Behold everthing changes

introduction

Change happens all the time, so why is driving particular change generally so

hard? Why are the outcomes often unpredictable? Are some types of change

easier to achieve than others? Are some techniques for achieving change more

effective than others? How can change that is already in train be stopped

or deflected?

Knowledge about change is fragmented and there is nowhere in the academic

or practice worlds that provides comprehensive answers to these and other

questions. Every discipline and practice area has only a partial view and there

is not even a map of those different perspectives. Further, it is no one's business

to pull together the range of diverse understandings. Until now, no organised

area of enquiry has set itself the task of developing a comprehensive approach

to change.

The purpose of this book is to begin that task by gathering a variety

of viewpoints from the academic and practice worlds. Eighteen perspectives

are presented here to demonstrate that developing a better understanding of

change, and more effective approaches to dealing with it, requires grappling

with the complexity of change.

And please note that The approach used in this book is multidisciplinary. Every contributor tackled
the topic of change as i saw fit. There was no attempt to start with a shared
framework or a common specific aspect of change. A multidisciplinary approach
allows the richness of different perspectives to be demonstrated. The challenge
comes in developing syntheses from the contributions, as it is not certain what
the points of intersection will be, or even if there will be any. A multidisciplinary
approach is therefore most useful when it is not clear what the focus of a project
should be or when fresh thinking on a topic is required. Hence there are certain things which virtually makes a person change on his own demand, which include, personal experiance or past experiences.the notion that society is constituted
through the actions of subjects is a basic supposition to be centered peripherally.
Take a lool now at  the interaction between individuals, for example, in terms of the differences
in the degree of autonomy that individuals possess at work, or how differences
in capital shape individuals’ interaction with social institutions, such as in the
case of the effects of class background on educational outcomes. It all do changes abruptly when the time to do so suddenly arrises.

On the other hand, we talk about other phenomena, such as certain kinds of social
relationships, with a great deal more ‘change-reluctance’. Consider, for example,
the issue of the relation of Indigenous people (for whom one of the accepted
‘tribal’ terms is Ngunuwal) to Canberra. If talked about in the framework of
colonisation, we might think in terms of great change having occurred in
Indigenous relationships to the place we now call Canberra, the created national
capital, as the form of life of Indigenous people changed drastically. But now
that some national land rights scaffolding exists for recognising relationships
to places, and recognition is associated with particular social and political
values, we are concerned to acknowledge this relationship as continuous—
though we might admit some discontinuity in its having been unrecognised or
ignored for some period of time. We background ‘differences over time’ for the
Ngunuwal because—despite the obviousness of many questions the assertion
may raise that the Ngunnawal people (alternatively called Ngunawal tribe by a
competing group) are the Indigenous Australian inhabitants whose traditional
lands encompass much of the area now occupied by the city of Canberra,
Australia, and the surrounding Australian Capital Territory—we are concerned
to assert, to ‘socially construct’ (Hacking 1999), as some would say, a relation
of continuity between people and place. Perhaps it is very significant that
some see this relationship as linked to our common present; it is less a remote
historical process that we are talking about because of that. It is also one about
which there are strong views and engagements, on the part of sociology
and others.
It seems we can hardly get much further without mentioning the twin of
change: continuity. We could define this as stability in some field, object or
relation over time, which perhaps is very likely to have implications for the
present. It is often observed that continuity should not be taken for granted:
if  things seem to remain the same over time, that also requires explanation.
Again, there are questions of perspective: what do people themselves, in their
various situations, make of change and/or continuity and its implications for
them and their lives?
I hope that my examples, though spare, have been sufficient to show that, for both
change and continuity, there are questions about modalities of sociohistorical
change, people’s discernment and experience of it as such, and their evaluation
of it. I also have meant to intimate that both change and continuity involve
expenditures of energy; both are actively produced in the human world, and
discerned in particular circumstances. And especially the above example of
continuity is such because it connects directly with the/our present. That also
leaves it open to a politics of contemporary position-taking.

"Woow! !!! Articulations and further explanations follows later. For now just stick on to these few phenomenon...."