Ready-ing

Nora Bateson
44 min readOct 12, 2022

Here is a link to the new Ready-ing paper published in the journal of Systems Reseach and Behavioral Science. If it does not open the paper is pasted below.

Link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/sres.2896

An essay on ready-ing: Tending the prelude to change

Nora Bateson

First published: 21 September 2022

https://doi.org/10.1002/sres.2896

Heiko Specking, Mervi Porevuo, Goran Janson, Motaz Attalla, Eeva Hellstrom, Steve Freedman, Mihela Hladin and Tim Gasperak are collaborating authors.

Funding information: There are no sponsors or grants for this work.

Abstract

Complexity of living systems is characterized by multicontextual, constant responsive change. This creates continuation of some patterns and discontinuation of others. While change is predictably constant, it is unpredictable in direction and often occurs at second and nth orders of systemic relationality. So what makes a living system ready to change? This is a theory of change that changes a theory of change. Before the change there is a coalescence of factors and experiences that produce a undeterminable ready-ing instead of action. What if, instead thinking of a theory of change being produced from an identified preferred goal or outcome, the focus instead was placed on the way in which a system becomes ready for undetermined change? Can unforeseen ready-ness be nourished…

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Nora Bateson

Filmmaker, writer, educator, lecturer, President of the Intl Bateson Inst. Books: Small Arcs of Larger Circles 2016, Combining, 2023.