Capacity building in complex environments: seeking meaningful methodology for social change

This dissertation explores ways in which “capacity-building” might contribute to processes of social change in complex environments. This exploration emerged as part of a personal journey as a capacity-building practitioner to help make sense out of my prior work experience. In my experience, I learned first-hand how many of the “capacity” challenges that my colleagues and I were trying to address in different organizations were complex, “messy” and uncertain. At the same time, many of the capacity-building tools and methodological processes I commonly used assumed a world that was predictable, neat and controllable. These assumptions led to many occasions in which capacity-building processes and methods did not make sense in specific situations, or did not generate expected significant changes. I saw my PhD as a way of addressing many unanswered questions and developing capacity-building methodology that would be relevant to the complex realities in which I worked. At the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), I became much more aware not only of the complexity of my prior capacity-building work in development, but also of its apolitical nature. I was well aware of the contested nature of social change, both from my prior studies and my previous life and work experiences. However, after nine years working as a capacity-building process designer and facilitator for a large American Non-governmental Organization (NGO), I had come to use methodology without considering whether it might even be compatible with concepts of social change. I mostly assumed methodology to be neutral and apolitical, but did not see this as a problem. In my PhD process, I was fortunate to see first-hand how methodology that practitioners assume to be apolitical actually lacks a theory capable of explaining change, and thereby may reproduce the status quo. This is a strong political position indeed. My research starts from the assumption that the way people and organizations change in relation to economic, social and environmental concerns is complex and contested. Complex, in that multiple actors and factors—many of them unknowable—combine to affect how social change actually emerges in real life. Contested, in that power relations enable and constrain the fields of possibility for positive change for all people, and thereby generate winners and losers in the process. Indeed, the contested nature of social change is one of its primary sources of complexity. Methodologically, I conducted two action-research processes over 18 months; one with a progressive organization that supports social movements in Perú, and the other with a private environmental conservation organization in Ecuador. I used an emergent, learning-based action-research (AR) approach strongly influenced by systemic theories, with a particular focus on Peter Checkland’s Soft Systems Thinking (SST). Different methodological principles emerged in each organizational AR process, providing important insights into how capacity-building can support social (and socio-environmental) change processes in complex environments. Whereas SST and AR prominently informed my methodology, Ralph Stacey, Patricia Shaw, and Douglas Griffin’s “Complex Responsive Processes” (CRP) was the main theory I used to connect methodological capacity-building intervention to complexity theory. CRP is a theory that explains how complex adaptive systems (CAS) emergently self-organize from local, communicative interaction. Drawing on these different sources and based on my empirical data, my dissertation explores the following themes: – How organizational learning and change occur through the shifting interacting dynamics of conversations and other forms of communicative interaction, and how organizational capacity emerges in these shifting dynamics. – How capacity-building methodology can help surface—via communicative interaction—the complexity of social change that organizations face. Particularly: o How methodology that engages multiple ways of knowing is helpful in accessing doorways to diverse thought, feelings, and identity, and how this diversity plays a key role in influencing the patterns of communicative interaction that emerge. o How the intentional contrasting of multiple, diverse perspectives, and worldviews (i.e.—SST focus) charges conversations with meaning and is capable of shifting patterns and generating learning in communicative interaction. o How two ostensibly oppositional forms of methodology—methodological redundancy and unstructured reflection—enable and constrain how patterns of communicative interaction emerge and support learning, when diversity is also present. – How all communicative interaction enacts power relationships that generate dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, and how these dynamics affect the patterns of communicative interaction—i.e. learning and change—that emerge. These methodological findings lead to some interesting implications for how CB is conceived and practiced. If capacity as learning emerges in complex environments via shifts communicative interaction, then a core purpose of CB becomes strengthening the ability of organizational participants—“within” an organization and in relation to key “system” stakeholders—to actively relate and interact with each other in organic (i.e. uncontrived) ways. This active relating is situational and as such implies looking for opportunities to “add” systemic methodological support to real-life situations and experiences. My research has contributed new knowledge by helping explain how systemic capacity-building methodology can support processes of social change in complex environments. Systems thinking is often used anecdotally in capacity-building, without making explicit connections between theory and practice. Complexity theory, when referenced at all in capacity-building literature, is limited to claims about the need to act differently in a complex world. My research has made the following important contributions: 1) Provides empirical cases that connect systemic capacity-building methodology to Complex Responsive Processes theory in a plausible manner, and thus, make these connections more explicit. 2) Develops plausible connections between concepts of extended epistemologies (as a source of diversity) and complexity theory 3) Demonstrates the relative importance of critical reflection alongside the use of more-structured methods to generate organizational capacity 4) Offers—as a conversation starter—an alternative interactive communication understanding of capacity development, which asks critical questions of much dominant CD theory and practice. I believe that the findings and learning from this research can help generate critical, non-linear approaches to capacity-building methodology that serve the needs of complex, contested social change in a more meaningful manner

Aspects of the pseudo Chiral Magnetic Effect in 2D Weyl-Dirac Matter

A connection is established between the continuum limit of the low-energy tight-binding description of graphene immersed in an in-plane magnetic field and the Chiral Magnetic Effect in Quantum Chromodynamics. A combination of mass gaps that explicitly breaks the equivalence of the Dirac cones, favoring an imbalance of pseudo-chiralities, is the essential ingredient to generate a non-dissipative electric current along the external field. Currents, number densities and condensates generated from this setup are investigated for different hierarchies of the energy scales involved.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures. Several text improvements. Accepted for publication in European Physical Journal

La juventud como barómetro de la cultura : hacia la consolidación de la identidad

Fil: Ortiz Frágola, Alfredo. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina; ArgentinaLa juventud se vive en la interacción de las tendencias al desarrollo\ndel sujeto, el variado universo de las variables socioeconómicas, y las presiones y modelos que emergen de la cultura y de los subgrupos inmediatos al sujeto. Así es como se convierte en un indicador implacable de los logros y fracasos de la sociedad,\nmodelada por la naturaleza de la adultez de esa cultura, sobre la que ejerce a su vez una influencia recíproca. Mientras los jóvenes de hoy atraviesan esta etapa que lleva a la consolidación\ndefinitiva de la identidad, su mundo cambia. Si hay progreso, hay cambio cultural, y son los jóvenes quienes señalan con\nnitidez ese cambio inexorable

Crisis en la familia : la rebelión de los adultos

Fil: Ortiz Frágola, Alfredo. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Hospital de Clínicas José de San Martín. Departamento de Salud Mental; Argentina.En estos comienzos del siglo XXI, hay un evidente grado de desorientación y, por tanto, inseguridad,\nque afecta tanto a los jóvenes como a los adultos. Los jóvenes hacen sentir su presencia en la familia\ny, más allá, han alcanzado a tener una pregnancia tal en nuestra sociedad que se han llegado a\ninvertir los roles y conflictos tradicionales. En buena medida, también ahora son los adultos quienes\ntoman a los jóvenes como modelos de identificación. Se visten como ellos, los imitan y hasta pueden\nrecurrir a una discreta cirugía plástica para parecérseles. Por momentos, como esta dependencia de\nlos nuevos valores les produce fastidio, también se "rebelan" contra ellos y los combaten

Sea Level Rise and Its Impact on Bangladesh

Global temperatures are expected to increase as a result of the so-called greenhouse effect, causing concern among scientists who fear that the sea level may rise as much as three meters by 2100. Using mid-range seal-level-rise scenarios of 1.5 and 2 meters potential socioeconomic impacts on coastal Bangladesh are discussed. The geography is described point out the spatial extent and magnitude of potential damages. Topographic and political-administrative maps are used for population distribution and economic analyses of the areas which would be affected in the sea level rise scenarios. A valuation technique is used to project the gradual GDP loss of the regions most affected from the years 2000-2100. Based on these analyses, implications for Bangladesh policies are discussed and recommendations made that intend to compromise immediate and long-term solutions. Taking consideration the socioeconomic status of the country the implementation of a coastal zone management plan is recommended in order to preserve and protect its natural resources, but above all, to mitigate the hazards to life and property from eustatic rises in sea level and from storm surges. The results of this study indicate that, in order to avoid or mitigate the potential harm of sea level rise, the government, private organizations, and international agencies must initiate counter measures, beginning with strategic planning based on the assumption that the phenomenon will take place. Furthermore, steps to be adopted to reduce actual danger of ocean flooding will, at the same time be steps for sea level rise operation. Major population centers that are located in high-risk areas, 1.5 or 2 m above sea level, must gradually move landward

Shifting Identity from Within the Conversational Flow of Organisational Complexity

This article draws on an organisational strengthening process I carried out as part of my PhD research, which was intended to develop capacity?building methodology to help organisations grapple with their complex social change realities. Focused on conversations generated in two methodological moments in a particular workshop, I share how co?researcher Juan Carlos Giles and I used systemic methodological experimentation to generate critical organisational conversations in order to support an organisation's desire to strengthen its identity. I use Stacey, Griffin and Shaw's ‘complex responsive processes’ and Checkland's ‘soft systems thinking’ to explore relationships between the methodology and the conversations that emerged, and Reason's ‘choice and quality’ framework to explore implications for action research

Capacity Building in Indonesia: Lessons from Across 3 Cases

Seeking to answer the question "what capacity building (CB) interventions in Indonesia can produce the capacity required to drive sustainable marine resource management and conservation," a series of investigations into existing initiatives and partnerships resulted in a set of three main case studies (and two minor). These three main cases included assessing an asset-based CB approach, an approach to CB along a value-chain, and possibilities for engaging communities in partnerships with local Universities to drive CB in the community. This report synthesizes findings from each case study, describing findings and implications of each

Comprehensive analysis of the combustion of low carbon fuels (hydrogen, methane and coke oven gas) in a spark ignition engine through CFD modeling

The use of low carbon fuels (LCFs) in internal combustion engines is a promising alternative to reduce pollution while achieving high performance through the conversion of the high energy content of the fuels into mechanical energy. However, optimizing the engine design requires deep knowledge of the complex phenomena involved in combustion that depend on the operating conditions and the fuel employed. In this work, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation tools have been used to get insight into the performance of a Volkswagen Polo 1.4L port-fuel injection spark ignition engine that has been fueled with three different LCFs, coke oven gas (COG), a gaseous by-product of coke manufacture, H2 and CH4. The comparison is made in terms of power, pressure, temperature, heat release, flame growth speed, emissions and volumetric efficiency. Simulations in Ansys® Forte® were validated with experiments at the same operating conditions with optimal spark advance, wide open throttle, a wide range of engine speed (2000–5000 rpm) and air-fuel ratio (λ) between 1 and 2. A sensitivity analysis of spark timing has been added to assess its impact on combustion variables. COG, with intermediate flame growth speed, produced the greatest power values but with lower pressure and temperature values at λ = 1.5, reducing the emissions of NO and the wall heat transfer. The useful energy released with COG was up to 16.5% and 5.1% higher than CH4 and H2, respectively. At richer and leaner mixtures (λ = 1 and λ = 2), similar performances were obtained compared to CH4 and H2, combining advantages of both pure fuels and widening the λ operation range without abnormal combustion. Therefore, suitable management of the operating conditions maximizes the conversion of the waste stream fuel energy into useful energy while limiting emissions.This research was supported by the Project, “HYLANTIC”- EAPA_204/2016, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund within the framework of the Interreg Atlantic program and the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (Project: RTI2018-093310-B-I00). Rafael Ortiz-Imedio thanks the Concepción Arenal postgraduate research grant from the University of Cantabria. The authors acknowledge Santander Supercomputación support group at the University of Cantabria who provided access to the supercomputer Altamira Supercomputer at the Institute of Physics of Cantabria (IFCA-CSIC), member of the Spanish Supercomputing Network, for performing simulations. The authors also acknowledge the help provided for the model development by the Engineering Department from the Public University of Navarre in Pamplona