RAY ISON is Professor of Systems and Director of the Open Systems Research Group at the Open University.

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "RAY ISON is Professor of Systems and Director of the Open Systems Research Group at the Open University."

Theodore Baldwin
5 years ago
Views:

1 Agricultural Extension and Rural Development Edited by Ray Ison and David Russell While traditions are very important to a culture, there is a need to challenge, as well as to respect, those traditions which have given rise to a particular rural research and development situation. The authors critically examine the broad themes of knowledge transfer and the organisation and conduct of research and development, based particularly on the system operating in the rangelands of. The need to adopt a novel approach arose because the existing practice of agricultural extension did not meet the needs of the farming community there, and the research funding bodies were dissatisfied with the return on their investments. The way in which the relationships between the rural community and researchers might be differently, and perhaps more fruitfully, managed are discussed. The issues addressed have relevance in wider contexts such as knowledge management, participatory development, communities of practice, environmental decision making and systemic change management and, as a result, this book will be of importance to any professional involved in management and policy making who wishes to escape from the limitations of mainstream thinking. RAY ISON is Professor of Systems and Director of the Open Systems Research Group at the Open University. DAVID RUSSELL is Associate Professor in the School of Psychology at the University of Western Sydney.

2 Agricultural Extension and Rural Development: Breaking Out of Knowledge Transfer Traditions A second-order systems perspective Edited by Raymond L. Ison The Open University, UK and David B. Russell University of Western Sydney,

3 CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York Information on this title: Cambridge University Press 2000 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2000 This digitally printed version (with corrections) 2007 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Agricultural extension and rural development: breaking out of traditions / edited by Raymond L. Ison & David B. Russell p. cm. Includes index. ISBN (hc.) 1. Agricultural extension work New South Wales. 2. Rural development New South Wales. 3. Pastoral systems New South Wales. 4. Rangelands New South Wales. I. Ison, R.L. II. Russell, David B. S544.5.A8A '.71'5 dc CIP ISBN hardback ISBN paperback

4 Contents List of contributors vii About the authors viii Acknowledgements x Part I Breaking Out of Traditions 1 1 The research development relationship in rural communities: an opportunity for contextual science David B. Russell and Raymond L. Ison 10 2 The human quest for understanding and agreement Lloyd Fell and David B. Russell 32 3 Technology: transforming grazier experience Raymond L. Ison 52 Part II Historical Patterns, Technological Lineages and the Emergence of Institutionalised Research and Development 77 4 From theodolite to satellite: land, technology and power in the Western Division of NSW Adrian Mackenzie 80 5 Experience, tradition and service? Institutionalised R&D in the rangelands Raymond L. Ison 103 Part III A Design for Second-order Research and Development Enthusiasm: developing critical action for second-order R&D David B. Russell and Raymond L. Ison Co-researching: braiding theory and practice for research with people Lynn Webber The graziers story Danielle Dignam and Philippa Major 189

5 vi/contents Part IV Limitations and Possibilities for Research and Development Design Designing R&D systems for mutual benewt David B. Russell and Raymond L. Ison 208 Appendix 219 Glossary 223 Index 232

6 Contributors Danielle Dignam c/o Wendy Stamp AWT Business Services PO Box A239 SYDNEY SOUTH NSW 1235 Lloyd Fell NSW Agriculture University of New England ARMIDALE NSW 2351 Raymond L. Ison Systems Discipline Centre for Complexity and Change The Open University MILTON KEYNES MK7 6AA UK Phillipa Major City West Development Corporation PO Box 244 PYRMONT NSW 2009 David B. Russell School of Social Ecology University of Western Sydney (Hawkesbury) RICHMOND NSW 2753 Lynn Webber Community Relations Division NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service 43 Bridge Street (PO Box 1967) HURSTVILLE NSW 2220 Adrian Mackenzie General Philosophy Main Quad, A14 University of Sydney NSW 2006

7 About the authors Ray Ison and David Russell began their collaboration in 1986 whilst both were at the then Hawkesbury Agricultural College, Richmond, (now University of Western Sydney (Hawkesbury)). The starting point was a seminar presented by David, which led to intense debate about objectivity and the nature of reality. This seminar triggered a conversation that is on-going. Both David and Ray continue to research questions that have arisen from the experiences reported in this book. Ray Ison has degrees in agricultural science. He is currently Professor of Systems and Director of the Open University Post-graduate programme in Environmental Decision Making. He was Head of the Department of Systems (now the Systems Discipline in the Centre for Complexity and Change) at the The Open University in the UK from 1995 to Whilst engaged in this study he was a Senior Lecturer in Grassland Systems at the University of Sydney. David Russell has science and psychology degrees. Following the study on which this book is based he was Director of the Centre for the Social Ecology of Water and Waste at Hawkesbury. David has been a major contributor to the development of Social Ecology at UWS Hawkesbury where he is now Associate Professor in the Faculty of Social Inquiry. He is currently the Head of the Centre of Research in Social Ecology, which has as it aim the pursuit of postgraduate research that integrates the personal, the social and the ecological. The Centre brings together and supports research in the areas of psychology, spirituality, leadership, environment, and education. Danielle Dignam is a graduate in systems agriculture from the University of Western Sydney (Hawkesbury). She has worked with pastoralists in the semi-arid region of NSW in a number of capacities including a period as a community facilitator with the NSW Conservation and Land Management Department (CaLM). She is currently living in Pakistan. Lloyd Fell studied Rural Science in completing PhD studies on animal physiology (brain hormones) at the University of Melbourne in He has conducted research in animal science in and New Zealand since Currently a Senior Research Scientist with NSW Agriculture located at the University of New England, he is engaged in research on animal behaviour, stress, health and welfare of farm animals. His interest in issues of human cognition and communication grew out of his research on

8 About the authors/ix stress and was kindled particularly by a long-standing personal association with the University of Western Sydney, Hawkesbury and intermittent personal contact with Dr Humberto Maturana from the University of Chile. Philippa Major is an educator and writer now working with the newly established Sydney Harbour Foreshore Society. Her recent publications include Doors were always open. Recollections of Pyrmont and Ultimo (1997), a chapter in For a Common Cause. Case Studies in Communities and Environmental Change (1996). She has an ever-increasing interest in how to support and communicate with communities through times of change. Adrian Mackenzie is a postdoctoral research fellow at the School of Philosophy, University of Sydney, studying time, technology and embodiment. In dialogue with contemporary philosophical theory, and social studies of science and technology, his research focuses on how cultures make sense of technological change. His current interest lies in developing a critical account of the speed of that change in terms of the complexities of human technical interactions. Lynn Webber is currently Manager of Community Programs & Consultation at the NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service, a state government agency responsible for working with the community for the conservation of nature, Aboriginal heritage and historic heritage in New South Wales,. Areas of specialist interest include action research/learning, community consultation design and facilitation, neighbour relations and strategic communications in natural resource management. In addition to work on the CARR project team and doctoral research in western NSW, Lynn has undertaken research and programme implementation in the Solomon Islands and a range of rural and urban contexts in New South Wales.

9 Acknowledgements This book is based on eight years of active collaboration and three years of intense research in which we have attempted to develop alternative modes of doing research and development (R&D) with pastoralists in far western NSW,. We experienced our research as challenging work. It was challenging emotionally, professionally, conceptually, institutionally and socially. To sustain such work requires nurturing and sustenance of those who participate because collaboration is hard work if it is genuine collaboration. It requires mutual respect and the valuing of diverence of leaving space for the other. It is an emotional process and needs to be recognised as such. When writing after a period which so engaged our emotions it is often diycult to capture the richness and intensity of those moments. The words of Elizabeth Jane Howard in her novel the Long View 1 come to mind: She discovered, much later, that any emotion, if it be suyciently strong, is elusive, not accurately memorable that only the small practical fringe the attendant commonplaces remain vividly in the mind and that the memory of them only serves to conceal the core essence of violently felt experience. We raise this here because our book is about breaking out of a research and development tradition in which emotion, or emotioning, is considering to have no part to play. That we have been able to complete this book in a period of considerable personal upheaval is, we believe, the product of our relationships with a number of people. We would like to acknowledge these relationships because in the network of conversation that they realise, we have been granted considerable knowledge. We thank the former n Wool Research & Development Corporation (now The Woolmark Company), which supported this research, and particularly the many graziers who made time for us and helped us to develop a lasting avection for their part of the world. RLI would particularly like to thank Cathy Humphreys for the lens she has provided into second-order cybernetics and feminist epistemology, especially from the family therapy literature. Our colleagues Rosalind Armson, Richard Clark, Greg Curran, Garry Hammond, Cathy Humphreys, Ross Humphreys, Janice Jiggins, Stephany Kersten, Bob Macadam, David 1/Howard, Elizabeth Jane (1956). The Long View. Perennial Library, Harper & Row, New York.

10 Acknowledgements/xi McClintock, Craig Pearson, Pat Shah, Ruth Williams and Susan Wyndham have helped us in innumerable ways for which we are grateful. The book would not have come to fruition without the support of Alan Crowden, Maria Murphy and Katrina Halliday of Cambridge University Press. We and our co-authors however accept Wnal responsibility for what we have written.

in this web service Cambridge University Press

in this web service Cambridge University Press Alien Life Imagined One day, astrobiologists could make the most fantastic discovery of all time: the detection of complex extraterrestrial life. As space agencies continue to search for life in our universe,