Community Ethnography
Capturing Narratives.
Understanding Diversity.
Recognising Possibiltiies.
Storytelling as Evidence
Sensemaking approaches and distributed ethnography offer powerful tools for engaging urban, semi-urban, and rural communities in striving for sustainable futures through an ethnoecological lens. By focusing on how people interpret and respond to their environments, sensemaking encourages deeper understanding of local ecosystems, cultures, and everyday practices. It allows communities to draw on their own knowledge systems, fostering localized solutions that are responsive to place-based challenges. Distributed ethnography, with its emphasis on gathering insights from a range of stakeholders, supports this by capturing diverse perspectives across geographical and social boundaries. This is particularly valuable in bridging urban-rural divides, where different relationships to land and nature shape varying approaches to sustainability.
Through an ethnoecological framework, sensemaking and distributed ethnography highlight the interconnectedness of human and non-human communities. These methods help surface tacit ecological knowledge, allowing for a more nuanced understanding of how urban and rural inhabitants perceive and interact with their local environments. This promotes collective sensemaking that respects local biodiversity and cultural heritage, while addressing contemporary sustainability challenges. By creating feedback loops between these communities, it becomes possible to co-create practices that are both culturally relevant and ecologically sound, leading to more resilient and adaptive futures rooted in the dynamic relationships between people and place.
Mapping Stories, Charting Futures
With the tools that we use we are able to capture 1000’s of perspectives and explore them at a variety of levels.
Policy
Practice
Population
Personal
"Once we have collected the stories from people with the SenseMaker, who makes sense of all these narratives? Is it just the same old boys' network? Where is this taking us?"
It's an important question, perhaps one of the most serious ones, since it points to flaws in our habitual approach to meaning-making, knowledge and power on so many different levels.
Yesterday, we had the privilege of having Dave Snowden on a call, where he delivered a noteworthy and layered response to this question:
"The whole point of SenseMaker is that the people who tell the stories are the ones who interpret them. It's not interpreted by an expert, consultant or scientist, and it's not interpreted by a computer algorithm. The person who tells the story interprets what it means. This means their voice is heard - but heard at scale. This is qualitative and quantitative.
What we keep telling people is: don’t focus on the individual stories. Look at the statistics. The stories are an explanation of the statistical patterns. When people interpret their own story, they’re not just interpreting the story itself. The story acts as a stimulus, and the interpretation adds layers of meaning. This creates a "grammar of meaning."
At the abstraction level of the triads, this becomes a shared language between decision-makers and their subjects. It allows for a different type of conversation - not an explicit one, but an implicit one.
If you think about it, this is how we all manage families. We understand our families not by subjecting them to focus groups or questionnaires, but by listening to their day-to-day stories. That’s what SenseMaker does: it listens to the day-to-day stories and gives people the right to interpret their own material. This is called epistemic justice.
That phrase is vital. Allowing someone else to interpret a person's story deprives them of meaning. To quote Alasdair MacIntyre, it makes them “anxious stutterers in the story of their own existence.” That’s what imperial powers have always done—they’ve taken people’s stories and dictated what they mean".
Examples of sensemaking use.
Education and Awareness Programs:
Education and awareness programs are pivotal in fostering sustainable practices within communities. By tailoring information to local cultures, languages, and norms, these initiatives make concepts like climate change, biodiversity, and conservation accessible and relevant.
Using culturally resonant examples and storytelling, such programs empower individuals to make informed choices for a sustainable future. They raise awareness and cultivate a sense of ownership and responsibility, inspiring community members to become active stewards of their environment.
Community Engagement and Governance:
Effective sustainability initiatives require the active involvement of local communities through inclusive engagement and participatory governance. By respecting traditional decision-making processes and involving community members from project inception, these efforts gain valuable insights into local needs and values.
Empowering communities to shape their sustainable future fosters a sense of ownership and commitment. Whether through grassroots projects, dialogue forums, or collaborative planning, community engagement strengthens the social fabric while ensuring that sustainability measures are contextually relevant and embraced by those directly affected.
Policy Making
Sustainability policymaking is a multifaceted process that requires a holistic approach, considering environmental, social, and economic factors. Effective policies are built on the foundation of scientific research, stakeholder collaboration, and a long-term vision for the well-being of both current and future generations.
They must be flexible, adaptive, and context-specific, acknowledging different communities' diverse needs and challenges. Transparency, accountability, and inclusivity are essential principles, ensuring that policies reflect the voices of all affected parties. Integration across sectors, from energy and transportation to agriculture and urban planning, is vital in creating comprehensive strategies that promote resilience and balance. Ultimately, successful sustainability policymaking strives for a harmonious coexistence between human activities and the natural world, seeking to leave a positive legacy for future generations.
Cultural Landscapes and Significant Sites:
Cultural landscapes and significant sites are more than geographical locations; they are repositories of history, spirituality, and community identity. Preserving these areas isn't solely about ecological conservation but also about safeguarding cultural heritage.
Sustainable development efforts must prioritize protecting these sites, recognising the deep connections between people and place. Whether through creating protected areas, promoting eco-cultural tourism, or involving local custodians in management plans, these initiatives ensure that the richness of cultural identity remains intertwined with the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystems.
Local Ecological Knowledge:
Local ecological knowledge (LEK) embodies centuries of wisdom passed down through generations within communities. This intimate understanding of ecosystems, biodiversity, and natural cycles forms the foundation of sustainable practices. LEK offers insights into traditional farming methods, medicinal plants, and conservation techniques that have sustained communities for centuries.
Integrating LEK into modern sustainability efforts enhances the effectiveness of conservation strategies and preserves cultural heritage. By respecting and valuing this knowledge, we learn from the past and forge a more harmonious relationship between people and the environment for generations to come.
Unlocking the Power of Sensemaking
In a world of increasing complexity, it can be difficult to make sense of the vast amounts of information we encounter every day. Sensemaking is the process by which we interpret and give meaning to our experiences, enabling us to navigate uncertainty and ambiguity. It’s not just about collecting facts, but about understanding how those facts connect, interact, and influence one another.
Sensemaking plays a crucial role in helping individuals and organizations understand dynamic environments and respond to the challenges they face. Unlike approaches that rely on fixed models or predefined frameworks, sensemaking recognizes that the world is constantly changing and that new insights often emerge from the patterns we discover along the way. This flexible, adaptive process enables people to create clarity from complexity by drawing on diverse perspectives and experiences.
Why Sensemaking Matters
At its core, sensemaking is about finding relevance in information. In complex scenarios, there is no one-size-fits-all answer. Rather, solutions are often found in the relationships between people, events, and ideas. Sensemaking helps uncover these connections and brings to light previously unseen patterns that can inform better decision-making.
Here’s why it matters:
Handling Ambiguity: Sensemaking thrives in situations where information is incomplete, evolving, or even contradictory. It encourages exploration and iterative learning, allowing for a richer understanding of challenges.
Inclusive Understanding: By collecting and considering multiple perspectives, sensemaking ensures that the voices and experiences of many are heard. This leads to insights that are grounded in real-world contexts and experiences.
Dynamic Response: Rather than following static plans, sensemaking supports flexible and adaptive responses. As new information comes in, strategies can evolve, ensuring that responses remain relevant and effective.
Contextual Clarity: Sensemaking doesn’t just rely on raw data—it connects the dots by putting information in context. This creates more meaningful insights, making it easier to understand not just what is happening, but why it is happening.
How Sensemaking Works
Sensemaking is not a linear process. It often involves gathering diverse inputs, experimenting with interpretations, and revising conclusions as more data becomes available. The goal is to move beyond surface-level observations and uncover deeper connections that inform better understanding.
Here’s how it typically unfolds:
Gathering Perspectives: Sensemaking begins by gathering information from a wide range of sources. Whether through conversations, observations, or experiences, a diverse set of viewpoints is key to capturing a fuller picture of a situation.
Identifying Patterns: As data is collected, sensemaking looks for emerging patterns. This can include noticing relationships between ideas, identifying shared themes, or recognizing tensions and contradictions.
Creating Meaning: Once patterns have been identified, the next step is to interpret them. What are they telling us? Why do these patterns exist? What insights do they reveal about the situation at hand? This is where connections are made and clarity starts to form.
Adapting and Acting: Sensemaking isn’t about finding a final answer—it’s about ongoing adaptation. As new information comes to light, interpretations can change, and actions can be adjusted accordingly. This ensures that strategies remain responsive to the complexities of the real world.
Benefits of a Sensemaking Approach
Using sensemaking to navigate complexity offers a number of benefits:
Deeper Insight: By looking beyond superficial data points, sensemaking uncovers the relationships and contextual factors that drive decisions and behaviors. This results in more informed and relevant insights.
Inclusive Solutions: Sensemaking brings in diverse voices and perspectives, leading to solutions that resonate across different contexts. This inclusivity ensures that responses are not only practical but also culturally appropriate.
Responsiveness to Change: Since sensemaking is dynamic, it equips organizations and individuals to remain agile. Instead of being locked into rigid plans, sensemaking encourages continual reassessment and adaptation.
More Meaningful Engagement: Sensemaking fosters a deeper level of engagement with challenges. By involving multiple viewpoints, people feel heard and invested in the process, leading to more meaningful outcomes.
The Future of Sensemaking
As the world grows more complex, the ability to make sense of dynamic environments becomes increasingly important. Whether in research, organizational strategy, or community development, sensemaking provides the tools to navigate uncertainty with clarity and confidence. By embracing this approach, individuals and teams can better understand their challenges and create responses that are not only informed but also adaptable to the shifting landscape around them.
Sensemaking is about recognizing that answers emerge from the process, not from predefined frameworks. In this way, it opens up new possibilities for exploration, creativity, and collaboration—empowering us to address today’s challenges with agility and depth.
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