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Systemic Practice and Action Research - Call for Papers: Viability through emancipation - or the hidden agenda of viability

Systemic Practices and Action Research has a current open call for papers for: 

This special issue aims to re-explore the Viable System Model and complementary systemic approaches supporting emancipation and systemic changes in organisational and social systems. We seek to review how Beer’s original ideas, among other systems approaches, offer clear criteria and tools to facilitate emancipatory systemic changes. Emancipation implies a need to rethink the intended purpose of human organisation - to define new adaptive pathways towards a flourishing future for all. We invite authors to reflect on the barriers and obstacles to emancipation and to systemic change resulting from applying the Viable System Model – combined or not with other systems approaches. We welcome innovative research that explores:

  • The notions of emancipation, viability and their implications for facilitating systemic changes in organisations
  • The barriers to emancipation experienced in practical applications of systemic approaches and reflections on how to overcome them.
  • The notions of co-evolution and perpetual change and requisite experimentation.
  • The characteristics of systemic change, systemic innovation and ways of designing experiments to promote intentional transitions.
  • Examples of systems applications of a range of approaches aimed at facilitating self-governance, systemic changes and emancipation.
  • Experiences of seeds of change from systemic interventions , which over time produced new systems configurations.
  • Innovative ways to revisit Beer’s visionary theories and tools for the development of self-organised and self-governed systems.
  • Open research paths for further developing the viability theory to support emancipatory systemic change.

 The submission deadline for the special issue is November 15th 2024.Submissions will be subject to the usual length and style requirements of SPAA and will undergo all of the journal's standard peer review and editorial processes outlined in the submission guidelines. (this opens in a new tab) Questions related to the special issue may be directed to the editors listed below. 

 Guest Editors:

 Angela Espinosa, University of Exeter, A.Espinosa@exeter.ac.uk

Maya Vachkova, University of Exeter, M.V.Vachkova@exeter.ac.uk

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