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Jessie: Action research

Structuring the multi-stakeholder process

“Action Research” is the name of a family of systems thinking strategies, generally used for community and business leadership efforts.  It began as an academic branch of “General Systems Theory”, first begun by sociology and management scientists in the 1940’s.   It really amounts to an academic study of multi-stakeholder partnerships, seen as environmental learning & engagement strategies.    Basically, you budget time and resources for repeated cycles of disciplined holistic learning and engagement for your particular social/institutional/natural environment.   
 
For the HLPF that might mean structuring the multi-stakeholder process toward
  1. First learning about each other’s own worldviews, and perceived internal and external relationships.
  2. then each describing their idea of the common interests and a plan for their acting to achieve them,
  3. followed by a plenary discussion of mutual common interests and common steps that seem achievable
  4. followed by  the period of independent engagement and
    • then reading the environmental response from each inside and outside view, to begin the next cycle.     
It’s very flexible, so long as the focus stays on “learning”, and it’s for “making whole systems work better”.   That way the forum stays focused on how everyone can act on common interests.    If that’s what the forum is about it is also less likely to be dominated by political maneuvering for getting what special interests want.
 
The attached email and the one attached to it describe how I’m introducing the method to CAUN, as a framework for describing “the commons approach” as a method for organizing communities to  work with their own environments.  You’ll also see discussion of how we’re focusing on working with different types of people who pay attention to different kinds of strategies, so they get the kinds of messages they’d respond to. 
 
There’s a good bit of systems thinking that comes along with it, that some tutorials would be needed perhaps.   For example, distinguishing between issues that are “internal” and “external” comes from how environmental systems are generally built.  They’re arranged somewhat like organisms, existing as “cells of organization”, generally also containing other ‘cells’ as working parts at a smaller scale.   Another common trait of environmental systems is that they develop by their own growth, to fit the niche they develop in their environment.   So that’s also just like the way plant and animal communities develop to fit their own niches in ecologies.
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