Of Maps & Territories — Transcending the Transcontextual, Transcultural, Transperspectival Madness

Acknowledgements- I want to acknowledge the role my friend Nora Bateson played in catalyzing the stream of thought that became this article. We had a deeply generative conversation on Clubhouse the night before focused on Nora’s Warm Data work, and I woke very early the next morning with my mind buzzing around the two-hour call which was kicked off by Nora with an introduction by me, followed by a robust conversation after Nora left to attend to a family emergency. I was influenced by her father, Gregory Bateson, and his Ecology of Mind book in the early stages of my own work on transformation beginning in 1990.

Transcontextual mutual learning is a phrase Nora uses to describe what happens through transcontextual interaction, which is the recognition that complex systems do not exist in single contexts but rather are formed between multiple contexts that overlap in living communication. It brings our attention to the way in which new knowledge and ideas are always birthed and spread through personal relationships, and how important it is to recognize who we are being with each other in that process.

What follows is the outcome of the mindstorm birthed by this and the dozens of other calls our Integral Leadership club on Clubhouse has hosted in the past 6…