story 1: collaborative decision making is not expected or in the repertoire of the social field. Story 2: collaborative decision making is integral to the understanding of how to go on together. Story 3: collaborative decision making is invited in the social field formed around this community of healing.

Collaborative decision making does not mandate compromise or reaching consensus. It requires a collective ability to maintain a safe relational space to hold differences, while determining the next action to take. Critical to this collective process are patience, respect, listening, coherence (McCarty, 2017), and collective wisdom (Briskin et al., 2009).

Collaborative Practice # 5: Learning and Development Holding knowledge as constructed in a relational process (Dachler and Hosking, 1995) points to the distinctive nature of collaborative learning in action, compared to facts

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Learning and development  Story 1: The medical team adheres to traditional learning routines. Story 2: Everyone in the circle grows together from their common experience of learning to navigate Rose’s death. Story 3: Stories that shift from being untellable to told in new voices/new ways develop a healthier community.

observed or found in the diagnostic process. In this socially oriented way of understanding knowledge and learning, a care team develops its own language and interpretive repertoire (Potter and Wetherell, 1987). One of the distinctive structures encouraged in a collaborative learning framework is the practice of collective reflection. Instead of reflecting on individual practices, collaborative learning and development encourages an orientation of devoting attention to the health of the social interactions of the team itself. The team might ask, ‘What did we do today to make the care environment we want to have?’ or ‘Did everyone feel we were all able to contribute to the last decision?’ Eddy et al. (2016) point to the use of simulation as one forum for developing team capacity. Simulations are also opportunities to collaborate with patients and families as learners and teachers. The nature of this collaborative stance, which commits to multiplicity over simplicity, challenges traditional taken-for-granted learning structures (Luscher et al., 2006).

WHAT IS POSSIBLE NOW, THAT WAS NOT POSSIBLE BEFORE? Relational social construction opens possibilities for health care that are only beginning to be understood. A vision is emerging of a new world of health care, generatively cocreated by all participants, that is sustainable

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instead of depleting. The new world of health care is centered on meaning and relationships. It is restorative as well as preventative and identifies and draws on strengths and possibilities rather than deficits. The new vision for health care is centered on how people work, live, grow, and thrive. It honors life, spirit, hope, and relationships. It honors aging and accepts death and the cycles of life’s seasons. It is natural, strong, and whole. It awakens and restores the human spirit, is peaceful, and views health and healing as mutually beneficial acts of co-creation and reconstruction. The emerging future of health care is not fully known, and yet we have a responsibility to it. We can ask, after Pearce, how we can act in ways that will bring preferred new patterns into being. The future of health care is bright and welcoming because we will make sure of that, together.

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Interprofessional collaborative practice in the medical intensive care unit: A survey of caregivers’ perspectives. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 33(10), 1708–1713. Curley, C., McEachern, J. E., & Speroff, T. (1998). A firm trial of interdisciplinary rounds on the inpatient medical wards: An intervention designed using continuous quality improvement. Medical Care, 36(8), AS4–AS12. Dachler, H. P., & Hosking, D. M. (1995). The primacy of relations in socially constructing organizational realities. In D. M. Hosking, H. P. Dachler & K. J. Gergen (Eds.), Management and organization: Relational perspectives, 1–28. Avebury: Ashgate. Donnelly, P. (2019). How to succeed at interprofessional education. Somerset: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated. Duffy, T. P. (2011). The Flexner Report – 100 years later. The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, 84(3), 269–276. Eddy, K., Jordan, Z., & Stephenson, M. (2016). Health professionals’ experience of teamwork education in acute hospital settings: A systematic review of qualitative literature. JBI Database of Systematic Reviews and Implementation Reports, 14(4), 96–137. Gilbody, S., Bower, P., Fletcher, J., Richards, D., & Sutton, A. J. (2006). Collaborative care for depression: A cumulative meta-analysis and review of longer-term outcomes. Archives of Internal Medicine, 166(21), 2314–2321. doi:10.1001/archinte.166.21.2314. Gucciardi, E., Espin, S., Morganti, A., & Dorado, L. (2016). Exploring interprofessional collaboration during the integration of diabetes teams into primary care. BMC Family Practice, 17(12): 12–25. Hellinger, B. (2002). Insights. Heidelberg: Carl-Auer. Jenny, G. J., Bauer, G. F., Vinje, H. F., Vogt, K., & Torp, S. (2017). The application of salutogenesis to work. In M. B. Mittelmark, S. Sagy, M. Eriksson, G. F. Bauer, J. M. Pelikan, B. Lindström & G. A. Espenes (Eds.), The handbook of salutogenesis 197–210. Switzerland: Springer. Justice, L. B., Cooper, D. S., Henderson, C., Brown, J., Simon, K., Clark, L., … Nelson, D. P. (2016). Improving communication during cardiac ICU multidisciplinary rounds through visual display of patient daily goals. Pediatric Critical Care Medicine: A Journal of

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42 Words Matter: Promoting Relationality in Healthcare through Narrative Medicine Karen Gold

INTRODUCTION The daily work of clinicians is conducted in face-toface encounters, whether in exam rooms, homes, or alongside hospital beds, but little attention has been paid to the responsibilities and ethical implications generated by this dimension of our relational work. (Edgoose and Edgoose, 2017: 272)

This chapter focuses on the relational dimensions of contemporary narrative medicine (NM) pedagogy (as developed by Rita Charon and her colleagues at Columbia University), and how the practices of close reading and reflective writing resonate with social constructionist notions of relationality. In particular I draw on the concepts of relational responsibility and relational being to highlight the inter-subjective dimensions of NM methods and illustrate how NM promotes relational engagement in day-to-day practice. NM is defined as the ability ‘to acknowledge, absorb, interpret and act on the stories and plights of others’ (Charon, 2001: 1897).

Its primary commitment is to relationships. The purpose of NM is to widen the biomedical gaze to include the personal and social elements of patients’ lives and the intersubjective aspects of day-to-day practice. As a teaching approach, NM relies on the methods of close (or careful) reading of texts such as poems, short stories, or novels, and the use of creative writing exercises guided by prompts. Part of the larger medical (or health) humanities movement, NM builds on earlier efforts to humanize healthcare (such as biopsycho-social medicine) and seeks to shift the bio-medical assumptions that operate ‘silently and unreflectively’ in Western medicine (Engel et al., 2008). With its emphasis on the inter-subjective dimensions of clinical care and the importance of paying attention, NM challenges the informal curriculum in the health professions that promotes ‘distance and detachment’ as the only appropriate postures for clinicians (Spiegel and Spencer, 2017: 38).

WORDS MATTER

Informed by diverse philosophical and intellectual traditions, including literary and aesthetic theory, cultural studies, and narratology, NM is guided by the principles of intersubjectivity, relationality, and embodiment (Charon in Charon et al., 2017: 4). NM encourages clinicians to view encounters with patients through the lens of ‘story’. The field is informed by the work of narratologists like Arthur Frank (2013) who offer a framework for understanding the personal and cultural meanings of illness. With its emphasis on providing forums for reflective and relational storytelling, NM minimizes hierarchy and the ‘hard-bitten power asymmetries’ between members of different professions, teachers and learners, and clinicians and patients (Charon in Charon et al., 2017: 5). NM methods are increasingly deployed as resources for enhancing teamwork and practitioner resiliency (Charon et al., 2017) as it helps prepare clinicians to be ‘witnesses to human suffering in real time’ (Arntfield and Hynes, 2018: 42). While the NM practices discussed in this chapter have been adopted in health professional programs in the United States, Europe, and Canada, NM is increasingly an international and transcultural practice (Marini, 2019; Charon, 2013; Goupy et  al., 2013), with philosophical roots in the social medicine practices of the Global South (Birn and Muntaner, 2018). In reflecting on the role of story in Indigenous cultures, physician Lisa Richardson (quoted in Hounsell, 2019) points out that when we use the term narrative medicine, ‘we’re actually just recognizing the integral role of stories in all of our practices … Indigenous medicine always includes story, and it’s done so for thousands years’.1 In the next section, I describe how narrative medicine promotes relationality through its signature methods or teaching practices (i.e., close or careful reading and reflective writing), and the texts themselves. I offer some key narrative medicine exercises from the literature and in the Appendix, I share

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further examples of narrative medicine activities using poems and stories that encourage readers to attend to ‘moments of being’ that arise out of the ‘cotton wool’ of daily practice (Kumagai et al., 2018: 1780).

NARRATIVE MEDICINE AND RELATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY We are so much embedded in our relations with others that those very relations are difficult to discern clearly. We are so in the thick of relationality that it is almost impossible to fully appreciate its contours and inner workings, a little like the eye trying to see itself. (Mitchell, quoted in Spiegel and Spencer, 2017: 15)

The concept of relational responsibility is derived from the ‘first premise’ of social constructionism: that meaning is generated within the context of relationships (McNamee and Gergen, 1999: xi). While conventional notions of morality focus on individual actions, relational responsibility offers an alternative orientation that shifts attention to relational processes and locates meaning in the ‘give and take’ of what people do together (Gergen, 2011). These interactive moments are characterized by continuous movement as ‘persons in relationships are constantly repositioning themselves like dancers engaged in fluid but patterned formations … in respect of others and also in respect of previous relationships’ (Burkitt, 1999: 74). Relational responsibility equips us with a ‘reflexive vocabulary’ with which to question taken-for-granted truths, and situates ethical action and knowledge in relationships rather than in abstract principles. In considering the implications of relational responsibility for professional practice ethics, McNamee (2009: 61) states, ‘This requires focus on what [the practitioner and patient] do together … because we can never “know” outside of any given context or, more specifically, outside of the interactive moment’. Perhaps the most important question implied by this concept is: ‘What alternatives open up when

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responsibility is viewed through a relational prism?’ (Cooperrider and Whitney, 1999: 57). Relational responsibility emphasizes language practices as ‘[we] do things together with words – for good or ill’ (McNamee and Gergen, 1999: x). With a focus on reading, writing, and listening, NM seminars invite learners to participate in an intimate ‘choreography of co-action’ (Gergen, 2009). There are three main language-based practices that occur in small group NM settings: close reading, reflective writing, and sharing. All three processes involve the inter-subjective dynamics of ‘telling and listening’ to one another. The first practice, close reading, involves the collaborative discussion and unpacking of a literary text and its meanings. Described as a ‘sharply honed attentiveness to nuances of language and form’ (Charon, 2017: 158), close reading creates the conditions for a text to be ‘seen and heard through multiple viewpoints’ (Arntfield and Hynes, 2018: 48). Acknowledging the ‘indeterminacy of language and the contingency of meaning’, close reading in a narrative medicine seminar develops the capacity for attentive listening to the text, and to each other (Charon, 2017: 162–166). The second practice, reflective writing, occurs following the close reading of a text. While writing is often thought of as a solitary activity, Charon and Hermann (2012: 6) suggest that reflective writing in narrative medicine contexts is a form of communication that ‘permits deep congress of self with other’. In a departure from detached and ‘objective’ analysis, reflective writing is a ‘landing space for responses’ (Arntfield and Hynes, 2018: 53) as readers are encouraged to explore their personal associations and reactions to the just-read text (Spiegel and Spencer, 2017). The third related practice is sharing one’s writing. In a narrative medicine setting, reading out loud is a type of ‘relational performance’ (Gergen, 2009) that entails a kind of personal vulnerability and risk-taking not typically found in professional training or

clinical environments (Shapiro et al., 2006). Being an audience to such writing demands listening with a heightened sense of ‘awareness, responsiveness and alertness’ that leads participants to ‘see one another in a new light’ (p. 235). Listening, in these contexts, is an act of witnessing as it refers to ‘the responsibility of those who hear testimony of suffering not to turn away from the struggles presented, but rather to accept and acknowledge them at a deeply empathic level’ (p. 236).2 Taken together, the three language-based activities that occur in NM seminars encourage relationality by providing opportunities to notice critical (yet often overlooked) relational moments in daily practice. This story, from a reflective writing group for residents, facilitated by physician and poet Rafael Campo (2011), invites us to consider a moment of practice through a relational lens: I am reminded of one of my residents, who was called to run a code on a patient of hers in the hospital just as she was about to leave for the day and enjoy some time with her young family at home. She had followed all the biomedical protocols and algorithms perfectly, barking orders to the nurses and interns with all the confidence she could muster; however, like most end-of-life interventions in the hospital, this one too proved futile, and the patient died … Perhaps most salient of all that she had sacrificed to the biomedical exigencies of the moment was the tuning out of the family who were present in the room; she wished she hadn’t ignored them, but instead had allowed them to stop her before a full thirty minutes had passed, when it was already amply clear to them that their mother was dead.

This story is deeply unsettling and compels us to question taken-for-granted healthcare practices. It urges us (as clinicians, readers, and listeners) to consider clinical ethics within the ‘on-going flow of persons in situated activity’ (McNamee, 2009: 60) and to imagine the clinician’s responsibilities to the patient and her family. It calls us to imagine more compassionate ways of responding to patients and families in moments of acute crisis and loss. By drawing our attention to the presence of the patient’s children in the

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room, the narrative confronts us with the impact of the clinician’s action on these silent (and unwilling) witnesses. The story also widens our view of the life of the clinician involved: what was it like for her to leave the hospital and return home to her own family, carrying the weight of this troubling incident? Campo (2011) argues that narrative has a vital role in ‘doing justice’ to this experience, and in helping us re-imagine a more compassionate ‘relationally engaged’ (McNamee, 2009) response: [If] we begin to enlarge the context, as narrative asks that we do, if we start to consider that our actions have impact on others who have their own relationship with the person we see exclusively as ‘a patient’ (and not as ‘a mother,’ as her children do; not as ‘a suffering soul,’ as the chaplain does), we might act differently. We might move to comfort the patient and to protect her dignity in her last minutes on earth; we might seek to console her children as they face a tremendous loss …

NARRATIVE MEDICINE AND RELATIONAL BEING Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. (Lamott, 1994: xxvi)

In placing relationships at the forefront, the concept of relational being suggests that we are constituted through a myriad of past and present relationships (Gergen, 2009: 226). Gergen explores how relationships are continually reconfigured through the ‘interactive scenarios’ we find ourselves part of. In discussing the implications of a relational approach for everyday life, Gergen conceptualizes individuals as multi-beings. Despite the tendency to see individuals as ‘bounded’ and unified selves, Gergen posits that we are ‘fully embodied beings that carry the traces’ that carry the traces of past relationships that shape present-day interactions. Eschewing the formalisms of traditional academic and professional writing Gergen attends to how reflective and creative forms of writing embody multi-being by

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attempting to ‘fully be there’ for the reader by communicating: I am available to you, not as a partial, carefully monitored facade, but as fully fragile and manysided human being. Rather than positioning ourselves as fully rational agents, bounded, and superior, we might become more recognizably human and compassionate. In contrast to the Enlightenment emphasis on transcendent reason, such writing could allow expression of desire, emotion, and bodily sensations. (Gergen, 2009: 226)

In exploring the implications of Gergen’s conception of multi-being for nursing practice, Hechinger et al. (2019) discuss how the residues or ‘traces’ of past relationships shape relationships in daily practice. Despite the one-dimensional roles that conventional understandings of such professional relationships suggest, the concept of multi-being offers possibilities for engaging in the relational scenarios, or the ‘set of moves’ (Gergen, 2009: 107) that unfold in clinical interactions. ‘Nurses and patients as individual multi-beings are each constituted through their former relationships, and they encounter each other as protagonists in their jointly formed relationship’ (Hechinger et al., 2019: 600). Peggy Penn (2009: 31) conceptualizes writing as the ‘blueprint of a social act’ as writing is always directed toward some kind of audience, and invites us to reflect differently on past relationships as ‘words cross or bump up against each other when captured in writing, cracking open and revealing other words that may evoke experiences of self with others’ (Penn, 2009: 24). When clinicians engage in reflective writing about encounters with patients or their families, they come closer to the ‘fully embodied presence’ and ‘full self’ that Gergen (2011) imagines in his conception of multi-being. An exercise that humanizes clinicians and engenders a better appreciation of the influence or ‘intrusion’ of the past on the present is the Parallel Chart (as developed by Charon and colleagues at Columbia University). In a radical departure from the detached and

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‘objective’ practices of clinical documentation, students and clinicians are asked to write about an encounter with a patient in their own words offering participants an opportunity to focus on what they are going through, as well as what their patients endure in being ill. The Parallel Chart embodies the idea of writing as a dialogical act as ‘in the act of writing, meanings that have been ignored or have remained unspoken are invited into the relational field by way of the text’ (Penn, 2009: 24). As Charon (2006: 156) states in her description of the purpose of the Parallel Chart, ‘If your patient dying of prostate cancer reminds you of your grandfather, who died of that disease last summer, and each time you go into the patient’s room, you weep for your grandfather, you cannot write that in the hospital chart. And yet, it has to be written somewhere’. In opening up the relational field through writing and sharing with others these kinds of ‘marginalized self-narratives’ (Gergen, 2009: 299) students are invited to begin construction of a more relationally informed professional identity. They often write about their attachments and personal reactions to patients, as well as the intimate associations triggered by clinical encounters (Charon, 2006: 156). This excerpt from a student’s Parallel Chart illustrates how intertwined patients’ and students’ autobiographies can be: One of the hardest days of my med school experience, the second anniversary of Sept 11, on which I was isolated from friends and compelled to work an 18 hour shift. I fell in love with a very special new patient … Mrs. V. possessed a rare charm and appreciation of human kindness that reminded me of my very dear and deceased grandmother. (Stapleton, 2003)

FINAL REFLECTIONS What can we accomplish (i.e., create) in our conversations together? (McNamee, 2009: 60)

Murphy et al. (2016) suggest that narrative medicine is a dialog-centered (rather than patient-centered) practice, which strongly

echoes the social constructionist concepts of relational responsibility and relational being. In this chapter I have attempted to highlight the relational processes of narrative medicine pedagogy and explore how its practices resonate with the concepts of relational responsibility and relational being. My primary intention has been to explore how such concepts offer a rich vocabulary for understanding the ‘relational moments’ (McNamee, 2009) of day-to-day practice and the embracing of more relational professional identities. Narrative medicine stresses that words matter and offers practical resources to train relationally oriented clinicians. NM helps us begin to notice openings that ‘contribute to a world in which distance is replaced by relational immersion’ (Gergen, 2009: 366). The narrative activities of close reading and reflective writing closely parallel the inter-subjective quality of clinical practice, as the act of storytelling is characterized by a face-to-face ‘dialectic of listening and response’ (Colon, 2017: 266). It is through acts of reading, writing, and listening that one can imagine a new ‘assemblage of clinical care’ (Colon, 2017: 264) informed by relational sensibilities. The emphasis on language practices as a resource for change in both social constructionism and narrative medicine provides opportunities to examine how current professional discourses shape the relational ‘dance’ between clinicians and patients. In looking to the future, there are many possibilities for expanding the conversation to promote relationally oriented healthcare. We can look to established social constructionist practices that have developed in areas such as therapy and organizational development for strategies that nudge expert-driven discourses toward more collaborative ones. These collaborative practices offer rich resources for navigating the ‘landscape of resistance’ (Morris, 2008) that NM often faces, and can help us re-imagine a vision of healthcare ethics rooted in relational processes.

WORDS MATTER

If NM is about the ability to elicit and respond to the stories of others in more skillful ways, then it serves as a powerful resource for relational healthcare practice. The narrative methods that lie at the heart of this pedagogical approach encourage clinical interactions that cultivate relational responsibility and acknowledge both patients and clinicians as relational beings. These methods nudge us to imagine a different vision of healthcare, as we pause and consider together the question posed by medical anthropologist Edgar Rivera Colon (2017:265): ‘Is this all we can do?’

APPENDIX: NM EXERCISES THAT PROMOTE RELATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY AND RELATIONAL BEING (WITH SAMPLE QUESTIONS AND WRITING PROMPTS) General Instructions for Facilitating Exercises 1 Provide a copy of the poem or story to each learner. 2 Read the text aloud one or two times (using different readers if possible). 3 Ask participants to read the text again silently, and to circle or underline words and phrases that stand out. 4 Discuss the poem or story (see sample questions below). 5 Provide a writing prompt (see suggestions below). 6 Provide opportunities to read their writing (in pairs or in groups).

Exercise 1: Vulnerable Patients Campo has written a series of 16-line poems or ‘provocative mini-narratives’ (Shapiro, 2011) that explore the intersections of medicine and social issues. These poems encourage clinicians to reflect on the plight of vulnerable patients by compelling ‘the reader’s gaze to linger on patients who have been

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discarded and devalued in the health care system.’ The poem below, V. John Doe, centers on a homeless patient’s interaction with healthcare providers and calls attention to the ‘disturbing relational consequences’ of clinicians who fail to see a patient’s humanity (Shapiro, 2011: 1381).

V. John Doe

An elderly white male, unresponsive. Looks homeless. Maybe he’s been here before. No chart. No history. His vital signs Were barely present, temperature was down Near ninety, pressure ninety over palp; The pulse was forty, best as they could tell. They’ll hook him up to a monitor before They warm him up. I didn’t listen to His lungs – I bet I’d hear a symphony In there. I couldn’t check his pupils since His lids were frozen shut, but there were no External signs of trauma to the head. They found this picture of a woman with Two tiny kids still pinned inside his coat. It’s only three a.m. The night’s young. If He’s lucky, by tomorrow he’ll be dead.

Discussion Questions/Writing Prompts

1 Why do you think Campo begins the poem with a clinical description of the person (i.e., ‘elderly white male’)? 2 Why does Campo mention the photo found in the coat? How does that shift your perception of this patient? 3 Write about someone you know, beginning with a clinical description (i.e., age, gender, presenting issue, medical history) and see where the piece leads you. 4 Write a different ending to this poem. 5 Write about a client or patient that was ‘discarded and devalued’ by the healthcare system.

Exercise 2: What They Don’t Tell You What They Don’t Tell You was written by Meg Lindsay during her husband’s hospital stay. A testimony to the role of writing in sense-making (even in the midst of crisis), it centers on the experiences of a patient and his family and offers an intimate glimpse into

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the challenges of navigating the landscape of serious illness and the unfamiliar (and at times hostile) hospital environment. Written in waiting rooms and doctors’ offices, the poem highlights the disconnection between the language of clinicians and the experiences of patients and their families and places our attention on what remains unsaid.

What They Don’t Tell You (excerpt)3

They don’t tell you what to expect, maybe because seeing so many, they don’t have time or maybe no writers on the medical staff to make inclusive lists or if they told you the range of options, maybe they fear the details will break you. No one is willing to tell you anything firm except multiple myeloma has 900 gene variations, multiple myeloma is incurable although it can be blocked, although undetected weeds smolder. Not remission, not as in remit, to cancel or refrain from exacting or inflicting (a debt or punishment)? No one tells you that, after 36 years of marriage, you are about to spend the most intimate moments of your life with this man and his body.

Discussion Questions/Writing Prompts 1 What mood or emotion does this poem evoke in you? 2 What do you think of the author’s use of the words ‘a debt or punishment’ in relation to her husband’s diagnosis? 3 In the last lines, Lindsay evokes a sense of the physical intimacy of illness. Write about a time you cared for (or tended to) someone else’s body. 4 Write about this scenario from a different point of view (e.g., the patient/husband, another healthcare provider, a clinician, or a bystander). 5 Write about an experience (as a student, clinician, patient, or family member) that begins with ‘they don’t tell you …’.

Exercise 3: When Stories Intersect The poem Semi-Private Room by Jan Jahner illustrates beautifully how in the context of the

clinical relationship ‘nurses and patients as individual multi-beings are each constituted through their former relationships, and they encounter each other as protagonists in their jointly formed relationship’ (Hechinger et  al., 2019: 599). Setting her poem in a ‘semi-private’ room where patients and clinicians meet in ‘coordinated action’, the poem can be read as an internal conversation as the clinician reflects on the overlap between her own experiences and the patient’s story. It is this unexpected resonance that creates the possibility of shared meanings and new connections.

Semi-Private Room4

Sometimes nectar appears when stories intersect; I walk into the room rearrange the bed-table and push the pole with its bulging bladder sideways for a closer look. Her thinness triples the size of the bed but her father, with his anxious chatter feels strangely like my own and her resolve, that tense control has a familiar edge. The electrolyte imbalance that nearly took her life and the nurturance imbalance that emptied her adolescent pockets of all the in-free tickets, lie tangled with the feeding tube she never wanted while she talks and I listen, my beeper ignored. Our connection becomes a spoon/ with its delicate curve Starting the good-byes, I hand her my card she reads through the menu departing, I see the full moon rising in my chest.

Discussion Questions/Writing Prompts 1 What meanings and associations are evoked by the title ‘Semi-Private Room’? What does the phrase ‘our connection becomes a spoon/with its delicate curve’ mean to you? 2 Write about a physical environment where you interact with patients (e.g., an office, clinic or counseling room). 3 Write about the interaction described in the poem from the point of view of the patient, her father, or a bystander.

WORDS MATTER

4 Write about a time when a client or patient’s situation evoked a personal association or memory. You could begin with the line ‘I walk into the room’ or use any other line from the poem to begin. 5 Write about a time you were in a hospital room as a patient, family member or visitor.

Exercise 4: Leaving Planet ICU The following excerpt from Tilda Shalof’s memoir A Nurse’s Story highlights the often neglected details of day-to-day clinical life, and the small rituals that mark the boundaries between the personal and the professional. Her writing draws attention to liminal or transitional spaces and encourages readers to think about our own embodied identities as we cross various thresholds.

A Nurse’s Story (excerpt)5 Sometimes it is only the clock that frees me at the end of my shift; it allows me to put a limit, or a boundary, around my caring. Without it, I might not know how to stop … I fell into my reliable ritual that liberates me from Planet ICU. I start by swinging my now empty lunch bag as I call out goodbyes to my friends. I trudge up the stairs to the locker room, always at a slower pace than when I started the shift and tripped down those same stairs long ago, that morning. I hang up my stethoscope and lab coat in my locker. Bundle up my dirty uniform and bang the locker shut with my foot. Glance in the mirror over the sink as I sail past. Waiting for the elevator, I think about dinner … I push the revolving hospital door and inhale the city as I step back out onto Planet Earth. By the time I’m on the subway, riding home, I have begun to reacquaint myself with thoughts of my own family (Shalof, 2005: 142).

Discussion Questions/Writing Prompts

1 How do you think the author feels at the end of her day? What mood does this text evoke? What is your reaction to her use of the terms ‘Planet ICU’ and ‘Planet Earth’ to describe the distinction between her worlds of work and life? 2 She writes about taking off her stethoscope and lab coat as part of her disrobing ritual at the end

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of her shift. Write about an object you wear (or use) in your clinical or work setting. It could be associated with your role or part of the physical environment where you practice. 3 Write about entering or leaving your clinical or professional setting at the beginning or end of the day. What are your rituals or daily practices? 4 Write about crossing a threshold (literal or metaphoric).

Notes 1  See Hounsell (2019). 2  See Shapiro et al. (2006) for a discussion of the relational dimensions of reflective writing workshops in medical education. 3  Shapiro (2011). 4  Lindsay, Meg (2019). What They Don’t Tell You. Pulse: Voices from the Heart of Medicine. https:// pulsevoices.org/index.php/poems/1502-whatthey-don-t-tell-you. Retrieved 13 May 2020. 5  Jahner, Jan (2010). Semi-Private Room. Pulse: Voices from the Heart of Medicine. https:// pulsevoices.org/index.php/poems/171-semiprivate-room. Retrieved 13 May 2020.

BIBLOGRAPHY Arntfield, Shannon & Kathryn Hynes (2018). Narrative Medicine in Postgraduate Medical Education: Practices, Principles, Paradoxes. In Allan Peterkin & Anna Skorzewska (Eds.), Health Humanities in Postgraduate Medical Education: A Handbook to the Heart of Medicine. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Birn, Anne-Emanuelle & Carles Muntaner (2018). Latin American Social Medicine Across ­Borders. Global Public Health. doi: 10.1080/ 17441692.2018.1439517 Burkitt, Ian (1999). Relational Moves and ­Generative Dances. In S. McNamee & K. J. Gergen (Eds.), Relational Responsibility: Resources for Sustainable Dialogue 71–80. ­Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Campo, Rafael (1997). The Desire to Heal: A Doctor’s Education in Empathy, Identity, and Poetry. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Campo, Rafael (2011). Illness as Muse. Bellevue Literary Review: A Journal of Humanity and

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Human Experience. https://blr.med.nyu.edu/ content/current/illnessasmuse. Retrieved 29 November 2019. Charon, Rita (2001). The Patient–Physician Relationship. Narrative Medicine: A Model for Empathy, Reflection, Profession, and Trust. Journal of the American Medical Association, 286(15): 1897–1902. Charon, Rita (2006). Narrative Medicine: ­Honoring the Stories of Illness. New York: Oxford University Press. Charon, Rita (2012). Our Heads Touch – Telling and Listening to Stories of Self. Academic Medicine, 87: 1154–1156. Charon, Rita (2013). Narrative Medicine in the International Education of Physicians. La Presse Médicale, 42(1): 3–5. Charon, Rita, Sayantani DasGupta, Nellie ­Hermann, Craig Irvine, Eric R. Marcus, Edgar Rivera Colón, Danielle Spencer, & Maura Spiegel (2017). The Principles and Practice of Narrative Medicine. New York: Oxford University Press. Charon, Rita & Nellie Hermann (2012). A Sense of Story, or Why Teach Reflective Writing? Academic Medicine, 87(1): 5–7. Colon, Edgar Rivera (2017). From Fire Escapes to Qualitative Data: Pedagogical Urging, Embodied Research, and Narrative Medicine’s Ear of the Heart. In Rita Charon et al. (Eds.), The Principles and Practice of Narrative Medicine. 257–266. New York: Oxford University Press. Cooperrider, David & Diana Whitney (1999). When Stories Have Wings: How Relational Responsibility Opens New Options for Action. In S. McNamee & K. J. Gergen (Eds.), Relational Responsibility: Resources for Sustainable Dialogue. 57–64. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. DasGupta, N. Hermann, C. Irvine, E. R. Marcus, E. Rivera Colon, D. Spencer & M. Spiegel (Eds.), The Principles and Practice of Narrative Medicine. New York: Oxford University Press. DasGupta, Sayantani & Rita Charon (2004). Personal Illness Narratives: Using Reflective Writing to Teach Empathy. Academic Medicine, 79(4): 351–356. Davis, Cortney (2006). Of Poetry and Medicine: Rafael Campo in Conversation. https://poets. org/text/poetry-and-medicine-rafael-campoconversation. Retrieved 22 November 2019.

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Lamott, Anne (1994). Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. New York: DoubleDay. Marini, Maria Giulia (2019). Languages of Care in Narrative Medicine. Words, Space and Time in the Healthcare Ecosystem. Switzerland: Springer Publishing. McNamee, Sheila (2009). Postmodern Psychotherapeutic Ethics: Relational Responsibility in Practice. Human Systems: The Journal of Therapy, Consultation & Training, 20(1): 57–71. McNamee, Sheila (2017). Far from ‘Anything Goes’: Ethics as Communally Constructed. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 31(4): 361–368. McNamee, Sheila & Kenneth J. Gergen (Eds.) (1999). Relational Responsibility: Resources for Sustainable Dialogue. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Morris, David (2008). Narrative Medicines: Challenge and Resistance. The Permanente Journal, 12(1): 88–96. Murphy W. John., Jung Min Choi & Martin Cadeiras (2016). The Role of Clinical Records in Narrative Medicine: A Discourse of Message. The Permanente Journal, 20(2): 103– 108. https://dx.doi.org/10.7812/TPP/15-101. Retrieved 29 November 2019. Penn, Peggy (2009). Joined Imaginations: Writing and Language in Therapy. Chagrin Falls, Ohio: Taos Institute Publications. S. McNamee & K. J. Gergen (Eds.), (1999). A Circle of Voices. In Relational Responsibility:

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Resources for Sustainable Dialogue (171– 175). ­Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Schillace, Brandy (2018). Border Crossings: Joining a Multidisciplinary Conversation about Medical Humanities. Medical Humanities, March, 44(1):1. Shalof, Tilda (2005). A Nurse’s Story: Life, Death, and In-Between in an Intensive Care Unit. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart Ltd. Shapiro, Johanna (2011). The Least of These: Reading Poetry to Encourage Reflection on the Care of Vulnerable Patients. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 26(11): 1381–1382. Shapiro, Johanna, Deborah Kasman & Audrey Shafter (2006). Words and Wards: A Model of Reflective Writing and Its Uses in Medical Education. Journal of Medical Humanities, 27: 231–244. Spiegel, Maura & Danielle Spencer (2017). Accounts of Self: Exploring Relationality Through Literature. In R. Charon, S. DasGupta, N. Hermann, C. Irvine, E. R. ­ Marcus, E. Rivera Colon, D. Spencer & M. Spiegel (Eds.), The Principles and Practice of Narrative Medicine 15–34. New York: Oxford University Press. Stapleton, G., in Adler, M. (2003). Stories in Medicine. https://www.npr.org/templates/ story/story.php?storyId=1480863. Retrieved 13 May 2020.

43 Strengthening Our Stories in the Second Half of Life: Narrative Resilience through Narrative Care William Randall

INTRODUCTION Later life can bring changes and losses that assault our sense of self and engender a ‘crisis of meaning’ (Missine, 2003, p. 113). Insofar as social constructionist practice is aimed at helping us make meaning amid our relationships and envision a more ‘positive aging’ overall (Gergen and Gergen, 2003), a narrative perspective can assist. A narrative perspective on aging, or a ‘narrative gerontology’ (Kenyon et al., 2011), opens a space where aging is seen as a biographical process and not just a biological one. It is a process of making and re-making meaning. As such, it is a narrative process, for narrative, or story, is a core means we humans have of making meaning. Aided by changes in our aging brains (Cohen, 2005) that are said to accelerate the ‘autobiographical drive’ (p.  23), later life is arguably, therefore, ‘the narrative phase par

excellence’ (Freeman, 1997, p. 394). It is a time when the urge intensifies to reflect on the proverbial story of our lives. Accordingly, a narrative perspective sees aging as involving development and discovery, and not just decline; as potentially a journey toward wisdom and resilience, in particular, narrative resilience (Randall et al., 2015) – i.e., a thick, rich story of our lives that enhances the ‘inner resources’ we bring to later life (Dubovska et al., 2017). Given its focus on both meaning and story, a narrative perspective is highly compatible with social constructionist practice for reasons that I hope to make clearer in what follows. In particular, this chapter introduces five core concepts that can serve as reference points for those wishing to weave a narrative perspective into their work with older adults: narrative identity, narrative environment, narrative development, narrative challenges, and narrative care.

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NARRATIVE IDENTITY Homo sapiens are also homo narrans (Myerhoff, 1992). We experience ourselves, as our selves, largely in terms of stories. For psychologist, Dan McAdams (2001), working with Erikson’s concept of identity, ‘Identity is a life story’ (p. 643; emphasis mine), something McAdams defines as ‘an internalized and evolving narrative of the self … that confer[s] upon a life some degree of unity, purpose, and meaning’ (p. 643). Expanding this along literary lines, we could say that, through our innate capacity for ‘narrative thought’ (Bruner, 1986), we are forever composing our lives as flesh-and-blood novels of which we are in the middle, as author, narrator, character, and reader more or less at once (Randall and Khurshid, 2017). But this story–identity connection is hardly straightforward. For one thing, ‘there are many stories of Self to tell, and more than one self to tell them’ (Eakin, 1999, p. xi). We are dialogical selves, that is, and the realm of memory in which our selves are rooted is nothing if not narratively complex, for there are stories within stories, stories behind stories, and stories of multiple types: big vs small, short vs long, general vs specific, tellable vs untold, and so on. Like a novel, we are many stories in one. Moreover, our storyworld is continually in flux, situated as we are ‘at the intersection of several stories not yet completed’ (Polkinghorne, 1988, p. 150). As living narratives, we are notoriously ‘messy texts’ (Denzin, 1997). For another thing, and along with culture, history, and race, one variable that plays a pivotal role in how we compose our lives is gender, insofar as women’s ways of selfstorying can differ decidedly from men’s, beginning early in life (Fivush et al., 1995; see also Bateson, 1989). But not only are our stories gendered, they are embodied as well. Our bodies contain our memories, our postures bespeak our struggles, and the lines of our faces tell stories all their own.

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We can also differ in terms of the degree of narrative agency we experience, some of us confident, for example, that we have a story to tell, others much less so. Similarly, we can differ in how we characterize ourselves amid our lives, whether as protagonist or hero, or a victim of the whims of others. We can differ in terms of the ‘storying style’ (Randall, 2014, pp. 308–328) or genre (tragic, romantic, ironic, etc.) that runs through our ways of making meaning in our lives. As such, some modes of selfstorying are arguably healthier or more coherent than others. By the same token, the concept of ‘narrative coherence’ is itself hardly unproblematic (Hyvarinen et al., 2010). As summarized by one of my students, then, there’s nothing simple about a life story! Of special relevance to social constructionist practice, however, the stories we are (Randall, 2014) are intimately linked with those of others.

NARRATIVE ENVIRONMENT Narratively speaking, we are relational beings. We story our lives with others amid the intersecting circles of larger stories still. Not only are we continually shaped by stories – those we read in books, are moved by in movies, or absorb from the news – but we are characters within, contribute to, and are influenced by the storyworlds of particular families and friendships, institutions and organizations, communities and cultures. Whether micro- or macro- in scope, each is an unfolding story of its own – actually several in one. And each mediates narrative templates for making sense of events, and ‘forms of self-telling’ (Bruner, 1987, p. 16) for interpreting our lives overall. Each is characterized by implicit or explicit codes for telling and listening, for what topics can be talked about in what ways, for what is deemed funny or sacred or taboo, and by

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adages and themes and overall views of the world. Each has its distinctive ‘narrative environment’ (Bruner, 1990, p. 94). Within these environments, among which we move in and out of several in any given day, our life stories are intricately linked with others’. In a marriage, for instance, as any number of ‘we-stories’ get created between us (Singer and Skerrett, 2014), where ‘my story’ begins and ‘your story’ ends becomes impossible to say. As fellow family members or friends, we become characters in one another’s stories, not to mention co-narrators and co-authors of them too, the themes in their narratives enmeshed with our own. Narratively speaking, our lives are interknit. But narrative environments can vary greatly and are never neutral in nature. Those of some marriages can be rigid and narrow, with one spouse’s story dominating the other’s, impeding not inviting their narrative development. Political ideologies, religious creeds, and cultural traditions (e.g., Wang, 2013) differ in a similar manner, though on a far grander scale, with the narrative templates in which they traffic shaping our individual storyworlds in unique but powerful ways. Psychologist Ruthellen Josselson (forthcoming) writes, for example, about ‘the Chinese narrative construction of the world’, something she has some appreciation for, given her experience over the past decade of teaching techniques and theories of group therapy to Chinese practitioners. This experience has sensitized her to the multitude of subtle ways in which Chinese people differ from people in the West, shaped as they are in a significantly different social-historical context, with different forms of self-telling and different meta-narratives informing their lives, and therefore a different sort of ‘narrative unconscious’ (Freeman, 2002) underlying their existence – to say nothing of different assumptions concerning and different experiences of ‘therapy’ itself. The whole question of how the narrative environments of different cultures – for example, North American, Latin American,

European, and Asian ones – contribute to the construction of narrative identity for individuals living within them, and the companion question of how we are ‘aged by culture’ (Gullette, 2004; see also Katz, 2009), is of course well beyond the scope of this chapter. As a specific illustration, however, of how culture can shape how we story our lives, it is worth noting a study by Becker and Newsom (2004) that investigated the experiences of African American elders who suffer from multiple chronic conditions yet who rate high in resilience. Such individuals, the researchers found, tend to interpret their ailments against the background of African American history as a whole, with its heritage of resilience in the face of chronic discrimination and injustice. In the context of this larger narrative, their heart disease or diabetes is but one small thing to be accepted and endured. Moving from the cultural level to the institutional level, the narrative environments of many nursing homes can be unthinkably bleak, dominated as they can be by a biomedical paradigm and thus the ‘narrative of decline’ (Gullette, 2004) that tilts society’s assessment of aging per se in a negative direction. With little by way of narrative activity to sustain residents’ identities, they are not re-storying environments so much as de-storying environments (see Villar and Serrat, 2017). Of special relevance here, the relationship between therapist and client also constitutes a narrative environment, in which ideally the therapist can serve as co-author of the revised self-story with which the client goes forward in their lives. The therapist is an agent of narrative care, a topic we will turn to in a moment.

NARRATIVE DEVELOPMENT Narrative development concerns not just the development of our skills at telling and understanding stories in general, skills that we hone, for instance, in advancing from

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Dick and Jane stories to texts of high fiction. It concerns the development of our skills at telling and understanding the stories of our own lives, the development of our ‘autobiographical reasoning’ (Habermas, 2010), which is what we are interested in here. Not only is our narrative identity never entirely our own, but neither is it static. We are forever ‘revis[ing] the plot as new events are added to our lives’ (Polkinghorne, 1988, p. 150). New characters walk on stage, new subplots open up, and our story inevitably changes. Just as we undergo moral development or psychosocial development, so we undergo narrative development too – with, arguably, its own distinct stages. McAdams (1996), for instance, speaks of the PreMythic, the Mythic, and the Post-Mythic stages. In the pre-mythic, as toddlers and preteens, we are unwittingly ‘gathering material’ (pp. 136–138) that may come to figure centrally in the self-story we start assembling more consciously upon entering adolescence. From then on, we typically assume greater agency over composing our life story, adding ever more chapters and themes as we go. In the post-mythic stage, our narrative activity can start to take a different turn, however, as the plot begins to thin, as our ‘landscape of action’ (Bruner, 1990) narrows in, and as looking back comes more naturally than looking ahead. Just as each phase of the lifespan presents particular developmental tasks, so too does later life. Though comparatively observable in our early years – e.g., learning to walk and talk and toilet when we are 1 or 2 – the tasks of the post-mythic phase are both more subjective and more narrative in nature, for they have to do primarily with making meaning. As proposed by Erikson concerning what is needed to achieve integrity in later life, they involve life review. Though not everyone feels the urge to do it (Wink and Schiff, 2002), life review is a complex cognitive-emotive process of taking stock of our lives with a gently ironic detachment (Randall, 2013), reflecting on the experiences we have accumulated

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across the years, and hopefully arriving at a sense of acceptance that, all things considered, our life has been worthwhile. Mark Freeman (2010) uses the term ‘narrative reflection’, maintaining that it is vital to moral development too, in that growth in a forward direction is linked to looking back. Anthropologist Barbara Myerhoff (1992) refers to such reviewing and reflecting as re-membering our lives; as a matter, if you will, of pulling ourselves together. Gerontologist Peter Coleman (1999) stresses ‘the task of reconciliation’: integrating into our story not just the good but the bad and the ugly of our lives, the troubles and tragedies that have resisted assimilation. McAdams (2006) speaks of redeeming life events: finding the positive within the negative, the learning beyond the loss, the truth amid the tragic. In speaking of the ‘philosophic homework’ that later life assigns us, Schacter-Shalomi writes about re-contextualizing past experiences in light of our life trajectory overall (Schacter-Shalomi and Miller, 1995, p. 94). Writing in her 80s, Florida Scott-Maxwell (1968) voices the sense of integrity to which these various ‘R’s’ can lead: ‘When you truly possess all you have been and done’, she says, ‘you are fierce with reality’ (p. 42). What these R’s concern in common is the re-making of meaning. As such, the metaphor of ‘reading our lives’ (Randall and McKim, 2008) has merit. If we re-conceive our lives as quasi-literary novels we are continually composing, then we begin seeing them as ‘richly ambiguous texts … whose meanings are inexhaustible, … whose readings cannot ever yield a final closure’ (Freeman, 1994, p. 184). Put differently, while the real past is fixed, the remembered past is fluid. As stories, our lives are ‘interpretively open’ (Linde, 1993, p. 31), their ‘landscape of consciousness’ (Bruner, 1986, p. 14) limitless in scope. Unlike biological development, there is no built-in end to our narrative development, just as with any novel worth its salt, perhaps especially as we near The End, there is no end of meanings to glean or questions to

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consider. Through reading our lives, there are thus no bounds on how much we can grow old, fierce with reality, and not just get old. That said, narrative development is not automatic and later life can present huge challenges – narrative challenges – to tackling the tasks listed above.

NARRATIVE CHALLENGES If the stories we tell about ourselves are inseparable from who we are, then very simply put, when they are threatened, we are threatened. Several terms capture what this entails. Narrative loss can result from key witnesses to our stories moving away or passing away and thus leaving us feeling no one really knows us anymore, nor cares (Baldwin et al., 2015). Narrative deprivation (Fulford, 1999, p. 201) can be our lot in healthcare settings with thin narrative environments and little in terms of narrative stimulation, where our stories are so seldom invited that, in effect, they dry up inside us – a form of de-storying that I call narrative atrophy. Or, because we have difficulty telling our stories in ways that make sense to others, it gets assumed that, to all intents and purposes, there is no story to tell, and to that extent no self: a condition called narrative dispossession (Baldwin, 2006). Narrative disorientation is the sense of being lost within our own story, of ‘losing the thread of the plot,’ as happens for all of us at some point or other, but which, fairly or not, is considered chronically the case for persons with dementia. Narrative incoherence, if you will, is being unable to string together a version of an important event, or of our life overall, that makes sense to us (or others); all we have is ‘narrative debris’ (McKendy, 2006, p. 473). Narrative disruption (Fireman et  al., 2003, p. 9) occurs when we experience significant change – a diagnosis, a loss, a transition, a trauma of any kind – and our working sense of ‘our story’ is temporarily

(perhaps permanently) torn asunder. Narrative domination is when our overarching story of our lives is limited by an ideology (political or religious), a self-image, or indeed – in the case of older adults – an individualized version of the narrative of decline that sees later life as little more than a litany of problems – a version that, in the jargon of narrative therapy, is ‘problem-saturated’. Particularly potent is the challenge of narrative foreclosure, namely ‘the premature conviction that one’s life story has effectively ended … that it is simply too late to live meaningfully … [that] there is little left to do but play out the pre-scripted [tragic] ending’ (Freeman, 2000, p. 83). Our life per se is not over, but in our hearts, our story might as well be (Bohlmeijer et al., 2011). Given the potential of challenges such as these to foster mental and emotional distress, social constructionist practitioners could benefit from bearing them in mind as they seek to assist older adults, by various means, in keeping their stories open. They could view what they do as narrative care.

NARRATIVE CARE Narrative care can be simply defined as the art of storylistening. It is the art of attending closely to – and for – the stories by which we understand our identities and experience who we are. Insofar as listeners shape what tellers tell (Randall et al., 2006), then as narrative therapists Wingard and Lester (2001) say concerning their work with indigenous Australian women, it is the art of assisting us in ‘telling our stories in ways that make us stronger’. Narrative care can be practiced in a variety of contexts, from home care to acute care, pastoral care to palliative care. In healthcare settings, it can entail attending to a patient’s story as much as monitoring their symptoms. Moreover, it can be practiced between the lines of other activities (pouring their baths

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or wheeling them to meals) for it concerns attitude as much as activity, and quality of connection as much as quantity of time. Certainly, it can be formal or informal in nature. It can be practiced in the course of ordinary conversation or in full-on psychotherapy, including narrative therapy per se. In this respect, however, the observation made by John McLeod (1997) is instructive: ‘all therapies are narrative therapies. Whatever you are doing … as therapist or client’, he writes, ‘can be understood in terms of telling and re-telling stories’ (p. 2). What should be clear, then, is the value of narrative care in working with those who make sense of their lives primarily through telling and retelling the stories of their lives. But what in particular might we focus on in practicing narrative care? For starters, there are things to watch for as clues to an older adult’s storyworld, to the narrative environments in which they have been shaped and the narrative challenges they face. These include the music they listen to, the magazines they read, the hobbies that engage them, the movies they enjoy, and the mementoes that surround them. Above all, there are the lines on their faces, the looks in their eyes, and the stories these betray. There are things to listen for as well; for instance, the narrative tone with which they tend to talk; the types of reminiscence they indulge in (obsessive or escapist?); the way they characterize themselves amid their life’s events; the telltale phrases they employ and the themes that these betray. As well, there are the conflicts and tensions that drive their selfstorying; the ‘signature stories’ (Kenyon and Randall, 1997, pp. 46–49) around which their sense of self revolves; and the larger stories – of family, community, or creed – to which they allude. Overall, there is what they tell and what they withhold: the ‘shadow stories’ (de Medeiros and Rubenstein, 2015) that lurk between the lines, the ‘preferred narratives’ (Freedman and Combs, 1996), even ‘sacred tales’ (Ruffing, 2011), that await being listened into awareness.

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Narrative care with older adults is scarcely rocket science. This is not to say that it is simple or unsophisticated, for administering it is a subtle and intricate art. It is to say, rather, that several sorts of activities, many of them comparatively easy to implement, can stimulate the storying process with older adults and thus help them in re-starting possibly stalled life narratives. A window box featuring memorabilia outside a nursing home room reflects the accomplishments and people in a resident’s life and so suggests a question with which to start a potentially healing conversation. Any mode of creative activity can open avenues into memory and thus occasions for storytelling and story listening. An intervention developed by Dutch gerontologists called ‘creative reminiscence’ uses painting, collaging, and poetry writing to invite older adults in the grip of depression to generate metaphors for themes in their life stories that might otherwise go unacknowledged (Bohlmeijer et al., 2005). As well, a program for life review therapy called ‘Finding Meaning in Life’ (Bohlmeijer and Westerhof, 2011) has been demonstrated to decrease older adults’ depressive symptomology, immediately following the intervention and six months ­further on. By the same token, the power of popular past-times like scrapbooking and family genealogy to prompt narrative reflection must not go unnoticed; so too, the simple act of making lists about one’s life (Nola, 2007). Innovations like TimeSlips (Basting, 2003) have proven effective in sparking narrative activity among persons with dementia in particular. A large nursing home near my university has initiated a program entitled ‘Celebrating Our Stories’ in which selected residents are interviewed at length about their lives (Noonan, 2011). At a public ceremony attended by family members, friends, staff, and fellow residents, their answers to the interview questions are presented to them in a hard-bound book. The centerpiece of this event is a 20-minute video featuring photos

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from various chapters of their life, samples of their favorite music, and excerpts from the interview to give folks a moving glimpse into that resident’s world. An approach to memoir-writing called ‘guided autobiography’ allows people to delve into their life stories one theme at a time within a group setting (Birren and Cochran, 2001). Life-writing groups where members explore their memories via multiple genres (e.g., first person, third person, letters) (de Medeiros, 2007), or even simple ‘storytelling circles’ (Pohlman, 2003), can also have a therapeutic impact by helping older people address issues of narrative foreclosure and the like. Though practiced more commonly with younger age-groups, narrative therapy per se is increasingly employed with older clients (Osis and Stout, 2001). In one case, an 80-year old widow wrestling with depression was invited to critique the narrative of decline that had usurped her self-image, to re-author her life narrative, and to re-cast herself from a ‘failure’ to a ‘survivor’ (Kropf and Tandy, 1998). To address narrative loneliness especially, an intervention conceived by Danish psychologists called ‘Telling Stories for Life’ (Hedelund and Nikolajsen, 2013), adapts the intensive questioning of narrative therapy in a small group environment around the kitchen table to engage in life story conversations with older adults deemed at-risk for mental illness due to social isolation. The result is frequently the formation of fresh friendships in the group and a heightened sense of narrative agency for each. What such persons may be said to need is not so much medication as a healthy dose of narrative care. As these examples attest, affording older adults occasions to recount and reflect on the stories of their lives can have broadly therapeutic benefits, in terms of decreased anxiety, depression, and stress, and increased mastery, purpose, and meaning (Bohlmeijer et al., 2009) – even, some research suggests, a strengthened immune system as well (Pennebaker and Seagal, 1999). In a naturally cathartic manner, people can resolve past grudges and regrets; assimilate negative

events into their sense of self (Coleman, 1999); and enjoy the satisfaction of sharing with others their ‘ordinary wisdom’ (Randall and Kenyon, 2001), thus enhancing their sense of generativity. Involved as well can be the realization, sometimes liberating, often surprising, that their life has not been what they thought it was, that a measure of re-genreation may be in order. ‘Perhaps we thought our life was a tragedy’, says gerontologist Harry Berman (1994), concerning the impact of keeping a journal on older adults’ selfperceptions, ‘and all along, unbeknownst to us, it was a romance. Or perhaps we thought our life was almost over, at least in terms of the future holding anything new, and it turned out there was a lot more to it’ (p. 180). Berman’s point here suggests that, as McAdams puts it, ‘some stories are better than others’ (2008, p. 247f.). Thus, as valuable as storylistening can be, it is not enough simply to invite older adults to tell their stories and to assume that the mere act of telling will have a healing impact in and of itself, or indeed that any old story will do. What is called for from the skilled listener is to attend to the ‘preferred narrative’ (Freedman and Combs, 1996) that, amid the many episodes they recount, the older adult might be attempting to tell, and to live; the story behind the story, as it were; the story that is threatened in one way or other by the various changes and limitations that aging can bring with it. As for applying a narrative perspective in practice with particular populations of older adults, its implications for those wrestling with depression have been hinted at already. Among these is the possibility that their depression is due in part to feeling overwhelmed by the narrative challenges of later life (narrative foreclosure in particular), that they are trapped in the constrictive environments of relationships or institutions, or that they are caught in a crisis of meaning – from which the chance to expand and explore the stories of their life could start to set them free. But there are comparable implications for narrative care with those who have dementia.

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Among these is that the inability to narrate their lives in ways that make sense to others does not mean that no story, and thus no person, is there. To the extent our stories are socially constructed, so too are our assumptions about what constitutes a ‘good’ life story. For Clive Baldwin (2006), in fact, this awareness should inform every interaction with those with dementia. The narrative dispossession to which we might subject them, he argues, is due less to their difficulty in stringing a coherent tale together than to our overly linear, Western assumptions as to what constitutes narrative coherence in the first place. Accordingly, we can view the chopped-up narrative activity in which they may engage as a kind of ‘narrative quilting’ (p. 106) through which identity-work is nonetheless occurring, and in relation to which some narrative ‘scaffolding’ (Hydén, 2014) could effect a measure of ‘narrative repair’ (Nelson, 2001). Finally, a narrative perspective has implications for practice with those nearing death. For one thing, the urge to engage in life review is typically intensified (Kuhl, 2002), and with it the need to identify the unique legacy of wisdom – of stories – they leave behind. Also, they may welcome a healthy sense of closure (vs foreclosure) and have a preference less for full-on narrative reflection than for what Norwegian gerontologist Oddgeir Synnes (2015) calls ‘nostalgic stories’ – small stories about pleasant or poignant experiences that gently rekindle their sense of identity in the face of their impending demise. Lastly, they may be open to entertaining more hopeful storyings of Death itself: not as The End, for example, but merely a transition to … The Next Chapter, The Great Adventure, The Other Side.

CONCLUSION In this chapter, I have introduced certain conceptual reference points for those hoping to

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incorporate a narrative perspective into their practice with older adults. My argument has been that the developmental tasks of aging are largely narrative ones, for they have to do with making and re-making meaning amid the changes of later life, narrative being our principal means of making it. But we story and re-story our identities, not in isolation but within a web of ever-shifting narrative environments, those of particular cultures, communities, and relationships – including the relationship between client and clinician. The role of the social constructionist practitioner can thus be seen as fostering safe, supportive narrative environments in which older clients can cope better with whatever narrative challenges they may face; can critique and counter the narrative of decline that infects their understanding of aging per se; can nurture richer, stronger stories of their lives; and overall can keep (narratively) developing, with openness and resilience, right to the end. As hinted earlier, one of the many issues around which such practice could benefit from further research concerns how older adults can ‘story’ their lives, and thus their experience of aging, quite differently within different cultural settings. This issue encompasses the unique challenges that they may encounter in the narrative environments that are characteristic of these settings, and the unique approaches to dispensing narrative care, formally and informally alike, that may therefore be required. Let me add one final word, though, by suggesting that fostering safe and supportive narrative environments for older adults is ultimately not the province of professional practitioners alone. Not that the training such professionals receive and the impact they have are of no consequence. Far from it, to be sure. But narrative care as I’ve been outlining it in this chapter can be practiced, I believe, in all manner of contexts besides clinical ones. Indeed, given the rapid rate at which populations are aging across the board, the need can only grow for sensitizing as many people

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as possible to the complexity of biographical aging and the storied dynamics of later life. With this need in mind, in fact, fellow narrativist Michelle Greason (2019) has been developing a ‘train-the-trainer’ program for the delivery of narrative care. Its purpose is (a) to equip individuals who interact with older adults in an assortment of settings (retirement homes, nursing homes, hospices, etc.) with basic concepts, skills, and strategies for administering such care with insight and discernment, and (b) to empower them to impart these same strategies to their coworkers and colleagues in a cascading manner. This is but one of many promising ways in which the sorts of themes presented in this chapter can be taken to the streets, as it were, thereby enhancing the mental and emotional well-being – the resilience – of our older adult populations overall.

REFERENCES Baldwin, C. (2006). Narrative dispossession of people with dementia: Thinking about the theory and method of narrative. In K. Milnes, C. Horrocks, & N. Kelly (Eds.), Narrative, memory, and knowledge: Representations, aesthetics, and contexts (pp. 101–109). Huddersfield, UK: University of Huddersfield Press. Baldwin, C., Carty, B., & Estey, J. (2015). Aging, Spirituality, and Narrative: Loss and Repair. Narrative Works, 5(2), 1–24. Retrieved from https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/ NW/article/view/25012 Basting, A. (2003). Reading the story behind the story: Context and content in stories by people with dementia. Generations: The Journal of the American Society on Aging, 23(3), 25–29. Bateson, M. (1989). Composing a life. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press. Becker, G., & Newsom, E. (2004). Resilience in the face of serious illness among chronically ill African Americans in later life. Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 60(4), S214–S223.

Berman, H. (1994). Interpreting the aging self: Personal journals of later life. New York: Springer. Birren, J. & Cochran, K. (2001). Telling the stories of life through guided autobiography groups. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Bohlmeijer, E., Kramer, J., Smit, F., Onrust, S., & Marwijk, H. (2009). The effects of integrative reminiscence on depressive symptomatology and mastery of older adults. Journal of Community Mental Health, 45, 467–484. Bohlmeijer, E., Valenkamp, M., Westerhof, G., Smit, G., & Cuijpers, P. (2005). Creative reminiscence as an early intervention for depression. Journal of Aging Studies, 25(4). 364–370. Bohlmeijer, E., & Westerhof, G. (2011). Reminiscence interventions: Bringing narrative gerontology into practice. In G. Kenyon, E. Bohlmeijer, & W. Randall (Eds.), Storying later life: Issues, investigations, and interventions in narrative gerontology (pp. 273–289). New York: Oxford University Press. Bohlmeijer, E., Westerhof, G., Randall, W., Tromp, T., & Kenyon, G. (2011). Narrative foreclosure: Preliminary considerations for a new sensitizing concept. Journal of Aging Studies, 25(4), 364–370. Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bruner, J. (1987). Life as narrative. Social Research, 54(1), 11–32. Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cohen, G. (2005). The mature mind: The positive power of the aging brain. New York: Basic Books. Coleman, P. (1999). Creating a life story: The task of reconciliation. The Gerontologist, 39(2), 133–139. de Medeiros, K. (2007). Beyond the memoir: Telling life-stories using multiple literary forms. Journal of Aging, Humanities, and the Arts, 1(3), 159–167. de Medeiros, K., & Rubinstein, R. (2015). ‘Shadow stories’ in oral interviews: Narrative care through careful listening. Journal of Aging Studies, 34, 162–168. Denzin, N. (1997). Interpretive ethnography: Ethnographic practices for the 21st century. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

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Dubovska, E., Chrz, V., Tavel, P., Solcova, I., & Ruzicka, J. (2017). Narrative construction of resilience: Stories of Czech adults. Ageing and Society. 37(9), 1849–1873 . Eakin, P. J. (1999). Making stories: How our lives become selves. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Fireman, G., McVay, T., Flanagan, O. (Eds.) (2003). Narrative and consciousness: Literature, psychology, and the brain. New York: Oxford University Press. Fivush, R., Haden, C., & Reese, E. (1995). Remembering, recounting, and reminiscing: The development of autobiographical memory in social context. In D. Rubin (Ed.), Remembering our past: Studies in autobiographical memory (pp. 341–359). New York: Cambridge University Press. Freedman, J., & Combs, G. (1996). Narrative therapy: The social construction of preferred realities. New York: W. W. Norton. Freeman, M. (1994). Rewriting the self: History, memory, narrative. London: Routledge. Freeman, M. (1997). Death, narrative integrity, and the radical challenge of self-understanding. A reading of Tolstoy’s Death of Ivan Ilych. Ageing and Society, 17, 373–398. Freeman, M. (2000). When the story’s over: Narrative foreclosure and the possibility of self-renewal. In M. Andrews, S. Sclater, C. Squire, & A. Treacher (Eds.), Lines of narrative: Psychosocial perspectives (pp. 81–91). London: Routledge. Freeman, M. (2002). Charting the narrative unconscious: Cultural memory and the challenge of autobiography. Narrative Inquiry, 12, 193–211. Freeman, M. (2010). Hindsight: The promise and peril of looking backward. New York: Oxford University Press. Fulford, R. (1999). The triumph of narrative: Storytelling in an age of mass culture. Toronto: Anansi. Gergen, M., & Gergen, K. (2003). Positive aging. In J. Gubrium & J. Holstein (Eds.), Ways of aging (pp. 203–224). London: Blackwell. Greason, M. (2019). Enhancing well-being in later life through innovations in narrative care: A train-the-trainer program. Paper presented at the 48th Annual Scientific and Educational Meeting of the Canadian

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McAdams, D. (2001). The person: An integrated introduction to personality psychology (3rd edition). New York: Harcourt. McAdams, D. (2006). The redemptive self: Stories Americans live by. New York: Oxford University Press. McAdams, D. (2008). Personal narratives and the life story. In O. P. John, R. W. Robins, & L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (3rd edition) (pp. 241– 262). New York: Guilford. McKendy, J. (2006). ‘I’m very careful about that’: Narrative agency of men in prison. Discourse & Society, 17(4), 473–502. McLeod, J. (1997). Narrative and psychotherapy. London: Sage. Missine, L. (2003). The search for meaning of life in older age. In A. Jewell (Ed.), Ageing, spirituality, and well-being (pp. 113–123). London: Jessica Kingsley. Myerhoff, B. (1992). Remembered lives: The work of ritual, storytelling, and growing older. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. Nelson, H. (2001). Damaged identities, narrative repair. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Nola, L. (2007). Listography: Your life in lists. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. Noonan, D. (2011). The ripple effect: A story of the transformational nature of narrative care. In G. Kenyon, E. Bohlmeijer, & W. Randall (Eds.), Storying later life: Issues, investigations, and interventions in narrative gerontology (pp. 354–365). New York: Oxford University Press. Osis, M., & Stout, L. (2001). Using narrative therapy with older clients. In G. Kenyon, P. Clark, & B. de Vries (Eds.), Narrative gerontology: Theory, research, and practice (pp. 273–290). New York: Springer. Pennebaker, J., & Seagal, J. (1999). Forming a story: The health benefits of narrative. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 55(10), 1243–1254. Pohlman, B. (2003). Storytelling circles: Stories of age and aging. Generations, 27(3), 44–48. Polkinghorne, D. (1988). Narrative knowing and the human sciences. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Randall, W. (2013). The importance of being ironic: Narrative openness and personal resilience in later life. The Gerontologist, 53(1), 9–16. Randall, W. (2014). The stories we are: An essay on self-creation (2nd edition). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

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44 From an Individualist to a Relational Model of Grief Lorraine Hedtke

For the last one hundred years, modern grief psychology has been dominated by a realist model focusing mostly on individual experience after a person dies, which privileges the physical experiences of events. This has meant grief has often been constructed to focus on the somatic as well as the implications for the psyche of the absence of the deceased person’s body. The focus of what is ‘real’ has had emotional ramifications in modern grief psychology, encouraging people to find ‘closure’, so they can move on from the relationship in an efficient and practical fashion. The overarching themes built in to modern grief psychology took root in Freud’s article, ‘Mourning and Melancholia’ (1957/1917), in which he outlined normal grief as a practice of letting go in order for the mourner to step into a new life without being haunted by the ghost of a dead person. Freud’s ideas were picked up by practitioners as a novel and authoritative approach in grief psychology and eventually married a realist model to individual internal states, often

omitting relational and contextual connections. Modern grief in this realist model was thought of as an experience much like a cold, where the bereaved can expect to be free from troubling symptoms with a certain series of time-limited anticipated effects. For the dead however, the practices Freud’s work set in motion effectively silenced their stories and love by burying those narratives and emotions alongside their bodies. Since the time Freud declared the grief-stricken party was to decathect (using Freud’s 1917 term), or remove any residual libidinal connections to the deceased, voices from beyond the grave have been relegated to the supernatural and etheric structures. Counseling models have followed this realist view by prescribing a practice that often insists on a series of tasks or stages and pathologizes talking about the dead, let alone talking to them. This text will speak to some of the ways in which conventional modern grief psychology has been challenged as a model because of its potential to intensify suffering. Counseling

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practitioners have begun to enlist a relational counseling approach which navigates innovative practices incorporating meanings and contexts of the relationship, of the person’s death and of the possibility of o­ ngoing legacies. However, the traditional model of grief psychology continues to dominate. Challenges to the traditional model draw from social constructionist and poststructuralist theory and from narrative practice to affirm relational strength, agency, and where fitting, posthumous connections. To illustrate the shift in thinking, examples of a ‘remembering conversation’ (Hedtke, 2001) will highlight how relational changes open vast possibilities to make sense of grief. There is much to be gained for therapeutic practice to shift towards seeking aspects of relationship that survive death; new relational forms between the living and the dead can build a foundation for the grief process. When we make visible the stories of the dead, rather than vanquishing them in a ghostly fog, the bereaved can lay the groundwork for relational legacies that can last a lifetime.

HOW DID WE GET HERE? Modern grief psychology has rendered the dead invisible, leaving the bereaved to fend for themselves to find meanings of connection. Freud (1957/1917) linked the story of grief to individual experience, thereby maintaining a pathologizing response to loss (Hagman, 2001) as the correct response to grief, often categorizing somaticized symptoms, including things like loss of appetite, sighing, and dry mouth (Lindemann, 1944). Modern grief psychology as stated by Freud (1957/1917) required the removal of ‘libidinal energies’ to rid people of an emotional attachment to the deceased. Practices have been developed in the shadow of Freud’s descriptions, with Kübler-Ross’s work (1969) as the gold standard. Kübler-Ross reflected ideas of detachment as the preferred end

point to her fifth and final stage of death and grief, acceptance. Acceptance has been seen as the severing of ties between the bereaved and the dead (Klass and Steffen, 2018). According to William Worden (1991, 2009), this resolution involves a prescribed series of tasks, where counselors have guided people towards ‘an appropriate good-bye’ (Worden’s fourth and final task (1991, p. 38). Although Worden did soften his wording to ‘finding an enduring connection with the deceased’ (2009, p. 50), the overarching theoretical trajectory still reflects Freud’s requirement for ‘reality to gain the day’ (Freud, 1957/1917, p. 244). This is clearly stated in Worden’s third task, ‘adjusting to the world without the deceased’ (2009, p. xiii). While these ideas may be useful for some, distance from the deceased may produce more yearning (Hedtke and Winslade, 2017). Theoretical practices in modern grief psychology like Kübler-Ross’ or Worden’s have been intimately tied to medical practice, placing emphasis on the corporeal as proof of relationship. In these approaches, the emotional acceptance of death is measured by the bereaved person’s willingness to perform certain acts, such as rituals of saying ‘good-bye’; if the bereaved does not engage in these acts, he or she is labeled as being in denial. The completion of relationship has been expected to coincide with the last exhale, at which time the bereaved should be emotionally adjusted to the death of the relational connection. Not accepting that the relationship has ended or insisting on continuing a relationship of sorts is regarded as abnormal. Subsequent models of modern grief psychology have all been built on themes that require letting go, in a timely manner. This requirement to let go has not only dislocated the relationship, but has also removed the context and caliber of the connection. Conventional theorists have picked up on Freud’s work to insist that relationships end when death occurs. For example, Collin Murray Parkes (1972) and John Bowlby (1963), alongside many others, have helped to build iron-clad systems that establish letting

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go, moving on, and finding closure as the norm. This creates an emotional separation between the living and the dead that hinders the continuation of a storied, posthumous relationship, with the focus of counseling being to find peace through the acceptance of death. This form of dislocation can be paradoxically unhelpful, often increasing yearning for the deceased. Not telling stories of the dead can exacerbate loss for the bereaved; the abrupt sense of being cut off from the deceased can be cruel. When a parent of a deceased child is judged for continuing to speak about their child, for example, opportunities to form meaning and sustain connections limit the possibility for new relationship to take shape between the living and the dead. Conventional practice has focused on artificially separating the living from the dead. The effects of these practices have been couched in metaphors of healing but have not begotten comfort (Neimeyer, 2015). Emotional distance is supported at the expense of relational connections; these practices could be questioned for the cruel potential that exacerbates loss by cutting off stories of love or creating future audiences to attest to the importance of the relationship.

WHAT IS A RELATIONAL APPROACH? A different kind of conversation might entail appreciating what was important to the deceased to weave ongoing connection between the living and dead. To this end, another approach to grief counseling is needed – one that affirms the best of what relationships have to offer (Hedtke and Winslade, 2004, 2017) and is supported by research which indicates that meanings are made in a social and familial context, rooted in multigenerational legacies (Hedtke, 2018; Walsh and McGoldrick, 2014). Professional literature and research have suggested that conventional methods of grief psychology limit possibilities for relational

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connection. Texts, such as Continuing Bonds (Klass et al., 1996; Klass and Steffen, 2018), challenge practices that cut off relationships in the face of death and offer a helpful counseling intervention. This literature shows that, in spite of dominant western ideas about letting go and moving on from a relationship, many people prefer to hold close the memories and stories of those who have died. This new relational approach offers a revolution to change how grief is storied, weaving the stories of the dead into the lives of the living, but not only to hold them in silent remembrance as is often the case, but to publicly speak to the import of inclusion of those who have died into the lives of the living. One of the main practitioners of this approach was Michael White, who wrote firmly against metaphors of good-bye in his aptly titled article, ‘Saying Hullo Again’ (1989). Relational frameworks such as these sit on the edge of a precipice that alters the practice of people in the helping professions who support those who are living with grief. Acts of recalling the best of the past, transcending the limits of linear time, and remembering the past as a building block can create a soothing balm for a continued sense of connection in the face of sometimes devastating loss. This approach not only invites ongoing relationship between the dead and their immediate living person(s), but also takes place in a larger community of people known and unknown to the deceased – people who become the conduit for the deceased person’s past stories. The dead can be introduced to new people who can then carry their jointly owned stories. Before offering an example of this kind of conversation, let us turn our attention to the thinking behind a relational approach to grief counseling.

RE-MEMBERING AND MEMBERSHIP Social constructionism has challenged thinking which places the individual at the center

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of identity (Gergen, 2009). This emerging philosophy has opened new ways to think about the self as living in multiple spaces, voices, and as a fluidly constructed experience (Gergen, 2009). Born out of a postmodern paradigm, shifting the concept of a fixed modern individual whose stories are internally contained, social constructionism has moved towards a relational person whose stories are co-owned and co-constructed with others. This shift opens thinking to a burgeoning grief psychology. Rather than upholding the old adage that people are born alone and die alone, postmodern thought might posit that we are all born into an interconnected web of people, living and dead. This interconnected web suggests the dead can continue to hold a relational position in the hearts and stories of the living. No longer do they need to be banished to the cold cemeteries but can warm our hearts as we tell their stories again and again and in so doing, find a way to move forward with the dead alongside us. This shift from isolated individual to a self who is situated within a community was articulated by the anthropologist, Barbara Myerhoff (1978, 1986). Myerhoff coined the terms ‘membership’ and ‘re-membering’ (with the intentional hyphen) which birthed a counseling revolution with ‘re-membering’ practices that has continued years after her death. Her anthropological research addressed relational identity formation as a ‘membered club’ where death does not cancel a person’s membership status or the importance they hold in the ‘club’, but an individual’s stories continue to be accessed, revitalized, and even revisioned. Myerhoff’s research complements postmodern thinking by suggesting a new way in which identity can be formed and authenticated. A membered club becomes the relational discursive community to punctuate meanings around important events in life, like the death of a member. Meanings arise from exchanges within the club and take on

a performative aspect, and, thus, a person’s stories are no longer owned by an individual, as is the conception in modern, neoliberal thought, but constitute a living exchange in larger communal linkages. Stories, identities, and membership transcend time and are folded into a collective amalgamation that even transcends death. This distinction becomes critically important to set the stage for a ‘re-membering conversation’ (Hedtke, 2001) that brings to life, in a storied form, a person who has died. A ‘re-membering’ conversation acknowledges that a person’s importance, or membership (in Myerhoff’s terminology), continues to be viable and accessible after death. This re-membering conversation offers re-inclusion of the deceased person’s former stories as an opportunity to weave meaning between the living and the dead. Re-membering also then becomes a springboard into future, unchartered waters, into which the bereaved dives. Thus, a re-membering conversation does not only rely on a realist’s version of relationship to demand completion at the time of death but can also enlist conjecture about what the deceased person could say if they were still able to speak. This frees the bereaved to have a more fluid connection with the deceased that does not reify a prescribed model of stages or tasks required for successful grieving. A re-membering conversation takes on an aesthetic hue to selectively seek helpful meanings, distance meanings that diminish love, and contemplate the subjunctive voice of the dead to where love grows (Hedtke and Winslade, 2005). The imaginal, or subjunctive, voice, invites the ventriloquized ‘voice’ of the deceased to continue to speak as if they are present, folding the virtual voice into a sense or actual presence. In the end, re-membering conversations can enlist the relational experiences between the living and deceased to legitimize and make visible the ongoing places where the deceased continue to matter and, as a result, bereaved people feel better at not being forced to no

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longer think or speak about a person they love who has died.

What does a Re-Membering Conversation Look Like? A conversation that re-members a person who has died begins with some inquiry about who the person was before he or she died. Mental health practitioners need to have a sense of being introduced to the deceased to establish context (Hedtke, 2012) as well as the tenor of the life and death of the person. Questions of introduction often look back in time, as we are asking for descriptions of the deceased, about their appearance, hobbies, passions, values, and the ways in which they lived. Introductory questions become a platform from which to scaffold a more meaningful legacy to transcend death. In the following excerpt of a re-membering conversation, Cameron spoke to me about his deceased grandmother, whom he affectionately called G-Ma. In the first part of this conversation, we can notice the evocative images as a result of questions that are introducing his precious G-Ma. Cameron: My Grandmother used to sign her FB posts, G-Ma, so we would also call her G-Ma. LH: Can you tell me a little bit about G-Ma? What did she look like? Cameron: Ever since I was a kid, she was a very large woman. She had short gray hair. She would wear those Moo-moos because she basically was at home all the time with mobility issues. She’d be at home putting around on her little razor in her Moo-moo or going to bingo or she’d be in the kitchen. She had a necklace – she called them ‘her purdy’s.’ So, we [the grandkids] would want to grab them and she’d tease us and say, ‘Don’t touch my purdy’s.’ LH: What kind of necklace were her purdy’s? Cameron: She loved charms and there are all kinds of charms. She loved elephants, so there were elephants. And sayings, like, ‘I love my grandkids.’ She just had like handfuls of little charms that were in her necklace and she basically was into bling.

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LH: Did she also bling out in terms of colors? Like bright colored Moo-moos? Cameron: Yes, usually royal blue and purples. And flowers! LH: So, she was visually quite stunning. How did she sound? Cameron: She was quite firm with everybody, but she also has a voice that was really soft and quite inviting. Particularly when she was talking to us. But when we would have a friend over, she would be like, ‘Is HE staying for dinner?’ But for us, it would be like [in a soft voice], ‘Can you please help me cook?’ She was very nice to us.

How is this a Different Kind of Conversation? When we start a conversation that speaks to who the deceased person was, the introduction becomes a political act that breathes life into the dead. It is a resurrection of sorts that declares that the dead person matters, which stands against dominant grief psychology models that banish the dead to the cemetery. Introduction establishes a relational approach. The questions are not inquiring about Cameron’s inner emotional experience but declare his grandmother as worthy of noticing. In this very short exchange with the first three questions, we already get not only a visual sense of G-Ma, but we start to hear some of what is important to her. As Cameron introduces her, he is editing in what he values in their connection. This provides a basis to ask about G-Ma’s values and what they mean for him. It is this meaning that will afford the start of a new kind of connection between Cameron and his grandmother, one that would be missed if we were asking about his acceptance of her death. As we read a bit further on, the introduction quickly morphs into a thread of meaning – of what was important to G-Ma that was shared between them. LH: What was it that she was wanting to be inclusive with family? Cameron: She loved us. There was never a doubt in any of our minds about how much she cared for us. She ended up raising almost all

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of her grandkids. She was there for her daughters. They had addiction and relationship issues, but she always took care of them. She had a house her daughters could stay in. She fed us grandkids when they couldn’t. There were ten grandkids at one point and they all lived with her. We knew that no matter what, she’d take care of us. LH: What was it like for you as a young boy to know you had safe haven in G-Ma’s house. Cameron: It was always more comfortable. When I was at home and going through stuff with my mom, I would ask, ‘Can I go to Grandmom’s house tonight?’ G-Ma had the Disney channel and the best food. It was always the best time to be there. LH: Do you know what it meant for G-Ma to have you and your cousins there with her? Cameron: Her spirits would lift. She had to stay at home a lot. She didn’t have a social life except to play bingo. When we were there, she made us the center of attention. It felt very safe there. LH: What was that like for you to have that place of safety? Cameron: I got bullied a lot in high school. Knowing I could go home to that safety meant a lot. Even when my cousins would bully me, she was the one who would be the one who would put her arm around me and give me a hug. She would always be that safe space for me. LH: What did she want to convey in that hug? Cameron: That I was loved. That she knew what I was going through. She knew that a lot of people didn’t seem to be on my side. Here, I am also talking about my sexuality. She saw this in me and she loved me regardless. She created this place where I could be accepted no matter what, even if other people in my family weren’t. She would shut them down. She would say, ‘You love who’s in your family.’ She was firm. LH: She was devoted. Cameron: She respected me and she showed me her respect. LH: Was that hug an offer of solidarity? Cameron: It was. I knew that she was my best friend. She was going to stand by me. She had my back. And she would go to bat for me against anyone. LH: Even against other family members? Cameron: Yeah, if she had to. She would. LH: She would call them out? Cameron: If I would have come out [as gay] more directly, I wondered if it would change

her mind. Right before she passed, I told her I was getting married. She was so over the moon ecstatic and was excited I was taking this step. She told me it was stupid to think she would be mad at me.

Meaning Shapes Relational Identity Stories It is worth noting here that Cameron is recalling the seeds that were planted from a young age that are a source of relational strength between him and his grandmother. The seeds can be nurtured to grow into a story of what it is like to be loved and accepted in the face of bullying. It can even bear future fruit as her love is harvested to soothe the harshness of marginalization or being judged for being gay. A re-membering conversation is never a one-way street. Unlike modern grief psychology that focuses on the bereaved person’s internal state and needs, a postmodern grief conversation holds multiple perspectives as valuable. In the aforementioned exchange, inquiry is made as to what is important to Cameron’s grandmother. The exploration of what his presence afforded her can underscore, and invite, a lived purpose. Looking forward, questions can be asked about the meaning in recalling her values that are worthy of being honored by Cameron. These lines of inquiry assist to grow the seedlings, forming branches to the trees. As with all counseling conversations, it is critically important to take pause and reflect on meaning. It is how the tree trunk becomes stronger to anchor what is most important. Re-membering conversations act like a beacon honing in on the love story. Pausing underscores the import. For example, the following two questions highlight what is most precious for Cameron. Keep in mind too, these reflections are being made within the first ten minutes of the conversation. LH: What was it like when you heard her say this?

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Cameron: It affirmed love. For some reason I had doubts, like perhaps some insecurities. Things I maybe needed to deal with, but there was never a question in her mind. It affirmed I can be loved. That I should be loved. And she showed me that. LH: It is not often that someone has such a remarkable teacher of love. Cameron: Yes. She was the one.

Who Else Carries the Story? Re-membering is never an isolated relational exchange between a deceased and a living person. This form of conversation is not only limited to a one-sided story, but it exists within a larger context as well. Recalling Myerhoff’s tenet that stories live within a larger community, we are free to enlist others to keep the deceased person’s stories alive. Audience exponentially moves re-membering to a larger scale where connections can be affirmed, reestablished, and refreshed with many people who hold stories from or about the deceased. For the bereaved, this could ameliorate the isolation that grief can bring, or to use Cameron’s words, ‘It was comforting’. The following few questions signify this kind of relational practice by identifying who else can add to the connection between Cameron and G-Ma. LH: Do you have a sense about other people in your family who would say she was also their teacher of love? Cameron: Every person in my family. Without a doubt. When we were at the hospital [when she was dying], it was like a family reunion. Everyone from South Dakota and New York – all parts of the country – everyone came to see her. There was an environment of love. There wasn’t sadness, as we were united by our love. My cousins and I had so many conversations that night about how she taught us to love. It was what I said in her eulogy – she taught us to love. She told us what love could be and that was what we wanted to bring to our lives. It was comforting to have everybody there and having that conversation. LH: When you were having these conversations, do you have a sense of how her love wrapped around the conversation?

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Cameron: I think so. There were times that we each had with her privately before she died. She was giving us last little pieces of instruction. ‘Love your family. Don’t seclude yourself.’ She didn’t want it [the love] to stop, but she wanted us to build on it. For all of us to remember to stay together because that is your family. We all are connected by G-Ma’s love. We are going to make an effort to because we love each other and because she loved us.

How can we Carry Posthumous Relationship into the Future? By tapping into the foundation established from the very first introduction questions about Cameron’s grandmother, a re-membering conversation traverses linear time by moving from talk about what was to what will be. Rather than thinking of grief conversations as something that live only in the past, when the relationship was alive, a social constructionist approach frees us to see time in a much broader context. It is as if we are in a larger storied stream flowing over life and death, picking up pieces of stories and carrying them to new tributaries and destinations. We can inquire about where the flow of the river might carry the relationship. It can become a never-ending source, too, where the waters can refresh and restore the relationship. LH: Do you have a sense of where G-Ma’s love has grown since her death? Cameron: I do. I feel like her love for me has grown into self-love. It has opened the door for me to accept myself and my family more. I am not looking at their flaws, or their addictions, but am being the kind of person that they can turn to like they turned to her before. She planted the seed and it’s grown ever since. LH: What would she say about what you have done to water and nurture that seed? Cameron: I think she would be really proud of me. She would be proud of what I am doing and why I am doing it. She would always say, ‘Be the kind of person to shine your light.’ She would say that to me all the time. Through her passing, I have learned, I remember that when I shine my light more, show

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kindness to people more, love people, I remember her better. I think she would be very happy that she brought that to me and she’s living on through it. LH: When you are loving somebody or experience that feeling of compassion, is she involved in that for you? Cameron: I think about her all the time. I think, ‘What would G-Ma do in this situation?’ LH: Where does that allow you to go to – when you ask yourself, what would G-Ma do, and you follow her advice, where do you go to? Cameron: It kind of stops my first instinct to be irritated or annoyed and reminds me that if I love them, I need to be there for them. By listening to her voice, I am a better person because of it. LH: Do you know where you would want her seed of love to grow still? Cameron: Sometimes I find it difficult to keep it watered. Like sometime self-doubt will creep in or difficult times will come in and I have to keep it watered. Where I want it to grow is to be more within me. LH: The love she has offered needs a larger platform. What would she say about what she appreciates about how you have kept her so close? Cameron: I think she would say that I am making an effort to keep her as an active member of the family even though she is not here physically. One of the last things she said to me was ‘Be happy.’ Knowing that I am happy now, I think she would be through the moon.

CONCLUSION A social constructionist, relational approach to death and grief frees people from the clutches of individual pathologized versions of grief that insist on a final stage of acceptance. The relational model born from social construction posthumously embraces the best of what was in a loving relationship, closely holding to values and love and stories in the face of death. By doing so, we increase vitality where stories can be told, and retold for years as a celebration of life, rather than banishing relationships to the graveyard. Exploring a relational approach to death and grief is unchartered territory. The context

of death and complexity of relationship has yet to be extensively studied as to the effects of relational approaches to death and grief. The limited research on parental grief also needs to be studied much more extensively. These are but two areas where research is needed to extend beyond the one-size-fitsall bereavement model. Although pockets of research are developing, nevertheless, the grip of modernism has held tightly. A relational approach can create new meaning and purpose that foster the re-inclusion of the stories of those who matter, in responding to the particular ways in which a person died and the particular aspects of the relationship. This would most hopefully offer a platform for the bereaved to find their way, with the stories of the deceased alongside them, for the rest of their days.

REFERENCES Bowlby, J. (1963). Pathological mourning and childhood mourning. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 11 (3), 500–541. Freud, S. (1957). Mourning and melancholia. In J. Strachey (Ed. & Trans.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol 14, pp. 237–259). London, UK: Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1917.) Gergen, K. (2009). Relational being: Beyond self and community. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Hagman, G. (2001). Beyond decathexis: Toward a new psychoanalytic understanding and treatment of mourning. In R. A. Neimeyer (Ed.), Meaning reconstruction and the experience of loss (pp. 13–32). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Hedtke, L. (2001). Dancing with death. Gecko: A Journal of Deconstruction and Narrative Ideas in Therapeutic Practice, 2, 3–14. Hedtke, L. (2012). What’s in an introduction? In R. A. Neimeyer (Ed.), Techniques of grief therapy (pp. 253–255). New York, NY: Routledge.

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Hedtke, L. (2018). Remembering relations across the years and miles. In D. Klass & E. Steffen (Eds.), Continuing bonds in bereavement (pp. 99–111). New York, NY: Routledge. Hedtke, L., & Winslade, J. (2004). Re-membering lives: Conversations with the dying and the bereaved. Amityville, NY: Baywood. Hedtke, L., & Winslade, J. (2005). The use of the subjunctive in re-membering conversations. Omega, 50 (3), 197–215. Hedtke, L., & Winslade, J. (2017). The crafting of grief: Constructing aesthetic responses to loss. New York, NY: Routledge. Klass, D., Silverman, P., & Nickman, S. (Eds.) (1996). Continuing bonds: New understandings of grief. Philadelphia, PA: Taylor and Francis. Klass, D., & Steffen, E. (Eds.) (2018). Continuing bonds in bereavement. New York, NY: Routledge. Kübler-Ross, E. (1969). On death and dying. New York, NY: Macmillan. Lindemann, E. (1994). Symptomatology and management of acute grief. American Journal of Psychiatry, 151 (6), 155–160. Sesquicentennial Supplement. Originally published September 1944.

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Myerhoff, B. (1978). Number our days. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. Myerhoff, B. (1986). Life not death in Venice. In V. Turner & E. Bruner (Eds.), The anthropology of experience (pp. 261–286). Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press. Neimeyer, R. A. (2015). Meaning in bereavement. In R. E. Anderson (Ed.), World suffering and quality of life (pp. 115–124). New York, NY: Springer Publishing. Parkes, C. M. (1972). Bereavement: Studies of grief in adult life. New York, NY: International Universities Press. Walsh, F., & McGoldrick, M. (2014). Loss and the family: A systemic perspective. In F. Walsh & M. McGoldrick (Eds.), Living beyond loss: Death in the family (pp. 3–26). New York, NY: W. W. Norton. White, M. (1989). Saying hullo again. In M. White (Ed.), Selected papers (pp. 29–36). Adelaide, AU: Dulwich Centre Publications. Worden, J. W. (1991). Grief counseling & grief therapy: A handbook for the mental health practitioner (2nd edition). New York, NY: Springer. Worden, J. W. (2009). Grief counseling & grief therapy: A handbook for the mental health practitioner (4th edition). New York, NY: Springer.

45 Changing the Conversation: Appreciative Inquiry and Appreciative Practices in Healthcare Natalie B. May, Julie Haizlip and Margaret Plews-Ogan

Appreciative Inquiry asks, ‘Who are we when we’re at our best, and how do we get more of that?’ This is a 180-degree shift in healthcare’s standard question, ‘What’s wrong and how can we fix it?’ We ask this problemfocused question of our patients: ‘What problems do you want to address today?’ We also ask it of our learners, colleagues, institutions, and ourselves. Focusing on our broken places limits our capacity to dynamically engage in and improve all aspects of healthcare. We also miss the opportunity to discover what works and how we might replicate it. We acknowledge that there are many areas in need of improvement in healthcare. Healthcare environments are exciting ones in the best and worst sense. As healthcare workers, we care for patients in their most challenging times. The changing landscape has created more pressures, resulting in staggering, and well-documented, levels of burnout and dissatisfaction among doctors and nurses (Dyrbye et al., 2014; D’Onofrio,

2019; Bakhamis et al., 2019; Rothenberger, 2017; Sinsky et al., 2017; Collier, 2017). There are human and economic arguments that call for more innovative solutions to these problems (Rothenberger, 2017; Sinsky et al., 2017). Notice how we frame these most challenging issues in healthcare. We have explored the negativity bias that pervades our culture and thinking in healthcare (Haizlip et al., 2012). As is our nature, we default to presenting challenges as deficits: physician burnout, moral distress in nursing, compassion fatigue, patient and provider dissatisfaction, hidden curricula, medical errors. We propose that it is time to turn the page on both the deficit orientation and the individual focus of these challenges if we want to successfully address them. There are tools we can use to unleash creativity, build relationships, and foster a culture that unlocks the potential in everyone who enters our health systems.

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At the University of Virginia, we have harnessed the power of Appreciative Inquiry as a methodology for achieving grassroots positive change. This approach, by focusing on what we do well and what we want to expand, has had transformative benefits throughout our health system. We have also developed Appreciative Practices in Healthcare to facilitate and hardwire those positive changes into our culture. What follows is a summary of our experiences with Appreciative Inquiry and the appreciative practices that we have developed to sustain positive change. We also will describe two major initiatives that have resulted from the Appreciative Inquiry approach.

WHAT IS APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY? Appreciative Inquiry (AI) took hold in business and management studies, when David Cooperrider at Case Western Reserve University observed the power of a positive question (Cooperrider and Whitney, 1999). Instead of asking, ‘What is going wrong in this organization?’ he wondered what would happen if we asked, ‘What is going well?’ Cooperrider and his colleagues took this concept and developed Appreciative Inquiry as an organizational change methodology that is ‘the study and exploration of what gives life to human systems when they function at their best’ (Whitney and TrostenBloom, 2003, p. 1). The AI journey begins with an unconditionally positive question around a topic of interest. For example, if a healthcare team is struggling with effective communication around patient care, we can approach the problem in at least one of two ways. We can ask, ‘What are we doing wrong and who is to blame?’ or we can pose the question, ‘Think back to a time when your team communicated really well. It’s a time that you look back on with pride about how well everyone expressed him or herself and “got it done” for the patient and the

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other team members. Tell me the story of that time. What were others doing to contribute to this extraordinary example of good communication? What were you doing? What can we learn from this example, and what can we carry forward with us into the future?’ We prefer the second option. This approach has resulted in innovative solutions on large and small scales throughout our health system.

THE 4-D CYCLE OF APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY Appreciative Inquiry entails a ‘4-D Cycle’, with four steps: Discovery, Dream, Design, and Destiny (see Figure 45.1). DISCOVERY requires an unconditionally positive question, such as the one in the second option given above. Everyone in the organization participates, not simply a select group. In our first AI process at the University of Virginia (UVA), we studied our graduate medical education program, and everyone – janitors, transport staff, librarians, radiology techs, nurse managers, attending physicians, and the residents – shared their stories of highpoint moments in graduate-level training (Plews-Ogan et  al., 2007). These discovery stories are typically shared in ‘unlikely pairs’ at an AI summit, meaning the Dean of a medical school might share stories with a medical student or night shift nurse. The power of this narrative approach is that the stories are grounded in the organization’s reality. These highpoint events have already happened in circumstances familiar to members. Individuals already know how to do these things. We find that, at the end of the discovery process, when pairs have shared their stories, there is a palpable positive energy. Remembering your team or organization’s success, whether it be providing

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Figure 45.1  The 4-D Cycle

exceptional patient care or thriving in the midst of a crisis, is energizing and genuine. The stories are a powerful reminder, ‘We can do this.’ We find that you can’t argue with a story, and the stories open windows into our colleagues’ previously unseen humanity. Next we identify themes under the heading, ‘Who are we when we’re at our best?’ These themes are unique to each unit or team, of course, but in healthcare we have seen several recurring themes, such as ‘We go “above and beyond” for our patients’ and ‘We are quickly and creatively able to solve problems.’ The next step is to DREAM, ‘What would we look like if we were able to grow what we already know how to do well?’ Participants collectively dream big, focusing on five or ten years in the future when their collective dream is realized. What does your clinic, hospital, or unit look like? What are people doing? What is the first thing you notice when you walk in the door? How do you feel? What has changed? What did you do to make this happen? In the dream process, participants must evoke as much rich detail as possible, creating a visual depiction of their team’s dream of the future. The result is poems, pictures,

skits, rap music, and other memorable moments that bond the group together and create a wellspring of shared experience. In the DESIGN phase, we ask participants, ‘How will you get from where you are now to the future that you have imagined? What steps will you need to take? Who will take responsibility? What are your priorities?’ As with the other steps, this process is democratic, creative, and energizing. Each group will map its own path forward, uniquely reflecting their own circumstances, resources, and priorities. Team members are called to ‘just do it’ in the DESTINY phase. Implementation varies from team to team, but they often start with a simple step that will have the greatest impact. One team, for example, asked for help navigating communication and respect between nurses and dietary staff. One idea that bubbled up in the design process was a monthly potluck luncheon when nurses would bring dishes from their country of origin. The dietary staff would be their guests so they would not have to cook. It was a fun and creative opportunity to continue the positive energy resulting from the AI summit, a sort of lubricant for the hard work of organizational change. It was also a bonus outcome that celebrated

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the diversity of having international nurses on their staff. Although its roots are in business, over the decades AI has branched out into many other sectors, and, of interest to us, into healthcare, nursing education, and academic medicine. For example, its strengthbased approach has identified what medical students learn about professionalism from faculty stories (Quaintance et al., 2010) and effective ways to advise nursing students (Hande et al., 2017; Read et al., 2017). AI has been used to improve clinical practice, studying what already works well and building solutions based on that knowledge. Souza and colleagues have taken an AI approach to identifying successful treatments for eating disorders in Brazil (Souza and Santos, 2013, 2015). At our own institution and elsewhere, clinician researchers have used AI to improve resident sign-outs (Helms et  al., 2012); patient hand-offs (Shendell-Falik et al., 2007); and patient transitions from hospital to home (Reed et al., 2002). In Australia, researchers have used AI to identify safe ways to administer medications (Martyn and Paliadelis, 2019), and in India, an AI process improved infection control in maternity care (Sharma et al., 2015). Clinicians in Thailand used AI to develop a family nursing model for cancer prevention (Jongudomkarn and Macduff, 2014), and Australian researchers used AI to foster family-centered care in neonatal units (Trajkovski et al., 2015). AI is also an effective method to reveal resilience factors in vulnerable populations. One study resulted in the implementation of personcentered dementia care in hospital wards (Scerri et al., 2019). Others have addressed weight management programs for obese children (Teevale and Kaholokula, 2018); examined autism spectrum disorders disparities in the Latino community (Moody et al., 2019); and promoted the mental health of students living with HIV (Diedricks et al., 2018). With a basic understanding

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of the principles and process, Appreciative Inquiry can be adapted to address almost any clinical or administrative issue in healthcare.

FOUR APPLICATIONS OF APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY IN HEALTHCARE What follows are descriptions of four Appreciative Inquiry initiatives that we supported in the early years of our work at the University of Virginia Health System. In the past decade, we have worked with dozens of units and departments within our health system, as well as schools and programs throughout the University, the community, and beyond. Interventional Radiology. This procedurally based division wanted to enhance their interdisciplinary teamwork to make sure they were all ‘rowing in the same direction’ (Williams and Haizlip, 2013). Fifty team members participated in an AI summit, and they identified that they were at their best when their team faced a crisis. They did their best work together when a patient was in urgent need. This insight gave them direction about how to reorganize their work and communication. They implemented interdisciplinary team ‘huddles’ at the beginning of the day and prior to each case. They changed scheduling templates to address add-on and emergent cases. The division developed new initiatives such as patient follow-up cards and calming music playlists for anxious patients. Within 18 months, these changes produced measurable improvements in patient satisfaction from 88% to 93%, even with an increase in patient volume (Haizlip et al., 2010). Claude Moore Health Sciences Library. The library used Appreciative Inquiry to develop its annual strategic plan, developed in the context of dramatic changes to the library science landscape. New technologies were often perceived as threats to the traditional

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work of librarians. Many team members, including leaders, faced the future with a sense of anxiety, even dread. In a three-day summit, staff and leadership had the opportunity to co-create their future together, and an extraordinary thing happened. They discovered (or remembered) that at their best, they provide invaluable service and support to faculty, students, patients, and the University community. They are knowledgeable, creative, and thoughtful. They are extraordinary teachers. This reason for being, this heart and soul of the library, would not change, even amid technological upheavals. Their ethic of service was their constant in the storm, and they designed plans to grow that element of service and support. They successfully transitioned to an e-library and developed innovative ways to help faculty and students adopt the new technologies. Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation/ Health South Hospital. Many of UVA’s faculty and residents practice at the nearby Health South Rehabilitation Hospital, partnering with their nursing and ancillary staff to provide advanced rehabilitation services to patients from across the Commonwealth. In 2009, however, the partnership had eroded; the doctors and nurses were hostile, the working environment was described as ‘toxic’, and patient satisfaction was suffering. Over the next two and a half years, we led a series of AI interventions, beginning with the leadership team, designed to build a shared vision and a renewed focus on quality and patient care. In April 2011, Health South closed the month in a tie for first out of 101 hospitals for their overall rating of care (Williams and Haizlip, 2013). University of Virginia School of Nursing Strategic Plan. We have published this story elsewhere (Harmon et al., 2012), but it is worth repeating as an example of AI transforming healthcare. Following the arrival of Dean Dorrie Fontaine to the School of Nursing in 2008, it was soon time to rewrite the school’s five-year strategic plan.

Unlike previous strategic planning, this time all voices would be heard. In a two-day Appreciative Inquiry summit, 135 members of the School of Nursing, the health system, and the community came together to determine their ‘root causes of success’ and create a plan for their collective future. Beginning with the paired interview Discovery process, participants identified the School of Nursing’s ‘positive core’. Work groups prioritized and enacted opportunities for moving forward in research, curriculum, interdisciplinary education, community partnerships, healthy workplace, funding, and technology. In the following decade, the School of Nursing flourished. Among other successes, they established the Compassionate Care Initiative; a nationally recognized Center for Academic Strategic Partnerships for Interprofessional Research and Education (ASPIRE); Healthy Work and Healthy Learning Environment work groups; and the successful Inclusion, Diversity & Excellent Achievement (IDEA) initiative. Our Clinical Nurse Leader program is now ranked #1 in the nation, and last year, we received 11 applications for each of the 60 spots in our BSN degree program. In 2019, the School of Nursing received the inaugural Sigma Academic Healthy Work Environment Award in recognition of the positive culture that has been established for both students and faculty.

THE PRINCIPLES OF APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY AND APPRECIATIVE PRACTICES We found that the Appreciative Inquiry change process (Discovery, Dream, Design, and Do) alone was generally not enough to sustain meaningful, long-term change. This kind of change doesn’t happen overnight, and it happened with varying degrees of success across teams. Within our health system, our most successful change teams had both

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strong champions (formal and informal leaders), and they also changed the way they interacted with one another both in the moment and more broadly in terms of their relationship to the health system. We found that these interactions and behaviors could be fostered through what we named Appreciative Practices. Appreciative Practices are grounded in the fundamental principles of Appreciative Inquiry. Practices include gratitude, reframing, assumption of positive intent, visualization techniques, and more. They are intended to hardwire positive practices so that they become ‘the way we do things’. Appreciative Practices are grounded in the principles of AI that are rooted in social construction and are worth exploring briefly, as they underscore why this approach is uniquely effective. There are excellent deep dives into the AI principles elsewhere (Cooperrider and Whitney, 1999; Kelm, 2005), so we present a broad overview here. Following each principle, we share an example of an Appreciative Practice that we have introduced to our health system. The constructionist principle is well established and rooted in the philosophical stance of Wittgenstein, Bakhtin, and others. It refers to the idea that we construct our reality in the ‘in between’ of our relationships with others. Reality only exists as we create it together. As Cooperrider and Whitney (1999) explain: Constructionism is an approach to human science and practice which replaces the individual with the relationship as the locus of knowledge, and thus is built around a keen appreciation of the power of language and discourse of all types (from words to metaphors to narrative forms, etc.) to create our sense of reality – our sense of the true, the good, the possible (Cooperrider and Whitney, 1999, p. 50).

Therefore, we can invite others to construct more desirable realities together. For example, two patients may come to the same hospital or clinic and have vastly different experiences, based on the interactions they experience. To harness the power of

the constructionist principle, we must be intentional with our language, symbols, and stories. Appreciative Practice: Attention to Language. If words create our worlds, we have countless opportunities in healthcare to create a better world for our patients and ourselves by using language intentionally. We have long known the relationship between language and the hidden curriculum (Haidet and Stein, 2006; Hafferty, 1998). We strive to provide patient-centered care (Frankel, 2004), and academic medicine has begun to appreciate and teach that language must reflect the principles of the patient-centered approach (Matson et al., 2019). Healthcare professionals will be familiar with the frequently used, non-patient-centered terms in the traditional language column in Table 45.1. These may seem to be subtle shifts in language, but over time these small movements will turn the ship. The positive principle is perhaps the most radical of them all, at least in healthcare where we are limited by our negativity bias (Haizlip et  al., 2012). AI practitioners find ‘that building and sustaining momentum for change requires large amounts of positive affect and social bonding – things like hope, excitement, inspiration, caring, camaraderie, sense of urgent purpose, and sheer joy in creating something meaningful together’ (Cooperrider and Whitney, 2000, p. 20). Negativity limits our thinking and problemsolving ability. Positivity, on the other hand, builds on itself (Frederickson, 2004) and unleashes our best ideas and creativity, even Table 45.1  Traditional versus appreciative language Traditional language

Appreciative language

Diabetic in room 413

66-year-old, retired school teacher Did not keep appointment Patient with a substance use disorder High needs patients

No show Drug seeker Frequent flyers

Source: Adapted from Matson et al. (2019)

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in the realm of clinical problem solving (Isen et al., 1991). Positivity also attracts people to the mission at hand. With appreciative practices, we focus on fostering positivity and well-being in individuals and teams. We offer popular brown bag lunches and workshops in fostering positive emotions and developing appreciative practices. We have discovered the power of shifting our focus to the positive and are seeing how this allows us to solve seemingly unsolvable problems (Frederickson, 2009). Appreciative Practice: Positive Check-Ins. We begin meetings with positive check-ins as a reminder of our goals, to connect in a meaningful way, and to help everyone be present in the moment. By asking at the outset, ‘What went well this week? What progress did you observe since we last met?’ we set a clear tone and shift everyone’s focus to possibilities for change. The simultaneity principle refers to the belief that change begins the moment that you ask the question. Therefore, the questions you ask really matter. Positive change begins to happen when we ask, ‘What do we want?’ rather than focusing on what we don’t want. In our book, Appreciative Inquiry in Healthcare: Positive Questions to Bring out the Best (May et al., 2011), we explore the possibilities that emerge when you ask, ‘What is working? How can we create more of that?’ Appreciative Practice: Curiosity vs. Judgment. In a pilot program for medical students, we worked with students during their preclinical years to hone their ability to approach situations with curiosity and openness. As they moved through their clinical rotations, they shared experiences where curiosity served them well. Rather than assuming the worst about a difficult supervising resident, a student wondered why the resident was acting out. She shared a story about having a cup of coffee with the resident and learning that he was under a lot of pressure at home and at work. Once those pressures were resolved, the resident became pleasant to work with and taught her a great deal about patient care.

We encourage students to approach their patients with curiosity rather than judgment, much to the same effect. Research, as well as our own experience, has found curiosity to be a buffer against negative, even hostile, interactions (Kashdan et al., 2013). The poetic principle can be described in the metaphor, ‘that organizations are like open books – endless sources of learning, inspiration, and interpretation’ (Whitney and TrostenBloom, 2003, p. 61). We can choose which passage, page, or chapter we would like to study and how we interpret it. We can choose the part of the story that describes failure, or we can focus on the part that reveals triumph. More importantly, each story is open to interpretation. In the story of failure, for example, was there a point where those who failed gained wisdom and resilience? Did someone behave heroically? The poetic principle also suggests that there is something of beauty in everything, but it requires us to observe with new eyes. Appreciative Practice: Reframing. The poetic principle leads us to the art of reframing; our ability to choose how we view and interpret the world around us. We teach this skill in workshops throughout the health system. One of our favorite reframing success stories came from an art therapist. We had endured endless rainy weather that spring. The therapist, who is also a photographer, was walking to work grumbling about the forecast of more rain when she noticed a splendid growth of mushrooms near the sidewalk. She took out her camera and got down on the ground to take photographs. Soon people stopped to ask her what was happening, to admire the mushrooms, and engage in pleasant conversation. Instead of viewing the endless rain as tedious, she saw it now with gratitude for the mushroom splendor and the serendipitous human connection. Finally the anticipatory principle suggests that we move toward the image of our future that we hold in our head, and the more positive that image, the more positive our future. Effective coaches ask teams to visualize victory, what that would look like, sound like,

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and feel like (Clarey, 2014). They would never ask their players to imagine crushing defeat. Healthcare leaders can ask their teams to visualize an error-free surgical environment, a more effective approach than creating an environment of fear of reprisals. Appreciative practice: Visualization. One way that we use visualization is with our patients. In motivational interviewing, a technique to foster behavior change, we ask patients to visualize life when their goal (e.g., quitting smoking, losing weight, drinking less) is met. What will you do? How will you feel? What will your day be like? Again, the power is in the details. As with all appreciative practices, we underscore that these are practices, just as mindfulness and exercise are practices. Although we may be presenting the practices as ways to be in your work environment, they can and should be practiced everywhere, even on your commute to work.

TAKING APPRECIATIVE PRACTICES TO THE NEXT LEVEL In this section, we discuss two system-wide examples of programs that reflect the power of Appreciative Inquiry and Appreciative Practices. Both programs address seemingly intractable problems in healthcare – burnout and discriminatory behavior. First, we describe Be Wise, an innovative program to address environmental stressors and foster individual resilience and well-being. Then we share our Responding to Discriminatory Behavior initiative that trains employees at all levels to actively address racism, sexism, and homophobic behavior in our environment.

Be Wise: Fostering Optimal Teams We developed the Be Wise program in response to increasing challenges around

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unprofessional behavior and burnout. This comprehensive program fosters high-level human functioning and flourishing in healthcare using a two-pronged approach. First, we develop strategies to bolster the individual or unit capacity to deal with necessary stressors, such as high acuity, severe stress among patients and families, and frequent adverse outcomes in a severe trauma environment. In the second prong, we identify the systems issues that need to be fixed to address unnecessary stressors facing frontline staff and faculty, such as a highly negative workplace environment, with negative gossip, poor communication, and a consistent failure to appreciate and replicate successes in patient care. Both approaches benefit from appreciative practices and require highly developed coping strategies on the part of individual team members and the team as a whole. The health system piloted Be Wise in one of our most challenging intensive care units, with a high-acuity patient population, low staff engagement scores, and correspondingly high staff turnover. We began with focus groups to identify the underlying stressors and determine which of these stressors were ‘unnecessary’, meaning they could be addressed. We also asked focus group participants what they loved about their jobs, and we framed the Be Wise initiative as a way to foster the reasons they chose intensive care nursing and medicine in the first place. Our goal was to help staff develop the capacities to deal with the necessary stressors as positively as possible and to provide the skills and resources to address or eliminate the unnecessary ones. Unit champions learned positive self-care practices and ways to foster positive interactions (e.g., assuming positive intent, suspending judgment, expressing curiosity and gratitude). Following a retreat, champions integrated positive practices as they saw fit. Instead of beginning the morning huddle discussion with a list of what had gone wrong overnight; they began each night/day shift hand-off by sharing what went well. They

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added the breath (or pause) practice between patients, an act of separation and restoration that allows nurses and physicians to be fully present with their patients. Nurses posted daily positive statements in the workroom and shared a ‘positive practice of the month’. Be Wise also provides individual coaching for staff members whose behaviors indicate that they are not coping with stressors effectively. Most important, the institution committed to addressing structural issues that created unnecessary stressors, such as unstable staffing and turnover. They authorized funds to hire more nurses. After the implementation of Be Wise, many of these travel nurses chose to stay in the unit rather than leave when their assignment was complete. With the addition of permanent nursing staff, turnover was dramatically reduced, as were staffing costs. After 18 months of implementation, the Be Wise initiative resulted in not only dramatically reduced staff turnover, but also improvements in employee engagement scores. The hard work must be continued to maintain these gains, but it is a promising outcome to addressing the most basic ways we deal with stress.

Responding to Discriminatory Behavior We are fortunate to have diversity in our medical and nursing schools, but we are aware that at times students face discriminatory comments and behaviors in their clinical rotations. (Our health system is not unique in this, unfortunately.) An initial response was to make our students ‘more resilient’. But we cannot hold the targets of racist or sexist behavior responsible for responding to it. It was imperative that we provide the people who supervise students and staff with the skills to respond appropriately. Our students should be able to turn to these people for help. So far, we have created 13 instructional videos based on incidents that were experienced

in our health system. The scenarios address racism, sexism, Islamophobia, and homophobia. The most recent videos reflect the experiences of our nurses, housekeeping, and transport staff. We have trained over 300 people, including 150 medical students. All employees take an online awareness brief, and our messaging now clearly reflects that we know these behaviors occur; we will not ignore them; and as a student or employee, you will be supported in responding to them. What does our response to discriminatory behavior have to do with appreciative practices? The foundation of the program is in finding and bringing out the best in one another. Yes, someone has done something hateful, but our premise is that there is nothing to be gained by calling them a hateful person or responding to them in a way that will further separate us. It is a more difficult proposition to be clear about our values and expectations and find a way to move forward with the person. We have included medical students in the training program, at their request, not to teach them to be more resilient, but to teach them what to expect and what their options are. We are careful to say that they are not responsible for stepping forward and dealing with the offender, but we want them to know that there are people in our system who will support them and address the issue. These are very difficult situations to handle. But just as students are not expected to deliver bad news to patients on their own, they should not have to handle discriminatory behaviors on their own.

CLOSING REFLECTIONS Over the past decade, our stance at the University of Virginia has been to embrace positive change and explore opportunities to reframe our challenges and ultimately to change our conversations within healthcare. Rather than defaulting to the negative, as we

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have been trained, we seek out our best behaviors and find ways to integrate and grow them in new settings, in the face of new challenges. By shifting from a deficit orientation, we are also more likely to ensure our long-term success. It is the nature of healthcare to continually face new frontiers as systems, technologies, and scientific knowledge evolve. Instead of focusing on what we don’t want, we are free to ask, ‘What do we want? In what kind of environment do we choose to work?’ By approaching these changes as opportunities rather than trends to be feared or avoided, we step up, unlock our collective imaginations, and move toward a future that allows patients, care providers, and learners to construct new well-being possibilities. We must begin to imagine care environments that support not only patients, but also care providers. Creating collaborative interprofessional communities will allow us to grow as individuals and as teams, and that growth will help us realize the goal of optimal patient care experiences.

REFERENCES Bakhamis, L., Paul, D. P., Smith, H., & Coustasse, A. (2019). Still an epidemic: The burnout syndrome in hospital registered nurses. The Health Care Manager, 38, 3–10. Clarey, C. (2014, February 22). Olympians use imagery as mental training. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes. com Collier, R. (2017). Physician burnout a major concern. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 189, E1236–E1237. Cooperrider, D., & Whitney, D. (1999). Appreciative Inquiry. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. Cooperrider, D., & Whitney, D. (2000). A positive revolution in change: Appreciative inquiry. In D. Cooperrider, P. Sorensen, D. Whitney & T. Yaeger (Eds.), Appreciative Inquiry: Rethinking Human Organization Toward a Positive Theory

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of Change (pp. 3–28) Champaign, Illinois: Stipes Publishing L.L.C. Diedricks, T., Myburgh, C., & Poggenpoel, M. (2018). Promoting mental health of students living with HIV using appreciative inquiry. African Journal of AIDS Research, 17, 163– 174. doi: 10.2989/16085906.2018.1478312 D’Onofrio, L. (2019). Physician burnout in the United States: A call to action. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, 2, 8–10. Dyrbye, L. L., West, C. P., Satele, D., Boone, S., Tan, L., Sloan, J. A., & Shanafelt, T. D. (2014). Burnout among U.S. medical students, residents, and early career physicians relative to the general U.S. population. Academic Medicine, 89(3), 443–451. doi.org/10.1097/ ACM.0000000000000134 Frankel, R. M. (2004). Relationship-centered care and the patient–physician relationship. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 19, 1163–1165. Frederickson, B. L. (2004). The broaden-andbuild theory of positive emotions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 359, 1367–1377. Frederickson, B. L. (2009). Positivity. New York, NY: Crown Publishers. Hafferty, F. W. (1998). Beyond curriculum reform: Confronting medicine’s hidden curriculum. Academic Medicine, 73, 403–407. Haidet, P., & Stein, H. F. (2006). The role of the student–teacher relationship in the formation of physicians. The hidden curriculum as process. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 21(suppl 1), S16–S20. Haizlip, J., May, N. B., Schorling, J. B., Williams, A., & Plews-Ogan, M. (2012). The negativity bias, medical education, and the culture of academic medicine: Why culture change is hard. Academic Medicine, (87) 9: 1205–1209. Haizlip, J. A., McDaniel, C. D., Williams, A., Angle, J. F., Keefe-Jankowski, C., May, N. B., Schorling, J. B., Whitney, D., & Plews-Ogan, M. (2010). Successful adaptation of appreciative inquiry for academic medicine. AI Practitioner, 12(3), 44–48 (electronic publication). Hande, K., Christenbery, T., & Phillippi, J. (2017). Appreciative advising: An innovative approach to advising doctor of nursing practice students. Nurse Educator, 42, E1–E3. doi: 10.1097/NNE.0000000000000372

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Harmon, R., Plews-Ogan, M., Williams, A., & Fontaine, D. (2012). Achieving transformational change: Using appreciative inquiry for strategic planning in a school of nursing. Journal of Professional Nursing, 28(2), 119–124. Helms, A. S., Perez, T. E., Baltz, J., Donowitz, G., Hoke, G., Bass, E. J., & Plews-Ogan, M. L. (2012). Use of an appreciative inquiry approach to improve resident sign-out in an era of multiple shift changes. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 27, 287–291. doi: 10.1007/s11606-011-1885-4 Isen, A. M., Rosenzweig, A. S., & Young, M. J. (1991). The influence of positive affect on clinical problem solving. Medical Decision Making, 11, 221–227. Jongudomkarn, D., & Macduff, C. (2014). Development of a family nursing model for prevention of cancer and other noncommunicable diseases through an appreciative inquiry. Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention, 15, 10367–10374. Kashdan, T. B., Dewall, C. N., Pond, R. S., Silvia, P. J., Lambert, N. M., Fincham, F. D., Savostyanova, A. A., & Keller, P. S. (2013). Curiosity protects against interpersonal aggression: Cross-sectional, daily process, and behavioral evidence. Journal of Personality, 81, 87–102. Kelm, J. B. (2005). Appreciative Living: The Principles of Appreciative Inquiry in Personal Life. Wake Forest, NC: Venet Publishers. Martyn, J. A., & Paliadelis, P. (2019). Safe medication administration: Perspectives from an appreciative inquiry of the practice of registered nurses in regional Australia. Nurse Education in Practice, 34, 111–116. doi: 10.1016/j.nepr.2018.11.007. Matson, C. C., Beck, L. A., & Rajasekaran, S. K. (2019). Using language that reflects who is the center of our care. Academic Medicine, (94) 9: 1400. May, N., Becker, D., Frankel, R., Haizlip, J., Harmon, R., Plews-Ogan, M., Schorling, J., Williams, A., & Whitney, D. (2011). Appreciative Inquiry in Healthcare: Positive Questions to Bring Out the Best. Brunswick, OH: Crown Custom Publishing, Inc. Moody, E. J., Harris, B., Zittleman, L., Nease, D. E., & Westfall, J. M. (2019). It’s time for a change! The appreciative inquiry/bootcamp translation to address disparities in the Latino

community with autism spectrum disorders. Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology, 25, 113–122. doi: 10.1037/cdp0000242 Plews-Ogan, M., May, N., Schorling, J., Becker, D., Frankel, R., Graham, E., Haizlip, J., Hostler, S., Pollart, S., & Howell, R. E. (2007). Feeding the good wolf: Appreciative inquiry and graduate medical education. ACGME eBulletin, November, 5–8. Quaintance, J. L., Arnold, L., & Thompson, G. S. (2010). What students learn about professionalism from faculty stories: An ‘appreciative inquiry’ approach. Academic Medicine, 85, 118–123. doi: 10.1097/ACM.0b013e3181c42acd Read, A., Hicks, J., & Christenbery, T. (2017). Appreciative advising in nursing education. Nurse Educator, 42, 81–84. doi: 10.1097/ NNE.0000000000000304 Reed, J., Pearson, P., Douglas, B., Swinburne, S., & Wilding, H. (2002). Going home from the hospital – an appreciative inquiry study. Health & Social Care in the Community, 10, 36–45. Rothenberger, D. A. (2017). Physician burnout and well-being: A systematic review and framework for action. Diseases of the Colon and Rectum, 60, 567–576. doi: 10.1097/ DCR.0000000000000844 Scerri, A., Innes, A., & Scerri, C. (2019). Using appreciative inquiry to implement personcentered dementia care in hospital wards. Dementia (London), 18, 190–209. doi: 10.1177/1471301216663953. Sharma, B., Ramani, K. V., Mavalankar, D., Kanguru, L., & Hussein, J. (2015). Using ‘appreciative inquiry’ in India to improve infection control practices in maternity care: A qualitative study. Global Health Action, June 26, 8: 26693. doi: 10.3402/gha. v8.26693. Shendell-Falik, N., Feinson, M., & Mohr, B. J. (2007). Enhancing patient safety: Improving the patient handoff process through appreciative inquiry. The Journal of Nursing Administration, 37, 95–104. Sinsky, C., Dyrbye, L., West, C. P., Satele, D., Tutty, M., & Shanafelt, T. (2017). Professional satisfaction and career plans of US physicians. Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 92, 1625–1635. Souza, L. V., & Santos, M. A. (2013). Places occupied by professionals and patients in the treatment of eating disorders. Estudos de Psicologia Natal, 18, 259–267.

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Souza, L. V., & Santos, M. A. (2015). Successful stories of health professionals in treating eating disorders. Psicologia: Ciência e Profissão, 35, 528–542 [online]. Teevale, T., & Kaholokula, J. K. (2018). Using appreciative inquiry methodology to develop a weight management program for obese children in New Zealand. Australia New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 42, 7–11. doi: 10.1111/1753-6405.12719 Trajkovski, S., Schmied, V., Vickers, M., & Jackson, D. (2015). Using appreciative inquiry to

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bring neonatal nurses and parents together to enhance family-centered care: A collaborative workshop. Journal of Child Health Care, 19, 239–53. doi: 10.1177/1367493513508059 Whitney, D., & Trosten-Bloom, A. (2003). The power of appreciative inquiry: A practical guide to positive change. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. Williams, A., & Haizlip, J. (2013). Ten keys to the successful use of Appreciative Inquiry in academic healthcare. OD Practitioner, 45, 20–25.

46 Populating Recovery: Mobilizing Relational Sources for Healing Addiction Pavel Nepustil

I don’t ever wanna drink again I just, ooh, I just need a friend (Amy Winehouse ‘Rehab’)

This is an invitation to inquire into an irreducible, emergent phenomenon (Shelby, 2016) that is called addiction, and more specifically into the transformational process that is usually described as recovery. We will first look at the conceptualization of addiction and recovery, both in general and in relational theory, and then I will describe two types of practices in the addiction recovery field that respect the complexity of addiction and at the same time are coherent with social constructionist theory. For the first one, I will invite you to my therapy room in Brno, Czech Republic, and for the second I will take you to a friendly service in Manchester, UK. Finally, we will go beyond the scope of professional addiction and recovery services and sketch an image of a society that is inclusive, inviting and appreciative of transformational processes and does not build barriers

for people who travel from one lifestyle to another.

DO WE NEED THE WORD ‘ADDICTION’? Between 2013 and 2016, a large group of European researchers, brought together by project ALICE – RAP (Anderson, 2017), attempted to find a conceptualization of addiction that would serve as a common platform for all the different disciplines that are concerned with addiction, such as medicine, psychology, sociology, criminology, public health, etc. They finally concluded that we do not need a special word like ‘addiction’ for capturing the main message of all the different conceptualizations and suggested that the most appropriate term might be ‘heavy use over time’. They argue that it is exactly heavy use1 for a prolonged period of time that seems to be the most salient feature of

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this phenomenon for all the disciplines. For them, the term ‘addiction’ is not only redundant but it also dichotomizes people as having, or not having, addiction, dominantly regarded as a disease, ‘… without giving sufficient weight to the fact that the underlying phenomena are continuous’ (Anderson, 2017: 17). Being identified as an ‘addict’ is also stigmatizing, since it unreasonably gives a fixed label to people, sometimes even without them being aware that they have such label (i.e. when others around them identify them as such). This is an interesting conclusion given the fact that the original goal of medical professionals, who were mostly responsible for the widespread use of the word ‘addiction’ in the professional field in the 20th century, was clearly the opposite. They were trying to help people who were regarded as immoral, evil or spoiled, and thus stigmatized by society, by giving them the identity of those who suffer from a disease called addiction and who need help. And there was also the promise that medicine would find an underlying cause of addiction and then it will be only a small step to find the cure. But we can hardly regard this project as successful. Be it the allergy to alcohol (Silkworth, 1937) or addictive personality (Fischer, 1973; Lester et al., 1976), all of the theories were either rejected or did not fulfill the search for a cure. Even today, medical professionals in the addiction field continue this project of searching for an underlying cause of addiction, and some of them believe that there is a clue in the structure of the neural system that explains addictive behavior. The addictive behavior makes changes in the neural network structure. When this change occurs, a pathological process disables the person from taking control over him/herself (Volkow et  al., 2013). Unable to control their impulses, people with addiction need professional treatment to help them gain this control again. However, there is a line of criticism of this disease model that, at the same time, does

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not want to disregard the notion of addiction itself. Lewis (2015), Satel and Lilienfeld (2014) and others confirm that the neural network changes with developing addiction. But, for them, this does not mean that addiction is a disease, disorder or pathological process. Building upon the widespread notion of neuroplasticity of the nervous system, Lewis (2015) says that our brain is constantly changing, especially when it comes to learning. And addiction is a special kind of learning process that involves, as with any other kind of learning, a habit formation. … the brain changes that underlie addiction and recovery are more normal than abnormal, though their outcomes can be extreme. Addiction may be a frightful, devastating, and insidious process of change in our habits and our synaptic patterning. But that doesn’t make it a disease. (Lewis, 2015: 44)

This developmental theory of addiction focuses on explaining how these kinds of habits are formed and sustained and why it can be so difficult to step out of them. With these ideas in mind, we might be aware that the process described by ALICE – RAP researchers (Anderson, 2017) as heavy use over time has, after all, some specific features that make it worth having a special name. The history of the word ‘addiction’ goes back to an ancient era (Rosenthal and Faris, 2019) and for most of the time it was far from being regarded as a problem inside a person, or even specifically a problem at a level of the central nervous system. The main feature was and is always a passionate relationship with some entity or behavior that demonstrates itself in actions of a person and is so strong that it is almost unthinkable to change it. This kind of relationship might create problems, and often very serious ones, not necessarily only for the person but also, or even exclusively, for the social network of the person. As Alexander puts it (2008: 29): ‘[Addiction is] overwhelming involvement with any pursuit whatsoever (including, but not limited to, drugs or alcohol) that is harmful to the addicted person, to society, or to

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both.’ In this chapter, we will be focusing on exactly this feature of addiction because, in the end, it is the harm for the individual, family, community or wider society that makes addiction our ‘business’ as practitioners.

RELATIONAL NOTIONS OF ADDICTION From a social constructionist point of view, it is rather valuable that there is a vast range of definitions of addiction because this reflects the relational process of unfinished and ongoing defining and re-defining. At the same time, it is important to notice that this relational process takes place also at a more intimate level, in the lives of people who call themselves or are being called addicted. For social construction, addiction is not something strictly internal or external, but it is somewhere in between, in the negotiation of meaning over and over again with oneself and others (McCullough and Anderson, 2013). And this process, in itself, is significant because it is during these interactions that the identity of ‘user’, ‘heavy user’, ‘addict’ or other is defined and later maybe reified. Gregory Bateson (1971) wrote a chapter where he attempted to formulate a theory of alcoholism. We can regard this publication as the first account of a relational theory of addiction. He applies cybernetics and systems theory to the issue of addiction, and his starting point is that when we want to think about the system of an alcoholic,2 we need to include alcohol in this system. When alcohol is taken out of the system (i.e. when a person attempts to stay sober), it destabilizes the system and so there is a strong tendency to get back to the previous homeostasis. Bateson also uses his notion of symmetrical and complementary relationships, asserting that alcoholism is ‘born’ from clearly symmetrical roles that escalate. For example, when people want to keep pace with their drinking friends,

even if they have more and more problems connected to alcohol, they tend to continue in their addictive behavior even if they experience negative consequences. At the same time, they reject the complementary roles, into which their employers or intimate partners often invite them by, for example, an authoritative style or overprotection. These relational patterns that support the addictive behavior are not easy to abandon. Bateson (1971) offers an example of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) as one way out of this dilemma, which is a dramatic transformation from symmetrical relationships towards a purely complementary relationship, in the case of AA represented by assertions about powerlessness and higher power. More recently, the relational view of addiction was also conceptualized by Hughes (2007), Mudry (2016), van der Eijk and Uusitalo (2016), Graham et al. (2008) and Alexander (2012). They all build upon research that shows that the roots of addiction, development and recovery are happening in relationships, social networks, and the practicalities of everyday life and have a big connection with the social and cultural context. Interestingly, there is also a growing body of research that adopts the relational conceptualization of addiction dealing with non-substance addiction such as sex or gambling (Mudry, 2016; Reichertz and Moell, 2019; Rogier et  al., 2019; Van der Linden, 2015; Venuleo and Marinaci, 2017; Vogel, 2008). In these studies, the relational essence of addiction is even more visible because there is no material component (such as a drug) that could be blamed for activating addiction. The picture that these studies paint is not simple or linear but rather very complex. Addiction, from a relational point of view, is a phenomenon that cannot be reduced to a biological or family system. We always need to take into account various systems and networks where addiction includes, for example, a person in the material world, community and whole society.

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RELATIONAL RECOVERY But what is the implication of the relational view for practitioners? To start with, it is noteworthy that most people overcome addiction without any formal intervention, which means that they do not use treatment services or any rehabilitation programmes including 12-step groups (Dawson et al., 2005; Rumpf et al., 2009; Sobell et al., 2000). Thus, natural recovery, as this phenomenon is sometimes called, can be seen not as an exception or side road, but rather as a major recovery highway. And as such, it might be more important to have a deep understanding of this process to realize how we can support it, rather than trying to develop and design interventions out of our (scientific) preknowledge and then trying to impose those interventions onto people. In my previous work (Nepustil, 2016; Mudry et al., 2019), I studied the process of natural recovery with the help of 19 people who managed to move away from a lifestyle that was strongly influenced by heavy methamphetamine use. What I learned was that, in order to abandon this lifestyle and the identities connected to it, there had to be some disruption in the relational flow (Gergen, 2009) of which these people were part. Whether it was a police raid, illness, the death of someone close or other events, it was always an important feature that was mentioned when talking about initiation of the recovery process. At the same time, a transitional process had to take place that made the shift from the previous lifestyle possible. Besides the person him/herself, there were other people taking part in this process, but also various places, and objects such as books or animals. I named this process the ‘co-creating of transitional trajectories’ because it was always a process of co-creation, step-by-step, with others, without knowing where it would lead. Of special importance is that there was always at least one person who was very significant in

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this process of co-creation, and mostly it was either an intimate partner or a friend. Finally, I noticed that, in their stories, most people articulated arriving at a place which was very close to what Shotter (2009) refers to as a sense of belonging or ‘being at home’. They found a space, be it a family, community, movement, religion, to which they felt they belonged, where they could fully and actively participate and that brought meaning to their whole life and beyond. Some of them mentioned that it was in clear contrast to what they experienced before they ran into the ‘drug lifestyle’ because, in their childhood and adolescence, they had feelings of not belonging, of disempowerment and loss of meaning. Again, this was a relational process that could not happen without others. This view of recovery very much reflects what Price-Robertson et al. (2016) call relational recovery. They notice that, in the mainstream literature, the process of recovery is seen as a personal process stemming out of the philosophical underpinnings of individualism. Even if social factors are mentioned as important, they are seen as supplements of this process, thereby creating a dualism between the inner process of recovery taking place and the external social factors there to support it. Price-Robertson et al. (2016) propose that we substitute this view with a relational perspective within which we can study the interdependence of the individuals and their environment. According to these authors, this relational perspective places such issues as culture, systems of oppression and privilege, and social determinants of health at the center of the recovery process. They also see family and community members, and the relationships among each other, as inseparable from the individual process of recovery. Similarly, Best et  al. (2015) describe recovery as a social phenomenon, ‘a social contagion’ that is transmitted through processes of social control and social learning. Now, I invite you into two different places to show the relational construction of

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addiction and recovery in practice, starting in my own office.

Thin Ice I am sitting in my therapy room, listening to Klara, a 35-year-old woman, who carefully explains why she is refusing to move to her boyfriend’s apartment and instead wants to remain living in her mother’s place with her daughter from her previous marriage. Her boyfriend, Patrik, is sitting next to her. A few minutes earlier, I had asked Patrik if he would listen while I talked with Klara. He said yes and, as Klara and I talk, Patrik appears intrigued by what she is saying. The most salient reason Klara describes for not wanting to move to Patrik’s apartment is Patrik’s heavy drinking, which is also the reason they approached me half a year ago for therapy. When it appears that Klara is almost finished, I can see she is occupied with something. By slightly leaning my head to one side, I try to encourage her to talk. ‘Well, there is one thing that worries me, but it is thin ice,’ she says. ’Thin ice?’ I respond. ’Yes, thin ice,’ she says and now it seems to me that she will not go on. I look at her a little bit longer but I can see that she already does not want to say anything. I turn to Patrik: ’What were you experiencing when Klara talked?’ I ask him. He stays silent for a while, looking downwards. ‘Well, there is this thing. I am afraid of being in my apartment alone. I am scared of being alone.’ After about ten seconds of silence he adds: ‘And it is something that has persisted since Lenka [his former wife] left home.’ Then he talks about the situation when his wife left. How difficult it was for him to start living without her and without their kids. Klara is listening very attentively and slowly starts asking him questions about this and that, including questioning if the loneliness and memories of his former wife are also the reasons that urge him to drink. He responds thoroughly, trying to clarify, explaining himself. I am listening. Close to the end of the session, I ask Klara how she is feeling now. ’I feel calm and peace now. This was the thin ice.’

With regard to my long history working with addiction problems, people often contact me with these kinds of issues. Whether in the initial telephone call, they claim to want help for themselves or for the other, I am always trying to encourage them to come together. The decision is theirs but I tell them that it seems that they are all concerned and that it would make sense to me if they come together. The reason I do this is that, in this way, I can support the relational recovery process much more directly. Klara never had the possibility of having this kind of conversation with Patrik about his fear of being alone. He felt shame connected to this topic and Klara understood that it was ‘thin ice’. But it seemed to be a really important issue for both of them and also for Patrik’s recovery. It was another piece of the puzzle about how to understand this habit. If we pay attention to my role as a therapist in this short example, we can see that I do not use any techniques, interventions or questions targeted at the topic of discussion. At the beginning, I am repeating a phrase that strikes me in the present moment (‘thin ice’) from the perspective that hearing her words can enable the speaker to better understand what she wants and does not want to say (Seikkula, 2011). I am also intentionally offering a listening position to the clients, first to Patrik, then to Klara, using Tom Andersen’s notion of shifts between talking and listening (Andersen, 1995), and I help them reflect on their inner dialogues while listening. But, most important, I let the couple listen and talk to each other in a way that they have never experienced together before. This could not be achieved in individual therapy. However, we could say that the practice of working with couples or families is ‘thin ice’ in the addiction field. Practitioners are sometimes discouraged from working with a family where someone is addicted and currently using: ‘Experience shows us that family therapy with an addict who currently uses is difficult, mostly impossible’3 (Čtrnáctá, 2015: 500). Family members are usually

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invited into treatment only after the identified ‘addict’ starts his or her own individual treatment, goes through detoxification and makes some progress (SAMHSA, 2013). Contact with family members is also often used as an effective way to get the identified addict into treatment (Garrett et al., 1999). However, recently there has been a growing interest and body of research that claims involving couples and families from the very start is useful. For example, research on ‘Social behavior and network therapy for drug problems’ (Williamson et  al., 2007) shows that it is highly beneficial for everyone to include family from the very first contact. Similarly, Navarra (2007) promotes a relational perspective in addiction treatment and bridges the gap between the individual and couple recovery. And it is not without interest that even if we go back into the history of family therapy, we find that Speck and Attneave (1973), in their classic book on family network intervention, use an example of successful network interventions where a person with opiate drug problems plays a major role. When working with couples such as Patrik and Klara, my work is greatly influenced by collaborative and dialogic approaches (Anderson, 1997; Seikkula and Arnkil, 2017) that inform me in developing collaborative relationships with couples as well as how to be responsive and attuned so that the dialogic process is enriched. From a social constructionist point of view, there is no doubt that it is beneficial to work not only with the afflicted individual but with the whole social network in any phase of the addiction/ recovery process, for three reasons at least. First, the addiction process usually worries more people than only the individual, very often the other people are even more worried. Second, addiction is being sustained by the interactional patterns in the social network, so it is particularly important that these patterns become visible in the therapy room. And third, recovery is not a solitary process and since the therapeutic relationship is

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always temporary, having more natural relationships in the room that can be supportive seems to be very relevant.

Friend Standing next to a busy road in the outskirts of Manchester, England, in a morning rush hour is not exactly where we would like to be right now and so we are happy when we can see that Peter’s car is approaching the parkway. We, three psychologists from Brno, Czech Republic, greet Peter and climb into the back seat of the car. Peter is introducing the man sitting in the front seat – next to him. ‘This is my friend Jamie,’ says Peter, ‘I am giving him a ride to the center we are visiting today.’ Peter is our guide during our threeday study visit and, at the same time, a co-founder of the organization Emerging Futures, that is hosting us. The idea to visit Manchester came to us when we were asked by the municipality of Brno to design a new service for people with addiction that could respond immediately, with a multidisciplinary team, and have a focus on recovery. I already knew Peter from the past. I know that he, himself, went through a very difficult life journey intertwined with addiction and mental health issues and also that we have a similar background as professionals – with an interest in participative, compassionate and dialogic work. After some 20 minutes, we come to the first facility Peter wants to show us. We are following him and Jamie and, as a first thing, he finds a manager of the place, called Tod, and he introduces Jamie to Tod. ‘He is just out for couple of days’, says Peter and we later understood that he meant that Jamie has just come out of prison where he spent the last three years. ‘He might appreciate some information on what you are doing, some support, and if he could maybe stay here for a while and have a chat with the guys, that would be great.’ Tod is smiling and he asks

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Jamie: ‘Would you like to have some coffee or tea? Yes? Great, OK, let me show you around.’ He asks us to wait in another room and leaves us for a while with Peter. When Tod returns to us, we learn that he also struggled with addiction problems in the past as have most of the staff members of the center. This center aims to help people mostly coming from prison, most of whom have had drug and addiction problems. The important feature of these people is that often they do not have a place to go; their family usually refuse to take them back and, at the same time, they do not want to stick with their former friends because they are afraid of going back to prison again. One of the very significant features of this facility was that most of the staff members, and especially the frontline workers, had their own experience with addiction issues and, at the same time, they have been trained as ‘recovery coaches’ and work under continual supervision. Peter is one of the trainers and supervisors. But he does not train people to become professionals, he trains them to better know how to use their own experience to create good connections and caring and trusting relationships with others. Involving people with lived experience with serious addiction in a system of care as lay therapists, sponsors, peer mentors, or peer counselors is not new. As White (2009) shows, this practice dates back to the 1930s and has a direct link to the development of Alcoholics Anonymous in the United States and then worldwide. From the beginning, there have been two main rationales for this practice. First, for someone who often experiences judgment, contempt and lack of understanding from the outside world, meeting someone who is or was in a similar situation might be beneficial in terms of creating a trusting relationship. Second, the experience of providing help for someone, being useful to someone, is an important part of the recovery process. People do not need only to be helped, they also want to help others. The main link between the peer recovery movement and social construction is

enhancing the possibility of human connection through the shared human experience. We could notice that Peter called Jamie ‘my friend’, had him in his own car and personally connected him to someone he was quite sure would be able to help him. None of this happens in the traditional professional setting where people with addiction are called clients or patients, where usually there is a policy that does not allow employees to take clients/ patients into their own cars, and referrals are done routinely through a formal procedure. On the contrary, the way Peter and his colleagues approach newcomers is very natural, it is actually the way people usually become acquainted with one another – through shared stories, common language and understanding. Of course, all of this is possible even without having personal experience of addiction, but having this experience helps the worker feel more familiar, more at ease, and ‘legitimizes’ the informal way of relating. The other important feature of recovery coaching that is highly coherent with social constructionism, as it is practiced by Emerging Futures, is that there is no single form of recovery that is specifically promoted or recommended. Recovery coaches help people discover and develop their own resources of recovery. They refrain from telling people what is right or wrong or from preferring one pathway over another. At this point, the lived experience with addiction can turn into a disadvantage because it is rather natural to perceive one’s own journey as the best or even as the only one. And this is exactly where the training, constant supervision and community of recovery coaches are crucial. Through the experiential learning process, as part of a group of diverse people with different ways of overcoming addiction, the recovery coaches learn to recognize their own journey as one of many, while at the same time appreciating and honoring the unique journeys of others. Lastly, these practices send an important positive message to the community and general public about addiction. People who are

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or once were struggling with addiction are valued in Emerging Futures as meaningful and important members of society. This is in sharp contrast with the general public’s view of people with addiction, where people defined as ‘addicts’ have traditionally the highest score on the charts of the most unpopular groups of people.4 But it also paints a different picture than the traditional treatment settings where addiction is introduced as a chronic relapsing disorder with treatment and abstinence as the only viable option. This deficit discourse that has a tendency to escalate and transfer from professional to lay settings (Gergen, 1994) is replaced here with an appreciative view. This view recognizes every person as unique, having his/her own potentials, strengths, credentials and needs, and thus in search for their own recovery journey. Recovery coaches, with their very unique personalities and recovery pathways, are living examples of this view that cannot be shared only theoretically.

MOBILIZING RELATIONAL SOURCES IN COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY In the previous examples, I have shown that we, as relational practitioners, have various means for mobilizing the relational sources that can be beneficial in addiction recovery. In the first example of Patrik and Klara, I was someone who helped the couple to listen to each other and talk especially about topics that they do not usually talk about. This is a way to ensure that both can see how ‘addiction’ is connected to important life events and they can gain a deeper understanding of what is going on. The second example shows us how professionals can be connected with people with lived experience and how they can together help people with addiction problems form relationships based on trust, equality and friendship. These two examples aim to focus on the existing relationships and networks and make the best use of them.

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But staying within the circle of family and friends is not enough. People struggling with addiction are part of larger communities and society, just as everyone else, and this is a level that can be very sensitive. The marginalization and oppression that people experience before developing addiction is often experienced not in the family or close networks, but at the level of the wider community. Ethnic and other diverse groups are good examples. Even if a family has strong ties and the relationships are loving, the reality of poverty and discrimination can be so overwhelming that one may not experience the sense of belonging and feeling ‘at home’. Addiction can be a response to such a circumstance (Peele et al., 1992; Hart, 2013). Following this line of thought, Best and Colman (2019) introduce Inclusive Cities, which is a vision that aims to minimize the barriers for addiction recovery ‘… as both an inter-personal and structural barrier to reintegration and to utilize the process of transformation as a means of generating inclusion and engagement as core values of a city’ (p. 58). Their idea is to create an environment in the city where people in recovery will not feel alone but feel supported by people in the wider network. Unlike the current situation when people are visible while drinking and taking drugs but, in recovery, they become invisible, they want to achieve the opposite: recovery as visible and celebrated. They want to do it by active involvement of stakeholders in municipalities, businessmen, taxi drivers, and so on. Similar efforts in the United States are recovery ready ecosystems models and recovery ready community frameworks (Ashford et al., 2019). This vision brings one danger upon which the authors are also reflective. It might be hard to ensure that recovery is for everyone. In other words, while it will eliminate some blame for people who go through ‘legitimate’ recovery, it might challenge people who take another route or who do not consider themselves to be in recovery. Maybe, to avoid this,

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recovery needs an even bigger change that is beyond the scope of this paper. Alexander (2012) talks about revolutionary change, a paradigm shift that is needed and describes a huge societal transformation from the free market society to the connected society built on strong ties between individuals, families and communities. In this sense, addiction is not only ‘their’ business, and it is also not only ‘our’ business as professionals. It is the business of us as ordinary people; it is the business of everyone. By building more connected, compassionate and participative communities, we will provide the best prevention and intervention for addiction problems possible. In this line of thought, social constructionist practices in addiction recovery should be less targeted at changing individuals struggling with addiction and more at the community and societal level, because it is here where severe destructive forms of addiction are being made possible. We can imagine that diverse community members will be trained and supported to create an atmosphere where people who are at risk of addiction might find the help and trust needed to overcome their life obstacles and live a life they want. We can also imagine that communities would be more respectful to diverse lifestyles of people and would see people not through their deficits but through their talents and potentials. And finally, we can also imagine that there would be no one left completely alone in their sufferings; that there would always be at least someone like a recovery coach who comes to the person and says, ‘Hey, I know how it sucks being in this situation. I was there once too.’ This is not to say that we should completely abandon the professional practices in which we are currently engaged while supporting the individual recovery pathways. But we should keep in mind that recovery cannot be an isolated process and that people need more than a relationship with professionals. Soon after my visit to Manchester, we organized very successful recovery coaching

training in the Czech Republic and I started to invite recovery coaches into my practice as ‘co-therapists’. At the time of finishing this article, I hardly ever work alone, usually in a pair with a recovery coach. And we almost never work with individuals, rather with couples and families. This is my current way of ‘populating recovery’ and I know that there are myriads of other ways that professionals can adopt, based on their specific contexts, that help people with addiction stay connected to our communities.

Notes 1  ‘Use’ refers not only to substance use but use of any addictive products such as pornography, gambling, food, etc. 2  Bateson is using this term, apparently influenced by the AA movement. I do not use terms such as ‘alcoholic’ and ‘addict’ throughout this article because of their stigmatizing and labeling properties. 3  My translation (from Czech). 4  A large sociological survey in the Czech Republic showed that ‘drug addicts’ are a group towards which people across all social classes feel the greatest social distance. It was measured with the use of the Bogardus social distance scale that shows people’s willingness to participate in social contacts with diverse groups (Prokop et al., 2019).

REFERENCES Alexander, B. K. (2008). The Globalisation of Addiction: A Study in Poverty of the Spirit. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Alexander, B. K. (2012). Addiction: The urgent need for a paradigm shift. Substance Use & Misuse, 47(13–14), 1475–1482. Andersen, T. (1995). Reflecting processes: Acts of informing and forming. In S. Friedman (Ed.), The Reflecting Team in Action: Collaborative Practice in Family Therapy (pp. 11–37). New York and London: Guilford Press. Anderson, H. (1997). Conversation, Language and Possibilities: A Postmodern Approach to Therapy. New York: Basic Books.

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Anderson, P. (2017). New Governance of Addictive Substances and Behaviours. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ashford, R. D., Brown, A. M., Ryding, R., & Curtis, B. (2019). Building recovery ready communities: The recovery ready ecosystem model and community framework. Addiction Research & Theory, 28(1), 1–11. Bateson, G. (1971). The cybernetics of ‘self’: A theory of alcoholism. Psychiatry, 34(1), 1–18. Best, D., Bird, K., & Hunton, L. (2015). Recovery as a social phenomenon: What is the role of the community in supporting and enabling recovery? In N. Ronel & D. Segev (Eds.), Positive Criminology (pp. 194–207). Abingdon: Routledge. Best, D., & Colman, C. (2019). Let’s celebrate recovery. Inclusive Cities working together to support social cohesion. Addiction Research & Theory, 27(1), 55–64. Čtrnáctá, Š. (2015). Rodinná terapie a práce s blízkými. In K. Kalina (Ed.), Klinická adiktologie (pp. 492–507). Praha: GRADA. Dawson, D. A., Grant, B. F., Stinson, F. S., Chou, P. S., Huang, B., & Ruan, W. J. (2005). Recovery from DSM-IV alcohol dependence: United States, 2001–2002. Addiction, 100(3), 281–292. doi:10.1111/j.1360-0443. 2004.00964.x Fischer, H. K. (1973). Some aspects of psychotherapy in patients with addictive personality traits. Psychosomatics: Journal of Consultation and Liaison Psychiatry, 14(1), 27–32. Garrett, J., Stanton, M. D., Landau, J., Baciewicz, G., Brinkman-Sull, D., & Shea, R. (1999). The ‘concerned other’ call: Using family links and networks to overcome resistance to addiction treatment. Substance Use & Misuse, 34(3), 363–382. Gergen, K. J. (1994). Realities and Relationships: Soundings in Social Construction. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Gergen, K. J. (2009). Relational Being. New York: Oxford University Press. Graham, M. D., Young, R. A., Valach, L., & Wood, R. A. (2008). Addiction as a complex social process: An action theoretical perspective. Addiction Research & Theory, 16(2), 121–133. Hart, C. (2013). High Price: A Neuroscientist’s Journey of Self-Discovery that Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society. New York: Harper.

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Hughes, K. (2007). Migrating identities: The relational constitution of drug use and addiction. Sociology of Health & Illness, 29(5), 673–691. Lester, D., Burkman, J. H., & Gandica, A. (1976). The addictive personality. Psychology, 13(2), 53–57. Lewis, M. (2015). The Biology of Desire: Why Addiction is Not a Disease. Hachette UK. McCullough, L., & Anderson, M. (2013). Agency lost and recovered: A social constructionist approach to smoking addiction and recovery. Addiction Research & Theory, 21(3), 247–257. Mudry, T. (2016). Behaviour is in the Practice: Examining Excessive Behaviours using a Practice Framework (Doctoral dissertation, University of Calgary). Mudry, T., Nepustil, P., & Ness, O. (2019). The Relational essence of natural recovery: Natural recovery as relational practice. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 17(2), 191–205. Navarra, R. (2007). Family response to adults and alcohol. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, 25(1–2), 85–104. Nepustil, P. (2016). Recovered Without Treatment: The Process of Abandoning Crystal Meth Use without Professional Help. Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute Publications. Peele, S., Brodsky, A., & Arnold, M. (1992). The Truth about Addiction and Recovery. London: Simon and Schuster. Price-Robertson, R., Obradovic, A., & Morgan, B. (2016). Relational recovery: Beyond individualism in the recovery approach. Advances in Mental Health, 15(2), 108–120. Prokop, D., Tabery, P., Buchtík, M., Dvořák, M., & Pilnáček, M. (2019). Rozděleni svobodou: Česká společnost po 30 letech. Praha: Radioservis. Reichertz, J., & Moell, G. (2019). The social construction of ‘gambling addiction’ as a means of solving other social problems: The case of Germany. Rogier, G., Caputo, A., Langher, V., Lysaker, P. H., Dimaggio, G., & Velotti, P. (2019). Giving a voice to gambling addiction: Analysis of personal narratives. Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s11013-019-09644-7 Rosenthal, R. J., & Faris, S. B. (2019). The etymology and early history of ‘addiction’.

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Addiction Research & Theory, 27(5), 437–449. Rumpf, H. J., Bischof, G., Hapke, U., Meyer, C., & John, U. (2009). Remission from alcohol dependence without formal help: Current status of the research. Sucht (Search), 55, 75–85. doi:10.1024/2009.02.03 SAMHSA (2013). Family therapy can help: For people in recovery from mental illness or addiction. https://store.samhsa.gov/product/ Family-Therapy-Can-Help-For-People-inRecovery-From-Mental-Illness-or-Addiction/ sma15-4784 (Accessed February 15, 2020) Satel, S., & Lilienfeld, S. O. (2014). Addiction and the brain-disease fallacy. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 4, 141. doi: 10.3389/ fpsyt.2013.00141 Seikkula, J. (2011). Becoming dialogical: Psychotherapy or a way of life? Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, 32(3), 179–193. Seikkula, J., & Arnkil, T. E. (2017). Open Dialogues and Anticipations – Respecting Otherness in the Present Moment. Helsinki: Juvenes print – Finnish University Print Ltd. Shelby, C. (2016). Addiction: A Philosophical Perspective. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Shotter, J. (2009). Moments of common reference in dialogic communication: A basis for unconfused collaboration in unique contexts. International Journal of Collaborative Practices, 1(1), 31–39. Retrieved from: http:// collaborative-practices.com/ Silkworth, W. D. (1937). Alcoholism as a manifestation of allergy. Medical Journal and Record Publishing Company. https://silkworth.net/pages/silkworth/allergy_print.html (Accessed February 10, 2020) Sobell, L. C., Ellingstad, T. P., & Sobell, M. B. (2000). Natural recovery from alcohol and

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47 Health Care Practices for LGBT People M u r i l o S . M o s c h e t a a n d E m e r s o n F. R a s e r a

One of the important contributions of gender and sexuality studies has been to demonstrate the historical and socially constructed character of what we call sexual identity categories. These studies help us understand that, despite the fact that words such as homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, transgender, gay and lesbian1 may be taken for granted today and are commonly used in many contexts, they are very recent cultural inventions in the way people describe themselves. From a social constructionist perspective, we know that words are building blocks with which forms of life are made and are entangled in disputes of power and inequality. Thus, to understand the history of how we come to see ourselves as human beings within categories that demarcate and define our sexuality is also to recognize that the social process of these constructions favors the production of privileged lives over others. The participation of medical-scientific discourse and health care practices in these constructions is fundamental. Therefore, in this chapter we are

interested in considering how these practices can participate in the deconstruction of this inequality. We will first consider the historical construction of sexual identity categories, then present some thoughts on the challenges of health care for LGBT people and, finally, describe some transformative care practices in the context of diagnosis, mental health care, health promotion and disease prevention, and the training of health professionals.

SHORT NOTES ON A LONG HISTORY In his History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault (2006 [1976]) identifies the discursive, historical shifts on sexuality that have allowed the creation of our modern ideas of sexual identity. In his account, the emergence of psychiatric and psychological discourse in the late 19th century contributed to the understanding of sexuality as a highly

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important dimension of people’s lives, and thus became useful for the government of people’s bodies. It became an over-invested aspect of life, related not only to the way people procreate and produce pleasure but also crucial to what would be called their ‘normal’ and healthy development. Categories such as homosexual were first used as a diagnosis, a way to describe people engaged in practices that were not considered normal since those practices deviated from the procreative family standard. Katz (1995) in his essay titled, ‘The invention of heterosexuality’, helps us to understand that heterosexuality was also constructed in the same way. The first appearance of the word heterosexual in medical literature was also as a diagnostic category, created to address the ‘morbid sexual passion for one of the opposite sex’, as it appears in dictionaries in the beginning of the 20th century, according to Katz. However, while the words heterosexuality and heterosexual have left the medical realm to be incorporated into the way ordinary people talk about their sexuality, some other categories, such as homosexual, remained as a diagnosis until 1973 when the international classification of mental diseases decided to remove the term from its list. The analysis of the construction of sexual identity categories helps us to understand that discursive production of the sexual abnormal would not be possible without the concurrent production of normalcy. That notion of normalcy informs scientific efforts and regulates what can be envisioned as a significant health care practice. As a social production, it changes with time, responds to the shifts in cultural disputes, and is permeated by different discourses such as medicine, law, psychology, religion, political activism, among others. It was not so many years ago that medicine and psychology invested in curing homosexuality, a practice that not only proved itself ineffective but is nowadays forbidden or discouraged in many countries. Therefore, if health care practices toward LGBT people were first proposed as a way

to correct what was then constructed as a deviance, nowadays they entertain a broad and complex field of possible interventions since society has fortunately started to envision sexuality beyond the strict limits of gender binarism and heteronormativity. The complexities of this field encompasse multiple scenarios of interventions in health care that could include either the reproduction of discriminatory practices or the search for culturally sensitive, adjusted and transformative actions.

RE-IMAGINING HEALTH CARE Traditionally, health care is a field of practices highly structured by discourses that establish authority (from professional to user), objectivity (with progressive emphasis on evidence), and rigid protocols and standards for practice. It is often a prescriptive field in which there is little room for collaboration and agency. Moreover, it is a normative field, which is to say, it is organized from the recurrent reference to the idea of normalcy used both to discern the healthy from the sick and to guide the way we must live to achieve certain goals. In a way, this discursive fabric also constructs the expectations of users who, when seeking a health service, often resort to an expert who can decide for them, and do not ask for mutual collaboration and relational responsibility. In this sense, the production of health care practices faces the challenge of promoting relationships within which the production of life happens in a larger, less prescriptive and more collaborative way. In the case of LGBT care practices, it is also necessary to address the force with which gender organizes our understanding of people and the world, producing narrow and polarized divisions, and conditioning the provision of health care. It is from gender, or rather, from its fit within a defined gender category, that one will be socially understood

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(Butler, 2006 [1990]). Gender is therefore a lens of understanding; a conceptual framework that stands between relationships and triggers a specific set of anticipations that determine how that particular relationship can evolve. Coupled with the binary idea that demarcates two genres is the idea of complementarity between them. Thus, we have to consider that health services are organized from both a tight and restrictive gender logic (for example, from institutional separations of hospitals into men’s and women’s wards, to the production of gender-oriented medical specialties) and from a logic that assumes the heterosexuality of their users. This tendency to take heterosexuality as a reference sets what Herek (1990) called heterosexism which can be defined as ‘an ideological system that denies, disparages, and stigmatizes any form of nonheterosexual behavior, identity, relationship, or community’ (p. 316). The naturalization of this belief system supports heteronormativity (Warner, 1991), a term used to denote the anticipation and naturalization of the belief that everyone experiences their sexuality in a heterosexual way. This way of organizing health services creates barriers to LGBT access and builds discriminatory care practices. These practices can happen at three different levels: (i) the immediate space of interpersonal relationships; (ii) the diffuse space of the institution (i.e. in its offer of gendered care programs, in its binary forms, in the division and restriction of toilet use); and (iii) the even more diffuse space of technical-scientific knowledge and health care policies that inform and are materialized in practices developed in the health context like nosological descriptions of sexual identity categories, research and knowledge on the health of transgender people, and access and care policies that allow gender construction and transition, for example. For each of these levels a set of actions may be needed to build more sensitive and effective care practices for LGBT people: it is necessary to have trained professionals

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on sexuality and gender issues; it is necessary to have sensitive institutions capable of overcoming the rigidity of gender binary and heteronormativity; and it is necessary to have and produce specific knowledge that supports effective care practices. Social constructionism has offered very interesting theoretical and technical resources for the production of care practices sensitive to these challenges.

HEALTH CARE PRACTICES FOR LGBT PEOPLE In our description of health care practices for LGBT people inspired by social constructionist ideas, we seek to provide an overview that covers different contexts such as diagnosis, mental health care, health promotion, and the training of health professionals. Some of the practices we describe here are clearly defined by their authors as social constructionist practices. Others, while not bearing this label, have theoretical assumptions that are highly compatible with a constructionist intelligibility. We favor describing the practices we know best or in which we have been participating directly and therefore we have omitted some intervention scenarios.

Beyond Diagnostic Practices Historically, the diagnostic practices performed by health professionals have been at the center of the production of LGBT sexualities, as presented before. It was in the field of mental health that homosexuality and transsexuality were produced based on pathologizing people’s experiences. Recalling socio-historical and anthropological perspectives enables the recognition of the regulatory character of such practices and thus the importance of their deconstruction. Reviewing diagnostic practices implies reviewing their supposed object, that is, the diagnostic category itself.

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In the field of LGBT experience, pathologizing the experience and the importance of diagnosis have different impacts on different groups. The definition of homosexuality as mental illness was revised many years ago; the changes regarding transsexuality are, unfortunately, still being debated. Despite the changes proposed in DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5th Edition) and CID 11 (International Classification of Diseases 11th Revision), the medical-psychiatric discourse still places transsexuality under suspicion, without questioning the socio-historical construction of normalization processes. Faced with this challenge, several professionals and researchers, following the lead of the trans population itself, have engaged in campaigns for the de-pathologizing of transsexuality. In many countries, access to treatment for transgender people is conditioned by the diagnosis of gender dysphoria. This often requires a transgender person to produce a narrative of suffering and maladjustment to fit DSM’s diagnostic criteria, which favors and strengthens problematic descriptions of their lives and often contributes to the production of what narrative therapists call a problem-saturated narrative (White and Epston, 1990). But which practices would be supported by de-pathologizing in health care? Teixeira et  al. (2018) describe a set of ideas that can guide the work of a health team in transsexuals’ care, namely, refusing the need for a psychiatric diagnosis in order to offer health care; biopsychosocial care, committed to the autonomy of patients; critical review of mandatory psychological treatments; and structuring the service, its protocols and documents in order to respect the gender identity sought by the client. Assuming a relational perspective on health care, the decision about procedures to be followed should be shared between professionals and clients, legitimizing preferred identities and promoting treatments according to the needs of each person and their family. However, in the context of health care, the use of diagnosis can also serve as an

instrument to guarantee rights (Butler, 2004). Thus, when indispensable by local current legislation, diagnostic practices, carried out by mutual agreement and with the participation of clients, can be redefined. Prado (2018) describes how such legal diagnostic demands can be answered by producing alternative documents to psychological reports based on the application of tests aiming to identify ‘true transsexuals’. These alternative documents can be characterized as narratives that recall patients’ life histories and are affirmed and legitimated in a multidisciplinary perspective, by different members of the health team. From a constructionist perspective, the ethical analysis of who wins and who loses by producing a diagnosis invites a new understanding of its production (Gergen et al., 1996). Thus, through a contextual and collaborative process of decision-making, health care based on de-pathologizing can transform the diagnostic practice into a care practice.

Practices in Mental Health Care In the field of mental health and psychotherapies, more specifically, many contemporary approaches recognize the negative effect of the pathologizing of sexuality and seek to overcome the constraints of the gender binary. Since the mid-1970s, when APA recommended that mental health professionals work to remove the stigma of mental disorder associated with homosexuality, affirmative psychotherapeutic perspectives have flourished. However, many still have restricted and even detrimental effects in maintaining essentialist and stable notions of self. The commitment of many psychotherapies to finding or developing one’s true self or identity often favors a limited approach to sexuality, hinders the production of important connections to political and collective dimensions of one’s life, and thus, ignores the power relations that circumscribe people’s embodied experiences.

Health Care Practices for LGBT People

Working with the premise of social constructionism and queer theory, Julie Tilsen (2013) has made significant contributions to the development of a psychotherapeutic approach with LGBT people that takes normative discourses as the center of the problem. By leveraging social constructionist resources, especially those that resonate with narrative therapy, Tilsen seeks to engage her LGBT clients in an investigation into how a particular problem is produced and sustained in a discursive network committed to the maintenance of strict norms of gender and sexuality. Such norms very often are those that constitute heteronormativity, which reiterate the binary division of gender and privilege heterosexuality as natural and normal. However, for many LGBT people, normative discourses can also be those that emerge from their own communities and prescribe one or the best way to be LGBT. In this direction, Tilsen questions the imposition of coming-out, for example, as an always necessary and fundamental step in the lives of LGBT people. From an intersectional perspective, the questions Tilsen proposes help us to understand that the challenges and resources one has are related not only to one’s gender and sexuality, but to one’s social position, color, age and physical condition, for example; which is to say they take place in concrete, unequal and unjust living conditions that the idea of normality contributes to erasing. Thus, her work promotes not only the deconstruction of oppressive narratives about the client, but also the reconnection of the person with a dimension of social and political transformation based on an ethic of collective care and responsibility.

Prevention and Health Promotion Practices In the field of collective health, prevention and health promotion practices go beyond an individual perspective and recognize the

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social determinants of health, highlighting how the structure of a society affects the health conditions of its members. Despite the technical differences between these types of actions, this current approach goes beyond the natural history of the disease and is characterized by holistic conception, intersectoriality, empowerment, social participation, equity, multi-strategic actions and sustainability (WHO, 1998). This approach is highly compatible with a constructionist view of health practices, which recognizes the social basis of human phenomena (Gergen, 1997), and emphasizes dialogue and relational responsibility (Camargo-Borges and Mishima, 2009; McNamee and Gergen, 1999) as alternatives for transformation in health-disease-care processes. Regarding the LGBT population, much of their difficulties in constructing healthy living conditions do not derive from inherent or internal characteristics of LGBT experience but are due to processes of prejudice and social discrimination. Thus, stigmatization and marginalization processes associated with homo/lesbo/bi/transphobia can have a critical impact on one’s physical and mental health (Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, 2011). Oppression may take the most explicit form of direct discrimination, but it also includes more implicit forms such as restriction of rights, systemic and institutional violence, the erasure of positive cultural representations and various processes of social disempowerment and exclusion (Young, 2000). Limited or difficult access for transgender people to education (consider for example the effect of bullying in schools) and formal work, for example, restricts their chances of financial gain, which reverberates in poor housing and sustenance conditions (Kreiss and Patterson, 1997). Prejudice makes it difficult to create social and family support bonds and promotes the marginalization of these people, which can contribute to fostering a circle of growing risks and vulnerabilities (Carrara and Vianna, 2006; Dean et al., 2000).

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Although apparently less intense, this discriminatory process also produces obstacles to good living conditions for homosexual, bisexual and trans women and men. The biggest obstacle seems to be building social support networks, restricting access to a set of resources that are important for health building, especially for those living far away from the big cities. Being deprived of these resources interferes especially with mental well-being, as widely demonstrated in the literature (Shankle, 2006; Berg et al., 2008; Rogers et al., 2003). Confronting this prejudice demands actions that stand up for LGBT people, in a perspective of care that contemplates the people and the community in which they live. In order to illustrate actions sensitive to this perspective, we will highlight two health promotion and prevention works that aim to generate social support and collective well-being, resulting in the empowerment of LGBT individuals and their communities. Offering a contribution to the hotline field, Logan (2002) describes an approach to this practice based on narrative therapy that can serve as a form of prevention and health promotion for the LGBT population. In this approach, some resources for listening and conversation stand out: (i) queer listening, based on a curiosity about elements of the story that do not correspond to compulsory heterosexuality; (ii) externalizing homophobia, which explores how callers’ problems stem not from who they are, but from the homophobia that is present in society; (iii) relative influence questioning, which identifies the influence of homophobia on the caller’s life, as well as the ways in which they have resisted it; (iv) social critique, which seeks to deconstruct the dominant narrative of heterosexuality as a social norm; (v) exploring sparkling moments, those moments that defy heterosexual and homophobic narrative; (vi) trying on labels, which helps callers name new stories and self-descriptions; (vii) detailing the action, which enriches the caller’s new stories about sexuality through

questions about what they did or envisioned doing; (viii) developing the landscape of consciousness, through questions about the caller’s self-knowledge, values and beliefs; (ix) using gay cultural resources, which facilitate the creation of alternative stories about the homosexual experience; (x) using peergroups, which help in developing a network that contributes to diminishing a sense of isolation and strengthening a new non-heterosexual identity; and (xi) coming out into the world, which explores possible ways of telling the caller’s new story to wider audiences. These are traditional forms of narrative work (White and Epston, 1990; White, 2007) that recognize the power of language in shaping human lives. They gain specificity in the care of this population and help people in the process of living an LGBT identity, facing prejudice and seeking well-being. Based on the constructionist practices for community work, Rasera et al. (2014) developed specific guidelines for work with transvestites, such as: (a) deconstructing and questioning the pathologizing of the transvestite experience; (b) strengthening the support network among transvestites and between them and social and health services; (c) supporting various possibilities of social inclusion and employability; and (d) recognizing the particularities in transvestites’ modes of communication and the different ways of building an ethic of care for themselves and others. From these guidelines, the authors describe a program of activities developed with this population with the aim of strengthening the group to stand up for their rights, such as thematic workshops, circulation around the city, and advocacy actions. It is a health promotion and disease prevention program that, through multi-strategic actions, emphasizes transvestite empowerment and social participation in achieving equity in health conditions. Although these health actions focus on LGBT people, they highlight the complex network in which they live. These health promotion and prevention actions go beyond

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the focus on the individual, recognizing the social processes that define the meanings of being LGBT and their place in society. Thus, whether working with individuals or groups, alternative discourses are produced that enable new ways of living as LGBT.

Health Professionals Training Practices From a social constructionist perspective, we recognize that our care practices are the result of a history of collective construction. In this sense, current health care practices for LGBT people reverberate the heritage of knowledge formed within a classificatory and discriminatory tradition. Studies highlighting the presence of discriminatory practices in health care contexts proliferate in the international academic community. They expose problems such as refusal to use the pronoun appropriate to the identity chosen by transvestites and transsexuals (Lombardi, 2001); the tendency to diagnose this population as mentally unstable (Boysen et al., 2003); the assumption that the user is heterosexual (Cant, 2002); inappropriate language and excessive curiosity, and the persistence of mental health professionals addressing homosexuality as a mental disorder (Boysen et  al., 2003); the lack of recognition of the sexual practices among lesbian women, and the tendency to overvalue gay men’s sexuality and to overestimate the risk of HIV and AIDS (Moscheta et al., 2016a). The possibility for LGBT people to seek help for their health problems is related to the anticipation they nurture on how health professionals will receive them. Access to health care technologies is not granted simply because these technologies exist, rather it only becomes available and even necessary within a relational experience. Thus, ensuring that the LGBT population has access to health technologies implies, among other things, considering how this population is received by health professionals when

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accessing a health service. In this sense, the literature highlights that people who fear being discriminated against because of their sexual orientation restrict the demand for health services (Shankle, 2006; Barbosa and Facchini, 2009; Jackson et al., 2008). Avoiding the use of health services is described as associated with different factors such as fear of violence and rejection (Klitzman and Greenberg, 2002), imagining receiving a poorer service (Neville and Henrickson, 2006), prior negative experiences, discomfort in talking about sexual orientation and practices (Barbosa and Facchini, 2009), among others. Therefore, the transformation of care practices requires commitment to the training of health professionals and the development of relational resources for working with the LGBT population. In this field, we highlight two social constructionist practices. In a study conducted in Brazil between 2016 and 2018, 100 health professionals from different specialities participated in training workshops for working with LGBT people. The training was structured as two meetings in which professionals could become familiar with terms and concepts, know the main guidelines that regulate the field of health policies and discuss the dilemmas and impasses in their practices. In general, the intervention was built from the social constructionist guiding principles for professional training that were developed by Moscheta et al. (2011) and updated by Anzolin and Moscheta (2019) as follows: (1) context creation for collaboration, in which we favor dialogue and difference over debate; (2) producing shared understandings and common parameters, in which we seek to foster curiosity and inquiry rather than offering definitions and explanations; and (3) focus on action, in which we reflect on the effects and repercussions of the possibilities of actions.2 In another professional training experience, the dialogue facilitation methodology developed by the Public Conversations Project (PCP, 2011) was used as inspiration.

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The Public Conversations Project has created a renowned method to facilitate dialogue between groups of people who have strong opposite positions on a given subject. In our intervention, health professionals talked directly with LGBT users about the challenges of producing sensitive and effective care. Thus, the adapted structure of conversation of the PCP served as a mediator to favor a conversation in which the knowledge and experience held by the users of health services was the main resource to enable professional training. This intervention was also designed to invite polysemy and the collective construction of meanings as well as the exercise of doubt and inquisitiveness. Also, when we placed LGBT users as the experts, we were reversing their traditional role within the power disputes among professionals and users (Moscheta et al., 2016b). This way of working allowed professionals to develop their sensitivity to LGBT themes and at the same time contributed to the creation of more horizontal care relations, favoring cooperation, relational attention and co-responsibility. Both experiences help us to realize that the provision of technical knowledge and information does not guarantee the transformation of care practices if they are not accompanied by an intense investment in the production of a reflective stance and relational awareness in the professional. It is in this direction that social constructionist theoretical and technical resources, with their emphasis on relational processes, seem especially useful to us.

CONCLUDING REMARKS The analysis of practices highlighted throughout this chapter shows how constructionist contributions have been helpful in developing health actions addressing the needs of the LGBT community, affirming their right to living in healthy conditions and pointing to other possibilities beyond the pathologizing of their experiences. Social construction has offered a set of theoretical

resources that stimulate reflection and the construction of relational practices sensitive to the local contexts in which this community lives. However, from a global perspective, the challenges are still immense in moving toward a life without prejudice and discrimination, in which health care recognizes difference as a way to promote equality. Moreover, the task remains to analyze how the inputs from the field of LGBT and queer studies have affected the community of social constructionist researchers and practitioners not directly involved with this population. How have the issues of identity, power, normalization and exclusion so debated in this field been incorporated into different professional practices in specific contexts of actions, whether in therapy, education, organization or community work? This task is fundamental to prevent the erasing of these issues and, inadvertently, the non-recognition of this community that would compromise not only their health but their right to a full life.

Notes 1  In this text we will use the acronym LGBT due to its current predominance in the literature. However, we consider that the use of acronyms is always problematic. On the one hand, the identity politics associated with the creation of acronyms is in permanent transformation, which makes it possible to add several letters such as Q (queer), I (intersex), A (asexual), among others. On the other hand, acronyms reduce pluralities to a simplifying homogeneity, established by an external view of difference and discrimination. 2  For a more detailed presentation of these principles and illustrations on how they can inform the creation of activities we suggest consulting the summary table that is available at http:// www.scielo.br/pdf/er/n39/n39a08.pdf (Accessed 10 August, 2020)

REFERENCES Anzolin, B., & Moscheta, M. S. (2019). Meanings about Sexual Diversity and Professional

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Practices of Psychologists in Primary Care. Psicologia: Ciência e Profissão, 39 (nspe.3), 1–16. Barbosa, R. M., & Facchini, R. (2009). Access to sexual health care for women who have sex with women in São Paulo, Brazil. Cadernos de Saúde Pública, 25(2), 291–300. doi:10.1590/S0102-311X2009001400011 Berg, M., Mimiaga, M., & Safren, S. (2008). Mental Health Concerns of Gay and Bisexual Men Seeking Mental Health Services. Journal of Homosexuality, 54(3), 293–306. doi:10.1080/00918360801982215 Boysen, G. A., Vogel, D. L., Madon, S., & Wester, S. R. (2003). Mental Health Stereotypes about Gay Men. Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, 54(1/2), 69–83. Butler, J. (2004). Undiagnosing Gender. In: J. Butler, Undoing Gender (pp. 74–101). New York: Routledge. Butler, J. (2006) [1990]. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge. Camargo-Borges, C., & Mishima, S. M. (2009). A responsabilidade relacional como ferramenta útil para a participação comunitária na atenção básica. [Relational responsibility as a useful tool to community participation in primary health care]. Saúde e Sociedade, 18(1), 29–41. https://dx.doi.org/10.1590/ S0104-12902009000100004 Cant, B. (2002). An Exploration of the Views of Gay and Bisexual Men in One London Borough of Both their Primary Care Needs and the Practice of Primary Care Practitioners. Primary Health Care Research and Development, 3(2), 124–130. doi:10.1191/ 1463423602pc097oa Carrara, S., & Vianna, A. R. B. (2006). ‘Tá lá o corpo estendido no chão…’: a violência letal contra travestis no município do Rio de Janeiro. [Lethal violence against travestis in Rio de Janeiro city]. Physis: Revista de Saúde Coletiva, 16, 233–249. Dean, L., Meyer, I. H., Robinson, K., Sell, R. L., Sember, R., Silenzio, V. M. B., Bowen, D. J., Bradford, J., Rothblum, E., White, J., Dunn, P., Lawrence, A., Wolfe, D and Xavier, J. (2000). Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Health: Findings and Concerns. Journal of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, 4(3), 101–151.

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Foucault, M. (2006) [1976]. The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: The Will to Knowledge. New Edition. London: Penguin Books. Gergen, K. J. (1997). Realities and Relationships. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gergen, K. J., Hoffman, L., & Anderson, H. (1996). Is Diagnosis a Disaster? A Constructionist Trialogue. In: F. W. Kaslow (Ed.), Handbook of Relational Diagnosis and Dysfunctional Family Patterns (pp. 102–118). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Herek, G. M. (1990). The Context of Anti-Gay Violence: Notes on Cultural and Psychological Heterosexism. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 5(3), 316–333. doi:10.1177/ 088626090005003006 Institute of Medicine of the National Academies (2011). The Health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People: Building a Foundation for Better Understanding. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. Jackson, N. C., Johnson, M. J., & Roberts, R. (2008). The Potential Impact of Discrimination Fears of Older Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals and Transgender Individuals Living in Small- to Moderate-Sized Cities on Long-Term Health Care. Journal of Homosexuality, 54(3), 325–339. Katz, J. N. (1995) The Invention of Heterosexuality. New York: Dutton. Klitzman, R. L., & Greenberg, J. D. (2002). Patterns of Communication Between Gay and Lesbian Patients and their Health Care Providers. Journal of Homosexuality, 42(4), 65–75. Kreiss, J., & Patterson, D. (1997). Psychosocial Issues in Primary Care of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth. Journal of Pediatric Health Care, 11(6), 266–274. doi:10.1016/S0891-5245(97)90082-1. Logan, B. (2002). Weaving New Stories over the Phone: A Narrative Approach to a Gay Switchboard. In: D. Denborough (Ed.), Queer Counselling and Narrative Practice. (pp. 138– 159). Adelaide: Dulwich Centre Publications. Lombardi, E. (2001). Enhancing Transgender Health Care. American Journal of Public Health, 91(6), 869–872. McNamee, S., & Gergen, K. J. (Eds.). (1999). Relational responsibility. London: Sage. Moscheta, M. S., Fébole, D. S., & Anzolin, B. (2016a). Visibilidade seletiva: a influência da heterossexualidade compulsória nos cuidados em saúde de homens gays e mulheres

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lésbicas e bissexuais. [Selective visibility: the influence of compulsory heterosexuality in the healthcare of gay men and lesbian and bisexual women]. Saúde e Transformação Social, 7(3), 71–83. Moscheta, M. S., McNamee, S., & Santos, J. C. (2011). Dialogue and Transformation: Embracing Sexual Diversity in the Educational Context. Educar em Revista, 39, 103–122. Moscheta, M. S., Souza, L. V., & Santos, M. A. (2016b). Health Care Provision in Brazil: A Dialogue between Health Professionals and Lesbians Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Service Users. Journal of Health Psychology, 21(3), 369–378. Neville, S., & Henrickson, M. (2006). Perceptions of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual People of Primary Healthcare Services. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 55(4), 407–415. Prado, M. A. M. (2018). Ambulare. Belo Horizonte, Brazil: PPGCOM UFMG. Public Conversations Project (PCP) (2011). Constructive Conversations about Challenging Times: A Guide to Community Dialogue. Available at: http://library.uniteddiversity. coop/Community_Dialogue_and_Meetings/ Guide_to_Community_Dialogue_3.0.pdf (Accessed 10 August, 2020) Rasera, E. F., Teixeira, F. B., & Rocha, R. M. G. (2014). Construcionismo social, comunidade e sexualidade: trabalhando com travestis [Social constructionism, community and sexuality: working with transvestites]. In: C. Guanaes-Lorenzi, M. S Moscheta, C. M. Corradi-Webster, & L. V. Souza (Eds.), Construcionismo social: discurso, prática e produção do conhecimento [Social constructionism: discourse, practice and knowledge production] (pp. 289–301). Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Noos. Rogers, T., Emanuel, K., & Bradford, J. (2003). Sexual Minorities Seeking Services: A Retrospective Study of the Mental Health

Concerns of Lesbian and Bisexual Women. Journal of Lesbian Studies, 7(1), 127–146. Shankle, M. D. (2006). The Handbook of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Public Health: A Practitioner’s Guide to Service. Binghamton: The Harworth Press. Teixeira, F.B. Prado, M.A.M Hasse, M. Feibelmann, C.T.R. Ribeiro, C.T. Crovato, C.A.S. Araujo, J.R. Nogueira, M.I (2018). Estratégias de resistência, existência e invenções de uma prática: entre um cotidiano de miudezas e um cuidado afetado [Strategies of resistance, existence and inventions of a practice: between a daily offal and an affected care]. In: P. R. C. Ribeiro, J. C. Magalhães, F. Seffner, & T. Vilaça (Eds.), Corpo, gênero e sexualidade: resistência e ocupa(ações) nos espaços de educação [Body, gender and sexuality: resistance and occupation in spaces of education] (pp. 141–157). Rio Grande, Brazil: Ed. da FURG. Tilsen, J. (2013) Therapeutic Conversations with Queer Youth: Transcending Homonormativity and Constructing Preferred Identities. Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Warner, M. (1991). Introduction: Fear of a Queer Planet. Social Text, 9(4[29]), 2–17. White, M. (2007). Maps of Narrative Practice. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. White, M., & Epston, D. (1990). Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. World Health Organization (1998). Health Promotion Evaluation: Recommendations to Policymakers. Copenhagen: European Working Group on Health Promotion Evaluation. Young, I. M. (2000). Five Faces of Oppression. In M. Adams, W. J. Blumenfeld, R. Castaneda, H. W. Hacksman, M. L. Peters, & X. Zuniga (Eds.), Readings for Diversity and Social Justice (pp. 35–49). New York: Routledge.

48 Mindfulness as a Generative Resource in Compassionate Healthcare Edgardo Morales-Arandes

‘Hello, Edgardo. It’s Jaime, Benny’s family doctor. I’m calling because I think he’ll need your help. The test results came back and confirmed he has an advanced stage of lung cancer.’ I received that phone call early on a December evening, more than three years ago. The doctor was talking about Benny, my closest friend for over thirty years. The next day, I sat in his hospital room along with his wife, as family members, friends and acquaintances came in to express their good wishes. ‘Don’t worry, Benny, you will get well’, ‘You’re a fighter, Benny, you will pull through this’; visitors repeated over and over again. After everyone left, and I was left alone in the room with him and his wife, Benny looked at me directly and asked me: ‘Do you think I will get better?’ I knew at that moment, that what he wanted was not reassurance, but instead, an honest and heartfelt response. I paused, collected myself and noticed my voice tremble as my words reverberated in the room: ‘I really don’t know if

you will get better or not’, I said. ‘You have a serious illness and you might not make it. You might also get well. Regardless of the outcome, you’re my friend and I’ll be here for you, no matter what happens’. At that moment, both of our eyes filled with tears and we embraced. Then, Benny paused for a second, and said, ‘Yeah, I’m really fucked up.’ ‘Yep, you really are’ I responded. Then we started laughing together. It was the first time he’d laughed in days. As I left the room that night, I wondered how doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals deal with situations like these. Situations where one is at the edge of life, outside social conventions, when scripted communications are irrelevant. I asked myself: How do they deal with the despair of patients and family members when they face uncertainty and potential calamity and loss? How do they keep from becoming numb, from disconnecting from the relational worlds of their patients? How is it possible for them to be of service and help patients and family

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members maintain their humanity and integrity in the face of sickness, loss, and death? In this chapter, I will answer some of these questions by examining the generative contributions that mindfulness can make to compassionate healthcare. Although I will discuss contemporary research on mindfulness in healthcare and examine its traditional definitions, I will propose a view of mindfulness that locates it in the relational domain and considers its practice as an invitation to participate in a form of life that acknowledges our basic interconnectedness. I will suggest that, in the context of relationship, mindfulness can become an embodied, caring, and engaged relational presence that can serve as a generative resource for healthcare providers. I will argue that cultivating this presence brings qualities into the healthcare relationship that can help enhance relational bonds and craft relational processes that create the conditions for healing. Finally, I will discuss how institutional and social processes can support or obstruct the potential contributions that relational mindfulness practice can make to compassionate caregiving.

THE FUNDAMENTALS OF MINDFULNESS Mindfulness is not considered a social constructionist practice. It is embedded within different contemplative traditions but it is most often associated with Buddhism. Within the context of Buddhist discourse, mindfulness is seen as a fundamental component of the Noble Eightfold Path and is part of a project that is infused with both ethical and relational potentials. That project, according to Siegel et al. (2008), is ‘designed to uproot entrenched habits of mind that cause unhappiness, such as the afflictive emotions of anger, envy, or greed, or behaviors that harm ourselves and others’ (p. 18). The concept of mindfulness is the modern translation of sati that signifies ‘calling

to mind’ or ‘bearing something in mind’ (Succito, 2017). According to Thera (2001), the basis of mindfulness is the quality of ‘bare attention’, that is, ‘the clear and singleminded awareness of what actually happens to us and in us, at the successive moments of perception’ (p. vii). This also includes the capacity to relate to whatever is being noticed, with non-judgment and acceptance (Goldstein, 2016). Mindfulness has also been described as a non-restrictive awareness that is imbued with the quality of ‘not knowing’. ‘Not knowing’ refers to an aspect of mind that is curious and open to possibilities and harbors the capacity to become aware of whatever one is experiencing, without preconceived or fixed ideas, and the need to jump to conclusions or resort to associative or discursive thinking (Halifax, 2018). Another important quality found in Buddhist views of mindfulness is that of ‘Clear Comprehension’ which involves the capacity to discern and comprises the investigative and ethical dimension of mindfulness. It represents an aspect of our awareness that allows us to recognize whether our ways of relating to ourselves and others are harmful or, on the contrary, are conducive to personal and collective well-being (Thera, 2001). The traditional literature on mindfulness includes an extensive and rich vocabulary of inner qualities and mind states that supports an internal focus to its practice and is consistent with its purpose of enhancing wellbeing and alleviating personal suffering, by cultivating insight into the workings of the mind and the nature of experience (Siegel et al., 2008). There are several affinities between social constructionism and Buddhist mindfulness discourse. For example, they share compatible views regarding the construction and insubstantiality of self, the notion of fundamental relatedness and, in the Buddhist concept of dependent origination, the understanding ‘that all things come into being only by virtue of other

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things, with no starting or ending point’ (Gergen and Hosking, 2006, p. 310). The relational view of mindfulness expands the focus of mindfulness from the interior of the individual to the unfolding relational processes that underlie what ‘people do together and what their “doing” makes’ (McNamee, 2019, p.93). Its practice resonates with a social constructionist sensibility that privileges social interaction, interdependence, shared meaning-making, and interconnection, as well as the primacy of the relational (Gergen, 2009).

PERSONAL BACKGROUND AND RELEVANT RESEARCH More than thirty-five years ago, when I began writing my doctoral dissertation on the experience of mindfulness in daily life, I discovered that academic research on the topic was almost non-existent. All this began to change in the early 1990s with the publication of Kabat-Zinn’s (1990) Catastrophe Living and the introduction of MindfulnessBased Stress Reduction (MBSR) programs. As mindfulness research became more legitimized, sources of funding multiplied, and mainstream research journals provided new opportunities for publication. As it gained increased popularity it became the cultural and commercial phenomenon we know today (Boyce, 2011). In spite of its popularity, there have been challenges to the reliability and validity of mindfulness research studies and their claims, accusations of over-representation of positive results, questions as to the lack of research on potential negative side effects, and criticisms regarding its use by corporations and its transformation into a marketable commodity (Purser, 2019; Britton, 2019). In the context of healthcare, research has focused on the way that Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs) such as MBSR, can serve caregivers and healthcare professionals,

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to improve life satisfaction, increase relaxation and self-compassion, and manage stress and stress-related symptoms, such as burnout (Lomas et al., 2018). Mindfulness research has also explored its effect on biological markers of stress and immune function, including autonomous nervous system activity, with patients with a variety of medical conditions such as cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic pain, and cardiovascular risks (Zimmermann et al., 2018; Levine et al, 2017; Skaer, 2015; Direnzo et al., 2012; Hilton et al., 2016). Most researchers have concluded that MBIs may be a useful strategy to manage psychological distress and reduce stress levels for healthcare workers and caretakers, as well as patients. Their effects on specific biological markers, however, have been mixed, and some researchers have expressed doubts as to whether measured biological changes translate to clinically important health benefits (Rouleau et al., 2015). In many of the studies reviewed, conclusions were tentative and were often accompanied by recommendations of further research with better controls so that findings could be confirmed (Skaer, 2015; Levine et  al., 2017; Hilton et al., 2016). Several observations can be made regarding the literature that I have discussed. It is based on a secularized view of mindfulness that has converted it into a technique for generating personal wellness and into an object that can be quantified and examined and whose efficacy can be measured through clinical control trials. It has also been informed by biomedical models of stress and wellness that assume that the sources of distress, as well as their management, are located within the individual. This individualized and medicalized view of mindfulness has converted it into a highly privatized and individualistic approach to well-being that favors neurological and psychological reductive explanations of its practice and effects (Purser, 2019).

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Current research also ignores the ways through which relational processes embedded in their research methodologies can alter the ways in which mindfulness and its effects are constructed. Most researchers, for example, follow protocols or procedures that purportedly lead test subjects to the experience of mindfulness. Accounts of how the research context affects test subjects’ experience, or to what extent, if at all, they follow instructions (and thus, achieve what is purported to be mindfulness) is not included in research protocols or results. Thus, we are left to question what exactly is being researched and what their findings truly mean. Relational processes are also overlooked when examining the purported effects of well-researched mindfulness programs such as MBSR. On a closer look at MBSR standards of practice (Santorelli, 2014), one finds how through written material, group activities, and ‘talks’ and instructions given by program facilitators, participants are provided with a language to frame and interpret distress and ways of alleviating it. Through these, participants are invited to construct themselves as individuals who are ultimately responsible for their suffering and their selfcare. One is also left to wonder to what extent other social processes beyond the control of program designers influence or alter the assumed effects of mindfulness. Emphasis on technique and minimizing the significance of the relational is inconsistent with Buddhist tradition and the value it places on Sangha, the community of practitioners who support each other and serve as a source of inspiration (Nhat Hanh, 2008). The importance of the relational in the practice of mindfulness came alive for me during my doctoral dissertation, when participants underlined the value of their Sangha, as a source of companionship, relational resonance, feedback, and reconnection with purpose (Morales, 1986). I came to realize then that to ignore the value of relationship as a place for practice, resonance, and the construction of meaning, limits the generative possibilities of mindfulness

practice and its contributions to personal and relational well-being.

SHIFTING MINDFULNESS INTO THE RELATIONAL DOMAIN When shifting our understanding of mindfulness into the relational domain, we are connecting with contemplative traditions that acknowledge our interconnectedness and recognize that ‘being alive is a relational experience’ (Soffer, 2019, para. 19). This implies a recognition that we live in a multifaceted relational world, where everything is in flux and nothing happens in isolation. As Chogyam and Dechen (2002) write, ‘We are part of an ocean in which fish and water participate with each other’ (p. 83). Within this context, mindfulness awareness can operate as a relational presence and a way-of-being that shifts present-centered, open, and curious awareness from the individual to the changing manifestations of a relational field that includes the self, the other, as well as the relationship. It involves moment-to-moment engagement and careful sensitive noticing of ‘the texture of the relationship, the intensity of connection, the sudden or subtle shifts into disconnection, the sense of collaboration or division’ (Surrey and Kramer, 2013, p. 103). Relational presence also extends the notion of mindful ‘not knowing’ into the relational domain. It acknowledges that relating is fluid and dynamic, each moment spawning new conditions and possibilities, making what may emerge in the immediacy of the interactive moment unknown and unpredictable. Becoming fully aware of this can weaken the relational striving for certainty and control, and help a practitioner to pause and rest in uncertainty, with greater curiosity for the possibilities that might emerge as he or she relates to others. Interacting from a posture of ‘not knowing’ cultivates a relational presence that is not restrained by attachment to

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beliefs and opinions, or to images of the past or expectations of the future, allowing the practitioner to enter the relational moment ‘fresh and awake’, with a genuine responsiveness that is open, engaged, and relationally attuned (Rosenberg, 2013; Surrey and Kramer, 2013). The practice of relational presence and the propositions that underlie it, resonate with social constructionist understandings that question the traditions of the ‘Bounded Self’ and acknowledge flow, multiplicity, interdependence, and confluence as basic constituents of relational life (Gergen, 2009). Its practice can operate as a resource that potentiates our capacity to fully participate collaboratively and dialogically in relationships. For example, mindful engagement in conversations augments our ability to be aware of and see through our preconceptions, dominant stories, and moralities. It means that ‘your mind is full with the present moment, not with your pre-knowledge or your hypothesis’ (Malinen and Anderson 2004, p. 72). This can enable us to hold more tentatively the truth value of what we assume while expanding our capacity for listening, recognizing uniqueness and allowing us to meet each person and their circumstances as if for the first time.

MINDFULNESS AS A RELATIONAL PRESENCE IN HEALTHCARE These understandings serve as the foundation of the practice of relational presence in the context of healthcare, particularly, in those social spaces where healthcare practitioners encounter the complexity and rawness of human experience. Within the context of medical realities that involve human suffering, approaches such as McGill University’s Programs in Whole Person Care in Canada, and initiatives such as the Zen Caregiving Project in San Francisco and the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care (both

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nonprofit organizations that offer palliative and end of life care), have embraced mindfulness as part of their healthcare practice. They recognize the singularity of each patient and the central role that relationship occupies in processes of healing that transcend the realities of disease or physical illness and include ‘situations in which treatment is unable to change the disease outcome’ (McGill Programs in Whole Person Care, 2019, para. 3). Healing is seen as a ‘relational process involving movement towards an experience of integrity and wholeness’ and includes an invitation to ‘approach the illness experience in a deeper way, exploring its meaning and opportunities’ (Ingram, 2015, p. 146). In the following sections, I will briefly discuss six qualities of relational presence that intersect and complement each other and reflect a constructionist sensibility in the practice of compassionate care. They affirm a relational ethic that embraces difference and complexity and promotes a heightened sensitivity to what is unfolding in the relationship between health service providers and patients. They include a decreased reliance on patterned ways of relating, abstract principles and rigid guidelines and illustrate, instead, how relational attunement and responsiveness can serve to co-construct processes that support healing and enhance relational bonds.

Deep Connection In the web of relationships in which a patient participates, the relationship established with a healthcare provider plays a central role in the process of healing. The ability to bring mindfulness into the context of that relationship cultivates what Kearney and Weininger (2016) call, ‘deep connection practice’ – that is, a practice ‘that bring us into an experience of self as fluid, porous, permeable, dynamically interconnected, and mutually co-arising … which allows us to move from the frozen

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world of isolation to the fluid world of relatedness’ (location 2332). To be relationally present and be deeply connected, is to be able to bring a fresh, open and empathic presence to our way of listening and relating to the full complexity of the patient’s felt experience, so that its deeper meanings can be sensed and relationally acknowledged (Smith, 2003). Coles (2015) writes about her experience as a doctor in the emergency room:

… he was also a hunter and comfortable in the wilderness. When he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, he said he wanted to ‘die like an animal.’ That phrase is one of despair to most of us, but to Perry, life as an animal made real sense. It meant dying in the most natural way, the way a deer or bear would die: alone, silent, close to the ground … He was not strong enough to get to the forest, so he had to die in his apartment. He refused almost all medications including anything for pain … (p. 41).

During the brief moment of a doctor–patient interaction, all the white noise and competing demands fade into the background leaving space for an empathetic connection. Mindful practice is a chance to provide kindness, attention, and a gentle touch given unconditionally to whoever is placed into our care. With no chance for in-depth histories and with no expectation of an ongoing therapeutic relationship, the ER encounter unfolds entirely in the present (p. 125).

Once Perry died after receiving the type of care that he requested, Tisdale reflected: Why would you choose death with, as one woman said with a grimace, such indignity Why would you choose pain? Illness has meaning, different for each person … sometimes dense and subtle meaning invisible to everyone else (p. 57).

Radical Inclusion

Horizontal Relationships

To be relationally present in the face of suffering involves a practice of radical inclusion or the deliberate co-creation of a caring relational space that can sponsor and contain the full range of human experience. In this space, distress, uncertainty, intense unwanted emotions, as well as joy, laughter, lightheartedness, and meaning can be experienced and allowed to have their say. According to Dobkin (2015), ‘being present, provides a safety zone in which the dark side of illness can be explored: the fears, losses, and implications’ (p. 2). To radically include does not demand a specific way of being. On the contrary, it extends an invitation to the patient and significant others to participate in their healthcare in ways that are meaningful to them. It is an expression of the caretaker’s willingness to be with patients in ways that are relationally meaningful to them. Tisdale’s (2019) story about Perry, a veteran with terminal cancer, illustrates the degree to which the practice of radical inclusion can inform patient care. In describing Perry’s response to his medical condition, she writes:

Deep listening and radical inclusion manifest in a relational context that is underlined by the understanding that patient and caretaker are bonded by the joys and sorrows and the gains and losses that are integral parts of the human condition. This generates a horizontal connection between providers and patients that is founded on the capacity to care and the experience of our common humanity. As Coles (2015) writes: the flip side of that intense caring is the pain that comes with opening our hearts to our patient’s suffering and with knowing that it could be us, our kids, our family or friends, and that one day it inevitably will be (p. 125).

A relational connection based on these understandings subverts the solidity of traditional hierarchical roles in the healthcare environment. To be a doctor, a nurse, a caretaker or a patient are provisional and shifting forms of relationship, that have no fundamental meaning or permanence outside of the situational context and the traditions of healthcare (Lief, 2015). The capacity to deconstruct these roles and relate to each

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other as human beings brings a sense of equality to the relationship that can foster greater openness and intimacy, opening new possibilities for engagement, dialogue, and meaning-making.

Compassion These three qualities lay the foundation of compassion in healthcare. Compassion is an aspect of relational presence that is founded on the human capacity to clearly see, empathize with, and respond to suffering; it springs from the recognition that in an interdependent world, the fate of each of us is tied to the fate of all (Baugher, 2019). It requires an openness to one’s own experience of suffering, a concern for the other, and the intention to serve (Halifax, 2018). It highlights a relational sensibility that can maintain a tender connection to the patient while refraining from turning away from what may be personally or relationally painful. This involves a fundamental shift from doing to being, which includes the willingness ‘to show up with an open heart and a calming presence to bear witness or “suffer with” those in one’s care’ (Baugher, 2019, p. 25). The capacity to bring a compassionate, accepting presence to whatever emerges in the caring relationship is particularly valuable in extreme situations, such as medical emergencies, in palliative care, where a patient may have to live with a prolonged illness, or in end of life hospice care when medical options may be insufficient, unavailable or inappropriate.

Relational Responsiveness and Attunement to the Relational Flow Maintaining a deep connection to the other supports the primary purpose of compassionate care: to create the relational conditions of caring so that deeper healing can

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occur. Having a clear comprehension of that purpose and sustaining the relational conditions to achieve it, becomes a reference point in the practice of mindful caregiving. The capacity to be aware of the changing manifestations of the relational field is particularly important. It allows a healthcare provider to notice if what’s being relationally created provides a context for healing and generates an experience of being heard, acknowledged, and responded to in a humane way. Awareness of the moment to moment unfolding of what’s being generated allows healthcare practitioners to be relationally responsive to their patients and respond to them, not as they are imagined to be, but as who they are in the moment. It helps caregivers for example, ‘intuit when to be silent, when to allow time for integration of information, or when to use touch to reassure the patient that he/she is not abandoned to his/her fate’ (Dobkin, 2015, p. 2). It also allows them to respond to what is appropriate in the interactive moment regardless of what may be required by bureaucratic protocols, training guidelines, or expected professional roles. Smith (1998) recounts a story of a caregiver that provides an example of this: One hospice nurse confided in me that, against everything she had learned in nursing school she had once climbed in bed with a patient and snuggled next to her. It had felt like the appropriate response for this patient, who had voiced the fear of dying alone. The patient died half an hour later in the nurse’s arms (p. 97).

Re-Centering Awareness Maintaining sustained moment-to-moment awareness of our relational connections is difficult given the force and habit of distracted awareness. Relational presence involves two important activities: the capacity to notice if one is relationally connected or not, and the ability to re-center, reconnect with the relational field and respond to what is needed in the moment.

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Real-time awareness of the quality of our connectedness lessens the probabilities that disconnections will be ignored while increasing the capacity to notice openings and possibilities for deeper connection and healing whenever they emerge. Gonsalves (2015) shares a story about her relationship with a 10-year-old patient that illustrates how, in the midst of disconnection, re-connections can occur and be meaningfully strengthened through the use of breath and presence. The child had a cardiac condition and was in the hospital in order to be medically treated. In their first contacts, they related to each other with indifference, then Gonsalves describes what occurred on the day of a planned procedure: I walked into John’s room with the intention of doing the requisite cardiac assessment as quickly as possible … then an unexpected moment of awareness, something I had not been experiencing the preceding stressful weeks, emerged … I saw him. I really saw him, for the first time since his admission. He was not another patient on my list, he was a scared child … I took another breath. I looked at John closely, this time with direct eye contact … sat down beside him on his bed and offered an encouraging smile as I spoke with him about the steps involved in preparing him for the procedure … John’s body seemed to unclench from the knot it was in when I first arrived in the room. The change in the dynamics of the interaction between us precipitated by the purposeful attention I was now paying to him, allowed John to disclose for the first time his fears of how painful the procedure may be and about not being able to have his parents with him … Before I left, John asked if I could be with him during the procedure. He let out a heartfelt sigh of relief when I told him I could. For the first time during his admission, a real connection had been established (pp. 127–128).

THE LIMITS OF RELATIONAL PRESENCE During the writing of this chapter, I received a call from the senior care facility where my 93-year-old mother lives. I was told that she had suffered a cut on her lower leg that

required emergency care. I took her to the emergency room of a nearby hospital where we spent several hours waiting for her to be treated. As we waited, my mother shared the details of what happened. The wound had been caused by an attendant who attempted to help her out of her wheelchair, without making sure that its metal foot stands had been folded up so that they would not injure her. My initial reaction was anger. I blamed the accident on a distracted worker who hadn’t been aware of the specific needs of the patient under her care. Then, I took a breath, re-centered my attention and reflected on the web of connections in which that care was provided. I knew that, while the facility employed many committed employees, it was at times understaffed. I was aware that demands by other patients, emergencies, as well as supervisors’ expectations, influenced the time that a caretaker had available to attend each patient. I realized that staff turnover and urgency of service limited the degree of training of new hires. Thus, although primacy of care was a worthy goal in the facility’s organizational mission, the social processes under which services were rendered did not always support the conditions needed to provide the required care. These understandings then became part of a dialogue that I established with the senior care facility regarding its context of care. My mother’s accident underlines the importance of relational processes in the delivery of ongoing compassionate healthcare (Wasserman and McNamee, 2010). It speaks to how non-supportive institutional practices can influence health workers’ abilities to be fully present and relationally responsive in their relationships with their patients, regardless of their intention. It contextualizes the practice of relational mindfulness and it leads us to reflect, that if relational presence is to be a useful generative resource for the creation of healing relationships, it needs to be nourished and supported by social and institutional processes that acknowledge its value and the humanizing possibilities of its practice.

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FUTURE DIRECTIONS In imagining possible futures for mindfulness as a social constructionist practice, one can envision directions that can actualize what Purser (2019) has referred to as mindfulness’s revolutionary potential; that is, as a practice that is ethically based, embedded in the local knowledge of communities, and ‘restores collective attention to shared responsibilities’ (p. 259). In the context of healthcare, this form of practice could become a resource for de-privatizing distress and questioning how social discourses and economic practices, institutional policies and unexamined dominant stories affect embodied experience and health, as well as the quality of care and access to healthcare services. This vision requires expanding the way that mindfulness has been conceptualized and taught so that it goes beyond its current individualistic and ritualistic forms and becomes a practice of present-centered humanized relating, that can also serve as a resource for becoming aware and reflecting on broader themes of interconnectedness and interdependence. Cultivating these qualities would require new vocabularies that would locate relationship as a legitimate domain of mindfulness practice and learning to practice. It would include forms of learning that emphasize the value of the community, not only as a source of resonance and support, but as a dialogical space where awareness and inquiry can operate in the service of compassionate healing, refining sensibilities, repairing relational bonds, enhancing solidarity and deepening our shared understanding of what it means to be human.

REFERENCES Baugher, J. E. (2019). Contemplative caregiving. Boulder, CO: Shambala. Boyce, B. (Ed.) (2011). The mindfulness revolution. Boston, MA: Shambala.

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Britton, W. B. (2019). Can mindfulness be too much of a good thing? The value of a middle way. Current Opinion in Psychology, 28, 159–165. Chogyam, N. & Dechen, K. (2002). Roaring silence. Boston, MA: Shambala. Coles, T. (2015). The mindful shift. In P. Dobkin (Ed.), Mindful medical practice (pp. 123–126). New York, NY: Springer. Direnzo, D., Crespo-Bosque, M., Gould, N., Finan, P., Nanavati, J., & Bingham III, C. O. (2012). Systematic review and meta-analysis: Mindfulness-based interventions for rheumatoid arthritis. doi:10.1007/s11926018-0787-4 Dobkin, P. L. (2015). Introduction: Mindful medical practice. In P. Dobkin (Ed.), Mindful medical practice (pp. 1–4). New York, NY: Springer. Gergen, K. J. (2009). Relational being: Beyond self and community. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Gergen, K. J. & Hosking, D. M. (2006). If you meet social construction along the road: A dialogue with Buddhism. In G. T. Kwee, K. J. Gergen & F. Koshikawa (Eds.), Horizons in Buddhist psychology (pp. 299–314). Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute Publications. Goldstein, J. (2016). Mindfulness: A practical guide to awakening. Sounds True, Kindle Edition. Gonsalves, C. (2015). Lifeline. In P. Dobkin (Ed.), Mindful medical practice (pp. 127–130). New York, NY: Springer. Halifax, J. (2018). Standing at the edge. New York, NY: Flatiron Books. Hilton, L., Hempel, S., Ewing, B., Apaydin, E., Xenakis, L., Newberry, S. … Maglione, M. (2016). Mindfulness meditation for chronic pain: Systematic review and meta-analysis. doi:10.1007/s12160-016-9844-2. Ingram, C. (2015) A wounded healer’s reflections on healing. In P. Dobkin (Ed.), Mindful medical practice (pp. 145–150). New York: Springer. Kabat-Zinn, J. (1990). Catastrophe living. New York, NY: Dell. Kearney, M. & Weininger, R. (2016). Becoming (and sustaining) the bodhisattvas we already are. In K. P. Ellison & M. Weingast (Eds.), Awake at the bedside: Contemplative teachings on palliative and end-of-life care.

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Boston, MA: Wisdom Publications. Kindle Edition. Levine, G., Lange, R., Bairey-Merz, C. N., Davidson, R., Jamerson, K., Mehta, P…. Smith, S. (2017). Meditation and cardiovascular risk reduction: A scientific statement from the American Heart Association. Journal of the American Heart Association. doi:10.1161/JAHA.117.002218 Lief, J. (2015). The healing encounter: Meeting one another in the space between. In K. P. Ellison & M. Weingast (Eds.), Awake at the bedside: Contemplative teachings on palliative and end-of-life care. Boston, MA: Wisdom Publications. Kindle Edition. Lomas, T., Medina, J. C., Ivtzan, I., Rupprecht, S., & Eiroa-Orosa, F. J. (2018). A systematic review of the impact of mindfulness on the wellbeing of healthcare professionals. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 74(3), 319–355. Malinen, T. & Anderson, H. (2004). Interview: The wisdom of not knowing – a conversation with Harlene Anderson. Journal of Systemic Therapies, 23(2), 68–77. McGill Programs in Whole Person Care. (2019). Mission statement. Retrieved from https:// www.mcgill.ca/wholepersoncare/ (Accessed July 18, 2019) McNamee, S. (2019). The discourse of stress: Individual pathology or communal ritual: The role of culture and society. In M. Loriol (Ed.), Stress and suffering at work: The role of culture and society (pp. 87–104). Paris, France: Palgrave Macmillan. Morales, E. (1986). The way of everyday life: A qualitative study on the experience of mindfulness meditation in daily life (unpublished doctoral dissertation), Boston, MA, Boston University. Nhat Hanh, T. (2008). The fertile soil of the sangha. Retrieved from https://tricycle.org/ magazine/fertile-soil-sangha/ (Accessed September 10, 2019) Purser, R. (2019). McMindfulness. Watkins Media. Kindle Edition. Rosenberg, L. (2013). Three steps to awakening. Boston, MA: Shambala. Rouleau, C., Garland, S., & Carlson, L. (2015). The impact of mindfulness-based

interventions on symptom burden, positive psychological outcomes, and biomarkers in cancer patients. Cancer Management and Research, 7, 121–131. Santorelli, S. F. (2014). Mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR) standards of practice. Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care & Society, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Boston, MA. Siegel, R., Germer, C. K., & Olendzki, A. (2008). Mindfulness: What is it? Where does it come from? In F. Didonna (Ed.), Clinical handbook of mindfulness (pp. 17–36). New York, NY: Springer. Skaer, T. (2015). Research findings using mindfulness-based interventions for chronic pain. Pain Studies and Treatment, 3, 38–45. Smith, R. (1998). Lessons from the dying. Boston, MA: Wisdom Publications. Smith, R. (2003). Listening from the heart. In M. Brady (Ed.), The wisdom of listening (pp. 261–276). Boston, MA: Wisdom Publications. Soffer, O. J. (2019). The inherently relational view of mindfulness. Retrieved from https:// www.orenjaysofer.com/blog/relationship-andmindfulness (Accessed September 20, 2019) Succito, A. (2017). Mindfulness and the relational field. Retrieved from https://ajahnsucitto. org/articles/mindfulness-and-the-relationalfield (Accessed 15 September, 2019) Surrey, J. & Kramer, G. (2013). Relational mindfulness. In C. Germer, D. Siegel, & P. Fulton (Eds.), Mindfulness and psychotherapy (pp. 94–111). New York, NY: Guilford. Thera, N. (2001). The power of mindfulness. Penang, Thailand: Sukhi Hotu. Tilsdale, S. (2019). Advice for future corpses. New York, NY: Gallery Books. Wasserman, I. C. & McNamee, S. (2010). Promoting compassionate care with the older people: A relational imperative. International Journal of Older People Nursing, 5, 309–316. Zimmermann, F. F., Burrell, B., & Jordan, J. (2018). The acceptability and potential benefits of mindfulness-based interventions in improving psychological well-being for adults with advanced cancer: A systematic review of complementary therapies. Clinical Practice, 30, 68–78.

49 Toward Relational Engagement: Poetic Reflections in Healthcare Arlene M. Katz and Kathleen Clark, with Elizabeth Jameson

‘Join me in trying to create spaces for conversation; How can we all create spaces that allow for conversation?’ (EJ) ‘Listening to the afflicted is not merely moral praxis, although it is that. It affords us rich insights.’ (Farmer and Gastineau Campos, 2004, p.36)

In this chapter we invite the reader to enact a form of participatory dialogue with one of the authors (EJ) as she reflects on her illness experience with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and her life as a lawyer and artist, while navigating healthcare. Using methods of social poetics (Katz and Shotter, 1996), we begin by noticing what strikes us. We then articulate these striking moments in dialogue with each other, making visible what matters to us. We carry this over into new possibilities of engagement and practice. We juxtapose and intertwine the uniqueness of EJ’s articulated lived experience with the words of other authors who have reflected on social construction and relationality. Our attempt is to make visible what matters in healthcare and the experience of illness. To that end, we focus on relational engagement with professionals, on acknowledgment, sacred spaces, care and caregiving, and on

what can be carried over into other practices. In effect, the chapter aims to serve as an exemplar of relationality and social construction and, in the writing, a poetic enactment of it. Here, we navigate the world of healthcare and the world of the lived experience of health professionals and patients; the one emphasizing time constraints, ‘efficiency’, fixed analytic categories, and a push for consensus, the other the world of illness experience and social suffering. We introduce participatory dialogic inquiry – a form of social constructionist practice – into a healthcare setting. We privilege the voices of patients and community members which are often unheard or silenced and notice how new possibilities of meaning and engagement emerge (Katz, Conant, et al., 2000; Katz & Alegría, 2009). Hearing the voice of the patient can teach all of us how to treat, include, learn from and be guided by them. Practitioners may be surprised, shifting assumptions, as they enter into different worlds of meaning and possibilities. We navigate what matters to each in this emerging local moral world (Kleinman, 2012).

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In the following pages, we present an ‘exemplar’ in dialogue with EJ, of how illness, disease, and imperfection can be transformed by creative art, teaching, thinking, and sharing. As co-authors, we reflect on how community members, patients, health practitioners, trainees and healthcare leaders are invited to engage in mutual inquiry, and became co-teachers, co-learners and co-researchers. Using poetic reflection and dialogic inquiry, the authors (acting here as participants) articulate their lived experience of health and illness, care and caregiving. In so doing, they make visible what really matters to them, illuminating their practices from within, shifting assumptions, and exemplifying the wider issues of disparities. We are invited into different worlds from the impact of diagnosis and continuing on with the lived experience of a chronic illness, moving beyond fixed categories to an ongoing relational process. By inviting the reader to navigate the multiple voices of patient, clinician, and caregiver, we are issuing a call to acknowledge what is at stake for each of them and re-socialize what are commonly seen as fixed categories into processual events. New possibilities can emerge in the space between the actors, shifting from the stance of an outside observer to that of participants, creating new meanings, and making visible what might otherwise pass by unnoticed. We notice the shift from feeling ‘acted upon’ to becoming an actor, from a sense of isolation to one of connection and participation.

THE WAITING ROOM The setting is all too familiar – uncanny in its familiar unfamiliarity – the subspecialty waiting room. EJ has seen many of them and has long thought about how they could be transformed. In contrast to the awkward silence, she would invite all waiting patients to share their thoughts and feelings. EJ: The importance of specialty waiting rooms … a chance we can see one another… attempt to create community, attempt to define our tribe. Typically, in

the waiting room, there is just one large video monitor, nothing else … (a) continuous loop of National Geographic baby animals. My question is, is that helpful in defining your new community?

The community is one of patients and their caregivers. They are a community because they are facing the lifelong challenges of progressive disease. One of the key aspects to becoming a community is to recognize each other and create the possibility to talk whenever we are in the same room. People with lifelong, long-term illnesses return to the same waiting rooms, over and over and over. Talking together is beneficial to prevent or reduce loneliness and profound isolation. EJ paints a not unfamiliar scene – the waiting room as the space of otherness, the paradox of strangers in a shared space. Seemingly isolated monads, fiendishly exploring their mobile phones, flipping through magazines, TV screens flashing endless programming. Implicitly she asks, ‘Do we dare acknowledge each other?’ And she adds, ‘Not acknowledging can lead to unfounded fears, biases and self-hatred.’ We are in the ‘silent world’ (Katz, 1984) where ‘in this gesture of waiting, I allow the knowledge of the other to mark me’ (Das, 1998, p.193). EJ was moved by this and wondered from her own experience whether the answer might lie in ‘patient-led design to take control of our healthcare environment, as without listening to patient input and consideration it is impossible to have a waiting room space that is in the best interests of the patient or the staff. In my soul, I want to be an activist in terms of helping people.’ EJ demonstrates how she moved from being ‘struck by’ her experience, making visible what matters and carrying it over to a new practice: one day she began inviting those in the waiting room to engage in conversation and later she offered them the possibility of reflecting on ‘conversation cards’ (Figure 49.1) posing questions such as • What is the impact of the disease on your life? • How would you describe your illness? • If you were a poet, how would you describe your disease?

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Figure 49.1  “Completed conversation cards”

Some of the more striking reflections included: Q: What do you want the world to know about Multiple Sclerosis? • That more people are speaking up, sharing their story. • Learning to live with MS is like learning to ride a surfboard. • You just can’t see my pain but it’s there. • Neurological Diseases like Clinically Isolated Syndrome or Multiple Sclerosis do not make the dreams after diagnosis impossible. It just changes the approach.

Q: What is one thing you’ve learned about someone who lives with illness? • It can be lonely.

Q: I am here today because… • I want to help and learn more about MS to support my friend. • MS can be an extreme weight on a person. • The more support, light and recognition of and for the disease, the better.

In our conversations, EJ reflected on her waiting room project: ‘These moments of connection are about acknowledging illness in all its forms, creating new, positive experiences, and offering an alternative to the awkward silences in the clinical setting. There is a sense of pride, or togetherness, when we honor our own thoughts and feelings. And to share these thoughts and feelings in such a vulnerable place as the clinic waiting room is empowering for all.’ (Jameson, 2018a)

ILLNESS EXPERIENCE EJ recalls the shifts in her life as she began to experience physical symptoms, and then

the diagnosis of MS. We contrast the act of diagnosis as determining a fixed category, to one that is socially constructed, co-created from the emerging meanings of participants. Rather than presuming meaning for a person, we are concerned with how we make meaning with them in our interactions. This contrast is a key aspect of a relational process which takes into account what is at stake for the person of the patient as human being. EJ: When I was first diagnosed with MS, I experienced aphasia and complete lack of speech. When my speech returned, I still had problems with word-finding; it was embarrassing as a courtroom lawyer, and I realized I needed to make a shift in careers. I had an existential crisis, because I still wanted to do something meaningful. I eventually transitioned from being a public interest lawyer to a public interest artist … feeding my soul.

EJ experienced a series of ‘existential crises’, having to give up the practice of law, in service of others, especially using her voice to advocate for voiceless children both in and out of court. In her drive and ambition to create meaning from her disease, she discovered a new way to communicate through painting and etching, two art mediums which she had never engaged with previously. EJ: I tried to put the pieces back together that were blown by this tsunami… ongoing struggle … The mess, chaos of illness; its depression, learning to cope … Yet, thinking all the while, how can I be of service to others?

Her newly found practice as an artist allowed her to transform the medical technology that surrounded her (e.g., her MRI images which

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seemed to define her as a person living with a diseased brain) from the sense of being treated as an object to that of a participant. It ‘taught me to take ownership of that MRI, be friends with that MRI; make it beautiful, complex.’ She resolved to try to humanize her MRIs for herself and others by making them beautiful and interesting, wanting these transformed images to serve as a starting point to describe her ever-changing experience of living with a progressive illness. These unconventional selfportraits invited researchers and clinicians to see their work in a new context, reshaping how patients might come to terms with their disease. In so doing, there was a shift from the fixity of the medical image to entering into a dialogue with it – a transformative engagement. EJ took back the medical technology and allowed it into the patient’s living room. EJ: I had the black and white MRIs in a corner of my office. They were ugly and terrifying. I decided to make MRIs more human… so that hopefully someone could see me, and not just the data. Confront them with kindness and humanness. What was originally daunting Is still daunting. I got up close and personal with the brain and brain disease. I love technology. I fell in love with revolution around technology. On reflection, what I really fell in love with is the re-discovery of myself through technology.

This resonates with the words of John Berger, who stresses the need to re-find hope: ‘… an horizon has to be discovered. And for this we have to re-find hope – against all the odds of what the new order pretends and perpetrates. Hope, however, is an act of faith and has to be sustained by other concrete actions … This will lead to collaborations which deny discontinuity.’ (Berger, 2015, p. 39)

NAVIGATING MULTIPLE DESCRIPTIONS: HUMAN BEING AND DISABILITY EJ is embodying a way to go on, echoing Wittgenstein (1953) who famously asked,

‘How do we go on together?’ She offers a new way for patients to see themselves and their brains. It is a new vocabulary for scientists and medical professionals inviting them to listen to the patient, to listen to how the patient defines how illness impacts their lives. It is also a new vocabulary for patients and family members, offering new ways to express themselves. Learning new language is important to facilitate the best, most efficient and respectful answers and solutions. Speaking to an audience of healthcare professionals and students, EJ was asked how she remains motivated. She mentioned her blog and her shift to writing the personal essay as narrative and her desire to share her story in as many places as possible, including publication in the New York Times and British Medical Journal (BMJ). She characterizes her life with progressive MS as a ‘shit show’, filled with difficulties and constant transitions and definitions of who I am. She also talked about her transformation as artist: ‘What can I create, helping myself and the medical community? … I’m a human being …’ She expressed what matters to her in poetic form: EJ: I treat my disease as a colorful bird that lives on my shoulder, and I want to love what’s on my shoulder. It’s always going to be there. And some days it’s biting me, sometimes it’s drawing blood. Sometimes it’s cooing. Be respectful of the bird. It’s always there. It’s me. I want to love me. So I say look, I have a bad disease but it’s part of me. It’s on my shoulder. So, make friends with it. Love it and move on.

SHE CONTINUES, REFLECTING: This is my quiet, internal dialogue where I can find something beautiful and less lonely about my experience with illness. If people in the waiting room could share their thoughts and feelings, then perhaps I

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could learn from others how they deal with their diseases, and therefore that would lead to some form of community and not just me with my ‘bird’.

John Berger would have agreed. ‘Poetry makes language care because it renders everything intimate … There is often nothing more substantial to place against the cruelty and indifference of the world than this caring’ (Berger, 2001, p. 451).

RELATIONAL ENGAGEMENT WITH PROFESSIONALS As we have seen, EJ embodies a way of opening new possible meanings and (inter)actions in the patient–physician encounter. Her ability to speak continues to diminish slowly and she wants to talk with her physician about how this terrifies her but wonders how. By offering her own experience to illuminate what she’d like people to know about disability, there is a shift for those being treated as ‘object’ to ‘subject’, to being known as a human being. We continue our conversation with her and ask what is most important for people to know about disability? EJ:  What does it mean to be losing control? [There are] all sorts of disabilities. It’s fascinating. I love looking at all types of medical technology. I like being part of the process. I don’t want to be subject to the process, the years of illness. I want to be on top of it. I want to have meaningful conversation with physicians. Q: How do you create a meaningful conversation with physicians? EJ:  First, meaningful conversations with yourself, then, meaningful conversations with others. I’m struck by how many people … they don’t want to hear about your disease. I want to be proud of my disease. There’s a bird on my shoulder. I want to respect the bird. I want my friends to ask about the bird. How to find my tribe.

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I find members of my tribe. I like people to not be afraid of illness. I want a world where people realize we’re ill, going to die. It’s not socially acceptable to talk about illness.

SACRED SPACES As EJ sought to find her community, ‘her tribe’, her loneliness was transformed into sharing ‘sacred spaces’ with others – a sense of the ‘silence of a cathedral’; of being open, touched, noticed, moved. In her words, ‘it served as an invitation for others to see that I accepted being vulnerable and naked. My brain was put on view’. Honoring a lifelong commitment to social justice now includes relational justice as a way to create sacred space. It is this act of co-creation with others that is sacred, this shift from taken-forgranted assumptions to creating new possibilities for engagement and knowing. The act of being acknowledged in the space between one and another, a felt sense beyond a particular physical space, can create new meaning and possibilities. To acknowledge, to ‘walk with’ another, is a relational process, an attunement to what matters most to each actor. It can transform the space between them into a sacred ‘liminal’ space. As EJ articulates what she is moved by in dialogue with us, she makes visible what matters, which can often go by unnoticed, and how it can be carried over into practice. We explore the relational domains of Acknowledgment, and Care and Caregiving.

Acknowledgment EJ: My goal is to find the disease, the illness, the person … to not avoid them. A goal is to like our bodies and get rid of the idea of perfection. We’re all human beings. Q:  It’s not any one disease. EJ:  It’s imperfection … To accept, honor and find beauty in the inevitable problems of being human. It includes disease, illness…

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Connection and Disconnection in Daily Life Some of my best friends don’t ask me how I am. Nobody asks me. Often I don’t need to talk about my illness but it’s nice when people ask. That’s why I feel lonely. I wish someone would ask if my disease is quiet … Q:  What’s in the word acknowledgment? EJ:  Not invisible. It’s like I’m nine months pregnant and nobody asks when the baby is due … If acknowledged, it’s not invisible, not silent.

As we listen, EJ’s words make visible to us what matters to her: EJ: All my life, it’s been so important for me to be doing something interesting. I want people to feel that what I’m doing in my life, despite my illness, is interesting; more importantly, meaningful both to myself and to disenfranchised people. What can be carried over into practice … EJ: I want physicians to feel their patients are interesting, to have an interesting, fascinating disease … to see us as a whole person, and how we deal with our daily challenges that are perpetually changing: Ask how the disease affects the patient’s loved ones, how simple daily habits (for other ‘non-disabled’ persons) become a time-consuming puzzle to decipher. Make the daily struggles visible. Acknowledge the complexity. Physicians can’t solve the problems, but can acknowledge… They can say, ‘wow’.

From which we see that it is much more than just the disease, it’s the responsiveness to what is at stake in ordinary life. Acknowledgment here is a moral imperative, echoing Kleinman’s (1995, p. 117) warning that, ‘We, each of us, injure the humanity of our fellow sufferers each time we fail to privilege their voices, their experiences’ instead, ‘… You are forced to respond, either to acknowledge it [pain] in return or to avoid it; the future between us is at stake’ (Cavell, 1996, p. 94).

The Silent World Struck by a recent encounter with her doctor, which recalls Jay Katz’ seminal work on The Silent World of Doctor and Patient (Katz, 1984), she offers: EJ:  With MS, there’s nothing you can do. At my stage, – the progressive loss of the usage of my arms and my legs to the point of quadriplegia, and now my voice – and experiencing the failure of 30 years of various treatments … there’s nothing to be done at this time. My neurologist said, ‘you can come all the time but there’s nothing I can do; stay home and watch movies.’

She then reminds us what matters: EJ: But you can witness me, Acknowledge my current life and find it interesting, not scary.

In her award-winning film Rolling, physician Gretchen Berland partnered with three participants in wheelchairs, giving them cameras to capture what mattered to them. The results moved her as it ‘revealed a world that I had no idea existed’. In reflecting on what doctors might take away from the film, she reminded us of what is at stake for us as human beings, ‘At some point in our life, everyone is going to be vulnerable. That’s the nature of being a human being. And most people will be vulnerable with their healthcare provider … And when you are, at that moment in your life, you really hope that the person you are talking to and asking for assistance is caring and looking at you as a human being. And there are many times in Rolling where it was clear that the health care system was not … disability is not all about hardship. More than half of what the three participants filmed was about identity and the definition of a person.’ (Berland and Buckwalter, 2008)

In contrast to how the language of the medical system often defines people, perhaps understandable in that context, Berland and Buckwalter (2008) emphasize that ‘We have to make sure that we also remember there’s a person behind that too. Listening is

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really an art. Listening to what someone tells you is not easy to do, what someone is really telling you in an exam room. Asking the question in such a way that the patient can tell you what’s going on.’

Care and Caregiving Both family (EJ and her husband) and professional caregivers talk movingly about the experience of caring. EJ says that, ‘you discover ways to be, illuminate what had not been noticed, or had been taken for granted, like feeding …’. A whole world opens up … making visible what would otherwise pass by unnoticed. What matters, Kleinman (2015) reminds us, is that ‘Caregiving is relational and reciprocal’ (p. 240). What follows are comments from her caregivers both at home and at a presentation to medical providers (Jameson, 2019).

Caregiver 1 ‘I learned things I never thought about …’ ‘It’s like when I travel to strange places.’ ‘It’s completely illuminating …’ ‘Not just caregiver …’ ‘When we work together (writing and editing), we’re looking for the universal thread, not just disability.’

Caregiver 2

‘It’s an absolute privilege to love this beautiful soul. She has an amazing heart to share her gifts with the world and to see how this body … and how it is doesn’t stop her from being loving, giving her very best to everyone in the midst of being fed and bathroomed. In the highest and lowest part of your life, still find the joy and the beauty in it.’ ‘For me and the caregivers, if you have the opportunity to be with another human being, serve them at your highest capability of love, you have blessed the world in this life.’

Caregiving becomes a sacred process, resonating deeply between caregiver and receiver. Each is changed in the process. Kleinman emphasizes the ‘moral face of caregiving’ not only its relational nature but as a moral imperative. ‘Acknowledgment of the personhood of sufferers and affirmation of their condition and struggle have long been recognised as the most basic and sustaining of moral acts, whether among the

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friendship and kin network or in patient–physician and other professional relationships.’ (Kleinman, 2012, pp. 1550–1551)

This is indeed a call to presence. ‘…being there, existentially, even when nothing practical can be done and hope itself is eclipsed – as central to the giving of care. And it is also important in care receiving, because caregiving is almost always a deeply interpersonal, relational practice that resonates with the most troubling preoccupations of both carer and sufferer about living, about self, and about dignity.’ (ibid.)

Kleinman raises the important question as to whether today’s biomedicine and caregiving are incompatible, given privileging market forces and efficiency. He calls for a serious discussion about caregiving and a reconsideration of its place in medical education, medical practice, and medical research, on the one side, and its significance for patients, families and communities, on the other. ‘The great failure of modern medicine to promote caregiving as an existential practice and moral vision….has diminished professionals, patients, and family caregivers alike.’ (ibid.)

CARRYING OVER INTO OTHER PRACTICES ‘Our stories of illness and where we can listen to our stories, tell stories, listen to stories, learn from each other: hopes – the hope develops further empathy for people’s illness and disabilities.’ (EJ) ‘Artworks also tell about illness experience and are used as claims to social justice.’ (Radley and Bell, 2011, p.219)

What can we take from these experiences, beyond MS, beyond disabilities, to improve caregiving and acknowledge human suffering? We can carry forward EJ’s words as well as her extensive work in lightening the suffering of others, by placing her mission in a wider context, the context of caregiving for the suffering. Her art invites social engagement in the space between society and disease, between science and art, to change the

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narrative of illness, aging and disability and to get people thinking and talking about life with disease. Her work makes the invisible visible in a hopeful, graceful way. It connects us all. As her mobility has lessened and her voice has grown fainter, her art has become her voice. Now confined to a wheelchair, she is aware of people moving away from her, and recalls her own prior feeling that anyone in a wheelchair is really scary and unapproachable. To counter this, she now uses her aesthetic sense to encourage wheelchair manufacturers to design wheelchairs that are open, approachable, and welcoming: ‘The external parts of my wheelchair inform how I am perceived, how I take up space … It is the very first thing I feel every time I interact with another person. I want my chair to be a conversation starter instead of an intimidating machine.’ (Jameson, 2018b)

We invited EJ to reflect on advice to professionals. Q: How would you like residents to learn about acknowledgment and sacred space? EJ:  Residents [can] learn about acknowledgment and space. Absolutely. Each patient has a different relationship with ‘the bird’, the way to deal with illness and disability. Take the time to try to empathize and understand. Empathy can’t occur without asking patients how the disease impacts their daily life.

Q: And students? EJ: Encourage medical students to embrace what you’re doing and know how hard it is and how much joy can be in your profession. But it has to be in communication with the patients … Don’t be afraid to ask questions. That is so critical to not have siloes. I’m so delighted to talk to you about ways we can work together to open up the silo … Q:  W hat would you want to say in medical schools? EJ: Do not be afraid of talking about the good, the bad, the ugly…

the beauty, the boring, of life with disability. Do not try to avoid being uncomfortable – because that doesn’t allow the person to be fully seen. Be present even if it is uncomfortable. Q:  Beyond MS to chronic illness EJ: The idea of discussing it with appropriate language…

Through her work, EJ throws traditional notions of disability into question by showing us the beauty of the brain, any brain. Her work helps us shift our assumptions about disability and move closer to those with different brain diseases. She tells us: ‘The more disabled I become, the more I am fascinated by what I can do to enlighten the world.’

CO-CREATING LANGUAGE As we have demonstrated, the language of social construction – relationality, dialogue, conversation – is embroidered into our exchanges with EJ. We enter into different worlds, weaving multiple voices. Berland and Buckwalter (2008) echo the importance of how we talk with each other and the effect it can have. ‘It’s how you ask the question’ and how it can invite the patient’s voice: EJ: Becoming elderly is gradual loss of the body … is fascinating and awful. Approach patients with curiosity, honor, honor.

We create a vocabulary as we engage in dialogue. We use EJ’s words, or those that emerge during our conversation. We are struck by her words and by how they open new spaces of meaning – words like sacred space, acknowledgment, curiosity, honor; also visible, invisible, interesting, fascinating, transformation, tribe, community. Q: How would you like to be called – patient, community member, participant? EJ:  I’m fascinated … I like considering myself as a member of a tribe … of spinal cord injury or chronic illness … being part of a community …

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REFLECTIONS AND IMPLICATIONS EJ’s work brings to mind a series of interconnected moments: in waiting rooms, with participants who complete her conversation cards; who wait in line to speak to her after her talks; making her art available for further discussion and reflection – in museums, academic buildings, neurology waiting rooms, etc. In this chapter we have introduced an exemplar that is constitutive of the process of dialogue, relationality and social poetics as a practice of social construction by recalling moments that matter, creating new possibilities of practice. To be struck by events in this way is to be moved by them, to be guided by them and called to action. Here, we have enacted this process, noticing when we are moved, articulating it in dialogue, making visible what matters, then carrying it over into practice. This iterative, reflecting process, which we have termed a social poetics (Katz and Shotter, 1996), consists of noticing a series of inter-related moments, their context and how they matter to the other participants, thus making them available for further dialogue and reflection and carrying them over as a practice resource for a wider community. We privilege the voices of patients, community members, who are often unheard or silenced, and notice how new possibilities of meaning emerge. We are moved by EJ’s experience, by how she has developed new capacity for engagement that allows her and others with disabilities to carry on with their lives. This exemplar captures and resonates with social constructionism in how dialogue and poetics can create new practices, with our emphasis on participatory practice and our shared focus on possibility and creating meaning in ‘relational exchange’ (Wasserman and McNamee, 2010; Vilela e Souza et al., 2010; Gergen, 2009).

REFERENCES Berger, J. (2001) John Berger: Selected essays, G. Dyer (Ed.), New York: Pantheon,

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Berger, J. (2015) Portraits: John Berger on artists, T. Overton (Ed.), London: Verso. Berland, G. and Buckwalter, G. (2008) ‘NPR interview with Gretchen Berland and Galen Buckwalter on video recording and revelations about interactions between physicians and patients with disabilities’, NEJM Audio Interview, doi:10.1056/ NEJMdo002136. Cavell, S. (1996) ‘Comments on Veena Das’s essay “Language and Body: Transaction in the Constructions of Pain”’, Dædalus, 125(1), 93–98. Das, V. (1998) ‘Language and the body: Transactions in the construction of pain’, Dædalus, 125(1), 67–92. Farmer, P. and Gastineau Campos, N. (2004) Rethinking Medical Ethics: A View from Below, Developing World Bioethics, 4(1), 17–41. Gergen, K. J. (2009) Relational being: Beyond self and community. New York: Oxford University Books. Jameson, E. (2018a) ‘I wish my healthcare provider knew…’, BMJ Opinion, January 22. Jameson, E. (2018b) ‘Dreaming of a prettier chair’, New Mobility, April 2. Jameson, E. (2019) ‘Imperfect life art show at KECK School of Medicine at USC’, April 17, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S9nDWgmqr4 Katz, J. (1984) The silent world of doctor and patient. New York: The Free Press. Katz, A. M. and Alegria, M. (2009) ‘The clinical encounter as local moral world: Shifts of assumptions and transformations in relational context’, Social Science and Medicine, 68, 1238–1246. Katz, A. M. and Shotter, J. (1996) ‘Hearing the patient’s “voice”: Toward a social poetics in diagnostic interviews’, Social Science and Medicine, 43(6), 919–931. Katz, A. M., Conant, L., Inui, T., Baron, D. and Bor, D. (2000) ‘A council of elders: Creating a multi-voiced dialogue in a community of care’, Social Science and Medicine, 50(6), 851–860. Kleinman, A. (1995) Writing at the margin: Discourse between anthropology and medicine. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kleinman, A. (2012) ‘The art of medicine. Caregiving as moral experience’, The Lancet, 380, November 3, 1550–1551. Kleinman, A. (2015) ‘The art of medicine. Care: In search of a health agenda’, The Lancet, 386, July 18, 240–241. Radley, A. and Bell, S. E. (2011) ‘Another way of knowing: Art, disease and illness experience’, Health, 15(3), 219–222. Vilela e Souza, L., Santos, M. A., Medonca CorradiWebster, C., Guaneas, C. and Moscheta, M. (2010) ‘Social construction and health: An interview with Sheila McNamee’, Universitas Psychologica, 9(2), 574–584. Wasserman, I. C. and McNamee, S. (2010) ‘Promoting compassionate care with the older people: A relational imperative’, International Journal of Older People Nursing, 5, 309–316. Wittgenstein, L. W. (1953) Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell.

50 Play Creates Well-being: The Contingency and the Creativity of Human Interaction1 Saliha Bava

MEANINGFULNESS: THE JOY OF CREATING RELATIONSHIPS To be alive is to seek connection. Making meaningful relationships provides us the connection we seek and creates a sense of wellbeing. Relational play, the improvisational and in-the-moment making of relationships, is where human beings do the collaborative work of creating connection and flow. What is play? And, how do we as humans define play beyond what we know as child’s play? The literature on human development is primarily focused on play in childhood, but the literature fails to shed light on the critical function of play in adult lives. Many scholars (Brown, 2010; Fortier, 2013; Huizinga, 1949; Marks-Tarlow et al., 2017; Nachmanovitch, 1990; Poynton, 2008; Sutton-Smith, 1997) have attempted to define play and yet it continues to defy definition (Gordon & Esbjörn-Hargens, 2007). Perhaps play is similar to the description of Tao. It is

said that Tao ‘defies definition’ and can be experienced only through living it (Wolff, 2007, p. 119). One way play is experienced is as the relationally creative process of trial and error by which we co-create. Play is performative (Bava, 2017; Fels, 2015; Holzman, 2009; Salit, 2016). In play we improvise from within the relational space to create generative, meaningful processes of relating and co-creating. In play we have the capacity to connect socially and create the social. Research supports the idea that a robust social network is crucial to our health and longevity. Well-being is informed by how we move forward to create a world where people feel they belong and where connection is central. In what follows, I will draw on the limited literature on play in adult life in order to share resources that mindfully create relationships where we feel we belong and thrive; where we experience well-being through the everyday activity of play in the course of relating. I will move beyond the common understandings of

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play as sports, leisure, mind games, and/or foreplay to a much more complex relational understanding of play. By drawing on communicative action, I will illustrate the constitutive function of play in relationships and its ultimate impact on health and morbidity. To begin, let’s unpack well-being.

PRODUCTION OF WELL-BEING Well-being is increasingly used as a measure of wellness, often as an affective measure. We gauge the wellness of children, adults, organizations, and even the health of our planet in terms of well-being. The ‘Happy Planet Index’ (HPI) measures sustainable well-being for all at the national level as opposed to the national GDP. HPI, introduced by the New Economics Foundation, measures both human well-being and environmental impact. Most recently, New Zealand joined Bhutan as one of the first nations to add well-being measures to its budget allocations (mental health, child wellness, and the combat of domestic and family violence). Though criticized by some as not addressing root issues, others see this as a step in the right direction (Roy, 2019). Internationally, the UN locates wellbeing as a health issue – enshrined in SDG 3 (Sustainable Development Goals, n.d.). However, locating well-being within health or as a synonym for health (Atkinson, 2013) or as happiness is a limited perspective, especially if it is measured as the quality or state of an individual. Sarah Atkinson (2013), an anthropologist and a geographies of life researcher, critically illustrates that well-being emerges ‘through the situated and relational effects that are dependent on the mobilisation of resources within different social and spatial contexts’ (p. 142). Well-being is not only affected by access to various forms of human rights but also is a situationally mediated activity (Atkinson, 2013; White, 2017). Its understandings are

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continuously produced by the specific contexts, times, and places as illustrated below. In the United States, at the Federal policy level, well-being is primarily linked to economic determinants (see U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2019). The US census focuses on material measures, such as ‘consumer durables, housing conditions, neighborhood conditions and crime, and ability to meet basic needs’ (Bauman, 2013, p. 3). Stefano Bartolini (2011), Professor of Economics, states we have sacrificed our relationships for material affluence in the form of work and material consumption. This call to attend to relationship, purpose, and belonging (Barrington-Leigh, 2017) is being responded to by countries and researchers. For instance, in the UK in addition to the prevalent economic, educational, governance, and environmental domains, the personal domains of wellness, finance, mental health, social networks and relationships are included. However, Social and Policy Science researcher Sarah White (2017) alerts us that these efforts focused on social and relational are ‘conceived primarily as instrumental to individual wellbeing’ (p. 127) by focusing on behavioral change. These economically oriented views feed on views of personal well-being furthered by the discipline of psychology. Psychological research, drawing on the hedonistic and eudiamonic views of wellbeing, locates it within individuals. The hedonistic view attends to the self-reports of happiness, while the eudiamonic view focuses on being fully functioning by living well and actualizing one’s potential (Deci and Ryan, 2008). Such individualizing views of well-being run the risk of commodifying well-being as ‘an entity that can be acquired, or at least achieved’ (Atkinson, 2013, p. 139). Our understanding of concepts is shaped not only by our disciplines, how we conceptualize these constructs2 and measurement tools, but also by the larger social, political culture, places, and times within which we live.3 For instance, the US world view leans towards individualism and thus it is not

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surprising to see concepts such as autonomy, self-determination and independence as central to the definition and research of the eudiamonic view of well-being. In contrast, Bhutan, one of the leading countries to measure well-being as part of their Gross National Happiness (GNH), a vision introduced by their King since 1970, adopts a more relational view that is interconnected and interrelated, reflecting their culture. They do not separate the happiness of human beings from the well-being of other life forms, ecological diversity, and resilience (GNH Centre Bhutan, 2019). It is this social and relational view of well-being that I bring forth in this chapter. A socio-relational view of well-being attends to context, relatedness, and the interconnectedness of relationships and discourses (social stories) that produce it. Based on the varied contextual understandings of well-being, we recognize that it cannot be reduced to the domain of health or to an individual measure. Rather, we see well-being as socially constructed; socioculturally produced and mediated by the interconnectedness of the personal, relational, communal, material, and environmental. Viewing wellbeing as socially constructed recognizes that its definition and felt experience are organized by our communities of practice and the specific ways in which these practice communities conceptualize, research, develop, and track wellness. In this chapter, I illustrate how relationality via play mediates the production of well-being.

FORMS OF RELATIONAL PLAY AS WELL-BEING Why associate play with well-being? An answer lies in the response to the growing public epidemic of social isolation and loneliness, at least in the United States and Europe (British Red Cross and Kantar Public, 2016; Cigna and Ipsos, 2018; Joint

Research Centre, 2018). Loneliness increases the likelihood of mortality by 26%, making it comparable with risk factors for mortality by smoking and alcohol consumption and exceeding the risks of physical inactivity and obesity (Holt et al., 2010, p. 20). Researchers identify love, empathy, humanizing, listening, and courage as responsive resources in the face this this crisis (Way et al., 2018). Even though play is viewed as one of the key forces for humanizing and connection (Brown, 2010; Nachmanovitch, 1990; Poynton, 2008), it has yet to be acknowledged as a resource for well-being (Gordon, 2015) due to our ‘way of looking at things’ (Wittgenstein, 1953, p. 144). Since, social connection and engagement are being promoted as solutions to this silent killer by researchers and policy makers, how about recognizing play? In play we make, form, and transform relationships (Brown, 2010; Nachmanovitch, 1990; Poynton, 2008). We do not limit the concept of relationship to the entity formed by two other entities. Rather, relationship refers to the process of relating or the activity of making of relationships – what Gergen (2009) calls relational co-ordination. Thus, critically exploring how in play we create relational well-being is a crucial step towards addressing social isolation and loneliness. Researchers identify the feeling of wellbeing as one of the main benefits of play (Singer and Singer, 1992). Play is both a source and product of relationality. It grows in relationships as well as furthering relationships. We are in play every day, yet we fail to recognize this due to the intangible emergent form of play and our ways of noticing and languaging. Our taken-for granted ways of understanding play obscures the way it functions everyday everywhere for everyone as adults (and children). Wittgenstein (1953) reminds us that ‘ordinary forms of language easily make us overlook’ (p. 132) distinctions. Shotter (1996) elaborates that we are continuously reacting and responding to the

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world around us, spontaneously, without having worked it all out. ‘And in so doing, we necessarily relate and connect ourselves to our surroundings in one way or another’ (Shotter, 1996, p. 385). This is play. Play is the experimental process of relating by which we create what emerges as familial, organizational, or communal culture. Play is generative. Play is relational. Play is engagement (Kane, 2011). In play, we create the world around us (Bava, 2017; Nachmanovitch, 1990). So, how might we play together to create a more connected world – a world where we experience a greater sense of well-being, connection in community, and the robust physical health that follows? I illustrate how our dialogic imagination, performance of our preferred selves and the tension between contingency and creativity are all forms of relational play. They produce well-being through the play of imagination, of liberation and of dialectics.

Play of Imagination Psychologists Singer and Singer (1992), who study children’s play and imagination, emphasize the importance of make-believe. They state that the development of ‘playfulness and creativity … sets the stage for empathy, the resilience, and the sense of humor so much needed in old age’ (p. 64). Such a developmental view, like popular views of well-being, locates imagination/ play in the individual realm and fails to view it as relational emergence. In fact, psychologists further the individualization of play and imagination as fantasy, not reckoning for the trial and error and experimental processes of life and living as an adult. The Singers hypothesize that play goes underground as we become adults. But does it? I propose it goes by other names. As a relationship consultant, I have conducted play(work)shops in various countries. I have learned that people continue to play but stop calling it play,

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especially when play is limited to the notion of fantasy. Imagination is not fantasy. Developmental psychologists state that it is in play we become (Holzman, 2009). In Singer and Singer’s words, the play of ‘toddlers and preschoolers reflects a human need that does not fade with age but takes on new forms and, responsive to the task-demands of each age level in a culture, reemerges in adulthood in ever more intriguing patterns’ (1992, p. 277). This raises the question of how imaginative play reemerges in adulthood. How do we continue to allow for imaginative play? As a therapist, I have learned from my clinical and community practices that it is always already present in the form of dialogic imagination.

Dialogic Imagination is the Play of Pluralities Drawing on Russian literary critic and theorist, Mikhail Bakhtin (1981), dialogic imagination is the attention we give to the intertextuality, pluralization of meaning, and interrelatedness in the different ways of speaking (i.e., recognizing the play of multiple voices in language and how they compete to make a definition of the text among the interlocutors). Journalist Emily Bobrow (2019) introduces us to Sunday Smith, an accredited midwife for home births in North Country, NY. Smith connects in creative ways with hospitals to form a working relationship on behalf of her patients who need hospital transfers during labor. She built these relationships with equal parts presentations and doughnuts. To lower her overhead costs, she doesn’t carry malpractice insurance and with trial and error has created a payment system that includes bartering and cash payments. Smith’s story is a play of pluralities and the interrelatedness of multiple voices (actors and discourses) – patients, hospital systems, insurance, malpractice costs, economics, laws, context, and the uncertainty of coming into this world – which compete to define the field of

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childbirth, illuminating the tensions in Smith’s and her patients’ lives. Smith’s navigation of the pluralities is a site of dialogic imagination, a relational capacity, which is potentially liberating in the midst of the tension of relating (Anderson, 1997; McNamee, 2008; Stewart and Zediker, 2002). Harlene Anderson (2012), drawing on Bakhtin, states dialogue ‘is a form of communication in which participants engage “with” each other (out loud) and “with” themselves (silently) in a search for meaning and understanding’ (p. 136). Such dialogic endeavors are imagination in play as they are a shared or mutual inquiry that is responsive and collaborative. It requires one to connect and relate with each other in a shared process of creating understanding while not knowing what comes next.

Play of Liberation Dialogues are an illustrative response to Wittgenstein’s (1953) question of ‘how to go on’, especially in our efforts to liberate ourselves from oppressive gestures, words, and discourses. Inequalities and injustices at the structural and/or interpersonal levels fosters ill health. To feel liberated is a potential measure of well-being. These enactments of liberation can be seen in our personal stories.

Performance of Our Preferred Selves is the Play of Liberation I had seen Elissa4 in therapy for couple of years. She would come once a month to reflect on her life and unpack the challenges she had not been able to shift or shake off. She would also discuss upcoming life turns that might be challenging in her view. She was in her mid-twenties and had moved away from her US West coast family to the East coast for schooling. Family was central to her sense of well-being. Her older brother and sister were her support and each of them, like her, were in the process of launching their

own careers and families. Elissa loved her work but was at times challenged by the workplace dynamics which appeared uncaring of people. She reflected on whether or not she could remain human in such a workplace and though she considered finding another job, they were hard to come by in her area of work. Over the course of our 15–20 sessions, we played with a metaphor of the theater of life upon which she was acting. This theater included voices from the audience who would ‘heckle’ her choices or question her. By developing the metaphor of the hecklers in her audience of life, we were able to unpack what Bakhtin (1981) refers to as ‘experimenting by turning persuasive discourse into speaking persons’ (p. 348, italics are mine). Elissa came to identify the persuasive voices in her life as telling her what she should do; these were the hecklers’ voices. In her imagination of them, she had become objectified. Through the play of experimenting with these voices, by talking back or reimagining a different performance of self, she not only exposed the limitation of the discourses those voices held in her life performance but also liberated herself to play with other ways of performing herself. And, in the process, she transformed the hecklers’ voices from being carriers of persuasive discourses to people speaking into the performance of her life with whom she could talk back. And, in that back and forth she co-created alternative, preferred performances of herself. As Bakhtin (1981) describes it, ‘One’s own discourse and one’s own voice, although born of another or dynamically stimulated by another, other, will sooner or later begin to liberate themselves from the authority of the other’s discourse’ (p. 348).

To Feel Liberated is to Experience a Sense of Well-being One of the hecklers in Elissa’s audience was the voice that questioned why her husband was not going to church with her. Since she did not want to bring that voice into

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her marriage, she felt caught between the persuasive discourse of who should attend church and her own voice to attend church. And as this dialogue emerged in therapy, we unpacked the processes of liberating herself ‘from the authority of the other’s discourse’ (Bakhtin, 1981). All therapeutic dialogue that emerges from a stance of not-knowing and curiosity (Anderson, 1997) about our client’s lives is conversational play. The conversational play of questioning the authority of churchgoers helped Elissa liberate herself to develop an alternate way of being a churchgoer. Therapy, a space for shared inquiry (Anderson, 1997) and performative inquiry (Fels, 2015), was where she reflected on the persuasive statements about her husband’s lack of attendance. And her resistance became clearer when she identified an image of other parishioners who come by themselves. In her telling, I could experience the shift in her gaze. She shifted from one who was in monologue to one who was focusing on her preferred way of being. It was a way to resist the persuasion of those who she had identified as the hecklers of her life stage. Or as Bakhtin states, A conversation with an internally persuasive word that one has begun to resist may continue, but it takes on another character: it is questioned, it is put in a new situation in order to expose its weak sides, to get a feel for its boundaries, to experience it physically as an object. (1981, p. 345)

Elissa shifted from being the object of the persuasive discourse to the discourse itself being the object of her inquiry. In the realm of the dialogic imagination, such is the liberation of play. We recreate our performances by playing in the realm of the dialogic imagination. Through discursive play, we create a sense of well-being by questioning the persuasive voices of discourses that hold us back. By resisting these discourses and in reshaping them, we create a sense of well-being; we see ourselves in a more agentic space and relationship to the discourses. We become active participants in discourse formation. Well-being

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then becomes a relational playground where one goes from being acted on by the discourses to a playground where one is actively acting on the discourses as well. A relationally generative dance of wellness is a play of dialectics.

Play of Dialectics To understand how our well-being lies in the play of dialectics, let’s turn our attention to ‘dialectical emphasis upon both the contingency and the creativity of human interaction – on our making of, and being made by, our social realities’ (Shotter, 1993, p. 13). We see this in Elissa’s story and, by extension, in all our stories. Well-being, instead of being viewed as an end product or a result of communicative action, lies in the tension of relating (McNamee, 2008). This distinction becomes critical considering what Shotter suggests about dialectics: ‘instead of attempting to capture the nature of communicative activity …, we must analytically display its dilemmatic character’ (1993, p. 15). And so is the case with well-being. It lies in the dance or play of ‘both the contingency and creativity of the human interaction’ (Shotter, 1993, p. 13). If well-being is understood as a relational process, then it becomes a matter of negotiating the genres5 or social processes of being understood even as we creatively attempt to shape the social processes. Unless we express ourselves within the right genre at the right time, what we say will not be heard aright – likely, it will not be understood at all. Genres, although constituting the sites, or the architectonic resources, for creative work, can also exert an influence upon what is considered normatively possible. (Shotter, 1993, p. 5)

Thus, we must relationally strive to navigate the tension between the normative and creative within each interaction as we construct our moves that will not only define our relationships but also our identities – of self and other. This brings us back to the dialectics of

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what is and what is being made in our interactions – making our social realities even as they make us. This process of negotiation is already occurring in relationships which I view as relational play. Let’s turn our attention to these always already occurring practices that can further our well-being.

RELATIONAL PLAY: RESOURCES FOR WELL-BEING AND CONNECTION How might we relationally play to mediate well-being? Relational resources that promote well-being also promote a sense of connection and belonging while navigating the tension of relating – the dialectics (i.e., to be in play of the relational tensionality potentiates an experience of being well). As Anderson (1997) notes, conversations and relationships go hand-in-hand. All communication is constitutive. In conversations – verbal and nonverbal – we are constituting our relationships, which, in turn, shape the conversation. There is a constant back and forth that one might experience as being responsive within this tensionality. Such a responsiveness ‘involves a moment-bymoment process of adjustment by the speaker to the ever-changing context into which they must “fit” their speech – a context which is itself responsive to their utterances in the course of their uttering’ (Shotter, 1993, p. 16). If we understand well-being as a relationally mediated activity, then how might we attend and engage in generative relational play? I offer four possible resources in response.

Attending to the Ethics of the Making of the Self, Other, and our Relationships ‘What it is which makes me who I am, is not just the unique place or position I now occupy in existence, but how I came to

occupy it’ (Shotter, 1993, p. 7). With his words, Shotter draws our attention to how our positionality is not devoid of our social processes. One assembles oneself with the possibilities afforded by the context, where the context is multiple – historical and current, social and relational, material and environmental, cultural and local, spatial and temporal, etc. It is in our acts of speaking that we negotiate both the social processes afforded to us and our assembly of ourselves based on the other’s responsiveness. Attending to this joint process is a position of ethics. It is the ethics of noticing our noticing. Gergen (2009) invites us to notice how self and other as emergent beings arise out of our social processes of relating. We are born out of relationships into relationships (Bava and Greene, 2018; Gergen, 2009). The relational space – the space that we co-create with others in the process of relating – is shaped by as it also shapes the relationship. Elsewhere (Bava and Greene, 2018), I offer six practices that assist in creating a generative relational space: asking questions, listening with curiosity, staying playful, engaging uncertainty, reframing our stories, and attending to context. All these practices promote ethical engagement as it shifts our gaze from an individualist position to a relational gaze, thereby potentiating a sense of connection, a sense of well-being. While attending to our process of making, our attention might be drawn to our difference. So, how might we value our differences? One practice is to stay open to ‘poetic’ images that ‘move’ us in some new way as a resource for bridging differences. Noticing the moments that touch us or that move us, opens us up towards the other. Noticing refers to what Stewart and Zediker (2002) identify as ‘letting the other happen to me while holding my own ground’ (p. 232). This is another play of dialectics by recognizing the tension in the relational. Atul Gawande (2014), a surgeon and writer, shares how in medical school he

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did not learn about mortality. As a doctor his focus was on how to keep people alive, not how to learn from his patients how to live well right until the end. It was when he encountered hospice care, in the process of his father’s dying, that he learned the art of tending to the dying. He learned how to hold the both/and – dying by living with dignity. Attending to the relational comes with no scripts, especially in the face of tensions like living and dying. This requires us to be in the play of not-knowing to create wellbeing relationally. This practice requires us to move out of conceptual talk to sensuous talk, as described below.

Remaking the Familiar Relationships can grow our sense of wellbeing based on how we perform the familiar, which we can experience as stuck or dynamic. The relational play of invoking the ‘sensous contact with each other’ (Shotter and Katz, 1996) is one way we can remake the familiar. A couple came to me struggling to create spark and connection in their long-term relationship. In seeking to create a sense of wellbeing in the couple’s relational dance, I asked questions designed to draw the couple’s attention to their relationality, a process by which one can remake the familiar. For instance, Therapist: You are a born dancer, so, I’m curious how come you stopped dancing with him when you see him doing what you call ‘withdrawing?’ How might he be responsive to you for you to continue the dance you prefer?

or Therapist: How might they move into the space they want to create for their relationship with you, while also responding to you in the way that you feel invited to dance with them?

Relationships are activities of concept formation and relating. Even as we are creating

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our relationships, we are also creating self and other. These formed concepts about the self, other, and us go on to shape our sense of wellness (or lack thereof) within the relationship. And, unbeknownst to us, we are in the ‘conceptual talk’ of our relationship occupying a monologic space (a way of being in conversations and relationships that is closed and finalized) (Anderson, 1997). For instance, the popular belief that the doctor is the only expert in the room, even though the patient is the one experiencing the illness, is a closed view of expertise. Such a view does not embody the practice of shared inquiry where the patient’s expertise of their lived experiences is honored. Such talk becomes more calcified, finalized, and nonresponsive, thereby closing off the openings for new ways of relating. This can happen in all different relationships, such as doctor–patient, teacher–student, mother– daughter, manager–worker, where, based on their role identities, people are in closed conceptual loops. In a couple’s relationship, it is at such junctures that they may visit me in search of ‘solutions’ to their ‘lack of passion’ or ‘communication’ or ‘connectedness’. One could see their performance at such a moment as fixed and finalized in the concepts of self, other, and their relationship. In the absence of a more generative form of play, there is instead a crystallization of concepts. We are not relating with each other, rather we are relating to the concepts or stories about each other. We are lost in the world of aboutness, rather than being in the joy and awe of joint inquiry which creates a sense of ‘withness’ (Shotter, 2011). The lost spark is the loss of gestures of play. To rekindle the spark, we have to remake the familiar dance of sensuous contact with each other. Often when things are flowing, we might fail to notice and mark the familiar everyday gestures of connection that create a sense of well-being. However, in the lack of that sense of connection, the absence of small gestures and connecting moments become stark.

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Engaging in Small Gestures and Rituals of Connection As I was writing this chapter, I had to undergo a medical procedure that required me to experience an MRI.6 As I sat in the waiting room, I Googled the image for the type of machine they would use to conduct my MRI. Not particularly fond of tight spaces, I was wondering if my head would be placed in the chamber or not. As I scrolled through the images, I was scratching my face as it was itching a lot and then I felt slight bumps on my face. I started to feel some discomfort, so I texted my husband to join me for the procedure. Just then, the nurse called me to step into my prep for the imaging. In the prep room, I noticed my face and neck and realized I had hives. For the first time in my life I had a red patch on my neck, a sign I had often seen on my students’ necks when they had to speak in public; something I had personally been unfamiliar with over twenty years of public presentation. The unknown quality of the procedure had manifest as hives on my face. I had become anxious (though I did not notice it or call it so right away). The nurse, who introduced herself as Joy, prepared my arm for an IV to inject a contrast. I commented that her name was wonderful. As she worked on my arm, she shared a story about herself and her brother. She told me how her mother would always remind her of her name when she was sad as a child. I could tell she was not only preparing me physically but also emotionally by connecting with me through her family story. She was smiling and engaging throughout the procedure. And as we chatted, I felt myself descend from what I was experiencing as floating out of my body and reconnecting. I was feeling grounded again. By the time I was walked into the imaging room, my husband had joined me, and I held his hand in relief as I shared my surprised reaction to the MRI. Once in the imaging room, the staff prepared me by going over the steps and answering my

questions. They didn’t rush me and made sure that I was lying down comfortably with the help of a blanket and support for my arm. They asked me what type of music I would like to listen to as I lay on the imaging bed for 45 minutes. I said, ‘60s pop’ – a ritual to lower my stress. These and other small gestures told me I could ask for help as needed. Each of these gestures arose out of the relationship while making a positive difference for my experience of healthcare. Such gestures take up meaning in the context of action and interaction becoming part of our healthcare experience. These gestures are relational movements of play and connection (see Fels, 2008) that are equally powerful as the ones that remain open and unfinalized in ongoing conversations.

Welcoming Unfinalized, Ongoing Conversations We shape life even as it is shaping us. In our everyday conversations we practice what Bateson (1972) identifies as metalogues – ‘a conversation about some problematic subject. This conversation should be such that not only do the participants discuss the problem but the structure of the conversation as a whole is also relevant to the same subject’ (p. xxxiii). Our metalogues are ongoing conversations, communicative action, that are shaping our relationships and well-being even as we explore them as subject matter. There is an ongoing sense of joy as we connect over our past and future in the present moment. There is a sense of play in these unfinalized conversations that leaves room for the unanticipated and the joy of surprise which grows our sense of well-being. Well-being is not a product but an unfinalized ongoing conversation; welcomed as a metalogue. Shotter (2011) states that such ‘unfinalized, dialogical forms of talk must be tailored to the requirements of the situation at hand’ (p. 282). Thus, recognizing that unfinalized ongoing conversations are situated and contextualized, both

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historically and relationally. Hence, unfinalized ongoing conversations serve as a resource for relational play that mediates our sense of well-being.

HOW TO GO ON Being mindful of the play that is always already occurring and attending to the relational play of imagination, dialogue, language-games, discourses, and dialectic tension is generative of well-being. Such relational care creates a sense of attentiveness that helps people feel seen and heard at the interpersonal level and creates a sense of belonging and inclusion at the cultural level. In this chapter, I have drawn our attention to the play of making the relational since increasingly research points to the value of social connection for well-being. But we must ask, is social connection pointing towards relationship as an entity or as the activity of relating? Drawing on Bakhtin (1981) and Shotter (1993, 1996, 2011), I have attempted to illustrate how relational play furthers our well-being when we focus on the activity of relating and making relationships. Making is connecting. As social creatures, we are makers of and made from relationships, processes, and practices. Play is central to the process of making. It is in the process of improvising, trial and error, or spontaneous responsiveness that we co-create ways to go on. We need an increased inquiry into how we play together when we make. And, how we make when we play. How might we make an inquiry of how play is always already making our lives? Play is everywhere, in every activity and engaged in by everyone. Yet we do not call it play because of our language and dichotomized thinking. How might we construct inquires that bring forth the social and relational nature of play? How might we move out of our methodological individualism and

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instead study play as relational emergence that produces our well-being? Atkinson (2013), questions the components approach to well-being and instead makes a case for the contextual, participative, and coordinated view which I identify as the socio-relational stance. As social constructionists, we need to bridge with quantitative social scientists and economists such that we go beyond the idea of acquiring ‘social capital’, a neoliberal normative construction that reintroduces the consumption and acquiring frame of well-being to a socially creative frame that promotes the activity of relating. Being engaged in this yin/yang of the normative and creative positions us in the tension of relating. This actively engaged, situated process of co-creating the relational space is play where we feel tension, aliveness, and joy. To be in relational play is to be in the constitution of well-being.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am deeply appreciative of Murilo Moscheta and Sheila McNamee for their editorial questions and suggestions, which helped bring forth the chapter’s focus. And, to my partner, Mark Geene, for his insightful play with words.

Notes 1  The title is inspired by Shotter’s (1993) view of dialectics within human interaction. 2  Deci and Ryan (2008) illustrate this in the special issue focused on the concept of eudaimonia. 3  Read Atkinson (2013) and White (2017) for a critical focus on the politics of well-being. 4  To protect client confidentiality, I’m using either composites or have changed identifying information. 5  Shotter quoting Morson and Emerson (1990, p. 282) states Genre is ‘a “form-shaping ideology” – a special kind of creative activity embodying a specific sense of experience’ (Shotter, 1993, p. 5). 6  MRI refers to magnetic resonance imaging.

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REFERENCES Anderson, H. (1997). Conversation, language and possibility. New York, NY: Basic. Anderson, H. (2012). Collaborative practice: A way of being ‘with’. Psychotherapy and Politics International, 10(2): 130–145. Atkinson, S. (2013). Beyond components of wellbeing: The effects of relational and situated assemblage. Topoi, 32(2): 137–144. Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays. (M. Holquist, Ed., C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Trans.). [Kindle Edition]. Amazon.com. Barrington-Leigh, C. (2017). Sustainability and well-being: A happy synergy. Retrieved from https://greattransition.org/publication/ sustainability-and-well-being Bartolini, S. (2011). Manifesto for happiness: Shifting society from money to well-being. Luxembourg: Differdange. Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an ecology of mind. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Bauman, K. J. (2013). The relation of income to other measures of material well-being in cohabiting couples with and without children. Social, Economic and Housing Statistics Division Working Paper 2013–14. Retrieved from https://www.census.gov/library/ working-papers/2013/demo/wp-2013-14. html Bava, S. (2017). Creativity in couple and family therapy. In J. L. Lebow, A. L. Chambers, & D. Breunlin (Eds.), Encyclopedia of couple and family therapy. New York, NY: Springer. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/ referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-31915877-8_226-1 Bava, S. & Greene, M. (2018). The relational book for parenting. New York: ThinkPlay Partners. Bobrow, E. (2019). A midwife in the North Country. The New Yorker. Retrieved from https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/ a-midwife-in-the-north-country British Red Cross & Kantar Public (2016) Trapped in a bubble: An investigation into triggers for loneliness in the UK. Retrieved from http://www.redcross.org.uk/~/ media/ BritishRedCross/Documents/What%20

we%20do/UK%20services/Co_Op_Trapped_ in_a_bubble_report_AW.pdf Brown, S. (2010). Play: How it shapes the brain, opens the imagination, and invigorates the soul. New York, NY: Penguin Publishing Group. [Kindle Edition]. Amazon. com. Cigna & Ipsos (2018). New Cigna study reveals loneliness at epidemic levels in America. Retrieved from https://www.cigna.com/ newsroom/news Deci, E. L. & Ryan, R. M. (2008). Hedonia, eudaimonia and well-being: An introduction. Journal of Happiness Studies, 9, 1–11. Fels, L. (2008). A fine reach home: Excerpts from a sailor’s wind journal. Canadian Journal of Environmental Studies, Special Issue, 13(2), 180–191. Fels, L. (2015). Performative inquiry: Releasing regret. In International Yearbook for Research in Arts Education: The Wisdom of the Many – Key Issues in Arts Education. 3, 510–514. New York, NY: Waxmann. Fortier, B. (2013). A culture of play: Essays on the origins, applications, and effects of improvised theater. Gawande, A. (2014). Being mortal: Medicine and what matters in the end. New York, NY: Metropolitan Books. Gergen, K. (2009). Relational being. Beyond self and community. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. GNH Centre Bhutan. (2019). The 9 Domains of GNH. Retrieved from http://www.gnhcentrebhutan.org/what-is-gnh/the-9-domainsof-gnh/ Gordon, G. (2015). Integrating conceptual divisions within and between the studies of play and well-being. In J. E. Johnson, S. G. Eberle, T. S. Henricks, & D. Kuschner (Eds.), The handbook of the study of play, (Vol 2) (pp. 467–476). New York, NY: Rowman & Littlefield. Gordon, G., & Esbjörn-Hargens, S. (2007). ‘Are we having fun yet? An exploration of the transformative power of play. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 35(1), 198–222. Holt-Lunstad J., Smith, T. B., & Layton, J. B. (2010). Social relationships and mortality risk: A meta-analytic review. PLoS Medicine, 7(7), e1000316. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed. 1000316

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Holzman, L. (2009). Vygotsky at work and play. New York, NY: Routledge. Huizinga, J. (1949). Homo Ludens: A study of the play element in culture. New York, NY: Routledge. Joint Research Centre (2018). Loneliness – an unequally shared burden in Europe. Science for policy briefs. Retrieved from https:// ec.europa.eu/jrc/sites/jrcsh/files/fairness_ pb2018_loneliness_jrc_i1.pdf Kane, P. (2011). The play ethic: A manifesto for a different way of living [Kindle Edition]. Amazon.com Marks-Tarlow, T., Solomon, M., & Siegel, D. (2017). Play and creativity in psychotherapy (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology). New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company. McNamee, S. (2008). Transformative dialoguecoordinating conflicting moralities. The Lindberg Lecture 2008. Retrieved from https://mypages.unh.edu/sheilamcnamee/ publications/transformative-dialogue-coordinatingconflicting-moralities Nachmanovitch, S. (1990). Free play: Improvisation in life and art. New York, NY: Tarcher/ Putnam. Poynton, R. (2008). Everything’s an offer: How to do more with less. Portland, OR: On Your Feet. Roy, E. A. (June 7, 2019). ‘I feel hopeful’: New Zealanders cautiously welcome Wellbeing Budget. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/ jun/07/i-feel-hopeful-new-zealanderscautiously-welcome-wellbeing-budget. Salit, C. (2016). Performance breakthrough: A radical approach to success at work. New York, NY: Hachette Books. Shotter, J. (1993). Becoming someone: Identity and belonging. In N. Coupland & J. Nussbaum (Eds.), Discourse and lifespan development (pp. 5–27). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

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Shotter, J. (1996). ‘Now I can go on’: Wittgenstein and Our embodied embeddedness in the ‘hurly-burly’ of life. Human Studies, 19(4), 385–407. Shotter, J. (2011). Getting it: Withness-thinking and the dialogical … in practice. New York, NY: Hampton Press. Shotter, J. & Katz, A. (1996). Articulating a practice from within the practice itself: Establishing formative dialogues by the use of a ‘social poetics’. Concepts and Transformation, 1(2/3), 213–237. Singer, D. & Singer, J. (1992). The house of make-believe: Children’s play and the developing imagination. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Stewart, J. & Zediker, K. (2002). Dialogue as tensional, ethical practice. Southern Communication Journal, 65(2/3), 224–242. Sustainable Development Goals (n.d.). Helping governments and stakeholders make the SDGs a reality. Retrieved from https:// sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/ transformingourworld Sutton-Smith, B. (1997). The ambiguity of play. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2019). Strategic goal 3. Retrieved from https://www.hhs.gov/about/strategicplan/strategic-goal-3/index.html Way, N., Ali, A., Gilligan, C., & Noguera, P. (2018). Crises of connection: Roots, consequences, and solutions. New York, NY: NYU Press. White, S. (2017). Relational wellbeing: Re-centring the politics of happiness, policy and the self. Policy & Politics, 45(2), 121–36. Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical investigations. Oxford: Blackwell. Wolff, R. (2007). The popular encyclopedia of world religions. Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers.

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SECTION VII

Community Practices

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51 Community Building from a Social Constructionist Lens Marie L. Hoskins

At its very core, sustainable community development is grounded in the belief that all people should have access to health, wellbeing, wealth, justice and opportunity. Needless to say, these macro-level goals for humanity are not achieved easily, yet they underlie many community development and community-building projects throughout the world. They have also been the ultimate goals of all of the chapters in this section and have been achieved in various ways and in a variety of contexts. Despite their unique and innovative approaches, the authors’ processes for achieving such goals have one important strategy in common: when engaging in community development projects, they have all made concerted efforts to include the voices of those who have the most at stake – the community members. From a social constructionist perspective this means that at the heart of any intervention is the critical question: What’s really at stake and for whom? Involving citizens, for the authors of this section, has meant that community members

are invited (not mandated) to be engaged with the intervention and the processes involved. Without a commitment from the participants, as many of the authors point out, small changes can be made but significant transformation is highly unlikely. Even when working with individuals, as Winslade and Monk point out in their chapter, people need to first of all be willing and committed to engage in a change process before any steps towards mediation can occur. And change, they argue, is a community endeavor, in that conflict – even when it is seemingly only between individuals – always ripples out to affect others. Collaborations at many levels are necessary if sustainable changes are to happen. Further, the often-stated phrase found in many Indigenous research projects and pointed out in some of the chapters – nothing is done for us without us – rings true for all of the contributors of this section. None of the authors included in this section endorsed hierarchical, top-down approaches.

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Not only are dialogue and collaboration central to social constructionist approaches, but during the last decade, the World Health Organization (WHO) has repeatedly stated that community engagement is pivotal in achieving positive outcomes for communities when trying to promote peace, democracy, dialogue, and participation (WHO, n.d.). Rather than the expert-driven approach often used in some traditional community development projects, community engagement is assumed to be the best way to foster all of these health-promoting goals. Without citizen participation, it is argued by many, community developers tend to have shortterm and limited success. Not surprisingly, the language and related practices found in many current community engagement publications align well with social constructionist ideas and ideals. Within this section of the Handbook in particular, you will see how social constructionist perspectives have been used to strengthen and extend community practices in various parts of the world. Each author in this section has demonstrated a way of working that weaves their community practice experiences with compatible social constructionist theories. Some authors began their work immersed in these ideas and ideals, while others turned to theory when encountering certain impasses in their community projects. As mentioned above, but worth repeating, what they have in common is their desire to avoid a hierarchical approach that positions community development experts as all-knowing consultants who are parachuted in to solve a community’s problem. In addition to a commitment to dialogue and collaboration, emergence and humility are central to many of the projects described. Most often authors describe their underlying principles but refrain from offering prescriptive steps for achieving success. How to proceed as a community emerges from the dialogue itself. The humility that underlies many of these chapters is portrayed in their reluctance to make sweeping generalizations.

But alongside the embodiment of these core values mentioned above there is a growing recognition that there is also something else going on. Issues of power, equity and social justice also run through these chapters and the questioning of whose interests are being served repeatedly comes to mind. Underneath this question is the challenge of working with economic disparity. One might ask: Is it possible to truly engage in generative dialogues when some people live in abject poverty and others are privileged? For example, Victoria Lugo’s chapter raises this kind of question when she argues that until living conditions are improved for the marginalized segment of the population it is difficult, if not impossible, to really forgive past wrongs committed by those in positions of power. In her projects, listening to narratives of pain and suffering due to violence is critical, but it can be even more challenging when working with these kinds of injustices and inequities. Along a similar vein, Janet Newbury, and Celiane CamargoBorges and Cesar A. Ferragi point out that not only are there economic disparities to attempt to reconcile, but there are also challenges related to the issue of land ownership. Rights, responsibilities and land ownership often collide when identity politics are alive and not so well. Another challenge when engaging in community projects is the inclusion/exclusion tension. As Caputo (1996) pointed out several years ago, community building can be a violent act if the boundary around a specific community excludes others. After pointing out the many problems of the inherent violence incurred when drawing rigid boundaries around certain groups of people, he proposes a different perspective. In his words, Might we speak of a quasi-transcendental field, a field of anonymous, undetermined relations or relationalities that release unforeseeable, unpredictable effects, like sparks from a roaring fire? Would that not be all the community we could tolerate? (p. 26)

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Further, he raises the challenge, but the absolute necessity, of welcoming the stranger who has been excluded from the community because of seemingly insurmountable differences. Sheila McNamee and Ken Gergen’s (1999) book, Relational Responsibility: Resources for Sustainable Dialogue, also raises this point related to difference and how appreciation is perhaps a preferable term when thinking of responding to the ‘other’. And subsequently Gergen also reminds us in several of his writings and workshops that we need to remember that whenever we divide the world into good versus evil we are not necessarily perceived as being on the side of the good, and may in fact be someone else’s evil. Perhaps more than ever in our global world, this rings true. Differences, deep divides and polarities become particularly salient throughout the chapters in this section and authors have made concerted efforts to address them in their work.

CHAPTER OVERVIEWS Beginning with John Winslade and Gerald Monk’s chapter, entitled ‘Narrative Mediation’, it is both interesting and informative to see how a mediator who uses narrative and social constructionist ideas can avoid taking sides and instead work relationally. Moving outside the perspective that often sees individuals as ‘the problem’, they feature a case study that could have easily gone awry had they positioned one person against another without being mindful of the meta-narrative that kept such opposing positions entrenched. Michael White’s extensive work in narrative practice, and Foucault’s perspective on power and discourse, are brought to life in this chapter, as are the ideas found in many social constructionist publications. By using a real-life case study, they show readers how paying attention to certain language and discourse can avoid pathologizing people experiencing conflict.

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The authors purposefully avoid humanistic essentialist understandings of self and conflict. Although these perspectives underlie many traditional conflict resolution interventions, Winslade and Monk take a different approach by working with meta-narratives (e.g. institutional and gendered discourses) rather than focusing on internal states and traits located within individual psyches. Janet Newbury’s chapter, ‘Inclusion and Community Building: Profoundly Particular’, takes up the tensions between the macro, political context and the individual. In her chapter she attempts to avoid colonizing community members by imposing a specific perspective, in this case solely social constructionist theory, and instead balances other knowledges such as those found in Indigenous traditions. Woven throughout the chapter are two central questions: how is power socially constructed and what is the role of embodiment in community work? Although she fully acknowledges her White privilege and how it influences how she interacts with others, she carefully describes a way of working that promotes generosity, humility, and inclusion. Newbury highlights her extensive community practice while working with various local issues in a small city in British Columbia. It quickly becomes evident that paying attention to the small details when bringing people together has profound effects as her title reminds us. These small details matter (the particulars), especially when working relationally in order to promote social justice. Anyone working with relational ideas found within social constructionist theory will find this chapter very informative. Celiane Camargo-Borges and Cesar A. Ferragi in ‘Placemaking, Social Construction, and the Global South’, with parallels to Janet Newbury’s critique of the dominance of Western perspectives, point out that knowledge from the North has dominated the wisdom of other cultures, in their example, the global South. Such epistemological blindness (Santos, 2014) has resulted in impoverished

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theories that minimize, and, in some cases, erase the kinds of knowledges needed to truly engage in sustainable community building. Little has been written about placemaking and social constructionism, making their contribution to this Handbook truly groundbreaking. For NGO Quilombaque, the region of Perus on the outskirts of São Paulo in Brazil is the site for their exploration into how Indigenous and African-descendant knowledges can transform what is considered to be a disenfranchised location. By reclaiming historical artifacts and knowledges in collaboration with others (NGOs, university faculty and students, and the residents of the community), historical spaces can become enhanced and brought back to life. Insights and learning can happen for all of the participants in the project. It is this kind of reciprocal sharing of knowledge that has the potential to do so much more than earlier community development models have been able to achieve. Jacob Storch and Carsten Hornstrup, in ‘Re-imagining the Welfare State: From Systems Delivery to Collaborative Relationship’, are working in various locations to re-envision and reform the welfare system in Denmark. Drawing from an initiative in Aarhus where administrators, various professionals and citizens collaborated, they use case studies to illustrate how a different citizen-centric approach could be beneficial to service recipients and the system itself. Many welfare systems built in the 20th century, they argue, are no longer useful in our 21st century. Management discourses, they argue, have tended to strive for efficient and standardized services, often leaving the client’s desires and hopes for their own lives by the wayside. But there is a different way to work, they point out – one that is relational, collaborative and client-centered. Professionals, according to Storch and Hornstrup, can reconceptualize their identities by changing the language used and becoming more of a facilitator and guide to help people reach their preferred lives. This approach may in

fact be much more cost-effective and efficient in the end. What is helpful in their chapter is a full description of how one might be able to bring various professionals – teachers, doctors, social pedagogues and so on – together so that a team approach can achieve better results. David Anderson Hooker’s chapter, ‘Transformative Community Conferencing – A Constructionist Approach to a More Hopeful Future’, also draws extensively from Narrative Theory, in particular the work of Michael White and Michel Foucault. He argues throughout the chapter that community members, depending on their social locations, have very different relationships with dominant discourses. As many of the authors in this section have pointed out, this means that local knowledge, particularly of those who are marginalized, often goes unnoticed and/or dismissed. After highlighting the similarities and differences of Appreciative Inquiry and Restorative Justice, Hooker walks the reader through specific steps needed to engage in a transformative community conferencing process. Each step is carefully described so that practitioners or facilitators can apply this methodology to a variety of contexts. Victoria Lugo’s chapter, ‘Relational Community Practices for Transitional Societies’, highlights efforts to address longstanding and deep conflicts found in Colombia. Despite having strong peace agreements, Lugo argues that while the agreement can end the immediate conflict, many aspects of human experience are in flux. Post-conflict societies could be better conceptualized as transitional societies. From this perspective, community builders have to be willing to let participants set the pace for retelling their stories. Lugo reminds us that although everyone in Colombia has been affected by the conflict, it has had significant differential effects due to gender, age, ethnicities and geographical location. Social suffering, she argues, affects several dimensions of human experience, including health, morality, religion, and so on. The

Community Building from a Social Constructionist Lens

retelling of stories of suffering when people are brought together require the practitioner to be relational, a generous listener and an active witness to traumatic events. But this is what is necessary, Lugo argues, in order to ‘reveal the will to live, shake up the presence of the absence’ and make narratives of hope and survival possible. And this takes time and generous listening when working in communities. As she so clearly articulates, this ‘makes it possible to defrost and agitate time so it can do its job’. Ilene C. Wasserman and Erin W. Taylor’s chapter, ‘Knowing Ourselves in the Stories of Us: The Inclusive Practice of “Be-Longing”’, begins with the basic tenet that people have a strong need for inclusion as well as for differentiation. Identity politics can be particularly tenuous given we want to belong or ‘be-long’ as the authors point out, and at the same time, be treated as independent actors. Wasserman and Taylor bring these tensions to life by describing a composite case study that illustrates how to build bridges when competing narratives cement a conflict, or in their case, a crisis. Relational empathy, not just empathy is a concept and practice used by the facilitator. It is in moments of encountering the other and paying attention to the individual in relation to discourse that transformations can occur. And this is the heart and soul of social constructionist thinking as readers will see in various chapters in this section. Kristin Bodiford and Peter Whitehouse in ‘Intergenerative Community Building: Intergenerational Relationship for Cocreating Flourishing Futures’ describe several worldwide projects that bring multiple generations together to work on community issues. What they point out that is so often missing in today’s societies is the desire to bridge different generations. With rapid migration and the disconnections that occur through the proliferation of technology, they argue that more than ever initiatives that build bridges are sorely needed. The authors provide stories and exemplars to illustrate how this kind of intergenerational approach

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can be generative and help communities to flourish. What is interesting and different about their chapter is that they have presented their ideas in a conversational style that lets the reader in on how they recall positive and innovative examples while working with different generations. It seems fitting to end this introduction to community practice with an appreciation of Duane R. Bidwell’s chapter, ‘Social Construction, Practical Theology, and the Practices of Religious Communities’. In his work he highlights the similarities between practical theology and a constructionist relational orientation to being in the world. Throughout the chapter he takes the reader on a well-honed argument that just saying what ‘is’ and documenting ‘truths’ as many religious scholars commit themselves to is not enough in today’s postmodern world. Instead, we need more action-oriented theologians who can also demonstrate and therefore embody the principles found in scriptures. Although well intended, he argues, it is not enough to just espouse values gleaned from one religion, but it is necessary to embody practices found in diverse cultural and religious traditions. This chapter does not offer concrete ways of working mainly because this is not a technique or prescription for how to act in the world. Instead it offers a series of ethical commitments intended to work across differences, all the while holding a spiritual philosophy. I found his thinking to be inspirational and hopeful. Drawing from Ken Gergen’s (2015) invitation to do more future-forming work, this does just that. It is philosophical, pragmatic (practical), spiritual, energizing, and hopeful in the light of some of our current global challenges.

CONCLUSION The chapters in this section offer several ways of working on community-building initiatives throughout the world. All of the exemplary projects have extensive transferability to a

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wide variety of issues and locations. Although sometimes not explicitly stated, they all share ideas and ideals found in social constructionist publications. They avoid offering tidy solutions by remaining mindful that collaboration, especially when bringing competing agendas together in the same location, takes time and patience. Some authors have provided helpful step-by-step details and others have written about the need for an embodied ethical stance or attitude. They share the common goals of improving lives, particularly for those who are suffering, and offer unique suggestions for how to engage with others in community work. As readers of this Handbook are reminded, social constructionist perspectives provide ways of resolving some of life’s most challenging situations. It is a meta-theory that is both epistemological and ontological at its very core. It avoids dictating how to live and instead offers a multitude of ways to get along in the world. As Caputo (2006) reminds us: Postmodernism … is not relativism or skepticism, as its uncomprehending critics almost daily charge, but minutely close attention to detail, a sense for the complexity and multiplicity of things, for close readings, for detailed histories, for sensitivity to differences. (p. 41)

What Caputo says reminds me of all of the projects so thoughtfully described in this section. These postmodern and social constructionist ways of being and practicing, especially having a sense of the complexity

and multiplicity of community building, are woven throughout. They point to ideas and aspirations that are indeed future forming, rather than just merely replicating what already exists. And as mentioned earlier, the ideas found in this section are dialogical, relational, and generative, and indeed offer a way forward to what is hoped to be a better world, not just for those who are privileged, but for all.

REFERENCES Caputo, John D. (1996). A Community with-out Truth: Derrida and the Impossible Community. Research in Phenomenology, 26(1), 25–37. Caputo, John, D. (2006). Philosophy and Theology. Nashville: Abingdon Press. Gergen, K. J. (2015). From Mirroring to WorldMaking: Research as Future Forming. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, 45(3), 287–310. McNamee, S. & Gergen, K. J. (1999). Relational Responsibility: Resources for Sustainable Dialogue. London: Sage. Santos, Boaventura de Sousa. (2014). Epistemologies of the South: Justice against Epistemicide. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers. World Health Organization. (n.d.). Community Engagement for Quality, Integrated, PeopleCentred and Resilient Health Services. https:// www.who.int/servicedeliverysafety/areas/ qhc/community-engagement/en/

52 Narrative Mediation John Winslade and Gerald Monk

Human conflict never occurs in a vacuum. Inevitably, it is not just the protagonists who are caught up within a conflictual dynamic. From a constructionist perspective, conflict always arises within a wider socio-cultural frame. Conflict has ripple effects that reach beyond significant others to one’s immediate work or social community. Most commonly, problematic dynamics arising within one’s wider community get channeled or directed into so-called ‘personality disagreements’. Thus, conflict can be mislabeled as originating from some-intrapsychic process. Many times, individuals caught in a conflict are inadvertently scapegoated because of problems that remain unaddressed by the wider community. In this chapter we will showcase a conflict between individuals where, to a large extent, it is constructed within a larger community-based problem dynamic. In conflict, people often find themselves in the midst of a situation that does not fit what they would prefer. It is tempting when this occurs to blame the other party but he

or she is probably experiencing something similar. It can be helpful to seek the help of a mediator who can offer professional assistance. Here we want to describe and illustrate a narrative mediation practice (Winslade and Monk, 2000). Such an approach seeks to help people move away from a conflict narrative and towards a more satisfying narrative. This approach is constructionist in some important ways (Gergen and Gergen, 1984; Gergen, 1994, 2009a, 2009b, 2015; McNamee and Gergen, 2009, 2010; McNamee and Hosking, 2013). First, it assumes that people are multiply storied and seeks to take advantage of this. Second, it assumes that what people tell us is not a simple truth but a construction of reality. If this is so, it is always possible to re-author this construction. Third, we assume that people do not want more of the conflict that they are finding painful. If they do want it then we would wish them well and withdraw. Fourth, we avoid essentialist understandings of conflict. Such approaches are common in

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humanistic explanations where the conflict is understood as emanating from parties’ nature or identity. Fifth, we assume that conflicts have their origins in socio-cultural worlds, rather than in their nature, or personality, or from internal states. We avoid an insideout approach to conflict that assumes that people’s positions in a conflict reflect their identities as natural forces. Instead, we are interested in an outside-in approach which assumes that what people internalize from the ‘great anonymous murmur of discourse’ (Foucault, 2000, p. 27), is cultural in origin. When they make shifts in what they hold dear, their emotions can be shown to shift along with the narrative. Social constructionist theory has been critically important in influencing the theory and practice of narrative mediation. Narrative mediation assumes that it is the co-created macro-level social processes that are shaping problems rather than they’re being caused by some inherent biologically determined characteristic of a person. Social construction recognizes that human beings, their identities and the meanings made about any human event are much more fluid, and unstable, than many psychological theories in the West lead us to believe. These notions dovetail with narrative mediation because narrative mediators are in tune with the multi-level stories and complex identities that exist within any conflictual dynamic (Cobb, 2013; Monk and Winslade, 2013; Monk et al., 2020; Winslade and Monk, 2000, 2008, 2020). Narrative mediation also resonates with the notion that language in conflict is performative – a central principle of social constructionism. For example, it is understood by the mediator that the language used in conflict shapes and constructs human meaning making and action. By contrast, a traditional psychological approach describes language as serving a passive function where thoughts, feelings and actions reflect human experience rather than being causal and performative. Thus, mediation can be a

site where lives and relations are produced and reproduced. This is a practice that is immersed in the socio-cultural stories that both the parties and the mediator bring to the mediation process and are performed and enacted. In these ways narrative mediation is an outgrowth of constructionist theory and the mediation work fits well within a community context. There is more needed to describe a narrative/constructionist approach to mediation but it is probably more accessible to do so in the context of a story. So let us outline a conflict and show how we might address it.

THE CONFLICT SCENARIO A human resources director made a referral for mediation to address a conflict between a Dean and the Chair of the English Department at a California University. The Dean, Constance, was in her early 60s and serving a second five-year term. She reported to the Faculty Rights and Responsibilities division that Jonathan, the Chair of the English Department, has been uncooperative and disrespectful towards her for nine months. Jonathan has been slow in responding to work emails sent from the Office of the Dean. She commented on Jonathan’s lax performance in providing budget reports, delivering updates on faculty performance and meeting deadlines on the presentation of the five-year strategic plan to the Dean. Constance feels deeply unsettled by this conflict with the Chair of the Department. Jonathan’s demeanor is cool and distant in meetings when the Dean is present. The Dean thinks things have gone too far and she is thinking that some disciplinary action should be in order. Constance is willing to give mediation a try but if Jonathan continues to be out of line then she wants to request that the Provost terminate Jonathan’s contract as Chair. Jonathan, in his mid-forties, is coming to the end of his second year of a three-year

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contract as Chair. Before coming here, Jonathan already had an established career in academia and had been head-hunted from a small university due to his scholarly success in his field and his leadership background as an Associate Dean. He had also served in the role of Dean, working closely with the Provost at his former university. Jonathan was at first confused by his early experiences at this new, large, urban university. He was surprised by the extent to which the university was hierarchical in its leadership structure and found the authoritarian style of leadership demonstrated by the Dean at first surprising and then downright rigid and controlling. He had had two nasty arguments already with Constance whom he had thought, at his interview, demonstrated a collaborative and open-minded leadership style. Jonathan reports being diminished in his role as Chair by the Dean who breathes down his neck and gives him little wiggle room. Jonathan is fed up and regrets his decision to take the role. He does not have any other choices right now. He feels trapped and knows that cutting off communication with the Dean is not sustainable. He is open to attending mediation to see if the Dean will give him room to do his job.

emerges. Within a discourse where authority and influence is determined by those in the hierarchy, Constance expects that she is within her rights to ask Jonathan to conform to such decision-making. She had the backing of the Provost to censure him and have him fired. Constance felt she had been acting with restraint and was being generous in how she was engaging Jonathan. She wanted to demonstrate a professional colleagueship rather than a punitive presence. Jonathan was positioned by an entirely different set of cultural assumptions. Jonathan had come from a small college heavily influenced by democratic decision-making, academic freedom and the autonomy of the tenured professor. The university senate, made up of mostly tenured academic professors, wielded great influence in the decision-making processes. While present at Jonathan’s new university, this dynamic held much less sway and brought Jonathan into direct conflict with cultural forces much larger than himself. From a narrative mediation perspective, the wider cultural narratives play an important part in shaping Jonathan’s assumptions about how a conflict with the Dean should be resolved.

THE COMMUNITY CONTEXT

THREE STAGES

In large part the conflict between Constance and Jonathan arose from competing cultural forces experienced as deeply personal and internalized. Large academic institutions can be highly stratified with clearly delineated lines of communication from the different academic units. One form of stratification occurs around budgetary matters, which in this university came via directives from the Provost, down to the Deans of Colleges and finally to the Chairs of Department. Budget issues in this college are closely managed by the Dean (with the Provost’s support). A narrative mediator is attuned to the influences of the wider community from which the conflict

We will follow the mediation of this scenario through three stages. In the first stage, the mediator holds separate meetings with Constance and Jonathan. Then the mediator will hold a joint session with Constance and Jonathan together (the second stage). The third stage is when the mediator follows up with both parties and supports shared understandings reached, often documenting these in writing.

Stage One: Separate Meeting(s) The first stage addresses specific purposes. In this session, the mediator works to

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understand the concerns of each stakeholder. In the separate sessions, mediators can join psychologically with each party and explore problem issues in confidence without doing so in front of the opposing party. The separate meeting also presents the mediator with an opportunity to defuse intense affective responses produced by the conflict. She conveys empathy and understanding without having to worry about the other party mishearing this as the mediator taking sides. The mediator might ask the party about their hopes in coming to the mediation in the first place. Such a question recognizes the beginnings of a counter-story or what White and Epston (1990) term a preferred story to the conflict story. These hopes must be represented by the parties’ presence (White, 2007). Without hope for things to change, it would be hard to imagine why they would come. The question is about what they would hope, not what they would want. Hopes can rise above wants which are more likely to fall into the entrenched positions typical of the conflict story. Externalization of the problem can begin in these separate meetings. This process originated in narrative family therapy (White, 1989), in which the conflict is spoken about as a third party to the dispute. The mediator might ask each party, ‘If you could name what we are up against, what would you call it?’ There is also opportunity for the parties to reflect on the effects of the problem story, referred to as the externalized name, rather than as the other party. The parties may build their own motivation to change ‘it’, rather than change the other person. The mediator can also begin to identify possible avenues for a narrative of cooperation and understanding but this cannot go too far before the other party is involved. Effective separate sessions set the stage for a productive joint session that can be highly focused on addressing problem issues creatively. Separate sessions build good relationships; externalize the conflict story and explore its effects; and begin

to find areas of cooperation, understanding, and mutuality in the history of the relationship between the parties.

Meeting with Each of the Parties Here is an agenda for the separate meetings with each party. • The narrative mediator introduces herself and explains the mediator role. • He discusses with the parties how he will conduct the meeting. • She explains she is not a judge and does not have power to impose a resolution. • He tells the parties the meetings are confidential (as far as he is concerned) and that information shared in the meetings may be inadmissible in court (depending on the laws governing the rules of evidence in each country). • She informs the parties that everyone will have an opportunity to express their concerns and requests. • He explains that the mediator’s role is to facilitate a process that is even-handed and fair. • While the meeting is confidential, at the end of the meeting parties may want information shared with others. It can be discussed once everyone knows what they have said. • She asks each party about their hopes for the mediation. • He highlights each person’s intentions and avoids attributing deficits to either party. • She places the cooperation story front and center and the conflict story as holding it back.

Constance and Jonathan  In the individual session with Constance her hopes were to have Jonathan perform the tasks expected of him. She was considering having his contract terminated and he would have to step down as Chair. Constance wants to be respected as Dean and would prefer Jonathan to behave professionally, even if he personally does not like her. The mediator asked, ‘Despite the difficulties between you, what might be salvaged from earlier interactions that were slightly more favorable?’ Constance stated, ‘I would prefer Jonathan to stop gossiping about my work as Dean and

Narrative Mediation

making disparaging remarks about my hardwon reputation but I have no control over how Jonathan conducts himself personally and there are limits to how I can influence his professional behavior. I would prefer his support and that he not undermine me.’

Jonathan expressed that his main hope was to be treated with respect and supported to do his work as Chair of Department. The mediator asked, ‘What would you hope for this meeting and the joint meeting with Constance that could follow? He said, ‘I realize I have not been easy to work with and can be overly sensitive. The problem could be resolved, if Constance could consult with me, seek my contributions even though I’m not expecting her to agree with my suggestions.’ Jonathan added that if Constance were to listen to the needs of his department and collaborate to address problems their relationship could significantly improve.

Externalizing and Mapping the Effects of the Conflict Externalizing (White, 1989), helps the parties develop enough distance to see that the conflictual dynamic is having negative effects. The linguistic shifts made by the mediator using externalizing help the parties see that each has a role in ameliorating the effects of the problem on their lives instead of being solely preoccupied with blaming the other. For example, externalizing could include asking the following questions: ‘What might we call the issues that have occurred between you both? What are you up against? Is it an argument? A conflict? A dispute? A disagreement? Or what would you call it?’ In a narrative approach, externalizing leads directly into mapping the effects of the conflict on the person. The mediator might ask, ‘What is the argument costing you?’ Or ‘What is it doing to you?’

In both these examples the problem is objectified away from the other party. The mediator should ask about the effects of the conflict (not the other party) on their own lives, on

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their commitment to work, and on their relationship with the other party. She might use a scaling question like this: ‘On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is “no concerns” and 10 is “overwhelming concerns,” how would you rate this present situation?’ Or he might ask: ‘How has this problem been impacting on important areas of your life? On your overall well-being? On your mental health?’ Or the mediator may ask about relationships: ‘How has the conflict affected family relationships?’ Or she may inquire into people’s work or future plans: ‘How has the conflict impacted on your work?’ Or: ‘What about your plans for the future?’ Sometimes a series of events has to be tracked. A mediator can track the sequence of events and then lump them all together. The mediator might ask, ‘What was the sequence of events that took place?’ Followed by, ‘So it sounds like this whole cycle of events started to take over and just got you feeling madder and madder at each other.’ Each party can then be asked about items in the series: ‘When he did that, what did the conflict invite you to do in response.’ The effects of the conflict may impact others: ‘Who else has been affected by this conflict?’ The effects of the conflict may even be traced into the future. ‘Could this troubling situation get worse? How much? What would that be like?’

We find it helpful to invite people to enter into personal conversations on how they are being harmed. These disclosures expose the costs of problem-saturated stories (White and Epston, 1990; White, 2002, 2007). They give the mediator more understanding of the conflict and then create more possibilities for intervening. It can be motivating for parties to contemplate doing something different, rather than continuing on with the same problem issues. Until they are asked, people often do not connect every distress they are experiencing with the conflict. Sometimes, disclosing personal suffering presents new opportunities for the parties to join in their collective suffering and recognize that all parties are negatively affected and there are no winners and losers.

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Constance and Jonathan  In the separate sessions it was helpful to ask Constance and Jonathan how each was being affected by these difficult events. Constance said, ‘It’s a combination of things. I feel disrespected, I feel humiliated in front of my colleagues, I feel discouraged about working with Jonathan and I notice myself feeling less trusting towards him.’ Jonathan said, ‘I am a bit shocked by how the expectations I came into the chair position with were really off the mark. I feel disrespected and distrusting and now I’m afraid that the Dean might be planning behind my back to have me fired. I am losing a lot of sleep worrying about it all. I also experience a lot of self-doubt about my reading of the motives behind the Dean’s actions.’

Determining Preferences Next the mediator invites the parties to be explicit about their intentions for the joint session. Establishing preference questions create shifts from ambivalence to determination about addressing the conflict. They also can reveal unarticulated fears. To gain maximum leverage, accountability and responsibility, it is helpful for both parties to overtly state they will proceed with the joint session to underscore their motivation to address the problem. The mediator might ask both parties to evaluate the effects of the conflict and then to justify this by saying why. Before they know it, they have taken two or three steps into the counter-story. For example: ‘Are you OK with the conflict having these effects or do you want things to be different? Why? If not, how would you like things to be?’ ’What is going on right now that makes you want to explore new possibilities? Are there some things you are already doing that are examples of these new possibilities?’ ’What is happening that might give you even a modicum of confidence that things could be different?’

Constance and Jonathan Neither Constance nor Jonathan was content with the effects of the conflict. They both wanted things to change.

Constance said, ‘I would prefer more dialogue with Jonathan.’ Jonathan said, ‘It would be better if we both listened to each other.’ The mediator pushed them both a bit further by asking about things that had happened recently that were examples of ‘more dialogue’ and ‘better listening.’ Both spoke about interactions that had happened soon after Jonathan had arrived at the university. While these were helpful, they were also a while ago and therefore less relevant than they would otherwise be. Still they could be followed up in the joint meeting.

Laying the Foundation for the Preferred Story of Cooperation In the next phase of the single session the mediator explores lived experiences in the history of their relationship where there had been episodes or even minor experiences where the parties respected one another, or appreciated one another’s contributions. These would be unique outcomes in narrative practice, because they would not be predicted from within the conflict story (White, 1988, 1989, 2002, 2007; White and Epston, 1990). Tapping into these events can serve to open up opportunities that had not been considered for some time and provide the beginnings of a new dynamic that could be the groundwork for storying the preferred narrative. Constance and Jonathan Constance reflected, ‘I was struck by Jonathan’s warm demeanor and quick wit when I hired him for the position. I admired his academic acumen and the professional success he had at such a young age.’ While now filled with many misgivings she could reluctantly admit to Jonathan’s ‘fierce advocacy for his department and their resource needs’, even though this rubbed her the wrong way. Constance could acknowledge too that, ‘A lot of his colleagues really like him and he is popular with his departmental colleagues’, which had also made trying to discipline him more problematic. Jonathan acknowledged that, ‘Even during this highly distraught situation with the

Narrative Mediation

Dean and her office, I could admire her considerable success in advocating for College resources. She is an astute leader and one of the more popular Deans across the university.’ He smiled ironically and noted, ‘That made it more difficult to understand why Constance seemed to have targeted me and made my life so miserable.’ Jonathan mentioned that he had seen Constance be very empathetic to another Chair who was struggling with meeting budgetary demands and could see that Constance seemed to offer others a more collaborative interactional style. Jonathan had not been hopeful that Constance could still be collaborative and somewhat understanding of his own situation. The mediator explored with Jonathan what he thought of the different leadership structures he experienced with his new position at the university in comparison to his former institution. He did think there were many elements of decision-making and leadership that were more hierarchical in this new role he found himself in. He recognized there was less collaboration within his academic unit and this different decision-making structure did make it difficult for him to adjust. Constance was asked whether she thought Jonathan might have different ideas about decision-making and consultation with those in formal positions of authority as he was still quite new to his academic position. Constance considered that this might be the case but she was adamant he needed to make the adjustment to recognizing the formal leadership structures in the position he now holds.

Summarizing the Single Sessions and Transitioning to the Joint Sessions Before concluding the single session, the mediator checks back with each of the parties about what they do not want shared in the joint sessions. Further single sessions can be arranged when all phases of the separate meetings have not been achieved.

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When one or both parties are highly emotionally escalated, the mediator wants to have confidence that things will not be made worse by bringing the two parties together. The mediator should be prepared to manage potential verbal attacks on the other in joint sessions. Well-facilitated single sessions alleviate this prospect. If one or both parties have malevolent intentions to hurt the other this will be revealed in significant ways in the single sessions. Subsequent joint sessions will be contraindicated if the intentions are not to move towards some shared understandings. Finally, the mediator can check with each of the parties as to whether the single session or sessions have been helpful. This question on helpfulness potentially provides one more opportunity for the parties to mention any small domains where progress has been made. Constance and Jonathan  Constance did not want the mediator to mention in the joint session that she had been considering terminating Jonathan’s contract, because that was an employment matter that involved other people in the decision. For his part Jonathan did not want it known that he had inquired about two other jobs.

Stage Two: The Multi-Party or Joint Meeting In the joint session the scene is set for the parties to build mutual understanding and perhaps agree on a specific course of action to follow. The questions asked follow the same sequence as in the separate sessions but this time the answers are said in front of the other party. Ground rules are established and hopes for the mediation are identified. The joint session should consider the cultural forces operating on the parties to a conflict and ask questions designed to bring these into the light. Doing so helps reduce personal blame.

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Constance and Jonathan

Constance and Jonathan

The mediator in the joint session explicitly asked if Jonathan had noticed a different set of ideas shaping how decisions in his new university were made. The mediator asked Constance if she had any reflections on the differences between the stratified hierarchies of this university and the challenges that sometimes occurred between academic freedom, senate decisions and professional autonomy. Both parties thought these cultural forces were at play within the current conflict they were experiencing. It was noticeable this time that both Constance and Jonathan were more modest in their hopes than they had been in the separate sessions. Ground rules were quickly agreed upon, however, and the word respect was central to what each of them said.

Opportunities to double listen began at the first stage of the mediation in asking the parties what their hopes were. This inquiry allowed both to express elements of the counter-story that had been eclipsed by the intensity of the problem-saturated stories. For example, both felt a deep passion for the collective purpose of a university and its desired mission. Both were fierce advocates for those unable to advocate for themselves.

Externalizing and mapping the effects  The mediator invited the parties to give an overview of their concerns and developed an externalizing conversation (White, 2007). The conversation focused on identifying the heart of the matter for the parties. Both parties need not agree on an externalized name for the conflict, although sometimes they do. The mediator then maps the effects of unfulfilled hopes and externalized problems on each of the parties. Double listening The mediator demonstrates a special listening skill as she hears what the two parties have to say. Rather than just active listening (taught to many mediators in training) she practices double listening (White, 2007), hearing both the conflict story and the counter-story sitting side by side (sometimes in the same sentence) and responding to both. A common formulation that might be used is, ‘On the one hand you feel … and on the other hand you would like …’. The story of conflict is likely to be stronger at first while the counter-story is likely to be subjugated and weaker.

After hearing both parties talk about not being respected, the mediator said, ‘So disrespect seems to be the problem we are up against. Is that right?’ Constance and Jonathan agreed. (Agreement is a unique outcome.) The mediator went on, ‘So what effect is disrespect having on you both?’ Jonathan said, ‘It makes me suspicious and distrustful of everything she says to me.’ Listening doubly to Jonathan’s utterance, she adds the unspoken other story, ‘… and you would prefer not to have to do that. Right?’ Jonathan nods. Constance was listening and said cautiously, ‘It’s the same for me.’ (Another moment of agreement.)

Finding lines of flight  The mediator seeks examples that could be called escape from the grip of the conflict. This is what Michael White (2007) refers to as unique outcomes or what Deleuze and Guattari (1987) call lines of flight to a different territory of living. Identifying differences or differentiation is key here. The mediator might ask questions like: ‘Can you tell me if you experienced, even for a brief period, some relief from these current challenges with disrespect?’ ‘Have there been times when this troubling situation has let up for a moment or two and allowed you to cooperate a little more?’ ‘When things got more difficult were there short periods that you didn’t feel completely swept up in the conflict? What does that say about your relationship?’ ‘What was that like for you? What did you do and how did you do it? What difference did it make?’ ‘What are you each prepared to do in order to defeat this problem?’

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‘What does it mean that you are developing understanding in this area?’ ‘How have you kept things from getting worse? How come things haven’t unraveled more than they currently have?’ ‘What skills do you use to prevent this issue becoming a wider conflict? Where did you learn those skills?’ ‘Are there some ethical principles that you based those actions on?’

Such questions open up lines of flight from the conflict-saturated story. They need to be asked sensitively in context, not in a barrage as they may appear here. They are listed here in order to show a range of possible lines of inquiry.

Constance and Jonathan In response to these questions a story arose of an exchange between Constance and Jonathan that was respectful and successful. Moreover, it had happened recently. ‘It means,’ said Jonathan, ‘that our relationship has not completely deteriorated.’

With a few more questions, Constance too was able to agree. This became the basis of an understanding between them. Towards the end of the meeting she suggested they both write down reflections each time they interacted and meet with the mediator to compare their understandings. Jonathan agreed. Summarizing At the completion, the mediator summarizes understandings reached and outcomes agreed upon. Sometimes further meetings are scheduled to ensure that milestones have been reached. In her summary, the mediator highlighted the similarities in what they had said. She brought forward areas of mutual cooperation and respect to strengthen relational space.

Stage Three: Follow Through This stage is important because it requires the mediator to follow up to make sure all

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that was agreed to has occurred. Follow up mediations are helpful when distrust is still high and participants in the mediation are still impacted by the emotional sense of betrayal and violation. This stage of the mediation calls upon the embedding of the counter-story in the wider culture in which the parties live. These questions are examples of what the mediator might ask: ‘What would your colleagues appreciate most about the ideas you just mentioned?’; ‘If your colleagues knew of the courage you are showing today what would they say?’; ‘What difference would it make to members of your department to know you have achieved these things?’

Constance and Jonathan Constance and Jonathan met with the mediator one month after the previous session. All parties had an opportunity to review the progress made since the previous mediation sessions. Significant changes had occurred in the way Constance and Jonathan now engaged. They both reported that the changes were holding and trust was growing as there were now multiple examples of changes in behavior. Jonathan was responding to emails from the Dean’s office within 24 hours, had met two important deadlines, and was now up to date with prior reports that he had failed to submit in the previous two months. In chair meetings Constance made a point of soliciting input from Jonathan and acknowledged his contributions to his department in community outreach. Constance also responded in the College magazine to the increased grant funding secured by faculty members in Jonathan’s department and improvements in publication rates. The changes had solidified and neither party requested further mediation although Constance remarked that she was nervous about sliding back to an older dynamic and interactional pattern that had occurred before.

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The mediator asked, ‘What would ensure that the new rhythm will be maintained and that older problem issues wouldn’t return?’ Jonathan responded, ‘Regular monthly meetings have been critical to keep lines of communication open and I would welcome the door being open to meet within a few days where Constance’s schedule allowed.’ Constance spoke directly to Jonathan, ‘Yes, absolutely. I think regular communication means small issues won’t blow up into bigger issues.’

The mediator wrapped up the session in 45 minutes and congratulated both parties on being open to mediation and vulnerable with one another about their fears and concerns and also their appreciation for the progress made. That evening, the mediator documented the session in an email to Constance and Jonathan outlining the final agreements reached and requesting confirmation of the email’s accuracy. This completed the final phase of the process. As we have identified in this chapter, conflict is understood within both a constructionist and narrative frame as arising from the dominant discourses swirling around the protagonists who are caught within wider cultural narratives and the linguistic collisions that constantly occur. The conflict between Constance and Jonathan was illustrative in part of the community struggle between ideas about how decisions should be made within a social system. In this case, at the heart of the painful challenges experienced by the parties were opposing discourses about social hierarchy and collaboration. The mediator is just as subject to these macro-level cultural narratives as are the parties to the conflict. Neutrality and impartiality, important attributes ascribed to the role of mediator by many mediation schools (Fisher and Ury, 1981; Moore, 1996) are really another set of cultural ideas held within professional discourses of the field of mediation. Professional discourses of traditional mediation models tend towards the attainment of certain widely established universalizing truths of professional conduct.

Within a narrative and constructionist frame, the idea that the mediator makes no value interventions, no judgments, assessments, or adopts a neutral posture is deeply problematic (Rifkin et al., 1991). The mediator is likely to be more attuned to particular ethical stances and hold moral positions within a community or institutional context. From a constructionist perspective, there is nothing inherently wrong with a mediator actively acting upon their ethical stance within the mediation itself. This might occur, for example, when the mediator is noticing social injustices affecting community welfare when harmful influences of racism, patriarchy, heterosexism, professional elitism or classism are present. As described in this chapter, the mediator has actively paid attention to the dominant cultural stories that feature in the background of this large university community. The professors in this conflict and the mediator assisting them are pulled into the performative invitations available in this community context. The parties are figuring out how to work effectively in a functioning relationship that enables them to experience mutual respect. The mediator is committed to helping them achieve that goal and has an ethical presence that promotes respectful interaction and the development of shared understanding. This is narrative mediation in action.

REFERENCES Cobb, S. (2013). Speaking of violence: The politics and poetics of narrative in conflict resolution. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. (B. Massumi, Trans.). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Fisher, R. & Ury, W. (1981). Getting to yes: Negotiating agreement without giving in. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

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Foucault, M. (2000). Power: Essential works of Foucault 1954–84: Volume 3 (J. D. Faubion, Ed.). New York, NY: The New Press. Gergen, K. J. (1994). Exploring the postmodern: Perils or potentials? American Psychologist, 49(5), 412–416. Gergen, K. J. (2009a). Realities and relationships: Soundings in social construction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gergen, K. J. (2009b). Relational being: Beyond self and community. New York: Oxford University Press. Gergen, K. J. (2015). An invitation to social construction. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. K.G. Gergen & M.M. Gergen (Eds.) (1984). Historical social psychology. Hillside, NJ, Erlbaum. McNamee, S. & Gergen, K. J. (2009). Relational responsibility: Resources for sustainable dialogue. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. McNamee, S. & Gergen, K. J. (2010). Therapy as social construction. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. McNamee, S. & Hosking, D. M. (2013). Research and social change: A relational constructionist approach. London: Routledge. Monk, G. & Winslade, J. (2013). When stories clash: Addressing conflict in narrative mediation. Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute. Monk, G., Winslade, J., Sinclair, S. & polanco, m. (2020). Intercultural counseling: Bridging the us and them divide. San Diego, CA: Cognella Publishing.

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Moore, C. (1996). The mediation process: Practical strategies for resolving conflict. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Rifkin, J., Millen, J. & Cobb, S. (1991). Towards a new discourse for mediation: A critique of neutrality. Mediation Quarterly, 9 (2), 151–164. White, M. (1988). The process of questioning: A therapy of literary merit. Dulwich Centre Newsletter, Winter. White, M. (1989). The externalising of the problem and the re-authoring of lives and relationships. In M. White, Selected papers (pp. 5–28). Adelaide: Dulwich Centre. White, M. (2002). Addressing personal failure. The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, 3, 33–76. White, M. (2007). Maps of narrative practice. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. White, M. & Epston, D. (1990). Narrative means to therapeutic ends. New York: W. W. Norton. Winslade, J. & Monk, G. (2000). Narrative mediation: A new approach to conflict resolution. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Winslade, J. & Monk, G. (2008). Practicing narrative mediation: Loosening the grip of conflict. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Winslade, J. & Monk, G. (2020). Narrative mediation: What is it? In S. Cobb, S. Federman & A. Castel (Eds.), Introduction to conflict resolution (pp. 780–804). London, UK: Rowman & Littlefield International.

53 Inclusion and Community Building: Profoundly Particular Janet Newbury

Social constructionism asks us to consider how meaning makes reality (Gergen, 1999), and the ways in which knowledge claims are cultural in nature (Gergen et al., 2004). This relational approach to understanding experience precludes the possibility of universalized, decontextualized, or timeless statements about the realities in which we find ourselves. They are relentlessly particular. (Everett et al., 2013) highlight the importance of locating ourselves as authors, acknowledging ‘the intersections of our identities in relation to both holding power and being the subjects of power’ (p. 16). From this perspective, it becomes impossible to generalize about place-based practices and the realities in which they occur – and which they in turn inform. It is also impossible for me, as a white Englishspeaking settler of British ancestry living on traditional and treaty Tla’amin territory on the west coast of Turtle Island (in British Columbia, Canada) to write from any other perspective than my own. And yet

we must speak to one another, attempt to hear one another, and seek forms of coordinated action that enable us to move forward together ethically (Gergen, 2007). This is the difficult and important work of inclusion and community building. The relational approach espoused by social constructionists illuminates ‘the overwhelming task of being able to attribute any influence to one particular source’ (Hoskins, 2003, p. 322). In the following pages I will track a range of ideas that support my evolving efforts to participate in inclusive community building – in both the broadest and most particular senses of the term. I will begin with questions that inform the work with which I am currently engaged. While these questions and the related resources lead me (as a particular self) to particular responses/practices, I invite readers to consider these questions from their own positionalities and places – which will hopefully generate valuable and useful responses.

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What is of interest to me at this historical moment is how those of us who have inherited privilege might position ourselves to be as useful as possible in the efforts towards social justice and equity, which will, of course, displace that privilege and center the knowledge and leadership of those whose expertise has historically been suppressed by existing systems (Reynolds, 2019). While I have grappled with the fact that I (a cisgendered, white academic) am speaking to the topic of inclusion and community building at all, I am reminded that it is the work of those in positions of power to interrogate and dismantle the structures that place us there (Kouri, 2018). This kind of structural critique should not solely be the burden of those who are least served by existing systems (Amponsah, 2019). I am also interested in how social constructionism – as a way of orienting to the social world – might contribute to this collective change process (Stewart, 2009). To be clear, I am not interested in inserting social constructionist frames of reference into community contexts. I fear that doing so would replicate colonial and imperialist patterns, regardless of intentions. As stated by Elder/Dr Elsie Paul (2019): ‘That’s what hurt the people, to have something forced upon you. And that’ll never work. Force your ideas onto someone else … instead of respecting and acknowledging other people’s culture.’ I am, however, curious about how a social constructionist orientation enables me to enter community settings in a way that is attuned to their inherent knowledge, rather than foregrounding my own. This, in turn, can resist and disrupt colonial norms of centering western knowledge and ways of working, leading to substantial community change (Stewart, 2009). Grounding this work in particulars to the best of my ability, I aim to make visible some of the forms of community we can indeed realize, but which are often kept from view by universal, capitalist, and colonial logics (Skott-Myhre and Skott-Myhre, 2007).

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QUESTIONS Inclusion and community building are risky business, and certainly not neutral (Richardson and Reynolds, 2014). They can be pursued in a (seemingly) apolitical way that demands no structural change and moves towards assimilation, imperialism, and reassertion of the status quo (see Gharabaghi, 2008). This approach is not the focus of this chapter. There is already a vast and rich body of work available about asset-based community development (Kretzmann et al., 2005), appreciative inquiry models (Cooperrider and McQuaid, 2013), and other forms of collaborative action in community settings (Westley et al., 2007). This is important work, but also not the focus of this chapter. Instead, at this moment in which our world is (perhaps once again) becoming increasingly polarized (Wanebo, 2019), I wish to examine some of the sites of conflict and tension that – if courageously and respectfully addressed – can be sites of collective growth.1 Everett et  al. (2013) acknowledge that oftentimes community work occurs at the expense of the people who are most marginalized and oppressed by existing systems and practices, and that they continue to bear the burden of redressing systemic inequities (see also Daniel, 2018b). As someone who has inherited systemic privilege, I know that my actions and inactions have at times done harm. With this chapter, I also intend to deeply consider this in relation to the pursuit of just and accountable forms of community building. Leading from this commitment, there are two questions that continuously surface as significant with regard to inclusion and community building:

How is Power Socially Constructed?2 What are the ways we come together and organize in relation to one another that

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create, reinforce, or dismantle particular structures of power? Where are the sites of learning about this and how can we show up with more accountability to power dynamics and how we are (differently) positioned within them? Importantly, accountability is not the same as perfection. Being accountable requires doing meaningful (and sometimes public) repairs when transgressions have occurred – which they will because we are operating within inequitable social conditions (Reynolds, 2019). How might such repairs contribute to the social construction of new, more equitable power relations?

What is the Role of Embodiment in this Work?3 If we foreground the material world and how we relate with ourselves and each other with/ in it, what does this do to how meaning is made? Can grounding in body and place facilitate an emergent experience of collectively building new forms of community (in contrast to an intellectualized approach)? How does grounded embodiment talk back to dominant understandings of trauma-informed practice (Clark, 2015), dialogue, community development, and collaboration? How does ‘whiteness’ show up, how is it overlooked, and where is it positioned in communitybuilding activities the world over? How does naming whiteness (or other embodied or symbolic markers connected with privilege) bring it into view, and what does that do? How does not naming it obscure it and the privileges with which it is connected, contributing to the perpetuation of structural inequities and individual shaming and blaming? Recognizing that every reader will be positioned differently in relation to these questions, I make no presumptions about shared experiences or responses. Rather, I suggest that taking these questions as a starting place can call into question some mainstream notions and practices and that this

may contribute to conditions in which more inclusive approaches to community building can be made possible (Daniel, 2018a).

SOURCES OF GUIDANCE AND RELATED PRACTICES Notions of collaborative community engagement that do not consider these questions may feel ‘inclusive’ to those who are already (generally) included, but may fail to be relevant or safe for people who are marginalized by existing systems and ways of relating (Daniel, 2018a). In order to move beyond notions of inclusion that involve drawing people into existing structures, how might we alter those very structures to be less oppressive to begin with (see de Finney et al., 2011)? This starting place upsets many notions of what it means to engage in communitybased practices, and requires that those of us who are privileged by mainstream models of working must be willing to experience discomfort – and to be de-centered – in the pursuit of more equitable social arrangements. With the questions above about power and embodiment in mind, there are many valuable sources of guidance in this endeavor.

The Disability Rights Movement It is hard for me to think about inclusion at all without turning to the work of selfadvocates and advocates within the disability sector. In British Columbia, where I live, there are convergent histories of state control and institutionalized segregation of people with disabilities and Indigenous peoples and certain immigrant groups (Roman et al., 2015). Through a detailed place-based ‘relational geneology’, Roman et  al. (2015) illustrate that these histories are not only convergent, but a concerted series of legal, medical, and political

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tactics that effectively advance the colonial nation-building project (p. 18) – privileging European white, male, ‘able’ bodies over all others. The reverberations of these policies, practices, and ideas continue today, and similar forms of state-based community annihilation can be observed in many corners of the world (see Adams, 2018). In the face of this, there has always been resistance (Wade, 2007), though the ‘deinstitionalization movement’ is said to have emerged about 50 years ago (Jones and Gallus, 2016, p. 116). Since then, a growing body of research points to the benefits of community living for people with disabilities (Jones and Gallus, 2016). In contrast to a medical model, a social model of disability shifts the focus from individual bodies to policy makers and the broader social world (Bachrach, 2015). Through the lens of a social model, it is not the responsibility of individuals to find ways to fit in, but rather it is a collective responsibility to develop more inclusive and flexible systems that are responsive to diverse experiences of being human. Self-advocates have played vital roles in informing the development of universal design principles, for instance, that contribute to more inclusive systems (Bjork, 2009). Importantly, however, it is also from within the disability sector that many critiques of inclusion discourses arise. While inclusion seeks to include everyone in full participation in society, critical disability scholars invite us to question whether full participation in a society that is at its core capitalist, colonialist, and exclusive is really in the best interest of most people? Kunc et al. (2015) highlight the ‘right to be disabled’ and ways this can inform a solid rejection of forms of community that privilege particular accomplishments, norms, and values at the expense of others. Inclusion discourses, if not critically engaged with, can lead to a ‘normalization’ of dominant ways of being and a reading of any other embodied or relational experience as a potential ‘signifier of pathology’ (Goodley and Runswick-Cole, 2012, p. 64).

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Skott-Myhre and Skott-Myhre (2007) remind us that there are ‘new forms of community produced by living relationships’, but that capitalist logics keep them from view (p. 50). When mired in these logics, we may not (yet) recognize subversive forms of community as grounded possibilities.

Structuring Safety What are some ways diverse human experiences and emergent forms of community can be brought to light? Structuring safety – culturally, emotionally, and physically – is increasingly being recognized as a crucial and complex priority in any relational work (Richardson and Reynolds, 2014). The complexity is in large part due to the dynamics identified through the questions above – (1) how power is socially constructed, and (2) what the role of embodiment might be in community-building work – and the fact that safety is not our collective starting place. Inequities related to power relations and embodiment, for example, mean that no situation is universally safe. As a white, English-speaking, middleclass person with two teachers as parents, school was never a particularly dangerous place for me. The education system privileged my social identity; normalized my cultural ways of being in the world; and celebrated the values and practices of my ancestors. That is not the case for the hundreds of thousands of Indigenous people in Canada who were forced into residential or day schools and experienced the physical, sexual, spiritual, emotional, and cultural violence of that system – or for their children and grandchildren (Talaga, 2017). For people to whom the education system has been historically violent, many practices that take place within the current system – as well as the architecture of schools and universities themselves – and the overwhelming centering of white Euro-western knowledge, people, and ways of teaching and learning, continue to enact

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violence. It is not safe. The same can be said for the healthcare system, the child welfare system, social services, the justice system, and more. Talaga (2017) points out that ‘the Indian Act, … a form of apartheid, … outlined every aspect of life for an Indigenous person in Canada’ and persists to this day (p. 58). Of course, this is not the case for Canada alone. South Africa’s apartheid system, for instance, was modeled on the Canadian ‘Indian Act’ (Giesbrecht, 2018). Education, healthcare systems, and justice systems the world over have been tools to effect colonial rule (Fast and Collin-Vezina, 2010; Lawson-Te Aho and Liu, 2010; Payne et al., 2017; Vance et al., 2016). Structuring safety, then, is a vital component of inclusive community-building practice. Richardson and Reynolds (2014) offer up some important considerations when it comes to structuring safety amidst such outright dangerous conditions. These include: ‘contesting neutrality, negotiating permission, making potential risk apparent, anticipating backlash, holding space for hope, engaging in reflective questioning, and not retraumatizing the person’ (p. 147). Elsewhere, Reynolds (2014) presents specific questions and practices that contribute to the ability to make discussions of safety explicit (and safe-enough to have). It is a simultaneously tentative and courageous process. Koosen Pielle is a ‘language warrior’ and powerful young change-maker in the community where I live. Together, she and her business partner Zoe Ludski run an organization called Taxumajeh’jeh. One of the community-building initiatives Taxumajeh’jeh offers is a workshop called the Blanket Exercise. An example of how one might structure safety by centering community knowledge appears in neh motl, the Tla’amin Nation’s community newspaper. In her article, Pielle (2019) invites community members to participate in the Blanket Exercise.

In this writing, it is evident that Pielle understands that structuring safety begins well in advance of the event itself. She structures safety for potential participants by: opening and closing the article in ayayjuthem (the Tla’amin people’s language); introducing herself and her family lineage; explaining in detail the purpose and background of the Exercise; explicitly naming and validating feelings of anger, shame, and uncertainty that people may have; connecting those individual (and isolating) feelings with collective colonial histories; and letting people know exactly what the Exercise will involve. This is part of meaningful informed consent, as readers can determine for themselves their readiness or willingness to attend. Then, she also lets readers know how safety will be fostered during the event. She introduces all the facilitators, describes the layout of the room and what will take place, discusses shared responsibilities in having courageous conversations, and explains that they ‘always include cedar in our workshops’ (which community members will know means there will be a cedar brushing to take care of them spiritually before they leave). She also makes clear that this collective work is made possible with the contributions of many community members over time, whom she names (p. 1). In taking such care with this invitation, Pielle (2019) is structuring safety for a community-building event that is likely to feel inclusive to people who have repeatedly been violated in public, educational settings. She is attending to emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual well-being in the process, by drawing on the specific spiritual and cultural teachings of those who are being invited to participate. She is careful not to replicate colonial patterns in the content of the Exercise, and structurally in the way it is presented and delivered as well. In these ways, she treats this Exercise not as an isolated event, but as part of a broader, ongoing community-building movement that began before her and will continue long after it is

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over. Her work occurs in relation to all else (Betasamosake Simpson, 2017). With a deep place-based understanding of the contexts within which any community practice takes place, it becomes clear that safety can never be guaranteed. Reynolds (2014) contests the binary of safe and unsafe, and speaks of the need for ‘safe-enough’ conditions. In the example above, Pielle (2019) is not making promises that the Blanket Exercise will be completely safe for participants. However, in line with Reynolds’ (2014) recommendations, she is transparent about the potential emotional risks of participation as well as inviting participants into courageous conversations in a collaborative way, respecting their personal experiences, addressing power, taking care not to retraumatize her participants, and drawing on cultural resources (such as cedar brushing) in order to offer spiritual and material sources of safety that are relevant to them. Safety is in constant negotiation (Reynolds, 2014), and our work is (at a minimum) to attune to the places in which safety is compromised in order to address them in ways that do no further harm.

Ta’ow Koosen Pielle is one of the role models from whom I am learning about community building. What I see in her practice is an embodiment of the ta’ow,4 the traditional teachings of the Tla’amin people. This embodiment enables her to be minutely responsive in a given moment to the many dimensions of the experience she is facilitating. Her words and actions are not rehearsed and outcome oriented. I am not in a position to speak directly to the ta’ow,5 but I can see that they contribute to Koosen’s ability to work in a way that is guided by respect – for self, place, and others; past, present, and future. In a recent meeting with William (Bill) Mussel (Stó:l¯o), I was reminded again of the value of embodied teachings, and the significant structural shift to which this can contribute in practice. A group of us were preparing

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to present our multi-year project (wisepractices.ca) to an audience of instructors, students, researchers, and practitioners. Bill is a senior member of our team, who brings a lifetime of experiences grounded in both Indigenous and western knowledge systems. As closing remarks in our preparatory meeting, he said: The Euro-western world is not relational at all. We need to speak to this, so people don’t think about this work in terms of a ‘replicable product’. Life is relational at all levels – even among generations and with ancestors. The dialogue is so critical. We can’t assume that as Indigenous and nonIndigenous people we can automatically work together just by being together. We are actively resisting the model that centers outcomes. And this is a very rare thing! These are the things that have helped us to stick together over such a long time: we eat together, we start with ceremony, we welcome each other, we have difficult conversations. Decolonization is a long, long, process, but is ultimately supported by hope, purpose, meaning, and belonging.

Bill reminded us that we need to put energy into preparing ourselves for this conference workshop so we will show up in a good way and of one mind, and that we need to set aside time to debrief together afterwards so we will leave in a good way as well. The teachings that guide Bill, Koosen, and others are distinct and place-based, and have been deliberately obscured through generations of racist colonial violence. But we cannot proceed with any kind of community work and call it inclusive without actively supporting the resurgence of violently suppressed teachings, languages, and cultural practices. Ansloos (2017) reminds us that ‘no method is viable if it does harm to any part of the sacred order’ and he advocates ‘an ethical commitment to wholeness’ (p. 93) that resists the perpetuation of fragmentation, individualization, and isolation. He says, ‘the imbalance of violence must be countered by a reestablishing of relations’ – and we all have a role to play in this (p. 93).

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Similarly, Betasamosake Simpson (2017) shares examples of how Nishnaabeg understandings of life are not of a linear process through which one soul moves, but rather ‘cycles of creative energies, continual processes that bring forth more life and more creation and more thinking’ (p. 24). While profoundly particular about the teachings she offers, Betasamosake Simpson’s (2017) guidance is never prescriptive. This leaves us each to consider our own responsibilities in relation to such ‘cycles of creative energies’ (p. 24).

Courageous Conversations Despite the abundance of guides and role models for good work, some of my most profound learning has come when I have gotten it wrong. If I am committed to doing inclusion and community building differently, it is an ethical responsibility of mine to make these transgressions visible (Reynolds, 2019). While these experiences have precipitated growth, I am keenly aware that this has come at a cost to others. The cumulative effect of the violence of white people (who continue to occupy positions of privilege) places high demands on marginalized friends, community members, and colleagues: an emotional burden that is not theirs to bear (Daniel, 2018b). Before elaborating, I want to clarify what I mean by violence, so perhaps more people can recognize ourselves in this dynamic. Vachon (2018) describes micro-aggressions in this way: … the (apparently) interminable acts of violence that people in positions of privilege commit, often non-consciously, towards minoritized others. ‘Little’ moments that happen, daily, hourly, endlessly. They’re frequently not noted by those of us who hold white privilege (like myself), and we’re often uncomfortable, defensive, and dismissive when confronted on them. (p. 15)

Vachon (2018) points out that micro-aggressions may in themselves not seem like violence to

those perpetrating them, but they act cumulatively over time, and as such are indeed violent to those experiencing them. Zoe Ludski, referenced above, centers the work of Singleton and Linton (2006) in all she does – particularly their protocol for courageous conversations. The protocol is comprised of four agreements: Stay engaged (physically, emotionally, and morally); experience discomfort (these conversations will be uncomfortable, but silence creates divisiveness and does harm); speak your truth (not just what you think others want to hear); and expect and accept nonclosure (quick solutions are not the answer – this requires ongoing dialogue). The protocol for courageous conversations also proposes conditions that can facilitate this kind of dialogue (Singleton and Linton, 2006). The conditions encourage us to establish parameters for the conversations (discussing agreements and conditions); to focus on the personal, local, and immediate (rather than generalized abstractions); to explicitly name race (which includes using a ‘working definition’ of race and examining the presence and role of ‘whiteness’); and to actively invite multiple perspectives, normalizing social construction. This explicit mention of social construction is interesting to me, as it highlights how such an orientation (if taken up in a way that is responsive and humble) can help us resist dogmatic approaches to conflict and difference, particularly in situations influenced by a significant structural power imbalance. When safety has been attended to, as described earlier, and these conditions are put in place, then courageous conversations can emerge in unlikely places, leading to individual healing and structural transformation that contributes to experiences of inclusion and community that may have previously been out of reach (Cumings Mansfield and Jean-Marie, 2015). I have witnessed Ludski bring the four agreements to life in personal and professional settings, leading to profound shifts in individuals

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and institutions alike in our community. In effect, it is through this process that more equitable social arrangements are slowly being socially constructed. As Betasamosake Simpson (2017) says, ‘Our most important work is internal, and the kinds of transformations we are compelled to make, the kinds of alternatives we are compelled to embody are profoundly systemic’ (p. 6). Oftentimes, when discussions around difficult conversations emerge, the focus is on facilitating them for others. Vachon (2018) suggests that when we witness micro-aggressions we ‘call people in’ by inviting compassionate and honest conversations about such things as whiteness, shame, and accountability. Rather than distancing ourselves from those who have enacted the violence, we can reflect on our own misuses of power or privilege as well, as a form of collective accountability. This – over time – might incrementally contribute to much safer conditions for more of us as we awaken to the ways in which power is socially constructed (including the ways it can be dismantled). Vachon (2018) identifies listening as an important tool for combatting oppression (including one’s own complicity). But where is the guidance for the person being called out (or called in)? Daniel (2018b) points to the many ways she is repeatedly silenced when speaking about race in the academy, and the many microaggressions she experiences from students, colleagues, and others on a regular basis. When people are called out on these instances, she is often met with defensive explanations about the integrity of one’s character that in turn dismisses the violence that is being addressed. The cumulative impact of this is the invisiblizing of a very real – and damaging – experience. Daniel (2018b) explains this backlash: When structurally embedded privileges are rendered visible, this often leads to a rupture in the fabric of the cloak of White innocence. When a Black person causes that rupturing, the forms of symbolic and actual violence can be damaging … (p. 25)

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Accapadi (2007) draws on the Privileged Identity Exploration Model to explain how experiences like Daniel’s (2018b) work at the intersections of identity and systematically privilege white women over women of color. She notes that our social structures are largely designed around white identities in such a way as to perpetuate this. Denial, rationalization, false envy, and benevolence are enacted and validated in these instances in ways that continue to keep white people in positions of power, and flip the ‘problem’ of the micro-aggression onto the racialized victim (Accapadi, 2007). Knowing this, it becomes possible to actively resist the construction of power that perpetuates this dynamic. Through her work with Taxumajeh’jeh, Ludski has developed strategies to help in this pursuit. Knowing that power is fluid and pervasive, we must acknowledge that we are all embedded in these dynamics. It may be through our responses that we can in some ways alter these wellworn and damaging patterns. When being called out, Ludski (2018) recommends: 1 Stop talking. 2 Listen to what the person is saying and to what they heard you say. 3 Think. Could you learn more about the topic you were speaking on? Could you have expressed yourself differently? 4 Express humility. Apologize for your ignorance and ask for guidance on how to restate yourself or where to learn more. 5 If you catch yourself being defensive: take a breath. 6 Ask yourself what am I afraid of? 7 Go to step 1.

Courageous conversations in themselves can be a powerful form of inclusive community building. They are an outright rejection of a form of community that is exclusive – and set the groundwork for new forms of community to emerge.

CONCLUSION Reynolds (2013) speaks about imperfect allyship as being deeply informed by ‘justice

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doing and decolonizing practice’ (p. 53), and above I have outlined some of the ways I have ‘leaned in’ to this tenuous process. As a theoretical orientation to this work, social constructionism assists me to stay with the ambiguities that present themselves and remain curious. The scholars, friends, and colleagues referenced throughout this chapter have been central to my ongoing learning about community-based practice that moves us towards justice rather than replicating violence. Considering power and embodiment has led me to reflect upon sources of guidance that support me in community work. The disability rights movement, structuring safety, ta’ow, and courageous conversations help me to discern what ethical action might be for me – in my particular body, time, and place. Should I step forward, or should I step back? Who should I consult? Who should I invite along with me – or in my place? What should I do to create the conditions for a safe-enough experience, and who else might be better positioned to do that? How can courageous conversations be facilitated that will add to this experience of safety – and what conditions need to be in place to support these conversations? Who should I check in with to see if I have mis-stepped, and what should I do when I have? To whom am I accountable? I begin and conclude this writing with questions, not answers. As noted at the outset, Gergen (2007) urges us to approach conflict in ways ‘that do not tend toward mutual extermination’ (p. 371). Perhaps questions can help us do that, by providing multiple and ongoing opportunities to listen (Vachon, 2018) so we can pursue uniquely particular forms of community building.

AKNOWLEDGMENT Sincere thanks to Dr Marie Hoskins for valuable feedback, and to all those whose work and lives inform this chapter – and for their

permission to share some of what I have learned from them here.

Notes 1  This thinking is deeply informed by courageous conversations with Zoe Ludski, Dr Beverly-Jean Daniel, Wolfgang Vachon, Fiona Mayhill, Shanne McCaffrey, Dr Vikki Reynolds, Robert Mackle, and Kaz MacKenzie. 2  I gratefully borrow this question from my friend, Fiona Mayhill. 3  This question is informed by the subtle and powerful embodied wisdom I am constantly witnessing in my friend and mentor, Doreen Hopkins, and so many others (10 August, 2020) from the Tla’amin Nation who graciously teach me with their examples; in my husband, Kymo Van Oers; and in the many children in my life. I have much to learn about relational practice that takes the body and the land as its starting place. 4  You can learn how to pronouce ta’ow in ayayjuthem, here: https://www.firstvoices.com/ explore/FV/sections/Data/Salish/Northern%20 Salishan/Sliammon/learn/words/52633e12-899d4920-9ba0-ac6d668fb5ed (10 August, 2020) 5  You can hear Elder/Dr Elsie Paul speak about the ta’ow in her own words, here: http://publicatio ns.ravenspacepublishing.org/as-i-remember-it/ index

REFERENCES Accapadi, M. M. (2007). When white women cry: How white women’s tears oppress women of color. College Student Affairs Journal, 26(2), 208–215. Adams, C. (2018). Nurturing belonging: (Re) centering Indigenous perspectives on disability. CYC-Online (November, 2018). Retrieved 18 June, 2019 from https://www.cyc-net. org/cyc-online/nov2018.pdf Amponsah, P. (2019). A conversation with Juanita Stephen and Peter Amponsah from the Child and Youth Care Alliance for Racial Equity (CARE), with Wolfgang Vachon. C2Y: Discussions on Child and Youth Care. Retrieved 20 June, 2019 from https:// www.podbean.com/site/EpisodeDownload/ PBB2BC06B7DRT Ansloos, J. (2017). The medicine of peace: Indigenous youth decolonizing healing and

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resisting violence. Victoria, BC: Fernwood Press. Bachrach, T. (2015). Furthering disability rights through inclusive education and employment. Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, 42, 257–261. Betasamosake Simpson, L. (2017). As we have always done: Indigenous freedom through radical resistance. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Bjork, E. (2009). Many become losers when the Universal Design perspective is neglected: Exploring the true cost of ignoring Universal Design principles. Technology and Disability, 21, 117–125. Clark, N. (2015). Shock and awe: Trauma as the new colonial frontier. Humanities, 5(1), 1–16. Cooperrider, D. & McQuaid, M. (2013). The positive arc of systemic strengths: How appreciative inquiry and sustainable designing can bring out the best in human systems. Journal of Corporate Citizenship, 46, 1–31. Cumings Mansfield, K. & Jean-Marie, G. (2015). Courageous conversations about race, class, and gender: Voices and lessons from the field. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 28(7), 819–841. Daniel, B. J. (2018a). Racism is a thing! Reexamination of the concepts of care and relational practice in the preparation of child and youth care practitioners. Relational Child and Youth Care Practice, 31(3), 31–42. Daniel, B. J. (2018b). Teaching while black: Racial dynamics, evaluations, and the role of white females in the Canadian academy in carrying the racism torch. Race, Ethnicity, and Education, 22(1), 21–37. de Finney, S., Dean, M., Loiselle, E., & Saraceno, J. (2011). All children are equal, but some are more equal than others: Minoritization, structural inequities, and social justice praxis in residential care. International Journal of Child, Youth and Family Studies, 2(3/4), 361–384. Everett, B., MacFarlane, D., Reynolds, V., & Anderson, H. (2013). Not on our backs: Supporting counselors in navigating the ethics of multiple relationships within queer, two spirit, and/or trans communities. Canadian Journal of Counselling and Psychotherapy, 47(1), 14–28.

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Fast, E. & Collin-Vezina, D. (2010). Historical trauma, race-based trauma, and resilience of Indigenous peoples: A literature review. First Peoples Child and Family Review, 5(1), 126–136. Gergen, K. (1999). An invitation to social construction. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Gergen, K. (2007). Relativism, religion, and relational being. Common Knowledge, 13(2– 3), 362–378. Gergen, K., Lightfoot, C., & Sidow, L. (2004). Social construction: Vistas in clinical child and adolescent psychology. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 33(2), 389–399. Gharabaghi, K. (2008). Contextual dialectics in relational work with youth. Relational Child and Youth Care Practice, 21(2), 5–9. Giesbrecht, B. (2018). Canada’s persistent apartheid system. Troy Media. Retrieved 18 June, 2019 from https://troymedia.com/ 2018/09/11/indigenous-apartheid-systemcanada/ Goodley, D. & Runswick-Cole, K. (2012). Reading Rosie: The postmodern disabled child. Education and Child Psychology, 29(2), 53–66. Hoskins, M. (2003). What unites us, what divides us? A multicultural agenda within child and youth care. Child and Youth Care Forum, 32(6), 319–336. Jones, J. & Gallus, K. (2016). Understanding deinstitutionalization: What families value and desire in the transition to community living. Research and Practice for Persons with Severe Disabilities, 41(2), 116–131. Kouri, S. (2018). Empire and identity: The ethics of becoming other than what we are. CYC-Online (September, 2018), pp. 18–27. Retrieved 18 June, 2019 from https://www. cyc-net.org/cyc-online/sep2018.pdf Kretzmann, J., McKnight, J., Dobrowolski, S., & Puntenney, D. (2005). Discovering community power: A guide to mobilizing local assets and your organization’s capacity. Evanston, IL: Asset-Based Community Development Institute. Kunc, N., Reynolds, V., Munro, A., & Van der Klift, E. (2015). Relocating the problem of disability: Norm Kunc, Emma Van der Klift, Vikki Reynolds and Aaron Munro [Video File]. Retrieved 26 March, 2018 from https:// dulwichcentre.com.au/relocating-the-problemof-disability-norm-kunc-emma-van-der-kliftvikki-reynolds-and-aaron-munro/

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Lawson-Te Aho, K. & Liu, J. (2010). Indigenous suicide and colonization: The legacy of violence and the necessity of self-determination. International Journal of Conflict and Violence, 4(1), 124–133. Ludski, Z. (2018). What to do when someone calls you out. Unpublished document. Adapted June 2018 from ‘Responding to everyday bigotry speak up!’ by Teaching Tolerance, Southern Poverty Law Centre. Paul, E. (with McKenzie, D., Raibmon, P., & Johnson, H.) (2019). Colonialism: Resilience in the face of racism and conflict. As I Remember It: Teachings (Ɂəms taɁaw) from the Life of a Sliammon Elder. Retrieved 24 June, 2019 from http://publications.ravenspacepublishing.org/as-i-remember-it/colonialism. Payne, H., Steele, M., Bingham, J., & Sloan, C. (2017). Identifying and reducing disparities in mental health outcomes among American Indians and Alaskan Natives using public health, mental healthcare and legal perspectives. Administration and Policy in Mental Health, doi: 10.1007/s10488-016-0777-7 Pielle, K. (2019). Blanket Exercises open to Tla’amin members in February. Neh motl (February, 2019), pp. 1 & 5. Reynolds, V. (2013). ‘Leaning in’ as imperfect allies in community work. Narrative and Conflict: Explorations in Theory and Practice, 1(1), 53–75. Reynolds, V. (2014). Centering ethics in group supervision: Fostering cultures of critique and structuring safety. International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, 1, 1–13. Reynolds, V. (2019). Justice-doing at the intersections of power: Community work, therapy and supervision. Available from the Dulwich Centre. Richardson, C. & Reynolds, V. (2014). Structuring safety in therapeutic work alongside Indigenous survivors of residential schools. Canadian Journal of Native Studies, XXXIV(2), 147–164. Roman, L., Brown, S., Noble, S., Wainer, R., & Young, A. (2015). No time for nostalgia!

Asylum-making, medicalized colonialism in British Columbia (1859–97) and artistic praxis for social transformation. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 21(1), 17–63. Singleton, G. & Linton, C. (2006). Courageous conversations about race: A field guide for achieving equity in schools. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. Skott-Myhre, H. & Skott-Myhre, K. (2007). Radical youth work: Love and community. Relational Child and Youth Care Practice, 20(3), 48–57. Stewart, S. (2009). Family counseling as decolonization: Exploring an Indigenous socialconstructivist approach in clinical practice. First Peoples Child and Family Review, 4(1), 62–70. Talaga, T. (2017). Seven fallen feathers: Racism, death, and hard truths in a northern city. Toronto, ON: House of Anansi Press. Vachon, W. (2018). Child and youth care fragility. CYC Online (June, 2018), pp. 14–18. Vance, A., McGaw, J., Winther, J., & Raynor, M. (2016). Towards an Aboriginal knowledge place: Cultural practices as a pathway to wellness in the context of a tertiary hospital. International Journal of Indigenous Health, 11(1), 244–261. Wade, A. (2007). Despair, resistance, hope: Response-based therapy with victims of violence. In C. Flaskas, I. McCarthy, & J. Sheehan (Eds.), Hope and despair in narrative and family therapy: Adversity, forgiveness and reconciliation (pp. 63–74). New York, NY: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group. Wanebo, N. (2019). Post-election: An energized Europe faces a polarized era. Global Risk Insights: Know Your World. Retrieved 18 June, 2019 from https://globalriskinsights. com/2019/06/post-election-an-energizedeurope-faces-a-polarized-era/ Westley, F., Zimmerman, B., & Patton, M. Q. (2007). Getting to maybe: How the world is changed. Toronto, ON: Vintage Canada.

54 Placemaking, Social Construction, and the Global South Celiane Camargo-Borges and Cesar A. Ferragi

INTRODUCTION Since the 1990s, interest in the concept of place (as opposed to space) has emerged across a spectrum of social science disciplines, such as planning (Friedmann, 2010), public art (Fleming, 2007), and community building (Gober and Trapido-Lurie, 2006). ‘Place’, in these diverse disciplines, has been defined as sense of place, attachment to place, place meanings, place dependence, place identity, and place-based planning (Amsden et al., 2011). The spectrum of these studies, increasingly referred to as placemaking, is wide and touches on and borrows from a variety of areas. This chapter affirms that place-oriented approaches can be linked with community-based approaches, which have become more widely researched among academics, and the knowledge produced is being used by policymakers and managers. Specifically in community building, there has been an expansion of disciplines tackling this topic (besides the

traditional fields of psychology, sociology, anthropology) and the link with placemaking seems to enrich both approaches to help communities develop. The fields of tourism and leisure are some of them, serving as tools for community building by engaging citizens with possible visitors, as well as with surrounding natural resources. For example, some studies focus on place transformation, having food production sites becoming spaces of touristic experience while bringing community development (Everett, 2012); another example is a filminduced tourism influencing the construction of a sense of a place (Alderman et al., 2012); within leisure there is also a growing interest in leisure places creating meaning and purpose of life as a generator of more affirming identities (Williams, 2002). Despite the progressiveness of these ideas, these interdisciplinary and innovative perspectives have been chiefly on areas in the north hemisphere. Santos (2014) attributes that to the historical power that the North

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has over the global South. The term global South has been emerging in transnational and postcolonial studies and refers to what may also be called the ‘Developing World’. According to Santos, Western domination has strongly marginalized knowledge and wisdom that had been in existence and further developed in the global South. This knowledge is not being accessed and distributed to the global North due to what Santos calls ‘epistemological blindness’. Santos (2009) argues that in times of globalization and interconnectedness, it is imperative to recover and valorize the epistemological diversity of the world: there is plenty of new knowledge being developed to cope with contemporary struggles such as accelerated urbanization, peripheries of large metropolitan cities in need of innovation, and sustainable development. Furthermore, in times of thinking global and acting local, from a placemaking perspective, Richards (2017) outlines the need to incorporate multiple dimensions within the constituencies and descriptions of the community experience. Social construction, as a relational epistemology (Gergen, 2015; McNamee and Hosking, 2012), can offer a theoretical understanding to support those ideas, contributing to an expansion of intelligibility among multiple experiences of the world. By articulating placemaking with constructionism and offering an illustration, this chapter also aims at expressing the diversity and richness of the worldview of the global South, which embraces different races, religions, and cultures, all co-existing in a syncretism which produces local knowledge. The chapter will also expand on the connection and articulation of placemaking and the approach of social construction as a relational epistemology. It will show, by an illustration from the global South (Brazil), how placemaking practices are translating social constructionist ideas into action. We argue that the process-oriented focus on placemaking and the emphasis on emergence articulate really well with the philosophy of social construction.

All these combinations can value and hold the epistemological diversity that the world needs, bringing a more creative and innovative approach to community development as well as new ways of knowing, embracing knowledge as plural and holistic.

DEFINING PLACEMAKING AND CONNECTING TO COMMUNITY BUILDING Placemaking is a relatively new area of knowledge/application coming mainly from cultural geography, focusing on values, perceptions, memories and traditions of a group and how they create meaning in a certain geographic space, developing a sense of place (Wortham-Galvin, 2008). It has also been used to develop interesting activities in a place mostly designed by urban planners and landscape architects. Wyckoff et al. (2015) brings one possible definition: ‘Placemaking is the process of creating quality places where people want to live, work, play, shop, learn, and visit’ (p. vi). This author proposes a connection with an entrepreneurial approach in order to also bring economic development to a region, focusing on a more strategic placemaking to public policy. This approach has also been growing in the fields of leisure and tourism (Coghlan et al., 2017; Derrett, 2015; Hultman and Hall, 2012), especially among those working in destination management and marketing, promoting the visibility of a destination in more participatory ways. According to Lew (2017), a review of 62 placemaking publications showed that tourism was a primary focus for 27 (43.5%) of the publications, and was peripheral or non-existent in the others. The focus is usually on public spaces and how people can (or cannot) connect with them, framing, shaping, and creating meaning around that. Placemaking as an approach brings an intentionality into

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the process of creating this sense of place, the belonging aspects of a place. It is an interdisciplinary approach that grew beyond geography, tourism, or destination management, bringing a participatory approach to increase the livability of a community. The placemaking goal in general is to design and co-create places and spaces together with the locals that bring a better quality of life to people. It can include a variety of elements: from urban design, focusing more on the physical places such as buildings and schools, to arts and culture, aiming at creating a more vibrant environment, as well as highlighting sustainable businesses which promote financial means for community development. Social goals are usually a great part of placemaking and one that is quite related to the well-known community building approach. One interesting example of transforming cities and communities through placemaking is the Project for Public Spaces, working in partnership with the United Nations (www. pps.org/projects). According to the professionals involved in this project the goal is to revitalize communities through enhancing connections between people and places. Working for more than twenty years, they describe placemaking as a philosophy and a practice based on participatory processes in which community is actively involved in the democratic decision making. These processes are not preordained; they are dynamic and evolving. Experimentation is key in making what they call ‘lighter, quicker, cheaper’ prototypes, which means solutions that are easy to implement, low-cost, and impact positively on the communities. Another example of placemaking is the work of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) at MIT, working with placemaking processes of the 21st century, as they say. That means building social capital by using the available technology of the information age, such as crowdsourced production, social media platforms, etc., at every level of placemaking, from publicity and promoting awareness to local

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agriculture initiatives (community gardens, for instance). The examples above can help incentivize and nurture community building approaches. Community building, however, comes from a different range of disciplines that have been well spread from the Social Work and Psychology fields (Nowell and Boyd, 2010; Townley et al., 2011; Montero, 2002). Community building traditionally aims at promoting social transformation, emphasizing the empowerment of community members and a sense of connectedness. The focus of community building is primarily on individuals (usually vulnerable populations) and how to empower them to fight for their rights and to find opportunities for their communities to develop. Participation is also key in creating strategies and approaching change. The Handbook of Community Psychology (Rappaport and Seidman, 2000) features plenty of chapters on community building, focusing mainly on individual development, discussing many approaches to change, and highlighting the need to understand how people interact and how social systems affect development. Montero (2002) calls attention to how the dominant approach on community psychology dichotomizes subject–object, looking at individuals versus their environment. Despite having different foci, placemaking and community building clearly share much common ground. Both seek complex understandings on quality of life, relating not just to economic but also social and cultural aspects, while focusing on life itself as the criteria to define quality, looking at relationships and ways of living in particular locations (Brandão, 2005). This encourages a sense of belonging in a certain territory and incentivizes people to become co-responsible for what is created there. Both actively promote community development; both encourage and advance public participation and community-led initiatives. And their relationship becomes even closer when looking at community building through the lens of social constructionism (Montero, 2002).

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The goal here is to argue that the placemaking approach can be an innovative addition to community building, and that social constructionism can be a valuable theory to support the philosophical understanding and the creation of useful concepts and ideas around placemaking. While the classical approach of community building focuses more on individuals and empowerment, placemaking adds the design of places and spaces to generate powerful experiences, creating livable communities. The philosophy of constructionism has been increasingly used in community building, inviting a more relational focus on matters. The assumption here is that social constructionism can be a useful epistemology to both approaches, connecting them and expanding conceptual horizons.

PLACEMAKING AND SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM – AN ILLUSTRATION FROM THE GLOBAL SOUTH The following illustration offers one concrete example of how placemaking, community building, and social constructionism may combine. This example is intended to be suggestive of imaginative possibilities, not necessarily definitive of how community building, placemaking, and social construction must necessarily work together. Over the years, a strong partnership has emerged between Brazilian and Dutch1 universities together with local NGOs in Brazil. These partnerships have resulted in several types of collaboration focusing on placemaking. One of them is situated in the territory known as Perus, a neighborhood in the outskirts of São Paulo, and features Quilombaque, an NGO in the area. Quilombaque is currently developing leisure and tourism as a means for local development (Schroeder, 2018). The partnership between the universities and Quilombaque culminated in a placemaking intervention organized in Perus in December

2018, in which professors, researchers and students along with local guides, activists and social actors collaborated. The aim was to bring together a plurality of knowledge and narratives to experiment and to create initiatives to the development of the community-based tourism in Perus.

The Region of Perus and Quilombaque Perus, with a population of 80,000, is not a well-known Brazilian community. The region has always suffered from lack of governmental attention and struggles with poverty, violence, and a high rate of homicide among black youth, as well as with the threat of displacement of indigenous communities. Although it is a poor area with no visibility, it features important history and many interesting stories, such as having had one of the first train stations in the country, as well as the first cement factory, which led to the arrival of thousands of migrants at the beginning of the 20th century (Siqueira, 2001). Quilombaque, a local NGO founded in 2005, builds upon the rich history and stories of Perus to create a collective to resist and to convert the community into a safer and more productive area. The name is a combination of quilombo (settlement of fugitive slavered black people) and batuque (a musical genre with African roots). Quilombaque uses storytelling, art, culture, and local resources to transform Perus into a livable place and a creative destination. Quilombaque has engaged in extensive work to build an ‘intangible heritage’ of the region, a territorial museum, promoting Perus as a destination. The NGO manages this ‘intangible heritage’ in strategic as well as creative ways. They occupy abandoned places and areas in the neighborhood and they redefine the meaning of these places by transforming them into cultural establishments. These places become meeting and

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learning spaces for locals, as well as a destination for visitors to learn about the local history and culture. The abandoned cement factory, for example, was converted into historical ruins and the empty space at a school a public library. In this way, the community was able to make important linkages with its past, but in repurposing the spaces, also ensured that its history is preserved as a living memory, and allowing for a dynamic continuity. Instead of being points of danger, fire hazards, and other sorts of liabilities, these neglected and derelict spaces have become sites of vitality, providing places to meet and locations where different elements of the community may intersect. This territorial museum is organized as a series of paths or ‘trails’ (trilhas in Portuguese), taking visitors to different points of interest within the neighborhood. The trails highlight the cultural, historical, and recreational aspects of the community. They are about the past, present, and future of Perus, and offer pathways for exploring the area while also sharing important history and local folklore. The trails are managed by the NGO, creating and facilitating strong community networks, where each member can offer his or her own expertise and be a leader of a specific space or topic. Thus community knowledge and experience become assets, and subjects of interest and respect from those both within and outside of Perus. What might have once been overlooked, or seen merely as decadence, are instead celebrated and rightly understood as valuable. In this way, the shift in community life is both conceptual and tangible.

Setting up the Placemaking Intervention A two-day placemaking project was designed, having the NGO, the community and universities (teachers and students) forming a team to work together. The team has worked under one of the core

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placemaking principles, which is participation and experimentation on the spot together with those involved. To this end, two trails were selected as a sample for the exploration of the territorial museum. This was the starting point for creating dialogue and reflections for the territory, learning and co-creating in order to improve the quality of the place and people by exploring ways to develop sustainable businesses in the region. Also as part of the placemaking approach, collaborative practices are central to tap into the plurality of knowledge. Community members, tourists, academics, and students all learned from each other and shared different perspectives on the same topic. The team together visited the territorial museum via the historical/cultural trails. All the participants (around 40 people, including students, employees, NGO volunteers, and some citizens of Perus) engaged in the activities offered along these routes as a way to understand them, dialogue about them, and finally provide valuable feedback and ideas for the strengthening of this communitybased tourism. Through the design of experiences and storytelling, these two-day projects inspired all the participants to learn and to engage with the local culture.

Opening the Project – The Mandala The official opening of the project comprised a ritual called ‘mandala with the drums’, an African ritual that represents the beginning of a relationship. The participants were introduced to the Jongo, a cultural Afro-Brazilian ‘wheel dance’ from Africa that helps people integrate and connect. In a circle, Quilombaque members started playing the drums and all the participants started dancing, clapping, and singing. Quilombaque always promotes these openings to engage participants while introducing their local culture and their African ancestry, and as a way to preserve the traditions of their community.

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After the mandala, the NGO shared an overview of who they are and how they are becoming an example of what Belmonte and Silvestre (2018) called ‘resistance tourism’. According to the authors, there is an emergence of a ‘resistance tourism’ in the global South as a result of organized social movements that struggle for social rights developing alongside processes of resistance. Although these communities may be disparaged or neglected by local, state, and national governments, there is an effort by locals to resist and to persist over the years, recognizing and embracing their valuable cultural contributions and translating them into leisure and tourism experiences. Tourism offers one way to cultivate that outside interest, while also providing revenue for local people. The tourism also increases visibility, helps reduce isolation, and provides opportunities for cooperation and development. Quilombaque and the region of Perus have been resisting together, and as a result their tourism agency was opened in 2018.

VISITING THE TRAILS – SHARING VALUES, DIALOGUING AND CREATING SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS Trail 1 – The Reframing Trail Subverting Discourses and the Emergence of New Narratives of a Place This first trail is called the reframing trail (trilha da ressignificação) and features places that were occupied and reframed into meaningful cultural areas for residents. We, participants of this placemaking intervention, were guided by members of the NGO as well as some local communities that take care of the places visited. One of them is the Hip Hop House, a house that has transformed the surrounding neighborhood. The area of this house used to be an abandoned zone with high criminality and it was well known as a

dangerous place. After the occupation and the reframing, the locals were encouraged to visit the place and started to look at it with different eyes. As a result, businesses emerged; for example, locals built some stalls where they sell food, drinks, and other small items. The Hip Hop House became part of the territorial museum, and we had the opportunity to visit the place, to see some students and a hip hop performance by the local hip hop teacher. By converting an abandoned and violent place into a cultural center, the discourses of the place were subverted and new narratives could emerge, fostering positive dynamics and new possibilities for the neighborhood.

Trail 2 – The Queixadas Trail Developing Tourism and Encouraging the Fight for Rights This second trail is built around the ruins of an old cement factory in the region. The name queixadas is in honor of the group of workers at that factory who are known to have formed one of the first organized workers’ movements (Bezerra, 2011). Queixada is the Portuguese name for the animal peccary, a sort of pig native to the Americas. Peccaries have several unique attributes and one of them is staying together in times of danger, an essential characteristic for their survival in the wild. The workers named themselves queixadas and adopted a non-violent strategy to fight for their rights. The NGO is heavily inspired by the queixadas and their movement, naming their tourism agency after them – Agencia Queixada de turismo. The ruins of the factory are now part of the territorial museum of Perus and the trail was designed not just to give the visitors historical knowledge (which was very rich and enlightening) about the factory but also to share the values of the queixadas through stories, inspiring people to fight for their own rights and the rights of their communities. This trail is an important example of how to

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create places that engage people in their history while inspiring them to continue pursuing their dreams and their rights. After visiting these two trails, a team dialogue was established. The NGO, together with lecturers, researchers, students and the community came together to share their experiences, insights, and knowledge gained from the visits. Students shared the ideas that had been generated during the visits, giving some input based on their expertise. The members of the Quilombaque also shared their experience and insight, mentioning, for example, the simple fact that having the students moving around the community already gives more visibility to the places and encourages the locals to turn up to check on what is happening and to interact with visitors. These spontaneous encounters promote interactions and new opportunities for the communities. The participatory approach of placemaking, tapping into the plurality of knowledge present within the team, and connecting the local wisdom with academic knowledge, promoted new ideas based on the combination of first-hand experience and previous knowledge. By working together, new ideas and concepts could be shared and discussed, exploring practices that can support the community to increase their visibility as a destination, at the same time that the knowledge can be incorporated into education taken back to the universities.

PLACEMAKING THROUGH SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION LENSES: GENERATING NEW KNOWLEDGE AND PROMOTING PRACTICAL RESOURCES FOR ACTION The approach of social constructionism embraces knowledge as generative (Gergen, 1978), practical (McNamee, 2004), relational (McNamee, 1994), and always situated within a context, creating what is called truth within communities (McNamee and Hosking, 2012).

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In this approach, knowledge is developed in interactions with others, through social exchanges, relationships, and dialogue (Gergen and Gergen, 2004). According to Burr (2003), ‘Knowledge is therefore seen not as something that a person has or doesn’t have, but as something that people do together’ (p. 9). Highlighting the contextual value of knowledge production and its practices is also part of placemaking, focusing its practices on the involvement, participation, and collaboration of a variety of social actors. By valuing their plurality of perspectives, new knowledge can be created, opening potential for new endeavors in a territory. Looking at placemaking through a social constructionist lens offers one exercise to legitimize knowledge as action (McNamee and Hosking, 2012), embracing and systematizing local knowing that can generate new possibilities to stimulate resilience in communities as well as destination projects, in this specific case (Ahern, 2011). Reflecting on this placemaking project in Perus, some constructionist insights can be drawn from the process.

(1) Build from what is Available This placemaking project started from what was already present and happening in the community, and the focus was on searching for ‘what gives life to the system’ (Cooperrider and Whitney, 2005). This approach is similar to the appreciative inquiry approach, which has as its methodology a focus on what is already happening and thriving, and trying to expand from those places. Despite the economic scarcity in the community, we learned that the NGO also embraces this approach: searching for the abundance and opportunities that are present in the community, going straight from envisioning to implementation, and taking concrete actions to realize their vision. In this way, intangible heritage and cultural and educational spaces can be created. Through the project we – from academia – learned that their innovative way

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of creating a destination is a great illustration for the field of placemaking and social construction. By embracing the opportunity of what is present, people can promote more places and spaces for social inclusion. The Quilombaque team has a concept for that: ‘sevirologia’2 meaning that under adverse conditions they still act by finding their own ways to make things happen. We are proposing here to transform this attitude and action of sevirologia into a resource that can be useful to help and inspire other communities to learn from them. We are calling it: build from what is available. One example of the resource in action was how the NGO did the planning and organization for the realization of the placemaking project. In order to make it feasible, promoting an environment where participants could experience being in the community and learning together, local families were connected by the NGO to host participants in their own houses during these two days, offering bed and breakfast. Furthermore, the NGO set up a temporary restaurant where lunch and dinner were offered during the two days of work, having people from the NGO cooking for everyone.

(2) Co-Creating by Experimenting According to social construction, co-creation is central in the meaning-making process, being an emergent property of social systems in which we exist (Camargo-Borges and Rasera, 2013). When we talk about cocreating by experimenting we are addressing the creative processes that have been designed and facilitated, generating new meanings, new ideas, and solutions. We use the verb experiment in the sense of trying something out, to test what works and what might not. This emphasizes that it is a dynamic process, involving the creative participation and appraisal of multiple people and perspectives. At the placemaking project in Perus we used active experimentation of places and

spaces to see what could be co-created from there. By going into the trails we could learn by doing, co-creating meanings by experimenting together, helping Quilombaque to choose directions to invest further. The experimentation generated some ideas that were openly shared. One idea that emerged from the students was about the translation of the stories shared (from Portuguese to English). The students experienced the long translations as tiring and disengaging and as a result they recommended the creation of performed stories in which not everything needed to be expressed in verbal language. They suggested the sharing of stories through acts of performances, which is very close to what the NGO already does. This way, participants from other languages that come to experience the trails can understand the message and connect better with the place. In order to further use the resource co-creating by experimenting, design tools from placemaking can be used, offering creative and imaginative ways to engage people to co-create new meanings, new scenarios.

(3) Collaborative Practices to Strengthen the Community One of the core principles of placemaking is doing with people and not for people. Following this principle, the whole system is invited to participate and to share stories creating collaborative practices. According to Ketonen-Oksi and Valkokari (2019) collaboration focuses on participatory processes that happen in real life, increasing the potential to innovate. From a constructionist approach, collaborative practices refer to the attention given to the quality of the intervention/interaction, and are coherent with local values, beliefs, and practices. Through these processes, collaboration contributes to a dialogic, relationally sensitive opportunity for equal participation in community issues. These collaborative dialogues create a strong sense of relational connection, participation,

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and belonging among themselves as well as to the broader community (McNamee and Shotter, 2004). The participation of professors, researchers and students from the universities of Breda and UFSCar, contributed a great deal in this direction. By having these people visiting the community, residents became curious and many joined the trails. That was a great excuse to help the guides with directions as well as with new stories, invigorating their relationships. Having their stories, experiences, community traditions, and local space seen as valuable and interesting to academics also encouraged people in Perus and Quilombaque to see themselves in new ways, and to understand their own history in a wider context. For the universities, it was also a valuable experience, allowing for deeper and more contextual understandings of placemaking issues that may have been more abstract in the academic environment.

CLOSING THOUGHTS As a result of our placemaking project, we are left with an interesting question: How can we interweave placemaking, social construction, and epistemologies of the South as a valuable combination for new understandings and practices of community building? We are confident that the combination can help to embrace the epistemological diversity that the world needs (Santos, 2009), bringing a more creative and innovative approach to community development as well as new ways of knowing, embracing knowledge as plural and holistic. The partnership between universities and local communities, such as the collaboration between Breda University of Applied Sciences, UFSCar and Quilombaque, created the opportunity to combine and apply academic knowledge with local wisdom, a fundamental combination in creating more democratic societies by generating more horizonal relationships and

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critical consciousness in all levels (Freire, 2013). Furthermore, these partnerships in cocreation of new ideas and projects are crucial for tapping into socially complex issues and very much related to the approach of social construction. Basing the knowledge production on the social and local experience, an ecology of knowledge (Santos, 2009) can emerge as an acknowledgment of the plurality of knowledge. The epistemology of the South challenges the traditional theory of knowledge, which is based on a more foundational approach to knowing and truth. Instead it highlights the richness of worldviews and the plurality and diversity of being in the world (Santos, 2018). The epistemology of the South proposes a line of connection between lived experiences and knowledge production, generating an ecology of knowledge that can overcome the abyss between the knowledge produced by the northern and southern hemispheres (geographic and metaphorical). Quilombaque is exercising effective participation through leisure and tourism, creating a responsive cultural movement that empowers and invites people to collectively decide what matters and what should be brought up in the community, allowing them to affect the outcomes. It considers all stakeholders within the locality as legitimate participants in the process of community-based tourism, generating inclusiveness and thriving neighborhoods (Heller and Adams, 2009). The knowledge presented here originated in the global South, and shows the emergence of what can be called a ‘tourism of resistance’, which is framed by a Southern epistemology, and informed by a confluence of local, contextual, and historical forces. Such an approach seems to be the result of practices of community with a continuous focus on strengthening connections among people, places, and spaces. It also shows the developments of a placemaking intervention from a social constructionist perspective. It can offer some insights and suggest lessons for

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community-based tourism elsewhere, helping other communities struggling with political, social, and economic matters to learn different ways of approaching and re-creating themselves.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We would like to acknowledge the NGO Comunidade Cultural Quilombaque for partnering with us in this placemaking project as well as the colleagues from Breda University of Applied Sciences and the Federal University of Sao Carlos (UFSCar). Furthermore, we are grateful for Mauricio Mendes Belmonte for his critical reflection on the paper, especially related to epistemologies of the South and the ecology of knowledge.

Notes 1  In this specific illustration the Breda University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands, and the Federal University of São Carlos, Brazil. 2  A noun invented from the verb ‘se virar’ which in Portuguese means to actively act in situations where adversity is high, making an effort to solve a problem with your own resources.

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Belmonte, M. M., & Silvestre, B. M. (2018). Quilombaque, district of Perus, São Paulo: The emergence of resistance tourism. In J. A. Schroeder (Ed.), World Leisure Centers of Excellence Douglas Ribeiro da Silva International Field School. Perus, Brazil. Case Study Volume. Bilbao: World Leisure Organization, 8–22. Bezerra, P. A. B. (2011). Formas de resistência na periferia de São Paulo: o Bairro de Perus e a força da memória nos movimentos sociais. Trabalho de Graduação Individual em Geografia. Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas da Universidade de São Paulo. Brandão, C. R. (2005). Qualidade de vida, vida de qualidade e qualidade da vida. In: A canção das sete cores: educando para a paz. São Paulo: Contexto. Burr, V. (2003). Social constructionism (2nd edition). Abingdon: Routledge. Camargo-Borges, C., & Rasera, E. F. (2013). Social constructionism in the context of organization development: Dialogue, imagination, and co-creation as resources of change. SAGE Open. April–June, 3(2) 1–7. Coghlan, A., Sparks, B., Liu, W., & Winlaw, M. (2017). Reconnecting with place through events. International Journal of Event and Festival Management, 8(1), 66–83. Cooperrider, D., & Whitney, D. (2005). Appreciative inquiry: A positive revolution in change. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler. Derrett, R. (2015). Festival, events and the destination. In I. Yeoman, M. Robertson, J. Ali-Knight, S. Drummond, & U. McMahonBeattie (Eds.), Festival and events management. New York: Routledge. Everett, S. (2012). Production places or consumption spaces? The place-making agency of food tourism in Ireland and Scotland. Tourism Geographies, 14(4), 535–554. Fleming, R. L. (2007). The art of placemaking: Interpreting community through public art and urban design. London: Merrell. Freire, P. (2013). Education for critical consciousness. Bloomsbury revelations series. London: Bloomsbury Academic Publications. Friedmann, J. (2010). Place and place-making in cities: A global perspective. Planning Theory & Practice, 11(2), 149–165.

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Gergen, K. (1978). Toward generative theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36(11), 1344–1360. Gergen, K. (2015). From mirroring to worldmaking: Research as future forming. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 45(3), 287–310. Gergen, K., & Gergen, M. (2004). Social construction: Entering the dialogue. New Mexico: Taos Institute. Gober, P., & Trapido-Lurie, B. (2006). Metropolitan phoenix: Place making and community building in the desert. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Heller, A., & Adams, T. (2009). Creating healthy cities through socially sustainable placemaking. Australian Planner, 46(2), Taylor and Francis Online, 18–21. Hultman, Johan C., & Hall, Michel (2012). Tourism place-making: Governance of locality in Sweden. Annals of Tourism Research, 39(2), 547–570. Ketonen-Oksi, S., & Valkokari, K. (2019). Innovation ecosystems as structures for value co-creation. Technology Innovation Management Review, 9(2), February. Lew, A. A. (2017). Tourism planning and place making: Place-making or placemaking? Tourism Geographies, 19(3), 448–466, doi: 10.1080/14616688.2017.1282007 McNamee, S. (1994). Research as relationally situated activity: Ethical implications. Journal of Feminist Family Therapy, 6, 69–83. McNamee, S. (2004), Promiscuity in the practice of family therapy. Journal of Family Therapy, 26, 224–244. doi:10.1111/j.14676427.2004.00280.x McNamee, S., & Hosking, D.M. (2012). Research and social change: A relational constructionist approach. New York: Routledge. McNamee, S., & Shotter, J. (2004). Dialogue, creativity, and change. In R. Anderson, L. A. Baxter & K. N. Cissna (Eds.), Dialogue: Theorizing difference in communication studies (pp. 91–104). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. doi: 10.4135/9781483328683.n6 Montero, M. (2002). On the construction of reality and truth. Towards an epistemology

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of community social psychology. American Journal of Community Psychology, 30, 571–584. Nowell, B., & Boyd, N. (2010). Viewing community as responsibility as well as resource: Deconstructing the theoretical roots of psychological sense of community. Journal of Community Psychology, 38(7), 828–841. Rappaport, J., & Seidman, E. (2000). Handbook of community psychology. New York: Plenum. Richards, G. (2017). From place branding to placemaking: The role of events. International Journal of Event and Festival Management, 6 March. Santos, B. S. (2009). Para além do pensamento abissal: das linhas globais a uma ecologia de saberes. In B. de Sousa Santos & M. P. Meneses (Eds.), Epistemologias do Sul. Coimbra: CES/Almedina, 23–71. Santos, B. S. (2014). Epistemologies of the south: Justice against epistemicide. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers. Santos, B. S. (2018). The end of the cognitive empire: The coming of age of epistemologies of the south. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Schroeder, A. (2018). World leisure centers of excellence: Douglas Ribeiro da Silva International Field School. Case Study: World Leisure Organization. Siqueira, E. (2001). Companhia brasileira de cimento Portland Perus: Contribuição para uma história da indústria pioneira do ramo no Brasil (1926–1987). Dissertação de Mestrado. Araraquara: Unesp. Townley, G., Kloos, B., Green, E. P., & Franco, M. M. (2011). Reconcilable differences? Human diversity, cultural relativity, and sense of community. American Journal of Community Psychology, 47(1–2), 69–85. Williams, D. R. (2002). Leisure identities, globalization, and the politics of place. Journal of Leisure Research, 34(4), 351–367. Wortham-Galvin, B. D. (2008). Mythologies of placemaking. Places Journal, 20(1), 32–39. Wyckoff, M.A., Neumann, B., Pape, G. & Schindler, K. (2015). Placemaking as an economic development tool: A placemaking guidebook. East Lansing: Michigan State University.

55 Re-imagining the Welfare State: From Systems Delivery to Collaborative Relationship Jacob Storch and Carsten Hornstrup

The Petersen family has had years of struggle. The mother has been in and out of work for many years. After about six months of employment, she ends up getting sick and showing signs of stress and depression. The father has taken early retirement due to a work-related accident. Over the years, he has been in and out of treatment for an abusive relationship with alcohol. Their two children, aged 8 and 10, move in and out of special measures provided for the family unit, since the children, from time to time, stop attending school regularly. They also isolate themselves from friends which results in a series of professional concerns for their well-being. Despite these issues, they also seem to do well at certain times when helped, which leads to reduced measures and growing professional optimism. In the municipality, the family is known, not as a whole, but as individuals having difficulties from time to time which results in them being assigned individual services and activities. Yet none of the intended effects

of these interventions seem to last very long and, over the years, the family has become an economic burden to the local municipality. The risk of them ever changing their patterns is less and less likely. What seems to be at stake here?

WHY WE NEED TO RE-IMAGINE THE WELFARE STATE The welfare state was one of the great innovations of the 20th century in many parts of the world (Gittell and Storch, 2016). It has brought education and social security to all citizens, provided equal access to healthcare, and redistributed wealth for the benefit of the general public in an unprecedented way. While being successful in many aspects of life in a modern society, challenges still remain. The basis of the welfare state is a contract, social as well as legal, where the state provides equal access and opportunity

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to its citizens. Therefore, each citizen is provided with rights and access to different services and there is a unique, direct relationship between the state and the individual rather than with one’s ethnic, social or economic background. The state offers security, both social and legal, to the individual that includes education, healthcare and social security. On the positive side, we see that in the countries where these systems are most developed, like in the Nordic countries, the general level of education, health, women in work and gender equality, average income, and overall happiness with life is among the highest in the world, according to United Nations reports (http://worldpopulation review.com/countries/best-countries-to-livein/). On the negative side, the welfare state has created a system that addresses difficulties people may experience in life as individual problems that need individual solutions, as opposed to difficulties people experience in the context of their lived lives with other people. While the intent is to help people in need (which is positive), it is also one of the root causes of failure in some (often complex) situations. As you will see throughout this chapter, not all problems and difficulties can be seen as individual or can be solved by individualized interventions. The development of the welfare state can be described as a process where three different currents (Krogstrup and Brix, 2019) have guided the basic principles through which the welfare state has been developed. These currents and steps are what we call, Old Public Management (Version 1.0: building professional bureaucracy), New Public Management (Version 2.0: building management systems and focusing on service delivery) and the latest, New Public Governance (Version 3.0), which puts a growing emphasis on a collaborative governance practice. A central difference with this newer approach is an emphasis on the need for greater flexibility and customized services. Today, these three currents co-exist, with the two former as dominant, sometimes appropriately, but

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too often in ways that actively prevent professionals from succeeding with their work. In the last 15–20 years, these former models have been critiqued from different angles. The main concern has been the promise of more efficiency and the assumption that public employees are rational actors. A recent review of effects of the New Public Management (NPM) in the UK (Hood and Dixon, 2017) has concluded that the model has created a slightly less efficient and marginally more expensive public sector (despite the promise of the opposite) and that public sector employees’ motivation is much more in line with the view of Old Public Management, which was based more on trust in professions than on control. The more recent approach (New Public Governance), however, is based on collaborative and relational approaches. Rather than focusing on outputs and the amount of services provided, this newer approach focuses on the outcome of the service and the difference it makes in the lives of citizens. The main question becomes: Does it make a difference to citizens? The guiding principles include developing trust in public employees, and building networks and collaboration across organizational borders. In essence, it involves a process of co-creation and coproduction with citizens and civic society (Krogstrup and Brix, 2019). Despite the emerging changes mentioned above, this new collaborative governance model is struggling to gain ground since the former traditions have a stronghold. There is a general concern that municipalities will lose accountability without it. This has led to a cost–benefit logic throughout the public sector where the cost of service delivery has been associated with the success and efficiency of the service, rather than the effect of the service in citizens’ lives. Consequently, what has been left out of the equation is the citizen and their social context, which means that there is often an abundance of services available to citizens if they meet the criteria of receiving them, but rarely do these services help

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build the necessary capacity (Krogstrup and Brix, 2019) for people to learn to take charge of their own situation, as families and members of local communities. The brave work of British social entrepreneur, Hilary Cottam (2018), has led to some interesting insights of how systems fail in delivering to those most in need of help. In her latest book, Radical Help (Cottam, 2018), she states that, The welfare state is an industrial system. Its institutions and services reflect the era in which they were designed. This was the era of mass production, of hierarchy and rules, of command and control. (p. 29)

The symptoms of the shortcomings of the system are more and more evident in Nordic countries and other parts of the world. We see that groups of citizens are left outside the general prosperity across generations, like the Petersen family, with poor or no education, and with little or no relationship with the labor market. On average, life expectancy for these groups is often 8–10 years lower than average and they suffer more from chronic physical health conditions, stress and depression (Cottam, 2018; Nesta, 2012). Yet more and more resources are spent on these groups, providing endless services and social benefits that are well intentioned to help them overcome their difficult patterns of life. The resources are there, but they seem not to address the more systemic nature of these families’ lives. As Cottam (2018) describes it, Our welfare state might still catch us when we fall, but it cannot help us take flight. It cannot support us to confront the challenges we face today, and it cannot change the direction of our lives … We had hoped for safety nets that would give us the weft and propulsion of the trampoline but instead we find we are woven into a tight trap. (p. 42)

Considering the case of the Petersen family mentioned above, it became evident that indeed there was a pattern of behavior that was not addressed by professionals. The dynamics were systemic. When the mother

was sent to work, the father was left at home with what he perceived as much more work, especially with getting the kids to school, preparing lunch-bags, cleaning the house and so on. He found this very difficult and overwhelming, which made him feel unsuccessful. Thus, he looked for the solutions he knew best. When under stress, he often started drinking again. As his drinking increased, the kids were left on their own most of the time, leading to irregular attendance at school. As a result, they started withdrawing from social activities; the teachers worried and contacted the family. By the time meetings and home visits had been set up, the mother was so stressed by the changed circumstances in the family (work commitments, alcohol abuse, and the children’s failure to thrive) that she began to report that she was not well enough to go to work. Now the mother is at home again. The family gets help from the municipality’s family workers and psychologists. Subsequently, the father’s drinking begins to decline (partly because mother is at home) so everybody grows optimistic. The different professionals feel successful; a job well done! Now, the mother can be sent to work again, and the pattern repeats. Recognizing this problematic pattern led the professionals and the family into a new (and rare) partnership. Here, the focus moved from individual services and help to a holistic family plan where the underlying difficulties were addressed and led by the family with support from the different professionals when needed. In order to deal with challenges like the Petersen family, we must re-invent the welfare state and the public sector in order to produce sustainable responses which offer ways forward to deal with the most urgent challenges that have been left behind by an ageing system that increasingly seems out of touch with the everyday difficulties facing families and communities. For Cottam (2018) the qualities of a new system must be built on collaborative principles, she argues:

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To solve today’s problems we need collaboration, we need to be part of the change and we need systems that include all of us. Participation cannot be seen as something special or unusual that must be celebrated. We need to create systems that make participation easy, intuitive and natural. And to stand in communities and understand both the problems and possibilities from this everyday perspective. (p. 46)

In order to achieve the necessary changes, even though it can be immensely difficult, this chapter will argue for three key solutions. First, we argue that we need a new language that allows us to explore new dimensions of the meaning of welfare. If we remain in the old language developed to deal with 20thcentury challenges, we will continue to produce the same kind of logics that, in part, have created the problems of the 21st century. Second, we argue and demonstrate, through a case, that a relational practice where citizens lead the way is a viable way forward. Third, we offer a way of addressing multiprofessional collaboration among the many stakeholders involved, in the most demanding citizen-centered challenges, so that participation becomes easy and natural – all of which are in line with Cottam’s arguments (2018).

THE NEED FOR A NEW VOCABULARY OF WELFARE It is widely recognized (see for example, Gergen, 1994a,b; Lang and Cronen, 1994; Rorty, 1989) that language is far from a neutral medium through which we pass information to each other. Instead, language actively forms and shapes the meaning of our lives. We grow up learning to become users of a language offered to us; a language that is embedded with meaning, power, logic and definitions of relationships. Once we start using language to describe our world and our place in it, it is the dominant meaning implicit in the words we choose that becomes the focus of what we convey. The language we use to describe our communities and

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welfare state is deeply embedded in rich and nuanced cultural contingencies, some of which are positive and life affirming while others are increasingly worrisome because the language used can result in poor actions and weak conclusions. Further, language evolves over time (Shotter, 2006). New words are created and some meanings previously associated with a word also change over time. When the notion of the welfare state was created, it had different connotations and meanings from how we talk about the system today. Yet some logics of the language of certain welfare systems remain and need to be challenged if we would like to see a new and more enriched practice in the future. This is particularly the case in some Scandinavian countries. The municipality of Aarhus, Denmark, was designated as a cultural capital of Europe in 2017. The slogan of the event associated with this title was ‘Rethink’. Obviously, it was meant in a very broad, cultural and artistic sense. Yet, the Mayor’s office led a process for the municipality named ‘Municipality Anew’ where they worked with citizens, professionals and politicians, among others, to imagine the scenario of inventing a municipality as if it was not there beforehand. They considered the question: What would a municipality look like, and how should it operate, to deal with the challenges of the present and future? One central aspect of that emerged from this work was recognizing that they needed a new language to describe the meaning of welfare and municipality. They came up with a suggestion of words they wanted to change (see Table 55.1). The publication led to a whole series of new conversations about how to manage and live in a municipality. From these conversations, a whole new welfare agenda emerged. This was not through a revolution but through an incremental, step-by-step process where learning and a growing confidence in the capacity to achieve common goals was incorporated. The board of directors pointed out,

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Table 55.1  Municipality Rethinks… Old words

New words

Service Citizen involvement Legal buildings System Relatives Expert Library Help Voluntary Decision Professionalism Permanent Client Answers Standards Talking about

Community Municipality involvement Life between buildings Human being Family and friends Partner Community center Self help Fellow citizen Dialogue Attitude Temporary Partner Questions Dreams Talking with

Source: Mandag Morgen (2015, p. 26). The way we have optimized our nursing homes have made sons and daughters abundant. Company leaders’ civic engagement is pacified by the professionalism of Job Centers Mandag Morgen (2015: 7). And we have told ourselves that we alone as a municipality can know what the citizens of Aarhus need. We are in a process of stopping this.

The abundance is a consequence of having a public sector which tries to compensate for the needs of the individual rather than seeing individuals as part of a network of resources, such as family and friends that can be supported by public services and benefits, rather than the system attempting to replace family and friends. One crucial aspect of the old paradigm of the welfare state is the idea of compensating for human deficits, whether they are social, cognitive or health related. If a citizen experiences a deficit, they are entitled to a service or compensation measured according to the deficit. This has led to institutionalized practices where citizens are categorized according to their deficit. Within each category there is a list of services and compensations that are possible. The real problem is that the thinking and search for deficits takes attention

away from listening and engaging dialogically with citizens, and rarely do the needs and hopes of the citizen become the center of the conversation. Aarhus Municipality offers an example where a citizen was sent home after a back surgery. He was given a lot of help with supplies (wheelchair, adaptations at home, etc.) rather than a taxi service so he could get around, which was his wish. But taxi coupons were not on the list of the visiting professional’s ‘approved service’. Consequently, that kind of support was not an option even though it was much cheaper. The wife could help him at home, so the help offered was not really needed and what was needed could not be offered. The real question became: Why is it so difficult to address the systemic needs of citizens instead of just looking at them as isolated individuals? The unfortunate consequence of a deficit vocabulary (Gergen, 1994a,b) is that the definition of relationship embedded in the welfare model not only teaches citizens that the only way to get help is to express and perform deficits, it also shapes a particular professional identity (Storch and Ness, 2016). Many professionals are brought up through the kind of education that highlights a diagnostic discourse. They learn to assess a problem and measure the treatment accordingly. While this might be a good idea if you are a mechanic presented with a broken engine, it can be devastating for working in social contexts. Human lives are much more complex and rarely can problems and difficulties be isolated and fixed. Yet the model of fixing people is widespread, and the logical rationale is that if we ‘know’ what the problem is then we can refer you to the right specialist for a specific intervention. This has produced a system of referral where citizens facing complex difficulties such as abuse and psychiatric treatment get moved around in the system. These citizens often move between different services each designed to deal with the specifics of one problem rather than the whole as seen by the citizen. They often experience being sent in and

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out of hospitals, social psychiatry and drug treatment clinics. Rarely are these activities coordinated and even less likely is a focus on the many different activities and services centered around the needs, hopes and dreams of the citizen. As a consequence, we have created a system of highly skilled professionals that is set up to fail because of its lack of capacity to reflect the complex relational reality of the difficulties their citizens experience. In schools we see an increase in children being sent to special classes, often diagnosed with different learning disabilities or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Rather than seeing these as difficulties ‘in the children’ that need some kind of fixing (as drug companies suggest), we can see it as the children expressing the inner malfunctioning of the system. Instead of responding to this problem, schools have been asked to include more and more children in classes putting a lot of pressure on the teachers. In addition, stress has also been due to national testing such as PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), curriculum-based learning, and parents wanting their children to do well, while having their child assessed continually (e.g. a poor result leads to a ‘concern’). The only way the teacher can get help is when a child is formally recognized as having a learning disability or some social problem. By turning socially constructed (Gergen, 1994a,b; Storch and Ness, 2016) problems into children with disabilities, then resources are released so that the system can take care of the problem (now being the child). The logic of this system is often out of control, with more money being spent on special measures for fewer children rather than on strengthening the schools to have the capacity to deal with the many difficulties of creating a safe and inspirational environment for all children. For this to happen, we need a collaborative culture where many different professionals work with each other in conjunction with the families of the children and their local community, as we have seen successfully done in

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the school systems of Ontario, Canada (peopleforeducation.ca, 2019). In order to reverse the negative down-sides of an outdated welfare system, we need to create a new narrative based on new words that enable us to express our needs and desires for a system that is designed to address the challenges of the 21st century. A system where we focus on our collective capacity to bring a multiplicity of resources into action in more holistic approaches, rather than maintaining a system of referral, is needed. We also need to develop a system of collaborative practices across professional boundaries working together in partnerships with citizens rather than for citizens.

LET THE CITIZENS LEAD THE WAY One of the central themes of the vision for a relationally engaging welfare system set forth by Cottam is the idea of letting the citizens lead the way rather than maintaining an expert-centric approach. We must, says Cottam (2018) focus on a vision of how to achieve ‘good lives lived well’ for all rather than providing services (p. 197). But what is a good life one might ask? Well, it is different from person to person. Therefore, we must build a system that moves away from standardized services since these will never support the good life of every citizen. Instead, we could replace the desire to provide homogeneous services with a different attitude. Having as a core principle the desire to help citizens move toward what matters to them, we need to understand their vision of a good life and build a collaborative partnership with them in order to achieve it. This starts by inviting the citizen to lead the way. It is also a recognition of the fact that good lives are lived in relationship with other people who are important to them, whether it is the family, friends or teammates in the local sports club or a neighbor. While the many inspirational cases shown by Cottam and her

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team are built on innovative approaches and projects, we can also look at other sources of inspiration to see the profound impact a citizen-centric approach creates. In recovery-oriented psychiatry (see for example, Bergström et al., 2018; Keet et al., 2019) it is a core principle that the citizens experiencing psychiatric breakthroughs must lead the way in partnerships with their network, both private and professional. Rather than fixing what is wrong, the focus is on recovering together as a community or family. This is because being well and living good lives is something we do together and therefore we must learn to achieve such outcomes as a process of collaboration and capacity-building. The rationale suggests that, if we learn to live with the challenges of experiencing psychiatric difficulties, we grow resilience, not as primary individuals but importantly as networks of people living together as families and friends. Longitudinal studies of first-episode psychosis show that citizens offered an Open Dialogue (Bergström et al., 2018), recoverybased practice experienced more positive life outcomes compared with traditional psychiatry based on the medical paradigm (Table 55.2). What the data tells us is that there is roughly a 70% drop in mortality by illness, 80% less hospitalization, 45% less ongoing contact, 55% lower use of neuroleptics and about a 50% drop in dependency on economic public support. Further, we learn from these studies that employment rates are dramatically up Table 55.2  Comparison: Open Dialogue versus traditional psychiatry, 19 years after first-episode psychosis OD N = 108 /% TAU N = 1763 /% Mortality by illnesses Hospital days (>30y) Ongoing contact On neuroleptics Disability allowance

 

2.8 18 28 36 33

Source: Bergström et al. (2018).

 

9.2 94 50 81 61

for people offered a recovery-oriented practice, which is significant not only in terms of clinical outcomes but importantly in quality of life. Central to the Open Dialogue process are network meetings, a practice where people who the citizen finds to be important to them are invited to meetings on an ongoing basis. Over time, different people may leave the network and others can join in as the citizen decides on new courses of action. By letting the citizen decide who should be present and what topics should be discussed, the power relationship shifts, so that the different professionals can join in with ideas and help when needed and requested. In that way the context of relating is set by the citizen, which is important for building the self-confidence required to move on coherently together with the people most important to them. The meeting is facilitated by a trained professional so the citizen and the network can focus on the content of the meeting. Obviously, this practice is difficult for many professionals since they are brought up to ‘know what is best’ for the ‘patient’. But once they learn to engage in an open-ended collaborative process, they realize that their professional experience becomes a valued source of knowledge because the specific application of it in practice is contextualized by the citizen and therefore likely to be of more value. The application of Open Dialogue can successfully be transferred to other areas of practice. In a municipality recently consulted as part of their transition from traditional practice to one based on collaboration and citizen partnerships, the network meeting was successfully applied with a whole family. The family was well known in the municipality. The situation involved a mother with three children, each with different fathers and her current partner, the father of the youngest son, aged 2. The father was unemployed and most of the time depended on public benefits. The mother was also in and out of work and had a history

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of psychiatric problems, abuse and criminal activity. There was special support given to all of the children (for example, a developmental psychologist, learning disabilities professional, youth mentor, etc.). The oldest daughter, aged 15, had also received a costly special service and support for a number of years. The daughter attended school irregularly and had early experiences with substance use and criminal activities. Consequently, there was a growing concern that she would follow the trajectory of her mother. Even though large sums of money and professional resources were spent on the family each year, there had been little or no change. The family was stuck and so were the professionals. Together with the professionals across the silos of the municipality, we, as consultants, started by drawing all the different

units of professionals who were involved with this family. And second, we linked all of the units that needed to collaborate with each other in order to succeed, since the difficulties of the family were connected. The picture that emerged in shown in Figure 55.1. The picture became a turning point for the professionals. Surprisingly, no one in the system had ever reflected on the whole of the system that was involved in this family’s life. As a result, no one had a clear picture of who needed to work with whom. They determined that what they needed to do was evaluate the quality of the connections by adding colors – red being a poor working relationship, blue average, and green positive. Sadly, no one, but one, thought they had a positive relationship with the family or with their colleagues School Psychologist

Kindergarten

School

Center for Child Development

Youth Health Nurse

Labour Market Consultants

Hospital

Center for Labour Market

Regional Health

Family

Psychiatry

Compensation Office

Unit for Work Related Absence

Green Orange Red Assistance Device Centre

Center for Health and Care

Center for Social Services

Psychotherapy Unit

Social Worker

Family Centre Citizen GP

Figure 55.1  Picture of a family’s network of professional relationships in a municipality

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across units. This led the group to decide on a different approach when a psychologist in the group spoke with the mother asking for permission to arrange a network meeting. The family accepted and they invited all of the professionals who were important to the family. To the surprise of the team, they enlarged the network of professionals to include schoolteachers and pedagogues from the kindergarten. During the network meeting, they realized that several of the services offered to the family were neither helpful nor were they meaningful. And furthermore, the family did not see the point in the expensive support provided to the oldest daughter. Shifting to what mattered to the family and what they saw as important for them to address and work on created a new conversation that had not previously taken place. The mother was mostly concerned with the oldest daughter, which put a lot of stress on her. She wished for something new to happen. The family suggested, to the great surprise of the team, that the schoolteacher of the daughter could be their contact person. They felt that they could trust him; he was honest with them and he believed the daughter could change. From this a new plan emerged, a plan that was drafted by the family and supported by the professionals. The teacher accepted the new role and a team of colleagues was set up to support him. For the first time the family had a plan based on their wishes and hopes with a focus on what mattered to them. During the meeting, the trust between the family and the many professionals was restored and a new collaborative beginning was created. Shortly after, the family, and especially the daughter, started to show positive signs of change (attending school more regularly, quitting substances, etc.), relieving the mother in particular. As the family progressed with this new set-up, plans developed and were increasingly ambitious. Furthermore, the total cost and number of resources spent on the family declined drastically.

When citizens are offered the opportunity to lead the way, the focal point of helping becomes different. It importantly supports the shift from service delivery to collaborative practices where services and help emerge through a process of co-creation, where every participant becomes a resource and an opportunity for contribution to viable solutions. Further, it is often the case, contrary to what many professionals might think, that, rather than asking for more services, citizens need fewer resources if they have a say in designing their services. If you can have it all, why settle for less, one might ask? The answer is simple; people seek meaning in their lives. If what is achieved through collaboration is experienced as meaningful, then the number of services becomes irrelevant.

A COLLABORATIVE CULTURE LEADS TO BETTER CITIZEN OUTCOMES One of the real challenges facing any system that wants to work collaboratively across multiple units, sectors or even organizations is how to manage the complexity that arises from having to coordinate and bridge across a system that is not set up to work holistically and is not citizen-centric. A requirement of such a system is the development of the capacity to build working relationships when and where needed. The nature of the challenges that citizens experience can be characterized by the following: Profeessionals cannot predict when citizens need help. Professionals cannot determine in advance who needs to be involved. Professionals cannot define a criterion for success beforehand. Professionals cannot foresee the needed resources. Professionals cannot foresee who should take the lead.

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These characteristics put a tough demand on any organization since the premises require a strong adaptable responsiveness by all professionals and leaders. Roles and activities emerge as the working relationship with the citizens and their families advances, which often creates a limited span of planning that, to many, is in contrast to their working conditions, not to mention legal and economic constraints. Recent research, however, has taken up these challenges, and has started to explore how we can effectively deal with organizing and leading these complex working processes. Under various labels such as Relational Capacity (Hornstrup and Storch, 2018), Relational Co-ordination (Gittell, 2016), and Teaming and Extreme Teaming (Edmondson and Harvey, 2017), the focus has shifted from organizations as stable entities with more or less stable work processes to ones that are on the move. Consequently, practitioners are offered a new way of understanding their work. Ultimately, when it comes to building and leading public organizations capable of handling challenges, such as the ones described in the above cases, they are better prepared. We have recently researched this approach (Hornstrup and Storch, in press). We examined the relationship between the organizational capacity to engage holistically across units and citizen outcomes, such as in cases like the second family described above. The organizations involved used a network analysis that helped to evaluate the quality of collaboration among the professionals involved in complex situations. One central finding was that there is a huge gap between the necessary knowledge of what the various professionals are doing and how their work relates to the family. Further, the attention leaders give to cross-functional collaboration predicts how well their employees engage in these endeavors as experienced by their peers. The research also shows that when the collaboration happens well, it immediately produces a working relationship where

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different professionals partner up to support the goals set forth by the citizens. The characteristics of the work practices that emerge are more innovative, supportive and flexible. From interviews and our systematic evaluation, the findings are that the professionals end up spending less time than usual on the process and need fewer resources since conversations move from the domain of entitlement to a domain of meaningfulness. Central to this movement is an increased attention to relationships and collaborative practices. Since these practices take place in large organizations, some with more than 20,000 employees, it is helpful to use the network analysis to help prime conversations. Also, an important focus on the collaborative quality, either through case analysis or more general analysis, of the whole organization, emphasizes the emerging language needed for relational practices to be sustained throughout the organization. As one director of children and schools in a municipality said after having worked on improving their relational work using the relational network analysis: What we have here is some of what we have missed for years. Until now we have measured internally in our pillars and units. Now it is actually possible to measure and document how good we are at collaboration around our tasks.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS All citizens and institutions have a common task of defining how our welfare societies should develop to meet the demands and needs of the 21st century. We have inherited a system developed to solve some of the difficulties of the past century, difficulties very different from those of today. This chapter has articulated a vision, suggesting a relational turn which emphasizes our collective capacity to build and nurture relationships through collaboration, particularly in situations where citizens and professionals work together.

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The proposed shift is based on solid practice and emerging research from different professional arenas who all share a citizencentric approach that includes co-created, recovery-based and rehabilitating practices. In particular, three solutions to support an emerging new approach have been suggested. First, we need to replace old systems language with a new language that emphasizes collaboration, partnerships and networks. Second, we need to start with citizens and allow them opportunities to lead. All too often citizens are directed into solutions that are not their own. Instead, professionals must learn to support citizens in their own context. Third, organizations must learn to work in flexible, multi-professional teams, since working across silos in organizations is a key requisite in succeeding with the most pressing problems of today’s welfare systems. The good news is that a majority of the skills and practices already exist. Our challenge is to bring all these experiences together in order to create the much needed systems change.

REFERENCES Bergström, T., Seikkula, J., Alakare, B., Mäki, P., Köngäs-Saviaro, P., Taskila, J. J., Tolvanen, T., & Aaltonen, J. (2018). The family-oriented Open Dialogue approach in the treatment of firstepisode psychosis: Nineteen-year outcomes. Psychiatry Research, 270, 168–175. doi: https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2018.09.039 (Accessed, 25 August 2020) Cottam, H. (2018). Radical Help. London: Virago Press. Edmondson, A. C. & Harvey, J-F. (2017). Extreme Teaming: Lessons in Complex, Cross-Sector Leadership. Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing Limited. Gergen, K. J. (1994a). Towards Transformation in Social Knowledge (2nd edition). London: Sage. Gergen, K. J. (1994b). Realities and Relationships: Soundings in Social Constructionism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gittell, J. H. (2016). Transforming Relationships for High Performance: The Power of

Relational Coordination. Stanford, CT: Stanford University Press. Gittell, J. H. & Storch, J. (2016). Building a Relational Public Sector. Stanford Social Innovations Review. Hood, C. & Dixon, A. (2017). A Government That Works Better and Costs Less? Oxford: Oxford University Press, UK. http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/best-countriesto-live-in/ (Accessed, 25 August 2020) Hornstrup, C. & Storch, J. (2018). Relationel Kapacitet – Sammenhæng i offentlige organisationer Forlaget Mindspace DK. Hornstrup, C. & Storch, J. (in press). Using Relational Capacity Analytics to Measure Impact of Leadership Intervention in High Complex Citizen Cases in the Public Sector. Keet, R., de Vetten-McMahon, M., ShieldsZeeman, L., Ruud, T., van Weeghel, J., Bahler, M., Mulder, C. L., van Zelst, C., Murphy, B., Westen, C., Nas, C., Petrea, I., & Pieters, G. (2019). Recovery for all in the community. Position paper on principles and key elements of community-based mental health care. BMC Psychiatry, 19, 174. Krogstrup, H. K. & Brix, J. (2019). Coproduktion I den offentlige sector – Brugerinvolvering i KVAlitetsudvikling, Hans Reitzels Forlag, Denmark. Lang, P. & Cronen, V. E. (1994). Language and action: Wittgenstein and Dewey in the practice of therapy and consultation. Human Systems, 5, 5–43. Mandag Morgen (2015). Kommune Forfra – Aarhus gentænker velfærden. Free download: https://www.mm.dk/artikel/kommuneforfra (Accessed, 25 August 2020) Nesta (2012). People Powered Health, www. nesta.co.ukhttps://peopleforeducation. ca/ report/2019-annual-report-on-schools-whatmakes-a-school/ (Accessed, 25 August 2020) Rorty, R. (1989). Contingency, irony, and solidarity. Cambridge University Press. Shotter, J. (2006). Organizing Multi-Voiced Organizations: Action Guiding Anticipations and the Continuous Creation of Novelty. Available at: http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jds/ Essex.htm (Accessed, 25 August 2020) Storch, J. & Ness, O. (2016). Relationel Identitet, in Linder, A. & Storch, J. (edt.) Kognition og Padægogik, vol 100: 42–51. Dansk Psykologisk Forlag.

56 Transformative Community Conferencing – A Constructionist Approach to a More Hopeful Future David Anderson Hooker

We live our lives in story form. If stories are the cars that people use to maneuver through life, then cultural narratives and discourse are the underlying roads and highway systems that structure those journeys and many of the societal and cultural symbols constitute the road’s signage. In this way, cultures are best thought of in terms of subconsciously held and habitually rehearsed narrative practices that are structured in relationship to dominant narratives. These dominant cultural narratives and discourses are shot through with power or ‘lines of force’ (Deleuze, 1988). While the lines of force are embedded in narratives and often work to establish or reproduce hierarchies and modes of domination within communities, they can be unveiled and transformed through practices that are grounded in social constructionist ideas. This chapter describes one such unveiling and transforming practice referred to as transformative community conferencing (TCC). Transformative community conferencing is a methodology for radical (meaning at the

root) community change. The TCC model emerged organically during the implementation of several community engagement processes that the author was involved with over a period of years. The contexts in which the TCC process was imagined and refined vary widely, from an environmental justice advocacy effort in a small, rural US town, to post-war community building in East Africa, to a large urban US effort to address historic systemic inequities based on race which had at different points in history had significantly violent episodes. Since its inception, the TCC model has also been applied in small churches, and large religious denominations and national social justice advocacy organizations. TCC models continue to be implemented in large and small communities in many parts of the world. TCC is primarily concerned with establishing just, collective relationalities and, therefore, the model as presented is particularly useful for engaging communities with histories of identity-based marginalization and

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oppression. The process emerged as a result of this author’s attempt to move beyond the typical structuralist analysis of power that often accompanies community organizing and community building efforts and, instead, to build from a Foucauldian social constructionist stance that infuses community building and community organizing practice with narrative principles. While each step in the TCC process is important and builds on certain specific theoretical and practical insights, absolute fidelity to the model as described is not essential to achieve its transformative potential. The remainder of this chapter first presents a brief and selective overview of social construction and narrative theory, both of which are important for understanding the thrust and intention of the TCC approach. A more thorough treatment of social construction and narrative theory are found elsewhere in this Handbook and in other volumes. (For social construction see, for example, Berger and Luckmann, 1967; Gergen, 1985; Gergen and Gergen, 2003; Burr, 2003; and for narrative, Bourdieu, 1991; Bruner, 2002; Monk et al., 1997; White, 2007; Denborough, 2008.) Second, I describe the steps of the TCC process. The third section offers a brief explanation of how the model capitalizes on Foucauldian notions of power (Foucault, 1994, 2000) and Judith Butler’s articulation of the role of performativity in stabilizing oppressive structures and relationships (Butler, 1997b, 2009).

BRIEF PRECIS ON SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION AND NARRATIVE THEORY AND PRACTICE Social Construction In a constructionist understanding, meaning is achieved through consensus, even if unconscious, and then perpetuated in narrative, symbol, language, and discourse.

Knowledge is created and maintained in and by community. In other words, as Bruffee (1986) asserts: Social construction understands reality, knowledge, thoughts, facts, texts, selves, and so on as community generated and community maintained linguistic entities – or, more broadly speaking, symbolic entities – that define or constitute the communities that generate them, much as the language of the United States Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Gettysburg Address in part constitute the political, the legal, and to some extent the cultural community of Americans. (p. 774)

Ken Gergen (1985) identifies several assumptions that often guide those who operate inside a constructionist frame: a The terms in which the world is understood are social artifacts, products of historically situated exchanges among people and the result of an active cooperative enterprise of persons in relationships. b The degree to which a given form of understanding prevails or is sustained across time is not fundamentally dependent on the empirical validity of the perspective in question but on the vicissitudes of social processes (for example, communication, negotiation, conflict, rhetoric). c Forms of negotiated understanding are of critical significance in social life, as they are integrally connected with many other activities in which people engage. (pp. 267–269)

In a different work, Gergen (2009) adds three additional observations about the ways that social constructions operate to shape lived experiences: (1) constructions gain their significance from their social utility; (2) as we describe and explain, so do we fashion our future; and (3) reflection on our taken-forgranted worlds is vital to our future well-being. Vivien Burr (2003) presumes that constructionists and those writers and philosophers characterized (with or without their assent) as constructionist have as a foundation of their writing one or more of the following key assumptions:

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1 Knowledge is sustained through social processes: It is through daily interactions between people in the course of social life that our versions of knowledge become fabricated. Language reveals the form of the current way of understanding the world. 2 Knowledge and social action go together: Descriptions or constructions of the world sustain certain patterns of social action and exclude others. 3 Anti-essentialism: There are no essences inside of people that make them who they are. 4 Language is a pre-condition of thought: ‘We are born into a world where conceptual frameworks and categories used by people in our culture already exist’, and meaning is made by use of the categories and concepts that exist inside of the language that we are given. 5 Focus on process: In contrast to psychological concepts such as ‘personality types’, ‘intelligence’, and ‘socioeconomic status’ the constructionist focus is on the patterns, relationships, and systems that constrain and reinforce certain patterns. (Burr, 2003, pp. 4–9)

Language is an integral component of meaning making and the structuring of social order. Language is also an integral aspect of the TCC process, it is therefore important to have an understanding of narrative theory and the way the TCC process capitalizes on narrative insights to invoke a transformative possibility.

Narrative Theory and Practice Narrative approaches have emerged in the last generation (30 years) as having important applications in therapeutic contexts as well as for transforming relational and communal conflicts. A central catalyst for the deepening and broadening of narrative approaches has been the work of Michael White (White and Epston, 1990; White, 2007). White assumed a constructionist position when positing that ‘the problems people experience in their lives arise from and are maintained by stories that oppress or problematically constrain actions’ (White and Epston 1990, p. 38). By asserting that the problem exists in the narrative rather than as an

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essential aspect of a person or group, narrative practices open the space of possibility for transformation through a re-authoring of personal and community narratives. Personal narratives shape how we attend to and feel about events, yet they are only partial representations and evocations of the world as we know it. From this perspective, community is fundamentally: ‘an interdependent human [all life] system given form by the conversations it holds with itself. The history, buildings, economy, infrastructure, and culture are products of the conversations and social fabric of any community’ (Block, 2008, p. 30). The built and cultural environments are secondary gains of how we chose to be together. The existence of a dominant narrative can be problematic if it was achieved through marginalization of certain voices or silencing through various modes or relations of power (Ochs and Capps, 1996). It is access to control of or at least contribution to larger community narratives that are at the heart of struggles for recognition and value. Having your experience or the experience of your group validated by inclusion in a larger community narrative is a measure of the extent to which you or your group is constituted on its own terms or positioned by others (Cobb, 2013). Our personal narratives and sense of self are formed in relationship to community narratives. To contribute to the transformation of oppressive and limiting community narratives and to liberate the self from such narrative constraints, transformative community conferences first work to unveil both dominant narratives and narratives that work to resist domination.

The Role of Social Construction and Narrative in Transformative Community Conferencing Dominant narratives in community often are experienced as problem narratives for some community members; especially community members who are positioned at the margins

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of and society are constrained in their full flourishing by the positions that they occupy and the hierarchies established and maintained through the dominant narratives. The lived experiences of community members existing in different positions related to dominant community narratives are often unknown and even unknowable to others. The Transformative Community Conferencing process, when effectively convened, will include participants who are positioned very differently in terms of relationship to dominant narratives. The process allows people who are generally existing at different points in the social hierarchy to unveil their lived experience to one another. Because voices are regarded equally in ways that validate all lived experiences the process briefly overcomes the silencing and invisibility that often occurs in the day-to-day micro-interactions between and among community members. This process also allows community members from diverse perspectives to gain an understanding of how their conscious and unconscious actions work to maintain structures and hierarchies that many of them consciously would denounce or resist. To have a more lasting impact, communities have to build on what is developed through the TCC process to make their preferred narratives habitual. The next section describes the overall intention of transformative community conferencing by highlighting distinctions between TCC and other widely utilized modes of community engagement. After offering distinctions, the basic steps in the TCC process are presented. A more detailed description of the process for training and implementation purposes is presented elsewhere (Hooker, 2016).

What’s Different about Transformative Community Conferencing? Transformative community conferencing is at once an evolution, hybridization,

progression, and innovation in community engagement facilitation. TCCs draw on and expand the logic of Appreciative Inquiry (Cooperrider et al., 2000) and various dialogue processes (Brown et al., 2005; Kraybill and Wright, 2006), while retaining the values and intentions of restorative justice (Zehr, 2002, 2015) and advancing the theory and practices of both individual and collective narrative mediation (Monk et al., 1997; Denborough, 2008, 2010). As a result, TCCs occur as an entirely new and innovative model for structuring the community conversations that shape the participants’ lived experience of community.

Distinction from Other Engagement Approaches Appreciative Inquiry, according to the initial designers of the model, focuses on an organization’s capacity for positive change through inquiry into its positive change core – the body of stories, knowledge, and wisdom, often undiscussed, that best describes the organization’s life-giving forces and the organization when it has been and is at its best. (Whitney and Cooperrider, 1998, p. 17)

Appreciative Inquiry (AI) accomplishes transformation by shifting internal organization dialogue from a problem and deficit orientation, to a more appreciative, possibility-oriented, framing. AI also highlights the instances of positive organizational performance, uncovers the narrative and values that support positive action, and builds on them. One powerful and consistent critique of AI, however, is that it censors critical voices or forces them to enter the space with a positive framing that often mutes the emotional attachment and minimizes nonpositive experiences (Oliver et al., 2011). AI also listens to stories as told without inquiring about or seeking to uncover the narratives and discourse that shape the way that the stories are told and heard. TCC addresses these perceived shortcomings by

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highlighting the problem narratives, constraining narratives, and the productive and liberatory ones, and understanding how stories are told within them. Dialogue processes are intended to create spaces for greater mutual understanding (Kraybill and Wright, 2006). World Café, a very popular and broadly applied model of dialogic engagement operates with the tagline ‘shaping our futures through conversations that matter’ (Brown et al., 2005). For individuals and communities that occupy marginalized positions, dialogue is often experienced as lacking the needed action orientation and urgency to create a compelling case for participation. In partially or poorly implemented TCC, it is also possible that the process lacks a sense of urgency to be compelling to folks suffering from marginalizing community narratives (Giles, 2019). However, when TCC is implemented in a manner that draws diversely effected populations, is convened with a level of local authority, and directly connects the outcomes to community advocacy and social transformation efforts as expressed in its design (Hooker, 2016), this limitation is directly addressed. Restorative justice is a framing for community engagement that, in contrast to dialogue, focuses on identifying the actions required to address specific harms (Zehr, 2002, 2015). Restorative justice asks ‘what harm was done?’ and ‘who has the responsibility to make it right?’. In the case of cultural and multigenerational trauma (J. Alexander, 2012) the relational patterns and institutional practices have often been in place for so long that many present-day community members are unwilling to accept a role as ‘perpetrators’ of harm (B. K. Alexander, 2012). When the harm is structural, cultural, or personally mediated but arising from historical trauma and identity-based marginalization such as related to race, ethnicity, affectional preference, or gender performativity, some suggest that restorative justice approaches can be effectively applied (Davis, 2019; DeWolf and Geddes, 2019), but others,

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including this author, are at best skeptical of that claim. The skepticism arises from the fact that most restorative justice processes are focused on relationships and immediate harm with a secondary consideration for systems. The TCC process was developed to incorporate restorative justice’s harm focus and relational primacy, while at the same time addressing the narrative and discourse within which the relationships and systems exist (Hooker, 2014). The TCC model, by externalizing the problematic1 (a process discussed in the next section) avoids the labeling and blaming that often produces resistance to participation, but does not overlook the lines of force and power in local narratives that place certain people and groups in privileged positions. The next section describes the steps of the TCC process in an effort to demonstrate how the values of restorative justice, dialogue, and appreciative inquiry are retained while evolving the model of inquiry to address many of the primary critiques of those approaches.

STEPS OF A TCC Step 1a – Mapping Mapping is a metaphor for visually demonstrating relationality between the generally unspoken narrative and discursive structure of a community and the more observable aspects of relationship patterns, resource distribution, and institutional structures, none of which exist outside of the dominant discourse. Even activities of resistance and those seeking to counter the dominant narratives are working in response to dominant narratives (Butler, 1997a), and this can be demonstrated through a mapping process. The TCC process begins with a deceptively simple but practically and theoretically profound idea: ‘The people aren’t the problem. The problem is the problem!’ When a TCC facilitator makes this assertion and

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then writes these words on top of the page of an easel pad, this opens the possibility for a narrative reassessment and unveiling of the discursive positioning that produces relationality, influences structural and institutional forms, and in many ways stabilizes hierarchies within a community. ‘People aren’t the problem, the problem is the problem’ is an assertion that derives from White’s (White and Epston, 1990; White, 2007) early articulation of narrative practice. The invitation extended within this assertion is to begin to identify (without specifying as such) the narratives and discourse that dominate a community. The result of the invitation is that by naming the problem narrative and discourse as the source of problem stories and actions, the problematics1 are externalized. ‘“Externalizing” … encourages persons to objectify and, at times, personify the problems they are experiencing as oppressive. In this process, problems become separate entities and thus external to the person or relationship’ (White and Epston, 1990, p. 38). External problems are much less fixed or constraining and more readily negotiable and contestable. After making the assertion, the facilitator invites the participants to try to name the problematics as they see them. Fear, Apathy, Isolation, Misinformation, Inequitable Power, Hatred, and Culture are examples of common problematics that are identified. The mapping process allows participants to notice the impact of each problematic individually and when they operate in concert with others. To highlight the influence of the various problematics on relationships and institutional policy and practice, the facilitator might ask: ‘In the presence of fear and isolation, what have you seen happen in this community?’ or ‘How might the experience of inequitable power accompanied by misinformation impact you in your day-to-day life?’ or ‘What are examples of institutional policies or practices that reinforce social isolation and fear?’ The facilitation practices for this stage are: (a) write the primary assertion ‘people aren’t

the problem, the problem is the problem’ at the top of an easel pad page and draw a large circle in the center of the paper; (b) as participants name the core problematics, using their own words as much as possible, place those words/descriptions in the center of the circle; (c) as participants describe the results or products of the problematics (in response to questions such as ‘in the presence of fear what…?’ or ‘to conform to culture how…?’) these responses are positioned on lines drawn touching but moving away from the inner circle; (d) time permitting there can be one more round of identifying what would be tertiary responses or products. For instance, if a participant named ‘fear’ as one aspect of the problematic, then described avoiding certain parts of town and certain people as a response to fear, then two secondary results could be something like misinformation that lead to stereotypes and lack of appreciation for cultural contributions and cultural institutions that exist in the avoided parts of would be written in the center circle, ‘avoidance’ would be written on a spoke outside the circle and then two spokes branching off of avoidance would include ‘misinformation/stereotypes’, ‘separation or isolation’, and ‘lack of cultural knowledge’. Another participant might even notice that this fear and lack of cultural appreciation also results in ‘underfunding of cultural institutions in isolated communities’, which ‘reinforces the stereotypes of lack of culture’ (Figure 56.1).

Step 1b – Story Telling This step involves separating the participants into diverse dyads, triads or, at most, groups of four. In the small groupings participants are given time to share their direct experiences associated with the problematics and products that have been revealed during the mapping process. A prompt is given such as: Considering all the problematics that have been identified, share a story of a time when you are

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Figure 56.1  Example of community narrative mapping now aware that two or more of those problematics impacted your life in some meaningful way. For instance, if fear and isolation, caused you to not say something that negatively impacted your experience in the community or if you can see how your reaction to apathy and isolation has impacted your relationship with a colleague, friend or family member?

The story-telling component adds a depth of texture and emotional commitment to the meaning making that the participants are experiencing and describing as ‘their reality’. This sharing also offers insights to others in the community about how to make meaning of what they are observing. Further, story sharing adds an emotionally connected texture to the community analysis, which will be of great value when the action aspects of the process occur. It is important that listeners are given instructions for listening to one another,

something like those contained in the Center for Courage and Renewal’s Circles of Trust Touchstones (Palmer, 2007). In these instructions listeners are reminded that they are not to try to fix or correct the experience of the other and that the listener’s personal experience cannot be the basis upon which to validate or invalidate other participants’ observations. At best, if the story is told from a narrative perspective that they are unfamiliar or uncomfortable with, they are encouraged to ‘wonder’ (‘I wonder what experiences in life would cause her to think this way?’ ‘I wonder what my reaction to this information says about me?’) Transition: After a period of story sharing to add texture to the problematics and impacts that have been expressed in the mapping process, participants are reconvened for the next phase of the process. This segment

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is designed to uncover counter-narratives that are present in the community and give shape to a collective lived experience that is defined positionality in relationship to both dominant and resistance- or counter-narratives. This aspect of the process begins by summarizing the first part of the mapping process and then inviting the naming of a set of unique outcomes that would not be predicted by the dominant narratives. This part of the process is called reverse mapping because it begins with the observations of the product or narrative and discourse and then seeks to uncover what is present that creates possibility for those unique outcomes. The process may be initiated, as an example, in this way: Facilitator: What I wonder is … are there examples in Greensboro, are there sufficient examples of when the culture of civility, or fear, or the politeness, does not control? Where the need to maintain the image, the duplicitousness, the sense of economic control, or the history associated with that … Do you all have examples in Greensboro that you can point to where those are not the actual controlling factors? Are there ways to say, ‘Well, this is the place where people have actually pushed past fear to engage one another. This is the place where people were willing to disregard the culture of politeness on behalf of something, or they were able to act even in the space of fear or get beyond ignorance.’ Do you have some examples of that? (Hooker, 2014, pp. 258–259)

Step 2a – Reverse Mapping Reverse mapping is the process of inviting participants to notice unique outcomes that White and Epston (1990), following Goffman, describe as falling outside of the predictable outcomes of the dominant narrative. When these unique outcomes are identified and the meaning ascribed to them is also externalized, this creates space for participants to notice their sense of agency and to begin re-authoring the community narrative. In this phase of the process, the unique outcome is first identified and then participants are asked, what makes this possible. Having lived and in many ways become habituated to

making meaning and performing within the frame of the dominant narratives, unique outcomes are often difficult to identify in the early stages. Once a few have been identified, participants experience a sense of permission to speak against the narrative orthodoxy of the dominant narratives and can begin to identify several unique outcomes. These unique outcomes are also then collected to form a counter-narrative.

Step 2b – Story Telling Again, after several examples of unique outcomes have been identified and the sources have been mapped onto them in a reverse fashion, participants are invited to share stories in relationship to the alternatives. This infuses a sense of hope and encouragement and establishes the foundation from which to begin acting as communal agents of transformation by making a choice of their preferred narrative.

Two Cycles of Analysis The steps above described are designed to be cycled through twice. The first time the process would be implemented to analyze a play, movie, skit or some other live action form that the participants would have the opportunity to view together. By viewing together and then noticing the different observations and meaning-making process, participants become attuned to the idea of meanings as neither essential or universal, rather they are a product of historical experience as relayed in life narratives and each participant’s present positionality. This practice of starting analysis through consideration of a jointly viewed ‘third thing’ (Palmer, 2009) also allows participants to notice how the narrative unveiling process works, which (hopefully) allows for less apprehensive engagement in the specific community analysis aspect of the process. The ‘b’ steps discussed, specifically the story sharing and action planning, are

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important aspects of the overall mapping and engagement process. They are less important and less impactful during the first ‘practice’ round of mapping where the ‘third thing’ (movie, play, or skit) is being considered and may best be introduced during the second round where the community or organization itself is being discussed and analyzed directly.

Step 3 – Choice of Preferred Narratives Facilitator: I recognize how much time we have spent tonight. What I would like to do now is invite you to look at these two stories, because both of these stories are actually present in your community. There is a story of [your town] that is about mistrust, fear, how civility and a culture of politeness, duplicitousness, the drive of economics result in disempowerment, apathy, insularity, the protection of an image where people are punished for confronting the lie. They grow weary. They are invisible. They are silenced. There is a lack of a good vocabulary. There’s apathy, segregation, an unwillingness to be vulnerable. There are poor communications, and people … even those in the liberal class … operate in silos. That is a story that is available about [your town]. We tell it all the time and you live into it and perform it every day when you get up and you walk outside. And there’s also a story in [your town] where people take time. They persevere. They create a space for grace, forgiveness, and vulnerability. There’s a leadership that allows for the creation of safe spaces, where trust can be built with crossboundary interactions. There’s a way in which people don’t operate out of their history, where they’ve created opportunities for shared work and responsibility, bridging across communities, confronting economic barriers with people from many different communities who care more about friendship than they do about politics. There are many people who have not forgotten the ethic of love, and they’ve been able to build alliances across a wide spectrum to make common good. That story also exists in [your town]. Do you all have a preference? [Group laughter]. (Hooker, 2014, p. 261)

After unveiling both the dominant problem narratives and ample examples of community members acting outside of the domination, the TCC participants are invited into a moment of expressed agency. The need to choose is emphasized by the stark contrast between the

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lived experience of both dominant and counter-narratives. Also the possibility to choose is animated by the stories that they have shared under domination and when acting outside of the dominating/problem stories. If the participants express a preference for the less dominant narrative, then they are ushered into a conversation in which they identify whether and, if so, how relationships, resources and structures would necessarily change in order to make the non-dominant narrative a habitual practice. This analysis becomes the basis for Action Planning b. One advantage of developing action plans in support of narrative transformation is that there is no need for competition among actors in different arenas. The advocates for immediate social justice action, relational change, policy change, education, and the arts will each have a very specific role to play. Following the choosing of a narrative of a preferred future, all of these spheres of action can now be aligned with a shared intention. As previously stated, it is not necessary for the participants to have any exposure to the theoretical foundations of TCC in order to implement one. It would be, however, essential for those implementing the process and analyzing its outcomes for both content and effectiveness to have a grounding in several if not all aspects of the theory. In addition to social construction and narrative theory, Foucault’s description of power, and Judith Butler’s articulation of the concepts of performativity and precarity will help both implementer and analyst understand the full transformative power in the otherwise simple process. The next section briefly summarizes each.

THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS – POWER AND PERFORMATIVITY IN COMMUNITY FORMATION AND TRANSFORMATION Power: People engaged in community building and organizing often discuss the need for a shift in power as the basis for community

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transformation. Social constructionist and narrative approaches also highlight a transformed relationship to power as both a source and result of transformed community – the distinction being in the conceptualization of power and, therefore, the understanding of how it is shifted. In structuralist analysis, power is often treated as a possession of those that are capable of oppressing and marginalizing, and organizing processes are designed to shift the power or wrest the power away on behalf of those previously powerless. According to Foucault (1994), ‘What defines a relationship of power is that it is a mode of action that doesn’t act directly and immediately on others. Instead, it acts upon their actions: an action upon an action, on possible or actual future or present actions’ (p. 340). Power then is the ability to directly or indirectly influence, shape, or, in a totalizing sense or the case of total domination, determine the present and future actions of others. Power has its effect not as a matter of consent or a renunciation of freedom or a transfer of rights, but, rather, in a person’s exercise of what occurs as that person’s choice or will. As Foucault goes on to explain, ‘Even though consent and violence are instruments or results, they do not constitute the principle or basic nature of power. [Power] operates on the field of possibilities in which the behavior of active subjects is able to inscribe itself’ (p. 341). This sense of subjectivity largely shapes the distribution of goods, services, and opportunities, and also establishes the values hierarchy of a particular community. The values hierarchy influences such aspects of community participation as when and where a person can be included or excluded from decision making, and when and to what subject the person has the right to speak and the right to be heard, which are not contiguous rights (Cobb, 2013). In a sense, power is performed within relationships and the performance produces and reproduces order within a social setting. The results that are produced are reflective of what Judith Butler describes as performativity.

Performativity: according to Butler, should not be understood as a singular or deliberate ‘act’ in the sense of performance, but rather, as a reiterative and citational practice (Butler, 1997b, p. 2) that consists of both speech and acts, that are cited and enacted again and again. People act in relationship or reaction to the range of actions supposed within the narratives circulating in a community. The actions produce a sense of what it means to be a certain type of being, which is referenced implicitly by the person in the next action and by others who are operating within the same identity category. For instance, the way that the construct of gender is created, reproduced, and stabilized, Butler describes as performance but then notes that the performance is not an expression of an internal pre-existing quality of femaleness, but rather a constant negotiation strategy. The narratives and discourse that are available in a community and those external narratives that either reinforce local community narratives or act in some way to modify, resist or reject them constitute the pool of citational options. In other words, what is spoken, acted, and produced as a result of speech and action is embedded within the available narratives through/in which communities are formed and stabilized. Helping participants in a community transformation conversation to understand the role that narrative plays in shaping community participation (i.e. personal and institutional performativity) creates space and opportunity to be intentional in the design of new and preferred narratives.

CONCLUSION Relationship and structural change are necessary but not sufficient for community transformation. What is required for sustainable and durable transformation is the shifting of the narratives and discourse which form the narrative habitus (Frank, 2010) within which community members and institutions develop

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their individual and collective identities. Transformative Community Conferencing sets a context in which equality of voice can be experienced in pursuit of equality of existence. The approach is being adapted for application in large and small social justice advocacy and religious organizations as well as large and small communities, towns and villages in the United States, as well as Africa and Asia. This broad application reminds us that while stories may be ‘living, local, and specific[,] [n]arratives, in contrast to stories, are templates that people use as resources to construct and understand stories’ (Frank, 2010, p. 121). Power embedded in narratives is much more malleable and much less problematic when externalized, unveiled, and demonstrated as not a totalizing narrative of the lives of people within an organization or community. Dominating and oppressive community narratives can be cooperatively re-storied toward a greater common good. Transformative Community Conferencing is one approach to utilize the insights of social construction, infuse the principles and practices of narrative theory into community engagement and transformation efforts, and take seriously issues of power and identity in the re-storying process.

Note 1  The term problematic is not to be understood as interchangeable with problem. The term problem often implies the existence of a solution. Problematic, on the other hand, is meant to reflect complex non-linear constraints with multiple approaches but not one specific response that is deemed appropriate (i.e. no solution or answer).

REFERENCES Alexander, B. K. (2012). The Performative Sustainability of Race. New York: Peter Lang. Alexander, J. (2012). Trauma: A Social Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press.

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Althusser, L. (1971). Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes Toward an Investigation). In L. Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (B. Brewster, Trans.) (pp. 127–88). New York: Monthly Review Press. Austin, J. L. (1962). How to Do Things with Words (The William James Lectures). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1967). The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Anchor Books. Block, P. (2008). Community: The Structure of Belonging. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler. Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and Symbolic Power (G. Raymond, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bronfrenbrenner, U. (1977). Toward an Experiential Ecology of Human Development. American Psychologist, July, 513–531. Brown, J., Isaacs, D., & World Café Community. (2005). The World Café: Shaping Our Future Through Conversations That Matter. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. Bruffee, K. A. (1986). Social Construction, Language, and the Authority of Knowledge: A Bibliographical Essay. College English, 48(8), 773–790. Bruner, J. (1986). Actual Minds, Possible Worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bruner, J. (2002). Making Stories: Law, Literature, Life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Burr, V. (2003). Social Constructionism (2nd edition). London, UK: Routledge. Butler, J. (1997a). The Psychic Life of Power: Theorems in Subjection. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Butler, J. (1997b). Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative. New York, NY: Routledge. Butler, J. (2009). Performativity, Precarity, and Sexual Politics. AIBR. Revista de Antropología Iberoamericana. www.aibr.org, 4(3), i–xiii. Cobb, S. (2013). Speaking of Violence: The Politics and Poetics of Narrative in Conflict Resolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cooperrider, D. L., Sorenson, P. F., Whitney, D., & Yaeger, T. F. (Eds.). (2000). Appreciative Inquiry: Rethinking Human Organization

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Towads a Positive Theory of Change. Champaign, IL: Stipes Publishing. Davis, F. (2019). The Little Book of Restorative Justice and Race. New York: Good Books/ Skyhorse. Deleuze, G. (1988). Foucault. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Denborough, D. (2008). Collective Narrative Practice: Responding to Individuals, Groups, and Communities who have Experienced Trauma. Adelaide, Australia: Dulwich Centre Publications. Denborough, D. (2010). Narrative Practice as Conflict Dissolution/Social Historical Healing. In D. Denborough, Socio/Historical Conflict Dissolution. Adelaide, South Austrailia, Australia: Dulwich Centre. DeWolf, T. N., & Geddes, J. (2019). The Little Book of Racial Healing: Coming to the Table for Truth Telling, Liberation, and Transformation. New York: Good Books/SkyHorse. Erhard, W., Jensen, M. C., Zaffron, S., & Echeverria, J. (2017). Being a Leader and the Effective Exercise of Leadership: An Ontological/Phenomenological Model. Retrieved July 2018, from http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ ssm.1585976 Foucault, M. (1994). Power/Knowledge. New York: Pantheon Books. Foucault, M. (2000). Power (J. D. Faubion, Ed.). New York: The New Press. Foucault, M. (2010). The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language. New York: Vintage Books. Frank, A. W. (2010). Letting Stories Breathe: A Socio-Narratology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Freedman, J., & Combs, G. (1996). Narrative Therapy: The Social Construction of Preferred Realities. New York: W. W. Norton and Co. Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic Injustice: Ethics and the Power of Knowing. New York: Oxford University Press. Gergen, K. J. (1985). The Social Constructionist Movement in Modern Psychology. American Psychologist, 40(3), 266–275. Gergen, K. J. (2001). Social Construction in Context. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Gergen, K. J. (2009). Relational Being: Beyond Self and Community. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gergen, M., & Gergen, K. J. (2003). Social Construction: A Reader. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Giles, H. S. (2019). Toward a Theory of Justicecraft: Language, Narratives, and Justice in Restorative Community Conversations. Contemporary Justice Review, 22(3), 257–279. Hooker, D. A. (2014). Performing Greensboro: Using Foucauldian Analysis to Deconstruct ‘Trouble in Mind’ and Generate Alternative Community Narratives. Tilburg: Tilburg University. Retrieved October 24, 2016, from https://pure.uvt.nl/portal/files/4072335/ Hooker_Performing_15_09_2014.pdf Hooker, D. A. (2016). The Little Book of Transformative Community Conferencing. New York: Good Books/Skyhorse Publishing. Hooker, D. A. (2017). Legacy and Aftermath: The Mechanisms of Power in the Multigenerational Transmission of Trauma. In E. Pinderhughes, V. Jackson, & P. A. Romney, Understanding Power: An Imperative for Human Services (pp. 23–47). Washington, DC: NASW Press. Hooker, D. A., & Czajkowski, A. P. (2012). Transforming Historical Harms. Harrisonburg, VA: Eastern Mennonite University. Kraybill, R., & Wright, E. (2006). The Little Book of Cool Tools for Hot Topics. New York: Good Books. Kuhn, T. S. (1996). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (3rd edition). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Monk, G., Winslade, J., Crocket, K., & Epston, D. (Eds.). (1997). Narrative Therapy in Practice: The Archaeology of Hope. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Nussbaum, M. C. (2011). Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Ochs, E., & Capps, L. (1996). Narrating the Self. Annual Review of Anthropology, 25, 19–43. Oliver, C., Fitzgerald, S. P., & Hoxey, J. C. (2011). Critical Appreciation of Appreciative Inquiry: Reflexive Choices for Shadow Dancing. Review of Business Research, 11(2), 45–50.

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Palmer, P. (2007). Circles of Trust Touchstones. Retrieved August 3, 2019, from Center for Courage and Renewal: http://www.couragerenewal.org/touchstones/ Palmer, P. (2009). A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. powell, j. a. (2015). The Problem of Othering: Towards Inclusiveness and Belonging. Othering and Belonging, 1–13. Ross, L., & Bland, B. (2015, July 9). Four Questions for Peacebuilding. unpublished draft. Sandoval, C. (2000). Methodology of the Oppressed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Saussure, F. de (1959). Course in General Lingustics (P. Meissel & H. Saussy, Eds., and W. Baskin, Trans.) New York: Columbia University Press. Sen, A. (2009). The Idea of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press/Harvard. Trouillot, M.-R. (1995). Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston: Beacon Press.

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57 Relational Community Practices for Transitional Societies Victoria Lugo

TRANSITIONAL SOCIETIES This chapter emerged from diverse research and action experiences with survivors of the Colombian armed conflict. These included children and young ex-combatants (Lugo, 2017, 2018), and both individuals and communities who had been forcibly displaced (Lugo et al., 2018; Lugo and Gilligan, 2019). More recently, they also included the inhabitants of territories which have been heavily influenced by conflict, who are engaged in a participatory action research project via a course entitled, ‘Creating political abilities for transitions in local territories’ actually in process in Colombia.1 The ideas and practices of social constructionism (Gergen, 1994, 1999, 2009) have been of enormous utility for the establishment of a relationship with participants, both individually and collectively. This relationship has permitted the conversation about people’s experiences, comprehension of the way in which they have responded to the harm

inflicted by war, and especially, the discernment of those alternatives which would allow them to continue moving forward in the midst of difficult political and economic conditions. These lessons could be of use to other societies, outside of Colombia, which also face societal transition processes coopted by war, in which the promise of change and transformation toward systems that are more democratic, inclusive, and respectful of citizens’ rights, and in which relationships based upon dialogue, instead of arms, are possible. According to Castillejo (2017), the idea of a transitional society presents both the ‘promise of a new nation’, as well as a narrative for that which was experienced in a violent past. Transition is an idea associated with time, change, and the promise of a better future that would permit the comprehension of the complex dynamics and dialectics between the splits and permanence of the many forms of violence suffered in the past, the ways in which these are reconfigured in the present,

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and the hope of a teleological movement toward other forms of interaction. The concept of transition is useful in overcoming the marked differences between the past, present, and future that could be imposed on the use of concepts such as post-conflict or postviolence, and to understand that conflict is always present in human relationships. From the perspective of transition, however, society can agree about reconciliation instead of perpetuating the cycle of death, war, and revenge. Castillejo (2017) also states that times of change in transitional societies are observed as permanence and splits. Global models of governance, structural poverty, social exclusion, and unequal conditions would be difficult to change with the signing of a peace agreement or the existence of a truth commission. These are understood as precisely the causes of armed conflict, particularly in Colombia, and will fuel the permanence of new forms of violence. The personal and corporate interests of so-called ‘beneficiaries of war’, and those who are economically supported by the war, and which ‘normalize forms of social distribution of collective suffering’ (Castillejo, 2017, p. 4) remain. The society would hope that the peace agreement would rupture the dynamic of the armed conflict, deprive armed groups of legitimacy and fuel for war, shatter the war narrative as the only solution to social conflicts, and splinter the significance of war as a life option for civilians with limited social opportunities. The peace agreement could set up a new discourse and social practices based on the commitments agreed upon in Havana2 and the implementation of a series of mechanisms, including the commission for truth3 and transitional justice,4 among others. What is currently occurring in Colombia is a transition which establishes an inflection point, on the signing of the peace agreement. However, this overlaps with other, longerterm transitions, as affirmed by De Sousa Santos (2010). This includes the transition of indigenous groups, which began with

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their resistance to the conquest and colonialism, and will only end when these groups’ self-determination is absolutely recognized. For movements involving those of African descent, the transition began with resistance to slavery, and will end when colonialism and racism are over. For farmers, in a broad sense, the transition began with the accumulation of land in the hands of oligarchs, and will end when agrarian reform has been accomplished. For this reason, the inhabitants of territories heavily influenced by the war in Colombia,5 despite having fully supported peace in the referendum conducted by President Juan Manuel Santos’ government, also express their skepticism regarding the consolidation of sustainable peace if chronic segregation and endemic inequality do not form part of the state’s agenda. The formulation of just and lasting peace, in Colombia and elsewhere, depends, in large part, on the possibilities offered for inclusion and social justice for historically excluded groups, recognition of their rights, and consolidation of a more substantial democracy, as affirmed by international researchers including Muvingi (2009), Aolaín and Campbell (2005), Johnstone and Quirk (2012), Madlingozi (2010), and Corntassel and Holder (2009). The Office of the High Commissioner for Peace in Colombia has called attention to the challenges that Colombian society faces, following the signing of the agreement with the FARC-EP. Peace cannot be confused with the demobilization of an armed group. The government’s chief negotiator, Humberto de La Calle Lombana, as well as the High Commissioner for Peace, Sergio Jaramillo, both affirmed, at the 16th World Summit of the Nobel Peace Laureates in Bogotá (2017), that after the process implemented with the most populous guerrilla group in the country, and the oldest such group on the continent, the next step is to create ‘the peace agenda’ and it must have a territorial character. The notion of territorial peace requires a process that responds to the need to recognize that, although the armed conflict has

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affected the entirety of Colombian society, it has had differential effects, in terms of gender, generation, ethnicity, and territories. Of these territories, those which are furthest flung and been most thoroughly abandoned by the state have suffered the effects of the war more pointedly. Reparation of the damage that has accumulated over more than five decades of conflict demands the participation of all of the citizenry and institutions, so as to generate peace, from a differential perspective. This involves priority rights reestablishment, reconciliation, and social ties re-stitching processes for those locations that were most profoundly affected by the conflict for so many years. In this sense, it is fundamental to recognize that transitional societies, such as that of Colombia, have documented war, violence, and conflict to a larger extent than community response initiatives and response strategies for said situations (Bouvier, 2015, p. 21). Social researchers in Colombia have focused, with greater interest, on understanding the causes, effects, and dimensions of this violence (Guzmán et al., 1980; Gómez et al., 2003; Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica, 2013; Pécaut, 2013). Also, as in Colombia, other international researchers have taken an interest in the ways in which various transitional societies have experienced assorted forms of violence, especially in Central American, South American, and African countries (Carrothers, 2002; Bell, 2008; Nagy, 2012). It has been established that armed conflicts affect the cultural and productive practices of the populations involved, as well as political and community forms of organization, and symbolic territorial construction, among many other aspects. However, the importance of understanding the way in which individuals and communities interpret state discourse and produce spaces, projects, relationships, and organizations to confront the effects of violence on local and microsocial levels not unrelated to institutions and social practices, or the ways in which survivors respond to the

harm and effects of the armed conflict in their lives, has started to be recognized. Castillejo (2017) accounts for the configuration of different fields of knowledge internationally, which respond to this approach. Said studies address trauma and approaches to memory and its connection with history which include commemorations, patrimonializations, and museifications. In this same sense, certain Colombian authors agree that it is necessary to perform further research, in order to establish the relationship between personal and social transformation, and to extract and replicate the lessons which emerge from those local and regional initiatives being implemented currently (Bouvier, 2015). Peace initiatives in regions and towns may be the raw material required for the construction of national peace, and form part of social ties that must be re-stitched and strengthened, such that conflict transformation is possible on the national level instead of answered with violence. Both individuals and groups that have implemented local peace initiatives and mechanisms for conflict resolution could contribute to national peace strategies … survivor experiences constitute an enormous unexplored resource, which could hold the key to transformation of the Colombian conflict. (Bouvier, 2015, p. 533)

SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM AND RESEARCH INTO TRANSITIONAL SOCIETIES One of the fundamental presuppositions of social constructionism (Gergen, 1994) is that realities are constructed through daily interactions with others. In other words, this requires communication between individuals, and with this, one’s own world, as well as that of others is formed. The central interest of social constructionism is that which individuals do together, and that which said actions produce. This involves a radical

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separation from the modernist tradition, whose main interest is individuals and their private characteristics. The different forms in which the world is described and explained are the result of relationships: one individual’s understanding of the world is created by way of coordination between various actors – negotiations, agreements, and comparisons of points of view, etc. From this perspective, relationships are primordial to all that which is intelligible. No intelligible world of objects and individuals exists until there are relationships. The outbreak of armed conflict in territories, and the use of this as a scenario for war, in which disputes for control break out between confrontational armed groups, permeates the historically constructed forms of interrelation and the coordination achieved through these. Group cohesion is abruptly disrupted, in order to make way for the armed imposition of other forms of interaction. Although these concerns established impositions, frequently these previously constructed relationships cannot be completely upset through violence. As a result of said violence, both personal and collective damage is made evident, relationships are affected, pain and fear encircle trust and limit the possibilities for collective shaping. However, in such a context, conjointly constructed history and the relationships that are renegotiated in conflict-ridden territories are able to produce forms of resistance whose recognition and comprehension constitute a social legacy of unique importance to face this coexistence. In transitional societies, it is of fundamental importance to recognize that the life experiences of survivors are invaluable lessons for society, owing to those strategies that have collectively been formed to address conflict. Definitively, the path to peace is defined by learning, understanding, and sharing the processes that communities and institutions in these territories have implemented to counteract both the violence perpetrated by armed groups, and the personal, family, community, and social impacts thereof.

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Related processes, from a constructionist point of view, possess local, historical, and cultural qualities, such as discourse about the past and future that is constructed and reconstructed in the present. Memory, as such, re-signifies the renewal, in the present, of discourse about the past, as performed within a relational framework, and always has a connection to the future, in terms of possible actions, and in the way in which this may transform reality. In other words, memory, from the constructionism point of view, is not understood as a static recapitulation of facts which occurred in the distant or recent past (McNamee and Hosking, 2012). Memory, in contexts of war, permits continual progress, based upon previous constructions, the recognition thereof, and their restoration. This is vital, given the impacts of violent events and the need to resist these, instead of succumbing as entire communities or cultures with their own forms of organization, relationships with the territory, and interaction. Thus, memory may be used and refreshed when, as in the Colombian case, paths to learning from the past that not only includes war, but also resistance thereto, are sought in the present. Thus, the fabric of stable, lasting future territorial peace may be spun. For social constructionism, knowledge is a social action (Gergen and Gergen, 2008). The world is understood in a wide variety of ways, but each construction encourages different types of action. Knowledge, as such, is not something that one has, but rather something that individuals do or act on, together, it is performative. Knowledge, embedded in culture, history, and language, is a product of social discourse. The creation of knowledge (theories, ideas, truths, beliefs) is an interactive interpretative process in which all parties contribute to its creation, sustainability, and change. Knowledge is neither fundamental nor definitive. It is not fixed or discovered, but rather, fluid and changing. From the constructionist perspective, knowledge is not acquired passively, nor is it there to be discovered. It is created via one’s link with

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the world and with others. It concerns those links through which power, and its various forms of exercise, occupy spaces of significant importance, a situation that is important to recognize and transform together (Gergen, 2001). Social constructionism favors local knowledge, that is, the expertise, values, truths, conventions, and narratives that are created in a community, and which contain first-hand comprehension of these individuals and their situations. If knowledge is formulated within the community, it is more relevant, pragmatic, and sustainable. This type of knowledge is what Shotter (2011) calls knowledge from within, or the third type of knowledge – a special type that is incorporated into the conversational background of life, group knowledge in practice, and standing together with others. This is the type of knowledge that one acquires from a situation, institution, or society. Research into societies in transition seeks to produce knowledge from within those communities which have experienced war in their own territories, and have also proposed ways to resist this, so as to not succumb to pain, fear, damage, and hatred, the desire for revenge or desperation. From the constructionist point of view, it is necessary to implement research ‘with’ inhabitants and not ‘about’ them (Hosking, 2011). This contributes to the recognition, appropriation, and strengthening of the population’s abilities and the generation of new abilities required to face the societal transition process, which is permeated by armed violence practices, toward a society shaped through participative deliberation and politics. Research is then proposed as a process with a dialogical character (Sampson, 2008), in which both community and institutional participation is essential, from beginning to end. This demands the integration of knowledge, by way of association, in each territory, of subjects and collectives (institutions, organizations, communities, families), as researchers must be committed not just to the generation of understanding, but also to

the transformation of their own realities. The transformation of said realities supposes the need to learn, recognize, and appropriate, and make use of the knowledge and abilities employed in the midst of armed conflict to resist this, prevent and heal damage, repair links and relationships, and generate familial and community continuity (Lugo and Gilligan, 2019). Based upon constructionism, beyond performing a recount of the ‘victimizing’ events that a community has experienced, it could be said that its interest is centered on the narrative of those feelings that have emerged from loss and suffering. The narrative of painful events is inserted into a cultural system which favors one emotion or another: shame or pride, betrayal or loyalty, ignorance or recognition of that which has been created and continues to be re-created in the present. Stories of pain and suffering are just one type, among many other types of stories (Lugo, 2017). Another group of stories of interest to constructionism is conformed of responses to damaging events (White, 2006). Response stories carry with them implicit abilities, knowledge, and values that demonstrate that which is important for individuals and communities, reveal their identity, survival strategies, ways in which they protect themselves, acts of caring, life abilities, acts of resistance, lessons, struggles, and recuperation rituals, etc., which permit the construction of another territory of identity to the community. With this, their present and future may be reconstructed, not just as ‘defenseless victims’, but as survivors who were able to shape their own context with others, such as territories of peace. The action and practice approach which has facilitated social constructionism for transitional societies questions the homogeneous discourse which purports to articulate the different actors in the conflict and recognize the humanity and dignity of all those involved. It facilitates the narration of the suffering experienced, emphasizes the responses over the causes or consequences of war, and

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involves narration, dialogue, and creation as relational community practices, in order to generate new and improved ways of life.

THE COLLECTIVE NARRATION OF SUFFERING AND RESPONSE TO HARM As Das (2003) says, the stories of violence, like those in Colombia, demand a look at the ways in which the survivors suffer, perceive, persist, and resist such violence, remember their losses, mourn them, but also absorb them, cope with them, and articulate them into their daily lives, make use of them, avoid them, or simply coexist with them. This would allow understanding of the ways in which violence shapes subjectivity and, at the same time, is reconfigured – and susceptible to transformation – by the specific actions of individuals and communities. It is therefore necessary to examine the perspective, language, and practices of those who suffer, and the way they suffer violence, negotiate, and create, at the very least, strongholds of dignity (almost always in ways even they can’t see). As Das (2007) proposes, the testimonies of the suffering are born of terribly shattered contexts, are branded by the events, but also testify to the will to live of those who offer them. These testimonies serve at least three purposes: to name the victim’s suffering, to serve as and accompany mourning, and to establish relationships with others, which allows survivors to re-inhabit devastated spaces. The first serves to challenge and retract from historical memory, over and over again, the reason for the suffering, calling attention to recollections of violence, abuse, and outrages suffered. The other two reflect the survivors’ attempts to adapt to new conditions of survival, highlight the courage and resourcefulness needed to overcome suffering, to appropriate the pernicious marks of violence and signify them through the work

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of domestication, ritualization, and retelling. Ultimately, it is a moral dimension that reveals the will to live, shakes up the presence of the absence, and makes it possible to defrost and agitate time so it can do its job. The suffering of survivors is a social suffering. In the words of Kleinman, Das and Lock (1997), it is seen as the assembly of human problems that has its origins and consequences in the devastating wounds inflicted on the human experience by social forces. Social suffering, therefore, refers to various dimensions of the human experience, including health, morality, religion, legality, and well-being. Social suffering disrupts the symbolic and imaginary networks that support life in society. As the memory of the existence of harm is being recovered, being made visible, recognizable to others, while all the broken and scattered pieces of the events that occurred are being gathered together again, a second narration is needed: the ways in which the survivors persist and resist the damage, along with the multiple responses to the acts of violence, the value assigned to the lives in spite of the damage, the lessons learned through adversity, and survival itself. All of these must be narrated, because despite the countless actions and practices carried out in response to the damage, they have become devalued, invisible and lost their importance. Even those who suffer fail to fully acknowledge those actions and practices, have forgotten them, but they survive in the alternative stories, in acts of caretaking and solidarity with others, and through the struggles, the defenses, their hopes and dreams (Lugo, 2017). The survivor’s story constitutes a process of speaking and recovering the territory of words and history, the mediation needed in order to reoccupy ‘the very signs of injury …’ to form continuity in that space of devastation. The relief that comes through recovery of the voice, the word, is understood as the symbolic, moral, and aesthetic cohesion produced by the narrative, as Danto (1985)

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pointed out. The narrative mode integrates various elements of plot, enhances its capacity to signify, produces social coherence, and introduces the development of mourning. Survivors moralize reality through the narrative form, and this explains why it is often attributed therapeutic powers (Das, cited by Ortega, 2008). This power is visible in collective forms of mourning and lamentation, such as the ‘alabaos’, traditional a cappella songs interpreted during mortuary rituals by Afrodescendant women from the Pacific coast in Colombia or the indigenous community of Nukak Makú’s ritual of standing in a circle to embrace and cry together. Victims are given a place in the cultural work of mourning. Survivors speak inside and outside of these narrative genres. They make use of broken words and of the numbed, silent body; they draw subtle gestures and create their own rituals; compose places of memory and deliberate oversight. These are all strategies for appropriating and subjectifying painful experience, to rediscover the lost or muffled voice. The survivors’ areas of silence, more than repressed memories that inhabit the unconscious, as psychoanalysis sees them, or definitive ruptures in their expressive language abilities, are primarily and paradoxically, appropriations of pain and survival strategies. All survivors have the right to keep quiet or maintain secrets that they don’t wish to or cannot publicly reveal. Perhaps this is a form of protection from embarrassment or humiliation. Just as they need to be heard, they may also ask that their silence be respected. They need time to express themselves. Their lives are like puzzles broken into pieces that need to be reconnected and given meaning. They need time to mourn the dead that couldn’t even be buried, the lost relationships, the scars, the suffering, and the diseases from not eating or sleeping well or from living in the jungle far away from their home for so long. They need time to reconnect the multiple identities that have been superimposed, one on top of another, to recover their names and

regain some continuity in their lives. They need time to build new relationships that are reliable and safe and will remain in their hearts. They have the right to remain silent and keep private what they are not yet ready to publicly reveal (Lugo, 2017). Perhaps it is in music where the relationship between sound and silence is most apparent. As Barenboim (2008) put it, sound doesn’t exist by itself, rather it has a constant and inevitable relationship with silence. The first sound of a musical piece is not the beginning, but rather it begins with the silence that precedes it, interrupts it. Likewise, the end is not the last sound; it is the silence that follows. The relationship between the survivor’s story and silence is similar: areas of silence surround the most brutal, most painful events, which force the narrators to use metaphors and indirect language to protect themselves and protect listeners. Silence does not mean the death of meaning, but the need to find other ways of expressing suffering, almost always through the body and art. Frozen words transform into gestures. Lost memories manifest themselves in looks, movements, postures. The body itself bears witness.

Dialogue as Narration Context According to social construction, storytelling is an interpersonal discursive production. The text that is created is something that always happens between people and as such is inseparable from the cultural context where it occurs. The story always unfolds in the presence of an observer (present or implied), so that the story is continually recreated, and not only remembered; others play an active part in the narrative and, therefore, social acceptance of a narrative inevitably depends on dialogue. The way the story is told today transforms and updates it, and transforms both the narrators and the audience (McNamee and Shotter, 2004). To testify is, above all, to establish a relationship with another: one offers to speak,

Relational Community Practices for Transitional Societies

the other to listen, and something else. The speech of the survivor, the sufferer, has many voices, which can be articulated in a polyphonic story. This compels the researchers to develop multiple forms of listening in order to understand the depth of what is said; it is necessary to develop a polyphonic ear. In this regard, Bakhtin (1986) offers a deeper understanding of polyphony. The author of a statement has a multiple nature, so that a virtual collective subjectivity is expressed, or a collective of many ‘I’s’, which the author has assimilated throughout his life, through contact with the different ‘voices’ heard and that somehow make up the text, which is precisely the place where ideological, cultural, and linguistic systems meet. So the testimony of the survivor is a dialogic text, not a monologic text. It’s the speech of many voices, of meaning relations, and of the author’s positions. For Bakhtin (1986), the voice is defined as the particular viewpoint from which a statement is expressed. Meaning can exist when two or more voices make contact and, likewise, understanding is the linking of the speaker’s word to a counterword that is nothing more than the alternative word from the listener’s repertoire. Returning to music, Barenboim says (2008) that in a piece of music legitimacy is given to all voices. The dialogue of counterpoint always presents at least two narratives at the same time and allows for each to present itself fully, but a single narrative can never speak without a counterpart to support it, contradict it, or complement its own statement. Without the counter-subject there can be no fugue. It cannot be said that the subject’s voice is more important than the counter-subject’s; the one without the other has no logical existence. Likewise, if the researcher understands the survivor as the subject of the narrative, his or her voice populated by many voices, he or she has the fortune or misfortune of sharing the stage with the listener, who is a permanent reminder of what the subject itself is not. They depend on each other to exist

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in the narrative; they must coexist. This has implications for social scientists and activists who try to understand the suffering of the survivors and the ways they have faced this suffering.

Reconstruction of Survivor Humanity and Dignity Narrating the experience of the survivors could transform into a restoration process (Lugo et al., 2018). In the art world, damaged goods considered valuable are restored. This damage should not have occurred, should have been prevented, and must not be repeated in the future. But given that it has occurred, and that a valuable existence has been severely injured, this existence must be restored. Restoration, therefore, acknowledges the existence of the damage, draws attention to the fact, and simultaneously exalts the value of the objects that have suffered damage (Lugo, 2017). The value lies not only in the object itself, in life itself for our case, considered a work of art that deserves to be lived and mourned; there is tremendous value in what this life can offer to others, to present and future generations. So, by restoring a damaged existence, the social researcher restores that existence to everyone who, in the present and the future, can learn and benefit from it or from the community to which it belongs. The listener will have to recognize survivors as valuable beings whose lives are worth living, being cried over, and narrated (Butler, 2010). Their lives, their stories, and their future are considered important. This recognition allows them to confirm the value of not only their own lives, but the lives of others as well; it enriches not only the version of one’s self, but also the multiple versions of what others are, what a community is, what the society can become. The listener will also have to question all previously constructed discourse, all classification that has typecast people who have

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suffered as victims, orphans, vulnerable, underprivileged, abused, mistreated, traumatized, and mentally ill. Like all human beings, those who have been hurt are much more than the discourses that define them. Especially important is the deconstruction of the concept of trauma. According to Ortega (2011), trauma can be understood from a mimetic or anti-mimetic model. The mimetic model is based on the idea that trauma occurs when the force that assails the subject from the exterior overwhelms him to the point where the individual is prey to compulsive repetition. These repetitions produce identification with the traumatic scene that allows for no distance between the subject and the event. This means that the victim doesn’t have full knowledge of the traumatic experience. The mimetic model attempts to account for the mysterious behavior of the body – the compulsive repetitions and the involuntary memories – by indicating that there, in those independent actions of all consciousness, lies a different knowledge, a particular knowledge about that wound. That other knowledge can be equally understood as one that lacks the subject, which has not been subjectivized. This is why it is said that the body that repeats the symptoms is not the subject of its own discourse. On the other hand, the anti-mimetic model sees the injured subject as capable of being a spectator of his own trauma and of representing it to himself, of constructing it as a narrative of his past. Social construction would agree with this perspective. Whether or not a painful event becomes a trauma will depend on the meaning built around that event in relationships with others. In other words, trauma is not settled on a person; it is constructed in discourse (White and Epston, 1993). The story of the painful event, which continually changes and is always different, is embedded in a cultural system that favors one meaning or another. And so, beyond the painful episodes of death, fear, injuries, blows reported by survivors is the sense of shame or pride, betrayal or loyalty, the ignorance

or recognition that has been constructed and continues to be reconstructed with others, throughout one’s life. White (2006) suggests that the story surrounding the trauma is a story inside many other stories. Perhaps it is also the story that survivors interpret and act out in contexts of relations aimed at identification or recognition. So the story that includes even the most painful events is also a performance, as suggested by Goffman (2006) and Butler (2006), an interpretation in a particular setting with changing actors and audiences, and scripts that are constantly updated. And those who tell the story as well as those who listen are part of this performance. Together they construct the setting in which these and other stories are told. It is also important to acknowledge those who have suffered as valid and respectable spokespersons, capable of speaking and being part of an audience that also listens. This is a fundamental part of ensuring that dialogue and narration emerge in a new and creative way. It is therefore important to enrich their capacity for expression and understanding, which has been affected by the damage; to experiment with new forms of communication; to reflect on ingrained patterns of behavior that disqualify others; to discover and manufacture skills and abilities for dialogue and narration; and to develop multiple-listening conversational response skills. It is as important to narrate the experience of harm and suffering as it is to listen compassionately. Dialogue, narration and creation with people who have suffered are the result of a slow process; they aren’t necessarily spontaneous (Lugo, 2017). When facing valid spokespersons, their narration is given credence; their position is respected; the expert knowledge expressed in clinical diagnoses and histories is contextualized; an effort to understand better, to learn is made; the listener asks in an interested manner, he or she really listens and actively exchanges his or her views, stories and anecdotes. The interpretation of what has

Relational Community Practices for Transitional Societies

happened in the lives of survivors happens jointly, not from the expert’s authoritarian position. In conversation, the listener remains attentive, present, and continuously and uninterruptedly available.

CONCLUSION: CHALLENGES TO SOCIAL INVESTIGATION IN TRANSITIONAL SOCIETIES As Das (2007) suggests, the voice and the saying do not lead to an objective consideration of the statement, but, fundamentally, to a willingness to listen; to pay attention to the voice, to the saying, opening us up to the irreducible experience of the other, to a living word that cannot be reduced to a fact. The social researcher as listener of testimony is confronted simultaneously with the rigorous task of producing knowledge, a political commitment to historical memory, and accompanying the survivor’s mourning. According to the author, the description of contexts and dynamics saturated with violence and social suffering are only valid if they help the victim to move on. Contemporary social sciences face an urgent mandate for the development of languages of pain, to better understand their meanings. But this language must also include ways of dealing with pain, to symbolically build and develop mechanisms that make it possible to accept loss and inscribe it in a story that gives meaning. These processes of re-signification alone will make possible – for the survivors and for the society – a new discourse in which death is not the structuring or destructuring axis. Which relational practices will best help to accomplish this? To construct close ties to the lives of the survivors or, as Das (2007) says, a descent into everyday life; the structure–agency relationship only happens in everyday life and is understood as the space–time unit in which our social relations are realized and, therefore, filled with

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experience and social meaning. And although survivors are defined by their violent contexts, they also generate new contexts. They cannot be defined solely by a dialectical relationship of denial. Consistent with Wittgenstein (2008), it is inside the community where the language games that constitute a way of life take place and find support, where the repertoire of plausible statements and actions is defined, where cultural resources are uncovered to help people face adversity. Narratives of routines, rituals, games, metaphors, celebrations, and the body are extremely useful. To Das (2007), descent into everyday life means into routines and daily rituals, gestures and murmurs of everyday life, the ways in which people dress, cook, care for one another, bathe themselves, desire, complain and punish one another, take care of domestic spaces, in the preparation of meals, the silent memories, the family ties allowing for the possibility of emergence of novelty and creation of a discourse of reparation or, a discourse of restoration. The fundamental assumption of social construction is that we build the world and ourselves in the relationship. The relational metaphor has a great potential. It lies in the ‘between you and me’, the turbulent flow of continuous social activity, the joint action (Shotter, 2001) where the survivors can restore what has been damaged and recover what was once valuable. This idea is based on the recognition of the other as necessary for the survival of everyone, the interdependence; of how the relationships with others have preceded, maintained and sustained everyone; and of the ability to respond to the other, to heed his or her call, ignoring neither gaze nor discourse, having a clearer idea of restoration as joint action. A joint action is taken not only by those who participate in the restoration process, but includes the centrality of the space ‘between us’ that everyone has built with many others, which is related to and expressed in the stories told and in conversations. This relational

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reality demands the use of resources such as the coordination of different moral orders, the meeting of opposites, ethics in action, relational responsibility, positioning in relation to the circulation of power, continuous transitioning from subordination to domination to resistance, and the discovery of power as generation and creation, even from the margins (Lugo, 2017). The relational space, what transpires between all the people, is by definition uncertain and unpredictable. Social researchers take great pains to anticipate what might happen, to plan and structure. But, in fact, social life, and especially the relationship with the other, pushes us into the indeterminate, the new, and the creation. It demands the necessary attention, flexibility, and time, to wait in order to feel that new emergence, that thing just barely germinating in a word, a look, a gesture, a drawing, a movement, and that can be filled with meaning for everyone. The social researcher possibly could develop this sensitivity through observational linkage and reflection, most certainly reflexivity, or the ability to look at his or her self and at others in the setting where improvisation occurs. This makes it possible to grasp the opportunity of the new, perceive the struggle with learned patterns that have solidified and which sometimes lead to vicious circles where meaning is frozen, to make an opportune comment, question, or warning, which is generative, and, ultimately, to keep the conversation alive. A narrative approach and research action is particularly important to allow the survivors to tell their stories in front of other people, professionals, and other survivors who were sincerely interested in hearing what is being related. This type of research is also coherent with what Gergen (1999) maintains about types of research that help us to critically and appreciatively reflect on the conditions, traditions, institutions, and relationships that are integral to people’s lives. Likewise, Das (cited by Ortega, 2008) suggests that it is necessary to ask through forms of action,

intervention, and investigation, what really contributes to the recovery of dignity and empowerment of the survivors. Das (2003) believes that social researchers must develop new tools for understanding. In particular, she points to the need to use imagination or to learn through suffering. It’s not simply a question of making visible the other’s suffering, with the risks that this entails, but of establishing a relationship of solidarity that allows for the transformative potential of knowledge. To listen to the other’s pain is to allow that pain to happen to the social researcher who can lend her or his body to that pain. The final challenge, and equally important to the social researcher, is knowing how to present the knowledge constructed with the survivors, which should also take the form of a narrative: the story of the story. Returning to music, and according to Barenboim (2008), the task of the musician who interprets a piece, therefore, is not to express or interpret the music as such, but to become part of it. It is almost as if the interpretation of a text itself constituted a subtext that develops, confirms, varies, and contrasts with the actual text. This subtext is inherent in the score, and is itself unlimited; it stems from a dialogue between performer and score. It is necessarily a dialogue between the social researchers and larger audiences, avoiding the trivialization, the re-victimization and helping transitional societies to move forward to construct better conditions of life.

Notes 1  The study ‘Creating political abilities for transitions in local territories’, Code SIGP: 57729. forms part of the ‘Reconstruction of social ties in post-conflict areas in Colombia’ program, Code SIGP: 57579. Its goal is to create political abilities for territorial transitions, based upon the democratic mediations of social conflicts oriented toward reconciliation and the creation of territorial peace. This study is financed within the framework of the call ‘Colombia Científica’ (Colciencias, contract No. FP44842-213-2018).

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2  Peace dialogues between the Colombian government, led by President Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC-EP), also known as the Colombian peace process, were conversations which occurred between the Colombian government (representing the state) and the FARC guerrillas. These dialogues occurred in Oslo and Havana, and resulted in the signing of an Agreement for the Definitive Termination of the Conflict in Bogota on November 24, 2016. 3  The commission for truth is a temporary, extrajudicial body, created historically during transition processes in order to resolve patterns of violence. It is not a mechanism for the administration of justice, but rather contributes to the truth and recognizes victim rights. The commission forms part of an integral system for truth, justice, reparation, and non-repetition. Its objectives are: (a) to contribute to the clarification of that which has occurred, (b) to promote and contribute to victim recognition, and (c) to promote coexistence in these territories (Oficina del alto comisionado para la paz, 2016). 4  The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) is the justice component of the Integral System for Truth, Justice, Reparation, and Non-repetition created by the peace agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP. The purpose of the JEP is to administer transitional justice and learn of the crimes committed during the armed conflict, prior to December 1, 2016. The JEP cannot exist for more than 20 years. 5  Testimonies given for the study, ‘Creating political abilities for transitions in local territories’, implemented in the following territories: Bojayá and Riosucio (Chocó), Chalán and Ovejas (Sucre), and Riosucio and Samaná (Caldas).

REFERENCES Aoláin, F. & Campbell, C. (2005). The paradox of transitions in conflicted democracies. Human Rights Quarterly, 27(1), 172–213. Bakhtin, M. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Barenboim, D. (2008). Everything is connected: The power of music. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Bell, C. (2008). Transitional justice, interdisciplinary and the state of the ‘field’ or ‘nonfield’. International Journal of Transitional Justice, 3(1), 5–27. doi: 10.1093/ijtj/ijn044

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Bouvier, V. (Ed.) (2015). Colombia: La construcción de la paz en tiempos de guerra [Colombia: Building peace in a time of war]. Bogotá, Colombia: Universidad del Rosario, Escuela de Ciencias Humanas. Butler, J. (2006). Vida precaria: El poder del duelo y la violencia [Precarious life: The powers of mourning and violence]. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Paidós. Butler, J. (2010). Marcos de guerra: Las vidas lloradas [Frames of war: When is life grievable?]. Madrid, Spain: Paidós. Carrothers, T. (2002). The end of the transition paradigm. Journal of Democracy, 13(1), 5–21. Castillejo, A. (Ed.) (2017). La ilusión de la justicia transicional: Perspectivas críticas desde el Sur global [The illusion of transitional justice: Perspectives from the global south]. Bogotá, Colombia: Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Departamento de Antropología. Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica [National Center for Historical Memory]. (2013). Basta ya! Colombia: Memorias de guerra y dignidad [Enough! Colombia: War memoirs and dignity]. Bogotá, Colombia: Imprenta Nacional. Corntassel, J. & Holder, C. (2009). Who’s sorry now? Government apologies, truth commissions, and indigenous self-determination in Australia, Canada, Guatemala, and Peru. Human Rights Review, 9(4), 465–489. doi: 10.1007/s12142-008-0065-3 Danto, A. (1985). Narration and knowledge. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Das, V. (2003). Trauma and testimony: Implications for political community. Anthropological Theory, 3(3). doi: 10.1177/ 14634996030033003 Das, V. (2007). Life and words: Violence and the descent into the ordinary. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. De Sousa Santos, B. (2010). Refundación del Estado en América Latina: Perspectivas desde una epistemología del Sur [State refunding in Latin America: Perspectives from a south epistemology]. Lima, Perú: Instituto Internacional de Derecho y Sociedad. Programa democracia y transformación social. Gergen, K. J. (1994). Realities and relationships: Soundings in social construction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Gergen, K. J. (1999). An invitation to social construction. London: Sage. Gergen, K. J. (2001). Psychological science in a postmodern context. American Psychologist, 56(10), 803–813. Gergen, K. J. (2009). Relational being: Beyond self and community. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Gergen, K. J. & Gergen, M. (2008). Social construction: Entering the dialogue, 2nd edition. Chagrin Falls: Taos Institute Publications. Goffman, E. (2006). Estigma: la identidad deteriorada [Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity]. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Amorrortu editories. Gómez, H., Roux, C. V., Franché, M. A., Rubio, R., Uribe, M., Medina L. A., Reyes, A., Bernal, F., González, J. I. & Jaramillo, C. E. (2003). El conflicto, callejón con salida [The conflict: A dead end street]. Informe Nacional de Desarrollo Humano para Colombia [National Human Development Report for Colombia]. Bogotá, Colombia: PNUD. Guzmán, G., Fals Borda, O., & Umaña, E. (1980). La violencia en Colombia. Estudio de un proceso social [The violence in Colombia: A study of a social process]. Tomo II. Bogotá, Colombia: Ediciones Tercer Mundo. Hosking, D. M. (2011). Telling tales of relations: Appreciating relational constructionism. Organization Studies, 32(1), 47–65. Johnstone, G. & Quirk, J. (2012). Repairing historical wrongs. Social & Legal Studies, 21(2), 155–169. doi: 10.1177/0964663911435826 Kleinman, A., Das, V., & Lock, M. (Eds.). (1997). Social suffering. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lugo, V. (2017). Disarmed warriors: Narratives with youth ex-combatants in Colombia. Chagrin Falls, OH: The Taos Institute. Retrieved from https://shar.es/1TjI6W Lugo, V. (2018). Niños y jóvenes excombatientes en Colombia: ¿Por qué se vinculan y separan de la guerra? [Children and youth ex-combatants in Colombia: Why do they engage and separate from war?]. Athenea Digital, 18(2), 1–22. doi:10.5565/rev/ athenea.1933 Lugo, V. & Gilligan, C. (2019). Narratives of surviving and restoration: ‘Here I am a total Llanera woman’. Qualitative Inquiry, 25(9–10), 1091–1100. doi: 10.1177/1077800418809125

Lugo, V., Sánchez, P. V., & Rojas, C. (2018). La restauración con sobrevivientes del conflicto armado en Colombia: Una propuesta de acción psicosocial. [Restoration with survivors of Colombian armed conflict: A proposal for psychosocial action]. Eleuthera, 19, 55–73. doi: 10.17151/eleu.2018.19.4 Madlingozi, T. (2010). On transitional justice entrepreneurs and the production of victims. Journal of Human Rights Practice, 2(2), 208–228. doi: 10.1093/jhuman/huq005 McNamee, S. & Hosking, D. M. (2012). Research and social change: A relational constructionist approach. New York: Routledge. McNamee, S. & Shotter, J. (2004). Dialogue, creativity and change. In R. Anderson, L. Baxter & K. Cissna (Eds.), Dialogue: Theorizing difference in communication studies (pp. 91–104). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Muvingi, I. (2009). Sitting on powder kegs: Socioeconomic rights in transitional societies. International Journal of Transitional Justice, 3(2), 163–182. doi: 10.1093/ijtj/ijp010 Nagy, R. (2012). Truth, reconciliation and settler denial: Specifying the Canada– South Africa analogy. Human Rights Review, 13(3), 349–367. doi: 10.1007/ s12142-012-0224-4 Oficina del alto comisionado para la paz [The Office of the High Commissioner for Peace in Colombia] (2016). Retrieved from: http:// www.altocomisionadoparalapaz.gov.co/ [last accessed 20 February 2016]. Ortega, F. A. (Ed.). (2008). Veena Das: Sujetos del dolor, agentes de dignidad [Veena Das: Subjects of pain, agents of dignity]. Bogotá, Colombia: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. Ortega, F. (Ed.). (2011). Trauma, cultura e historia: Reflexiones interdisciplinarias para el nuevo milenio [Trauma, culture and history: Interdisciplinary reflections for the new millennium]. Bogotá, Colombia: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas, Centro de Estudios Sociales. Pécaut, D. (2013). La experiencia de la violencia: Desafíos del relato y la memoria. [The experience of violence: Story challenges and memory]. Medellín, Colombia: La Carreta Editores. Sampson, E. (2008). Celebrating the other: A dialogic account of human nature. Chagrin Falls: Taos Institute Publications.

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Shotter, J. (2001). Realidades conversacionales: La construcción de la vida a través del lenguaje [Conversational realities: Constructing life through language]. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Amorrortu Editores. Shotter, J. (2011). Getting it: Witness-thinking and the dialogical… in practice. New York: Hampton Press. White, M. (2006). Working with people who are suffering the consequences of multiple trauma: A narrative perspective. In D.

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58 Knowing Ourselves in the Stories of Us: The Inclusive Practice of ‘Be-Longing’ I l e n e C . W a s s e r m a n a n d E r i n W . Ta y l o r

In all that we say and do, we manifest conditions of relationship. In whatever we think, remember, create, and feel – in all that is meaningful to us – we participate in relationship. The word ‘I’ does not index an origin of action, but a relational achievement. (Gergen, 2009, p. 133)

INTRODUCTION: BE-LONGING INCLUSIVELY We have the best of intentions – we love our families and want to live in community. And yet there are forces that are pulling us apart. Forces that can take a disagreement and quickly devolve it into a schism. The desire for belonging is stronger than ever. Yet, the capacity to engage with the story of another which deeply conflicts with one’s own commands a level of coordination with another that is quite complex. It requires one to suspend judgment, to suspend a commitment to one’s essential truth and to being right. This is challenging enough between any two

people. The challenge becomes even more daunting at increasing levels of complexity of relationship, where stories with long histories are still present. In this chapter, we offer the perspective that we deepen and expand our stories of ourselves in relationships with those who are different from us. A central tenet in intergroup and social identity theory is that people have a need for both inclusion and differentiation. Through identification with a social group, individuals are able to meet both needs; they experience a sense of belonging and affiliation with others in the group and also differentiate themselves based on group identity. Yet research has shown the stories we hold of group identity contribute to in-group bias (Gaertner and Dovidio, 2000). Here, we offer examples of how the application of two theories in practice, social constructionist principles and the communication perspective, help expand how we construe our identity stories in relationships and with the larger social context. Specifically, we tell a story

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of hope and possibilities – a story of healing and repair in situations that seemed far from remediable. What these stories have in common is that they take a crisis that was ignited by essentializing the other, and by looking at both what are we doing and making, and how can we make it better, turn pariahs into heroes. They provide a model of different possibilities and a different path forward for the community.

STORIES OF DIVERSITY THAT ELEVATE OUR HUMAN-NESS We engage in the world and make sense of ourselves in relationship with others informed by stories we live, stories we inherit, and stories we make. Often, we bring these narratives to the contexts we create in a form that perpetuates patterns of engagement. From a communication perspective, these patterns are making things such as curiosity, politeness and restraint, deference, or privilege (Pearce, 2004; 2007)). The very narratives that potentially foster connections and affiliations among people may also create walls of misunderstanding. Noticing how we construct the dialogue and the story of these encounters heightens our capacity to make qualitative choices regarding what we create in the next moment. In Communication and the Human Condition, Pearce (1989) describes how the stories we tell ourselves and each other help us bring coherence to the complexities of our lives, help us coordinate with others, and manage what he called ‘mystery’ – that which we have difficulty understanding. These stories are how we construct who we are, or our identity. The chords or the musical tones of our identity stories are the trope and rhythm of how we show up with friends and family; those in our close community; people we work with; or strangers on planes, trains, and automobiles. Our stories about ourselves and others are always incomplete and biased,

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limited by our own perspectives, histories, and purposes. Our narratives are woven from stories we inherit and create from our experiences. Stories that differ from our own are full of rich possibilities of expanding how we make meaning. Similarly, McAdams (2011) talks about narrative identity as the evolving story of the self that a person constructs and internalizes to make sense and meaning out of their life. The story is a selective reconstruction of the past and an anticipation of the imagined future that serves to explain and contextualize how they came to be and where their life may be going. And yet, our narrative identities are shaped and influenced by those with whom we are in relationship and the social context. Social construction theory and the Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM) locate meaning as occurring in discourse in the ongoing processes of relating. These perspectives contend that our knowledge of the social world, and our way of knowing, are constructed and sustained by social processes rather than prefabricated (Burr, 1995; Gergen, 1999). The social construction approach invites us to see our way of knowing as one way of knowing, and to maintain a curious stance to other possibilities of knowing as well as to know how we know (Wasserman, 2017). The principles and tools of CMM support the capacity to relate with alacrity and agility, moving between the subjective or first-person perspective of being in the conversation, to an objective or third-person perspective of being witness to the conversation (Wasserman & Gallegos, 2009). Critical reflection, with others, enables the coordination of shared meaning in relationship with others. The discourse of diversity and inclusion has come to dominate our social narratives at the workplace, in our communities, even in our homes. At the workplace, the framing of diversity has been through several iterations from defining it through the lens of US policies and practices of equal employment

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opportunity legislation, to exploring social identity group differences and social styles (Ferdman, 1995). The potential that diversity holds for learning and creativity is ignited by a culture of inclusion. The qualities and characteristics of such cultures have been written about from structural, developmental, and social perspectives (Holvino et al., 2004; Miller and Katz, 2002). Thomas and Ely (1996) named three paradigms of engaging diversity at the workplace: the discrimination-and-fairness paradigm, the access-and-legitimacy paradigm, and the learning-and-effectiveness paradigm. It is this third paradigm that elevates the way in which discourse and the quality of engagement can make the difference between managing diversity and leveraging diversity. This process has been challenging, complex and dynamic to say the least. Our social worlds are influenced by multiple stories that are named and framed and have different nuances, in part based on the intersections of different social identities and cultural narratives. The ways social groups identify themselves are multifaceted and are continuously changing. What was ‘true’ about a group 20, 30 or 40 years ago, and what it means to hold a particular identity, are in a constant state of flux. This dynamic state of flux is further complicated by the important acknowledging of intersecting identities any one member holds. For example, the labels ‘African American’, ‘Latino’, ‘woman’, ‘White’, and ‘lesbian’ have all changed over time, both for individuals and for groups (Ferdman, 1992, 1995). There are no blanket rules for inclusion that apply to everyone at every time in every circumstance (Davidson and Ferdman, 2002). Ely and Roberts (2008) identified that negative outcomes tend to occur not as a consequence of difference or conflict per se, but rather, as a consequence of how individuals respond to them. When individuals have ‘inward-focused goals’ aimed at protecting the image they hope others have of

them, or that they have of themselves, they respond defensively against threats of misinterpretation or devaluation of their identity narrative. In contrast, ‘listening across the distance’ through life story-receiving facilitates insights not only into the experiences, actions, and ideas of others, but also into one’s own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. When one listens across the distance, taking diverse perspectives into account, each perspective is seen as irreplaceable in its own uniqueness and inimitability. This, therefore requires creative integration resulting in non-zero sum (win–win) solutions versus compromise resulting in zero sum (win–lose) solutions. In related research, Wasserman (2015, 2017) identified enabling conditions for people seeing themselves in relationships to others who were different from them at the level of social identity group differences in dialogue. These conditions included taking time to establish shared norms of engaging, facilitated, intentional reflection using storytelling and circular questions for mutual sense making, and reflecting collectively on encounters where there had been dissonance. In addition, storytelling moved the person position of the reflection from the individual perspective to the relational perspective such that the participants were at once the subject and the object of their stories. This enhanced emotional connecting and empathy with another’s story and objectivity in relationship with one’s own story. The next section demonstrates what has just been described and expands on the quality of relating to each other with curiosity and humility.

CULTURAL COMPETENCE VS. CULTURAL HUMILITY Much of the current literature talks about achieving cultural competence (Bennett, 2015). Cultural competence is focused on the skill-building of the person. To achieve that

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objective, many organizations are seeking short training interventions that focus on implicit-bias training. Training programs are also a ‘go-to’ response when there is a crisis brought on by an offense. Given the timeframes typically allocated (1–2 hours) the model here is one of imparting information in order to affect a behavior change. While these initiatives are well-intended, they sometimes overlook the complexities of the situations. While supporting the efforts to understand each other, and to learn about undesirable repetitive patterns (URPs as Pearce described them), an alternative framework is to explore cultural humility and pursue relational eloquence (Wasserman, 2012). Tervalon and Murray-García (1998) define cultural humility as: a process that requires humility as individuals continually engage in self-reflection and self-critique as lifelong learners and reflective practitioners. It is a process that requires humility in how physicians bring into check the power imbalances that exist in the dynamics of physician–patient communication by using patient-focused interviewing and care. (p. 118)

The process of developing relational eloquence involves developing the skills of continuously attending to how one is making sense or coordinating meaning with others. Extending the notion of relational responsibility (McNamee and Gergen, 1999), relational eloquence notes that the qualities of the relationships we are creating are continuously becoming, in the presence of each other. There might be moments of resonance, followed by moments of dissonance. Being relationally responsible calls for ongoing attendance to the rhythms of what we are doing and creating together. Creating shared meaning with another who is different from you in significant ways calls on the capacity to stay engaged, at a meta-level, with the multiple ways in which people interpret a situation or a relationship. Relational eloquence is created when we

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stay engaged and explore what might seem to be confusing or uncomfortable episodes and create a more expansive and inclusive narrative that holds different versions side by side (Wasserman, 2012; 2014).

REPAIRING BRIDGES IN COMMUNITY We offer this composite case story as an example of how we use social constructionist practices to help our clients move from a problematic situation to co-create a new narrative of how to go on together. The term episode provides a frame that encapsulates a story – a beginning, middle and end – in an ongoing process of meaning-making. From the communication and social constructionist perspective, meaning and coordinated actions emerge continuously through ‘episodes’, made by a cluster of turns or speech acts over time in a relationship. Meaning is influenced in the context of what has preceded the episode and with each subsequent turn or response, thus refining and defining what has been previously said. For example, in one turn the episode may be making conflict and competition. Yet the response may turn that episode to one of compassion and collaboration, and so on. In the case I am drawing from to highlight these points, the episode was initially framed as a crisis brought on by a member of the community in a public role committing what was perceived to be an offensive act. The specific response requested of us was to conduct a training on implicit bias. Our methodology and perspective entering the situation was informed by principles of appreciative organizing (Wasserman and McNamee, 2010). These principles included: • Promoting dialogue. A dialogic process supports attending to what we take for granted, noticing what others notice that would be otherwise invisible to us, and opening pathways exploring new opportunities and possibilities. ‘It is through dialogue that we grow sensitive to

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multiple realities and learn to negotiate across diverse relationships and realities’ (Anderson et al., 2008, p. 12). • Fostering continuous open-ended conversations. Each conversation creates the potential for new discovery and innovation. Because meaning is never fixed, the possibility for continually constructing more livable ways to ‘go on together’ (Wittgenstein, 1968) is ever-present. • Creating new forms of ‘We’. Engaging with others whose narratives are significantly different from one’s own often creates a sense of confusion or dissonance. Critical reflection on these moments, with others with whom we experience dissonance opens possibilities for creating new perspectives and generative narratives (Wasserman and Gallegos, 2009; Wasserman, 2017). These conversations must be carefully crafted to encourage generous listening, curious questioning and attempts to coordinate multiplicity rather than debate with or persuade each other (McNamee, 2002). • Encouraging the imaginary. When we come together in a relationship with different perspectives, the possibilities of what we might imagine together go beyond what any one of us might create ourselves. Each successive moment redefines what has already happened and creates new possibilities.

The significance of this incident was amplified by the cultural context in which it occurred. There is the perception and storytelling in our public discourse that our communities are increasingly polarized. In this situation, the head of the community health department got a call from a member of a left-leaning organization with a concern that a member (we will call him John) of a volunteer service (Rapid Response Service or

Phone call to police

Police contact RRS CEO

Figure 58.1  Critical incident

RRS CEO asks for John's suspension while the case is explored

RRS) was pursuing membership of an organization reputed to be a white supremacist organization. The first turn was a framing of ‘us’ and ‘them’. The person at the center of the episode became perceived as a danger. The head of the health department needed to respond and take action to defend and protect the community. In a sense, she had ‘no choice’ but to ask for John’s resignation. We depict the sequence of events in the episode (Figure 58.1) as a way to ‘look at’ the unfolding meaning and the forces and influences involved. In the first four turns, the storytelling seems to be proceeding as one might expect from a complaint. An offense was reported, and an action was taken. The fifth turn however creates a sense of mystery. What is the meaning of the turn when the resignation is rejected? What is it that we don’t know what is influencing that turn, that act? And in what way would knowing more influence the choices regarding, as Wittgenstein would say, how to go on together? The story continues (Figure 58.2). In response to the request for implicit bias training, we offered an alternative: ‘listening sessions’. We were emphatic about saying that we were NOT doing implicit bias training. Rather we wanted to meet with members of the staff and community to hear the unfolding story. Initially, we had to counter the storytelling among the staff that they were being forced into ‘sensitivity training’. The process of shifting the narrative and context from ‘telling’ to listening took some time. Yet the process itself was a marked turn in the episode.

John resigns

RRS Board refuses to accept resignation

The services of the volunteer group is suspended

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RRS contacts ICW for implicit bias training

ICW responds that we will help beginning with ‘listening sessions’

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RRS CEO agrees and listening sessions are scheduled

Figure 58.2  Services requested, and approach offered

This turn was significant. Had we responded with sensitivity training, we would have created an episode of ‘fixing offenders’ or maybe even punishing. Instead, with the design of a process that was simply creating agreements, listening, and posing a question – ‘how do we go on from here’ – we created an episode of curiosity, collaboration, shared ownership, and shared commitment. From listening, we learned that there was more complexity to the story, to the people involved. The listening was a move that created both learning and relationship building. By modeling curiosity and inquiry, we expanded an episode of conflicting and competing narratives to a complex and unfolding narrative. The characters in this story became the designers of what was to come instead of the passive recipients of a ‘training’. The next step was to convene a succession of dialogue sessions with people who held competing narratives. Once each group felt heard, they were in a position to hear each other. People expanded their deeply embedded stories of their respective group identities (cultural, community role, etc.) with those whose stories were significantly different from their own. A focus on communication processes, particularly from a social construction perspective, shifted the spotlight from the individualistic cognitive perspective to the in-between or relational arena. In the process, we were reminded that each turn is not a linear progression. In one of the conversations, a perspective was shared that could be seen as problematic. This may have triggered a set-back to reified positions of labeling and polarizing the other. Instead,

we elevated the higher context of unfolding meaning-making, examining taken-forgranted assumptions and positive visioning. Generativity has been defined as the capacity to challenge assumptions, to raise fundamental questions and to foster reconsideration of that which is ‘taken for granted’ in service of alternative actions (Gergen, 1978, p. 1346). Here we responded with active listening, curiosity and the invitation to a higher context of positive visioning that would embrace the safety and consideration of others. The application of social constructionist practices guided by the principles of appreciative organizing activates social presencing. Scharmer and Kaufer (2013) distinguish four levels of engagement in these social fields. The first, downloading, is governed by habitual assumptions. At the second level, seeing, assumptions are suspended to pay attention to ‘facts’. At the third level, sensing, people express empathic engagement, connectedness, even embodiment, with others. Presencing, the fourth level, involves field awareness or a collective’s awareness of the co-creation of social reality. This can lead to the emergence of future possibilities and innovation. In practice, we see these levels as a framework for holding the dialogic process.

IDENTITIES AS A PARADOX In the space between us, we co-create and negotiate how we wish to be seen and how we think we are seen. Whether at work, or other public space and communities, some differences are magnified, discounted,

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transcended, or affirmed in the micro-context of social interaction. In Gergen’s classic, The Saturated Self (1991), he spoke of the construction of the self as dynamic, ever-changing in the negotiation of the self in our social contexts. While controversial at the time, Gergen’s notion of the relational construction of self has become a more popular subject of both the academic and popular press. Social identities are constructed and negotiated, and differences magnified, discounted, transcended, or affirmed, in our social interactions (Mead, 1934). Social identity refers to that part of an individual’s self-concept which derives from their knowledge of their membership in a social group together with the value and emotional significance attached to that membership (Tajfel and Turner, 1986). The capacity to engage the story of another whose social group identity (including race, faith, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, etc.) is different and perhaps less dominant than one’s own, commands a level of coordinating meaning that is quite complex. Coordinating such complex layers of meaning requires one to suspend judgment and to suspend a commitment to one’s essential truth to consider different, and potentially contradicting narratives. Such a process is challenging enough between two individuals. The process becomes even more challenging at increasing levels of complexity of relationship, where social identity group stories based on deeply embedded histories are still present. The reflective process is intertwined with emotions, particularly in the engagement of complex social identities that have competing narratives. Tools that help us step back and look at our emotional triggers support the reflexive process as we re-evaluate our identities in these dialogic spaces. As Burkitt (2012) suggests: We are all ‘fractured reflexives’ to some degree. Either the knowledge we have about the situation we face is imperfect, or expert systems have failed us, or we are experiencing a powerful emotion that is colouring our reflexive view of ourselves, our actions, and our world to a large degree. Even

those of us who feel ourselves to be sailing on calm emotional waters may be unaware that, beneath our reflexive understanding, the sea of feelings may be a bit more choppy than we think. (p. 468)

The key point here is that emotional reflexivity is not just reactive, but actually informs the process and has a direct influence on how our stories of ourselves, our identity, is shaped. Dialogic spaces in connection with action are a critical means of revealing and changing our social realities (Schapiro et al., 2012; Freire, 1970; McNamee and Gergen, 1999; Wasserman, 2017). In this case, the actions were the intentional engagement of differences, and the negotiation of how to go on together. A critical aspect of this was the invitation to an encounter of the strange; or of not understanding (Gurevitch, 1989). Shifts in relationships happen when there are reminders that others do not necessarily inhabit the same reality we do and there is permission to suspend the need to be certain, to suspend assumptions. It is in the suspension of knowing, in the letting go of certainty and commitments, that we can be with each other, notice and let new possibilities emerge. Dialogue, simple dialogue, then becomes the medium for critical reflection to be put into action, and habits of mind are ultimately transformed.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS: DEEPENING OUR STORIES OF OURSELVES WITH STORIES OF EACH OTHER We create new meaning in relationship with others through storytelling. We know from our experience that what we choose to talk about is consequential. In this case, the focus of the dialogue was our stories of ourselves in relationships with each other. We have learned: • People want to be known. Ruptures in relationships must be acknowledged before we can move on.

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• Pausing for reflection is critical to noticing and transforming conflict into possibilities. Reflection is what Gergen would call the supplemental action that is essential to ignite the possibilities of what might otherwise be fleeting moments (Gergen, 1994 Gergen, McNamee, & Barrett, 2001). • The reflection process itself, particularly when focusing on moments that were particularly troubling or confusing, created the opportunity for transforming perspectives. • In the process of group reflection with an appreciative process, stories of oneself expand with the contextualizing frame of being in relationship with the story of others. Together, we create an umbrella narrative that encompasses both.

In the current social context, we all too often find ourselves in what is referred to as an ‘echo chamber’. And yet, the opportunity for growing and deepening the story of who we are, and affirming what informs our commitments, is in the practice of engaging others whose stories are grounded in assumptions and commitments that are different from our own. The reflective process requires us to suspend judgment and the need to be right, and to be curious and open to the desire to learn. While we may not be able to plan or predict those moments when we are forever changed in the engagement with another, we can be intentional about fostering the favorable conditions for doing so. Being present to you such that I acknowledge your humanity, your emotions and your experiences expands the perimeter of my story – stories of what was and what is, in order to, together, imagine the potential for what is possible. The challenge is in attending to the strange, to notice and suspend our assumptions, and then to reengage with what and how we know ourselves and each other. These are the challenges of our times.

REFERENCES Anderson, K. T. (2008). Intersubjectivity. In L. M. Given (Ed.), The Sage Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods (pp. 467–8). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

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Bennett, J. M., (2015). Intercultural competence: Vital perspectives for diversity and inclusion. In B. M. Ferdman & B. R. Deane (Eds.), Diversity at work: The practice of inclusion. (pp. 155–76). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Burkitt, I. (2012). Emotional reflexivity: Feeling, emotion and imagination in reflexive dialogues. Sociology, 46(3), 458–472. Burr, V. (1995). An introduction to social construction. New York: Routledge Press. Davidson, M. N., & Ferdman, B. M. (2002). A matter of difference: Diversity and drawing the line: Are some differences too different? (Or: who’s in, who’s out, and what difference does it make?). The Industrial-Organizational Psychologist, 39(3), 43–46. Ely, R. J., & Roberts, L. M. (2008). Shifting frames in team-diversity research: From difference to relationships. In G. Cooper & J. Pearce (Series Eds.) and A.P. Brief (Vol. Ed.), Cambridge companions to management: Diversity at work (pp. 175–201). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ferdman, B. M. (1992). The dynamics of ethnic diversity in organizations: Toward integrative models. In K. Kelley (Ed.), Issues, theory and research in industrial/organizational psychology (pp. 339–384). Amsterdam: North Holland. Ferdman, B. M. (1995). Cultural identity and diversity in organizations: Bridging the gap between group differences and individual unique- ness. In M. M. Chemers, S. Oskamp, & M. A. Costanzo (Eds.), Diversity in organizations: New perspectives for a changing workplace (pp. 37–61). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed (M. Ramos, Trans.). New York: Herter and Herter. Gaertner, S. L., & Dovidio, J. F. (2000). Reducing intergroup bias: The common ingroup identity model. Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press. Gergen, K. J. (1978). Toward generative theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36(11), 1344–1360. Gergen, K. J. (1991). The saturated self: Dilemmas of identity in contemporary life. New York: Basic Books. Gergen, K. J. (1999). An invitation to social construction. London: Sage.

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Gergen, K. J. (2009). Relational being: Beyond self and community. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gergen, K. J., McNamee, S., & Barrett, F. F. (2001). Toward transformative dialogue. International Journal of Organization Theory and Behavior, 24(7), 679–707. Gurevitch, Z. D. (1989). The power of not understanding: The meeting of conflicting identities. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 25(2), 161–173. Holvino, E., Ferdman, B. M., & Merrill-Sands, D. (2004). Creating and sustaining diversity and inclusion in organizations: Strategies and approaches. In M. S. Stockdale & F. J. Crosby (Eds.), The psychology and management of workplace diversity (pp. 245–276). Malden, MA: Blackwell. McAdams, D. P. (2011). Narrative identity. In S. J. Schwartz, K. Luyckx & V. L. Vignoles (Eds.), Handbook of identity theory and research, Vol. 1. New York: Springer, 99–115. McNamee, S. (2002) The social construction of disorder: from pathology to potential. In Studies in Meaning: Exploring Constructivist Psychology (Raskin, J.D. & Bridges S.K. eds). Pace University Press, New York, pp. 143–168. McNamee, S. & Gergen, K.J. (1999). Relational responsibility: Resources for sustainable dialogue. London: Sage. Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self and society: From the standpoint of a social behaviorist (C. W. Morris, Ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. McAdams, D. P. (2011). Narrative identity. In Handbook of Identity Theory and Research, Springer, 2011, pp. 99–115. Miller, F. A., & Katz, J. H. (2002). The inclusion breakthrough: Unleashing the real power of diversity. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler. Pearce, W. B. (1989). Communication and the human condition. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Pearce, W. B. (2004). The coordinated management of meaning (CMM). In B. G. Gudykunst (Ed.), Theorizing about intercultural communication (pp. 35–54). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Schapiro, S., Wasserman, I., & Gallegos, P. (2012). Group work and dialogue: Spaces and processes for transformative learning in relationships. In E. W. Taylor & P. Cranton (Eds.), Handbook of transformational learning: Theory, research & practice (pp. 355– 72). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Scharmer, O., & Kaufer, K. (2013). Leading from the emerging future: From ego-system to eco-system economies. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. In S. Worchel & W. Austin (Eds.), Psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 7–24). Chicago: Nelson. Tervalon, M., & Murray-García, J. (1998). Cultural humility versus cultural competence: A critical distinction in defining physician training outcomes in multicultural education. Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, 9(2), 117–125. Thomas, D. A., & Ely, R. (1996). Making differences matter: A new paradigm for managing diversity. Harvard Business Review, 74(5), 79–90. Wasserman, I. C. (2012). CMM: A reflective tool for engaging diversity and adversity. In C. Creede, B. Fisher-Yoshida, & P. V. Gallegos (Eds.), The reflective, facilitative, and interpretive practices of the coordinated (pp. 197–218). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Wasserman, I. C. (2014). Strengthening interpersonal awareness and fostering relational eloquence. In B. M. Ferdman & B. R. Deane (Eds.), Diversity at work: The practice of inclusion (pp. 128–54). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Wasserman, I.C. (2015). Dialogic OD, diversity and inclusion: Aligning mindsets, values and practices. In A.B. Shani & D. A. Noumair (Eds.), Research in Organizational Change and Development, 23. Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing, Ltd, 329–356. Wasserman, I. C. (2017). Participants as collaborators: Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM) as collaborative research method. In L. A. E. Booysen, R. Bendl, & J. K. Pringle (Eds.), Handbook of research methods in diversity management, equality and inclusion at work (pp. 247–69). Cheltenham: Edward, Elgar Publishing.

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Wasserman, I.C. & Gallegos, P.V. (2009). Engaging diversity: Disorienting dilemmas that transform relationships. In K. Geller, S. Schapiro, & B. Fisher-Yoshida (Eds.), Innovations in transformative learning. New York: Peter Lang Publishers, 155–176.

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59 Intergenerative Community Building: Intergenerational Relationships for Co-creating Flourishing Futures Kristin Bodiford and Peter Whitehouse1

Several major changes are affecting demographic shifts around the world. Family and traditional support structures are changing as people are living longer and birth rates are declining. In addition, countries are experiencing a rural to urban migration, with urban areas attracting younger people and an increasing share of older people in rural settings (Murthi, 2014). This often results in multigenerational families no longer living in close proximity. These types of transitions can result in fewer opportunities for intergenerational connections and decreasing or different kinds of reciprocal relationships and care among generations (Phillipson, 2010). Accelerated globalization and international migration are resulting in an increase in racial and ethnic diversity and a markedly different demographic in many countries. This is contributing to a growing racial generational gap (Coleman, 2013; Frey, 2018).

In the United States, for example, more than half of Americans under the age of five are people of color, compared to fewer than one in five Americans over 65 (Generations United, 2013; Pastor et al., 2017). Increasing international migration is also often being met with exclusionary practices due to constructions of difference that separate rather than connect people to each other. Yet, Butts and Bodiford (2018) advocate that this demographic diversity – in both age and race – is one of our greatest assets. At the same time that these changes in demographics are occurring, there are ideological tensions ranging from individualism to a perspective that emphasizes a responsibility to others. Stewart and Zediker (2000, p. 226) propose that we do not have to plant our feet firmly but acknowledge a ‘both/andness’ of perspectives as we strive to achieve greater understanding. Those who work from a social constructionist framework, however, propose that an ethic of collective

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responsibility is critical to contributing to solving global issues such as escalating climate change and devastating inequities and injustice (McNamee and Gergen, 1999). What we are proposing in this chapter is an opportunity to address the challenges societies face through developing a shared and affirmative vision that aligns us with an ethic of care and collective responsibility for a flourishing future for all. Community and societal change require new, more comprehensive and inclusive approaches, based upon values of human dignity and equity, connecting and supporting people across all ages (Brown and Henkin, 2019). John a. powell (n.d.) argues that when we come together to build on our past and embrace our future, this helps us understand who we are and who we must become. Effective community building efforts reinforce the bonds ‘that give meaning to one’s life and a reason for commitment and caring’ and strengthens our social fabric (Werner and Smith, 1982, p. 82). Learning, working, and playing together across the ages are key to making this fabric richly patterned and durably resilient (Wykle et al., 2005). The pathway to thriving builds on resilience through transformation and social action – transformation in our thinking and values, in ourselves, and in our relationships with each other – and leads to concrete actions for change (Bodiford, 2012).

INTERGENERATIVE COMMUNITY BUILDING Intergenerative community building offers resources for using collective action to co-create a preferred future. The word intergenerative signifies blending and going between many different forms of creativity to create a flourishing beyond. Intergenerative community building aims to construct a meaningful fusion of conversations and experiences among often

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disconnected sources of human creativity (e.g. generations, disciplines, or nations) that inspires new possibilities and innovative actions (George et al., 2011; Whitehouse and Flippin, 2017; Whitehouse and Whitehouse, 2020). It is based upon concepts of generativity that researchers Bushe, Gergen, and Schön suggest as ‘processes and capacities that help people see old things in new ways, reconsidering that which is taken for granted and furnishing new alternatives for social actions’ (Bushe, 2013, p. 91). Bushe elaborates by explaining that generativity occurs through the creation of new images, metaphors, and representations that have two qualities: they change how people think so that new options for decisions and/or actions become available to them, and they are compelling images that people want to act on (p. 89).

Intergenerativity builds on these ideas through intentionally engaging diversity and difference with a specific focus on the relational space-in-between. As Martin Buber shared, we recognize the relationship between humans, other species, and the world around ‘lives in the space between us – it doesn’t live in me or in you or even in the dialogue between the two of us – it lives in the space we live together and that space is sacred space’ (Schleifer, 2010). With a focus on this between-space, differences can be seen as a relational resource for transformative potential that helps us create new futures. Intergenerativity can be applied to various fields like education, healthcare, and community development. Intergenerational is hence one form of intergenerativity. Intergenerational approaches engage multiple forms of difference such as age, knowledge, wisdom, experiences, skills, perspectives, and connections. Bringing generations together provides a source of human creativity that builds on the knowledge of the past and a vision for the future.

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INTERGENERATIONAL APPROACHES IN INTERGENERATIVE COMMUNITY BUILDING Intergenerational community building embraces a relational orientation, one of reciprocity. When generations are supported to come together in respectful and collaborative ways, people are able to increase their understanding of each other and build their capacity to care for each other and work together in new ways to address community issues (Bodiford, 2013). The United Nations encourages us to build societies that ‘enable generations to invest in one another and share in the fruits of that investment, guided by the twin principles of reciprocity and equity’ (United Nations, 1995, p. 8). Intergenerational approaches support the purposeful exchange of resources and learning among generations with mutual benefits for all ages (Hatton-Yeo and Toshio, 2000). A focus on intergenerational relationships recognizes the interdependence of generations to support healthy societies where people are able to make contributions across the life course (Butts et al., 2014). Intergenerational dialogue is a core element of intergenerational collaboration, replacing potential isolation and alienation with mutual understanding (McNamee and Gergen, 1999). Intergenerational dialogue expands conceptions of time by including diverse life experiences and cultural influences that extend over a longer period of time than that of a single life. The joining together of people at the age-margins and among often marginalized youth and elders allows new forms of social influence to emerge. Ideally, dialogue is not bipolar or unidirectional, but rather multivoiced so that multiple perspectives can be explored. Sheila McNamee (2015) shares that when we recognize that we live in a complex world with multiple ways of being, we have an opportunity to embrace complexity, to try to coordinate multiple

points of view, and to talk with one another with curiosity and genuine interest. This sparks a question. Instead of interacting mostly with people of the same age or who are similar in other ways (e.g. race/ethnicity, religion, gender identification, political views), what if differences were valued and seen as opportunities to engage with instead of viewed as threats? Throughout this chapter, we will demonstrate how engaging the differences available across the ages helps to create a more generative space for creativity and new connections, and new meanings are created (Butts and Bodiford, 2018).

SETTING THE STAGE FOR OUR DIALOGUE There are three decisions we made in writing this chapter. The first decision was to present our ideas as a dialogue. Dialogue ‘makes possible a special kind of first-time creativity’ and a sense of responsiveness to each other in the creation of possibilities (McNamee and Shotter, 2004, p. 91). This decision reinforces our focus on sources of human creativity that inspire new possibilities and innovative actions. We also chose to keep the emotive aspects of our dialogue rather than write in a more academic tone, to reinforce our responsiveness to each other and to this topic. We appreciate the editors permitting a liberating sense of the subjective style. The second decision was to use storytelling in order to focus on what is being done and make existing resources and progress towards our shared vision more visible. It is through story that it is possible to narrow the gap between the challenges we face and our preferred future, illuminate resources for practice, and create a language of hope (Moon, 2019). The third decision was to invite others from around the world to share inspiring stories of

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intergenerational collaboration that bring a special quality to intergenerative community building. Their stories offer multiple perspectives because of differences in age, gender, culture, and experiences which can lead to more creative conversations. As people share experiences, they begin to create a narrative that becomes a catalyst for social action.

DIALOGUE ON INTERGENERATIONAL APPROACHES IN INTERGENERATIVE COMMUNITY BUILDING Organizational development and culture change tools, like Appreciative Inquiry, a strength-based large systems process, and StoryBridge, an organization that uses theater and arts to help communities move from alienation to action, show us that narrative is a prime engine of transformation. Aspirational stories that represent experiences can inspire our learning and provide motivation as we strive for a better future through intergenerative and intergenerational approaches. As a way of emphasizing the power and value of story, we will rely on the retelling of experiences from our and others’ intergenerational work in various parts of the world. We begin our conversation about Peter’s work in an intergenerational school in the United States. Kristin: Peter, I love what you told me about Ms. Kelsey. Can you share that with us? Peter: I love sharing this story, just as Ms. Kelsey (in her seventies) shared her love of stories and learning with our children as a volunteer at the Intergenerational School. In fact, she received our Volunteer of the Year Award a few years ago but needed to be reminded by her daughter why she received it. Like other patients with moderate dementia she was not able to remember the past well nor imagine the future. She could not remember she volunteered every week. But boy, was she present in the moment, exuding support and love for the students. This story bridges

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the often negative, falsely hopeful world of dementia medicine with the positive aspirations for developing inclusive, diversity celebrating learning communities. This story demonstrates the power of intergenerativity bridging generations and disciplines. Kristin: What I find powerful is Ms. Kelsey’s level of social connection as a volunteer compared to the increasing social isolation that can result from dominant discourses and stigma about dementia. Ms. Kelsey is highly valued and her experience in each moment is significant, regardless of whether or not she remembers it the next day. It is a magnification of relational responsibility – focusing on and being responsible to the process of relating and the meaning that is being made, in each moment. This story reminds me of the power of strengths-based approaches, regardless of what society says about us. Peter: When you talk about a focus on the process of relating, it reminds me of Ms. Mary Peery and Larry and Deshaun. Can you share this story with us? Kristin: This story is very close to my heart. Ms. Peery, a 90-year-old community leader, and two young men, Larry and Deshaun, met at an intergenerational peace circle in Chicago. Larry and Deshaun decided to make a change in their community after hearing Ms. Peery talk about her community gardens and her dream of youth and senior citizens coming together to stop negativity in their community. The Austin neighborhood in Chicago has historically experienced structural racism and inequality contributing to higher rates of community violence, youth incarceration, poverty, and unemployment. From this intergenerational peace circle, relationships were sparked that led to collaborative social action between generations. People were able to reconsider who these young men were, from being potentially dangerous with their sagging pants and often misunderstood identity, to being leaders in positive community change. Through collaborative action, these young men developed their sense of leadership and ability to contribute to the community in meaningful ways. It also brought much joy to Ms. Peery’s life that the young people were engaging by her side in the community gardens. Peter: What inspires me about this story is that when people are able to tap into this kind of intergenerativity through intergenerational

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relationships, they can uproot limitations created by socially constructed labels, often influenced by negative discourses, in order to construct new possible futures. Both of these stories challenge the narratives assigned to different ages such as narratives of older age as ‘decline’ or prevalent negative stereotypes often assigned to young people as ‘immature’ and help to discover new more appreciative and affirmative ways of going on together. Kristin: I agree. I think we all hear of certain young people being labeled as thugs or delinquent, which gets in the way of us being able to see their strengths, hopes, and abilities to contribute to schools, families, and communities. I remember when Larry, Deshaun, and I went to Washington DC as part of the AARP Mentor Up program. Larry met an older woman in an assisted living facility we visited. She reflected how she saw him as a leader who can create change in his community. He listened quietly and intently. He responded hesitantly; no-one had ever seen him as a leader before and explained that his dream was to help bring peace to his community. Intergenerativity, to me, helps us to see new possibilities – ‘when the glue that makes labels stick dissolves in our processes of relating’ (Truebridge, 2013, p. 69). Can you share your experience with theater-based storytelling as another way to bring differences together to foster innovation? Peter: On the 15th anniversary of our first Intergenerational School in Cleveland we began an initiative called ‘The Intergenerativity Project’ with StoryBridge. Co-imagining the future of our schools was the aspiration. In this project, we collected stories and performed a community play based around those stories (Whitehouse and Whitehouse, 2020). Arts of all kinds – music, dance, theater, and visual – enhance story creation through deepening reflection and inspiring innovation and are some of the most intergenerative activities people can engage in together. Kristin: This reminds me of the different forms of language people engage as we socially construct meaning, helping to destabilize what is often taken as certain, increasing mystery and creativity for emergence. Peter, how about if you and I invite a multiplicity of voices into our dialogue as possible resources for deeper understanding and future action (Bodiford and Camargo-Borges, 2014)?.

Peter: Let’s do it! I loved when you shared with me about your partnerships with colleagues in Uganda, bringing youth and older persons together to address community issues. These stories also help me to see the possibilities for international collaboration. Kristin: OK, let’s start with Namara Arthur Araali who is the director of Health Nest Uganda. Namara, can you share the story of the Wisdom Centre? Namara: You know, traditionally in Uganda, when I was growing up, older persons would gather younger persons around a fire. The younger persons would listen and ask questions as the elders shared their knowledge. This helped the younger generations to shape who they were and to grow into responsible persons. With increasing separation between the ages, in which people spend less time talking with people of different ages, these stories are not as available. The Wisdom Centre provides a place for generations to come together to share knowledge and stories and contribute to the lives of people across the ages. Older generations are able to share hard-earned knowledge and younger generations share modern knowledge – and relationships are strengthened. At the Wisdom Centre, youth and older persons are equally engaged in co-creating opportunities for health in order to enhance the quality of life for all ages (Araali and Bodiford, 2019). Here is an example. Rehema (Figure 59.1) is a 60-year-old leader in her community who is determined to be a living example for others. Rehema has a dream that she and other older people can come together to

Figure 59.1  Rehema teaching handicrafts to a young person in Uganda Source: Picture courtesy: HelpAge USA.

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offer a school for young people who have dropped out of school, teaching them how to make and sell local handicrafts and cultivate traditional foods for their livelihood. She and others in her group are saving to buy supplies and will offer classes at the Wisdom Centre. Kristin: Thank you, Namara, for sharing this story. It is inspiring and illustrates Gergen and Gergen’s (2016) reminder of the importance of affirming a positive view of aging. When affirming the capacities of those who might be viewed as recipients of help, people are able to make a positive contribution that, in turn, enhances their own well-being. In Health Nest Uganda’s work, I have witnessed people’s potentials being activated so that not only is their own sense of well-being enhanced, but people’s lives throughout the community are also positively impacted. Younger and older people may face many challenges, but by recognizing their strengths, knowledge, and creativity, they are inspired to engage in collective action. This reminds me of Rituu B. Nanda from the Constellation2 and her vision of intergenerational collaboration. Rituu can you share with us your experience? Rituu: I am passionate about this because I believe that everyone has strengths irrespective of age. There is a need in today’s society when the gap between generations is growing. I am inspired by learning from our good friends in Uganda. We are also seeing this in a project that focuses on a patient-centered and intergenerational response to chronic disease. We used the Community Life Competence Process to form support groups

Figure 59.2  Intergenerational yoga in India Source: Picture courtesy: Anil Sharma.

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of patients, their families, health workers, and village leaders in 19 villages in India. When group members realized their own strengths, it gave them the confidence to develop a common dream about their health, take action, and support each other. One action plan that came out of the support groups was engaging in physical exercise together as a preventive measure against hypertension and diabetes. In one village, young people accompany patients who are in their fifties and sixties for morning walks. In another village, adolescent girls join their mothers and grandmothers for daily yoga (Figure 59.2). Thus, this process promoted intergenerational dialogue as well as action. Kristin: Rituu, this reminds me of the power of intergenerational relationships for reducing social isolation and improving community health. This kind of social integration, increasing our range and frequency of social connections, has even been found to reduce mortality rates (Butts and Bodiford, 2018). I love the passion you have for engaging strengths in a community. The seeds you plant continue to grow. Jerome Sam De Mwaya has a passion for intergenerational work and saw the power of using Community Life Competence in supporting generations to come together and create shared dreams for their communities in his work with HelpAge Tanzania. Jerome, can you share about the work in Kibaha District to promote health across the life course? Jerome: I would be happy to. Afya Kibaha (afya means health in Swahili) brings different generations together to identify shared issues related to health and build trust and

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collaboration. Afya Kibaha is based upon the belief that everyone at any age can help build communities that are good for growing up and growing older. People have reflected on the kinds of changes they would like to see in their families and communities and how they can work with people of different ages so that everyone can be healthy. One example is how intergenerational Family Health Mentor teams visit families, appreciating people’s strengths and supporting families to develop strategies to improve their health. Dennis is a 12-year-old Family Health Mentor. He works to help others in his community live healthy lifestyles – starting with his own family. He is proud that he has mentored families to be healthier, including eating more fruits and vegetables, engaging in physical activity, and stopping smoking or drinking alcohol. Dennis’ contributions are appreciated and followed up by older people despite his young age. Mr. Pongwe (84 years old) (Figure 59.3) is also a Family Health Mentor and shares: ‘At first I thought being older means being more experienced, knowledgeable and wiser, so what could I learn from a younger person? But then, my interaction with the younger generation has brought me a lot of insights on things I didn’t know’. Peter: Thank you Jerome for sharing your story. Marge Schiller, an Appreciative Inquiry and intergenerational consultant, might say these stories reflect the principle of ‘don’t do

anything about me without me’. You know, around the world, people are looking to intergenerational and collective solutions to address many issues societies face. Linking Generations Northern Ireland advocates for intergenerational practice as a catalyst for social change at local and national levels.3 Through research and experience they recognize the link between intergenerational practice and outcomes at the personal, community, and societal levels, such as improvements in community safety, education, health, urban and neighborhood renewal and community development. In 2012, Linking Generations hosted an initiative called ‘Is it Fair?’ (Figure 59.4) focusing on older and younger people’s opinions on issues that affect their lives, including employment, decision making, and intergenerational relationships.4 The purpose of bringing the generations together was to promote empathy and understanding when discussing issues that can sometimes cause generational conflict. During the first round of mixed-age groups, participants were asked to agree/disagree with statements such as ‘As older people work until a later age, fewer jobs will be available for younger people’ or ‘decide who needs bus passes more, younger or older people’. People then discussed their views before voting again. The discussion increased empathy and insight into cross-generational issues.

Figure 59.3  Mr. Pongwe and a young person learning and working together in Tanzania Source: Picture courtesy: Kristin Bodiford

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• Exposure to diverse populations (age, race, ethnicity, ability) in order to diminish stereotyping.

Figure 59.4  Dialogue about public policy in Linking Generations ‘Is it Fair’? Source: Picture courtesy: Linking Generations Northern Ireland. Kristin: This story helps shift our view to how policy impacts both and accesses the resources of multiple generations, instead of pitting generations against each other. It also demonstrates the importance of empathy as both an essential element and a powerful result of intergenerational practices. Nancy Henkin warns that ageism perpetuates age-related stereotypes (of both older and younger people) and is one of the greatest barriers to coming together around shared visions for our lives and future. Ageism prevents us from seeing our common humanity and working collectively to address complex challenges (Henkin, 2015). From Nancy’s work spanning over forty years as the founder of the Temple University Center for Intergenerational Learning, she shares the following tips for strengthening intergenerational relationships and collaboration (Henkin and Patterson, 2019).

• An explicit focus on relationship building; • Strength-based approaches recognizing how different generations can contribute to common goals; • Long-term versus short-term experiences promoting sustained contact over time; • Welcoming intergenerational spaces in which people from diverse ages and backgrounds can build mutual respect; • Interventions and activities designed to raise generational consciousness, foster self-disclosure and perspective taking, and promote cooperative learning (e.g. intergenerational dialogue, role reversal, storytelling, joint tasks, reflection);

Nancy, can you share with us a story that illustrates these principles? Nancy: How about I share a story about creating a safe, welcoming place as a critical element in fostering trusting relationships across age, race, and culture? Every summer we hosted a learning retreat. For five days, approximately 75 people from diverse backgrounds ranging in ages from 13 to 100 years, lived and learned together. Structured activities included small group discussions, innovative arts experiences, and physical activities that were designed to promote self-disclosure, foster cross-age understanding, and encourage people to have fun together. The unstructured talks between the 15-year-old and 92-year-old roommates or the informal group sing-a-longs were equally powerful. At the end of each retreat, we came together and shared our reflections. What I heard most is that although people came with preconceived notions about others, they were now able to recognize our common humanity. People shared how the retreat helped them recognize their attitudes about race and/or gender, break down ageist stereotypes, and discover the gifts each person offers. Kristin: Nancy, thank you for sharing your story. This reminds me of the wisdom of Prakash Tyagi, who is the Executive Director of Gravis in India and is a physician and public health professional.5 Gravis is engaging an intergenerational approach to enhance the leadership of women and girls to address climate change. Prakash shares that a gender and age inclusive approach is essential to community change efforts. Without an age inclusive approach, ageism cannot be combatted. He says when we talk about an intergenerational approach, we often look at older people as beneficiaries and younger people as contributors. But in reality, both sides give and both sides receive. These stories help to illustrate how intergenerational approaches help build relational attunement that fuels deep empathy and caring which is at the heart of lifespan resilience and thriving. Communities and societies also develop resilience through strengthened social capital in the face of adversity (Bodiford, 2013). It’s exciting to reflect on how these stories illustrate intergenerativity as a resource for ‘how we

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Figure 59.5  Elements to strengthen intergenerational collaboration create our worlds in what we do together’ (Gergen et al., 2001), in which new transformative meanings and actions are sparked by bringing together different generations, disciplines, or nations into interdependent relations. Peter, this reinforces a crucial imperative that we must come together to address critical issues that will enable future generations to flourish. Peter: I agree, Kristin. I also appreciate how these stories we have shared over the years have become the fabric of our present – a rich interlaced pattern of relationships, connections, divergences, repetition, and ultimately, of beauty. The future looks so foreboding. Patterns in social and natural communities are changing at a rapid pace. What hope do you see for the future, and what will your legacy be for changing hope into reality? Kristin: Peter, a key word that strikes me is abundance. At times, I can feel overwhelmed by a worrisome vision of the future, and it is these stories of rich abundance in our relationships that are the seeds for innovation and social action at all levels, from our families to our communities and beyond. My hope is that we engage in what Ken Gergen (2015) calls a ‘reflective pragmatism’, considering how what we are doing is contributing to the kind of world we want to create together.

Intergenerative community building offers possibilities for how we might collectively create a better world for ourselves and generations to come. Thank you for sharing in this ongoing exploration and journey together! Peter: Thank you for convening this space and thank you to all of our dialogue partners from around the world who offered their stories and wisdom. As those of us alive today look deeply into the cultural patterns dominating our world, let’s use our collective wisdom to act and allow those yet unborn the gift of a flourishing life. Kristin and Peter: Below we offer a summary of relational and collaborative principles illustrated in the stories and our experience as resources for intergenerational (and intergenerative) community building.

Relational Space-in-between When we place an explicit focus on the ‘relational space-in-between’, we are able to value and engage the strength of differences and diversity. As we do so, we magnify relational responsibility – in which we are

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focusing on and responsible to the process of relating and the meaning we are making, in each moment, engaging in deeper listening and attunement and increasing empathy towards each other. This helps to raise generational consciousness, foster self-disclosure and perspective taking, and promote cooperative learning. Strengthening these kinds of social bonds helps to give further meaning to one’s life. It is critical to create welcoming and safe intergenerational spaces in which people from diverse ages and backgrounds can build mutual respect. People can be supported to act with vulnerability, honesty, caring and curiosity, while mutually respecting and valuing each person.

Strengths-Based Affirmative And Collaborative Approaches When we discover more appreciative and affirmative ‘forms of life’ we open up new possibilities. We can then take action through approaches that appreciate strengths, inclusiveness, and foster local ownership. Using strengths-based approaches helps us recognize how different generations can contribute to common goals. They also affirm the capacities of those who might be viewed as recipients of help and support everyone’s abilities to make a positive contribution that also enhances their well-being. Bringing disciplines, professions, and generations together, engaging in and provoking intergenerative dialogue and action, helps to foster innovation.

Recognition of Power Relations We must recognize that economic, social, and political power is always present (for both good and for ill). In this work, it is critical to dismantle powerful prejudices and patriarchal paradigms that distort relationships throughout life. We can begin this through enhancing both the leadership and followership skills of all involved and by celebrating diversity in all forms (age, race, ethnicity, ability, ecosystems, species) in order to diminish

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stereotyping and enhance creative energies. Recognizing and addressing power dynamics is crucial for successful culture change.

The Role of Language, Narrative, and Discourse Narrative in its many forms is at the heart of social change. As we pay attention to the forms of language we use, we socially construct meaning. We have the opportunity to engage language that facilitates connection and uproots limitations created by socially constructed labels, often influenced by negative discourses, in order to construct new possible futures. Over time, this transforms cultural narratives and practices to promote collaboration and shared leadership, enhancing our storytelling with our relationship to each other and with our relationship to nature and other species. These many different ways we perform together help to destabilize what we take as certain, increasing mystery, and allowing creativity to emerge.

The Use of Arts-Based Approaches Using various forms of art, like visual art and the use of ritual through dance and music, helps to both disrupt and develop shared and coordinated meaning. Art can support us to explore and challenge dominant forms of evidence creation – like scientific data. Art can also inspire new metaphors for engaging in life and serve to support and empower community change.

CONCLUSION Our hope is that this chapter might provide useful resources and inspiration through the principles and stories that were shared. May it spark more conversations and stories, exploring intergenerativity, in many forms,

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as a resource for taking collective action to co-creating flourishing futures. We are passionate about the possibilities that intergenerational approaches offer to address the challenges societies face. We invite you to share with us your ideas and experiences and continue the conversation.

Notes 1  We (Peter and Kristin) invited several dialogue partners who engage in intergenerational work globally to share their stories of intergenerative community building including: Namara Arthur Araali, Nancy Henkin, Rituu B. Nanda, Prakash Tyagi, and Jerome Sam De Mwaya. 2  For more information about The Constellation please visit https://www.communitylifecompetence.org/ (August 25, 2020) 3  To learn more about Linking Generations Northern Ireland please visit https://linking generationsni.com/ (August 25, 2020) 4  To watch a video about the initiative ‘Is it Fair?’ please visit https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=Vaxvxb_HUiI&list=UUObF27MfTqED8Z ylx1erAtA&index=25 (August 25, 2020) 5  To learn more about Gravis go to https://www. gravis.org.in/ (August 25, 2020)

REFERENCES Araali, N. A. & Bodiford, K. (2019). Youth and older persons as agents for change: Creating an inclusive and age-friendly society for all. In Stafford, P. B. (Ed.), The Global AgeFriendly Community Movement: A Critical Appraisal (pp. 188–208). New York, Oxford: Berghahn. Bodiford, K. (2012). Choppin’ It Up: Youth-led Dialogues for Positive Change. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Tilburg University, Tilburg, the Netherlands. Bodiford, K. (2013). Intergenerational community building. In Blanchard, J. & Bolton, A. (Eds.), Aging in Community (pp. 225–239). Chapel Hill, NC: Second Journey Publications. Bodiford, K. & Camargo-Borges, C. (2014). Appreciative Inquiry: Bridging research and practice. In Bodiford, K. & Camargo-Borges, C. (Eds.), Bridging Research and Practice: Illustrations from Appreciative Inquiry in

Doctoral Research. International Journal of Appreciative Inquiry, 16(3), 4–12. Brown, C. & Henkin, N. (2019). Communities for all ages: Reinforcing and reimagining the social compact. In Stafford, P. B. (Ed.), The Global Age-Friendly Community Movement: A Critical Appraisal (pp. 139–168). New York, Oxford: Berghahn. Bushe, G. R. (2013). Generative process, generative outcome: The transformational potential of Appreciative Inquiry. In Cooperrider, D. L., Zandee, D. P., Godwin, L. N., Avital, M., & Boland, B. (Eds.), Organizational Generativity: The Appreciative Inquiry Summit and a Scholarship of Transformation. (Advances in Appreciative Inquiry, Vol. 4) (pp. 89–113). Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Butts, D. & Bodiford, K. (2018). Family and intergenerational relationships. In Kaye, L.W. & Singer, C. M. (Eds.), Social Isolation in Later Life: Strategies for Bolstering Health and Well-Being (pp. 197–217). New York: Springer Publishing Company. Butts, D., Thang, L., & Hatton-Yeo, A. (2014). Policies and programmes supporting intergenerational relations. Retrieved January 14, 2020, from https://www.un.org/development/ desa/family/twentieth-anniversary-of-theinternational-year-of-family-2014/background-papers-and-publications-2.html (Accessed August 25, 2020) Coleman, D. (2013). Immigration, population and ethnicity. Migration Observatory, The Migration Observatory; The University of Oxford. Retrieved from https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/ immigration-population-and-ethnicity-theuk-in-international-perspective/ (Accessed August 25, 2020) Frey, W. H. (2018). The millennial generation: A demographic bridge to America’s diverse future. Brookings. Retrieved from https:// www.brookings.edu/research/millennials/ (Accessed August 25, 2020) Generations United. (2013). Out of many, one: Uniting the changing faces of America. Retrieved from https://www.gu.org/ resources/out-of-many-one-uniting-thechanging-faces-of-america/ (Accessed August 25, 2020) George, D., Whitehouse, C., & Whitehouse, P. J. (2011). A model of intergenerativity: How

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the Intergenerational School is bringing the generations together to foster collective wisdom and community health. Journal of Intergenerational Relationships, 9(4), 389–404. Gergen, K. J. (2015). From mirroring to worldmaking: Research as future forming. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, 45(3), 287–310. Gergen, K. J. & Gergen, M. (2016). Relational welfare and positive aging. Relational Praxis, 7, 17–23. Gergen, K. J., McNamee, S., & Barrett, F. (2001). Toward a vocabulary of transformative dialogue. International Journal of Public Administration, 24, 697–707. Hatton-Yeo, A. & Toshio, E. (Eds.). (2000). Forward. Intergenerational programmes: Public policy and research. Implications – an international perspective. United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. Retrieved from https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ ark:/48223/pf0000128018 Henkin, N. (2015). Cultivating generational empathy: A strategy for combatting ageism and strengthening intergenerational understanding. Henkin, N. & Patterson, T. (2019). Connecting generations in senior housing toolkit. Retrieved from https://www.gu.org/ resources/connecting-generations-in-seniorhousing-a-program-implementation-toolkit/ (Accessed August 25, 2020) McNamee, S. (2015, October 18). Radical presence [Video]. Retrieved from https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=n04Vbhg7PJY> (Accessed August 25, 2020) McNamee, S. & Gergen, K. J. (1999). Relational responsibility: Resources for sustainable dialogue. London: Sage. McNamee, S. & Shotter, J. (2004). Dialogue, creativity, and change. In Anderson R., Baxter, L., & Cissna, K. (Eds.), Dialogic Approaches to Communication (pp. 91–104). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Moon, H. (2019). Making progress visible for learners of solution-focused dialogue. InterAction, 11(1). Retrieved from http://sfio.org/ the-journal/interaction-vol-11-no-1-august2019/page-4/ (Accessed August 25, 2020) Murthi, M. (2014). Five ways to help the rural elderly. World Bank. Retrieved from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2014/10/ urbanization-ageing-rural-elderly/ (Accessed August 25, 2020) Pastor, M., Scoggins, J., & Treuhaft, S. (2017). Bridging the racial generation gap is key to

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America’s economic future. Retrieved from https://nationalequityatlas.org/sites/default/ files/RacialGenGap_%20final.pdf (Accessed August 25, 2020) Phillipson, C. (2010). Globalisation, global ageing and intergenerational relations. In Izuhara, M. (Ed.), Ageing and Intergenerational Relations: Family Reciprocity from a Global Perspective (pp. 13–28). Bristol, UK: The Policy Press. powell, j. a. (n.d.). A new social compact. Haas Institute. Retrieved from https://haasinstitute. berkeley.edu/blog-new-social-compact (Accessed August 25, 2020) Schleifer, H. (2010, July 13). The power of connection [Video]. Retrieved from https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=HEaERAnIqsY (Accessed August 25, 2020) Stewart, J. & Zediker, K. (2000). Dialogue as tensional, ethical practice. Southern Communication Journal, 65(2–3), 224–242. Truebridge, S. (2013). Resilience Begins with Beliefs: Building on Student Strengths for Success in School. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. United Nations. (1995). Conceptual framework of a programme for the preparation and observance of the International Year of Older Persons in 1999. Report of the Secretary General, A/50/114, 4 March. Werner, E. E. & Smith, R. S. (1982). Vulnerable, but Invincible: A Longitudinal Study of Resilient Children and Youth. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Whitehouse, P. J. & Flippin, C. S. (2017). From diversity to intergenerativity: Addressing the mystery and opportunities of Generation X. Generations, 41(3), 6–11. Whitehouse, P. J. & Whitehouse, C. (2020). The future of social construction: Intergenerative and transdisciplinary perspectives in the emerging Anthropocene. In Arnold, A., Bodiford, K., Brett-MacLean, P., Dole, D., Estrada, A. M., Lyon Dugin, F., … Villar-Guhl, C. F. (Eds.), Social Construction in Action: Contributions from the 25th Anniversary Conference of The Taos Institute (pp. 212–218). Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute Publications. Wykle, M. L., Whitehouse, P. J., & Morris, D. L. (2005). Successful Aging through the Life Span: Intergenerational Issues in Health. New York City: Springer Publishing Company.

60 Social Construction, Practical Theology, and the Practices of Religious Communities Duane R. Bidwell

INTRODUCTION Sometimes I’m caught off guard by the questions that cross my desk. I teach care and counseling at an ecumenical and interreligious seminary, and I frequently get phone calls and emails from people trying to make sense of a spiritual or religious conundrum in daily life. The questions come from religious leaders, former students, secular professionals, and ‘regular’ people trying to live faithfully. Some of the inquiries I’ve fielded recently include: • ‘What should be our theological response to a person’s tears in psychotherapy?’ (Answer: It depends on what the tears mean to the person.) • ‘Can we let a drag queen perform in the church sanctuary, or does she belong in the fellowship hall?’ (Answer: Drag queens belong everywhere, including church sanctuaries, but it’s wise to honor the norms of the religious community asking the question.) • ‘When I meditate, I’m overwhelmed by fear that I’ll lose my identity. What should I do about

that?’ (Answer: Observe the fear, meet it with compassion, and talk to your psychotherapist about what you learn.) • ‘Why doesn’t anyone believe the message from God that aliens delivered to me?’ (I couldn’t answer this 3 a.m. voicemail message, so I forwarded it to a colleague. After all, it’s important to know the limits of your expertise!)

Each of these questions points to concerns of practical theology, a multifaceted activity that guides people to live out – perform – religious and spiritual commitments in authentic and effective ways. At its heart, practical theology is a practice of spiritual and religious communities as they respond to shifting cultures, new ideas, and new relational and ethical questions that call for a religious and spiritual response. The inquiries above, as practical theological questions, signal an effort by someone to embody reflective faith in the midst of contemporary life, a faith that responds to new situations generatively and with creativity rather than

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from a rigid or a-contextual stance. These questions remind us of the inseparability of action and knowledge: what we embody, perform, and act on shapes what we know, and our interpretations of the world shape our actions. To address questions of practical theology, religious people and communities increasingly adopt and adapt the ideas and practices of social and relational constructionism. Similarly, constructionist practitioners highlight the spiritual dimensions of relational and social constructionism toward a ‘contemplative constructionism’ that attends to ultimate meanings, values, and humanistic concerns in the midst of professional practice. In this chapter, I suggest that relational and constructionist practices function in Christian communities as ‘anticipatory actions’ that allow believers to embody and perform particular values to manifest aspects of God’s common/ wealth in the midst of community. (Exploring how religious traditions beyond Christianity have engaged constructionist thought remains beyond the scope of the chapter.) I begin by briefly describing the goals and processes of practical theology. Then I review representative literature from Asia, Europe, and North America to describe how practical theologians articulate and use constructionist practices, summarize how social constructionists address issues of religion and spirituality in professional settings, and identify themes that emerge from the interaction of relational constructionism and practical theology. I end by advocating for greater use of relational methods in practical theological research.

DESCRIBING PRACTICAL THEOLOGY As a scholarly term, ‘practical theology’ simultaneously describes (i) an academic discipline focused on the religious and spiritual meaning of practices; (ii) an embodied activity of religious communities and individuals trying to respond responsibly and

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faithfully to everyday life; and (iii) an area of the curriculum in theological education that seeks to prepare reflective religious leaders for praxis in the contemporary world (Miller-McLemore, 2010, 2014). Although the concepts and term of practical theology originated in the Christian traditions, they have been adopted and adapted by contemporary Buddhist, Jewish, and Muslim communities, especially in North Atlantic settings. Practical theology matters because the world needs robust theologies and spiritualities of praxis. Effective religious leaders – chaplains, imams, monks, rabbis, ministers, engaged lay people, and others – recognize that what we do (that is, our practice) communicates beliefs and values more directly than what we say. Actions communicate lived and embodied beliefs that are not necessarily articulated in language, and those actions speak volumes. Words of welcome during worship, for example, carry little weight when leaders subtly and consistently ignore particular communities, use body language and facial expressions to create barriers to connection, or treat people with disrespect. Likewise, the practices of a religious community more clearly proclaim its actual beliefs and values than do formal creeds, sacred texts, and newsletter articles. When religious practices contradict ‘official’ religious values it’s clear that something needs to change; what we say, what we do, or both need attention to resolve tensions between what we proclaim verbally and the values we enact. Ideally, religious communities and leaders constantly reform both practices and beliefs to ensure congruence between what they do, how they do it, and their preferred and critically held theologies, spiritualities, values, and doctrinal commitments. In this process, practical theology privileges human experience – practices, rituals, narratives, communities, symbols, expressions – as a source and norm for spiritual and theological insight. What we learn from experience leads religious communities

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to revise and nuance their practices better to enact ‘truth’ in the world. Practical theologians seek to understand, interpret, critique, and respond to actions that embody and communicate relationships to the sacred, to others, and to self. This commitment to prioritize human experience sets practical theology apart from other theological disciplines that privilege text, doctrine, or Western philosophical logic. Practical theologians hope not only to understand reality but to catalyze change in individual and communal life, drawing on the commitments and values of religious traditions and communities (Miller-McLemore and Mercer, 2016). ‘The aim of practical theology,’ writes Pamela Cooper-White (2014), ‘is not speculation, but liberative praxis’ (p. 24). Justice, especially racial justice, serves as a central concern of contemporary practical theology (Goto, 2016; Sheppard, 2016). Being committed to experience and to justice shapes 11 ‘core commitments’ common in academic practical theology. It is ‘attentive to theory-practice complexity, practice and performance oriented, oriented to multidimensional dynamics of social context and embodiment, holistic, interdisciplinary, open-ended/ flexible/porous, theologically normed, hermeneutical, interventionist/critically constructive, teleological/eschatological, and self-reflective/ self-identified’ (Cahalan and Mikoski, 2014, p. 1). In these commitments, we see many resonances with practices, theories, norms, and criteria central to social constructionism, including pragmatism, flexibility, reflexivity, and an emphasis on the contingency of knowledge. Shared connections such as these become stronger where practical theology, spirituality, and social construction intersect.

INTERSECTIONS OF PRACTICAL THEOLOGY, SPIRITUALITY, AND SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION Increasingly, religious people and communities adopt and adapt the ideas and practices

of social and relational constructionism – especially narrative therapy, solution-focused therapy, appreciative inquiry, and action research – to improve spiritual care, preaching and proclamation, religious education, social justice outreach, organizational development, ministry, research, spiritual formation, evangelism, interfaith dialogue, and other dimensions of community life. Similarly, constructionist practitioners increasingly highlight the spiritual dimensions of relational and social constructionism, seeking to develop a ‘contemplative constructionism’ (Whitney, 2000, 2013; Bidwell, 2016) that attends to community meanings, values, and other humanistic concerns in the midst of professional practice.

Early Encounters between Practical Theology and Constructionism In Europe, Chris Hermans, F. Garrett Immink, Albert F. Jong, and Jan van der Lans (2001) led the exploration of constructionism as a resource for practical theology, editing a seminal text that placed constructionist thought and practice into conversation with preaching, religious education, organizational development, conversion, and other concerns and subdisciplines in practical theology. These chapters are framed by essays from social psychologist Kenneth J. Gergen (2001a, 2001b), a leading constructionist theorist. Overall, the text emphasizes the performative, communal, and relational dimensions of ministry and practical theological activity in religious communities, calling scholars to attend more rigorously to these emerging understandings. In the United States, the earliest practical theologians to turn intentionally to constructionist theory include Andrew D. Lester (1995, 2003), Charles Kollar (1997/2011), and Christie Cozad Neuger (2001), scholars in the subdiscipline of pastoral care and counseling. Constructionism continues to shape this dimension of practical theology more than

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it shapes other subdisciplines, including homiletics, religious education, and organizational development. Lester (1995, 2003) and Neuger (2001) advocate approaches to pastoral care and counseling informed by narrative psychotherapy, while Kollar (1997/2011) advocates a solution-focused approach. In correlating narrative psychotherapy with Christian existential-liberal and liberation theologies, Lester focuses on hope as a future-oriented construct; Neuger, on effective feminist care with women in the midst of violence, depression, and aging. Notably, Lester recognized and emphasized human embodiment and the utility of ‘future stories’ in therapeutic change long before narrative psychotherapists themselves explicitly acknowledged these aspects of human experience. Kollar correlates a conserving, evangelical Christian stance with the techniques of solution-focused therapy to help congregational pastors and secular mental-health professionals who identify as conserving Christians to engage in short-term counseling. These early texts reflect and anticipate a strong resonance between practical theologians and narrative (Abraham, 2016; Bidwell, 2004b, 2008, 2010, 2013a; Bidwell and Batisky, 2009; Blevins, 2005; Cook and Alexander, 2008; Coyle, 2013, 2014; Frederick, 2009; Lee, 2017; McClure, 2015; Moschella, 2016; Sanders, 2015; Scheib, 2004, 2016, 2018; Swinton, 2002; Townsend, 2000) and solution-focused (Bidwell, 2002, 2004a; Stone, 2001; Thomas and Cockburn, 1998) approaches to ministry, care, and counseling. Other authors soon turned to constructionism as a descriptive, explanatory framework for religious and ministerial practices, including prayer (Ganzevoort, 2002), revelation (Ganzevoort, 2006), and the formation of pastoral identity (Park, 2017).

Other Appropriations of Constructionism in Practical Theology Constructionism continued to expand its influence on practical theology as social

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constructionists developed more sophisticated practices for communal change, such as Appreciative Inquiry (AI) and actionresearch methodologies. The practical theological subdiscipline of religious education adopted constructionist research methodologies, especially participatory action research, in the early 2000s to generate robust and competency-based data for the formation of children and adults. Religious educators Mary Doveston (2007), Mary Hess (2001), and Bruce Martin (2000) used AI, emancipatory research, and participatory action to incorporate multiple voices into their research and to address the theory– practice divide that can plague practical theological researchers. Similarly, practical theologians Brandon K. McKoy (2013) and Cody J. Sanders (2017) used constructionist theory to emphasize, respectively, the communal and narrative dimensions of youth ministry and the process of identity formation among lesbian, gay, transgender, questioning, intersex, and asexual youth. Preachers and scholars of homiletics turned to constructionism to describe and explain the processes of biblical interpretation (Dreyer, 2011) and delivering a sermon (De Wet, 2015). Appreciative Inquiry, as a constructionist practice, has had a growing influence on how practical theology understands and approaches congregational development, community conflict, and denominational transformation. Mark Branson (2004/2016) published the first (and some would say, definitive) work on AI and ministry, focusing on intentional conversation as a vehicle for reinvigorating and recreating congregations. Louis Hays (2010) uses AI to craft statements of mission and values in light of congregational schism, and Mark M. McCormack (2012) uses AI as a tool for congregational visioning toward an ideal future. More recently, Richard ManleyTannis (2020) recommends AI as a tool for denominational change in a shifting culture.

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Constructionism Engages Spirituality and Practical Theology Practical theology and its concerns have also influenced social constructionist theory and practice. By the mid-1990s, constructionist practitioners were exploring how social constructionism evokes and makes use of spirituality – though perhaps not theology or religion – as a human resource and experience to influence organizational development, psychotherapy, and other practices. Diana Whitney, a co-founder of the Taos Institute and founder/principal of the Corporation for Positive Change, suggested in 1995 that spirituality is a key principle for organizational theory. She identifies four conversations related to spirituality in business, work, and organizational change: Spirit as energy; Spirit as meaning; Spirit as sacred; and Spirit as epistemology (Whitney, 1995). Soon after, psychologist Dvorah Simon (1996) wrote about the constructionist practices of solution-focused therapy as a spiritual path in and of themselves. She developed these ideas at the 2006 conference of the Solution-Focused Brief Therapy Association in Denver in a workshop titled ‘Clarifying the Questions: Spirituality and Solution-Focused Therapy’, which she cofacilitated with Frank N. Thomas, Mark Mitchell, and me. Whitney also expanded her ideas, first in a video (Whitney, 2000); then in an article (2002) that includes a response from a professor of business policy at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California, who recommends Ken Wilber’s integrative spirituality as a way to operationalize Whitney’s ideas; and finally in a workshop titled ‘Spirituality in/ and Constructionism’ that she co-facilitated with me in 2013 during the Taos Institute’s twentieth-anniversary conference. The Taos Institute, an interdisciplinary, international educational organization founded by Harlene Anderson, David Cooperrider, Kenneth J. Gergen, Mary Gergen, Sheila McNamee,

Suresh Srivastva, and Diana Whitney in 1993, serves as a clearinghouse and community for scholars and practitioners who see social processes as central to the construction of reason, knowledge, and human value. As a community, the Taos Institute seeks to apply social constructionist understandings to relational, collaborative and appreciative practices around the world by sponsoring conferences and workshops, publishing books, and engaging in other educational activities. At the same conference, I co-facilitated a workshop titled ‘Seeking Resonance: Spirituality, Interfaith Relations and Constructionist Thought’ with William Blaine-Wallace of Bates College. The large attendance at these workshops, as well as a working group on spirituality at a 2015 Taos Institute conference in Santa Fe, facilitated by Miriam Subirana and me, demonstrated a growing interest in spirituality among social constructionist theorists and practitioners. After 2010, three publications further advanced understandings of spirituality and practical theology in social constructionist thought and practice. In 2013, I published a chapter on constructionist supervision of pastoral counselors (Bidwell, 2013b), integrating the formation of pastoral clinicians with solution-focused principles. In 2014, AI Practitioner, a professional journal, published an issue devoted to spirituality co-edited by practical theologian Katherine Rand and me (Bidwell and Rand, 2014). The issue highlights how Appreciative Inquiry can address spirituality in healthcare, religious congregations, psychotherapy, and other settings; it includes personal reflections on practice, case studies, communal practices, and empirical research at the intersection of AI and spirituality. Finally, in 2016 the Taos Institute published Spirituality, Social Construction, and Relational Processes: Essays and Reflections (Bidwell, 2016), in which leading thinkers and practitioners offered personal accounts of their experiences of spirituality and constructionism. These authors engage the question, ‘How can spirituality and social

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construction enrich each other for the benefit of the world?’

THEMES FROM THE ENCOUNTER BETWEEN PRACTICAL THEOLOGY AND SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM The encounter between practical theology and social constructionism can be described as orbiting three foci: community change; identity formation; and the primacy of stories. These foci relate to recent shifts in practical theology that benefit from the goals and priorities of constructionist thought. Today, practices informed by social constructionism not only serve the changing norms and criteria of practical theology; they also expand the research repertoire of practical theologians to make their work more congruent with emerging values in the discipline. Throughout the 20th century, practical theology emphasized the storied nature of the ‘living human document’ (Boisen, 1936); this emphasis gained broader momentum in academic theology with the publication of an essay by Stephen Crites (1971) that emphasized the narrative qualities of human experience. As practical theology became less enamored with psychodynamic psychology and modernist approaches to knowledge, it developed communal-contextual and intercultural stances (Ramsay, 2004) to supplement less contextual, more individualistic approaches. Social constructionism as a field of inquiry emerged from some of the same shifts, making it a natural ally for the emerging concerns of practical theology. Lester (1995), Neuger (2001), Scheib (2004), Townsend (2000), and others turned explicitly to constructionist understandings of story and identity formation to advance practical theology, especially in the subdiscipline of pastoral and spiritual care. Turning to community life and transformation, McKoy (2013) and others emphasized stories and relationships, moving beyond descriptive-critical social

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constructionist theory to adopt constructionist practices such as Appreciative Inquiry. Within these foci, social constructionism helped make concrete a practical theological emphasis on justice as a norm and criterion for action. It also helped practical theology center behavior and performativity rather than propositions as evidence of (and data for reconstructing) religious and spiritual belief. Significantly, practical theology has supplemented social constructionism’s attention to language and relationship with attention to the embodied, biological, and finite nature of human being. This is one way practical theology has challenged and expanded social constructionist understandings; practical theologians emphasize that self and community are given and constructed, linguistic and embodied. As Kierkegaard (1999) noted, humans live in the tension of possibility and finitude, freedom and limitations; practical theologians are keenly aware of this.

A CALL TO INCREASE CONSTRUCTIONIST ENGAGEMENT Rand (2019) advocates passionately for practical theologians to increase their use of critical autoethnography and other constructionist research methods. These methods center relationality and mutuality, values she understands as inherent to practical theology. Constructionist methods also offer a way of marrying theory and practice in a moment-to-moment inquiry embodying the pastoral or hermeneutic circle. By not just trying to tell others’ stories, but by having a clearer sense of our own narratives, we are able to more deeply inquire into the structural forces that contribute to our own oppression, and likewise we are able to develop empathy for ourselves and others who share in marginalization, and perhaps even those who perpetrate it. (p. 256)

I echo Rand’s call for practical theologians to adopt more fully the reflexive and reflective research methods advocated by social

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constructionist thinkers and researchers. Constructionist approaches to research allow us ‘to model the kind of care we have tried so often to describe, and … to develop our caregiving skills in the process of research and writing’ (p. 256). Constructionist research intentionally addresses mutuality, justice, reflexivity, and relational learning, concerns central to the contemporary discipline of practical theology. These methods also account for the partial and constructed nature of knowledge, an essential dimension of practical theology as an inherently interpretive discipline, and emphasize local, preferred futures rather than universal and acontextual understandings of ‘health’, ‘wholeness’, and ‘dysfunction’. Beyond increased use of constructionist research methods, practical theologians continue to enhance their work with individuals, couples, families, and communities by drawing on constructionist practices. This seems particularly true in the subdiscipline of pastoral and spiritual care and counseling, where constructionist practices offer compelling resources for care with marginalized communities. Suzanne M. Coyle (2014), for example, uses the theory and practice of narrative psychotherapy to facilitate spirituality groups with women; Jason D. Hays (2013) addresses care for gender- and sexually fluid people through narrative psychotherapy; Richard Manley-Tannis (2020) urges the United Church of Canada to adopt Appreciative Inquiry as a mechanism for justice-oriented denominational change; Mary Moschella (2016) turns to narrative and constructionist ideas in advancing theological understandings of joy and the practices that sustain it; and Cody J. Sanders (2015) uses narrative approaches to address suicide among gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and intersex Christians. In South Korea, Hyoju Lee (2017) adopts narrative therapy and community work to reduce the marginalization of nevermarried women in Korean congregations, while Insuk Kim (2020) uses it to advocate for Southeast Asian marriage migrants and

to increase the effectiveness of their care by South Korean congregations and non-profits. My own work advocates constructionist practices for spiritual direction (Bidwell, 2004a), pastoral counseling with couples (Bidwell, 2013a), the supervision of spiritually integrative psychotherapists (Bidwell, 2013b), and care among people with complex religious bonds (Bidwell, 2018) (those who maintain relationships with more than one religious tradition simultaneously).

CONCLUSION There are theological reasons that social construction attracts the attention of practical theologians. A commitment to social justice, of course, is one; another relates to the Christian doctrine of eschatology, which focuses on the ultimate destiny of humanity and creation – the perfection of the cosmos. Gergen (2015) suggests that constructionist research does not seek to reflect ‘the way things are’ but to form a future aligned more closely with compelling visions of the common good, and I suspect this helps constructionism appeal to practical theologians; as a stance toward practice, social constructionism focuses on effective responses to concrete situations, the reform of embedded practices to better attend to the contingent and emerging nature of community, and experience as a generative location for new theoretical constructions (see Liebert, 2002). Constructionist practices allow practical theologians to form futures that privilege the lived experiences of human beings through practices that promote life-giving religious and spiritual values. As such, I suggest that constructionism helps religious communities take ‘anticipatory actions’ toward a vision of an ultimate, ideal future. ‘Anticipatory action’ is how pastoral theologian Nancy J. Gorsuch (2001) describes practices that allow believers, individually and collectively, to embody and

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perform particular values to manifest – albeit partially and inadequately – aspects of God’s common/wealth. In explicitly theological language, then, relational and constructionist practices as adopted and employed by practical theologians function in Christian communities as an anticipatory glimpse of a redeemed and restored future that manifests the ultimate, divine intention for the cosmos. Constructionist practices in religious and spiritual communities become lived embodiments of the already-but-not-yet future at the heart of Christian belief and practice.

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Index Numbers 4-D cycle, 280–1, 465–7 A aboutness see withness aboutness research, 88, 89 Accapadi, M.M., 555 accepted relational reference, 146 acknowledgement, 511–12, 514 action, 38, 42, 631 anticipatory, 636 joint, 264–5 revolutionary, 323 action learning process, 336 action research, 20–1, 46–9, 70, 239–43, 290, 325 see also Action-oriented Research for Transformation (ART); Appreciative Inquiry (AI); Collaborative Action Research (CAR); lifescaping action research; participatory action research (PAR); youth participatory action research (YPAR) Action-oriented Research for Transformation (ART), 46, 48, 49–55 activism, 62, 167, 171, 174, 178, 181 activity, 176, 179 adaptive challenges, 303 addiction, 418, 476–8 relational notions of, 478 relational recovery, 479–83 in community and society, 483–4 see also excessive behaviours African American elders, 446 afterschool programs, 179 Afya Kibaha, 623 ageism, 625 aging, 416–17, 444, 622 AI Practitioner, 634 “alabaos”, 600 alcoholism, 478, 480, 570, 572 Alexander, B.K., 477–8, 484 All Stars Project (ASP), 179 Allied Media Conference, 270, 274 Allied Media Projects (AMP), 222, 269, 270 relational practices, 271–7 Allinson, Jodie, 92 alternative realities, 204–5 in family therapy, 208–12 see also post-truth Andersen, T., 160, 162, 165, 189, 200, 240, 480 Anderson, H., 78, 79, 80, 153, 155, 282, 520, 522

Andes, 259, 260, 261, 262 animacy and inanimacy, 91–2 Ansloos, J., 553 Anthropos, 90, 92 Anti-Anorexia Anti-Bulimia League, NZ, 199–200 anticipatory action, 636 anticipatory principle, 470–1 anti-mimetic model of trauma, 602 anti-racist education, 392 apartheid, 552 appreciative dialogues, 347 Appreciative Inquiry (AI), 31, 222, 254, 279–88, 290, 322, 465, 584 4-D cycle, 280–1, 465–7 and Appreciative Pedagogy, 353–5, 357–8, 359–60 education, 347 healthcare, 417–18, 464–73 applications, 467–8 principles and practice, 468–72 self-managing teams, 293–5 large scale, 281–8 and practical theology, 633 in practical theology, 636 YouthInvest, 345 Appreciative Inquiry (AI) summit, 281–2, 285 appreciative organizing, 611–12 Appreciative Pedagogy, 353–5, 357–8, 359–60 appreciative practices, 346–9, 468–72 arenas for cocreation, 35 Aristotle, 35, 48 Aronica, L., 314 art, 59–60, 513–14, 627 artistic communities, 59 arts-based inquiry, 19 arts-based research, 29–30, 57, 509–10 see also performative inquiry assemblages, 102, 105–7, 111 assessment, 318, 373–4, 375, 383–4 social constructionist practice, 384–7 see also educational evaluation Atkinson, Sarah, 517, 525 Attneave, C.L., 481 auditory hallucinations, 167–8 authorial agency, 155 authority, 6–7, 58 autism, 385, 386 autobiographical reasoning, 447 autoethnography, 61–2 axiology, 206–7, 210, 211

INDEX

B Bakhtin, M., 141, 392, 393, 396, 519, 520, 521, 601 Baldwin, Clive, 451 Baldwin, James, 270 “banking education”, 355, 392 Banks, S., 41, 42 Barad, Karen, 91, 92 Barenboim, D., 600, 601, 604 Barreto, Adalberto de Paula, 184, 185 Barrett, Frank, 63 Bartolini, Stefano, 517 Bateson, Gregory, 91, 101, 478, 524 Bateson, Nora, 91 Bava, Saliha, xiv, 420, 516, 519, 522 Bavelas, J., 248, 249, 253 Be Wise program, 471–2 Becker, G., 446 Becoming (M. Obama), 355 Belden-Charles, Ginny, xiv, 218, 222 belonging, 271–2, 479, 483, 535, 608 Bennett, Jane, 91 bereavement, 167 see also grief Berg, D., 271 Berger, John, 510 Berger, P.L., 47, 229, 582 Berland, Gretchen, 512, 514 Berman, Harry, 450 Best, D., 483 Bhutan, 517, 518 bias, 87 Bidwell, Duane R., xv, 535, 632, 633, 634, 636 bifurcation point, 229 bilingual education, 394 Billington, T., 334, 339, 375 biography, 61 Black and Indigenous communities, 275 Blair, Madelyn, 79 Blanket Exercise, 552–3 Blewett, C., 314 Boal, Augusto, 48, 62 Bobrow, Emily, 519 Bodiford, K., 19, 31, 79, 618 Bohm, D., 72 Bourdieu, P., 386, 582 Bouvier, V., 596 Bouwen, René, xv, 218, 221, 261, 262, 263, 264 Bradbury, H., 38, 39, 47 Braidotti, R., 90, 91, 92, 376 brain, 477 Branson, Mark, 633 Brazil, 562–8 Breheny, Mary, 62 bringforthist paradigm, 118, 206, 207–8, 209, 211 Brown, Bliss, 281 Brown, L. D., 39 Bruffee, K.A., 582

Bruner, J., 445, 446, 447 Buber, Martin, 619 Buckwalter, G., 512, 514 Buddhism, 51–2, 498 bulimia, 199–200 bullying, 317, 364–70 see also cyberbullying Burkitt, I., 614 Burman, E., 374, 376, 388 Burr, V., 565, 582–3 Bush, George W., 195 Bushe, G.R., 300, 304, 619 Butler, Judith, 590 Butts, D., 618 C Callon, M., 27 Camargo-Borges, C., 19, 31, 79 Cameron, Harriet, xvi, 317–18, 382, 383, 384, 386, 387, 388 Cammarota, J., 322 Campo, R., 437, 439 Canada, 551–2 capabilities, 37–8, 41 capacity building, 37–8, 41 capitalism, 172 capitalist metaphors, 92 Caputo, John D., 532–3 Cardenas, Micha, 272 care and caregiving, 512–13 human dimension of, 415–16 mental health, 490–1 narrative, 416–17, 448–52 care experiences, 423–4 Carlson, T., 155 Carter, K., 42 Castillejo, A., 594–5, 596 Castillo Theatre, 179–80 causality, 9–10 Cecchin, G., 204 change behaviour, 217 generative, 302, 303–7 internal, 246 Organization Development (OD), 301–2 radical, 36 relational leading, 237 revolutionary, 484 social, 19 therapeutic, 163, 211–12 Charon, Rita, 434, 436, 438 Chaveste, Rocio, xvi, 21 Chen, M., 165 children, 176–7, 398, 575 Chinese narrative construction, 446 Chogyam, N., 500

641

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THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST PRACTICE

choice, 69, 299 citizen engagement, 35, 575–8 and multi-professional collaboration, 578–9 see also community engagement citizen participation, 34, 37, 291–3 see also community participation Clark, Kathleen, xvi, 393, 419 classificatory looping, 373 Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, 467–8 Clear Comprehension, 498 Clifford, James, 87, 90 climate change, 50 climate emergency, 92 Climate Transformations, 51 close reading, 436 coaching, 221, 246–55 definitions, 247 four quadrant model, 251–5 peer coaching, 357 process of, 247–51 recovery coaching, 482–3, 484 co-construction, 37 in coaching, 248, 250 Collaborative Action Research (CAR), 38, 39, 40–1, 42–3 of meaning, 10 social construction as, 88–9 in transmaterial worlding, 90, 96 co-creation, 219 by experimenting, 566 transitional trajectories, 479 cocreational perspective, 35–6 code of ethics, 79 cognition, 179 co-inquiry, 403, 405 Coleman, C., 483 Coleman, Peter, 447 Coles, T., 502 collaboration, 19, 25, 35, 36–7, 259 Allied Media Projects (AMP), 272–3 capabilities and capacity building, 37–8 healthcare, 427–31 multi-actor, 221, 258–65 placemaking, 566–7 research as innovation, 27 welfare states, 572–3, 575–80 YouthInvest, 345–6 Collaborative Action Research (CAR), 20, 35, 38–43 collaborative activity, 179 collaborative decision making, 431 collaborative impact, 42 collaborative leadership, 360–1 collaborative learning, 353, 431–2 collaborative pedagogy, 353, 357–8, 359–60 collaborative practices, 164, 397 collaborative reflexivity, 276–7 collaborative relationships, 187 collaborative turn, 37

Collaborative-Dialogic Practice, 117, 132–8 philosophical stance, 134–8 roots, 132–4 collective health, 491–3 collective impact, 42 collective narratives, 238 of suffering, 599–603 collective responsibility, 260–1, 618, 619 Colombian armed conflict, 534–5, 594, 595–6 Colombian peace process, 595, 605n colonisation, 89–90 Combs, Gene, xvii, 9, 133, 153, 196, 199, 449, 450 commitment, 264–5 common good, 35–7, 37–8 common purpose, 303–5 commonsense morality, 227–8 case example, 228–9 communication, 219, 236, 237, 239, 240, 242, 420–1 see also conversations; dialogue Communication and the Human Condition (Pearce), 609 communication perspective, 422 communities of concern, 157–8 community, 183, 185–6, 583 community building, 285–6 and inclusion, 548–56 courageous conversations, 554–6 Disability Rights Movement, 550–1 structuring safety, 551–4 intergenerative, 535, 619–27 intergenerational approaches, 620–7 and placemaking, 559–68 Perus, Brazil, 562–8 community context, 539 community conversations, 283 community development, 531–3 community engagement, 532 transformative community conferencing (TCC), 581–2 distinction from other approaches, 584–5 steps, 585–9 theoretical foundations, 589–90 see also citizen engagement community in crisis, 611–13 community involvement, 282–3 Peace River school district, 357–8 see also community participation community learning, 396–7 community life and transformation, 635 Community Life Competence Process, 623 community narrative mapping, 587 community participation, 38 see also citizen participation; community involvement; participatory approaches community recovery, 483–4 community work, 183–4 Integrative Community Therapy (ICT), 184–6 guiding sensibilities, 186–7 methodology, 187–90

INDEX

compassion, 503 compassionate curiosity, 204 complementarity, 260 co-narrators, 248 conceptual space, 49 confidence building, 347–8 confidentiality, 231 conflict, 537–8 in collaborations, 259 commonsense morality, 228–9 in organizational settings, 232 post-conflict societies (see transitional societies) violent, 144 see also Colombian armed conflict conflict reduction, 8 conflict resolution, 220 conflict scenario, 538–9 community context, 539 narrative mediation, 539–46 confrontation, 263–4 connecting, 427–9 connection, rituals of, 524 connections, 262–3 consensus, 146 constructionism see social constructionism consultancy, 228–9, 230–3 Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS), 284, 288n contemplative constructionism, 631 context, 87, 161, 522, 539 contextual understanding, 122–3 conversation cards, 508–9 conversational agreements, 188 conversational flows, 236 conversational partners, 79, 81, 164 conversational questions, 135 conversations, 222, 279–80 collaborative leadership, 360–1 community building, 612 courageous, 274, 554–6 mindfulness in, 501 narrative therapy, 492 Public Conversations Project, 493–4 and relationships, 522 re-membering, 458–62 tree method, 347–8 unfinalized, 524–5 see also dialogue Cooperrider, David, 31, 115, 322, 348, 465, 469, 584 Cooper-White, Pamela, 632 Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM), 609 coordinating, 429 Cope, B., 394 co-presence, 246 Corcoran, T., 334, 339 co-researchers, 79, 81 Cottam, H., 36, 572–3, 575 counselors see school counselors

couple therapy, 480–1, 523 courageous conversations, 274, 554–6 Coyle, Suzanne M., 636 Craps, Marc, xvii, 218, 221, 258, 259, 263, 265 creative imitation, 177 creative reminiscence, 449 creative tension, 28 Creative Tension Engine, 28 creative writing, 394 creativity, 13, 25, 27, 519 critical dialogue, 393 critical disability studies, 375–8 critical education, 334–5 critical educational psychology, 374–5 critical incident, 612 critical pedagogy, 392, 393 critical studies, 8 criticality, 123 Cronen, V., 9, 86, 573 cultural competence, 125–6, 610–11 cultural humility, 126, 611 cultural narratives, 539 cultural transformation, 58–9 culture, 446, 581 Cummins, J., 391–2, 393, 394, 399 Cunliffe, A., 236, 238, 239, 242, 291 curiosity, 12–13, 71, 72, 73, 204–5, 470, 521 curricula, 314–15, 410 Second Step SEL curriculum, 327, 328 Write Way curriculum, 327, 328 cyberbullying, 328 D Damasio, A., 373 Daniel, B.J., 555 Danto, A., 599–600 Das, V., 599, 603, 604 Davies, Bronwyn, 364 Davies, William, 195 De Jong, P., 249 De Shazer, S., 248 De Sousa Santos, B., 595 death, 417 see also grief Deavere Smith, Anna, 62 Dechen, K., 500 decision-making, 69, 263, 264, 299, 431 deconstruction, 196–7, 376, 377 deep differences, 274–6 DeFehr, Janice, 81, 82 deficit vocabulary, 574 definitional ceremonies, 188, 368–9 Deleuze, G., 102, 544, 581 dementia, 450–1, 621 democracy, 39, 47, 299 Denborough, D., 184, 189, 200 Denmark, 534, 573–4 Denver Museum of Nature & Science, 283

643

644

THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST PRACTICE

Denzin, N., 61, 125 Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP), MIT, 561 Derrida, J., 5 Desai, M. U., 38 design, 280, 466 design research, 21 destiny, 280, 466 development, 176–7, 300 development community, 173, 178–9 Dewey, John, 39, 47, 314, 356, 358 Dewulf, A., 263 diagnosis, 509 diagnostic assessment, 383–4, 387 diagnostic discourse, 574 diagnostic practices, 489–90 diagnostics, 420 dialectics, 521–2 dialogic agreements, 146 dialogic evaluation, 404, 405 dialogic imagination, 519–20, 521 dialogic learning, 393 Dialogic Organization Development, 223, 298–9, 300–7 change processes, 301–2 practice, 302–7 Dialogic Orientation Quadrant (DOQ), 251–5 Dialogic Social Inquiry (DSI), 21–2, 77–84 inquiry process, 79–82 writing process, 82–3 dialogical process, 164 dialogical relationships, 187 dialogue, 12, 520 appreciative, 347 in coaching, 247–9 formulations, 250–1 four quadrant model, 251–4 questions, 249 collaborative posture of, 167 in community work, 611–12 critical, 393 focus-group, 409 generative, 140–9 case examples, 142–4, 146–9 intergenerational approaches, 620–7 Muslim minority, 396 Public Conversations Project, 493–4 in relational understanding, 235 survivors of suffering, 600–1 whole system 4-D dialogue, 282 see also Collaborative-Dialogic Practice; Open Dialogue; participatory dialogue difference/differences, 274–6, 364, 365, 522, 544, 619 digital community of concern, 157–8 digital literacies, 394–5 digital video, 63 disability, 91, 317–18, 510, 511 critical disability studies, 375–8 social model of, 551

Disability Rights Movement, 550–1 Disabled Student Allowance (DSA), 383 discourse, 301, 627 data, 324 diagnostic, 574 management, 534 discovery, 280, 348, 465–6 discrimination, 483, 491–2, 493 Diversi, M., 62 diversity, 219, 609–10 divorce, 166 see also marital separation Dobkin, P.L., 502 “docile bodies”, 184 Dole, Dawn, xvii, 316–17 dominant narrative, 583–4 dominant stories, 152, 153 double listening, 544 Doveston, Mary, 633 Dragonas, T., 335 dream, 280, 348, 466 Dréze, J., 38 dualism, 175 duography, 61 dying, 523 dyslexia, 382, 385, 385–6 E early school leavers, 316, 337 see also school drop-outs East Side Institute, New York, 62, 172 eco-relationality, 321–2 Eddy, K., 431 Edgoose, J. and J., 434 education, 39, 313–15, 334–5 intercultural, 318, 391–2 constructionist practices, 394–9 relational practices, 335 transformation in, 409–10 see also pedagogy; schools education system, 551–2 educational evaluation, 318–19, 402–10 relational perspective, 403–4 aims, 404–6 in practice, 406–9 educational psychology, 372–5 Eikeland, Olav, 48 Einstein, A., 313 Ellis, C., 61, 62 Ely, R.J., 610 embodied faith, 630 see also practical theology embodied performance, 62–3 embodiment, 445, 550, 553 Emdin, Chris, 388 emergence, 28, 301 emergence by design, 28 Emerging Futures, 481–3

INDEX

emotional reflexivity, 614 emotional stress, 419 emotions, 598 empathy, 625 relational, 535 empowerment, 129, 186, 397 engaged pedagogy, 388 engagement, 300, 404, 405, 511 see also citizen engagement; community engagement engagement strategies, 284–6 environment, 91, 92, 122 epistemological blindness, 533–4, 560 epistemology, 206, 225 Epston, D., 155, 199, 540 ethical sensitivity, 41 ethical-political concerns, 166–8 ethics code of, 79 everyday, 41 narrative mediation, 546 in organizational settings, 226–7 relational, 40, 41, 79–80, 220, 227, 229–34 roleplaying, 243–4 therapeutic process, 212 ethnic minorities see minority learners; Muslim minority evaluation, 359 see also educational evaluation Everest, 94 Everett, B., 548, 549 everyday activities, 21, 68–9, 70 everyday ethics, 41 everyday life, 69, 70, 138, 603 evidence, 125 evidence-based practice (EBP), 124–5 excessive behaviours, 103–10 see also addiction exclusion, 532–3 experiential learning pedagogy, 355–6, 358–60 externalizing, 366, 540, 541, 544, 586 F Fals Borda, Orlando, 48, 322 family therapy, 133, 143–4, 208–12, 480–1, 540 Feldman, A., 322 feminism, 7 Ferragi, Cesar A., xvii–xviii, 532, 533 Ferreiro, E., 398 Feyerabend, P., 5, 373 fiction, 62 Finding Common Ground (Gray), 259 Fine, M., 322 focus-group dialogue, 409 Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 60 Foucault, M., 184, 197, 363, 364, 369, 487, 590 four quadrant model of coaching, 251–4 Fox, Karen, 61 Frank, Arthur, 435

645

Freedman, Jill, xvii, 9, 118, 133, 153, 196, 199, 200, 449, 450 Freeman, Mark, 447 Freire, Paulo, 185, 188, 315, 352, 355, 392 Freud, S., 455, 456 Fried Schnitman, Dora, xxvii, 117, 140, 141, 144 Fulani, Dr Lenora, 178–9 future-forming inquiry, 38, 39, 42, 83–4, 103 G Gadamer, H.-G., 134 Galileo Galilei, 58 gambling, 104–10 Garfinkel, H., 81, 100, 102, 250 Gawande, Atul, 522–3 gender, 445, 488–9 gender dysphoria, 490 generative change, 302, 303–7 generative change model, 223, 304 generative dialogues, 117, 140–9 case examples, 142–4, 146–9 generative images, 304–5 generativity, 262, 301, 302, 613, 619 see also intergenerativity Gergen, Kenneth Collaborative Action Research (CAR), 35, 38, 39, 41, 42 collective narratives, 238 conversations, 279–80 dangerous dances, 240 evocative ethnography, 63 future-forming inquiry, 83–4 reflective pragmatism, 626 relational being, 437 relational co-ordination, 518 relational responsibility, 533 research, 323–4 Gergen, Mary, 61, 62, 90 Gerlach, J.M., 353 Germer, C.K., 498 Gill, Scherto, xviii, 318, 323, 325, 403, 410 Giroux, H., 333 Global North, 48, 533–4, 559–60 global reflexivity, 93 Global South, 48, 533–4, 560, 562–8 globalization, 618 Goffman, E., 100 Gold, Karen, xviii, 416 Goodley, Dan, xviii, 317, 376, 378, 551 Görlich, Anne, 62 Gorsuch, Nancy J., 636 Graeber, D., 322, 323 Grandesso, M.A., 186, 188 Grant, A.M., 247 Gravis, 626 Gray, B., 259, 260 Gray, R., 63 Greason, Michelle, 452

646

THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST PRACTICE

Greenwood, D. J., 38–9 grief, 417, 455–62 modern grief psychology, 456–7 relational approach, 457 re-membering, 457–62 Griffin, M., 327, 328 group identity, 608, 614 group participation, 271 group therapy, 117–18, 172 group work, 160–8 collaborative, dialogical and reflexive practices, 164–5 ethical-political concerns, 166–8 identity implication, 165–6 language and meaning, 162–3 Guanaes, C., 164 Guanaes-Lorenzi, C., 165, 166 Guattari, F., 102, 544 Guba, Egon, 205–6 Gubrium, J.A., 126 guided autobiography, 450 Gustavsen, Bjorn, 47, 54 H Habermas, J., 299, 447 Hacking, Ian, 102, 373 Haizlip, Julie, xix, 417, 464, 467, 468, 469 Hall, Budd, 47 Hall, Christopher, xix, 116, 120, 126, 129 Handbook of Community Building (Rapport and Seidman), 561 Hanman, C.A., 356 happiness, 291–3 Happiness Industry, The (Davies), 195 Happy Planet Index (HPI), 517 Haraway, Donna, 91–2 Harré, R., 9, 165 Hartnett, Steven, 62 Haslebo, Gitte, xix, 218, 227, 230, 233, 335, 336 Hattam, R., 332, 333, 336, 339 Hays, Jason D., 636 Hays, Louis, 633 Healing, S., 249 health promotion, 491–3 healthcare, 415–16 Appreciative Inquiry (AI), 417–18, 464–73 applications, 467–8 principles and practice, 468–72 self-managing teams, 293–5 collaborative re-construction of, 416, 425–7 formative landscape, 422–4 social practices, 427–31 history of traditional health care, 424–5 LGBT people, 418–19, 488–94 diagnostic practices, 489–90 health professionals training practices, 493–4 mental health care, 490–1 prevention and health promotion, 491–3

liberation from authority, 7 mindfulness, 501–5 poetic reflections, 507–8 co-creating language, 514 human being and disability, 510 illness experience, 509–10 reflections and implications, 514–15 relational engagement with professionals, 511 sacred spaces, 511–13, 514 waiting room project, 508–9 wider context, 513–14 healthcare industry, 195 healthcare professionals relational engagement with, 511, 514 stress, 419, 499 training practices, 493–4 see also mental health professions healthy living, 623–4 Hearing Voices Movement, 167–8 Hechinger, M., 437 Hedtke, C.L., 167 Heifetz, R.A., 303 Heimburg, Dina von, xx, 20 Henkin, Nancy, 625–6 Herek, G.M., 489 Hermann, Nellie, 436 Hermans, C., 632 Herrington, T., 42 Hersted, L., 39 Hess, Mary, 633 heteronormativity, 489, 491 heterosexism, 489 heterosexuality, 488, 489 higher education Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLDs), 383 current practice, 383–4 social constructionist practice, 384–8 Hip Hop House, 564 History of Sexuality (Foucault), 487 Hoffman, Lynn, 134 Holman, P., 305 Holstein, J.F., 126 Holzman, Lois, xx, 8, 62, 118, 160, 171, 173, 174, 175, 176, 181, 183, 516, 519 homelessness, 439 homiletics, 633 homophobia, 492 homosexuality, 488, 490 Hooker, D.A., 588, 589 hooks, bell, 388 hope, 510 horizontal relationships, 502–3 Hornstrup, Carsten, xxi, 534, 579 Hosking, D. M., 80 Hoskins, Marie L., xxi, 63, 548 hospice care, 523 hosting, 305 Hovelynck, Johan, xxi, 218, 221, 262, 263

INDEX

Hughes, Bill, 376 human agency, 92–3 human development, 176–7 human dimension of care, 415–16 humans, 90–1, 92 humility, 12 cultural, 126, 611 I identity, 151 group, 608, 614 group work, 165–6 intersecting, 610 narrative, 445, 446, 447, 609 as paradox, 613–14 sexual identity categories, 487–8 shared, 303–5 social, 614 see also self; social identity theory identity conclusions, 197–8 identity formation, 635 identity politics, 535 identity stories, 609 identity-affirming literacy, 394 Idlewild, Michigan, 273 illness experience, 509–10 imagination, 25, 27, 519–20, 521 Imagine Chicago, 281 Imagine Nagaland, 285–6 imagineering, 27–9 Immink, F. Garrett, 632 inclusion, 7–8, 532–3, 535 and community building, 548–56 courageous conversations, 554–6 Disability Rights Movement, 550–1 structuring safety, 551–4 and diversity, 609–10 radical, 502 Inclusive Cities, 483–4 Indian Act, Canada, 552 Indigenous people, 275, 551, 595 Ingold, T., 25 innovation, 7–8, 11 research as, 20, 24–5, 26–32 see also social innovation (SI) inquiry, 71, 80 insider witness practices, 155 Integrative Community Therapy (ICT), 118, 184–6 guiding sensibilities, 186–7 methodology, 187–90 interaction, 91, 100 interactional perspective, 248 interactive learning, 262 interactive troubles, 332–4, 335 intercultural education, 318, 391–2 constructionist practices, 394–9 interdependency, 259, 264 intergenerational dialogue, 621–7

647

intergenerative community building, 535, 619–27 intergenerational approaches, 620 dialogue, 621–7 power relations, 627 intergenerativity, 619, 621, 622 intergroup theory, 608 internal changes, 246 International Class, 181 International Review of Qualitative Research, 61 intersecting identities, 610 intersectionality, 491 investigative curiosity, 204–5 Invitation to Social Construction, An (Gergen), 279–80 isolation, 151 J James, W., 47, 373 Jameson, Elizabeth, xxi, 419–20, 509, 513, 514 Janoff, S., 305 Janowski, M., 25 Japur, M., 166 Jennings Community School, Minneapolis, 358–60 Jensen, P., 155 Jiménez, A.P.S., 163 joint action, 264–5 Jones, Kip, 60, 63 Jong, Albert F., 632 Jongo, 563 Josselson, Ruthellen, 446 K Kalantzis, M., 394 Kanankil Institute, Mexico, 77, 84n Katz, Arlene M., xxi–xxiii, 419, 507, 515, 523 Katz, J.N., 488 Kearney, M., 501 Kegan, R., 248 Ketonen-Oksi, S., 566 Kierkegaard, S., 635 Kim, I., 636 Kleinman, A., 507, 512, 513, 599 knowledge, 225 evidence-based practice (EBP), 125 Integrative Community Therapy (ICT), 186–7, 189 local, 189, 534, 598 *not-knowing, 136, 204, 205, 396, 498, 500–1, 521, 523 and power, 315 social constructionism, 5, 313–14, 335, 565, 582–3, 597–8, 609 v. realism, 230 value-neutral, 4 knowledge democracy, 321, 328 knowledge-in-action, 47, 71 Kolb, David, 356 Kollar, Charles, 632, 633 Korman, H., 250 Kübler-Ross, E., 456

648

THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST PRACTICE

Kuhn, Thomas, 5 Kunc, N., 551 L Lacan, J., 377 Lakoff, G., 194 Lang, P., 348 language, 86, 420–1 as activity, 175 animacy and inanimacy, 91–2 appreciative practice, 469 coaching, 248–9 in conflict, 538 as constructing reality, 26 Dialogic Organization Development, 302 environmentalism, 92–3 group work, 162–3 intergenerative community building, 627 Multiple Impact Therapy (MIT), 133–4 of pain, 603 relational ethics, 232 relational responsibility, 436 and relationships, 128–9 as representation, 4–5 transformative community conferencing (TCC), 583 transmaterial worlding, 89 of welfare, 573–5 Lather, Patti, 88 Latour, B., 24 *leadership collaborative, 360–1 participatory, 326 see also relational leading learning, 39, 313, 314 collaborative, 353, 431–2 community, 396–7 computer-based, 394–5 and development, 176 dialogic, 393 experiential, 355–6, 358–60 interactive, 262 relational, 315–16 social, 261–2 see also pedagogy learning difficulties Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLDs), 317–18, 381–9 current practice, 383–4 social constructionist practice, 384–8 Learning Review (LR), 406 learning-and-effectiveness paradigm, 610 Leavy, Patricia, 30, 57 Lee, H., 636 Lee, Jenny, xxii, 218, 222 Lefebvre, Henri, 101 leisure industry, 559, 560 Leslie, Paul, 357 Lester, Andrew D., 632, 633

Lev Vygotsky: Revolutionary scientist (Newman and Holzman), 175 Levin, M., 38–9 Lew, A.A., 559 Lewin, K., 48, 161, 225, 298 Lewis, Barbara E., xxii, 218, 222 Lewis, M., 477 Lewis, R.E., 326 LGBT healthcare, 418–19, 488–94 diagnostic practices, 489–90 health professionals training practices, 493–4 mental health care, 490–1 prevention and health promotion, 491–3 LGBT people, 636 life stories, 445, 446, 447 lifescaping action research, 316, 321–3, 325–9 life-writing, 450 Lilienfeld, S.O., 477 Linking Generations Northern Ireland, 624–5 Linton, C., 554 listening care relations, 420 courageous conversations, 275 double, 544 and oppression, 555 polyphony, 601 queer, 492 relational, 272 transformative community conferencing (TCC), 587 as witnessing, 436 see also storylistening listening sessions, 612–13 literacy digital, 394–5 multiliteracies, 394, 397–9 lived experience, 189, 482, 507, 508, 509–10, 542, 584 Lizama, Christian, 21 local knowledge, 189, 534, 598 Logan, B., 492 logical force, 229 loneliness, 518 Luckmann, T., 47, 229 Ludema, J., 281 Ludski, Zoe, 554, 555 Lugo, Victoria, xxii–xxiii, 532, 534–5, 594, 598, 599, 600, 601, 602, 604 Lund, G.E., 333, 335 Lyotard, J.-F., 134 M MacGregor, J.T., 353 macro practice, 126, 128 Mæland, Ingebjørg, xxiv, 316, 335, 344, 346 management discourses, 534 management education, 354–5 mandala, 563 Manley-Tannis, Richard, 633, 636 Mann Willis, Morgan, xxx, 218, 222

INDEX

Maplethorpe, Robert, 29 Marcus, George E., 87, 90 marginalization, 549, 550, 585, 636 marital separation, 163 see also divorce Markussen, E., 343 Marshak, Robert J., xxiii, 10, 218, 223, 289, 298, 301, 302, 303 Martin, Bruce, 633 Martins, P.P.S., 165, 166 Marx, Karl, 172 mass psychology, 173–5 mass-mobilized inquiry, 281 material-discursive practice, 89–90 see also socio-material practices materiality, 91 Materials Handling group, 306–7 matter and human agency, 92–3 Maturana, Humberto, 206, 395 May, Natalie B., xxiii–xxiv, 417 McAdam, E., 348 McAdams, Dan, 445, 447, 450 McCormack, Mark M., 633 McCune, S.A., 163 McKoy, Brandon K., 633, 635 McLaren, P., 333 McLeod, John, 449 McNamee, S. creative integration, 284 educational evaluation, 403 narrative medicine (NM), 435, 437 relational ethics, 41, 79 relational responsibility, 533 research as transformation, 39–40 Mead, G.H., 614 Mead, Margaret, 55 meaning co-construction of, 10, 582 community building, 611 Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM), 609 dialogue, 141 group work, 162–3 illness, 167 Integrative Community Therapy (ICT), 185 joint creation of, 282 and language, 128–9 mass-mobilized inquiry, 281 relational leading, 236 relational responsibility, 435 social therapeutics, 177 meaningfulness, 516–17 meaning-making, 248, 393, 422–4 see also sense-making mediation see narrative mediation medicine, 415 narrative, 9, 416, 434–41 and relational being, 437–8 and relational responsibility, 435–7

649

memory, 597, 599 mental health, 163, 164, 167, 184, 489 mental health care, 490–1 Merleau-Ponty, M., 134 metalogues, 524–5 Metcalf, Stephen, 194 method as tool-and-result, 176 mezzo practice, 126 micro practice, 126 micro-aggressions, 554, 555 migration, 618 mimetic model of trauma, 602 Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), 499, 500 mindfulness, 49, 419, 498–9 as a relational presence, 501–5 mindfulness research, 499–500 minority learners, 318, 391–2 constructionist practices, 394–9 modernism, 10–11, 26 Monbiot, George, 195 Monk, Gerald, xxiv, 9, 233, 335, 531, 533, 537, 538 monologism, 396 Montero, M., 561 Moon, Haesun, xxiv, 218, 221, 253, 621 Morales-Arandes, Edgardo, xxiv–xxv morality, 226–7, 230, 523 commonsense morality, 227–9 Morgan, B., 479 mortality, 518 Moschella, Mary, 636 Moscheta, Murilo S., xxv, 493, 494 mourning, 600 see also bereavement “Mourning and Melancholy” (Freud), 455 Mudry, Tanya, xxv, 22, 103, 478, 479 Mulkay, Michael, 62 multi-actor collaboration, 221, 258–65 challenges, 259–62 practices for success, 262–5 multi-beings, 437 multiculturalism, 318, 391 multiliteracies, 394, 397–9 multimodal intervention, 395–9 Multiple Impact Therapy (MIT), 133 Multiple Sclerosis (MS), 419–20 co-creating language, 514 conversation cards, 508–9 illness experience, 509–10 relational engagement with professionals, 511 sacred spaces, 511–13, 514 multi-professional collaboration, 578–9 municipal happiness, 291–3 “Municipality Anew”, 573–4 Muñoz, K. L., 62 Murphy, J.W., 438 Murray-García, J., 611 music, 63–4, 601, 604 Muslim minority, 395–9

650

THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST PRACTICE

Mussel, William (Bill), 553 Myerhoff, Barbara, 447, 458 N Nagaishi, M., 300 narrative, 9, 301, 302, 627 narrative approaches, 583 narrative care, 416–17, 448–52 narrative challenges, 448 narrative deprivation, 448 narrative development, 446–8 narrative disorientation, 448 narrative environments, 445–6 narrative foreclosure, 448 narrative gerontology, 444 narrative identity, 445, 446, 447, 609 narrative incoherence, 448 narrative loss, 448 narrative mediation, 9, 533, 537–8 community context, 539 conflict scenario, 538–9 stages, 539–46 narrative medicine (NM), 9, 416, 434–41 exercises, 439–41 and relational being, 437–8 and relational responsibility, 435–7 narrative psychotherapy, 636 narrative theory, 534, 583 see also transformative community conferencing (TCC) narrative therapy, 8, 9, 151–8 family therapy, 540 LGBT healthcare, 492 narrative care, 449 in the neoliberalist era, 118, 193–201 deconstruction, 196–7 outsider witness groups, 200 older clients, 450 preferred stories, 151, 152–4, 155–6 symbolic witnesses, 117, 151, 154–8 National Center on Safe and Supportive Learning Environments, 324 Native American authors, 384 natural recovery, 479 natural resources, 92 Navarra, R., 481 Neimeyer, R.A., 457 neoliberalism, 105, 106, 107 narrative therapy in the era of, 118, 193–201 deconstruction, 196–7 outsider witness groups, 200 shared purposes, 199–200 Nepustil, Pavel, xxv–xxvi, 418, 479 Ness, O., 39, 160 Netherlands, 28, 291–5 network meetings, 576, 578 networked practices, 107–10, 111 networks, 102–3, 133, 151, 577

Neuger, Christie Cozad, 632, 633 neuroplasticity, 477 New Alliance Party (NAP), 178 “New London Group”, 394 new materialist thinkers, 91 New Public Governance, 571 New Public Management (NPM), 571 New York Institute for Social Therapy and Research (NYISTR), 174 New York Times, 195 New York Unemployed and Welfare Council, 178 New Zealand (NZ), 36, 517 Newbury, Janet, xxv, 63, 532, 533 Newman, Fred, 173, 174, 179 Newsom, E., 446 Nicolini, D., 103 Nijs, D., 28 Nishida, Kitaro, 51–2 nomadism, 372 Noosbond, J.P., 165 normal distribution curve, 373 Norris, J., 63 Norway school drop-outs, 343–5 YouthInvest, 344–50 not-knowing, 136, 204, 205, 396, 498, 500–1, 521, 523 Nurse’s Story, A (Shalof), 441 O Obama, Michelle, 355 Obradovic, A., 479 O’Brien, Karen, 50 O’Connor, D., 354, 355 Odyssey (Homer), 398 Olendzki, A., 498 Open Dialogue, 576 Open Space conversation, 360–1 open system design, 269 oppression, 128, 392, 491, 555 see also “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” (Freire) organization consultation, 31 organization design, 268–9 organization development (OD), 217–18, 298 criteria for practice, 299–300 social constructionist themes, 219–20 and social innovation (SI), 289–96 see also Dialogic Organization Development organizational culture, 226, 336 organizations *Appreciative Inquiry (AI), 354–5 ethics and morality, 226–7 moral obligation, 233–4 realism and commonsense morality, 227–9 relational ethics, 229–33 social constructionist view, 236 orienting questions, 103 Ortega, F.A., 602 Ostrom, E., 261

INDEX

outsider witnesses, 153, 200 “Ownership Society”, 195 Oxfam, 54 P pain, language of, 603 painting, 509–10 Pakman, M., 187 Papusa Molina, M.L., xxiv, 21 paradigm dialogue, 205–6, 206–7 paradigms, 205 Parallel Charts, 437–8 parenting, 128, 163 Park, H.-Y., 63 Parker, I., 24, 374 participatory action research (PAR), 39, 47, 322 participatory approaches arts-based research, 29–30 research as innovation, 31 see also Collaborative Action Research (CAR) participatory dialogue, 507–8 co-creating language, 514 human being and disability, 510 illness experience, 509–10 reflections and implications, 514–15 relational engagement with professionals, 511 sacred spaces, 511–13, 514 waiting room project, 508–9 participatory impact, 42 participatory inquiry process (PIP), 326–8 participatory leadership, 326 partners, 72 conversational, 79, 81, 164 patient centric healthcare, 293, 295–6 Paul, Elsie, 549 peace agreements, 595–6, 605n Peace River school district, 357–8 Pearce, W. B., 86, 226, 229, 422, 424, 427, 431, 609, 611 pedagogy, 314, 316–17 appreciative, 353–5, 357–8, 359–60 collaborative, 353, 357–8, 359–60 critical, 392, 393 engaged, 388 experiential learning, 355–6, 358–60 progressive, 315 transformative, 315 “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” (Freire), 315, 355, 392 peer coaching, 357 peer groups, 492 peer instruction, 353 peer recovery, 482–3 peer-evaluation, 407–8 Penn, Peggy, 437 Peretti, A.G., 165, 166 performance activism, 181 performance and play, 176–8 performance movement, 180–1 performance turn, 178–80

performative inquiry, 19, 21, 57–64 achievements and aspirations, 64 constructionist turn, 59–60 emergence and development, 58 protest and pluralism, 58–9 see also arts-based research performativity, 590 Performing the World (PTW), 181 Perus, Brazil, 562–8 Pfohl, S., 62 photography, 29, 63 photovoice, 29–30, 63 Pielle, Koosen, 552–3 Pimentel, F.A., 167 placemaking, 559–68 Perus, Brazil, 562–8 play, 420, 516–17 and performance, 176–8 and well-being, 518–25 dialectics, 521–2 gestures and rituals of connection, 524 imagination, 519–20 liberation, 520–1 remaking the familiar, 523 self and others, 522–3 unfinalized conversations, 524–5 Play, Perform, Learn, Grow conferences, 181 Plews-Ogan, Margaret, xxvi, 417, 464, 465, 468 poetic reflections, 507–8 co-creating language, 514 human being and disability, 510 illness experience, 509–10 reflections and implications, 514–15 relational engagement with professionals, 511 sacred spaces, 511–13, 514 waiting room project, 508–9 poetry, 62, 439–40 Polanyi, Michael, 100 political activism, 62, 178 political institutions, 58–9 Polkinghorne, D., 445, 447 polyphony, 243, 601 polyvocality, 236 positioning theory, 165–6 positivist methodologies, 7 positivist research, 18 post-conflict societies see transitional societies postconstructualism, 47 post-foundationalism, 4 post-humans, 90, 91 postmodern psychotherapy approaches, 132–3 postmodernism, 4 post-mythic stage, 447 post-positivist inquiry, 87 post-truth, 203–4, 204–5 systemic paradigms, 207–8 see also alternative realities Potter, J., 4, 376, 431

651

652

THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST PRACTICE

poverty, 195, 483 power, 86, 88, 369 community building, 533, 549–50 and knowledge, 315 knowledge-in-action, 47 misuse of, 555 multi-actor collaboration, 263 Open Dialogue, 576 transformative community conferencing (TCC), 589–90 power imbalances, 93 power relations, 41, 87, 88, 393, 627 power structures, 7 practical theology, 535, 630–7 and social construction, 632–7 practice and research, 21, 68–75 differences and similarities, 70–1 Research As Daily Practice, 71–5 practice theory, 290–1 practice-based research evidence (PBRE), 322, 328 Practicing Relational Ethics in Organizations (Haslebo & Haslebo), 227 Prado, M.A.M., 490 pragmatism, 19, 46 Preece, Bronwyn, 91 preferred futures, 219–20 preferred narrative, 449, 450, 589 preferred selves, 520 preferred stories, 151, 152–4, 155–6, 540, 542 pre-mythic stage, 447 Price-Robertson, R., 479 Privileged Identity Exploration Model, 555 problem saturated stories, 152 program evaluation, 8 progressive pedagogy, 315 Project for Public Spaces, 561 project-based education, 355 project-based learning (PBL), 358–60 psychiatry psychiatric labels, 163 liberation from authority, 7 recovery-oriented, 576 psychological assessments, 373–4, 375 psychology, 24, 173–5, 388 see also educational psychology; grief psychology psychology of becoming, 175 psychotherapy, 490–1 conflicts, 7 narrative, 636 postmodern approaches, 132–3 Public Conversations Project, 493–4 purposeful belonging, 271–2 Purser, R., 505 Q qualitative research, 7, 8, 47 queer listening, 492 Queixadas trail, 564–5

questions appreciative dialogues, 347 coaching, 249 Collaborative-Dialogic Practice, 137 conversational, 135 narrative mediation, 541, 542, 544–5 orienting, 103 positive, 465, 470 research, 79 Research As Daily Practice, 73 transmaterial worlding, 93–4 Quilombaque, 534, 562–8 Quintas, C.S., 163 R Raboin, W. Ellen, xxvi, 416, 425, 426, 427, 429 race, 554, 555 Radical Help (Cottam), 572 Rahman, Anis, 48 Rand, K., 635 Randall, William, xxvi, 416–17, 444, 445, 447, 448, 449, 450 rap music, 63 Rapizo, R., 166 Rasera, E.F., 166, 492 realism, 227–8 case example, 228–9 knowledge and morality, 230 reality, 26, 355–6, 469 alternative, 204–5 (see also post-truth) in family therapy, 208–12 narrative, 219 organizational, 301–2 Reality Pedagogy, 388 Rearick, M.L., 322 Reason, P., 39, 47 re-centering, 503 “Recognizing Resilience”, 163 reconciliation, 447 recovery, 418 relational, 479–83 in community and society, 483–4 recovery coaching, 482–3, 484 recovery-oriented psychiatry, 576 Reegård, K., 343 reflecting teams, 164–5, 211, 240, 241, 242 reflective practices, 164–5 reflective pragmatism, 5, 626 reflective writing, 436, 437–8 reflexive practices, 233 reflexivity, 47, 51–2, 93, 103, 239–40, 614 collaborative, 276–7 reframing, 470 regeneration, 377 rehabilitation, 468 relational action inquiry, 47 relational being, 437–8 relational capacity building, 41–2

INDEX

relational constructionism, 269, 289–90 relational co-ordination, 518 relational design, 269 relational ecologies, 321–2 relational empathy, 535 relational engagement, 511 relational ethics, 40, 41, 79–80, 220, 227, 229–34 relational evaluation, 318–19, 403–4 aims, 404–6 in practice, 406–9 relational justice, 511 relational leading, 220–1, 235–44 development, 238–44 implication for leadership, 244 practices of, 237–8 relational learning, 315–16 relational listening, 272 relational play, 518–25 dialectics, 521–2 gestures and rituals of connection, 524 imagination, 519–20 liberation, 520–1 remaking the familiar, 523 self and others, 522–3 unfinalized conversations, 524–5 relational practices, 153, 221, 222, 271–7, 335 relational preconditions, 426–7 relational presence, 501–4 relational processes, 26, 219 relational recovery, 479–83 in community and society, 483–4 “relational research”, 77–8 see also Dialogic Social Inquiry (DSI) relational responsibility, 41, 435–7, 626 Relational Responsibility (McNamee and Gergen), 533 relational responsiveness, 268, 269, 503 Allied Media Projects (AMP), 270 practices, 271–7 relational social construction, 422, 425–31 relational space, 49, 522, 604 relational welfare, 36 relationally-responsive processes, 237 relationships, 516–17, 523, 603, 608 collaborative and dialogical, 187 and conversations, 522 horizontal, 502–3 professional, 577 relative influence questioning, 492 “remembering conversations”, 167 research, 38–9, 124, 323–4 research agenda, 40–1 research and practice, 21, 68–75 differences and similarities, 70–1 Research As Daily Practice, 71–5 research as innovation, 20, 24–5, 26–32 research design, 79 research ethics, 41 research methods, 7

research participants, 19, 79–80 research questions, 79, 93–4 research tradition, 26 research-based knowledge, 125 resilience, 444, 446 response stories, 598 responsive orders, 103 restoration, 601 restorative justice, 585 reverse mapping, 588 revolutionary action, 323 revolutionary change, 484 Reynolds, V., 552, 553, 555–6 rhetorical devices, 58 rhetorical power, 61 Richards, G., 560 Richardson, C., 552 Richardson, Laurel, 62 Richardson, Lisa, 435 rituals of connection, 524 Roberts, L.M., 610 Robinson, K., 314 Rocha, R.M.G., 492 Rogstad, J., 343 roleplaying, 211, 239–44 Rolling (Berland), 512 Roman, L., 550–1 Rose, N., 373 Ruffino, Cristina, 143 Rufus Stone (Jones), 63 Ruíz, P.T., 163 S sacred spaces, 511–13, 514 Sagan, Carl, 50 Saldaña, Johnny, 62–3 Salter, Leah, xxvi, 22, 87, 88, 89, 90, 92, 95 Sampson, E., 598 Sanders, Cody J., 633, 636 Santos, B.S., 559–60 Satel, S., 477 Saturated Self, The (Gergen), 614 Saussure, F de, 248 Schachter-Shalomi, Z., 447 Schein, Edgar H., 226, 336 scholarship, 9 Schön, D., 70, 133, 274, 345, 619 school climate, 324, 325 school counselors, 317, 363–70 school culture, 316–17, 324, 325, 335–6, 344, 410 school drop-outs, 343–5 see also school leavers school harmony, 332–3, 334, 335, 336–9 school leavers, 316, 337 schools, 322, 334, 393, 575 scientific research tradition, 26 Scott-Maxwell, Florida, 447 Seikkula, Jaakko, 78

653

654

THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST PRACTICE

self action research, 47, 49, 50–1, 52 narrative identity, 445 as personal property, 193 relational play, 522–3 Saturated Self, The (Gergen), 614 see also identity self-disclosure, 137 self-evaluation, 359 self-stories, 153 Semi-Private Room (Jahner), 440 Sen, Amartya, 38 Senge, P., 28 sense-making, 72–3, 237–8, 239, 263, 439–40 see also meaning-making sense-making interactions, 100–1, 102 Sermijn, Jasmina, xxvii, 117, 153 sexual identity categories, 487–8 Shailor, Jonathan, 62 shared identity, 303–5 shared inquiry, 134–6 shared purposes, 199–200 Shotter, John belonging, 479 communication, 240, 242 conversations, 522 dialectics, 521 generalities, 388 humanness, 138 knowledge from within, 598 meaning, 136 metalogues, 524 organizations, 236 perspective orienting assumptions, 134 relating, 518–19 relationally-responsive processes, 237 responsive orders, 103 withness, 19, 69 Siegel, R., 498 silence, 600 Simon, Dvorah, 634 Simon, Gail, xxvii, 22, 70, 87, 88, 89, 90, 92, 93, 95 Simpson, Betasamosake, 554, 555 simulations, 431 simultaneity principle, 470 Sindling, C., 63 Singer, D. & J., 519 Singleton, G., 554 Sips, Koen, xxvii, 218, 221 Sisto, Vicente, 78 Situational Analysis (SA), 103, 104, 111 Sjöberg, M.N., 387 skills, 75 Skott-Myhre, H. & K., 551 Sloterdijk, Peter, 101 Smith, B.L., 353 Smith, K., 271 Smith, R., 503

Smith, Sunday, 519–20 Smyth, J., 332, 333, 336, 339 social account of knowledge making, 5 social activism, 171, 178, 181 social change, 19 social communitarian psychiatry, 184–5 social construction, 87–8, 582–3 animacy and inanimacy, 91–2 as co-construction, 88–9 de-centring humans, 90–1 in healthcare, 426 matter and human agency, 92–3 and practical theology, 632–7 relationships, 603 in transformative community conferencing, 583–4 social construction theory, 609 social constructionism, 3 and Buddhist mindfulness, 498–9 constructionist assumptions, 26–7 constructionist principle, 469 constructionist turn, 59–60 and critical disability studies, 375–8 and critical psychology, 374–5 in education, 335 in intercultural education, 394–9 and narrative mediation, 538 and placemaking, 562–8 and relational ethics, 229–33 and social therapeutics, 172 and transitional societies, 596–9 social constructionist paradigm, 206, 207, 209, 211 in a post-truth era, 207–8 social constructionist theory challenges, 10–13 origins, 4–5 and practice, 5–10 social critique, 492 social fields, 426 social groups, 610 social identities, 614 social identity theory, 608 social innovation (SI), 222–3, 289–96 definition, 291 examples from practice, 291–5 lessons learnt, 295–6 theoretical framing, 290–1 social intervention/transformation, 25 social justice, 128 social learning, 261–2 social media, 92, 203 social model of disability, 551 social movements, 167–8 social opportunities, 38 social poetics, 507 social practices, 291 social sciences, 3–4, 5–6, 17 and art, 59–60

INDEX

social therapeutics, 118, 171–2, 173 method as tool-and-result, 176 performance turn, 178–80 play and performance, 176–8 psychology of becoming, 175 zones of proximal development (ZPDs), 176 social therapy, 8, 172–8 social work, 116–17, 120–9 and social construction convergence and divergence, 122–4 influences on social work, 124–9 social-cultural activity, 176 socio-material practices, 22, 100–11 see also material-discursive practice solution-focused therapy, 634 Sosa, Cynthia, 21 Souza, L.V., 467 speaking, 136 Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLDs), 317–18, 381–9 current practice, 383–4 social constructionist practice, 384–8 Speck, R.V., 481 speech, 177 spirituality, 634–5 Spirituality, Social Construction, and Social Processes (Taos Institute), 634–5 Spry, Tami, 62 Srivastva, Suresh, 31 St. George, S. A., 41 stereotyping, 243 Stewart, J., 522, 618 Storch, Jacob, xxvii, 274, 302, 305, 534, 570, 574, 575, 579 stories, 282, 581, 609 children’s literature, 398 dominant, 152, 153 in intergenerative community building, 621–6 preferred, 151, 152–4, 155–6, 540, 542 problem saturated, 152 response, 598 self-stories, 153 story-identity connection, 445, 609 see also life stories story formation, 635 storylistening, 417, 448–51 storytelling, 9, 416–17, 586–8, 600, 610 strategic planning, 468 strengths-based approaches, 627 stress, 419, 499 Strong, Tom, xxviii, 22, 40, 102, 204 structuring safety, 551–4 suffering, 186, 598–9, 604 collective narration of, 599–603 suicide, 143 Suissa, J., 323 survivors of suffering, 599–601 sustainable development goals (SDGs), 34, 37, 52 Swantz, Marja-Liisa, 47

Swim, S., 41 symbolic witnesses, 117, 151, 154–8 Synnes, Oddgeir, 451 T Taillieu, Tharsi, xxviii, 261, 262, 263, 264 Talaga, T., 552 Tandon, R., 39 Taos conference 1993, 115 Taos Institute, 181, 229, 634 ta’ow, 553 Taxumajeh’jeh, 552 Taylor, Erin W., xxvii, 535 teacher education, 357 teacher evaluation, 407–8 teaching see pedagogy technical problems, 303 techno-humans, 90 technology, 90–1, 92 technology-based learning, 394–5 Teixeira, F.B., 490, 492 “Telling Stories for Life”, 450 Tervalon, M., 611 testimony, 600–1 text, 61–2 theatre, 178, 179–80 of life, 520 theology see practical theology theory, 132, 225 Thera, N., 498 therapeutic change, 163, 211–12 therapeutic neutrality, 210 therapy innovation, 7–8 values, 8 Tillmann-Healy, Lisa, 61 Tillsdale, S., 502 Tilsen, Julie, 491 Tomm, Karl, 103, 154 Torres, Carolina, 21 Torres, Diana, 146 tourism, 559, 560, 564, 567 Toy, B., 327, 328 traditions, 10 transformation, 137, 149 community, 635 cultural, 58–9 in education, 409–10 social, 25 see also Action-oriented Research for Transformation (ART) transformative community conferencing (TCC), 581–2 distinction from other approaches, 584–5 social construction and narrative, 583–4 steps, 585–9 theoretical foundations, 589–90 transformative pedagogy, 315

655

656

THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST PRACTICE

transgender people, 491 transitional societies, 534–5, 594–604 challenges to social investigation, 603–4 collective narration of suffering and response to harm, 599–603 and social constructionism, 596–9 transmaterial worlding, 22, 86–7 co-inhabitation, 89 de-centring humans, 90–1 examples, 94–5 material-discursive practice, 89–90 research questions, 93–4 signposting for, 95 transparency, 299 transportation, 69 transsexuality, 490 transvestites, 492 trauma, 596, 602 tree method, 347–8 Trosten-Bloom, A., xxviii, 218, 222, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283, 305, 335, 465, 470 trust, 264–5, 405, 408, 578 truth/truths, 88, 128, 204 see also post-truth two-table problem, 262, 264 U Uhl-Bien, M., 269 Uhlig, Paul N., xxviii–xxix, 416, 425, 426, 429 uncertainty, 137 unique outcomes, 544, 588 United Nations, 561, 571, 620 United Religions Initiative (URI), 284 universities see higher education V V. John Doe, 439 Vachon, W., 554, 555 Valkokari, K., 566 value critique, 4 value/values, 8 educational evaluation, 403 relational evaluation, 404 research as innovation, 31 research practices, 19 righteousness, 11–12 social work, 123–4 van der Lans, Jan, 632 Varella, F., 395 Varughese, G., 261 video, 63 Villares, C.C., 167 violence, 553, 554 violent conflict, 144 see also Colombian armed conflict visual arts, 29 visualization, 471

vital materiality, 91 vocabulary of welfare, 573–5 voices, 601 “VUCA”, 268, 298 vulnerability, 512 vulnerable patients, 439 Vygotsky, Lev, 172, 175–7, 314 W waiting rooms, 508–9 Wasserman, I.C., 610 Weick, Kurt, 238 Weiniger, R., 501 Weisbord, M.R., 305 welfare language, 573–5 welfare states, 36, 534, 570–3 welfare systems, 575–8 well-being, 291–3, 420, 516, 517–18 and play, 518–25 dialectics, 521–2 gestures and rituals of connection, 524 imagination, 519–20 liberation, 520–1 remaking the familiar, 523 self and others, 522–3 unfinalized conversations, 524–5 well-being budget, 36 Wellbeing Economy Governments (WEGo), 36–7 Western domination, 560 Western perspective, 533–4 Wetherell, M., 376, 431 Wexler, P., 333 What They Don’t Tell You (Lindsay), 439–40 White, M. definitional ceremonies, 188, 368 externalizing, 366 identity conclusions, 197 narrative approaches, 583 personal property, 193 preferred stories, 540 reflecting teams, 200 relational approach, 457 trauma, 602 unique outcomes, 544 White, Sarah, 517 White, W.L., 482–3 Whitehouse, Peter, xxix, 535, 619, 622 whiteness, 550, 554 Whitney, D., 322, 469, 584, 634 whole system 4-D dialogue, 282 Whole-School Inquiry, 408–9 Whyte, David, 55 Wilber, Ken, 634 Williams, Donna, 375 Williams, M., 328 Winslade, J.M., 333, 335, 368, 369 withness, 19, 69, 134, 238, 243, 523

INDEX

Witkin, Stanley L., xxx, 70, 116, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 128 witnessing see insider witness practices; outsider witnesses; symbolic witnesses Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 5, 172, 175–6, 177, 510, 518, 520 Woodley, Anita, 62 Woodward, Virginia, 353 Woolgar, S., 24 Worden, William, 456 working platform, 146 World Cafe, 360, 585 World Health Organization (WHO), 532 worlding, 22, 86 worldviews, 205 writing, 61–2, 394, 419, 439–40 life-writing, 450 reflective, 436, 437–8

657

Wulff, D. P., 41 Wyckoff, M., 560 Y Yballe, L., 354, 355 You Tube, 63 young people, 94, 163, 375 All Stars Project (ASP), 179 youth participatory action research (YPAR), 322, 328 Z Zandee, Danielle P., xxx–xxxi, 218, 222–3, 290, 292, 295, 296 Zediker, K., 522, 618 zones of proximal development (ZPDs), 176 zooming in, 102, 106–7, 108–10 zooming out, 102–3, 105–6, 107–8