At the moment I am entirely clear that it is essential to frame group process design and facilitation as a distinct field of study as fundamental as education in the liberal arts. That is why I coined the phrase "Process Arts" to represent the field. Also because I have no method and will not generate one called Process Arts so that rights related issues will not interfere with its adoption. I call what I do and teach other things: Associative Inquiry, Healing Friction, Martial Nonviolence, and Peace Practices. Ideas like "Process Arts" are powerful because they are "bigger than any one of our approaches." Let us not, as practitioners and innovators, become distracted in the usual ways by factionalism based on methodological preference.
This is a copy of an email conversation I had with Cheryl Honey of Community Weaving fame.
Let's write and work and think together well over time, instead of in sudden bursts over the phone when we are already too stressed. Let's practice what we preach. Send me what you write and I'll post it to the wiki developing the process arts as a field of participatory practices. Will you help to tel lthe story of participatory practices as a field of study that is as fundamental as education itself? This idea is dangerous because it is "bigger than any one of our work". I hereby commit to pause each time I reach the beginning of that path and ask myself how I can support each individual's gift instead of reverting to defensive posturing and hilltop flag planting. Community Weaving, exactly as you envision it and independent of any group movement, is a beautiful thing indeed. We need to swap trainings.
Appreciating you too,
B
Here I repeat my commitment and notice that the need for it expresses some fear in me. I fear that the ideas I articulate, which are my vocation and livelihood, will not be credited to me in a way that will add to their usefulness and also to my flourishing. I hereby request some support in working with that, not only in the form of empathy but also in reality checks and compassionate challenges.
And I'd like to offer whatever help I can provide in developing this wiki as a resource for the field as a whole.
Warmly,
Brandon
Related writing:
A process colleague wrote:
I need to ask a very basic question: What do YOU or others mean by "process" in contrast to "pattern"? I have not heard the distinction made before and now I'm surrounded by it. Of course I am familiar with "pattern" when used in "pattern language" but "process"? As in "process arts"? Or is roughly equivalent to what I might call "method" as in a particular "type of method". If you could take a minute or two to define or send me to a link, I'd be so grateful.
I responded:
I cannot speak directly to what other may mean by "process" but, briefly (short of the full dissertation), it marks a radical shift from a static Cartesian "Controlling Mind Mastering Knowledge" worldview. "Process" (beginning long before Whitehead, for instance in Heraclitus' notion of "soul") is rooted in a dynamic co-creative configuring of meaning which pauses to draw conclusions but sees them as always incomplete, much like recent physics will not factually distinguish between wave and particle. Process presupposed the limits of perspective, encourages epistemological humility, and embraces multiplicity and complexity by avoiding the pretense of certainty and other forms of literalism. As a myth(ology) it is a meaning-full fiction, like "soul", through which one may fully receive the poetic creativity of every day experience as it is "in process."
For our purposes, the distinction applies to seeing group interaction as a co-creative continuum (emergent design/discovery related to depth of understanding) rather than only in terms of discrete functionalism ("how can this chunk of matter/time/space be used most efficiently to produce what I want with the given human resources"). "Patterns" refers to the experience and description (rather than the "fact") of "archetypal" forms appearing in many contexts and categorized according to their similarity so that their difference and combination may be characterized and better understood in dynamic motion (process). Patterns are often revealed in telling stories about (fictionalizing) a group process, and speaking in terms of genre, which comes through French from Latin genus, generis, meaning "type," "sort," or "kind."
Directly applied to our project (developing a PLGP - pattern language for group process) we most often use "process" as a noun which refers to a specific configuration of patterns manifesting as a complex/system of group-based behavioral choices. "Process" may refer to a particular happening in historical time (past, present, or future) and place, or to the abstract configuration of choices (complex) which may be initiated and experienced by a group at some unspecified time and in any place. Voting is a pattern when voting for Representative of District 7 is a process, and also when democracy is a process. Democracy is a pattern when Governance is the process in question.
Thus, the distinction between pattern and process is an exercise in scope (vantage point) and perspective, as much of what we discuss as "a process" may be looked at in terms of its patterns and as a pattern itself. Also the "patterns" we write are almost always described in terms of the processes in which they appear and in words which are inherently processual. This discovery of the impossibility of ultimate classification (as either a process or a pattern) potentially keeps us humble and fluid in our understanding. It does not, as some loudly bemoan, lead to relativism, unless the patterns and processes are misused through being interpreted as literal things, rather than images and perspectives.
An example of practicing this "scope and perspective":
Scope: individual
Gathering In Person (pattern) seemed pretty helpful from my pov for moving the PLGP along. Using it and other patterns: Eating Together, Separating Into Sub-Groups, Selecting a Core Issue for Development through Debate, Telling Stories/Co-creating a Mythology, etc. we created a process.
Scope: group
We created a process, the description of which may retain a certain amount of abstraction but requires specific details, perhaps a Workshop Continuing Development of a PLGP. I called the process we made "Co-creating a pattern language for group process" on invitations. If our process were formalized through describing our approach, inviting/generating critique, iteration in various other applications, refinement, etc., and especially if we named our version something specific, then we would have a Method, perhaps The Pattern Language Development Process (PLDP).
Scope: culture
From the perspective of a mind attempting to view the coming together of the process arts as a whole field, as a pattern what we are doing is reducible to "Forming a Language" and our process (adding specifics) might be "Building the Process Arts Community".
As our area of interest and is "Group Process," in a mythological system (in this case communitarian) consciously predisposed to certain kinds of group process (co-creative) over others (authority-based/directive), then our patterns will skew in the direction of forming processes which reinforce that mythology/belief system. This does not mean other basic forms of group process are not patterns (giving/following orders, establishing a chain of command and spheres of control, delineating supply lines and product delivery schema, etc.) just that they will not be included in our subset and PLGP unless framed in a way that supports our agenda.
Please let me know any areas you feel I have been unclear or provided unhelpful examples.
As coined by Brandon WilliamsCraig, the term "Process Arts" refers to the field of group process design and facilitation. This field studies and practices interaction by paying at least as much attention to how choices are made as to the products and systems which result. Process Arts:
- apply the specific capacities practiced and deepened by the humanities, that is to say aesthetic sense, emotion, thought, and communication in many forms,
- to be able to recognize the 'archetypal' patterns present in all groups,
- to create Process potentially able to interpret and respond to both predictable and unpredictable results
- in order to facilitate the co-creativity of groups,
- thereby forming cultural complexes which adopt and ritualize collective narratives
- for conscious and unconscious maintenance and distribution of systemic power.
The Process Arts, as such, have been deployed since the late nineteenth century in the creation of particular kinds of culture, particularly mechano-industrial, which are now reducing the chances of survival of life on this planet. As a result the Process Arts today have the opportunity and obligation to come into their own by identifying with each other as a loosely affiliated field of study and finding consensus around a co-created ethics, evoked through exploration of the psychologies each one presupposes, practices, and promulgates. As progeny of a psychological imagination that is at least partly industrialized, process arts are continually in danger of recapitulating contemporary systemic injustice and dehumanization born of domination by the industrial imagination.
The idea and phrase "process arts" was coined and released for widespread use by Brandon WilliamsCraig through a "copyleft" license that requires adherence only to a global definition and the requirement of attribution. This is an attempt to tell the dynamic story of the process arts within the myth of property, in this case intellectual, but in a way that complicates that system, joining the large existing movement to clear space again for a "commons" (Levin 1999 p196) where 'ownership' is a gift of the community, remains flexible, and remains a shared concern.
The phrase "process arts" may not be used to refer to a single or proprietary method, as it refers only to the field of approaches to group process facilitation which effect change through shared attention devoted to systemic, methodical, and relational choices. This is intended to make space for deepening practice of the discipline most often known by generic monikers, like "management" and "facilitation." The Process Arts idea is an invitation to re-frame the spectrum of these facilitative disciplines so that practitioners may identify as colleagues and co-create a disciplinary ethics, taking their place in parallel with the liberal arts as a field of study and practice, and a prerequisite for citizenship and participation in governance, commerce, community, and lifelong education.
"Process Arts" implies advertising, psychotherapy, business consulting, management, teacher training, organizational development, and social activism, in short the entire field of co-creative, facilitative disciplines emerging from and changing under the influence of psychological thinking. While this is all that is required to frame the field, the implied consensus can provide a foundation supporting the maturation of the process arts into "peace practices" which encourage power-sharing, dialogue, and deliberation. This is an invitation, asking practitioners to participate as colleagues in an emerging field and drop into soulful depths, through an inclusive concept of conflict, to build cultures in which the daily reality is the learning and practicing of peace.
For Brandon WilliamsCraig's blogging on the subject, including mention of the process arts in Blessed Unrest, by Bill Hawken, and in the Change Handbook, please visit <a href="http://culturesmith.com/process_arts">http://culturesmith.com/process_arts</a>
For John Abbe's writing please visit http://ourpla.net/cgi/pikie?ProcessArts
Please also see http://grouppatternlanguage.org/wagn/Brandon_WilliamsCraig
and
"Process Arts" at Moving On Center
Text below originally from http://www.movingoncenter.org/SCB.htm
Next verison at http://www.movingoncenter.org/the-socially-conscious-body
THE SOCIALLY CONSCIOUS BODY: PROCESS ARTS & FACILITATION
Level II: Facilitation Training: Professional Development: (2 weeks)
This two-part module is an immersion in various modalities that facilitate greater awareness of how we each relate to the larger social sphere. In the first two weeks of Process Arts, the curriculum includes Process Work, Theatre of the Oppressed, Authentic Movement, and Voice. In these classes, we will look within our own bodyminds to discover a greater range of options in relating to diversity, conflict, and our rapidly changing culture. The two weeks also includes a social change project, homework and integration classes.
The second two weeks of Professional Facilitation Training includes basics of facilitation training in the first week, followed by more advanced training in the second week. The first level will address skills for the beginner facilitator (The Basics of Group Facilitation with Paul DeLapa) and the second level (Going Deeper: Advanced Facilitation with Isoke Femi) will address skills to deal with edgier issues such as racism, sexism, and ableism. These two levels of training challenge participants to step into a conscious leadership role as a group facilitator.
Faculty for Process Arts (first two weeks)
Carol Swann (Liberation Singing, Community Project)
Lane Arye (The Elder, the Artist, and the Social Activist: Worldwork and Process Work)
Bill McCully (Authentic Movement)
Aryeh Shell (Theatre of the Oppressed)
Faculty for Professional Facilitation Training (last two weeks)
Isoke Femi (Going Deeper: Advanced Facilitation Training)
Paul Delapa (The Basics of Group Facilitation)
Bill McCully (Tracking the Unconscious Facilitator)
Carol Swann (Songs and Games for Building Community)
Full Program Description: Module 2
The Process Arts and Facilitation module integrates the "movements" of thinking, listening, and speaking with physical movement along with teaching specific Professional Facilitation Skills. Soaking in the many ways (historically and globally) in which people move in their lives and communities, this module adds an embodied perspective often yearned for in work that is more cognitive or taught from a more academically traditional model. By linking Process Work, Heart Circles, and Theatre of the Oppressed with Voice and Authentic Movement, this curriculum encourages us to look within our own bodies and minds to discover how we interact with diversity and conflict.
In order to complement other modules in our curriculum, Module 2 has us inquire into the body by examining our interactions, differences, conflicts, unconscious life, body language, styles and unique signatures. This notion of beginning with awareness and observation is a commonality among somatic practices, interpersonal community building strategies, and expressive artistic methods. "Who am I? ... when I speak, when I move, when I feel ... and how does that affect the human and environmental tapestry in which I live?"
The beautifully rich experience of observing is then allowed to blossom into ACTION. This is the step often absent from lecture based learning, whether analyzing historical and current phenomena or artistic and social processes. Once the multitude of wisdoms in an individual are called upon (physical, emotional, cognitive, spiritual), an intrinsic response into relationship can occur.
This module seeks to cultivate attention on HOW choices happen and how the whole person is involved in making change happen. People now face the challenges of living in societies divided by psychological and physical borders, in which power dynamics are often foggy and overwhelming. We offer this curriculum as a doorway to a sense of empowerment, inner balance, deepened communication, understanding, and an integration of our reflective and expressive selves.
Part Two of this module, Professional Facilitation Training, will further integrate our learning by challenging us to step into a conscious leadership role as facilitator. Learning specific tools in either the Basics or Advanced sessions will not only teach us how to run meetings in an organized fashion, but also how to fine tune our awareness to signals and interventions which speak to the underlying (and often ignored) dynamics in groups. Classes in games and songs for community building and a somatic approach of looking at ourselves psychologically (Tracking the Unconscious Facilitator) will build more awareness of how the body becomes a resource and tool to support us in the facilitative role.
Participants in this two-part module will engage in Voice classes, Heart Circles, and Authentic Movement to help embody and anchor each week's intensives in Process Work, Theatre of the Oppressed, and the Facilitation Trainings, along with a community project in Social Action. Faculty advising will offer core students seeking certification additional opportunities to make the connections necessary to apply each modality in every area of their own developing work.
As in each MOC module, we include Heart Circles and verbal check-ins as a way to foster group cohesion and assure that emotion, spirit and critical thinking are nurtured in individuals and as a collective body.
Students are required to participate in study groups and do integrative homework assignments using themes from Participatory Arts. As in the other modules, there will be some mandatory reading, and occasional homework assignments for all students.
So when you use the term "group" here, do you mean to include everything from the individual person on up the "group" of all seven billion people? (Not asking about other species. Yet. :-) --John Abbe, May 31, 2010
Yep.
--Brandon WilliamsCraig.....Sun Jun 20 17:41:27 -0700 2010
Also see:
"Process Arts" at Moving On Center
Text below originally from http://www.movingoncenter.org/SCB.htm
Next verison at http://www.movingoncenter.org/the-socially-conscious-body
THE SOCIALLY CONSCIOUS BODY: PROCESS ARTS & FACILITATION
Level II: Facilitation Training: Professional Development: (2 weeks)
This two-part module is an immersion in various modalities that facilitate greater awareness of how we each relate to the larger social sphere. In the first two weeks of Process Arts, the curriculum includes Process Work, Theatre of the Oppressed, Authentic Movement, and Voice. In these classes, we will look within our own bodyminds to discover a greater range of options in relating to diversity, conflict, and our rapidly changing culture. The two weeks also includes a social change project, homework and integration classes.
The second two weeks of Professional Facilitation Training includes basics of facilitation training in the first week, followed by more advanced training in the second week. The first level will address skills for the beginner facilitator (The Basics of Group Facilitation with Paul DeLapa) and the second level (Going Deeper: Advanced Facilitation with Isoke Femi) will address skills to deal with edgier issues such as racism, sexism, and ableism. These two levels of training challenge participants to step into a conscious leadership role as a group facilitator.
Faculty for Process Arts (first two weeks)
Carol Swann (Liberation Singing, Community Project)
Lane Arye (The Elder, the Artist, and the Social Activist: Worldwork and Process Work)
Bill McCully (Authentic Movement)
Aryeh Shell (Theatre of the Oppressed)
Faculty for Professional Facilitation Training (last two weeks)
Isoke Femi (Going Deeper: Advanced Facilitation Training)
Paul Delapa (The Basics of Group Facilitation)
Bill McCully (Tracking the Unconscious Facilitator)
Carol Swann (Songs and Games for Building Community)
Full Program Description: Module 2
The Process Arts and Facilitation module integrates the "movements" of thinking, listening, and speaking with physical movement along with teaching specific Professional Facilitation Skills. Soaking in the many ways (historically and globally) in which people move in their lives and communities, this module adds an embodied perspective often yearned for in work that is more cognitive or taught from a more academically traditional model. By linking Process Work, Heart Circles, and Theatre of the Oppressed with Voice and Authentic Movement, this curriculum encourages us to look within our own bodies and minds to discover how we interact with diversity and conflict.
In order to complement other modules in our curriculum, Module 2 has us inquire into the body by examining our interactions, differences, conflicts, unconscious life, body language, styles and unique signatures. This notion of beginning with awareness and observation is a commonality among somatic practices, interpersonal community building strategies, and expressive artistic methods. "Who am I? ... when I speak, when I move, when I feel ... and how does that affect the human and environmental tapestry in which I live?"
The beautifully rich experience of observing is then allowed to blossom into ACTION. This is the step often absent from lecture based learning, whether analyzing historical and current phenomena or artistic and social processes. Once the multitude of wisdoms in an individual are called upon (physical, emotional, cognitive, spiritual), an intrinsic response into relationship can occur.
This module seeks to cultivate attention on HOW choices happen and how the whole person is involved in making change happen. People now face the challenges of living in societies divided by psychological and physical borders, in which power dynamics are often foggy and overwhelming. We offer this curriculum as a doorway to a sense of empowerment, inner balance, deepened communication, understanding, and an integration of our reflective and expressive selves.
Part Two of this module, Professional Facilitation Training, will further integrate our learning by challenging us to step into a conscious leadership role as facilitator. Learning specific tools in either the Basics or Advanced sessions will not only teach us how to run meetings in an organized fashion, but also how to fine tune our awareness to signals and interventions which speak to the underlying (and often ignored) dynamics in groups. Classes in games and songs for community building and a somatic approach of looking at ourselves psychologically (Tracking the Unconscious Facilitator) will build more awareness of how the body becomes a resource and tool to support us in the facilitative role.
Participants in this two-part module will engage in Voice classes, Heart Circles, and Authentic Movement to help embody and anchor each week's intensives in Process Work, Theatre of the Oppressed, and the Facilitation Trainings, along with a community project in Social Action. Faculty advising will offer core students seeking certification additional opportunities to make the connections necessary to apply each modality in every area of their own developing work.
As in each MOC module, we include Heart Circles and verbal check-ins as a way to foster group cohesion and assure that emotion, spirit and critical thinking are nurtured in individuals and as a collective body.
Students are required to participate in study groups and do integrative homework assignments using themes from Participatory Arts. As in the other modules, there will be some mandatory reading, and occasional homework assignments for all students.
