In this article, I report on a Bulgarian female migrant caregiver's “life-story,” especially focusing on her relationship with an old Italian woman, on the care practices performed in her favor in Italy, and on her daughter and parents still living in Bulgaria. I chose to do it by means of an anthropological approach based on experience as field of mediation between personal dimensions and historical and social processes and therefore centered on the body conceived as historical product, the influence of (...) political and social forces on shaping human lives, and finally interest in the specific link between bodies and work. From this analysis, based on language and narratives, I think useful cultural aspects may emerge about “gender” and care practices, regarding the two women linked by an assistance relationship, and the activities/strategies used by the Bulgarian caregiver to fulfill her family obligations. (shrink)

This article offers a description of transdisciplinary facilitation that is suitable for theologians and ministers. The reflective aspect of transdisciplinary facilitation is illustrated through an engagement with transdisciplinary research on environmentalism and ecotheology. This article also suggests that Ernst Conradie could be appreciated, drawn on and critiqued as a transdisciplinary theologian and not a contextual theologian.

Firstly, I discuss deferent descriptions of transdisciplinary research and argue that Wentzel van Huyssteen’s postfoundationalist description of epistemology provides a progenitive epistemology for a variety of transdisciplinary engagements. Secondly, I suggest that complexity, as described by Paul Cilliers, can be rooted in a postfoundationalist epistemology and illuminates the facilitation of transdisciplinary research. Based on this description and facilitation of transdisciplinarity, I argue that transdisciplinary theologians need to be skilled empathisers because knowledge is generated and exchanged by embodied agents, embedded in (...) particular disciplines. In a transversal move I suggest that, given contemporary research on empathic skills and the embodied aspects of empathy, Stanislavski’s approach to the training of actors illuminates a way in which we can train transdisciplinary theologians. The training develops empathetic skills through both mental and embodied exercises and equips students to generate empathy in different contexts without following set rules. (shrink)

In March 2016, an interdisciplinary group met for two days and two evenings to explore the implications for policy making of second-order science. The event was sponsored by SITRA, the Finnish Parliament's Innovation Fund. Their interest arose from their concern that the well-established ways, including evidence-based approaches, of policy and decision making used in government were increasingly falling short of the complexity, uncertainty, and urgency of needed decision making. There was no assumption that second-order science or second-order cybernetics would reveal (...) any practical possibilities at this early stage of enquiry. On the other hand, some members of the group are practioners in both policy and in facilitating change in sectors of society. Thus, the intellectual concepts were strongly grounded in experience. This is an account of the deliberations of that group and some reflections on what came out of the various shared contributions and ensuing dialogues. The overall conclusion of the event is that there definitely are possibilities that are worthy of further research and exploration. (shrink)