No-mow May: Contexts, emergence and learning (Reflections from May 2024)

As someone who studied and then taught Geography (with a specialization in globalization and sovereignty), I’ve long been focused on context and questions about whether and how the spatial arrangement of social things makes a difference to how societies work. Nevertheless, context has often remained elusive (see paras 6-8 of my systems of corruption piece, with Kathy Bain) with the mantra of “context matters” - a mantra that has been helpful in pushing back against one-size fits-all approaches to addressing complex governance-related challenges - wearing somewhat thin over the last 15 years.

So, it’s always a delight when things that I’m exploring lead to fresh insights about what context is, why it matters, and how one might actively work with contexts and the complex causalities that are enmeshed within them. Over the last month, a few things have caught my attention in this regard.

Firstly, the course I’m doing on Complexity, Inside and Out, has helped me to develop my capacity to think about the constraints - or containers, differences and exchanges in the language of Human Systems Dynamics (short intro here; my notes from the book, Adaptive Action, here) - that provide the contexts for action, which in turn give rise to the patterns that emerge and which in turn shape the context for future action. I’ve come across most of the material in the course in other, erm, contexts, but the group discussions, story-sharing and collaborative sense-making about patterns, constraints and possibilities have added another dimension to my experience and thinking.

Secondly, the podcast “Cozy with the Context”, featuring Monalisa Salib, interviewed by Emily Janoch, has also nudged my thinking. With a phrasing that is much more sticky than the “complex contextually-embedded causality” that I’ve been trying to introduce, Monalisa not only clarifies what context is and why it matters, but also persuasively argues that getting cozy (and curious) with the context, and staying cozy with the context in ongoing cycles of action and learning, should be the top priority for social change initiatives. As Monalisa puts it, given that contexts are the places where people, politics, power and causalities come together: "we cannot divorce how change will happen from the context in which the change is supposed to occur". The conversation is well worth a listen.

Thirdly, the work I’ve been doing with SOAS-ACE - making their approach to understanding and addressing policy-distorting corruption more accessible - is very much about working out what policy reforms might be feasible given the patterns of behaviour seen, and the political economy dynamics that operate, in particular contexts. In addition to this focus on feasibility (given complex contextually-embedded causalities), and potential impact, what distinguishes the SOAS-ACE approach is that they have a clear and explicit theory about which aspects of context - the configurations of actors’ power, economic capabilities, and interests - matter in determining what is feasible and sustainable.

Meadows (not Donella Meadows, but actual meadows!) provide another way of thinking about context as complex contextually-embedded causality - see last month’s update. Here, in the work of Nora Bateson in particular, patterns emerge unplanned from the complexities of contexts, just as flowers and fruits and weeds and animals - and all their relational complexity - emerge from the richness of meadows (my notes on Nora’s book, Combining). In this way of thinking, working for social change is about supporting emergence by helping to nurture rich contextual meadows full of relationships, learning, innovation, where life and readying happens, and from which things emerge. This raises challenges and opportunities for funders and others who are used to setting out pathways to pre-determined destinations and then trying to control context - mowing the meadow! - so that it doesn't get in the way. Embracing the possibilities of emergence may be a more fruitful way forward!

Beyond these musings on contexts and emergence, the meadow that has grown during my no-mow May includes hard-hitting but constructive pieces by Tom Aston on evaluation and RCTs (Icarus here; pivots or entropy, here) , a rich conversation between Michael Lerner, Louis Klein, and Karima Kadaoui about governance systems for a humanizing society, and further explanation - dissolving separations - of the bold decision taken by the Lankelly Chase foundation to return its assets to the communities they aim to serve.

Finally, you might also be interested in a couple of other things I shared during May; two wonderful Ubuntu-inspired commencement speeches from Sharon Matongo and Kerry-Ann Raditzo Moyo, and a request for examples of diagrams showing emergence.

The full list of things I’ve watched, listened to, and read in May - along with summaries and URLs - can be found here.

Thanks for reading. If you’re interested to learn more about my explorations and how they might be useful for you, or see connections with things that you are doing, just drop me a line. And if you'd like to receive my occasional updates by email, please sign up here. Or, watch this space (context, meadow, systemic stew) for more!