Sociometry

Use

Choosing between different concepts.

When we are looking for key notions to invent scenarios and to imagine worlds (such as a worlds with more risk and greed, or worlds with free media and frugality, worlds with powerlessness and connection...) we sometimes have to make a decision, evaluate the trends of the moment before prioritising one notion or another. Or we simply sound out our intuitions.

Several tools are at our disposal. There are data-analyses, statistics, polls and opinion surveys. To determine what is important to us, we can also find key notions by sharing testimonies (see the three t's exercise) or use sociometry, with our bodies in space, to make decisions and decisions (rather than sitting and voting or using chance to decide for us).

The exercise also demonstrates that a group is not static in its opinions. Depending on the arguments and ideas in circulation, opinions change. The basic concept used in sociometry is the social atom. It defines the individual not as a single being, but as a network of relationships of which he or she is the focus, according to Jacob Lévy Moreno.

Protocol

Start the exercise: as an icebreaker, line up from the shortest person to the tallest.

Then ask the participants to place themselves on a scale that you determine in the space in relation to the elements that need to chosen.

In this example the group chooses 'critical uncertainties' and needs to decide which of several options is the most important and most uncertain one.

They place themselves in the space on 2 imaginary axes on the floor.

• First axis: How important? Very important? Essential?
• Second axis: How uncertain is its development and its place in the future?

The members of the group go through each of the options by placing themselves in space according to the imaginary quadrant drawn on the floor. They literaly 'take position'. Groups of opinion trends become visible. Once everyone is placed, only those in one of the quadrants are asked about their arguments. After listening to them, the group changes places again. Now the persons in another quandrant explain their arguments for choosing that spot. You can continue until a general consensus is reached.

Credits

Taught to us by Maja Kuzmanovic in PAF, February 2019. There were peacocks in the garden and in the evening the group sang in the chapel and made torches.

Anna Cz. wrote this recipe.