Latest Readings
Metamorphosis download PDF Metamorphosis
A Delicate Activism download PDF A Phenomenological Approach to Change.
Artists of the Invisible download PDF Development Practitioners and Social Process
Engaging Darkness – The Challenge of Mani download PDF A text written as attempt to penetrate through to the heart of what is being asked of us all at this time.
Action Research inside a Reflective Social Practice: A Delicate Empiricism view PDF online download PDF What does it mean to be a reflective social practitioner? What might a reflective social practice look like? What is the inner and outer movement needed in order to enable and strengthen reflective practice? And where – and how – does action research live inside this practice?
The Singer, not the Song view PDF online download PDF The Vexed Questions of Impact Monitoring and Social Change:
Reflections on an exploration between some European donors and some southern African development NGOs'.
Foregrounding Practice - Reaching for an Ecological Approach view PDF online download PDF A comparative inquiry into the dialogical and developmental frameworks of community development.
This article emerged from a series of conversations between the two author-practitioners, one a leading author/practitioner on capacity building and developmental practice, and the other, an engaged scholar/practitioner in community development. The conversation morphed into a comparison of two frameworks of practice which then led to the main argument of this article.
Freedom's Ground view PDF online download PDF Challenges of an Adult Social Activism. One Telling of the Tshwane Leadership Foundation’s Story.
In this story you will read about a social change organisation that operates out of a Christian impulse and milieu, but this is not a story about Christians or Christianity. It is a story about what it means to be alive – in a human body.
Towards a Larger Integrity view PDF online
download PDF
A (rather elaborate) Invitation to Intrepid Development Practitioners (and their Organisations) to Engage in a Capacity Development Adventure.
Archived Readings
Emerging out of Goethe - Conversation as a Form of Social Inquiry
view PDF online download PDF For many, this has proved to be a particularly challenging piece; for others, especially inspiring. Originally published in a special edition of Janus Head entitled ‘Goethe’s Delicate Empiricism’ (Janus Head, Volume 8.1 Goethe’s Delicate Empiricism, Trivium Publications, USA, 2005) it is an attempt to describe a facilitated group process as a conversation based on a Goethean methodology.
At the same time, it attempts to get underneath the formative forces which are compelling the global development sector to emerge as it is doing, with its particular challenges and distortions perpetrated in the name of assistance to marginalised people.
Boundaries, Possibilities and Constraints amongst NGOs in South Africa: an In-depth Conversation view PDF online download PDF In June 2008 The Proteus Initiative hosted and facilitated a conversation: Boundaries, Possibilities and Constraints amongst NGOs in South Africa: an In-depth Conversation. The conversation explored the current situation in South Africa, focusing particularly on the NGO sector and how and where it has shifted since 1994. This conversation took place at a specific moment in South Africa’s history when a great deal of questioning, doubt and uncertainty was feeling its way to the surface. Three pieces, written by the facilitators, capture different angles of the conversation.
The Practice of Struggle is the Struggle to Practise view PDF online
download PDF
Expanded from a report written originally for an anonymous client, this paper – written in the form of a story - is a reflection on the practice of a social practitioner as organisational consultant. At the same time it demonstrates a reading of a particularly intransigent social situation, and provides reflections on broader observations around questions of social struggle and the underlying dynamics of human endeavour.
Development Interventions as the Crossroads of Consciousness view PDF online
download PDF
Adapted from an evaluation report for a client, this paper details aspects of a development intervention amongst the first people of southern Africa, the San. It is a reflection on the nature of development interventions, as well as being a meditation on the confluence between different, evolving forms of consciousness and our relationship with the world we inhabit.
Engaging with Civil Society in Bosnia and Herzegovina view PDF online
download PDF
A report written for the international aid agency, CARE, this paper takes a ubiquitous request for the development sector - a conventional assignment for a consultant to make recommendations as to future CARE strategy - and turns it into an in-depth narrative addressed to the underlying character of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a meditation on aspects of civil society, and a commentary on the aid sector itself. It utilises a Goethean approach to a very complicated social situation, couched within the format required by the client.
A Sabbatical Journey view PDF online
download PDF
Originally published in a Community Development Resource Association annual report, this piece is a reflection on a journey through the United States at the time of the 9/11 destruction of the World Trade Centre. It combines a personal experience with reflections on the soul of America as well as Goethean methodology. An attempt to use a Goethean way of seeing to get to the meaning of a particular social situation.
Facilitation and Meaning view PDF online
download PDF
Originally published in Sue Soal’s book ‘Holding Infinity’, (Holding Infinity, Sue Soal, Community Development Resource Association, 2004), this paper discusses the art of facilitation by looking at different levels of intervention which the facilitator can engage in. It opens up new ways of looking at an art which is too often practised in instrumental and technical fashion.
The Development of Capacity view PDF online
download PDF
Originally published by the United Nations Non-Governmental Liaison Service (The Development of Capacity, NGLS Development Dossier, 1999), this piece was written on the cusp between critiquing old approaches to social change and development, and finding a viable new way forward. It has been very well received all over the world, touching many people’s concerns with outmoded ways of dealing with social development practice, and indicating the beginning of a way forward.
Seeking the Eye of the Needle view PDF online
download PDF
Originally published in a Community Development Resource Association annual report, this piece in a sense summarises some perspectives gleaned from fifteen years of working inside the global development, or aid, sector. Of course it can provide glimpses of aspects only, but it does, hopefully, help to challenge common lethargy and bureaucratic indolence with the provocation of insight.
The Wupperthal Stories view PDF online
download PDF
Many years ago a book called The Development Practitioner’s Handbook was published (The Development Practitioner’s Handbook, Allan Kaplan, Pluto Press, 1996). This book took the novel approach of interspersing chapters of text and theory with very short stories about a rural community worker and the community in which he was working. Despite the appreciation with which the book as a whole was met, many readers maintained that they were most touched and educated by the stories themselves. Such stories are a different way of appreciating a social situation. We have therefore decided to include these stories here, one following the other, without the book’s accompanying text. Perhaps they still appeal.
Goethean Resources – Some References view PDF online
download PDF
This brief entry contains references to writing by other Goethean scholars, researchers and practitioners – outside of the field of social intervention - which we have found inspirational, and which form the foundation for our understanding of a living methodology and approach.
Standing at a Crossroads: Appropriate Action for Challenging Times view PDF online download PDF The invitation to participate in this Conversation at Towerland was accompanied by the following articulation of the times that we find ourselves in, and the challenge of finding ways – through our actions – that might in some measure make a difference in an often seemingly intractable process of deepening impoverishment at every level.
Proteus and Towerland - A Story of our Time view PDF online download PDF This is a short piece concerning the genesis of, and relationship between, The Proteus Initiative and the Towerland Wilderness. It is a brief exploration of some of the major sources of inspiration which drive both impulses.
