Mediation and COVID-19 share the same DNA. Liminality and the Adjacent Possible.

6 Pages Posted: 29 Jun 2020

Date Written: June 26, 2020

Abstract

We are often told to think outside the box. But how do you think when there is no box.

With the coronavirus disrupting our health, social interaction and the economy we are now going through what anthropologists call a liminal stage particularly as the pre-COVID world starts to fade in our memories.

Liminality is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of a rite of passage, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the rite is complete.

It is a period of suspension, change and recalibration. It will require a different way of thinking. One that allows the future to find us. We will therefore need a presence of mind that embraces these moments of liminality and take the opportunity and space to explore this in-between area. This prepares us for the emergence of the new in whatever form it chooses to take.

Stuart Kauffman, an Associate Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, introduced the term the ‘adjacent possible’ to explain why nature in general and the global economy, or the economic web as he calls it, have become so diverse.

As the name implies, it refers to what is adjacent to where you are now that is an immediately available entry point to take a step forward. As we take each step into that adjacent space a new set of ‘adjacent possibles’ immediately opens. Each step increases the diversity of what can happen next creating options for a reinvention or a new adaptation (exaptation).

Kauffman describes the ‘adjacent possible’ as where things happen.

The paper examines the anthropological concept of liminality, the complexity science principles of complex adaptive systems and the adjacent possible and compares and contrasts it to the mediation process.

Suggested Citation

Rooney, Greg, Mediation and COVID-19 share the same DNA. Liminality and the Adjacent Possible. (June 26, 2020). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3636122

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