Critical Systems Heuristics

The ESDL research team participated in CUMULUS 2026 in Athens, hosted by the University of West Attica.

The group hosted the second working group. This year, PhD research fellow Ingelin Mari Åmo from OsloMet held a workshop that invited participants to explore how Critical Systems Heuristics, CSH, and standpoint theory could be used to surface reference systems in relation to complex situations.

The workshop was grounded in the idea that understandings of any situation are shaped by experiences, assumptions, norms, values, and boundary judgments that often remain implicit. Rather than aiming for one shared or fixed interpretation, the workswqhop created a structured yet open space for collaborative reflection on how different standpoints shape what is seen as relevant, legitimate, or possible.

Through mapping and guided conversation, participants examined both how a situation was understood at the time and how it ought to be understood, while reflecting on what was included, excluded, and taken for granted. The workshop aimed to make visible how knowledge is situated, and how different reference systems influence the way problems, relations, and possibilities are framed.