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==== Method and Scope ==== | ==== Method and Scope ==== | ||
- | Given we are dealing with the topic of reality construction, | + | The the underlying epistemology |
Practically, | Practically, | ||
- | Material | + | Material |
* Interviews and Connections | * Interviews and Connections | ||
Line 44: | Line 44: | ||
* Ethnographic encounters and Anthropological Immersion | * Ethnographic encounters and Anthropological Immersion | ||
* Reflective blogging and Existential Story-ing | * Reflective blogging and Existential Story-ing | ||
- | |||
- | and other methods that will be discovered. | ||
==== Results ==== | ==== Results ==== | ||
- | **My Blog** records research results and is called ' | + | === The Blog === |
- | Reality creating, blurring | + | |
+ | Over the past year a large volume of material has been collected through excursions, reading, interviews, observations, | ||
+ | |||
+ | This has been recorded in a **blog** | ||
+ | |||
+ | The focus of my experiments and blog based research has been methods and tools that facilitate shifts in reality, particularly those that disturb and confuse underlying perceptions of reality and/or that expand the confines or existing perceptions of reality. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The methods I found fall into a wide range of artefacts and experience that are interrelated and deeply connected with the spirit of the Trickster which will be discussed in more depth later... | ||
+ | |||
+ | * hybrids that evade categorisation by existing mental models | ||
+ | * activities | ||
+ | * processes that reveal hidden or obvious truths | ||
+ | * mediums that stimulate multiple senses simultaneously or by- pass well used senses and engage different parts of the brain that are not normally in play | ||
+ | * experiences that push the boundaries of consensus reality by inviting us to question whether something is real, exists, is happening | ||
+ | * experiences that allow us to grow our own reality | ||
+ | * collaborations that create portals between different rhealms ( spiritual, physical, digital, imaginal, magical) | ||
+ | |||
+ | Practices that fall into one or many of these areas included: | ||
- | * Sensorial Labyrinths | + | * **sensorial labyrinths** |
- | + | ||
- | http:// | + | http://www.un-fiction.blogspot.com/ |
- | * [[ARG]]’s | + | * [[ARG]]’s |
- | + | ||
- | http:// | + | http://www.un-fiction.blogspot.com/ |
- | * Geo-Caching | + | * **geo-caching** |
- | + | ||
- | http:// | + | |
- | + | ||
- | | + | |
- | | + | http://www.un-fiction.blogspot.com/ |
- | http:// | + | *** street games** |
- | + | ||
- | | + | |
- | * Hybrids | + | http:// |
- | | + | http://www.un-fiction.blogspot.com/ |
- | http:// | + | * **hybrids** |
- | | + | http://www.un-fiction.blogspot.com/ |
- | | + | http://www.un-fiction.blogspot.com/ |
- | + | http:// | |
- | as well as a number of other explorations, | + | |
+ | http:// | ||
- | * transdisciplinary facilitation | + | |
- | http:// | ||
- | | + | http://www.un-fiction.blogspot.com/ |
- | | + | http://www.un-fiction.blogspot.com/ |
- | | + | |
- | * exhibitions and expeditions | + | http:// |
- | http:// | ||
- | | ||
- | http:// | ||
- | http:// | ||
- | http://example.com|External Link]] | + | //**I also engaged in a number of other explorations, |
- | http:// | ||
- | | + | * **exhibitions and expeditions** |
+ | http://www.un-fiction.blogspot.com/ | ||
- | | + | http://www.un-fiction.blogspot.com/ |
- | * publications, | + | http:// |
- | | + | http://www.un-fiction.blogspot.com/ |
- | + | ||
- | http:// | + | |
- | | + | http://www.un-fiction.blogspot.com/ |
- | | + | http://www.un-fiction.blogspot.com/ |
- | * meandering musings | ||
- | http:// | + | * **publications, |
- | http:// | ||
- | http:// | ||
- | | + | http://www.un-fiction.blogspot.com/ |
- | | + | http://www.un-fiction.blogspot.com/ |
- | | + | http://www.un-fiction.blogspot.com/ |
- | * reality challenging psychological sydromes | + | http://www.un-fiction.blogspot.com/ |
- | + | ||
- | | + | |
- | The Blog has drawn favourable, offline, responses, subscriptions and a small and loyal readership. | ||
- | * **Experiments and Field Tests:** | + | * **meandering musings** |
- | A number of field tests have taken place in order to try out ideas found through research. These include | ||
- | **.....one off experiments: | ||
- | Subverting xmas and creating hybrid decorations in a deprived neighbourhood | + | http:// |
- | http:// | + | |
+ | http:// | ||
+ | |||
+ | http:// | ||
+ | |||
+ | http:// | ||
+ | |||
+ | http:// | ||
+ | |||
+ | http:// | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * **reality challenging psychological sydromes** | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | http:// | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | **The Blog** has drawn favourable, offline, responses, subscriptions and a small and loyal readership. There have been numerous requests for further information about the content, including requests for details about Foam and its other activities. People connect and contact each other through the site.Therefore it has already contributed to Foam’s aim of encouraging participation, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | === Experiments and Field Tests === | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | In addition to this research I engaged in an number of field tests to try out ideas in practice and make some attempt to transform the reality of a particular system and set of individuals . Results were recorded in both the blog and the pages of this wiki. | ||
+ | |||
+ | **one off experiments** | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | Subverting xmas and creating hybrid decorations in a deprived neighbourhood | ||
+ | |||
+ | http://www.un-fiction.blogspot.com/ | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | Reactivating marginalised spaces using geo-cache and treasure hunt mechanisms | ||
- | Reactivating marginalised spaces using game/ | ||
http:// | http:// | ||
- | | + | |
- | **....large scale hybrid story-ing ARG-like programmes.** | + | |
+ | **large scale hybrid story-ing ARG-like programmes** | ||
+ | |||
+ | Awhiworld was an experiment that took place within a primary school involving 150 children aged 5 to 12 years old,11 teaching staff and a six month time frame: | ||
+ | |||
+ | http:// | ||
- | Awhiworld | + | === Literature Review === |
- | + | ||
- | | + | Material |
+ | |||
+ | **The next section will summarise findings from all of these activities and discuss future implications and areas for further research** | ||
==== Discussion ==== | ==== Discussion ==== | ||
- | To be discussed | + | In starting this project I imagined that I would be investigating ‘the most effective mechanisms for becoming conscious of, and changing, our relationship to reality’. However at the end of a year of research and experimentation I realise I had been researching the most effective ways we can support meta-cognitive development, |
+ | |||
+ | This is because, as you will see later, increasing our ability to meta-reflect, | ||
+ | |||
+ | This research wasn’t simply for the fun of learning about new ideas, but a very personal search to find ways to more sustainably deal with what seem to be intractable and interrelated community issues (ie chronic debt, environmental degradation, | ||
+ | |||
+ | These shifts from seperate to connected forms of knowing are co related with shifts in consciousness and increases in our meta-cognitive capacity. | ||
+ | |||
+ | **A summary of key points from the research are:** | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Transformation is often is associated with shifts in consciousness and developmental evolution, which allows individuals to have a greater sense of epistemological choice and awareness, and often a deeper connection to spirit and sense of meaning in their lives. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Transformation most often happens when our fundamental assumptions about reality are undermined through either disturbance and disruption, or experiencing profound awe, or very conscious and critical reflection. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Transformation of underlying assumptions the most sustainable method to bring out behaviour change both individually and at a group level. But also needs to be part of a multi-spectrum approach. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Methods and tools that facilitate this shift are those that disturb and confuse underlying perceptions of reality and/or that expand the confines or existing perceptions of reality. | ||
+ | |||
+ | These methods fall into a wide range of tools and categories of artefact and experience that are interrelated and are deeply connected with the archetypical spirit of the Trickster: | ||
+ | |||
+ | * hybrids that evade categorisation by existing mental models | ||
+ | * activities that blur the dichotomies of right and wrong, true and false, real and unreal | ||
+ | * processes that reveal hidden or obvious truths | ||
+ | * mediums that stimulate multiple senses simultaneously or by- pass well used senses and engage different parts of the brain that are not normally in play | ||
+ | * experiences that push the boundaries of consensus reality by inviting us to question whether something is real, exists, is happening. | ||
+ | ways of engaging that create meeting points between different rhealms: spiritual, physical, digital, imaginal, magical to name a few. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The following discussion moves through these areas in turn first examining transformation, | ||
+ | |||
+ | == What is transformation? | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | In examining the literature it is clear that transformation means different things to different people. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Developmental theorists all describe, in one form or another, transformations in consciousness and evolutionary development from simple to increasingly complex ways of seeing the world (Cranton: | ||
+ | |||
+ | What is the relationship between transformation and development? | ||
+ | |||
+ | The Online Oxford Dictionary gives two descriptions of the word perspective: | ||
+ | |||
+ | - a particular attitude towards or way of regarding something; a point of view | ||
+ | - the appearance of viewed objects with regard to their relative position and distance from the viewer; having a true understanding of the relative importance of things; a sense of proportion.(The Oxford Dictionary of English, 2005). | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | The first definition neatly describes a simple change in point of view or attitude, the second definition clearly makes the object more distant from the viewer where it is given a dimension in space, and has a relative importance, and a proportion in relation to everything else. | ||
+ | |||
+ | This closely relates to shifts in consciousness, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Examining underlying assumptions is labelled many ways, but ‘meta-reflection’ is one of the most popular terms used to describe this process. . | ||
+ | |||
+ | Robert Kegan (1994) develops this idea of meta- reflection into five ‘orders of consciousness’, | ||
+ | |||
+ | == How do transformations in consciousness occur? == | ||
+ | |||
+ | Major shifts occur when an individual encounters an alternative perspective and prior habits of mind are called into question. Educationalist, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Typically transformative moments are characterised by a recognition of some undeniable truth that flies in the face of – or -puts the lie to some fundamental belief you’ve held, possibly without even knowing it. [Schlitz: 203] | ||
+ | |||
+ | Profound and permanent shifts are often triggered by intense suffering, disruption or crisis. In fact, change is what happens when the pain of remaining the same becomes greater than the pain of changing | ||
+ | |||
+ | They also occur in moments of profound awe, wonder, or transcendent bliss. When a glimpse of something that is so compelling, so completely beyond what has been realised possible before, can instill in a strong intention to find out more about what happened – no matter what it takes. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Two pioneers of psychology, Keltner and Haidt propose that awe has two essential components perceived as vastness and a need for accommodation(2003) It may be that some experiences are so vast, so profound, so far beyond what we’ve previously perceived, that they in effect demand we transform our worldview in order to accommodate them. Rather than trying to assimilate these experiences into our constricted framework, we are forced to broaden that framework [Schlitz: | ||
+ | |||
+ | == Why is this process a sustainable way of creating shifts in behaviour? == | ||
+ | |||
+ | Our meaning making perspectives, | ||
+ | |||
+ | When we assume something we are, by definition, taking something for granted. | ||
+ | Unfortunately when we take for granted that: | ||
+ | |||
+ | * reality is a concrete structure rather co-constructed by consensus | ||
+ | * that truth is there to be discovered rather than negotiated | ||
+ | |||
+ | we are in trouble on a number of levels because these ontological and epistemological frameworks, inherited from thinking generated around the time of the ‘enlightenment’, | ||
+ | |||
+ | we are separate from other beings and the planet | ||
+ | |||
+ | our actions don’t matter | ||
+ | |||
+ | nature is there for us to harvest | ||
+ | |||
+ | what we do in our homes is our own business | ||
+ | |||
+ | other people are the cause of our problems | ||
+ | |||
+ | other people should find the solutions | ||
+ | |||
+ | and this undermines the fabric and future of our society socially, environmentally, | ||
+ | |||
+ | It creates a reality where we have no where we are powerless to participate environment, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Interestingly some of the most recent research, primarily from within the education for sustainability movement recognises that the most sustainable form of behaviour change comes from the examination of habits of mind and underlying assumptions (Tilbury and Worman, 2004) | ||
+ | |||
+ | Uncritically assimilated habits of mind about the resources in our environment could lead us to wasting or destroying the world’s resources, thereby diminishing the possibility of there being energy, food, and shelter for all in the present and in the future. | ||
+ | |||
+ | == But what methods and tools are most effective in supporting transformations of consciousness? | ||
+ | |||
+ | My research led me to a number of different methods and tools, however it was clear that there was great tension between breadth and depth. | ||
+ | |||
+ | To some extent I did put more focus on [ARGs] and it is clear from even just a small scale experiment that shifts in perspective did occur, among teachers and the children involved. In most instances this was not life changing, but there was a hint in some of the statements and feedback of possible deeper shifts in perspective. However more research is needed. | ||
+ | |||
+ | That said, to my knowledge this is the first time, or one of the rare times, that these types of methods and tools have been cross correlated with consciousness shift and transformative development. | ||
+ | |||
+ | But the challenge with work such as this is that it invokes the spirit of the Trickster. And Trickster activities are not easily measured and evaluated, at least not in mainstream terms. | ||
+ | |||
+ | == The Trickster and Transformation == | ||
+ | |||
+ | Hyde (1998), in his book Trickster Makes This World, talks about a number of trickster characteristics that fundamentally disrupt or call into question things we have taken for granted. | ||
+ | |||
+ | According to Hyde’s extensive research, Trickster, through his sneaky acts and hilarious mistakes, makes us question dichotomy. Trickster calls us to ask: what is right and wrong? what is private versus collective ‘ownership’? | ||
+ | |||
+ | This act of questioning creates the conditions for epistemologically shifts from dualistic functionalist and positivist frames of reference, to constructivist frames. This means greater meta-cognitive capacity, an ability to engage more effectively with complexity, and potentially even a shift to a way of viewing the world that is based on connective rather than separate ways of knowing. (Which is of great assistance in climate change work for example.) | ||
+ | |||
+ | My efforts to create an ARG within a school were specifically designed to build the imaginative capacity of children and give them another option than the dichotomous notion of true and false which is reinforced by mainstream curriculum. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Trickster is often a hybrid creature that defies categorisation, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Trickster is also a ‘revealer of hidden truth’, often inducing embarrassment and shame with his lack of ability to keep secrets. Trickster sometimes reveals the obvious, or new ways to work with the obvious, meaning that it is not then possible to go back to old patterns and ways of engaging. Trickster is therefore a god of innovators. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Guerilla Theatre and other examples of art activism, are designed to disrupt and reveal. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Trickster often is a messenger between worlds, a god of crossroads and intersections and a facilitator of unusual meetings and entanglements. Trickster is a god of unusual partnerships and collaborations. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Much of the work for this project involved bringing together disparate individuals and groups, and putting together concepts and activities in new and unusual ways. Transdisciplinary facilitation, | ||
+ | |||
+ | And last but not least, Trickster is the god of chance meetings, and’ lucky finds’ that change perspectives and waylay journeys on tried and true pathways. | ||
+ | |||
+ | All my experiments for this project were the result of chance meetings and conversations, | ||
+ | |||
+ | It seems from my research that Trickster is an archetypal figure most clearly associated with transformational shifts, and the methods that can often bring these about. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Further Research and Opportunities ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | It is clear that this research has only scrapped the surface of an area that has tremendous potential to add to the fields of adult education, consciousness studies and also to the different creative disciplines mentioned in the material. | ||
+ | |||
+ | More detailed experiments within the school can build on the initial pilot, and are being planned for 2009. Also experiments within the sustainability education arena, using methods not traditionally associated with environmental work eg ARGS, Guerilla Theatre etc. | ||
+ | |||
+ | It is clear that rather than thinking about the ‘effectiveness’ of particular reality shifting techniques, it is better to take an approach that involves multiple methods and tools, and couple this with simple behaviour shifting methods such as marketing tools and policy measures. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Final Points ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | Overall, as you will see from reading the blog, and the experimental work, there have been a number of positive outcomes from this research that meet the initial aims. Feedback from many different individuals shows that the research has provided user friendly material, and inspiration to a wider audience that has not encountered these concepts before. It has encouraged a number of people to grow their own worlds in ways they would not have previously, and has connected a number of different worlds across traditional boundaries. Finally this project has actively promoted the work of Foam and gRig in a number of areas that it would not normally easily reach. | ||
+ | |||
==== References ==== | ==== References ==== | ||
- | * Darwin, J, Johnson, P and McAuley, J (2002). Developing strategies for Change. Prentice Hall. P: 16 | + | * Darwin, J., Johnson,P. and McAuley, J (2002). Developing strategies for Change. Prentice Hall |
- | * Cooperrider, | + | * Cooperrider, |
- | * Kegan, R. (1982) The Evolving Self. Harvard University Press. | + | * Kegan, R. (1982) The Evolving Self, Harvard University Press. |
* Kegan, R. (1994) In Over Our Heads – The Mental Demands of Modern Life, Harvard University Press. | * Kegan, R. (1994) In Over Our Heads – The Mental Demands of Modern Life, Harvard University Press. | ||
+ | * Hyde, L. (1998) Trickster Makes This World - Mischief, Myth and Art, North Point Press | ||
+ | * Schlitz, M.M., Vieten,C. and Amorok, T (2007) Living Deeply The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life, New Harbinger Publications and Noetic Books | ||
+ | * Cranton, P. (2006) Understanding and Promoting Transformative Learning - A Guide for Educators and Adults, John Wiley and Sons Inc, 2nd Edition | ||
+ | * Mezirow, J. (2000) Learning as Transformation - Critical Perspectives on a Theory in Progress, Jossey-Bass | ||
+ |