Arts-informed inquiry is interdisciplinary and integrative. It incorporates the questions of validity, legitimacy, and significance of traditional approaches as well as the questions of meaning and function that an artist asks in approaching work. As Max van Manen (1990) suggested, a researcher must, at times, discover or invent a methodological approach sufficient to the subject under research in order to create an energetic response. Coupled with a systems approach, arts-informed inquiry has the potential to create a rich corollary to the Aristotelian episteme in science research. Arts-informed inquiry allows researchers to tackle elusive subjects such as the search for wisdom, our roles as thinking and aware beings within nature’s complex web. It allows for the disciplined process of inquiry to be foremost in subjects of a personal nature such as gender identity or dreams and consciousness. The SIG will explore, through traditional academic papers and the approaches found in the arts, two parallel and equal “tracks” of inquiry: art-as-inquiry and arts-informed inquiry that utilizes the tools of the arts in science research.

An Abstract addressed to the society, as a whole, will be necessary for each type of presentation. Presentations may take many forms, from musical composition, performance work, visual art, and story-making, to academic papers of the more traditional variety. The chairs encourage an integrated approach involving both. All papers and performances must adhere to the spirit of inquiry in the systems sciences.

For 2006, the SIG will meet in the Conference Gallery and an announcement will follow from the planning committee regarding showing your work.

For further information and published references please contact Bela A. Banathy, Ph.D. and Lezlie Kinyon, Ph.D. isss06lezlie@yahoo.com

The priority deadline for submission of abstracts and panel proposals is March 15, 2006. Abstracts submitted after this date and before June 1 will be considered for inclusion in the program on a space-available basis.

Papers accepted for presentation will be compiled on a CDROM and distributed at the conference. The deadline for submission of full papers is April 30, 2006.

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http://www.isss.org/conferences/sonoma2006/
Sonoma 2006: The 50th Annual Meeting of the International Society for the Systems Sciences
Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California, USA
July 9th - 14th 2006
Debora Hammond, ISSS President 2005-2006, hammond@sonoma.edu