Making meanings…making respons-able worlds

A relational constructionist narrative

Scientific paradigms

• science = one way of knowing

• scientific paradigms:• Naïve realism

• Critical realism

• Relational Constructionism

• …

4 themes

• reality &

• relations

• language

• interest

(Naïve) realism

• reality & relations – singular, universal, ‘object out there’ – available to be known by separate subject – Subject-Object relations

• sense data • language

– re-presents the world

• interest: knowing ‘the world as it really is’

Critical realism

• sense data – basis for – ‘perception’ …as constructive sense making – knower combines what it is ‘in the head’ with

what is in the world

• unquestioned: – role of language, 1 single reality (world) ‘out

there’– separate person & world, individual agent

Relational constructionism• social realities:

– achievements produced in inter-actions – i.e., co-constructions

• neither subjective nor objective but relational

– multiple and ongoing– > or < local

• language:– is action, is performative – is a local cultural practice

• interests: – what & how of making realities

The ‘how’ of making realities

• focus: – on becoming (rather than being) i.e., on the– ongoing relational or co-construction of– self - other & relationship

• constructing Self-Other & relation– as Subject-Object? – other possibilities?

constructing S-O relations 1

• acting in ways that make other an Object – to be known (by Self)

– to be influenced (by Self)

– to be used as an instrument (by Self - in relation to what Self defines as ‘real and good’)

• examples:– having visions – for Other

– not listening to, silencing, excommunicating Other

– intensive farming, colonialism…

constructing S-O relations 2

• individual responsibility– care of the (separate) self

– individual freedom

– relationship becomes an arti-fact (artificial)

• (re)constructing– property, individual rights, individual (ir)rationality

– fools, heretics, wrongdoers…

– to blame, punish, ex-communicate, so

– change individuals &/or the constraints on their actions

reframing relating

• my interest: – practical know-how

– relational response-ability

• response-able processes that:– are open to multiple constructions of what is real &

good

– are reflexive about what & how

– are generative (of possibilities)

– create ‘power to’ go on in different but equal relations

Babel: a confusion of tongues

• Example: Constructing the Foot & Mouth Disaster in the UK– many voices, little listening, little dialogue– dominant discourses,

• voice of Science, rationality, facts…

– right-wrong– power over Other

Babel as multiple dialogues & listening

• co-constructing realities – not individual action & responsibility, & – not consensus decision-making

• sharing con-texts– stories not abstract data

• differences – treated as natural, &– as good data

Generating ‘power to’ – for a change

• bring all your relations to work!– give voice to your multiple identities

• widen the margins of participation– dialogue with unheard, silent, or silenced others

• focus on possibilities, not problems

• dialogue not debate– un-settling, space clearing, open listening…