1031 - Expand your system transformation quest: Two potent tactics based on your worldview

Abstract Information: More and more, today’s problems are framed as “structural” or “systemic”. The evaluation field is awash with methods and tools to apply in practice, yet many are grounded in the dominant, mechanistic worldview that’s at the heart of the problems we’re facing. During this workshop, the presenters will offer two simple, yet potent tactics to avoid this trap. We will begin by orienting participants to two basic, intertwined paradigms that underlie human-natural systems, and which are connected to today’s poly-crises. By describing their historical roots and then contrasting them with regard to purpose, structure, and processes, participants will learn how to differentiate and strategically use them in the situations they are seeking to transform. Next, we will walk through example professional development pathways for evaluators to evolve into experienced system transformation practitioners. Framed as a system design quest, these pathways evolve through catalyzing events that spark insight and propel nonlinear jumps in system transformation capacity. Examples of catalyzing events drawn from projects spanning education, social welfare, public health, and environmental sustainability will introduce participants to four clusters of system science theories relevant to evaluation. We will touch on key aspects of general systems theory, cybernetics, and transitional system science theories (e.g., complexity), however, emphasis will be on elucidating a cluster of system science theories underrepresented in evaluation. These eco-relational system science theories will be discussed in greater detail, with emphasis on their importance to systems transformation in support of living systems that provide a foundation for moving through today’s poly-crises. Participants will receive a reference list with recommended websites and publications to support them to continue their exploration of these ideas.

Relevance Statement: Today’s poly-crises, including geopolitical instability, the climate crisis, and systemic racism, among others, can be understood in terms of imbalances between two intertwined system paradigms: machine-based and ecology-based orientations to systems. The machine-based paradigm is fundamentally extractive and wasteful, whereas the ecology-based paradigm, while less controllable or predictable, sustains life. Understanding these paradigms is fundamental to leveraging evaluation to address these challenges. Yet through indoctrination into the dominant (machine-based) worldview, many evaluators are essentially blind to the ecology-based aspects of systems and the necessary work of balancing the two paradigms to catalyze transformative system change. One of the first steps to evolve beyond a dominant worldview bias is to “develop an [accurate] assessment of why the world is the way it is” (Adrienne Marie Brown). From there, each of us can then identify, from an authentic and well-informed place, the responsibility we have to ourselves, our profession, and the communities where we live and work. This workshop will realistically portray how deep understanding of human-natural systems develops over time, and how this understanding can enable evaluation practitioners and users to contribute to the system transformations we so urgently need.