Relational Systems Thinking is a framework that encourages strong relationships with each other and the land – an idea grounded in Indigenous knowledge.
Relationality is about our relationship to people, the land and all our kin, a spiritual connection
Systems thinking can be defined as shifting component parts of a system — and the pattern of interactions between these parts — to ultimately form a new system that behaves in a qualitatively different way. For example, changing the financial system means redesigning capitalism, or changing the justice system assumes less imprisonment
It is a complexity-relationality mindset or complexity pattern of thinking, anchored in Indigenous worldviews, that can aid scholars and practitioners in generating the conditions for innovation and systems transformation.
It harnesses the energy from two systems of understanding to create new knowledge that can then be used to advance understanding in two worlds.
It is the sacred space between Indigenous and non-Indigenous ways of thinking and knowing, to identify pathways for peaceful co-existence of epistemologies.
It is a perspective offered to help systems change practitioners and scholars transcend binary and hierarchical thinking, in the sacred space between worldviews, to embrace a complexity mindset informed by Indigenous wisdom.
The central metaphor of relational systems thinking is the two-row wampum belt. The third space is the sacred space between the two vessels of the wampum belt.
It is a model for bridging the distance in the sacred space between worldviews.
It builds upon the notion of ethical space.
Relational Systems Thinking: The Dibaajimowin (Story) of Re-Theorizing "Systems Thinking" and "Complexity Science" - Melanie Goodchild 2022
Relational Systems Thinking: That's How Change is Going to Come, From Our Earth Mother - Melanie Goodchild 2021
We’re unambiguously committed to the transformation of unsustainable systems that result in patterns of harm, injustice, suffering and the erosion of beneficial complexity. We draw from the term relational systems thinking coined by Anishinaabe complexity scholar Melanie Goodchild as a way to not only bridge conventional systems science and Indigenous ways of knowing and being, but to understand and center the deeper ethical considerations that ensue. She describes relational systems thinking as an eco-centric way of both sensing and intervening in systems that privileges relationship and centers mutual benefit.