Welcome to International Journal of Collaborative Practices (En Español)
Welcome (Bienvenidos) to the International Journal of Collaborative Practices. The Journal brings together members of a growing international community of practitioners, scholars, educators, researchers, and consultants interested in collaborative practices based in postmodern-social construction-dialogical assumptions. This community responds to important questions in social and human sciences such as:
How can our practices have relevance for the people we meet in our fast changing world?
What will this relevance accomplish? And, who determines it?
Globalization and technology assist the spawning social, cultural, political, and economic transformations in our shrinking interdependent world. Concomitant with these transformations is a rhizomatic and swelling plea from all corners of the world for democracy, social justice, and human rights. People want to participate, contribute, and share ownership in their daily lives and their futures. They demand flexible systems and services that honor their rights and respect their needs. They have lost faith in rigid institutions that treat them as numbers and ignore their humanity. Alongside these challenges segmentation of peoples, ideologies, and values within countries and cultures continues. Combined, these challenges compel us in the social and human sciences to reassess how we understand the world we live in, how we respond to the people we meet, our practice tools, and our way of being with others.
Faced with such local, societal, and global shifts, and with the unavoidable complexities they engender, the Journal is designed to serve as one part of a timely and valuable response by spotlighting interconnected issues such as: 1) the juxtaposition of democracy, social justice, and human rights; 2) the importance of people’s voices locally and globally; and 3) the fundamental need for collaboration. Toward this aim, the Journal publishes articles on a variety of practices from various disciplines and contexts and across cultures, and it encourages the inclusion of well-published authors and those who are just beginning to write about their work.
Mission
The International Journal of Collaborative Practices provides a bilingual forum for the exchange of ideas and practices from practitioners and scholars around the world. This forum aims to help produce and promote relationally responsive- dialogical processes which generate new opportunities and new futures in our working and living together locally and globally.
This Issue
This issue features four articles from practitioners and scholars in Canada, England, and Mexico along with an essay from Sweden. Each author shares his or her unique application of working collaboratively and approaching their work from a relational-dialogical perspective. Each author’s voice serves as an invitation and catalyst for dialogue.
John Shotter thought provokingly reminds us of the difference between ‘thinking about systems’ (or objective knowledge) and ‘systemic thinking’ (or an orientation toward the other)—calling attention to the latter as participative thinking ‘with’. Influenced by “dialogical and collaborative theory” Gail Simon tells of her and her client’s experience of using the discursive activity of “reflexive” writing (including reading and listening) as a form of generative mutual inquiry. Janice DeFehr and colleagues tell of their work with clients who would be easy to stereotype and categorize, and how instead they met their clients from a not-knowing position-as foreigners meeting foreigners–in which the clients were the experts on their own lives. Dora Talavera and Maria Faraone tell of their experiences as therapist and client (respectively) relationship and process and the surprises and newness that came for both of them in the process of writing about it.The essay by Kerstin Hopstadius is a reflective musing on her research into the voices of the past as she documented the life and history of her village.
The Frequently Asked Question section offers two beginning responses by Kenneth Gergen and Sheila McNamee to the question: How is dialogue transforming? From the Bookshelf features essays on Ann Cattanch’s Narrative Approaches in Play with Children, by Mari Carmen Garcia Mulsa; and on Ralston Saul’s A Fair Country: Telling Truths about Canada, which Dan Wulff titled Ice as Land.
I invite you to step back, pause and reflect on your own practice as you engage with the authors in this issue. We welcome your comments, contributions to our blog, and article submissions. Our authors and readers would love to hear from you.
Acknowledgements
The Journal depends on volunteers for editing, technical production, and translation. This issue was made possible by the help of volunteers including translators Andrea Flores, Adriana Gil-Wilkerson, Sylvia London, Dora Ayora Talavera, and Karin Taverniers. I would also like to thank Susan Lord guest reviewer, Lindsay McGee the Journal’s editor’s assistant intern, Rachel Tardif volunteer editorial staff member, and Coleen Owens for her assistance with proofing and final formatting. I offer a special welcome to Adela Garcia our new Spanish Language Editor.
The Banner
We are grateful to Sara London, a Mexico City artist, for contributing her artwork for the Journal banner. The banner is a fragment of a painting titled in Spanish “Red EnRedando.” The title reflects the richness of language and the complexity of translation, loosely translated the title refers to “net, netting, networking.” “EnRedando” speaks to the process of entangling and “red” means net. Sara describes the painting: “Conversations and relationships provide the threads that create a net that holds the members of the community and allows them to connect, exchange, and venture beyond the familiar and explore new possibilities.”
General Information
Language
The Journal is published in English and Spanish
Publication Schedule:
2 issues per year (spring and fall)
To Subscribe:
Email: journal@talkhgi.com
Subscription Cost:
The Journal is an open-access on-line publication that is offered in the spirit of promoting community and collaboration.
Content Sections:
I. Editorial
This section will be words from the Editors.
II. Articles
Articles representing a variety of practices and practitioners from various disciplines and contexts. The aim is to have a balance of articles that focus on practice areas such as: education and training, research, clinical practice, organization development, and coaching.
III. Frequently Asked Questions
A question will be posed and two or three persons will be invited to offer the initial response. Readers are invited to respond to the questions and the responses. This section is based on the idea that questions are posed for discussion not for a final answer.
IV. From the Bookshelf
Essays/articles on selected books that might be of interest to those whose work is based in the assumptions of collaborative practices.
V. The Backpage
A listing of conferences and project announcements regarding collaborative practices that readers think others might be interested in learning about.
Author_Guidelines_May 2009
Reader_Guidelines_June2009
This page has the following sub pages.
