25 October 2024
This is the final post in our series on complexity. We’ve explored some of the ways that studying complex systems gives us a more nuanced way of understanding the world, how this is relevant to all our lives, and the unique contributions we can make to this new way of understanding the world from Aotearoa New Zealand.
Change happens all the time. Humans grow and age, days shift from light to dark, and people move between cities and jobs.
Some changes are expected and natural – like human growth and ageing. Some are cyclical – like the seasons. And some are the outcome of complex circumstances – like a global financial crisis. Some changes can be anticipated, but others are unpredictable. And some changes are desirable, while others might need to be prevented or reverted.
Sometimes we want to create the conditions for change through human intervention. We can do this as individuals, communities or through other organised efforts of society such as our governance and policy systems.
Our big global problems can seem overwhelming, but by recognising how systems are related, we can create meaningful solutions.
Human intervention within complex systems
Understanding complex systems helps us to figure out how to make the changes we want, and prevent the ones we don’t. Recognising that systems have behaviour – like emergence and feedback – can show us how and where to intervene to create change.
Approaching something like health as a complex system allows us to identify interventions that are more likely to succeed. Doctors often tell people to eat better to improve their health. But choosing what to eat is not the same for everyone. The type of food available to people, their budgets, the amount of time they have, and how much they know about nutrition all affect the food they eat. Because of this, trying to treat health issues like heart disease or diabetes by focusing on individual behaviour will have limited success.
Instead, a complex systems approach to health shows that solutions also include better job opportunities, increasing incomes, creating fairer rules on the type and location of stores where people buy food, and strengthening how much say the community has in local and national government decisions. These interventions create the conditions that make it easier for people to choose healthy food that nourishes them.
Scales matter for making change
Different scales and the relationships between them are important when acting within complex systems. In health, evidence and treatment options will be different when focussing solely on individuals, rather than considering communities. Medications and behaviour changes help to treat and control disease in individuals, but treating the clustering of diseases in local communities requires changes in social and physical environments to prevent individuals from becoming sick in the first place.
Seeing problems from a whole system perspective provides information about what solutions might need to look like. We saw this during Cyclone Gabrielle. In Tairāwhiti and Hawkes Bay, the loss of telecommunications, power outages, and damage and destruction to roading and bridges caused many difficulties for evacuations, and made health services inaccessible. The elderly and people living with disabilities were particularly affected as they could not easily move around, which meant they had difficulties evacuating and getting the help they needed. Without telecommunications, doctors and pharmacies struggled to access patient medical records, and people could not pay for essentials such as medicine, food or petrol with their Eftpos cards.
The consequences of this cyclone crossed different communities, organisations and areas. But not all communities were affected in the same ways, and the evacuation, health and social support needs varied within and across the regions. Multiple and connected social actions were needed to address the impacts as they evolved, and to support those communities and groups most affected in the days, weeks and months following the cyclone.
Learning from the past and adapting to a changing future
Complex systems are open and interact with their environments, which means they have the capacity to adapt and learn.
With repeated extreme weather events in Tairāwhiti over the past 18 months, many parts of the community have been learning and adapting. Lessons have been captured and are helping us become better prepared for future events.
Land use is now a key priority for communities, and there is much stronger advocacy for policy changes – particularly recognising the responsibilities of forestry companies. Others have been adapting in smaller ways by planting up land alongside waterways, or on their own properties. Many whānau, neighbourhoods and communities now have clear plans in place for future extreme weather events.
In the months since Cyclone Gabrielle, a learning system developed through local community groups and organisations working with researchers to help capture the lessons and make changes. The benefits of these lessons will be felt right across the country. As we face more frequent extreme weather events due to climate change, the lessons learned in Tairāwhiti show that we need to be ready with improved infrastructure, and better planning for community resilience.
Understanding complexity supports better interventions
Social, economic and health systems are built by humans, and we can change them.
Instead of only focusing on change to isolated parts of the system, complex systems approaches focus on whole system change. They help us to identify levers like cultural norms or money flows that cross scales, or increasing the ability to adapt through better data and information linked to flexible resource use. We can also design and construct new systems so that they better meet the needs of our rapidly changing world.
We live within complex systems which interact with each other through feedback and emerge from local conditions. And there are ways to design our systems that recognise this – something long understood by many Indigenous cultures with knowledge systems and practices embedded in the relationships between humans and the environment.
There is an increase in social movements that advocate for human-influenced systems to be regenerative. These include: economies that take account of our finite resources; food systems that respond to local needs and their environmental impact; and governance systems that give power and agency to communities to improve local conditions and adapt to changing environments.
In the face of problems like climate change or inequality, it can be challenging to know how best to intervene or contribute towards change. Complex systems approaches can help identify strategies to effect large scale change, whilst acknowledging the power of small local acts that can reach across the boundaries of scales to influence the bigger picture.
This focus on relationships has potential to increase the speed and effectiveness of our responses to large-scale emergencies. A focus on complexity can help us to shift away from isolated, hierarchical action and mindsets.
If we make systems visible and understand how they are connected, we can change them.
A collaboration between Te Pūnaha Matatini Principal Investigators Anna Matheson, Holly Thorpe and Markus Luczak-Roesch, and illustrator Hanna Breurkes. Edited by Jonathan Burgess.