Systemic development at Hawkesbury: some personal lessons from experience

One of the most significant and enduring ideas associated with the systems initiatives at Hawkesbury has been the inter-connections that were made there between systemic acts of development in the ‘concrete world’ and the abstract ‘epistemic developments’ of the actors who participate in them. Each is seen to be constitutive of the other in a profoundly systemic manner, with ‘concrete events’ being both influenced by and an influence on ‘abstract ideas’. The embrace of critical experiential strategies, which themselves are regarded as essentially systemic and reflexive in nature, has been a central feature of the pedagogies, research processes, and engagement strategies that have been designed to better facilitate this inter-connection. As calls for more sustainable and equitable forms of development gather momentum across the globe, and the citizenry become increasingly engaged with issues that are seen to pose significant systemic global risks, the need for collective, communicative experiential strategies as systemic discourse, becomes evident. * Address for correspondence: Richard Bawden 331 Natural Resources Building, Michigan State University, East Lansing Michigan 48824 USA.