Latest issue: Presencing the Futures of Democracy and Governance
This latest issue confronts the rupture in our world order, exploring how relational, caring, and ecologically grounded forms of governance can take root when the old bargain no longer works.
Vol. 5, No. 2 (2025) — Metaphor, Hospicing, and the Work of Doing Otherwise
The issue explores the role of metaphor and hospicing in navigating the collapse of existing systems and the emergence of new ones. Contributors engage with what it means to do the work of transformation at a time when established frames for sense-making and action are themselves in transition.
Vol. 5, No. 1 (2025) — Special Themed Issue: Social Presencing Theater
The journal's first special-themed issue, dedicated to Social Presencing Theater (SPT). In the context of deepening social fragmentation and disconnection, contributors explore how SPT, a form of awareness-based emergent movement and embodiment, can make visible the otherwise invisible dynamics of a system and create space for future possibilities to become known and embodied. The editorial frames this work as the regeneration of social soil.
Vol. 4, No. 2 (2024) — Emergent Literacies, Cartographies, and Ecologies for World-Making
Against widening societal ruptures and the rise of authoritarianism, this issue asks: what is ours to do? Contributors explore how crises accumulate and normalize within everyday life, and how transformation can be understood as an amplification of dynamics already present. The editorial reflects openly on the emotional and relational process of collectively making sense in tumultuous times, emphasizing relational accountability, attentional care, and first-person awareness as foundations for bridging divides and fostering plural, just futures.
Vol. 4, No. 1 (2024) — Prototyping the Third Option
This issue explores awareness-based systems change as a "third option", an approach that transcends binary thinking and advocates for new paradigms grounded in relationality, interdependence, and inclusivity. It features the landmark article on fourth-person knowing, a commentary on integrating Indigenous wisdom within academic frameworks, and contributions spanning leadership, climate, governance, and social art.
Vol. 3, No. 2 (2023) — Entanglements: Working With the Invisible Dimension of Systems Transformation
This issue explores the complex entanglements of our inner and outer worlds — the deep, visceral connections with global events that can leave us feeling overwhelmed and fatigued. Through a lens of decolonialization and awareness-based systems change, contributors examine the intricate web of relationships that underpin all systemic change efforts and the necessity of reevaluating and transforming those connections. The editorial advocates for a holistic approach that integrates affective, relational, and intellectual work, inviting readers into conscious engagement and collective purpose-shaping.
Vol. 3, No. 1 (2023) — Embedding in Place and Relationship
The theme of embeddedness, in place and in relationship, emerges as a counterpoint to the disembodying tendencies of artificial intelligence. The issue explores embeddedness as an integrative principle for awareness-based systems change, making the case for regenerative leadership rooted in place-based and local solutions to global challenges.
Vol. 2, No. 2 (2022) — 'In-between': The Dwelling Place of Our Time
This issue turns attention to the liminal space of transition itself: the daunting, messy, and potentially generative in-between where something old is dying and what is nascent cannot yet fully manifest. Contributions explore how awareness-based approaches can support dwelling in this space, including articles on trauma integration, mindfulness and systems theory, radical participatory design, and Indigenous circle work.
Vol. 2, No. 1 (2022) — From Duality to Complementarity
Positioned against the backdrop of polycrisis, this issue explores how awareness-based systems change, as an inherently hybrid, inter- and transdisciplinary field, can support the co-creation of new action-motivating narratives. Contributors engage with the challenge of holding multiple ways of knowing simultaneously rather than reducing complexity to singular causes.
Vol. 1, No. 2 (2021) — Moving from Transactional to Relational
This issue challenges Western and hegemonic notions of rationalism, reductionism, and dualism that have long constrained how we understand social systems. Contributors speak from a relational body of knowing, reevaluating the ontological and epistemological foundations of social institutions and suggesting ways forward that activate the transformative potential within people and systems.
Vol. 1, No. 1 (2021) — Inaugural Issue
The issue that launched the journal. Contributions explore the foundations of awareness-based systems change as a field, including connections between transpersonal psychology and Theory U, relational systems thinking from an Indigenous perspective, and action research approached through a social field lens. The editorial tells the story of the journal's own emergence as a response to the planetary emergency of our time.
