South African Post Card

Working in South Africa just after the first all-party elections in June-July 1994 was for me a profound experience; many of the thoughts I now have about our current Systemic Governance Research Program have their origins in events from that time.  I was a member of an ODA (a precursor to DfID) funded "co-learning" consultancy to LAPC (Land and Agricultural Policy Centre) in South Africa to work with the Ministries of Land Reform and Rural Development, Agriculture and the RDP Secretariat and NGO's to examine issues and opportunities for people-centred rural development (including future directions for agricultural extension). It was set up as a co-learning consultancy (probably the first ever funded by ODA) because, we argued, the context was so fluid that (i) external prescriptions would not be relevant; (ii) any learning would have to be applied in real-time and (iii) what was learnt had to stay in-country not go home with the consultants. 

The consultancy comprised over 20 people all-told made up of externals and internals to SA, roughly in equal balance (see a short reflection published in 1996 below).  A process/inquiry design was developed collaboratively and enacted over several weeks.  The outcomes of our learning activities were used to design an experiential workshop for key policy stakeholders towards the end (held at at Ithala Game Reserve).  A report was produced:

Cousins, B. ed (1994) Issues and options for institutional change for rural development, agriculture and land reform. Summary and Overview. Policy Paper 9, Land and Agriculture Policy Centre, Johannesburg. 69pp.

I have now been back to South Africa five times since 1994 so have been able to maintain a watching brief on the trajectory and travails of  South Africa's governance experiment underpinned, as it is, by espoused commitments to transformation (a key systems notion). As I write I am conscious that in 2012 the first cadre of SA citizens born post-apartheid were eligible to vote - these same citizens have only ever experienced an ANC-led government.  This is a point made several times by Martin Plaut and Paul Holden in their 2012 book 'Who Rules South Africa?'  

'Who Rules South Africa' which I have just finished reading is an excellent, timely book as many reviews testify.  It provides a systemic analysis of a very complex situation - but what reception and impact has it had internally?  As one internal review observes:

 'Who Rules was published before the Marikana massacre, but the judgments in the book should stand the test of time. The fallout from the events of 2012 – the massacre, the strikes, Julius Malema’s attempts at mass mobilisation, infighting in the lead-up to ANC electoral conference in Mangaung in December will demand an update in time.'

It was also published before the deal about future leadership sealed in December 2012 between current president Jacob Zuma and former COSATU heavywight turned businessman, Cyril Ramaphosa. Justice Malala writing in the Guardian observes that:

"Just the day before Zuma's party victory a survey found that his national approval level is 52%, while the defeated Motlanthe's is at 70%. Speculation is that Cyril Ramaphosa, the ANC's newly elected deputy leader, will slowly be pushed to become the face of the party and that his position as deputy president will take on elements of a prime minister, thus relegating Zuma to a ceremonial leadership role similar to the one played by Nelson Mandela in the 1990s.

But this is unlikely to happen. Zuma's victory can be ascribed largely to the fact that he is a man who is trying to do everything in his power to ensure that charges of corruption – controversially dropped against him under dodgy circumstances just weeks before he became president in 2009 – are not reinstated against him. For this to happen he has to keep his hand on the steering wheel, and is unlikely to cede power to a deputy."

In other words many of the systemic forces at play outlined in 'Who Rules' are likely to continue into the forseeable future.  This will be a real test for the South African people and the institutions they put into place after 1994. Given my own experiences I found the chapter called 'Sharing the Beloved Country: Land Reform Since 1994' in 'Who Rules' of particular interest.

In this chapter Martin Plaut describes the saga of land reform since 1994, although many would argue it is a saga of 'no land reform'.  I cannot reprise all the arguments here but it interests me that issues we uncovered in 1994 persist.  One issue in particular has been particularly persistent - that of framing the transformation pathway as one from poor, black farmers or landless blacks to commercial black farmers in the image of contemporary white farmers. We tried to dispel this inadequate framing in 1994 but clearly without success. Our arguments were that different images of farming and how land contributed to rural livelihoods was needed.  Plaut, quoting Ben Cousins (who was part of our consultancy) describes a form of multi-functional livelhood system emerging in KwaZulu-Natal.  The extent to which agriculture and food production are part of the mix seems uncertain however. On a personal level I have no doubt that over time more blacks should have access to land for food production but at the moment policy makers seem to be pursuing simplistic rather than systemic strategies. This is bascially a social, political and ideological issue that is not amenable to simple reponses or responses from those who do not understand 'rural realities'.

Plaut (p.330) cites Edward Lahiff, a proponent of the view that landholdings are too large and that 'they should be broken up to allow the emergence (or re-emergence) of a peasant sector.'  Clearly this could be part of a mixed policy response that as it progresses does not undermine food security and diminish, unduly, foreign earnings from agricultural exports.Unfortunately willingeness to respond to the complexity in a systemic manner seems to be largely missing.

Reflections on a Process Consultancy in South Africa 1994 (from Ison 1996)

"In 1994 a group of five expatriates and eight South Africans (SA) formed one of the first process consultancies to be funded by ODA.  Held over one month, it commenced just after the multi-party elections, at a time of considerable flux.  This made predetermined terms of reference (TOR) irrelevant and created the opportunity for the team in conjunction with relevant key stakeholders in SA to formulate TORs which were relevant to the new, dynamic, context. These were: "To contribute to the emergence of institutional forms which assist in the process of demand-driven, people-centred rural development and land reform {which} will explore the nature and quality of relationships between local, provincial and national structures currently emerging and which are likely to effect rural development processes which support rural people."

The team then proceeded to operate within a systemic action research framework (Checkland 1991; Ison 1993) to follow cycles of investigation (interviews, visits, participant observation, analysis of primary and secondary data) and synthesis through the design of participatory workshops in which relevant stakeholders were able to learn their way to new appreciations or gain new insights (Cousins 1994).  These workshops provided both challenge (to preconceived notions which seemed no longer relevant) and support (for enthusiasts who we recognised as the primary agents of change - see Russell and Ison 2000).

One of the outcomes of the process consultancy in SA in 1994 was the recognition of the need to build capacity to build capacity for sustainable natural resources management. Subsequently a position description appeared in the local press in connection with furthering the work we had initiated .   The person skills sought included: (i) process skills and systems perspective on institutional development and capacity building; (ii) training, adult learning and group facilitation skills; (iii) experience with participatory learning approaches in field and workshop settings (e.g. PRA); (iv) experience with working in large bureaucratic public agencies and facilitating institutional change; (v) personal authority and presence; (vi) negotiation and conflict management skills; (vi) willingness to travel extensively, particularly to remote rural areas.

This is a challenging job description and all too clearly such people are in short supply, but, I would argue, increasingly needed. For this reason the Open University is collaborating with IIED and other partners to bring the economies and recognised success of supported open learning to the global need to build capacity for sustainable natural resource management. Our approach will be systemic and clearly recognise the need for institutional change, when relevant, to be inside our system of concern."

Looking back on these reflections it is clear that people with these skills are still in short supply, but much needed and not only in South Africa.  I like to think that our OU STiP MSc is helping to fill the void.

References  

Checkland, P., 1991:  From framework through experience to learning: The essential nature of action research. In Nissen, H. E., Klein, H. K. and Hirscheim, R. (eds) Information Systems Research: Contemporary Approaches and Emergent Traditions. Elsevier, Amsterdam. 

Cousins, B., ed 1994: Issues and options for institutional change for rural development, agriculture and land reform. Summary and Overview. Policy Paper 9, Land and Agriculture Policy Centre, Johannesburg. 69pp.

Ison, R.L. 1996: Facilitating institutional change. Proceedings ANU/IIED/OFI Sustainable Forest Policy Short Course, Oxford. 

Russell D.B. and Ison, R. L., 2000: Enthusiasm: developing critical action for second-order R and D.  In Ison, R. L. and Russell D.B  (eds) Agricultural Extension and Rural Development. Breaking Out of Traditions. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Inequality for all - follow-up

Further to my post on the documentary 'Inequality for All' I commend this site to you as riveting viewing.  Given this analysis I am left even more convinced that what we are experiencing across the globe is the nadir of our western-governance systems. There is an urgent need for governance reform - institutions and processes that are attuned to 21st century realities.  Last year I commissioned a cartoon from Simon Kneebone to capture how I was thinking about this issue.

My argument is that as we enter the Anthropocene with its associated water, biodiversity, inequality etc crises then we cannot build responses on the old foundations - a business as usual approach is not feasible - to do so would, in Russ Ackoff's terms, involve doing the wrong thing righter, rather than doing the right thing. In principle (if not always in practice) acceptance that we are in the Anthropocene brings with it the need to reconsider all human invented institutions (norms, codes, rules, policies etc). In my cartoon I suggest we have to rebuild the foundations of what we do by focusing on governance, thinking, practice, institutions and investment (i.e. how and where are financial resources are allocated).

See Helen Wilding's blog for an elaboration of some of these ideas. I am grateful to Dave Griggs for drawing my attention to the inequality mashup.

In search of a systemic response to curbing media excess

It is a pity that the Australian response to this important social issue has been botched.  The response in Westminster seems more reasoned and workable - at least it was socialised through the parliamentary process unlike Australia.  Trevor Grant's excellent article explores the Australian issues.

ISSS 2013 in Vietnam

ISSS 2013: Hai Phong City, Viet Nam, July 14-19, 2013
 
CALL FOR PAPERS for The 57th World Conference of the International Society for the Systems Sciences

Curating the Conditions for a Thrivable Planet: Systemic Leverage Points for Emerging a Global Eco-Civilization

http://isss.org/world/Hai_Phong_City_2013

We warmly invite you to join us in a unique experience that will contribute significantly to making systems thinking more mainstream around the world. The 57th Annual ISSS World Conference will provide you with an opportunity to showcase advances in systemic sustainability initiatives from around the world with hands-on experience in the UNESCO Cat Ba Biosphere Reserve and at Hai Phong City, the first city in the world to be managed using an integral systems approach.

NEW:  Information for travel and visa applications, Tourist information, Accommodation and Registration fees have all been added to the conference web pages.


Abstracts are requested for the 57th Meeting of the International Society for the Systems Sciences


Important Dates

    April 30, 2013: The end of early, discounted registration.

    May 30, 2013: The deadline for full papers. Only ONE submission per
registered participant will be accepted for the conference.

    June 1, 2013. The final deadline for abstracts, recognising that
abstracts may not be developed into full papers for this conference. Only
ONE abstract per registered participant will be accepted for the conference.

    June 1, 2013. The deadline for poster abstract submission. Posters are
exempt from the one abstract/paper submission rule.


Call for Papers

Please see http://isss.org/world/preparing-and-submitting-abstracts-and-papers-2013 for preparing abstracts and full papers for the conference

Special integration groups (SIGs) and exploratory sessions are being planned
in the following areas (see the website for contact details for each group):

Agent-based Social Systems
Arts-based Inquiry
Balancing Individualism and Collectivism
Critical Systems Theory & Practice
Designing Educational Systems
Economic and Financial Systems
Evolutionary Development
Foundations of Information Systems
Hierarchy Theory
Human Systems Inquiry
Information Systems Design and Information Technology
ISSS Roundtable
Living Systems Analysis
Health and Systems Thinking
Organizational Transformation and Social Change
Relational Science
Research Towards General Theories of Systems
Service Systems Science
Socio-Ecological Systems
Spirituality and Systems
Student SIG
Systemic Approaches to Conflict and Crises
Systemic Approaches to Poverty and Disadvantage
Systems Applications in Business & Industry
Systems Biology and Evolution
Systems and Mental Health
Systems Modeling and Simulation
Systems Pathology

Social Programs

There will be a welcome reception on Sunday evening, July 14. The conference
banquet will be held on Thursday, July 18.

Registration Rates

Registration fees are available on the website and registration is OPEN!.

The registration fee includes:

* Conference attendance at all sessions
* The program/abstract book

• Reception on Sunday July 14
• Banquet on Thursday July 18
  

* ISSS membership fees for 2014
The registration fees also includes tea/coffee breaks and lunches from
Monday to Thursday.

The registration fee does not cover accommodation or transportation expenses
to and from the conference site.

Accommodation is available in a range of local hotels.

For further details please check the website at www.isss.org/world or
contact isssoffice@dsl.pipex.com

OU STiP Presence at the Public Sector Show

The Open University's STiP (Systems Thinking in Practice) postgraduate program will have a stand at this year's Public Sector Show on the 30th April.  The event will be held at the Business Design Centre in London.  If you have an interest in using systems thinking in practice in the public sector why not come and visit our stand - or let others know that we will be there.

For those in any doubt of the need for STiP read some of these excellent articles by Simon Caulkin.

'Inequality for All'

Some years ago when in California colleagues spoke highly about Robert Reich academic, former Secretary for Labour and activist.  They described him as someone who thought systemically about complex issues.  Now he and his economic arguments have been the focus of a new documentary made by Jacob Kornbluth called ' Inequality for All'.  Take a look at this clip and see what you think.   Do his arguments apply elsewhere or are they only relevant to the US?   I am not yet sure of my own answers to these questions as I am yet to see the movie. I will keep you posted.

However Carole Cadwalladr in the Observer (UK) has reached her own conclusions which seem very persuasive to me:

"The powerful documentary Inequality for All was an unexpected hit at the recent Sundance film festival, arguing that US capitalism has fatally abandoned the middle classes while making the super-rich richer. Can its star, economist Robert Reich, do for economics what Al Gore did for the environment?"

This article is well worth a read.

Sr Lanka needs to be held to account

The case for Australia and other governments bringing pressure to bear on Sri Lanka in manifest ways, including sports boycotts, is made abundantly clear in this article. 

"RAJAPAKSA IGNORES HUMAN RIGHTS, SAYS UN COMMISSIONER
 
Melbourne, Tuesday --The UN Human Rights High Commissioner, Navi Pillay, says Sri Lanka has broken its promise to improve human rights in the island nation. Pillay said the Rajapaksa regime had failed to investigate atrocities, as it promised the UN a year ago, and that opposition leaders were still being killed or abducted.

In an interview with the Sri Lankan Sunday Times, Pillay said: “The Government has made little progress in pursuing true accountability and reconciliation measures... “...There is a long history of national inquiries in Sri Lanka that have led nowhere but to impunity.... There has to be justice, if there is to be lasting peace.”
 
Pillay has also issued a stern warning to the Sri Lankan Government not to repeat last year’s intimidation and threats against human rights defenders at next week’s UN Human Rights Council meeting to examine Sri Lanka’s progress on human rights and post-war reconciliation with Tamils.
 
The BBC reported last March that the Minister for Public Relations, Mervyn Silva, threatened to “break the limbs” of certain journalists and human rights workers whom he called “traitors.” His comments came a day after the UNHRC passed a resolution that contained criticism of the country’s human rights record, as well as a call to initiate an independent investigation into allegations against the Sri Lankan military of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the final days of the civil war in 2009.

Pillay said the Sri Lankan Government had been reprimanded by the UNHRC president for its behaviour at the 2012 session. She said she had written to the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister to protest that some of the threats against various groups were carried on his own website.
 
Next Monday the UN Human Rights Council will begin debating the second US resolution on Sri Lanka in 12 months. It is expected to call on Sri Lanka to honour its promise to the UN last year to initiate the independent war crimes investigation and to:

• Credibly investigate widespread allegations of extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances.
• Demilitarize the north of Sri Lanka and re-evaluate detention policies.
• Implement impartial land dispute resolution mechanisms.
• Protect the right of freedom of expression for all and enact rule of law reforms.
 
Campaign for Tamil Justice spokesperson, Trevor Grant, said the first US resolution, which was supported by Australia, the UK, Canada and India, among others, was so weak that it encouraged Sri Lanka to continue its program of ethnic-cleansing against the Tamils. “It was the equivalent of a wink and nod to Sri Lanka to carry on persecuting Tamils. A draft of the second one looks about the same,” Grant said. “Until the UN faces the reality on the ground in Sri Lanka, that a genocide is taking place and it needs to act strongly, then nothing much will change.”
 
The International Crisis Group and Human Rights Watch have recently issued scathing reports on the Sri Lankan Government’s abuse of human rights. They have called on the countries meeting at the UNHRC next week to implement much stronger action this time.
 
A letter signed by 133 Roman Catholic, Anglican and Methodist pastors and nuns in Sri Lanka has asked the UNHRC to set up an independent war crimes’ investigation, claiming the Government does not have the political will to do it. At least 40,000 Tamil civilians died after being herded into supposed “safe zones” in May, 2009. A 2011 UN report said there were credible allegations that these people were then shelled and bombed by the Sri Lankan military. The report said that there was evidence that the Tamil Tigers may have committed war crimes.
 
Pillay explained why she believed it was important for the independent investigation to go ahead.
“Because tens of thousands of civilians were reportedly killed. Because there are very credible allegations and some strong pictorial evidence and witness accounts indicating that war crimes and other serious international crimes...took place on a large scale,” she said. 

“There is a long history of national inquiries in Sri Lanka that have led nowhere but to impunity. This makes such an international investigation essential. Crimes like these cannot simply be ignored or pushed aside. There has to be justice, if there is to be lasting peace.”
 
In a speech to the London School of Economics recently, Pillay drew the comparison between UN reports on Sri Lanka and Rwanda, where a Government-orchestrated genocide against the minority Tutsu population in 1994 saw almost one million people die while the international community did virtually nothing. The Petrie report on Sri Lanka was an admission that the UN had made a grave error by leaving the war zones towards the end of the war in 2009. It was a decision that cost the lives of thousands of innocent Tamils as the Sri Lankan military ruthlessly attacked civilians in what became known as the “war without witness.” “Rwanda’s lessons were not implemented in Sri Lanka,” Pillay said.
 
Campaign for Tamil Justice calls upon the UNHRC to:

• Immediately take the strongest action required to stop the persecution and the ethnic-cleansing of Tamils in Sri Lanka by the Government. This includes Government-sponsored land theft, destruction of Tamil homes and transplanting of Sinhalese citizens into traditional Tamil regions, demolition of cultural icons such as Tamil shrines, and the massive military presence used to control of the daily lives of Tamils in the northern and eastern regions.

• Initiate immediately an independent international investigation into allegations by a UN panel of Sri Lankan military war crimes and crimes against humanity towards the end of the war.

• Stop the murder, torture, jailings, beatings and disappearances of Tamils and fully support the prosecution of those responsible.

• Demand an end to the murders and disappearances of Sri Lankan journalists. Demand full investigation and prosecution of those responsible for these crimes.

• Demand a sustainable solution to Tamil grievances. This includes giving Tamils political autonomy and empowering them by allowing self-determination in traditional Tamil regions.
 
For further information contact Campaign for Tamil Justice"

Conference with a difference

Conference registration and hotel reservations for Modes of Explanation May 21-25 in Paris are now open.  Updated information at http://modes.isce.edu/update

To register please visit: http://modes.isce.edu

For more conference information please visit:  http://modesofexplanation.org

Modes of Explanation
Three days to discuss and learn about advances in modes of explanation. A look at how our mode of explanation affects our affordances for action.

Modes of Explanation is a discussion conference, the actual presentations of attendee's work will occur on-line and only a five minute or less synopsis will precede the discussion session during which the work is discussed.

The challenge to prospective attendees is to prepare a presentation which can evoke meaningful discussion amongst the attendees. One's presentation could, for example, focus on: 1) how we go about explaining and the limitations/strengths of our approach, 2) what kinds of explanations "work" and which kinds "fail" 3) the context dependency of explanatory  form 4) the differences in use between "good enough explanation" and "truth claims" 5) the need for/use of mechanisms and "narratives" as a meaning of "explaining" (making understandable  in a coherent way) some aspect of complexity or of a real in life complex system 6) how a reliance on sameness or of category as a simplifying reduction was inadequate to the situation being examined or 7) how modes of explanation vary by discipline.

Keynotes: Paul Thagard, Nancy Nersessian, David Snowden, Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Sandra Mitchell, Kevin Kelly, Hugo Letiche, Timothy Allen, Zack Kopplin & more

 

Michael Lissack

Executive Director and ISCE Professor of Meaning in Organizations

see http://epi-thinking.org  and see http://epi-biz.com

 

http://lissack.com    http://isce.edu

 

Please consider attending the Modes of Explanation conference in Paris May 21-25, 2013.  I am sorry not to be going but will be at a conference in Bonn 'Water and the Anthropocene' which runs at the same time.  We have two papers scheduled to be presented at the Bonn Conference.

'Evidence Centres' and a UK Chief Social Scientist

As this article from  Penny Sarchet describes the UK Cabinet Office is about to create six new 'What Works Centres' to assess whether ideas for new policies can work.  I do not know whether to be excited or appalled!  My inclination based on this article (and thus limited background appreciation) is the latter.  Why?  Well for a start these centres seem to be based on a particular paradigm of  what works and how what works might be assessed. And underpinning this a particular view of policy development and deployment suggests itself. I hope I am wrong. I also hope that one centre has systems thinking in practice capability and methodological skills.

Whilst I am all for strengthening the role that social science research plays it is a very broad church with myriad epistemological pitfalls - I wonder how the post will be described and the person chosen? And how will they practice in rleation to social science and other sciences? Might there be an opportunity to cultivate a reflexive, community of practice of chief scientists?

"Cabinet Office plans ‘evidence’ centres
 As government prepares to announce chief social scientist

 by Penny Sarchet

13 Feb 13
The Cabinet Office is finalising plans to establish a series of research centres that will assess whether ideas for new policies can work.

Around six institutes are being planned, which the government is calling What Works centres. The centres’ assessments will be used to inform decision-making in government departments. More details are expected by the end of February.

Research Fortnight has learned that the centres are to be modelled on the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. NICE assesses evidence on the effectiveness of medical treatments and provides guidance to the National Health Service on whether these treatments should be purchased.

The Cabinet Office, which also houses the government’s Behavioural Insights team, is known to favour a NICE-type approach in other areas of government policy. 

In 2011, the Cabinet Office announced in a white paper that the government would consult on how to establish credible accreditation bodies that would mirror the work of NICE in other areas of public services. It said that public services require “robust accreditation of what works”.

Leading social scientists have welcomed the news. David Hand, professor of statistics at Imperial College London, says: “It’s about time we put more effort into evidence-based social policy.”
Keiron Flanagan, lecturer in science and technology policy at the University of Manchester, adds that NICE-like bodies could be important for pointing out what he calls “dodgy” claims made by ministers about policies that are not supported by evidence. But the centres, which will not be directly testing new policies, would need good evidence to work with. “In many policy areas, there is not good evidence available,” he says.

Similarly, Mariana Mazzucato, professor at the University of Sussex’s Science and Technology Policy Unit SPRU, warns that external advice cannot substitute for a lack of expertise within government, something that she says the US is better at. “The Department of Energy is run by a Nobel [laureate],” she says. “Just as important as thinking about external ‘advice’ is the need to reinvigorate the status of government, so that it attracts the brightest young minds, and hence sector-specific expertise and talent.” 

“Instead, what we have been witnessing in the UK is the downgrading of what government is seen to be able to do, and its budget to do it,” she adds.

Hand, in contrast, says: “Having external and independent opinions is very important—not only to ensure that the right things are done, untarnished by ideology, but also so that people can see that the right things are being done.”

In a related development, a long-awaited decision on the appointment of a government chief social scientist is thought to be imminent. The naming of such an adviser is expected to be among the first announcements that Mark Walport will make after becoming government chief scientific adviser in April.

“This is something that’s been talked about since [former Home Office chief scientific adviser] Paul Wiles retired,” comments Hand. “Clearly it’s a good idea. It seems odd to me that there isn’t one, [as] you could describe a lot of our economic and social problems as problems of social science. We live in a society, we function in an economy—those are all social science areas. I’m surprised, to be honest, that there isn’t more government emphasis on the social sciences and the solutions provided by the social sciences,” he says.

Flanagan, however, says he has conflicting feelings about the possibility of a chief social scientist. “I would be reluctant to see social science separated out from natural and physical science, and I imagine that a chief social scientist would not have the clout of the chief scientific adviser. However, I don’t believe for a moment that the UK science lobby, who see the CSA not just as an adviser but as a champion for science in government, would ever accept a social scientist as government CSA.” "

Mooching around MOOCs

What are we to make of the phenomenon of MOOCs?   I doubt anyone involved in Higher Education does not have a view.  There are the enthusiasts and the sceptics as a plethora of recent articles reveal e.g. The Crisis in Higher Education, by Nicholas Carr.  An example of the sceptic perspective is:

"The promoters of MOOCs have a “fairly naïve perception of what the analy­sis of large data sets allows,” says Timothy Burke, a history professor at Swarthmore College. He contends that distance education has historically fallen short of expectations not for technical reasons but, rather, because of “deep philosophical problems” with the model. He grants that online education may provide efficient training in computer programming and other fields characterized by well-established procedures that can be codified in software. But he argues that the essence of a college education lies in the subtle interplay between students and teachers that cannot be simulated by machines, no matter how sophisticated the programming."

It certainly seems true that most of the courses that have been presented to date do not involve what educators call epistemic learning.  In many ways the contestation is between learning and instruction, a point taken up rather elegantly by Nicholas Negroponte.

What neither article does is refer to the 40+ year history of The Open University (UK) in developing very effective pedagogic models to underpin large scale supported open learning courses.  Having now announced that it will take a leading role in a UK consortium (called FutureLearn Ltd) to deliver MOOCs I hope the experience of the OU will take the debate into new territory that has as its essence a pedagogy of personal and social transformation. After all that is what the world needs...and at scale. Or are we seeing a playing-out of the corporatisation of universities and with it the commodification of instruction (as I would not care to call it learning)? 

Thus far, as Stamenka Uvalic-Trumbic notes:

'Research universities, which have little previous experience of online teaching, dominate the MOOCs offerings and this is evident in the outdated behaviourist pedagogy most in evidence. Most MOOCs are little more than OER with test material added.'

The illusion of certainty

Another good article by Ross Gittins appeared in The Age last week. In relation to the Australian Reserve Bank and its critics Gittins, in an article entitled ' Reserve Bank bursts bubble of certainty', observes:

"The other reason the Reserve has yet to get things badly wrong is that no one understands better than it how fallible its forecasts are - all forecasts, for that matter. And it's never afraid to admit its fallibility to the world."

He goes on to say:

"But if economic forecasts are so universally inaccurate, how come we hear so little about confidence intervals? It's partly because economists don't like advertising the considerable limitations of their art. They don't even like reminding themselves of their own fallibility."

Lumpers and splitters

It is generally widely known that botanists fall into one of two camps - lumpers or splitters.  In a sense these are boundary judgments that systemists appreciate.  The lumpers see traits in common that warrant a wider boundary; splitters see differences that to them warrant demarcation and distinction.  Unfortunatly the actions of botanists leaves the likes of tourists or journalists or novelists out of sympathy with their actions for their's is an all or none systematic (not systemic) choice.  Take the acacia for example - species that are symbolically and culturally significant in  much of Africa and Australia. No longer can I legitimately (in botanical terms) refer to the thorny acacia of Africa (as I did in my last post). Instead by rights I should have referred to the spiny vachellia, or perhaps senegalia!

According to Wikipedia:

"The genus Acacia previously contained roughly 1300 species, about 960 of them native to Australia, with the remainder spread around the tropical to warm-temperate regions of both hemispheres, including Europe, Africa, southern Asia, and the Americas. However, in 2005 the genus was divided into five separate genera under the tribe "Acacieae." The genus Acacia was retained for the majority of the Australian species and a few in tropical Asia, Madagascar and Pacific Islands. Most of the species outside Australia, and a small number of Australian species, were reclassified into Vachellia and Senegalia. The two final genera, Acaciella and Mariosousa, each contain about a dozen species from the Americas."

Kenya Post Card 2

On my last night in Nairobi I went with friends to see a local movie 'Nairobi Half Life' which was excellent.  The movie itself, as well as the venue, seemed to me to hold all the contrasts that characterise Kenya today - elegance, poverty, violence, solidarity.

On our last morning at Lake Nakuru National Park we were alerted to a predator by the impala; scanning the vicinity I spotted a leopard jumping over a fallen tree. Later it wondered across the road in front of us in search of an impala kid.  In all we saw about 18 different species of mammal and countless birds. The lake is very full as my photos below show; not many of the flamingo for which the park is famous were present. My colleagues and I, though not experts, could not help but feel that the biology of the park was out of kilter.  We surmised that the absence of elephant was having negative effects on thorny acacia recruitment and, instead, favouring excess weedy species invasion as undergrowth.  This may have been exacerbated by a very heavy stocking rate of Cape Buffalo. 

The park is also touted in most of the promotional literature as the site of some of the main Euphorbia forests in Kenya.  What these same web-sites do not mention is that almost none of this unique forest remains. I am still to find an explanation for the forest's disappearance.  Perhaps over grazing by black rhino, one of my Sth African colleagues suggested? 

The research that took me to Kenya concerned how social and biophysical scientists were working together to address issues of food security and poverty alleviation. Historically these two groups of researchers have not always worked well together.  I now know much more about African Swine Fever - one of the projects of concern. I left impressed with the efforts being made.

2013 ASC Conference in UK

The ASC conference this year will be in Bolton UK from 28 July to 3 or 4 August, including pre and post conferences. Bolton is where Mass Observation originated. 

Theme:   Acting—Learning—Understanding
Dates:  Main conference 30 July to 2 August; pre conference 28 and 29
July; post conference 3 and 4 August.
Location: Institute of Educational Cybernetics, Bolton University, Lancashire, UK.

Bolton is an old industrial town on the northern fringe of Manchester, UK, home of the Industrial Revolution and also of early British computing. It is near some of the most beautiful scenery and coast in the UK including the North Welsh coast and Anglesea Island, the Pennine mountains and the Lake District. The Scottish border is about an hour or so’s drive. It is wonderfully located for a holiday. Manchester is the real revival city in the UK and its international airport has good international connections including with the US. London is a 2 hour 10 minute train journey away.

Kenya Post Card 1

I have been in Nairobi now for  almost a week, secluded in the very comfortable ILRI campus for most of that time. This is my first visit to Kenya.   In many ways the experience, at least environmentally, is not new - it is has all the familiar and enjoyable elements of the highland tropics. Much of the vegetation is very familiar with kikuyu grass and Australian tree species widespread.  Of course socially and politically it is far more complex and, thus far, beyond experience - see this TED talk for example.  That said, electioneering has begun in earnest for the Presidential and associated elections due in March. This is a significant moment for Kenya as a new constitution is being enacted with a new regional level of elected governance.

I have been impressed by the interest Kenyan's take in their politics - a contrast I feel to much of the apathy exhibited in say Australia or the UK.  Although highly disillusioned with their politicians they do not seem to have switched off. In contrast my first impressions, from an admittedly limited number of conversations, is that many are actively interested and engaged with developed views of how to make things better.

Our visit to Nairobi National Park early last Sunday was rewarding - we saw 17 species of mammal and many different birds including ostrich, two types of bustard, cranes etc. It was a rather surreal experience viewing these animals in an 'old natural habitat' with the burgeoning Nairobi skyline in the background - an example of the new 'natural'!

News from Institute for 21st Century Agoras.

Ken Bausch has made contact to advise that their  'Global Agoras' website was down for a few days while they repaired it from a Russian hacker attack; it is now operational again he said - but unforunately my attempts to create links have failed, so I can only assume the website is still down.   Included in Ken's email was reference to:

Good New Videos

'Jeff Diedrich has produced the best short explanation of our dialogue process ever'  claims Ken. 

I note that the process used is similar to what might be used as part of a social learning approach to governance - something our research has focussed on for over a decade or more.  It is a very uplifting clip but also raises some questions such as (i) how did participants come to participate?; (ii) what was done with the outlcomes/learning that happened?  (iii) was the process, or could the process, be situated in a conducive, systemic governance process and set of institutions?  (iv) Did the process design have the wrong starting point? Does it assume a desire for co-existance, or the presence of governance processes and institutions that make a trajectory towards coexistance possible?

  

Ken goes on:

Yiannis Laouris has created two videos around an international youth colaboratory in Cypress. In the first, Yianniis explains the power of the colaboratories with youth participation.  In the second, young people describe the experience. 

  

IFSA Wrap-up - Great cartoons

Post-symposia greetings from the IFSA 2012 Local Organizing Committee

"Dear collegaues.
The local organizing committee wish to thank you all for a very rewarding and satisfying symposia. It was a great joy and inspiration for us to be with you during the four days of the symposia in Aarhus. We hope that you all got back home without any trouble. Even though that we are very enthusiastic about how IFSA 2012 went along, there might be things that could have improved your experience at the conference - there might also be things which actually worked well and was worth considering on another occastion. If you have any comments on our organization of the symposia, we would very much appreciate your perspective on what we should learn from the symposia. Please send us an email at ifsa2012@agrsci.dk with your comments.

At the closing session, the Danish cartoonist Niels Roland presented his drawings inspired by the issues discussed at IFSA 2012. You can now see Rolands closing session drawings on Youtube. We hope that you once again will enjoy Roland's satirical exploration of prominent issues discussed within the IFSA community. We are also working on supplying you with images from the symposia. We have of course been taking a lot of pictures, which will be uploaded shortly, but we will very much appreciate if you would share some of your own photos from the symposia - do not hesitate to send us copies of photos which you think should be shared among the other participants."

Water issues and food production systems

Recently in The Age  there was this stark warning:

' LEADING water scientists have issued one of the sternest warnings yet about global food supplies, saying the world's population may have to switch almost completely to a vegetarian diet over the next 40 years to avoid catastrophic shortages'

The claims are from a report by Malin Falkenmark and colleagues at the Stockholm International Water Institute.  Meawhile in the US, water issues are confronting many in light of the major drought. Work at the New England Complex Systems Institute claims that:

'Recent droughts in the midwestern United States threaten to cause global catastrophe driven by a speculator amplified food price bubble.'

For most Australian's the responses canvassed in the New York Times article are not new and much has been learnt in Australia about how to respond.  However, memories tend to be short; governments backtrack in the mistaken belief that it is possible to return to a 'past normality'.  Despite over 10 years of intense drought there is, in our Australian practices and institutional arrangements, still much room for improvement both now and into the future. In California half of summer domestic water use if for lawns water on lawns; Californians cannot imagine doing without them.  In Santa Fe lawns are prohibited.  In preparing for the future places like Melbourne would be better conceptualised as a semi-arid city and green, temperate grass lawns abandoned as well.

This issue, like any systemic issue has many facets.  I for one can no longer condone ruminant animal production practices (i.e., mainly cattle) that create biological inefficiencies of the sort associated with feeding concentrates and other human edible food to animals.  In San Francisco recently it was good to see many restaurants advertising on their menus that animal products were grass fed (which is what ruminants evolved to do - convert grass).   Australia should abandon all feedlot operations that have come to be developed around the spurious notion that rumen biological efficieny is the driving factor in production system development. As The Age article notes:
 
'Adopting a vegetarian diet is one option to increase the amount of water available to grow more food in a climate-erratic world, the scientists said. Animal protein-rich food consumes five to 10 times more water than a vegetarian diet. One-third of the world's arable land is used to grow crops to feed animals.'  

Strict vegetarianism is probably not for everyone; an intermediate step could involve all, or some, of the following:

1. reduce animal production that is dependent either directly or indirectly on irrigated production systems;
2. reduce embodied-in-global-trade water exports in terms of crops used to feed animals - as is  typical of much of European agriculture - this could return more water to enviromental flows and protect areas in Brasil and Argentina from over exploitation and biodiversity loss;

Writing a Viewpoint in the latest edition of the Farmers Club Journal, Liz Earle, a co-founder of Liz Earle Naturally Active Skincare, a comapny with over 500 staff and a multi-million pound turnover in over 100 countries says:

'I believe the best options for our health as well as our planet are red meats and dairy products from mainly grass and forage-led ruminat animals such as cows and sheep'.

Andrew Campbell in a series of articles points to the potential for systemic failure arising from Australia not continuing to invest in irrigation research for food production. I support fully his claims that:

'... the proposal that we simply shift our irrigated agriculture north “to where the water is” does not stand up to even a cursory analysis. Similarly, the suggestion we can cost-effectively pipe or pump or ship the water south “to where the people are” ignores basic physics and economics.'

However, I was not sure that he made the point strongly enough that water must be used for maximum biological as well as social efficiency - so no more irrigated dairy pastures or forage for feedlots and more opportunistic annual cropping please.

Not ethically defensible

Australia's policy position in relation to Sri Lanka has not been tenable for many years; in public policy terms it is a classic systemic failure.  More recently it has become a farce.   I am in agreement with Bruce Haigh: it's just not cricket playing with oppressive Sri Lanka writing in the most recent edition of Crikey when he says:

"Who would have thought that in the space of 17 years, Australia could have gone from being a leading champion in the worldwide fight to end the racial discrimination of apartheid to siding with the corrupt and venal government of Sri Lanka in the genocide of Tamils.

Australia has former prime minister John Howard to thank, with the raw racism and political expediency embodied in "we will decide who comes here", the policy of turning back the boats, mandatory detention and temporary protection visas -- all directed against asylum seekers. Unfortunately Labor prime ministers Rudd and Gillard embraced at first the essence, and now the substance of his policies."

The mainstream media and public in general are also lacking, seemingly, in awareness and discernment and thus responsible action.  Australia, and the rest of the world for that matter, should not be engaged in sporting ties of any sort with Sri Lanka; all future cricket matches should be cancelled until such time as responsible and ethical government returns.  

This article by Lyse Doucet Chief International Correspondent, BBC News says  it all:

"Hundreds of thousands of Tamils ended up trapped in a tiny strip of land.  The United Nations failed in its mandate to protect civilians in the last months of Sri Lanka's bloody civil war, a leaked draft of a highly critical internal UN report says.

"Events in Sri Lanka mark a grave failure of the UN to adequately respond to early warnings... during the final stages of conflict," it concludes.

The government and separatist Tamil rebels are accused of war crimes in the conflict, which ended in May 2009.

The war killed at least 100,000 people.

There are still no confirmed figures for civilian deaths in the last months of battle. A UN investigation said it was possible up to 40,000 people were killed in the final five months alone. Others suggest the number of deaths could be even higher. 

Former senior UN official Charles Petrie, who headed the internal review panel, told the BBC the "penultimate" draft the BBC has seen "very much reflects the findings of the panel". He is now in New York to present the report to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
 
Sources say an executive summary, which sets out the panel's conclusions in stark terms, has been removed in a final report which will number about 30 pages.

There was no immediate response from the UN, which does not comment on leaked reports. But senior UN sources say the secretary general plans to publish the hard hitting review, and act on its wide-ranging recommendations in order to "learn lessons" and respond more effectively to major new crises such as Syria now confronting the international community. 

'Systemic failure'

The UN's investigation into its own conduct during the last months of the conflict says the organisation should in future "be able to meet a much higher standard in fulfilling its protection and humanitarian responsibilities".

It identifies "systemic failure" in a number of areas, and describes the internal UN crisis-management structure as "incoherent".

The panel questions decisions such as the withdrawal of UN staff from the war zone in September 2008 after the Sri Lankan government warned it could no longer guarantee their safety. 

Benjamin Dix, who was part of the UN team that left, says he disagreed with the pullout.

"I believe we should have gone further north, not evacuate south, and basically abandon the civilian population with no protection or witness," Mr Dix told the BBC.

Hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians remained in the war zone, exploited by both sides: forcibly recruited by Tamil Tigers or used as human shields; or under indiscriminate government fire, or at risk of arrest.
"We begged them, we pleaded with them not to leave the area. They did not listen to us," said a Tamil school teacher now seeking asylum in Britain, who did not want to be named. "If they had stayed there, and listened to us, many more people would be alive today." 

Despite a "catastrophic" situation on the ground, this report bluntly explains that in the capital Colombo "many senior UN staff did not perceive the prevention of killing of civilians as their responsibility - and agency and department heads at UNHQ were not instructing them otherwise".

It says there was "a sustained and institutionalised reluctance" among UN personnel in Sri Lanka "to stand up for the rights of people they were mandated to assist". 

'Culture of trade-offs'

Citing detailed records of meetings and reports, the review highlights how the UN did not publish mounting civilian casualty figures even though they had "been verified to a good standard". Under severe pressure from the Sri Lankan government, it also did not make clear most deaths were caused by government shelling of "no fire zones" designated as havens for civilians.
The government repeatedly denied it shelled civilian areas. 

How did the UN failure happen? The report explores at length how senior staff in Colombo "had insufficient political expertise and experience in armed conflicts and in human rights... to deal with the challenge that Sri Lanka presented", and were not given "sufficient policy and political support" from headquarters. It also points to the Sri Lankan government's "stratagem of intimidation", including "control of visas to sanction staff critical of the state".

The result was a UN system dominated by "a culture of trade-offs" - UN staff chose not to speak out against the government in an effort to try to improve humanitarian access. 

Edward Mortimer, a former senior UN official who now chairs the Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice, says UN staff left when the population needed them more than ever.

"I fear this report will show the UN has not lived up to the standards we expect of it and has not behaved as the moral conscience of the world," Mr Mortimer said.

"There was a responsibility to protect in Sri Lanka but unfortunately it didn't get publicity like in Libya. The north of Sri Lanka was destroyed field by field, street by street, hospital by hospital but we didn't get that kind of reaction - Sri Lanka doesn't have much oil and isn't situated on the Mediterranean."

There were no UN peacekeepers in Sri Lanka but this report says the UN should have told the world what was happening, and done more to try to stop it. 

In New York, "engagement with member states regarding Sri Lanka was heavily influenced by what it perceived member states wanted to hear, rather than by what member states needed to know if they were to respond".
During the last months of war, there was not a single formal meeting of the UN's top bodies.

The executive summary of the draft report highlights how "the UN struggled to exert influence on the government which, with the effective acquiescence of a post 9/11 world order, was determined to defeat militarily an organisation designated as terrorist". The Tamil Tigers, or LTTE, are a proscribed terrorist organisation in many capitals.
Frances Harrison, who has just written a book "Still Counting the Dead" on the last months of the war, told the BBC "the only way now for Ban Ki-moon to restore the UN's tattered credibility on Sri Lanka is to call an independent international investigation into the slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians in 2009". 

"What haunts me is the outcome of this dreadful conflict might - just might - have been different if the UN had at the time publicised the independent eyewitness testimony and casualty data its staff meticulously collected that indicated the bulk of killing was the result of government shelling," says the former BBC Sri Lanka correspondent.

Springer Books - Christmas Sale

My contact at Springer says:

'We've just been informed of the following Christmas sales initiative - we've not yet been told if there are any other sales in the pipeline.

Springer are offering a £20-off voucher on any eBook from springer.com from 10-26th December to all visitors. This is on-top of any other existing discount which the user may have (e.g.,. a Springer author 33%  discount).   From the 10^th to 26^th, those using this link will see the voucher applied during your session on the site.

The only stipulation is that the eBook can’t be £20 or less before the voucher is applied.'

In the Drakensbergs

Two days for muscle recovery was a small price to pay for doing the Tugela Gorge walk in the Royal Natal National Park in the central Drakensbergs.  It was also a delightful setting for designing and running an interactive session for about 50 people as part of the recent International Conference on Fresh Water Governance for Sustainable Development: 

Ison, R.L, Pollard, S., Biggs, H. Du Toit, D., Colvin, J.D & Wallis, P. (2012) More Systemic, More Adaptive: The way Forward for Water Governance. Special Workshop Session, International Conference on Fresh Water Governance for Sustainable Development, 7^th November, Central Drakensburg, South Africa.

This session was very well received by those who attended. 

Foucauldian-style resistance

Foucault, that popular French theorist wrote of resistance in 1982:

"I would like to suggest another way to go further toward a new economy of power relations, a way which is more empirical, more directly related to our present situation, and which implies more relations between theory and practice. It consists of taking the forms of resistance against different forms of power as a starting point. To use another metaphor, it consists of using this resistance as a chemical catalyst so as to bring to light power relations, locate their position, and find out their point of application and the methods used."

More recently a journalist in the Scotsman newspaper wrote about her daughter trying to choose the best university to get her degree. In Scotland, she would not be charged fees but in England she would have to pay thousands of pounds in fees and finish with a large debt. However, the daughter thinks it might be better to go for a "top" university and pay the fees as it would get her a better job and there are more "top" universities in England than in Scotland to choose from. My friend and colleague Drennan Watson, in the spirit of resistance, wrote the following letter to the Scotsman paper in response to this issue:

Research no guide to educational standards
Published on Sunday 21 October 2012 19:17

Christine Jardine rightly focuses on the question for her daughter of “which university will provide the best springboard for her future” (Perspective, 17 October). But, mistakenly, she then focuses on the Times Higher Educational World Reputation Rankings as a guide.

This claims to assess universities on teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook by drawing on the assessments by “senior, published academics”. Valid assessors of the quality of training of their graduates are their employers in government and industry and the graduates themselves. According to supporters of the Times’ system, the only graduates assessed are postgraduate students in the universities. Assessing educational performance on this small, non-random sector is statistically laughable.

 As Ms Jardine says: “Universities are judged across the world on their research record.” That is the problem. The idea that research output of a university is a measure of quality education and degree offered by it is bogus. Many a “distinguished” academic whose lectures appear baffling because he is brilliant is simply an incompetent communicator.

 Before gaining a university post in which research is a key activity, a candidate must gain a good, honours first degree then a PhD as a three-year training in research. The appointee is then unleashed to lecture and teach undergraduates with little or no training in education. The results are inevitable.

As an undergraduate, I ranked my lecturers competent if they could be heard beyond about the fourth row and then found intelligible by students when heard. One-third failed.

I taught in a range of universities and institutes of higher education in UK. The problem remains. Accounts from current students strongly indicate matters are worsening. Government, by scoring university performance basically on research output is making matters worse. I co-authored a paper in the prestigious journal Nature. That would merit points. I co-authored a 350-page, well-reviewed textbook for undergraduates, but that would merit none.

Ms Jardine is rightly concerned at the need to properly fund education in universities, particularly in the face of the rise in student numbers. Equally important is to introduce proper training in educational skills among those paid to teach our undergraduates. Government should insist on it as a condition of funding. Research and education are equally difficult and complex activities requiring, to a considerable extent, different skills and personal qualities – frequently not found in the same person, particularly in academics. What other profession would be permitted to exercise such a critically important, skilled, social function without proper training and proof of performance?

We do not trust the education of children in primary and secondary school years to untrained, unassessed staff. Why do we do it to them in vital years of adult education?

R Drennan Watson
Forbes Alford, Aberdeenshire

Vale Frank Fisher

Life certainly has its circularities.  Last week whilst cleaning out my office in the Menzies Building at Monash University (Clayton) I came across notes that I had made when Frank presented a talk at the University of Sydney on the 4th August 1988.  I noted that Frank came from the Graduate School of Environmental Sciences at Monash and that he had formerly been an Electrical Engineer.  My notes are an eclectic array of terms that have littered my own writing and scholarship over most of the intervening time.  Examples include: '3rd generation thinking'; 'epistemology'; 'reductionism'; 'utilitarianism'; 'understanding comes from interaction with others'; 'dialectic'; 'the edge of madness - feeling an indoor plant to see if it is real'.

As outlined in an earlier post Frank died from complications associated with an inoperable brain tumour on 21st August 2012.  Since his death there has been a very moving public memorial service - more a celebration than a mourning - in a packed BMW Edge at Federation Square in Melbourne. Also a launch of the ebook 'Everyday Transcendence: The Influence of Frank Fisher' that was put together and completed (if not published) just before Frank's death.  The book can be downloaded from Frank's legacy website, 'the Understandascope' and there are also video segments from the memorial service and the book launch.  Please explore them and appreciate why Frank was loved by so many and why so many were transformed through knowing Frank.

Frank's obituary appeared in The Age on Monday September 24th, 2012.