Carole Brooke writes:
>To what extent is current 'critical' research in IS actually critical in
>its
>approach? Judging from the majority of the papers I have seen in other
>places, most research seems focused on Critical Systems Theory and/or on
>theoretical frameworks grounded in Habermasian concepts.
>
>Do you agree? What other approaches are out there?
>What does it MEAN to be 'critical' anyway?
Thanks for that, Carole. I recall a discussion on the critical-management
list on this topic last year with some quite good posts from those who
wanted to be critical about the way critique is understood. It can be
found in that list's archives for Sept 01 at
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A1=ind0109&L=critical-management#22
- too much to summarise but worth a look.
I have been less engaged with either Critical Systems or Critical IS than
I would like to be, partly due to frustration with much of the stuff in
Bob Flood & Mike Jackson's first collection on Critical Systems, where all
the papers seemed to do nothing more than TALK about critical approaches,
and particularly to outline Habermas' ideas, but never to APPLY those
approaches. I do know that Bob & Mike have, both together and separately,
subsequently applied those ideas, built methodologies etc, but I've never
quite got over that experience.
As for what critical means - I often think in this context of a phrase of
Marcuse's (in "One Dimensional Man"), where he talks about "the power of
negative thinking", which sums up what people often think critical
approaches ought to mean. I find that rather unhelpful (no doubt it's a
caricature of Marcuse too) - I would rather think of critical thinking as
being explicit about one's moral/political stance, with a committment as a
researcher/consultant/scholar to empowerment; and/or being prepared to
question the assumptions of others which prevent them from helping to
fulfil themselves/others as full persons. Or something like that anyway...
Magnus
--
Dr Magnus Ramage
Systems Discipline, Open University, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK
Email: [log in to unmask] Phone 01908 659779
Web: http://systems.open.ac.uk/page.cfm?pageid=MagnusRhome
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