Systemic Flux – A Community Writing Project

Systemic Community Writing Project

The Systemic Flux community writing project is for systemic therapists, researchers, consultants, leaders, trainers and trainees to write about their experiences of practice. This community writing project to encourage us all in the systemic community to share our learning from practice, our emergent responses. You can do this through experimental writing or multi-media forms as well as through professional academic writing. It’s hosted by Everything is Connected Press CIC which publishes the systemic professional academic journal, Murmurations: Journal of Transformative Systemic Practice – a free open-access peer-reviewed journal online at www.murmurations.cloud Do have a read of some of the papers or poems.

The first systemic community writing project was Pandemic as Systemic Flux between May 2020 – May 2021. Poetry For Now was the second one in late 2021. Decolonising Systemic Practice is the third writing project.

Systemic flux is a term we are using to draw attention to emergent processes with many kinds of relational consequences. These movements can unfold at a snail’s pace or in a lightning flash. Time and place are cultural constructs – like us, they change depending on the context we are in, who we are with, what we fell we can or cannot say or do… on many things. As systemic or relationally attuned people, we are well-placed to capture our observations and use writing as a similar form of flux in shaping and reshaping our ideas and noticings for ourselves and to share with others.

Current project – May 2023

“Decolonising Systemic Practice”

Send in some of your writing inspired by your experience of decolonising your practice.

What kinds of writing?

Flash tales. These are about 1000 words. Scenarios. Fiction as truth. Short stories.
Poems – in any style, haiku, sonnets, freeform.
Photo essays. Offer enough information so people can make sense of them.
Articles of 4000-6000 words. See guidance for them here.

As many writings on Decolonising Practice as possible will be published in a special issue by Murmurations: Journal of Transformative Systemic Practice.

Who – What?

We encourage all systemic colleagues and trainees to write something. It’s a way we learn from each other. On all areas of systemic-narrative-dialogue-relational practice.

Reclaiming our ways of talk-writing

We are reclaiming ways of writing with all of our systemic ways of knowing. We are story catchers and story tellers. Our know-how is complex, based on reading situations, checking our understandings and repositioning our inner and outer conversations. To every professional meeting we bring our ancestors, our colleagues, family and friends, schoolmates and tv characters. The reflecting team is always more than the few colleagues in the same building. So we need to speak about our practice with all of ourselves, in ways that reflect how we notice and respond with others.

Our writing is rarely innocent. We have been taught what proper writing looks like. It’s often used by institutional power to subjugate both described and describer. So how do we create the conditions to speak as we need to – as a systemic practitioner and as a community member with rich cultural heritage. What do we want to point to? How do we throw off the shackles of queen’s English and write as we need to express and show? The process of decolonising might involve using a range of media, being translinguistic to unsettle dominant ways of telling professional stories.

We live in talk. So how do we get the sound of talk into our writing? What can we do with our writing to convey the sounds and pace and rhythm of how we talk, in grammar and vocabulary? How do we take the stage unfettered and tell the truth of our stories ethically and with a systemic emphasis?

Living our ethics

Have a think about ownership of experience – whose story are you telling? What does permission or consent really mean in your context? Stories stick – especially in an online world. Always assume people in your stories will sooner or later read them and recognise themselves. What are your options when writing from within the living moment of practice? We can do this – but we need to do this ethically, honouring all involved.

Guidelines

Writings need to address the theme of decolonising practice.
Writings need to focus on systemic relational movements and their unfolding consequences for human and/or non-human systems.
Writings must be entirely your own original work and not previously published elsewhere including on websites. Co-authorship is welcome.
Writings should be submitted only to this journal or this writing project and not submitted elsewhere.
Writings must be in a version of English with British English spelling unless writing phonetically.
For our international readership, in longer papers please explain any local political and healthcare etc. contexts and write all acronyms and abbreviations in full throughout.
All professional terms and jargon must be understandable to a wider audience.
Writings need to demonstrate respect for others. This includes not identifying real people in ways which compromise their privacy or wellbeing, or the quality standards or security of Murmurations: Journal of Transformative Systemic Practice.
No commercial or sponsored posts will be considered (i.e., any post intended to sell something or for which you are compensated).
Any copyright or intellectual property rights infringements will result in exclusion of the submission.

Submission Process

Submission is by email to systemicflux @murmurations.cloud with DECOLONISING PRACTICE in the subject line.
Please send your writing as a Word document. If more than one item then in separate Word files.
Confirm in your email that it is your own writing.
Send a photo or picture to accompany it that has full permission to be used and full copyright attribution. Tell us how you and we have permission to publish the image.
Rolling submissions will carry on until this writing project concludes and is archived.
By sending us your writing, you are agreeing to the publication of the writing in Murmurations : Journal of Transformative Systemic Practice and the systemicflux.com website.