Presencing Institute (PI), based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Centre for Organisational Learning, is an action research organisation focussed on systems change challenges using participative and awareness-based methods.
A core method developed at the PI is Social Presencing Theatre (SPT) – an awareness based and body-led method which supports individual and group awareness and provides tools for action to effect whole systems change.
My recent trip to the SPT Advanced Practitioners and Researcher gathering in Denmark felt like a true homecoming.
The event, arranged by the PI, brought together practitioners and researchers across a range of disciplines.
What we all had in common was the application of body-led methods for working with either individuals or groups.
I have been part of an initial group of 12 researchers brought together in online meetings by the PI over the past 6 months, and it was great to see the group expand to include further researchers and to have to opportunity to explore approaches in practice.
There is a strong sense that the development of SPT as a research method can be informed by participative and social design approaches.
One of the activities during our gathering explored the development of data collection and analysis methods through prototyping based on an existing SPT activity called ‘Stuck’.
Working in small interdisciplinary groups of five, insights about how subtle lived experience can be unpacked through discussion protocols such as micro-phonomenolgy and performance ethnography was explored.
The PI has requested to interview me about my research for an article to be posted on their website and forming part of a first series of case studies of the application of SPT related approaches in education settings.
