Community Operational Research: OR and Systems Thinking for Community Development PDF
Preview Community Operational Research: OR and Systems Thinking for Community Development
COMMUNITY OPERATIONAL RESEARCH Contemporary Systems Thinking Series Editor: Robert L. Flood Monash University Australia COMMUNITY OPERATIONAL RESEARCH OR and Systems Thinking for Community Development Gerald Midgley and Alejandro Ochoa-Arias CRITICAL SYSTEMIC PRAXIS FOR SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE Participatory Policy Design and Governance for a Global Age Janet McIntyre-Mills DESIGNING SOCIAL SYSTEMS IN A CHANGING WORLD Bela H. Banathy GUIDED EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY A Systems View Bela H. Banathy METADECISIONS Rehabilitating Epistemology JohnP van Gigch PROCESSES AND BOUNDARIES OF THE MIND Extending the Limit Line Yair Neuman SELF-PRODUCING SYSTEMS Implications and Applications of Autopoiesis John Mingers SOCIOPOLITICAL ECOLOGY Human Systems and Ecological Fields Frederick L. Bates SYSTEMIC INTERVENTION Philosophy, Methodology, and Practice Gerald Midgley AContinuationOrderPlanisavailablefor thisseries. A,continuationorderwill bringdelivery ofeachnewvolume immediatelyuponpublication.Volumesarebilledonlyuponactualshipment.Forfurtherinformationpleasecontactthe publisher. COMMUNITY OPERATIONAL RESEARCH OR and Systems Thinking for Community Development Edited by Gerald Midgley Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR Ud) Christchurch, New Zea/and and Centre for Systems Studies Business School University of Huli Huli, United Kingdom and Alejandro Ochoa-Arias Universidad de Los Andes Marida, Venezuela Springer-Science+Business Media, LLC Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Community operational research: OR and systems thinking for community development/ edited by Gerald Midgley and Alejandro Ochoa-Arias. p. cm. - (Contemporary systems thinking) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-46l3-4716-3 ISBN 978-1-4419-8911-6 (eBook) DOI 10 .1007/978-1-4419-8911-6 1. Community development. 2. Operations research. 3. Systems analysis. 1. Midgley, Gerald. II. Ochoa-Arias, Alejandro. III. Series. HN49.C6C673 2004 307.1' 4-dc22 2003070329 ISBN 978-1-46l3-4716-3 ©2004 Springer-Science+Business Media New York Originally published by Kluwer / Plenum Publishers, New York in 2004 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s i edilion 2004 10987654321 A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Preface In this book we have sought to consolidate the previously published literature on Community Operational Research ('Community OR' for short), and at the same time introduce new writings that push out the boundariesoftheory,methodologyandpractice.Wehopethebalancewill be of value to you, whether you have a long-standing commitment to CommunityOR,or are comingto this subjectfor thefirst time. Following an introductory chapter, the book is presented in three sections: Section One offers 'Early Contributions and Later Reflections on Theory, Methodology and Practice'. Here, the nature ofCommunityOR, itsinstitutional development,andpeople'smotivationsfor engaginginit are all explored. Some significant theoretical and methodological issues arealso afocus. SectionTwocovers'LocalActionforCommunityDevelopment'.This is concerned with how people have translated the theoretical insights of Community OR into practice, and how practice has informed theory. Since the inception ofCommunityOR, the vast majorityof projectshave dealtwithcomplex,localisedcommunityissuesusingparticipativemeth ods (mostly in the developed world). This section of the book presents a variety of methodological ideas evolved for Community OR practice, and illustrates them with examples of projects with community groups, voluntaryorganisationsand welfare services. Section Three is entitled 'Dealing Locally with Global Issues'. The authors represented in this section seek to extend the practice of Community OR in two new directions. The first takes Community OR into developing countries, and the second takes itinto the arena ofenvi ronmental management. In both these areas, there are significant oppor tunities for Community OR practitioners to make real contributions to human welfare and environmentalsustainability. vi Preface Wehopethatyouenjoythechapterstofollow, andfeel inspired (like the authors who have contributed to this book) to participate in both CommunityORpracticeand the unfoldingdebatesurroundingit. GeraldMidgley AlejandroE. Ochoa-Arias Contents 1. An IntroductiontoCommunityOperationalResearch 1 GeraldMidgleyandAlejandroE. Ochoa-Arias I EarlyContributions and LaterReflections on Theory, Methodologyand Practice 2. CommunityOperational Research: ItsContext and its Future 39 RichardParryandJohn Mingers 3. CommunityOperationalResearch: Purposes, Theoryand Practice 57 Michael C. Jackson 4. Visions ofCommunityfor CommunityOR 75 GeraldMidgleyandAlejandroE. Ochoa-Arias II Local Action for Community Development 5. ABlackGhetto'sResearchona University 109 Russell1.Ackoff 6. Housingin the DearneValley: DoingCommunityOR with the ThurnscoeTenantsHousingCo-operative 121 Charles Ritchie 7. LookingForwardwithaCouncilfor VoluntaryService 143 AndyMarlowandJim Bryant viii Contents 8. Facilitationas FairIntervention 157 WendyJ. GregoryandNorma Romm 9. PerspectivesofEngagementinCommunity OperationalResearch 175 John Friend 10. SystemicInterventionfor CommunityOR: DevelopingServiceswithYoung People (Under 16) LivingontheStreets 203 AlanBoyd,Mandy BrownandGeraldMidgley 11. Playingwith PANDA: theCybOrgand the Rhizome 253 AnnTaketandLeroyWhite III Dealing Locallywith Global Issues 12. An InterpretiveSystemic Explorationof CommunityActioninVenezuela 275 AlejandroE. Ochoa-Arias 13. Communityand EnvironmentalOR: Towardsa NewAgenda 297 GeraldMidgleyandMartin Reynolds 14. Adaptive Methodologyfor Ecosystem Sustainabilityand Health (AMESH): AnIntroduction 317 DavidWaltner-Toews,James Kay, Tamsyn P. Murray andCynthia Neudoerffer Index 351 1 An Introduction to Community Operational Research Gerald Midgley and Alejandro E. Ochoa-Arias 1.1 Introduction It is common for introductory chapters of edited books to start by defining their subjectmatter. However, inthiscase,itis really the task of the whole book, not this paragraph, to communicate the meaning of Community Operational Research ('Community OR' for short). We say thisbecausewebelievethathealthyresearchnetworksinvolveadiversity of participants with both common and divergent interests, and the Community OR network is no exception. For us to specify right at the startofthisbookwhatCommunityORisallaboutwouldalmostcertainly mean marginalising other people's concerns. We therefore prefer to por trayCommunityOR,notasafinite setofideasoractivities,butasalabel used by a variety of people engaged in debate and on-going learning abouttheirownand otherpeople's communitydevelopmentpractices. Having said this, there are two things that all participants in our researchnetworkhaveincommon(asfarasweareaware). Firstandmost AcceptedforpublicationSeptember2003. Gerald Midgley • Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR) Ltd., ChristchurchScienceCentre,27CreykeRoad,POBox29-181,Christchurch, NewZealand. CentreforSystemsStudies,BusinessSchool,UniversityofHull,Hull,HU67RX,UK. Alejandro E. Ochoa-Arias • Centro de Investigaciones en Sistemologia Interpretiva, FacultyofEngineering,UniversityofLosAndes,Merida,Venezuela. CommunityOperationalResearch:ORandSystems ThinkingforCommunityDevelapment,edited byG.MidgleyandA.E.Ochoa-Arias,KluwerAcademic/PlenumPublishers,NewYork,2004 1 2 Chapter1 obviousisadesiretomakeacontributiontochangeincommunities.There are disparate motivations for this: some have political, religious and/or professionalreasonsforgettinginvolved,whileotherssimplyhaveadesire todosomething'good'or'useful'intheirlocalneighbourhoods(Wongand Mingers,1994).ThesecondthingthatCommunityORpractitionersseemto have in commonis a concernwith the design ofmethodologies, processes ofengagement,methodsandtechniques.Ofcourse,manyCommunityOR practitioners (butnotall) arealsointerestedinthethornypoliticalandthe oreticalissuessurroundingtheconceptof'community',andwhatitshould meanfor intervention. However, we suggestthatit is the particular focus on methodology and methods (usually grounded in theories of community, organisation, social systems, complexity, power and/orparticipation) that marks the distinctivecontributionofthe CommunityORnetwork to com munity development. This is not to saythat CommunityORpractitioners advocate the 'new Methodism' that Reason and Bradbury (2000) criticise (reducing the complexities of practice to the implementation of methods alone). Nevertheless, Community ORpractitioners value the creation and useofmethodsasacontributiontothewidertheoreticallyinformedpractice of community development. Some people write up their innovations for publication,whileotherschoosetoengageinpracticeanddiscussmethod ologicalideaswithoutwritingaboutthem. Over the thirteen years or so that we have both been reading and writing aboutCommunity OR, we have witnessed manyinteresting and fruitful debates. However, we havebecomeveryaware thatthe literature inourfield isnoteasilyaccessibletopeoplecorningtoitfromoutsideour research network. This is largelydue to the originsofCommunity ORin the disciplinesofoperationalresearchand managementscience (seelater in this chapter for details). Many of the key papers on Community OR have been published in places like the Journal ofthe Operational Research Society, Omega, Systems Practiceand Dragon-arguablynot the mostobvi ous journals for people to consult for information on methods for com munity development. Therefore, unless a reader already knows the term 'Community OR' and searches the electronic databases using it, s/he is unlikelytocorneacrossourworkbychance.Thisisoneofthe reasonswe decided to edit the book you are now reading: we saw a need to bring togetheravarietyofideasaboutCommurutyORinoneplacesothatthey couldbecommunicated to a wider audience. TwopreviousbooksonCommunityORhavebeenpublishedbefore this one (RitchieetaI, 1994;Bowen, 1995),andbothmakevaluablecontri butions to the literatureby presenting accounts ofpractice ina relatively jargon-free manner. However, these bookswere primarily aimed atcom munity development practitioners and students corning to Community
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