Understanding Phenomenological Reflective Practice in the Social and Ecological Fields: Three Rivers Flowing

Description

This book introduces social practitioners - community development workers, social workers, organisational change facilitators, social, ecological, cultural and political activists - to a phenomenological tradition of reflective practice. Critiquing reductionist, linear and ossified thinking in the social and ecological fields, the book offers an exciting new alternative that is honouring of the uncertainty of all living and therefore emergent social processes. Linking phenomenology and Goethe’s ‘delicate empiricism’, the book challenges practitioners to observe and work with living processes. As such, the book charts two stories, two inquiries. One personal and the other social. The first is the personal phenomenological inquiry into the author’s own practice, a search to make sense of the nuanced and subtle practice that he brings to the social world. The second journey is the inquiry into how this social practice, shaped as it is by a confluence of three rivers – dialogue and community, soul and depth psychology, Goethe and ‘delicate activism’, along with other thinkers on ‘observation’ and ‘aliveness’ – can be understood in the context of a wider phenomenological reflective practice. This second journey draws on years of experience and research in Brazil, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and parts of Europe. Presenting a philosophical, personal and practical analysis, it offers a new approach to observation and action, while working with aliveness and complexity within the social and ecological fields. It will be of interest to all scholars and students of social work and community development and particularly courses on social complexity. Cover Half Title Title Copyright Contents List of abbreviations Acknowledgements Part I Rivers, signposts and borders Essay 1 Three rivers flowing Interlude 1 The re-search journey Essay 2 Contours of the practice Essay 3 Borderlands of the practice Part II The elementals of the practice Essay 4 Elemental One – observation and developing a faculty of seeing Essay 5 Elemental Two – working with aliveness Interlude 2 Andreas Weber and a philosophy of enlivenment Essay 6 Elemental Three – working with the phenomenon – ‘From the “inside-out”’ Interlude 3 Hillman, Watkins, ‘Ensouling the social’ and Notitia Essay 7 Elemental Four – expanding consciousness Part III Two stories of practice Story 1 A story and portrayal of practice in the social field – Hummingbird House Interlude 4 François Jullien, climate change and COVID-19 Story 2 A story and portrayal of practice in the ecological field – the bioregion of Maleny Part IV Discussions, promises and a postscript Essay 8 Is the practice effective? Essay 9 The practice and ethics Essay 10 A question about (critical) theory Essay 11 Promissory reflections Postscript: Many rivers flowing Index