A triad of constraints for hosted containers

This triad has turned out to be surprisingly helpful. I’ve been thinking about it ever since I posted it a few days ago, because it answers some questions that have been bothering me for a long time. So here’s an attempt to capture where the idea is leading. Think of this as watching it evolve in real time. I’ve already changed some of the labels. If I were to sum up my work on dialogic containers, I would say it’s driven by not having the physical metaphor sit well with me. In facilitation theory, containers are often thought of as objects with tangible sides: a cauldron, a room, a nest, a cup, a pot. Our language around containers is physical: craft, create, hold, disintegrate, build, strengthen, let go of, occupy, manage. A dialogic container is not an object at all. It is a pattern of interactions and constraints between people within a context. Because they are about constraints, it makes sense to think about them by their relationship to stability and emergence. In complexity…