Metalogues and their role in communities of practice

By Janet J. McIntyre-Mills

What is a metalogue? How can metalogues support the work of communities of practice?

A metalogue is a series of asynchronous, iterative conversations, and commentary on transcripts from dialogues, to enable exploring diverse ways of knowing in a community of practice (Wenger et al., 2009).

The term ‘metalogue’ draws on the work of Gregory Bateson (1972) and Nora Bateson (2021) to encourage people to think ecologically and to avoid what Shiva (2012) calls ‘monocultures of the mind’ when addressing areas of concern. In other words to think about relationships within context and to foster ‘an ecology of mind’ with members of a community of practice. The aim is to address an area of shared concern by pooling ideas in a reciprocal manner in order to achieve an agreed goal with people from similar or diverse backgrounds spanning spaces and places.

How can metalogues support the work of communities of practice?

The organic process could help your community of practice in the following ways:

• Providing breathing space between the stimulus of engagement and the process of coming up with ideas and agreed upon outputs or outcomes. Iterative metalogues provide a chance to reflect on, re-visit and deepen participants’ own ideas and shared understandings. Each participant is encouraged to express themselves with the wisdom of hindsight, perhaps inspired by the insights gleaned during the process of engagement with one another.
• Inspiring design and intervention through creativity and confidence by becoming aware of the relevance of ideas and then helping their elaboration and dissemination.
• Addressing overlaps, gaps and paradoxes by combining and reflecting on different kinds of engagement and re-visiting summaries and transcripts. Metalogues thus provide a chance to deepen ideas and to develop shared understandings as well as respecting space for differences. Metalogues can occur at any stage of systemic engagement to address simple and complex concerns. Metalogues enable the participants to add to contextual ideas garnered, for example, through Zoom conversations or WhatsApp brainstorming.
• Preventing exclusion or feeling that a meeting has not enabled everyone to express their ideas at the time, because the idea had not quite formed, or because the conversation had moved on, or because of language barriers or other concerns. Metalogues can help to avoid (or remedy) misunderstanding, leaving ideas out, speaking for or over others.
• Empowering participants to learn respectfully together through co-learning. Systemic exploration could help to facilitate postcolonial and non-anthropocentric praxis.
• Enhancing outcomes and outputs in a range of ways, such as:
  • facilitating creativity and inspiring confidence by working with researchers at different stages of their careers to bring ideas into fruition.
  • re-imagining ways to address issues through scenarios and then supporting interventions using Zoom engagement to support participatory action research, followed by then commenting on what works, why and how.
  • analysing small scale interventions by hub leaders within the community of practice to find patterns across case studies. Such patterns can then inform ways to scale up the praxis with the help of the community of practice members. An example is exploring ways to address food, water, energy insecurity and poverty in rapidly deteriorating habitats.
  • co-writing reports, joint articles and scholarly books with members of the community of practice.

Key steps for setting up metalogues within a community of practice

In setting up metalogues within a community of practice, attention needs to be paid to the following three steps:

1. Exploring ontological perspectives and how you will work together in a community of practice around an area of shared concern or ‘triggering question’ (Flanagan and Christakis, 2010).
2. Ensuring that the group agrees that trust is rooted in reciprocity. For example, all the participants need to be acknowledged in the co-creation of a shared document or article. Metalogues can empower and de-colonize in this way.
3. Meeting regularly and ensuring face to face and online meetings are collegial so that people look forward to meeting.

Concluding questions

Do you use metalogues in your own practice? Do you have example to share? If metalogues are new to you, how do you think you might use them?

To find out more:

McIntyre-Mills, J. (2018). Recognizing our hybridity and interconnectedness: Implications for social and environmental justice. Current Sociology, 66, 6: 886-910. (Online) (DOI): https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392117715898

McIntyre-Mills, J. J. (2021). Communication and culture: A multispecies endeavour within a shared habitat. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 38, 5: 671–684. (Online) (DOI): https://doi.org/10.1002/sres.2810

The following provide examples from a community of practice I am involved in:

• McIntyre-Mills, J. J., Makaulule, M., Lethole, P., Pitsoane, E., Arko-Achemfuor, A., Wirawan, R. and Widianingsih, I. (2023). Ecocentric living: A way forward towards zero carbon. A conversation about Indigenous law and leadership based on custodianship and praxis. Systemic Practice and Action Research, 36: 275–319. (Online – open access) (DOI): https://doi.org/10.1007/s11213-022-09604-0
• Widianingsih, I., McIntyre-Mills, J. J., Sumadinata, W. S., Rakasiwi, U. S., Iskandar, G. H. and Wirawan, R. ( 2023). Indigenous Sundanese leadership: Eco-systemic lessons on zero emissions. A conversation with Indigenous leaders in Ciptagelar, West Java. Systemic Practice and Action Research, 36, 2: 321-353. (Online – open access) (DOI): https://doi.org/10.1007/s11213-022-09606-y
• Wirawan, R., McIntyre-Mills, J. J., Makaulule, M., Lethole, P. V., Pitsoane, E., Arko-Achemfuor, A. and Romm, N. R. A. (2023). Together we can grow: Resourcing the commons through pathways to wellbeing. Systemic Practice and Action Research, 36: 641–690. (Online – open access) (DOI): https://doi.org/10.1007/s11213-022-09613-z

References:

Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Ballantine: New York, United States of America.

Bateson, N. (2017). Warm data. ‘norabateson’ website. (Online): https://norabateson.wordpress.com/2017/05/28/warm-data/

Flanagan, T. and Christakis, A. (2010). The talking point: Creating an environment for exploring complex meaning. Information Age Publishing: Charlotte, North Carolina, United States of America.

Shiva, V. (2012). Monocultures of the mind. Zed Books (London, United Kingdom) and Third World Network (Penang, Malaysia).

Wenger, E., White, N. and Smith, J. (2009). Digital habitats: Stewarding technology for communities. CP Square: Portland, Oregon, United States of America.

Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) Statement: Generative artificial intelligence was not used in the development of this i2Insights contribution. (For i2Insights policy on generative artificial intelligence please see https://i2insights.org/contributing-to-i2insights/guidelines-for-authors/#artificial-intelligence).

Biography: Janet J. McIntyre-Mills DLitt et Phil is Professor Extraordinarius in the College of Education at the University of South Africa in Pretoria; Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Adelaide Business School in South Australia; and Adjunct Professor at Universitas Padjadjaran, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Bandung, Indonesia. Her research focuses on systemic representation, accountability, and re-generation applied to social and environmental justice concerns.