Research Publications

Pressure Points In The System: Ontological perspectives on the labour of changemaking

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RSD12 conference proceedings-

In this paper, I present a selection of ontological perspectives of marginalised people in relation to their experiences of labour entangled with and within the paradigm of changemaking.  

Building upon the seminal work of systemic designer Donella Meadows on "leverage points in the system”. Meadows' leverage points in the system are pivotal junctures where small changes can lead to profound shifts in complex systems. However, my focus diverges towards the ontological realities of those who exist and labour at pressure points of change that exist at many places throughout systems and societal structures. It focuses on those who are left with the burden of enacting the change designed by others in more privileged positions. This paper aims to be a snapshot of the pressure points in the system. Latina feminista scholars refer to this style of academic writing as testimonios. These Testimonios serve to deepen understanding of the radical systemic issues that can occur when mechanistic interventions focus on change rather than those tasked with the labour of enacting that change. 

Changemaking is often associated with grand ambition, protest, and political reform. However, for marginalised people, it is a constant process of self-advocacy, retrofitting surroundings, relationships, and themselves to simply sustain their existence in a world designed for other people’s comfort. 

It is important to note, so as not to permeate reductive or abstractive narratives about marginalised people, that these stories of oppression and difficulties exist within the colourful and diverse lives of marginalised people. This is not a depiction of the life of persons living on the margins of a dominant culture aimed to promote pity or saviourism. These testimonios are “a crucial means of bearing witness and inscribing into history those lived realities that would otherwise succumb to the alchemy of erasure”. 

When discussing systemic change, Meadows refers to the importance of not using the “same old faucets, plumbed into the same old systems” These are the stories of those faucets.