radical incrementalism Name: () Date: 03/15/2006 10:56 Link to this Comment: 18535

Rich's presentation was really interesting and Karen's comment helped me see how rules play a role in bottom up emergent practices. I see now how mining a corpus can produce rules that people can use to practice within a system and even change it as they go.

But switching gears, I promised Anne I would post this on radical incrementalism:

Okay, now I am really confused!

Evidently folks in business, computing, technology studies, education and even architecture all lay claim to the emergence of radical incrementalism, an idea I feel I first introduced in the early 1990s:

Policy Sciences: Integrating Knowledge and Practice to Advance Human Dignity

And which i have continued to emphasize:

Introduction, Praxis for the Poor: Piven and Cloward and the Future of Social Science in Social Welfare

The newer forms of radical incrementalism are mentioned everywhere:

John Seely Brown and John Hagel III,"Flexible IT, better strategy"

Lou Anna Kimsey Simon,"University Outreach: Realizing the Promise through Vision and Accountability"

These are not in my mind equally protean of progressive political possibilities for making emergent more opportunities to live less oppressively.

Other folks extend my version of radical incrementalism in ways that emergence theorists might find more prodcutive:

Nancy Campbel and Virginia Eubanks, "Making Sense of Imbrication: Popular Technology and 'Inside-Out' Methodologies"

Kate Boyer, "Reform and Resistance: A Consideration of Space, Scale and Strategy in Legal Challenges to Welfare Reform"

Joseph Lambert, "Incremental Progress"

Is radical incrementalism an idea worth taking seriously and if so, which verison?

If this is a question that has value for emergence then perhaps you will find these links useful. Otherwise, delete.