Praction Research: a model of systemic inquiry

Abstract

When teaching research to systemic practitioners, I come across an assumption that systemic theory must be sidelined for new ways of doing, being and speaking in order to conduct research. I have found it useful for my own research and for teaching purposes to develop a description of systemic inquiry which is coherent with collaborative-dialogical-social constructionist-systemic practice. In this paper, I make links between systemic methodology, ideological influences, theoretical propositions and the doing of systemic practice. I reorganise these levels of context into spheres of influence and propose a model for systemic therapy and research. This model lends itself to a form of action research for reflexive practice which I am calling Praction Research. I connect local and global reflexivity in making a case for praction research as a form of activism and explore how the reflexive activities of listening out for and acting with the novel and the ethical take systemic practice into continual paradigmatic movement which make for transformation within and of the model.