the urban village as a living system

404 Pages·2016·5.63 MB·English

THE URBAN VILLAGE AS A LIVING SYSTEM: BUILDING A GENERATIVE
AND CARING LOCAL ECONOMY AND SOCIETY THROUGH STRATEGIC
COLLABORATION

A dissertation presented to
the Faculty of Saybrook University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosphy (Ph.D.) in Organizational Systems
by
Brett R. Joseph

Oakland, California
May 2016
© 2016 by Brett R. Joseph
Approval of the Dissertation

THE URBAN VILLAGE AS A LIVING SYSTEM: BUILDING A GENERATIVE
AND CARING LOCAL ECONOMY AND SOCIETY THROUGH STRATEGIC
COLLABORATION

This dissertation by Brett R. Joseph has been approved by the committee members
below, who recommend it be accepted by the faculty of Saybrook University in
partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy in Organizational Systems

Dissertation Committee:

____________[signature] ______________ ______________________
Nancy Southern, Ed.D. Date

____________[signature] ______________ ______________________
Gary Metcalf, Ph.D. Date

____________[signature] ______________ ______________________
Kathia Laszlo, Ph.D. Date
ii
Abstract

THE URBAN VILLAGE AS A LIVING SYSTEM: BUILDING A GENERATIVE
AND CARING LOCAL ECONOMY AND SOCIETY THROUGH STRATEGIC
COLLABORATION

Brett R. Joseph

Saybrook University

This research investigated cross-sector collaboration as ideal-seeking social action
within the context of a stakeholder-led initiative to foster place-based community
revitalization in the City of Cleveland, Ohio, USA. It engaged organizational leaders and
citizen activists to develop and refine the praxis of design conversation inspired by an
appreciative awareness of values and qualities found in communities as thriving, living
systems. Within a framework of community action research methodology, as informed by
an emerging interdisciplinary body of work centered on dialogue as a collective means of
accessing human evolutionary potentials at the community level, the study engaged a small
group of community leaders to create a learning space and relational field enabling them
to acquire knowledge and understanding in the manner of an evolutionary learning
community. Through facilitated design inquiry, participants sought to understand their
communities as living socio-ecological systems; evolving purposefully within a context of
embedded cultural and institutional influences.
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The group discourse combined generative and strategic dialogue with other co-
creative inquiry practices to embody dynamic and purposeful characteristics of an
evolutionary guidance system. Through design conversation in both small group and
community practice settings, participants worked to transform habitual patterns of thinking
and shift awareness towards appreciative qualities of communities as purposeful social
systems; thereby building collective evolutionary competencies that enable self-
organization and unfolding of human evolutionary potentials at the levels of self,
organization, community, and society.
The study results were summarized from participant journaling and transcribed
conversations, and interpreted through critical hermeneutic analysis and systemic
modeling. The results demonstrate, at least tentatively, how designing conversation as a
strategic approach to community revitalization praxis enabled participants to coalesce as a
dynamic learning community, expressing evolutionary consciousness and competency and
developing a more integral, shared understanding of Cleveland’s communities as
continuously evolving and appreciatively self-guided, living systems. These results show
how strategically facilitated conversation within a framework of evolutionary systems
design enabled community stakeholders in Cleveland to utilize conversation as purposeful
social action to build appreciative awareness of their differences and understanding of their
collective human potentials as the conscious embodiment values and qualities found in
healthy, resilient communities.
iv
Acknowledgments
This work is for me the culmination of a quest for self-transcendence, as well as a
promontory point from which to set my compass on the journey ahead. My greatest joy,
however, is in knowing that this work was inspired and nurtured by all those whose
treasured relationships have been a source of encouragement, mentoring, and steadfast
support.
Words cannot adequately express the extent of my gratitude for Dr. Nancy
Southern, my dissertation committee chair, whose attentive mentoring, deep wisdom, and
generous spirit enabled me to stretch beyond my own limited vision of the possible.
Likewise, it is with profound appreciation that I acknowledge the other members of my
dissertation committee, Dr. Kathia Laszlo, whose highly evolved intelligence, creativity,
and appreciative presence showed me how to search beyond academic theory to embrace
complexity in the real world of people and places, and Dr. Gary Metcalf, whose
encyclopedic knowledge of the systems sciences, capacity for deep listening, and
unwavering commitment to scientific rigor showed me the true meaning of scholarship.
Beyond the dissertation itself, this work is at best a mere reflection of the deep
learning and creative engagement that I had the privilege to share with my research
participants and co-inquirers, who afforded me the gift of their professional expertise,
humility, vision, presence, sense of community, and sense of place. Truly, this learning
journey would not have been possible without the individual and collective contributions
of these valued co-inquirers, whose legacy is written into every page of this document.
To my cherished wife, Martha, and my brilliant and talented daughters Caitlin and
Sionainn, this work is in large measure the product of your subtle and overt
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encouragement, including our many hours of thoughtful “bantering” and the patience
with which you allowed me to disrupt life on the homefront; just enough to succeed as a
doctoral student. To my dear parents, Ralph and Normi, thank you for helping me
believe this was possible.
Finally, to my other local mentors, colleagues, and friends, including those within
the Cleveland vital neighborhoods, social justice, educational, and local food networks,
as well as to my Saybrook colleagues and peer learners within the Organizational
Systems degree program, thank you for the gift of community and for the opportunity to
collaborate towards a better world for all!
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Table of Contents
List of Tables ................................................................................................................... viii
List of Figures .................................................................................................................... ix

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................1
Overview and Background ......................................................................................4
Research Aims, Purposes, and Rationale .................................................................7
Organizational Setting and Systemic Context .......................................................12
The Vital Neighborhoods Working Group ................................................17
Researcher Background .........................................................................................20
Research Questions ................................................................................................25
Philosophical Orientation.......................................................................................26
Overview of the Methodology ...............................................................................26
Entry and Preparation ................................................................................28
Evolutionary Design ..................................................................................29
Embodying the Evolutionary Learning Community as an
Embedded Community System..................................................................30
Significance of the Study .......................................................................................32
Definition of Terms................................................................................................33
Organization of the Dissertation ............................................................................36

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ...........................................................................39
Purpose and Scope of the Literature Review in Community Action
Research .................................................................................................................39
Conceptual Framework and Major Premises of the Inquiry ......................40
Philosophical Foundations .........................................................................56
Unity of Knowledge: Science, Humanities, and the Prospect of a
“New Enlightenment” for the 21st Century ...............................................63
From GST to Evolutionary Systems Design ..............................................67
Evolutionary Systems Theory ................................................................................68
Theoretical Foundations: Enfolded Potential, Natural Selection
and Self-Organizing Systems .....................................................................68
Societal Evolution ......................................................................................81
Consciously Guided Evolution ..................................................................85
Theoretical Approaches to Syste25mic Analysis and Problem
Solving .......................................................................................................91
Total Systems Intervention ........................................................... 93
Critical Systems Thinking and Social Systems Design ................ 96
Interpretive Systems Approach (Soft Systems Thinking) ............ 97
Emancipatory Systems Approach ................................................. 99
Viable Systems Model ................................................................ 101
Open Systems and Self-Transcendence ...................................... 103
Theoretical Exploration: Evolutionary Guidance as an Integral Systemic
Process .................................................................................................................105
Summary and Conclusions ..................................................................................107
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CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY ...................................................................................113
Overview of Research Methodology ...................................................................116
Research Questions ..............................................................................................119
Research Design...................................................................................................121
Community Action Research ...................................................................121
Evolutionary Learning and Applied Systems Science .........................................125
Cleveland Neighborhoods as Evolving Socio-Ecological Systems .....................126
Global Context and the Emerging Posthuman Condition ........................126
The Local Context: Ecology, History and Culture ..................................127
Evolutionary Consciousness and Systems Design ...............................................128
A Generic Model of an Evolutionary Guidance System .........................132
“Field Theories” and the Evolutionary Guidance System .......................135
Participant Recruitment .......................................................................................141
Selection Criteria: Characteristics of Anticipated Participants ................145
Exclusion Criteria ....................................................................................145
Research Setting.......................................................................................145
The Role of the Researcher ..................................................................................146
Community Action Research Methods and Procedures ......................................147
Inquiry Cycle 1: Entry and Preparation. ..................................................148
Intended Outcomes ..................................................................... 148
Preparation .................................................................................. 149
Normative and Interactive Planning ........................................... 150
Practical and Attainable Social Action ....................................... 150
Data Gathering and Evaluation ................................................... 152
Integration, Feedback, and Reflection ........................................ 153
Inquiry Cycle 2: Evolutionary Design .....................................................155
Intended Outcomes ..................................................................... 156
Normative and Interactive Planning ........................................... 156
Practical and Attainable Social Action ....................................... 157
Data Gathering and Evaluation ................................................... 160
Integration, Feedback, and Reflection ........................................ 160
Inquiry Cycle 3: Embodying the Evolutionary Learning
Community as an Embedded Community System ..................................163
Intended Outcomes ..................................................................... 164
Normative and Interactive Planning ........................................... 164
Practical and Attainable Social Action ....................................... 164
Data Gathering and Evaluation ................................................... 165
Integration, Feedback, and Reflection ........................................ 167
Data Generation, Capture, and Analysis of Learning Outcomes .........................167
Validity and Reliability ............................................................................169
Generation of New Knowledge .................................................. 169
Achievement of Action-Oriented Outcomes .............................. 170
Education of Both Researcher and Participants .......................... 170
Results Relevant to the Local Setting ......................................... 170
Sound and Appropriate Research Methodology ......................... 171
Ethical Considerations .........................................................................................171
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Confidentiality and Consent ....................................................................173
Limitations of the Methodology ..........................................................................174

CHAPTER 4: ENACTING THE DESIGN INQUIRY ...................................................178
Overview ..............................................................................................................178
Recruitment and Formation of Inquiry Group .........................................180
Summary of Participant Interests .............................................................184
Learning Conversations .......................................................................................188
Inquiry Group Session 1. .........................................................................188
Physical Setting ........................................................................... 188
Sharing, Reflecting, and Planning .............................................. 189
Conversation ............................................................................... 192
Inquiry Group Session 2 ..........................................................................198
Physical Setting ........................................................................... 199
Sharing, Reflecting, and Planning .............................................. 200
Conversation ............................................................................... 203
Stakeholder Community Design: The Cleveland Vital
Neighborhoods Innovation Session. ........................................................212
Conversation ............................................................................... 215
Inquiry Group Session 3 ..........................................................................219
Sharing, Reflecting, and Planning .............................................. 221
Conversation ............................................................................... 223
Inquiry Group Session 4 ..........................................................................235
Sharing, Reflecting, and Planning .............................................. 236
Conversation ............................................................................... 241
Summary ..............................................................................................................252

CHAPTER 5: SYNTHESIS OF THE RESEARCH OUTCOMES .................................255
Overview ..............................................................................................................255
Synthesis of the Work ..........................................................................................256
Generative Dialogue as a Strategy for Inquiry Group Formation............257
Refining and Responding to the Research Questions Through
Community Design Inquiry .....................................................................262
Exploring the Praxis of Designing Conversation Within the
Broader Community Setting ....................................................................266
Converging Perspectives Regarding the Problem Situation Under
Study ........................................................................................................270
An Evolutionary Guidance System for Place-Based Community
Revitalization .......................................................................................................280
Reflections on Facilitating the Inquiry Group .....................................................291

CHAPTER 6: SUMMARY AND EVALUATION OF RESEARCH
OUTCOMES....................................................................................................................295
Criteria for Evaluating Quality and Validity of the Action Research ..................307
Dialogic and Process Validity ..................................................................308
Outcome and Catalytic Validity...............................................................314