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GLOSSARY INQUIRY: OBSERVER
Modernist and analytic science discourses assume that an observer can (at least in principle) be unbiased, objective and disembodied. Complexity science problematizes these assumptions.
This notion of objective observation, and the related idea that knowledge of a phenomenon must be gained by distancing oneself from it, are linked to Cartesian mind/body dualisms and modernist human/nature divisions. In contrast, for complexivists, the “observer” is always a participant. Observation is an interactive relationship between an “observer” and an “observed” in which they mutually constitute each other—that is, identities are established in acts of identification. Moreover, acts of identification are not innocent. They orient and give shape to action and, in the process, contribute to the unfolding of the universe.
In the context of education, a shift from “objective observer” to “participant observer” means viewing teaching and learning as participatory encounters which generate emergent possibilities that transform the teacher, the students, and the world.
See related terms: Knowledge, Ecological, Identity, Theories of Learning.
