INDEP online Talk with Angela Espinosa – The Viable System Model as an Emancipatory Approach to Sustainable Self-Governance: Examples from Applications in Communities and Nations

This event is part of the INDEPxMetaphorum Online Talk Series for Stafford Beer’s Centennial.

This event will take place in English.

To participate, please register here.

When Stafford Beer invented the Viable System Model (VSM) for explaining complex social systems as self-organised neural networks, capable of consciously adapting to chaotic or changing environments, he was 50 years ahead of his time. His famous Cybersyn project in Chile attempted to put it fully into practice at the national level, to reinvent the idea of governance. This webinar introduces recent work clarifying how the VSM understands sustainable self-governance in complex social organisations, and the challenges of putting it into practice, as an emancipatory systemic approach supporting the transition to a post capitalistic economy. It illustrates these ideas by reflecting on practical applications in Latin America and the EU, in communities, and nations. All together, they demonstrate the potential for using the VSM as an emancipatory approach to support a transition towards fairer, more democratic, and more sustainable organisations and societies.

Angela Espinosa has been an international leader in developing Organisational Cybernetics, a cybernetic theory for viability of social organisations pioneered by Stafford Beer, who she worked closed with. She co-founded and led the Metaphorum, a cooperative developing his legacy, when he passed away in 2002. She has developed innovative cybernetics’ theory and praxis and advised organisations in Europe and America on more effective ways of self-organising and being socially and environmentally responsible. She has taught Systems Thinking and Cybernetics for three decades and has published extensively in the European Journal of Operational Research and other systems and cybernetic journals. ‘A Complexity Approach to Sustainability’ and ‘Sustainable Self-Governance in Businesses and Society: The Viable System Model in action‘ summarise her recent work and applications. She is an Emeritus Fellow at the centre for Systems Studies – Hull University Business School; and a Board member of the World Organisation of Systems and Cybernetics.