Recap

Emotions

• Difficult• Complex• Challenging• Ambivalent• Anxious• Confused

What we have marked

• Your ability to– Listen– Observe– Read– Think– Collate– Discern– Write– Substantiate

• NOT– What you think, but that

you think, hard– What you say, but how

you say it, clearly– What you conclude, but

how you defend your own conclusions

Observations

• Strong introduction• Golden thread/garden

path• Reading the references• Interacting with the

literature• Evidencing your

evidence

Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about

them.”

Laurence J. Peter, an educationalist

This module is a ‘wicked’ module

• Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber, in a 1973 article for Policy Sciences , used “wicked” to describe the malignant, vicious, tricky and aggressive problems of planning (or intervening in social issues)

• Solving the assignment problem is a wicked problem

– The information available is non-linear– No clear objectives are available- we have to create our own– Information available is huge, but not exhaustive– There is no overview, we have to ‘fly that kite’ ourselves

Social problems are wicked problems

• There is no definitive statement of a wicked (social) problem.

• Each (social problem) is an evolving set of interlocking issues and constraints.

• In most cases these issues and constraints are people-centric.

• This makes wicked (social) problem solving a fundamentally social process.

The next assignment is to find a solution [interventions] to a [wicked] social problem for your MI client, and all the

other MI clients create by the class

Solutions to [wicked] issues

1. Solutions are not true/false, but good/bad.2. Every problem is the symptom of another

problem.3. Every solution is a one-shot deal.4. The answer cannot be wrong.

How do we make problem solving ‘social’?

• Rich pictures1. As a process of investigation2. As a process for collaboration 3. As a process of idea creation4. As a form of communication

Linking Boundaries• Cohen’s work is about Symbolic (social) Construction of

Community• He writes a lot about boundaries• Later in term we will look at Urban Morphology• i.e. How cultural boundaries get ‘written’ on urban landscapes and

design• Communities have boundaries- physical, and cultural• We draw boundaries on rich pictures• The module has boundaries• We have boundaries• Cohen’s work is about ‘transgressing’ the boundaries• This balancing between boundaries is called ‘liminality’

inhabit liminal places

to be a critical community development worker is to

To be:Neither a public, nor wholly private, person, if being authenticTo neither work in official, or unofficial, places, if being criticalTo move communities from space to place, to journeyTo keep things wicked, never to collapse the tension/paradoxes

http://www.liminality.org/about/whatisliminality/