Greetings!
This is my personal website.
Here I will primarily describe my current and continuing life and work foci.
Me
My work
Eventually I will put here links to all my written publications that are freely available online.
This is the correct link for my most-accessed paper available online:
What is Participatory Action Research? Action Research International Journal, Paper 2: 1998
And here is a bibliography list of some of my best-known published work
Here also is the website for my magnum opus book: Building in Research and Evaluation: Human Inquiry for Living Systems – the 3rd book in my methodology trilogy which describes a conceptul framework for 'full cycle' inductive-abductive-deductive-retroductive evaluative research or science per se.
It follows the 1st book Do It Yourself Social Research which demystifies how to carry out 'full cycle’ social science – and the 2nd book Everyday Evaluation On The Run which demystifies how to carry out ‘full cycle evaluation’ – both Australian popular best-selling books for more than twenty years.
These are the two journal articles that summarise the radically new, transdisciplinary, practice-based theory underpinning this 3rd book:
– Systemic human relations in dynamic equilibrium, Systemic Practice and Action Research (2008),
Vol.21 No.1 pp.15-34
– ‘Is it safe to talk about systems again yet?' – Self organ-ising processes for complex living systems and the dynamics of human inquiry, Systemic Practice and Action Research (2008),
Vol.21 No.2 pp.153-170:2008
This 3rd book both demystifies systems thinking, and also, in what has been called an 'innovative' and 'highly original' theory, unifies conceptually, to match observed practice-based life:
– the cyclic dynamic process and formative properties of a living systems eco-biology | Chapter 2
– with a cyclic meta-epistemology of how we inquire to make change and stabilise new forms/ways | Ch 3
– embodying a psychology of people's individual inquiry capabilities & preferences | Ch 4 | Appendix 3
– and incorporating a sociology of socially-inquiring groups, communities, organisations, cultures, institutions, nation states and globally | Chapters 4 and 5
You will also find an international journal Book review, as well as readers' unsolicited feedback, a full Table of Contents that shows the logic of what I am saying, Links to others doing parallel and comparable work, and an Annotated bibliography of systems/inquiry concepts.
Here are the links to Allen & Unwin, the Australia-NZ-Asia-Pacific publisher, for all three books:
Do It Yourself Social Research (3e 2011)
Everyday Evaluation on the Run (3e 2011)
Building in Research and Evaluation: Human inquiry for living systems (1e 2010)
Here are the links to Routledge, the Europe-UK-Middle East-USA publisher, for all three books:
Do It Yourself Social Research (2011)
Everyday Evaluation on the Run (2011)
Building in Research and Evaluation: Human Inquiry for Living Systems (2011)
My other life
Climate emergency – Action to reduce excessive global warming and restore nature | Norway – Finland – Mongolia | Community – Neighbourhood | Other ways of finding life in the everyday
My networks
Here you will find (when it is fully restored) the website of the Action Research Issues Association and its Action Research Centre – a not-for-profit community association that has been a longstanding local home for action research in Australia, and for thirty years a community of practice for around thirty 'epistemological fellow travelling companions' in Melbourne and Victoria, and a provider of resources to assist others' co-inquiry processes worldwide.
Here is a list including some links to organisations and people with whom I work or am otherwise involved or connected.
And to Maria Fernanda Villagrán Barillas who has created an animated compilation of my work in Guatemala, hello from me. What a lovely thing to have done, thank you.
Availability & Contact
For living systems meta-epistemology consulting or small-scale facilitated roundtable conversations about this thinking, including in Scandinavia – please contact me either through my University email address (see above website) or at living[dot]systems[dot]research[at]gmail[dot]com
The peace doves image
The blue sky peace doves image is from a hand-potted vase bequeathed to me by the Estate of the late Cate Kyne (along with a tall wooden rabbit and a teapot shaped like a house, but more of these at a later point in time!) I have not yet been able to identify the potter-artist of the vase in order to properly acknowledge, but in the meantime I thank them for this inspirational piece and hope they or another may recognise the work and make contact.
Caty was a close friend and fellow social change/community development and climate emergency thinker-activist who was also a long-time member of the Action Research Issues Association. We have created a website on which we have published her work and links to that of others: CateKyne.net.au
The image on the vase represents a lot about both my life's work and Caty's to assist and resource people achieve mutual understanding and dynamic peace for their and our lives of greater mutual well-being. The image is also about the hope of glimpsing the promise of new 'green growth' which grows out of turbulent 'muddy waters, let stand, become clear'*.
* derived from Lao Tzu Tao Te Ching | Book of the Way Ch. 15