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# An Indigenous Relational Approach to Systemic Thinking and Being: Focus on Participatory Onto-Epistemology

## Details

**Authors** Romm, Norma R. A.

**Year** 2024

**Publisher** Systemic Practice and Action Research (Springer), 37(6), 811-842

**Kind of work** article

**Discipline** Systems Science

**Secondary disciplines** Philosophy, Sociology

**Kind of engagement** scholarly

**Applied** false

[Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.1007/s11213-024-09672-4) 
10.1007/s11213-024-09672-4

## In authors' words

### Abstract

This article is structured around my locating a lacuna in the (mainstream) literature describing the history of the field of “systems thinking”. I investigate how dominant accounts of this history do not include an account of the contributions of Indigenous sages and scholars’ systemic thinking. Such thinking (and being) is grounded in a relational onto-epistemology and attendant axiology – where knowing is consciously tied to (re)generating reciprocal relations with others – human and more-than-human – as we enact worlds-in-the making. The argument is that at the moment of “knowing/inquiring” we co-constitute with other agents (and not only human ones) the worlds that are brought forth. Otherwise expressed, there are never spectators, only participants in ongoing world-construction. I explore the way of explaining this as proffered by authors from a variety of geographical contexts as a backdrop to indicating how Indigenous critical systemic thinking has not been catered for by those writing the history of the so-called “systems community”. This is despite many Indigenous scholars self-naming their understandings as being systemic. I indicate that exploring global superwicked problems from the standpoint of an Indigenous onto-epistemology includes pointing to, and experimenting further with, radically different options for thinking-and-being than those that thus far have been storied by those writing the history of systems thinking. I indicate why it is important to take seriously this approach, rather than drowning its contribution.

### What they set out to do (purpose)

Romm sets out to show that standard histories of systems thinking, including the four-waves account of Cabrera et al. (2023), omit the systemic thinking of Indigenous sages and scholars, and to argue that an Indigenous relational onto-epistemology offers options for thinking and being that those histories cannot accommodate.

### How they did it (methods)

A conceptual and critical literature essay rather than an empirical study. Romm re-reads the history of systems thinking wave by wave, sets each wave against Indigenous relational scholarship, and draws on co-authored work and community engagement examples such as Dzomo la Mupo in Venda. She describes her own reading as performative and value-invested.

### What they found (results)

Romm concludes that DSRP's account of the common underlying properties of systems approaches does not cover Indigenous participatory world-shaping and should not subsume it. She argues that the call to explore universality in mind and nature already separates a posited reality from cognition of it, a separation Indigenous onto-epistemology rejects because knowing participates in world-making; that DSRP gives insufficient notice to how language makes distinctions and shapes an emerging world; and that the validation offered for DSRP — considerable testing, a peer-reviewed publication record, sizeable citation counts — registers agreement within a judging community that may exclude Indigenous scholars, and so risks being self-fulfilling. She holds that Indigenous systemic thinking fits under none of the four waves and asks the systems community to include it in reading lists, histories, and research agendas.

## Commentary

### In short

#### Indigenous Systemic Thinking Is Not Outside DSRP

*Response to Norma R. A. Romm (2024), "An Indigenous Relational Approach to Systemic Thinking and Being: Focus on Participatory Onto-Epistemology." Systemic Practice and Action Research, 37, 811–842.*

Romm (2024) raises an important issue: Indigenous contributions to systems thinking have been historically neglected, including in dominant accounts of the field's development. This is true (and it might bear notice that Cabrera is indigenous). Indigenous ways of knowing and being deserve serious attention, accurate representation, and recognition within the history and future of systems thinking.

Where we disagree is with Romm's characterization of DSRP-484 and O-Theory and her conclusion that Indigenous systemic thinking cannot be subsumed under its common organizing principles.

Romm argues that Indigenous systemic thinking offers a relational onto-epistemology in which knowing and being are inseparable, entities exist through relationships, humans and more-than-human agents participate in world-making, and relationships carry ethical obligations of responsibility, reciprocity, and accountability. She contrasts this with DSRP, suggesting that its distinction between mind and reality implies independently existing domains and that its four patterns cannot adequately account for participatory world-making.

But these are not limitations of DSRP. These propositions are already central to the theory, and their ethical implications were explicitly addressed in Cabrera, Cabrera, and Powers (2015), nearly a decade before Romm's paper.

##### DSRP Is Relational, Onto-Epistemological, and Universal

DSRP proposes that distinctions (D), systems (S), relationships (R), and perspectives (P) are universal patterns of organization. Each contains two coimplicative elements: identity–other, part–whole, action–reaction, and point–view.

The claim is not that humans use these patterns to conceptualize a fundamentally separate external world. The claim is that these patterns occur in both mind and nature because minds are themselves part of nature.

**Mind ⊆ Nature**

Distinctions, systems, relationships, and perspectives are therefore not exclusively human cognitive activities. They are organizing patterns instantiated at multiple scales—from atoms, molecules, and cells to organisms, humans, organizations, planets, and galaxies.

An atom has an identity distinguishable from other entities, exists as part of larger systems, participates in interactions, and occupies relationally defined contexts. A cell maintains boundaries, organizes components, responds to signals, and processes information relative to its environment. Organisms construct models and respond to the world from their respective points of view. Human cognition is one particularly elaborate manifestation of these same organizational patterns.

This does not imply that an atom possesses human consciousness or that a galaxy has human intentions. It means that distinctions, systems, relationships, and perspectives are not defined by human consciousness in the first place.

**Perspective ≠ Human consciousness**

**Action ≠ Human intention**

Indeed, reducing these universal organizational patterns to exclusively human activities would be the anthropocentric move.

DSRP is therefore fundamentally compatible with the recognition of more-than-human agency that Romm identifies as central to Indigenous systemic thinking. More strongly, its universality claim predicts that more-than-human systems will instantiate these patterns.

##### Distinguishing Mind and Nature Does Not Separate Them

Romm objects to Cabrera et al.'s (2023) discussion of universality in mind and nature because it distinguishes mental models from real-world systems. She interprets this distinction as implying two independently existing realms.

This confuses a distinction with an ontological separation.

**Distinction ≠ Separation**

**D(A,B) ⇏ Independent(A,B)**

To distinguish two things is not to claim that they are independent, disconnected, or ontologically separate. Quite the contrary, in DSRP every distinction coimplicates an identity and an other, while relationships, systems, and perspectives further specify their organization and interdependence.

One can distinguish a cell from its environment without denying their interactions. One can distinguish an organism from its ecosystem without denying their interdependence. Likewise, one can distinguish a mind from what it models without claiming that the mind exists outside nature.

Mental models are real. They are organized phenomena occurring within nature. Their representations may be accurate or inaccurate, but their existence and consequences are real.

**Real model ≠ Accurate model**

A model that misrepresents reality nevertheless exists within reality and may alter subsequent events. The distinction between a model and what it models is therefore analytically necessary without requiring metaphysical dualism.

In DSRP, mind and nature are not two separate worlds that somehow require bridging. They are distinguishable, interrelated aspects of one reality.

##### Knowing Is Participatory and World-Making

Romm emphasizes that Indigenous onto-epistemology understands knowing as participation in world-making rather than detached observation. This is an important proposition, but it is not contrary to DSRP.

A knower is a system within a larger system. Knowing involves making distinctions, organizing parts and wholes, establishing relationships, and taking perspectives. Those activities produce real changes in the organization of the knower and, through interactions, in the world.

A mental model is not merely a passive representation. It participates in the causal and relational dynamics of reality.

Cabrera, Cabrera, and Powers (2015) explicitly described mental models as inseparable from actions and behaviors and argued that DSRP concerns both thinking and action. The theory was never restricted to detached observation.

Nor is participation restricted to humans. Across scales, systems respond to differences, organize information, and interact with their environments. The kinds and capacities of these processes vary, but the underlying organizational patterns remain.

Thus, recognizing that knowers participate in world-making does not identify a limitation of DSRP. It describes phenomena that DSRP is intended to account for.

##### DSRP Has an Explicit Ethical Dimension

Romm also emphasizes the Indigenous commitments to responsibility, reciprocity, relational accountability, balance, and regeneration.

These commitments are important, but DSRP is not ethically empty.

In *A Unifying Theory of Systems Thinking with Psychosocial Applications*, Cabrera, Cabrera, and Powers (2015) devoted an entire section to the psychosocial and ethical implications of DSRP. The paper explicitly states:

"Each rule corresponds to an ethical stance."

The ethical implications are developed through all four patterns.

*Distinctions* require recognition of the other. Every identity implies an other, and awareness of that other can reveal exclusion, marginalization, stereotyping, and oppression.

*Systems* reveal part–whole interdependence. Recognizing ourselves as parts of larger wholes creates possibilities for belonging, cooperation, mutual concern, and recognition of diversity within groups.

*Relationships* make actions and reactions explicit. They reveal consequences, reciprocal influences, and the broader systems within which behavior occurs. Such awareness supports responsibility, compassion, and consideration of others.

*Perspectives* allow us to recognize that our own point of view is not the only possible one. Perspective-taking can increase empathy, challenge dogmatism, and help us critically examine the values and assumptions we might otherwise impose on others.

These are not ethical principles added to DSRP after the fact. They are consequences and capacities associated with practicing its underlying patterns.

There is, however, an important distinction between *accounting for values* and *prescribing values*.

DSRP can organize and examine different axiological commitments without declaring a single cultural or moral perspective universally correct. It can make competing values, their relationships, their consequences, and their underlying perspectives explicit. This does not mean that all values are equivalent or that ethical judgment is impossible. It means that the organizational patterns themselves do not dictate one prescribed moral worldview.

DSRP's ethics is rooted in the capacity to recognize the other, understand interdependence, consider consequences, and take perspectives. Its content-agnostic structure makes this possible across different cultural and ethical traditions.

##### Indigenous Systemic Thinking and Structural Universality Are Different Questions

Romm characterizes Indigenous systemic thinking through relational ontology, participatory epistemology, reciprocal axiology, and collective practices of knowing and living. Her paper draws on Indigenous scholarship to illustrate these commitments, including human–nature kinship, ecological stewardship, intergenerational learning, participatory inquiry, and relational accountability.

These are important contributions. They deserve recognition on their own terms.

But identifying a distinctive worldview is not the same as identifying a distinctive irreducible organizing structure.

DSRP does not claim that all cultural traditions are identical, that all systems-thinking approaches make the same ethical judgments, or that differences between Indigenous and Western ways of knowing are superficial. It claims that the organization of such differences—including their ontologies, epistemologies, axiologies, and practices—can be described through D, S, R, and P.

These are logically different propositions.

**Distinctive worldview ⇏ Distinctive organizing primitive**

Romm concludes that Indigenous systemic thinking offers a contribution that cannot be subsumed under DSRP's common properties. Yet her paper does not demonstrate this.

It does not identify an Indigenous organizing pattern that cannot be decomposed into distinctions, systems, relationships, and perspectives. It does not show why relationality, participation, reciprocity, or world-making require a fifth irreducible pattern. Nor does it demonstrate that DSRP cannot represent the organizational properties of the Indigenous approaches she describes.

Indeed, many of her central claims involve precisely these patterns: distinctions between human and more-than-human agents; part–whole organization within communities and ecosystems; relationships of mutual influence, responsibility, and reciprocity; and perspectives that shape knowing, acting, and valuing.

The fact that Indigenous approaches organize these patterns differently, or use them toward different purposes, is consistent with DSRP rather than contradictory to it.

A structural theory does not erase cultural differences by identifying what different cultures have in common.

##### A Historical Omission Is Not a Structural Counterexample

There are two legitimate but separate questions here.

The first concerns *historical recognition*: Have Indigenous contributions to systems thinking been adequately represented in the literature and histories of the field?

Romm argues that they have not. We agree this deserves attention and correction.

The second concerns *theoretical sufficiency*: Does Indigenous systemic thinking contain organizational structures that cannot be accounted for by DSRP?

Romm asserts that it does, but does not demonstrate it.

It is possible for a history of systems thinking to neglect Indigenous scholarship while a theory of universal organizing patterns remains structurally sufficient to account for Indigenous thinking. The former is a historiographical problem; the latter is an empirical and theoretical question.

Confusing them does not resolve either.

This distinction also matters for the scientific status of the claims. DSRP proposes identifiable structures whose universality can be investigated and potentially falsified. A counterexample would be an organized phenomenon that requires something other than, or irreducible to, distinctions, systems, relationships, and perspectives.

A philosophical disagreement about whether knowing should be understood as participatory does not, by itself, meet that criterion.

Romm also questions whether empirical evidence can serve as a basis for evaluating DSRP, given that inquiry itself participates in world-making. But the fact that inquiry influences what is studied does not establish that systematic observation, controlled comparison, or falsification are impossible. The organizational processes involved in inquiry can themselves be included in the analysis.

Participation and empirical investigation are not mutually exclusive.

##### Conclusion

Romm (2024) makes a valuable contribution by calling attention to Indigenous systemic traditions that have been neglected in dominant histories of systems thinking. Her emphasis on relationality, participation, reciprocity, and more-than-human agency deserves serious consideration.

But her criticism of DSRP rests on a characterization that does not adequately reflect the theory.

DSRP is not restricted to human cognition. It does not posit mind and nature as independent realms. It is relational, accommodates participatory knowing and more-than-human agency, and has explicitly articulated ethical implications dating back at least to Cabrera, Cabrera, and Powers (2015).

Most importantly, Romm does not demonstrate that Indigenous systemic thinking contains an irreducible organizational pattern outside DSRP.

We can recognize the historical neglect of Indigenous contributions, appreciate their distinctive ontological and ethical commitments, and investigate whether they share universal organizing patterns with other forms of thinking. These propositions are not contradictory.

*Universality is not uniformity.* Shared organizational structures do not eliminate differences in meaning, knowledge, ethics, culture, or lived experience.

The relevant scientific question remains:

*What, specifically, in Indigenous systemic thinking cannot be organized through distinctions, systems, relationships, and perspectives?*

Romm's paper does not answer that question.

Until such a counterexample is demonstrated, her argument establishes a case for broader historical recognition, not a refutation of DSRP's universal organizing principles.

**Patterns it shows** D, S, P

**Added** 2026-10-11

**How to cite this** Romm, Norma R. A. (2024). An Indigenous Relational Approach to Systemic Thinking and Being: Focus on Participatory Onto-Epistemology. Systemic Practice and Action Research (Springer), 37(6), 811-842.