Alain, I think you have put your finger on a fundamental issue. Of course we are "disabled by lock-ins to paradigms and mindsets which narrow, focus and frame our vision so that we fail to see and find breakthroughs". Abby mentions gender, a particular favorite of mine. As done by the CG, gender research is little more than counting (how many women at the meeting, how many women use diesel pumps, etc.). It's boring and it doesn't really tell us much. There needs to be a paradigm shift there. Another area is communications. I'd like to see some exploration of complexity theory and social network analysis to communications, but few people have heard of these. How do we effect paradigm shifts. One way is to read outside your field of study. It should be mandatory that every researcher has to submit a monthly book or article review on a topic outside his/her field.
Alain, I think you have put your finger on a fundamental issue. Of course we are "disabled by lock-ins to paradigms and mindsets which narrow, focus and frame our vision so that we fail to see and find breakthroughs". Abby mentions gender, a particular favorite of mine. As done by the CG, gender research is little more than counting (how many women at the meeting, how many women use diesel pumps, etc.). It's boring and it doesn't really tell us much. There needs to be a paradigm shift there. Another area is communications. I'd like to see some exploration of complexity theory and social network analysis to communications, but few people have heard of these. How do we effect paradigm shifts. One way is to read outside your field of study. It should be mandatory that every researcher has to submit a monthly book or article review on a topic outside his/her field.