Research in service of transformation

This session is part of Alef Trust’s Nurturing the Fields of Change community of practice and programme for holistic change facilitation. Holistic approaches to transformation require integrative approaches to evaluation and research. We sit with questions of how we “measure” and “demonstrate” emergent, nuanced, qualitative experiences and their wider effects and significance.

We often understand that our evaluation needs to be context-informed and person-centred – and yet external funding agencies and commissioners may prescribe forms of evaluation that distance us from the subtle unfolding processes of transformation. Goal-driven and impact-oriented evaluation may lead us to miss the very dynamics that catalyse metamorphosis.

I this session we explore transpersonal methods for researching social change, and we reflect on the risks of detached evaluation, as well as the objections brought against more participatory and artful first-person approaches to research.

Join the last sessions in the current cycle of Nurturing the Fields of Change in November and December, and look out for the new cycle starting in February 2025.