Jody Hoffer Gittell, PI
Shyamal Sharma, Co-PI
Relational Coordination Research Collaborative
The Heller School, Brandeis University
About the Project
The Relational Society Project is a research and innovation incubator for seeking practical and sustainable relational solutions to address the serious crises of our times that permeate geopolitical boundaries and ultimately affect us all around the globe. We conceptualize Relational Society as a state of generalized reciprocity and robust social capital, created through goodwill, empathetic fellowship, and virtuous social interactions among individuals and stakeholders in a community as parts of a whole.
We humans evolved as an empathic species. Early in our evolution, as hunter-gatherers, we learned to value empathy and interdependence as crucial to our survival as a species, providing an impetus for creating a social order embedded in solidarity and recognition of our shared destiny.
We now live in a highly interconnected world – evolutionarily, socially, economically, and environmentally. Paradoxically, however, large swaths of humanity around the globe are afflicted by loneliness and social isolation of epidemic proportions, in addition to suffering from deep divisions around race, economic class, religion, and political beliefs. Our shared destiny as a civil society is at grave risk.
We are however hardwired with an innate capacity for relating with our fellow human beings, for expressing empathy, for building solidarity, for being resilient in crisis. Our hope, therefore, lies within us.
We need to build a relational society, starting in the communities where we live. We need to repair our damaged relationships and re-build our communities in a far more inclusive way. At the micro level, we need to foster human empathy, at the meso level we need to engage coordinated collective action, and at the macro level we need to build supportive institutions. The RCRC has launched the Relational Society Project, with participating sites in the US, the UK, Denmark, Norway, Nigeria, China and Pakistan to understand how communities solve complex population health challenges through relationships at all three levels.
The Relational Society Framework
Timeline
Develop Framework & Recruit Sites |
Stage 1 Comparative Case Study |
Stage 2 |
Stage 3 |
Reports |
---|---|---|---|---|
May 2019 - Aug 2020 |
Fall 2020 - Spring 2021 |
Summer 2021 - Spring 2022 | Summer 2022 - Summer 2023 | Summer - Fall 2023 |
Study Locations
Community | Site and Research Team Leads |
---|---|
China - Shanghai |
Hao Gong Qian Zhang Cheng Huang Ye Yu |
Denmark - Haderslev |
Carsten Hornstrup Charlotte Veilskov Thomas Vestergaard Andersen |
Nigeria - Abuja |
Olawale Olaleye Farouk Jega |
Norway - Oslo |
Claus Jebsen |
Pakistan - Peshawar |
Muhammad Siddique Saleem Gul |
United Kingdom - Maryport, West Cumbria, England |
Julie Clayton Suzanne Hamilton |
US - Portland, Oregon |
Jody Hoffer Gittell Shyamal Sharma Sally Retecki Erin Fair Taylor |
US - Cincinnati, Ohio |
Jody Hoffer Gittell Shyamal Sharma Rob Kahn Carly Riley |
US - Seacoast Region, New Hampshire |
Jody Hoffer Gittell Shyamal Sharma Bill Gunn Kevin Irwin |