Negotiating Contested Decision Making Systems: Framing an Action Research Initiative to Foster Health Promotion in a Complex Rural Space in South Africa.(submitted)

Burman Chris, Peter Delobelle

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

In the last 4 years The Development, Facilitation and Training Institute at
the University of Limpopo, South Africa, has been pro-actively seeking to
embrace complexity and systems thinking as a conceptual foundation for
its work. This journey, primarily through an HIV/AIDS awareness
programme, has informed the way in which a larger internationally-funded
action research project has been framed. This brief report describes the
journey and provides insights into the challenges and wins that such a
journey involved. The primary success of the journey has been the
development of the capacity of the Institute to maintain a sense of
epistemological vigilance when planning future activities by applying a
conceptual notion labelled here as Decision Making Systems. The
conceptual approach has brought some successes to the HIV/AIDS
awareness programme and one of the major obstacles encountered during
this journey has been the unlearning of the Institute's path dependency
on reductionist, linear thinking.
Original languageEnglish
JournalHealth Education and Behavior
Publication statusPublished - 2012

Keywords

  • Nonlinear dynamics
  • Systems science
  • Community Health Promotion

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