Academic articles on OST - myths

[Michael M Pannwitz]

Dear Maya,
in an academic article I would love to see reflections on the myth that 
  OST is a "participatory" method. OST is a method that supports in a 
not very well researched manner the unfolding of self organisation. In 
doing so, phenomena such as "participation" are observed. This, however, 
is not the intention of OST. In fact, a whole bunch of phenomena or 
characteristics are observed during an OST event, such as "democratic", 
"little hierarchy", "laughter", "community building", "synergy", "deep 
understanding" and other wonderful things. That does not make OST a 
method for "laughter" or "democracy" or "community building"...its gift 
is that in some ways it expands space and time for self organisation in 
which all kinds of things as described above and many others are 
observed which are not the intention of the approach and certainly not 
my intentions as facilitator.

The same holds for another myth that OST enables people from very 
diverse backgrounds to voice their priorities and concerns. It is 
because of high diversity (and 4 other prerequisites necessary for OST 
to work and for self organisation to fully unfold)that participants 
observedly self organize around issues entered by themselves.

I am sure you will receive many splendid pointers to academic articles 
about using and researching the method from this list. If you are 
interested in German language resources, I can forward your request to 
the German list serve populated by 200+ colleagues. And, of course, I 
would love to get a copy of the list your are compiling!

Greetings from Berlin
mmp

Maya Negev wrote:
> Dear OST community,
> 
> I am a PhD student in Israel. while looking for a participatory method to
> research "multicultural approaches to environmental education", i reached
> Tova Averbuch, the leading OST consultant in Israel.
> 
> OST seems to be the method I was looking for, thanks to it being fully
> participatory, and thanks to it enabling people from very diverse
> backgrounds to voice their priorities and concerns.
> 
> As I am writing a research proposal, I am searching for academic articles
> and book chapters on OST, both about using and researching the method. so
> far I found very few such resources, and therefore I am writing to you:
> should any of you be aware of academic resources on OST, I will be very
> grateful if you bring them to my attention.
> 
> All the very best, and thank you very much,
> 
> Maya
> maya.negev at gmail.com
> 
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