This decolonial, reflective story-sharing paper centers on reclaiming land-based identities as a ceremonial process of healing and resistance within the enduring structures of settler colonialism. Drawing from my lived experiences and guided by story-sharing methodology, it examines the systematic oppressions and reconstruction of identity, land, and spirituality imposed by settler colonial education, immigration, and governance systems. These Eurocentric systems sustain disconnections from land-based relationships while imposing hierarchical identities designed to maintain colonial power. Challenging these imposed narratives, this work affirms the significance of relational ways of knowing rooted in land-based ceremonies, responsibilities, and teachings. Positioned as both inquiry and activism, reflective story-sharing emerges as a vital decolonial method to resist settler colonial domination and advocate for land-based adaptions. Reclaiming stolen identities is framed not only as resistance but also as a political and spiritual act of love, responsibility, and healing—toward a future grounded in justice, reciprocity, and relational accountability.

This article offers theory-informed, learning-oriented, and imaginative insights into working in and with the unique stuckness of public sector organizations when trying to generate and catalyse transformative innovations on complex challenges. Imagining and enacting systems transformation in the public sector is transdisciplinary, creative, often subversive, and definitely daunting. We focus here on the Two Loops Model as a helpful archetype, a theory of change, and a creative prompt for systems transformation. Unlike many other models of transformation that are ultimately oriented toward finding and scaling solutions, Two Loops shows the dominant and emergent systems in an oscillating dance with a clear space between. We found this space to be an overlooked and potent place of praxis in our work, perhaps particularly so in the public sector, which tends to perpetuate the dominant system even when “innovating.” In this article, we dive deeply into this space to see what new and different perspectives it offers when working on complex challenges. We draw upon Black, Indigenous, queer, feminist, and decolonial scholars to help us think more deeply into this space, which is variously described as fugitive, wayward, hospice, Trickster, break, refusal, and snap. We then engage with this thinking in our own practice space—a public sector innovation lab inside local government. We visualize nine different views into and from this potent space-in-between and how we worked in, with, and from these views in our practice. Using engaged theory, reflective practice, images, metaphor, and poetic language, we aim to open up different possibilities for transformation efforts in the public and other sectors. We invite you to join us as we dwell in the messy, ambiguous, inner and outer work in this space, where we grapple with what we might need to do less of, and what we may need to do more of, in our efforts to move away from the dominant what is, and toward the emergent and resurgent what must be/come.

Academic research often privileges written language in both production and dissemination of knowledge. However, language exists alongside visual and material artifacts in the definition, sensemaking, transportation, and stabilization of organizations (Boxenbaum et al., 2018). In contrast, a focus on language is not as prominent in the realm of fashion, where visuals, aesthetics, and materiality are core (Castaldo Lundén, 2020; Jenß & Hofmann, 2019; Julier, 2006; Pecorari, 2021). This paper demonstrates how an appropriation of a commonly used visual artifact in fashion—the lookbook—can promote the surfacing, sensemaking, and co-creation of new organizational realities. The cybernetic lookbook compiles a series of visual representations of the organization, created through cybernetic diagramming practices—diagrams that reflect feedback loops, scales, thresholds, leverage points, and cybernetic awareness. These visual representations emerged in the context of intervention research with three organizations—two early-stage startups and one responsible technology ecosystem-enabler. Reflections on the process suggest that cybernetic diagramming afforded three types of convening spaces—conversation spaces, co-production spaces, and reflection spaces—prompting new shared understanding about the products being built, new product innovation ideas, and potential new ways to communicate organizational stories as well as that of the research itself. It is hoped that this contribution may open novel avenues for visual methods experimentation for organizational understanding.

The growing interest in using Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) to address systems change and champion intergenerational justice in Australia has started to find ways into mainstream discourse. However, to avoid the co-option of these knowledges, this paper offers change-makers provocations to assist in recalibrating perspectives on systems change efforts and epistemic injustice. These provocations are the combination of our experience from work in systems change and the insights gained from an application of IKS us-only closed circle work between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous authors. We briefly outline the process used to generate insights, sharing the differences between Indigenous-led and non-Indigenous processes, positing that there is a prerequisite personal undertaking via a cultural or co-inquiry space to facilitate the translation of IKS into mainstream practices for non-Indigenous changemakers, in particular. We argue for an adaptation of third space terminology to facilitate a decolonised and IKS-led approach to complex systems change and, in doing so, challenge concepts of time and how decolonising our assemblages may have the potential to uncover new capabilities for sense-making. We suggest these as prerequisite undertakings prior to embarking on systems change initiatives and conclude with a calling-in for future generations to ground them in Indigenous ways of knowing and doing.

Regenerating the quality of the social soil—the deeper space of connection with each other, with the land, and with ourselves—has always been at the heart of the work of awareness-based systems change. This issue’s editorial, which highlights the notable milestone of JASC’s first special-themed issue, dedicated to Social Presencing Theater (SPT), considers social soil regeneration within the context of deepening social fragmentation, polarisation and disconnection. Each contribution to this issue responds the current context by offering ways to bridge relational disconnects, recognizing that the (research) practices themselves are more than methods for studying or intervening in systems—they are practices shaping the very realities they seek to transform. Social Presencing Theater—a form of awareness-based emergent movement and embodiment—offers a quiet, more spacious mode of exploration and engagement to make visible the otherwise invisible dynamics in a system, and create a space for future possibilities to become known and embodied. SPT and other relational, transgressive, and transformative (research) practices proffer the possibility of holding our collective attention there long enough, and with enough openness, for new forms of enacted systems to emerge.

Across society, organisations find themselves challenged to address the climate and nature emergencies. Universities have a complex set of responsibilities given that they are preparing students for an uncertain future in which the very survival of life is in the balance. A characteristic of this complex challenge is the need to develop the necessary ecological and vertical literacy required to tackle the many aspects of fragmentation we are subject to. The 30x30 biodiversity challenge provides universities with an opportunity to address one particular form of fragmentation, that affecting habitats. The case study presented here explores how a Hedgehog Friendly Campus (HFC) initiative allowed awareness of hedgehog habitat needs and in particular the health of hedgerows to feed into campus environmental management. A surprising finding is that addressing the fragmentation of hedgerows highlights organisational fragmentation, with little communication between landscape managers, research and teaching. A collaborative systems approach to the biodiversity challenge is thus needed and realising this will challenge universities to build their capacity to embrace research and learning for sustainability through living lab projects. This requires a recognition of the responsibility universities have to enable action learning across disciplines in ways that will connect staff and students to, and bring them into relation with, the biodiversity crisis at a local level. The HFC initiative provides a rich opportunity for communities of inquiry and practice to be nurtured and for this process to inform the evolution of our understanding of habitat restoration on university campuses as a corporate responsibility.

This issue's In-Dialogue represents the intentional epitomization of many conversations the Editorial Team has been having since JASC’s inception around what we mean by 'transformative'. As convenors of the dialogue Oliver Koenig and Megan Seneque invited a small group of individuals who, in their ongoing work, have been deeply immersed in exploring research and praxis paradigms that respond ethically, critically, and creatively to the intersecting crises of our time. Together, the group set out to explore the integrity of 'research' and 'practice', their critical entanglement and co-dependence, and the nature of practices that enable worlds to be created in certain ways. Rather than attempting to arrive at a consensual understanding, the dialogue that unfolds can be seen as a mirror of the world-making practice(s) that are characteristic of transformative research

This editorial of the Journal of Awareness-based Systems Change delves into the complex entanglements of our inner and outer worlds. We delve into the nuances of feeling overwhelmed, and fatigued due to our deep, visceral connections with global events. Central to our narrative is the recognition of the intricate web of relationships that underpin all systemic change efforts. Through a lens of decolonialization and Awareness-Based Systems Change, we explore the necessity of reevaluating and transforming these connections. The editorial underscores the urgency of mending and honoring these relationships, emphasizing their role in reshaping our systems. We advocate for a holistic approach that includes affective, relational, and intellectual work, aiming to transcend traditional boundaries and foster a more interconnected and empathetic world. This editorial is a call to action for conscious engagement, inviting readers to participate in collective purpose-shaping and world-making, transforming vulnerabilities into a collective strength for systemic renewal

This paper is foremost about experiments in embodying a transformative narrative of a self that makes possible mutual collaborative practice with others. The focus is less on what we ought to think or do, but rather on subtracting, letting go, self-identities that are no longer fit for collaborative purpose. We refer to this as subtractive awareness by which we mean becoming aware of obstacles that inhibit creative action with others. In a time when dominant narratives call for endless growth, accumulation and addition, there is perhaps an overlooked value in subtraction practiced in support of collaboration. We align with writers such as Jason Hickel (2020), and practitioners in the degrowth movement to argue that in an era of perpetual expansion, “less is more.”