literacies—understanding ecological embeddedness and differences in mind-sets.
These are essential for active involvement in transformational activities for sustainable development. So Fig. 5.2 integrates Schneidewind’s approach as ‘institutional literacy’ into an amended understanding of what transformative literacy for
sustainability involves.
The bottom half-circle (Planet) is the home of environmental literacy. It represents the fact that humans need to interact with their environment for survival and
well-being. No system innovation for sustainable development can ignore these
relations. A system innovator would be interested in understanding the actual
physical ties in the problem that she is tackling as well as the paradigm with which
nature’s reproductive capacities and role is captured by influential evidence or
people in the system she seeks to change.
The top half-circle (People) illustrates my conviction that system innovation
theory is well advised to recognize the role of humans as social beings when
wishing to capture agency behind the nouns that dominate the explanation of
change there, for example: “innovation cascades,” “knock-on effects,” “diffusion of
new technologies” and “(re)alignments between multiple elements and interactions
between multiple actors” (Geels et al. 2015: 2). It captures the fact that humans
make history and in doing so influence the future development of people and the
planet. Actors reason and struggle with each other over how to organize people–
people–planet relations, and create and apply technologies, infrastructures and
institutions intended for particular purposes.
The results are the self-stabilizing path dependencies that can afford continuity,
but can also lead to crises (Processes). Schneidewind’s institutional literacy
approach is a reminder that not only technological and economic dimensions are
important to consider, but also political and sociocultural ones.
Since there are always many possible ways to organize such processes, opening
up a system also entails a historical perspective that seeks to deconstruct which
goals and imaginary are wired into the processes in question (Purpose). Futures
literacy thus entails—as the first step—becoming sensitive to the existence of
different mind-sets and thus different rationalities. The second step is to understand
how each point of view leads to different interpretations of what is at stake, and how
a purpose might best be served—and the link with the overarching Paradigm.
This is why Fig. 5.2, in line with Meadow’s work on leverage points, lists
paradigms as both the sources and stabilizers of systems and peoples’ mind-sets,
but also as drivers of transformative engagement toward innovating them.
Transformative literacy can inform both types of analyses, those mapping a
given organization or society from a systemic point of view, and the
problem-driven approaches in which scholars define system boundaries according
to the challenge they seek to address. It is equivalent to hacking the system: hackers
take systems apart to understand their inner workings and see where they can
manipulate them to change their performance. For human systems, this means
going back in history and deconstructing which ideas, actors, technologies, economic or environmental factors and institutional as well as cultural aspects were
instrumental in their emergence and how they now interact in a mutually
158
5 How to Work a Great Mindshift for Sustainability Transformations
These are essential for active involvement in transformational activities for sustainable development. So Fig. 5.2 integrates Schneidewind’s approach as ‘institutional literacy’ into an amended understanding of what transformative literacy for
sustainability involves.
The bottom half-circle (Planet) is the home of environmental literacy. It represents the fact that humans need to interact with their environment for survival and
well-being. No system innovation for sustainable development can ignore these
relations. A system innovator would be interested in understanding the actual
physical ties in the problem that she is tackling as well as the paradigm with which
nature’s reproductive capacities and role is captured by influential evidence or
people in the system she seeks to change.
The top half-circle (People) illustrates my conviction that system innovation
theory is well advised to recognize the role of humans as social beings when
wishing to capture agency behind the nouns that dominate the explanation of
change there, for example: “innovation cascades,” “knock-on effects,” “diffusion of
new technologies” and “(re)alignments between multiple elements and interactions
between multiple actors” (Geels et al. 2015: 2). It captures the fact that humans
make history and in doing so influence the future development of people and the
planet. Actors reason and struggle with each other over how to organize people–
people–planet relations, and create and apply technologies, infrastructures and
institutions intended for particular purposes.
The results are the self-stabilizing path dependencies that can afford continuity,
but can also lead to crises (Processes). Schneidewind’s institutional literacy
approach is a reminder that not only technological and economic dimensions are
important to consider, but also political and sociocultural ones.
Since there are always many possible ways to organize such processes, opening
up a system also entails a historical perspective that seeks to deconstruct which
goals and imaginary are wired into the processes in question (Purpose). Futures
literacy thus entails—as the first step—becoming sensitive to the existence of
different mind-sets and thus different rationalities. The second step is to understand
how each point of view leads to different interpretations of what is at stake, and how
a purpose might best be served—and the link with the overarching Paradigm.
This is why Fig. 5.2, in line with Meadow’s work on leverage points, lists
paradigms as both the sources and stabilizers of systems and peoples’ mind-sets,
but also as drivers of transformative engagement toward innovating them.
Transformative literacy can inform both types of analyses, those mapping a
given organization or society from a systemic point of view, and the
problem-driven approaches in which scholars define system boundaries according
to the challenge they seek to address. It is equivalent to hacking the system: hackers
take systems apart to understand their inner workings and see where they can
manipulate them to change their performance. For human systems, this means
going back in history and deconstructing which ideas, actors, technologies, economic or environmental factors and institutional as well as cultural aspects were
instrumental in their emergence and how they now interact in a mutually
158
5 How to Work a Great Mindshift for Sustainability Transformations