Katharine McGowan - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Katharine McGowan
Energy research & social science, Aug 1, 2024
A Research Agenda for Social Innovation, 2021
Health Education Journal, Apr 7, 2022
Background A strengths-based lens is essential for the pursuit of health equity among Indigenous ... more Background A strengths-based lens is essential for the pursuit of health equity among Indigenous populations. However, health professionals are often taught and supported in practice via deficit-based approaches that perpetuate inequity for Indigenous peoples. Deficit narratives in healthcare and health education are reproduced through practices and policies that ignore Indigenous strengths, disregard human rights, and reproduce structural inequalities. When strengths are recognised it is possible to build capacities and address challenges, while not losing sight of the structural factors impacting Indigenous peoples’ health. Objective In this paper, we examine Indigenous strengths-based approaches to policy and practice in healthcare and health professions education when delivered alongside teachings shared by Elders from the Cree, Blackfoot and Métis Nations of Alberta, Canada. Method Literature and Elders’ teachings were used to shift strengths-based approaches from Western descriptions of what might be done, to concrete actions aligned with Indigenous ways. Results Four pointers for future action adopting a strengths-based approach are identified: enacting gifts – focusing on positive attributes; upholding relationality – centring good relationships; honouring legacy – restoring self-determination; and reconciling truth – attending to structural determinants of health. Conclusion Identified directions and actionable strategies offer a promising means to advance Indigenous health equity through strengths-based actions that change existing narratives and advance health equity.
Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences
Social Enterprise Journal, Mar 29, 2022
Introduction: social innovation, social entrepreneurship and complexity: exploring the linkages W... more Introduction: social innovation, social entrepreneurship and complexity: exploring the linkages Whether describing a looming social problem or a proposed innovative solution, it is increasingly commonplace to find the word "complex" affixed as a descriptor. Complexity is a particularly malleable term, denoting inter alia that something is poorly understood, politically contested or difficult to accomplish. Complexity can be adopted in this sense as a framework for approaching issues constructively or less helpfully, as a management gloss or an excuse for inaction. However, as the articles in this special issue demonstrate, the concepts, theories and methodologies of the complexity sciences can offer both constructive theoretical advancements and practical insights to help better address contemporary societal challenges. As nation-states confront intractable social problems and adapt to system-changing shocks like financial crises, climate emergencies and the COVID-19 pandemic, social innovation and social entrepreneurship are often invoked as routes to needed systemic change (Ashoka, 2020; Avelino et al., 2019; Domanski et al., 2020; Westley and Antadze, 2010). Social innovation and social entrepreneurship charge practitioners with the development of novel ideas for increasingly unknown futures. For Goldstein et al. (2010, p. 102), this brings forth a paradox: "if the novelty generation inherent in social innovation cannot be planned, how can social entrepreneurs bring about social innovation?". In grappling with this question, the interrelated social innovation and social entrepreneurship literatures shifted focus from localised problems to "systemic and structural issues" (Nicholls et al., 2015), from individual "heroic" entrepreneurs to self-organising actors within ecosystems (Moore and Westley, 2011) and from a deterministic theory of change approach to a dynamic and non-linear process of scaling, spreading and impact (Corner and Ho, 2010). By dint of the questions that now drive its inquiry, social innovation and social entrepreneurship might be considered innately complex concepts. Complexity scienceas a multidisciplinary and indeed multitheoretical philosophical field (Castellani and Hafferty, 2009)are as Mulgan (2012, p. 28) noted, "instinctively at home" with social innovation and social enterprises involving "organic development, trial and error, [and] dispersed power". Complexity theorists have explored "the unprecedented, the unpredictable, and the non-deductible" nature of both social innovation (
Ecology and Society, 2014
In this paper, seven researchers reflect on the journeys their research projects have taken when ... more In this paper, seven researchers reflect on the journeys their research projects have taken when they engage with and synthesize complex problems. These journeys embody an adaptive approach to tackling problems characterized by their interconnectedness and emergence, and that transcend traditional units of analysis such as ecosystems. In this paper we argue that making such a process deliberate and explicit will help researchers better combine different research paradigms such as expert-driven and participant-directed work, thus resulting in both broad explanations and specific phenomenon; research tensions traditionally defined as oppositional must be approached as complimentary. This paper includes researchers' personal journeys as they dealt with the emergent properties of complex problems and participant involvement. This paper argues that that research journey should be more than accidental but is a methodological necessity and should guide the theoretical and practical approaches to complex problems.
Social Enterprise Journal
Purpose When complex social-ecological systems collapse and transform, the possible outcomes of t... more Purpose When complex social-ecological systems collapse and transform, the possible outcomes of this transformation are not set in stone. This paper aims to explore the role of social imagination in determining possible futures for a reformed system. The authors use a historical study of the Luddite response to the Industrial Revolution centred in the UK in the early-19th century to explore the concepts of path dependency, agency and the distributional impacts of systems change. Design/methodology/approach In this historical study, the authors used the Luddites’ own words and those of their supporters, captured in archival sources (n = 43 unique Luddite statements), to develop hypotheses around the effects on political, social and judicial consequences of a significant systems transformation. The authors then scaffolded these statements using the heuristics of panarchy and basins of attraction to conceptualize this contentious moment of British history. Findings Rather than a strict...
To illustrate the relationship between transformative social innovation and multisystem resilienc... more To illustrate the relationship between transformative social innovation and multisystem resilience, this chapter summarizes three transformative social innovations, the National Parks in the United States, the internet, and the challenging or social engineering–like case of the intelligence test. Each case study demonstrates how innovations shift several systems as they develop, scale up, and even became challenged themselves, as well as the authors’ overarching assertion that transformative social innovation and multisystem resilience are deeply interrelated. Additionally, it is by understanding our social innovation history that we can be better prepared for our future and avoid the pitfalls of social innovation’s underappreciated dark side, the risk of social engineering. This chapter is based on over a decade of work on multisystem resilience and social innovation at the Waterloo Institute of Social Innovation and Resilience.
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies, 2018
The First World War triggered opposite reactions from Indigenous men and the Canadian government;... more The First World War triggered opposite reactions from Indigenous men and the Canadian government; the former sought a combination (varying by personal degrees) of independence, cultural expression, treaty obligations and choice, while the latter saw an opportunity to strengthen their control of Indigenous communities for assimilative ends. We know about the experiences of Indigenous soldiers through letters home, the post war production of cultural artifacts and the too-rare memoir, but accessing the extent of the government's attempts at control within this context, specifically the highly personal and often fraught choice to enlist, requires striping away government rhetoric and bureaucratic bluff. In this research note, we assess patterns of recruitment to isolate the specific effect of the government decision to deliberately overlap Indian Affairs and military authority figures in the form of Agents-recruiters. This cliometric analysis highlights the power of this combina...
In a study of an innovation now seen as an example of social engineering, this case follows the e... more In a study of an innovation now seen as an example of social engineering, this case follows the emergent professional networks of psychologists and bureaucrats trying to reshape American society. The test began as an idea of how intellectual capacity works and a tool to measure it, which fell into the existing debate over social problems of poverty, underachievement and education (mislabelled at the time as feeblemindedness). The opportunities presented when America joined the First World War, and needed to develop a professional citizen army quickly, provided a perfect proving ground for the test’s applicability (if not accuracy). This is a cautionary tale of scientific measurement seeming to support social attitudes, and the power of networks to scale an idea into a policy.
This study counterbalances Western-derived evidence by describing Elders’ and students’ perspecti... more This study counterbalances Western-derived evidence by describing Elders’ and students’ perspectives of Indigenous service-learning through Indigenous research methodology. Data collection took place in a midsize Canadian university after an Indigenous service-learning public networking forum. The purposive sample consisted of three Indigenous elders and five Indigenous students. Immediately following the event, Elders participated in a focus group, and then students completed a survey. Qualitative themes were interpreted using conversational method and relational analysis. Elders called for the replacement of the term service-learning, re-rooting of the term Indigenous, and respect for the Elders’ roles and knowledges. Interconnected themes by Elders and students signaled a necessary shift from service-learning to relational learning. Such connections reveal the core purpose of relational learning with Indigenous communities as maintaining good relations through humility, respect, ...
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore multiple Canadian educators' experiences with... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore multiple Canadian educators' experiences with the Map the System (MTS) competition, designed to foster and grow systems thinking capacity among students exploring complex questions. The challenge has been an opportunity for social innovation programs (from the nascent to the established) across Canadian post-secondaries to engage both with their own communities and with social innovators internationally, connecting social innovation spaces as part of their third mission. Across the organizations, students valued the interdisciplinary and systems thinking qualities, and organizations benefited from the external competition, there remain questions about organizational engagement in social innovation as a deeply transformative process internally. Design/methodology/approach All Canadian post-secondary institutions who participated in the 2020 MTS competition (17) were invited to a digital roundtable to discuss their experiences. Ten w...
I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, inc... more I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public.
In an inversion of what is usually presented as economic innovation, this case explores the socia... more In an inversion of what is usually presented as economic innovation, this case explores the social conditions that allowed the joint stock model to grow and flourish in the Northern Netherlands in the 16th and 17th centuries. Fuelling the period known as the Dutch Golden Age, the joint stock model allowed for significant, revolutionary shifts in resource flows, and ultimately reinforced an actual Dutch revolution against Spanish colonial authorities. This case illustrates the cross-sectoral requirements for a social innovation to take hold and scale, and how these shifts ripple throughout a society, leaving little untouched.
Technological Forecasting and Social Change
International Journal of Inclusive Education
Decolonisation in higher education requires congruent social processes that support human rights ... more Decolonisation in higher education requires congruent social processes that support human rights and inclusive knowledge generation. While often discussed, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission o...
Social Enterprise Journal
Purpose Reconciliation between Indigenous peoples and the Canadian plurality has stalled. While t... more Purpose Reconciliation between Indigenous peoples and the Canadian plurality has stalled. While the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) Calls to Action could be a focusing event, creating a window of opportunity for transformative social innovations; we see coalescing of interest, social capital and investment in decolonization and indigenization in the proliferation of professorships, programs, installations and statements. However, Blackfoot (Siksika) Elder Roy Bear Chief raised significant concerns that Indigenous knowledge, experiences and people are not yet seen as relevant and useful in higher education; such marginalization must be addressed at a systems level for authentic reconciliation at any colonial university. The purpose of this paper was to explore this dual goal of exploring barriers to and opportunities for Indigenous knowledges and knowledge holders to be valued as relevant and useful in the Canadian academy, using a complexity- and systems-informed lens. D...
The Evolution of Social Innovation
New Frontiers in Social Innovation Research, 2015
This paper introduces a new theory surrounding the process of social innovation using historical ... more This paper introduces a new theory surrounding the process of social innovation using historical case studies. Using the particular example of the lifecycle of the intelligence test over the first half of the twentieth century in the United States, we discuss the hypothesis that the discovery/definition of new social phenomena (naturalistic, constructed, and technological expressions of what we can, ought or will do, that direct or influence behavior) and combination of new and extant phenomena provide the necessary intellectual space and impetus-through glimpses of what could be, seen through the lens of new social phenomena-for the creation of clusters of inventions and innovations. One or more of these innovations, when scaled up or out, can ultimately shift an entire system. This process requires the work of multiple actors, occupying three general roles, the poet, the designer and the debater. Historical data suggests these agents act on both the niche and landscape level, and can travel effectively between them, spotting approaching windows of opportunity to create pathways to their desired adjacent possible, while incubating new social innovations. These observations are based on a comparison of a growing body of historical cases of social innovations.
Energy research & social science, Aug 1, 2024
A Research Agenda for Social Innovation, 2021
Health Education Journal, Apr 7, 2022
Background A strengths-based lens is essential for the pursuit of health equity among Indigenous ... more Background A strengths-based lens is essential for the pursuit of health equity among Indigenous populations. However, health professionals are often taught and supported in practice via deficit-based approaches that perpetuate inequity for Indigenous peoples. Deficit narratives in healthcare and health education are reproduced through practices and policies that ignore Indigenous strengths, disregard human rights, and reproduce structural inequalities. When strengths are recognised it is possible to build capacities and address challenges, while not losing sight of the structural factors impacting Indigenous peoples’ health. Objective In this paper, we examine Indigenous strengths-based approaches to policy and practice in healthcare and health professions education when delivered alongside teachings shared by Elders from the Cree, Blackfoot and Métis Nations of Alberta, Canada. Method Literature and Elders’ teachings were used to shift strengths-based approaches from Western descriptions of what might be done, to concrete actions aligned with Indigenous ways. Results Four pointers for future action adopting a strengths-based approach are identified: enacting gifts – focusing on positive attributes; upholding relationality – centring good relationships; honouring legacy – restoring self-determination; and reconciling truth – attending to structural determinants of health. Conclusion Identified directions and actionable strategies offer a promising means to advance Indigenous health equity through strengths-based actions that change existing narratives and advance health equity.
Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences
Social Enterprise Journal, Mar 29, 2022
Introduction: social innovation, social entrepreneurship and complexity: exploring the linkages W... more Introduction: social innovation, social entrepreneurship and complexity: exploring the linkages Whether describing a looming social problem or a proposed innovative solution, it is increasingly commonplace to find the word "complex" affixed as a descriptor. Complexity is a particularly malleable term, denoting inter alia that something is poorly understood, politically contested or difficult to accomplish. Complexity can be adopted in this sense as a framework for approaching issues constructively or less helpfully, as a management gloss or an excuse for inaction. However, as the articles in this special issue demonstrate, the concepts, theories and methodologies of the complexity sciences can offer both constructive theoretical advancements and practical insights to help better address contemporary societal challenges. As nation-states confront intractable social problems and adapt to system-changing shocks like financial crises, climate emergencies and the COVID-19 pandemic, social innovation and social entrepreneurship are often invoked as routes to needed systemic change (Ashoka, 2020; Avelino et al., 2019; Domanski et al., 2020; Westley and Antadze, 2010). Social innovation and social entrepreneurship charge practitioners with the development of novel ideas for increasingly unknown futures. For Goldstein et al. (2010, p. 102), this brings forth a paradox: "if the novelty generation inherent in social innovation cannot be planned, how can social entrepreneurs bring about social innovation?". In grappling with this question, the interrelated social innovation and social entrepreneurship literatures shifted focus from localised problems to "systemic and structural issues" (Nicholls et al., 2015), from individual "heroic" entrepreneurs to self-organising actors within ecosystems (Moore and Westley, 2011) and from a deterministic theory of change approach to a dynamic and non-linear process of scaling, spreading and impact (Corner and Ho, 2010). By dint of the questions that now drive its inquiry, social innovation and social entrepreneurship might be considered innately complex concepts. Complexity scienceas a multidisciplinary and indeed multitheoretical philosophical field (Castellani and Hafferty, 2009)are as Mulgan (2012, p. 28) noted, "instinctively at home" with social innovation and social enterprises involving "organic development, trial and error, [and] dispersed power". Complexity theorists have explored "the unprecedented, the unpredictable, and the non-deductible" nature of both social innovation (
Ecology and Society, 2014
In this paper, seven researchers reflect on the journeys their research projects have taken when ... more In this paper, seven researchers reflect on the journeys their research projects have taken when they engage with and synthesize complex problems. These journeys embody an adaptive approach to tackling problems characterized by their interconnectedness and emergence, and that transcend traditional units of analysis such as ecosystems. In this paper we argue that making such a process deliberate and explicit will help researchers better combine different research paradigms such as expert-driven and participant-directed work, thus resulting in both broad explanations and specific phenomenon; research tensions traditionally defined as oppositional must be approached as complimentary. This paper includes researchers' personal journeys as they dealt with the emergent properties of complex problems and participant involvement. This paper argues that that research journey should be more than accidental but is a methodological necessity and should guide the theoretical and practical approaches to complex problems.
Social Enterprise Journal
Purpose When complex social-ecological systems collapse and transform, the possible outcomes of t... more Purpose When complex social-ecological systems collapse and transform, the possible outcomes of this transformation are not set in stone. This paper aims to explore the role of social imagination in determining possible futures for a reformed system. The authors use a historical study of the Luddite response to the Industrial Revolution centred in the UK in the early-19th century to explore the concepts of path dependency, agency and the distributional impacts of systems change. Design/methodology/approach In this historical study, the authors used the Luddites’ own words and those of their supporters, captured in archival sources (n = 43 unique Luddite statements), to develop hypotheses around the effects on political, social and judicial consequences of a significant systems transformation. The authors then scaffolded these statements using the heuristics of panarchy and basins of attraction to conceptualize this contentious moment of British history. Findings Rather than a strict...
To illustrate the relationship between transformative social innovation and multisystem resilienc... more To illustrate the relationship between transformative social innovation and multisystem resilience, this chapter summarizes three transformative social innovations, the National Parks in the United States, the internet, and the challenging or social engineering–like case of the intelligence test. Each case study demonstrates how innovations shift several systems as they develop, scale up, and even became challenged themselves, as well as the authors’ overarching assertion that transformative social innovation and multisystem resilience are deeply interrelated. Additionally, it is by understanding our social innovation history that we can be better prepared for our future and avoid the pitfalls of social innovation’s underappreciated dark side, the risk of social engineering. This chapter is based on over a decade of work on multisystem resilience and social innovation at the Waterloo Institute of Social Innovation and Resilience.
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies, 2018
The First World War triggered opposite reactions from Indigenous men and the Canadian government;... more The First World War triggered opposite reactions from Indigenous men and the Canadian government; the former sought a combination (varying by personal degrees) of independence, cultural expression, treaty obligations and choice, while the latter saw an opportunity to strengthen their control of Indigenous communities for assimilative ends. We know about the experiences of Indigenous soldiers through letters home, the post war production of cultural artifacts and the too-rare memoir, but accessing the extent of the government's attempts at control within this context, specifically the highly personal and often fraught choice to enlist, requires striping away government rhetoric and bureaucratic bluff. In this research note, we assess patterns of recruitment to isolate the specific effect of the government decision to deliberately overlap Indian Affairs and military authority figures in the form of Agents-recruiters. This cliometric analysis highlights the power of this combina...
In a study of an innovation now seen as an example of social engineering, this case follows the e... more In a study of an innovation now seen as an example of social engineering, this case follows the emergent professional networks of psychologists and bureaucrats trying to reshape American society. The test began as an idea of how intellectual capacity works and a tool to measure it, which fell into the existing debate over social problems of poverty, underachievement and education (mislabelled at the time as feeblemindedness). The opportunities presented when America joined the First World War, and needed to develop a professional citizen army quickly, provided a perfect proving ground for the test’s applicability (if not accuracy). This is a cautionary tale of scientific measurement seeming to support social attitudes, and the power of networks to scale an idea into a policy.
This study counterbalances Western-derived evidence by describing Elders’ and students’ perspecti... more This study counterbalances Western-derived evidence by describing Elders’ and students’ perspectives of Indigenous service-learning through Indigenous research methodology. Data collection took place in a midsize Canadian university after an Indigenous service-learning public networking forum. The purposive sample consisted of three Indigenous elders and five Indigenous students. Immediately following the event, Elders participated in a focus group, and then students completed a survey. Qualitative themes were interpreted using conversational method and relational analysis. Elders called for the replacement of the term service-learning, re-rooting of the term Indigenous, and respect for the Elders’ roles and knowledges. Interconnected themes by Elders and students signaled a necessary shift from service-learning to relational learning. Such connections reveal the core purpose of relational learning with Indigenous communities as maintaining good relations through humility, respect, ...
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore multiple Canadian educators' experiences with... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore multiple Canadian educators' experiences with the Map the System (MTS) competition, designed to foster and grow systems thinking capacity among students exploring complex questions. The challenge has been an opportunity for social innovation programs (from the nascent to the established) across Canadian post-secondaries to engage both with their own communities and with social innovators internationally, connecting social innovation spaces as part of their third mission. Across the organizations, students valued the interdisciplinary and systems thinking qualities, and organizations benefited from the external competition, there remain questions about organizational engagement in social innovation as a deeply transformative process internally. Design/methodology/approach All Canadian post-secondary institutions who participated in the 2020 MTS competition (17) were invited to a digital roundtable to discuss their experiences. Ten w...
I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, inc... more I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public.
In an inversion of what is usually presented as economic innovation, this case explores the socia... more In an inversion of what is usually presented as economic innovation, this case explores the social conditions that allowed the joint stock model to grow and flourish in the Northern Netherlands in the 16th and 17th centuries. Fuelling the period known as the Dutch Golden Age, the joint stock model allowed for significant, revolutionary shifts in resource flows, and ultimately reinforced an actual Dutch revolution against Spanish colonial authorities. This case illustrates the cross-sectoral requirements for a social innovation to take hold and scale, and how these shifts ripple throughout a society, leaving little untouched.
Technological Forecasting and Social Change
International Journal of Inclusive Education
Decolonisation in higher education requires congruent social processes that support human rights ... more Decolonisation in higher education requires congruent social processes that support human rights and inclusive knowledge generation. While often discussed, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission o...
Social Enterprise Journal
Purpose Reconciliation between Indigenous peoples and the Canadian plurality has stalled. While t... more Purpose Reconciliation between Indigenous peoples and the Canadian plurality has stalled. While the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) Calls to Action could be a focusing event, creating a window of opportunity for transformative social innovations; we see coalescing of interest, social capital and investment in decolonization and indigenization in the proliferation of professorships, programs, installations and statements. However, Blackfoot (Siksika) Elder Roy Bear Chief raised significant concerns that Indigenous knowledge, experiences and people are not yet seen as relevant and useful in higher education; such marginalization must be addressed at a systems level for authentic reconciliation at any colonial university. The purpose of this paper was to explore this dual goal of exploring barriers to and opportunities for Indigenous knowledges and knowledge holders to be valued as relevant and useful in the Canadian academy, using a complexity- and systems-informed lens. D...
The Evolution of Social Innovation
New Frontiers in Social Innovation Research, 2015
This paper introduces a new theory surrounding the process of social innovation using historical ... more This paper introduces a new theory surrounding the process of social innovation using historical case studies. Using the particular example of the lifecycle of the intelligence test over the first half of the twentieth century in the United States, we discuss the hypothesis that the discovery/definition of new social phenomena (naturalistic, constructed, and technological expressions of what we can, ought or will do, that direct or influence behavior) and combination of new and extant phenomena provide the necessary intellectual space and impetus-through glimpses of what could be, seen through the lens of new social phenomena-for the creation of clusters of inventions and innovations. One or more of these innovations, when scaled up or out, can ultimately shift an entire system. This process requires the work of multiple actors, occupying three general roles, the poet, the designer and the debater. Historical data suggests these agents act on both the niche and landscape level, and can travel effectively between them, spotting approaching windows of opportunity to create pathways to their desired adjacent possible, while incubating new social innovations. These observations are based on a comparison of a growing body of historical cases of social innovations.