The adventurous turns in a body of knowledge
Units of knowledge are primarily concrete: embodied, incorporated, lived. Knowledge is about situatedness. Francisco Varela
Lately, I find myself serendipitously in conversations about the body and knowledge. Last night, in an inspiring meeting of the Global Women Leadership Network, the group facilitator was Susan Geear, whose practice is in somatics and leadership. In the group, a woman asked, “To act as transformative leaders, do we need more knowledge?” My response – More is not necessarily better. What is important is to shift our embodied understanding of knowledge and knowledge practices. Later in the evening, a participant led us in an exercise of feeling our feet on the ground, standing for our vision, imagining our vision of human rights, and breathing.
This story above tell of a moment in an inquiry into “knowledge in the age of participation”.
My journey is like a spiral with four turns….
In the first turn, my interest in the “body as a teacher of knowledge” began in 1984 as I entered the field of somatics, to help adults practice presence with our self, in relationship and in small groups. My questions were about health and empowerment. What I learned along the way was that we came to know through the practice of presence. ( “Somatics” is the study of the lived experience of the body. For software folks, somatics is a close neighbor to User Experience Design. For researchers, somatics is close to Phenomenology. )
In the second turn, in 1995-2001, my interest jumped to the Use of Self in a larger system, and I entered the field of Organization Development consulting, working with nonprofit networks and media companies that were shifting from pushing “content” at people to becoming human work communities. How can we help to transform a system through our use of self? What can the body teach us as an agent of social change But, what I saw entering Organization Development were conceptions of organization as machines and rational approaches to Change Management and Knowledge Management that had more to do with control than connection.
In the third turn of inquiry, in 2001, I began to ask meta-questions – What is knowledge and knowledge practices that cultivate a thriving world? Given that we live a participatory world, given that our bodies are common to humanity and the earth, what can the body teach us about of knowledge?
This began a new quest into sustainability that evolved forms of collaborative labs for sustainability with organizational consultants, systems scientists, organizational theorists, sustainability MBA educators, and Buddhist practice. I then codified my understanding of knowledge in research and a doctoral dissertation.
In the current fourth turn, I am immersed in the challenge of enabling global participation. Dreamfish is this inquiry.
Enough for now. Going to participate in the Global Innovation Dialogue tonight. A very cool moment in this turn 
In the next blog post, I will open a conversation on what is knowledge in the age of participation.