“How do we think our way through the messes we're in when the way we think is part of the mess?"
WICI Workshop: People Need People - A Warm Data Approach
We often approach decision-making from our own context, be it from long and cherished cultural, political or educational narratives, and from problem-solving strategies where we reduced the problems are reduced to, for instance, educational, political or environmental domains. However, most of the crises we face today, from climate change to social justice and equity to poverty, are complex or “wicked problems” which cross boundaries and are thus transcontextual.
A Warm Data Lab is an invitation to begin a practice of tending to relationships through communing as a place to learn improvisation and adaption vital in times of crises. Grounded in over a century of deep theoretical roots and a lineage of systems thinking, The Bateson Institute’s Warm Data Labs experiential approach of mutual learning and relationship building is grounded in complexity science.
In this workshop participants will take part in the online version of the Warm Data Lab approach. We start with a story, and through context-spanning conversation we explore together what emerges, keeping in mind Nora's question "Who can I be when I am with you?" as we explore how people need people.
Following the workshop will be a short presentation about the method from WICI Student Member Jim Jones and other “WDL Ontario Pod” members, who will share how the approach is influencing their practices. Discussion will wrap up around applications of Warm Data to the University of Waterloo and to the wider community.
Jim Jones is a PhD Candidate in Social and Ecological Sustainability and a Student Member of WICI. He researches the role of narratives in transitions towards sustainability through a social-ecological systems lens and as a tool to understand and work with complexity and 'wicked problems'; and the tensions that arise at different spatial and temporal scales in the nexus of land, energy, technology, food and culture. With nearly 20 years of experience in the UK ecology and conservation sector, Jim also couples his research interest with a practice as a narrative ecologist, using participatory narrative inquiry (PNI) supporting communities and organisations in sensemaking, vision development and action planning.