Facilitating regeneration through methodological pluralism
Abstract
To address the root causes of today’s urgent social-ecological crises, there is
a need to transform globally dominant reductionist worldviews to those that support
regeneration: holistic, process-oriented and interconnected, in which life thrives at all
scales. This process necessitates a shift in awareness and engagement with complexity,
viewing emergence, diversity, relationality, and adaptivity as assets to be cultivated
rather than controlled or ignored. Pluralism—the ability to engage with diverse
ways of knowing and being across cultures, disciplines, contexts, and worldviews—
is essential for navigating complexity. Although the importance of action-oriented
pluralistic research is widely discussed in transdisciplinary literature, it is less
commonly reflected in research methodologies. This article-based thesis explores
how systemic design can practically apply methodological pluralism to facilitate
transformations towards regeneration.
Through a reflexive systems-oriented design (SOD) journey across three
mountain communities—Ostana, Italy, Hemsedal, Norway, and Mammoth Lakes,
California—I prototyped how plural methodological modes, methods and practices
can engage across diverse real-world contexts. Drawing from approaches from social
sciences, design research and embodied practices, this SOD-based research through
design thesis explored plural ways of understanding the intersections between
complex social-ecological challenges and co-envisioning regenerative futures with
community members. Key insights highlight the importance of multi-modal reflexivity
in navigating methodological pluralism, activating stakeholders’ awareness of their
agency and interconnectedness, and using visualizations to communicate processes in
systemic design research.
This study suggests that expanding the use of methodological pluralism
may benefit from viewing methodologies as complex systems—emergent, adaptive,
recursive, and interconnected—allowing for better navigation of differences across
scales, contexts, disciplines, and worldviews. In addition to this thesis offering
a combined critical pragmatist and regenerative perspective on methodological
pluralism, I offer a visual, analytical heuristic to support systemic design researchers
in designing plural methodologies. This thesis implies that cultivating these capacities
further can serve as a pathway for navigating the complexities of transformations
toward regeneration.