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Reynolds, M.
(2024).
Abstract
This short thought piece for the UK Evaluation Society in-house newsletter/ Journal examines the Oscar-winning film ‘The Zone of Interest’ to explore the value and relevance of ‘systems of interest’ in the tradition of systems thinking in evaluative practice (STiEP). Jonathan Glazer’s film portrays the zone or system as the routine domestic household life of Rudolf Höss, commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp which provides an ever-present backdrop of industrialised genocide to the Höss family life.
Evaluators attempting to use systems thinking often struggle in appreciating use of ‘systems of interest’ in relation to first-order and second-order practice. Conventional first-order STiEP uses the system of interest as ‘a system to understand the dynamics of an evaluand’. A second-order STiEP invites the wider use of a system of interest; ‘a system to evaluate an evaluand (which itself might be ‘a system’)’. Two contrasting published reviews associated with the film are used as proxy to evaluative practice; one being proxy to first-order STiEP and another proxy to second-order STiEP. The first-order review from Malcolm Lewis depicts the zone in terms of a time-specific bounded idea of the Nazi Holocaust. Taking this viewpoint, the review is critical of the impoverished account given in film to the economic, social, and political dynamics at play in better understanding the circumstances giving rise to the attempted genocide. The second-order review from Naomi Klein implicitly acknowledges many viewpoints or first-order ‘zones’ of interest in relation to the actual Holocaust but, as with Glazer himself, steps back in taking a longer and wider view of the Holocaust as subject matter. With this second-order viewpoint, the film challenges us in the broader questioning of human capacity to live with ‘holocausts’. This second-order perspective was more explicitly flushed out in Glazer’s subsequent controversial Oscar-winning acceptance speech at the time of Israeli military actions on Gaza. As a UK citizen of Jewish descent, Glazer made allegorical use of the film to question the role of Israel in its devastating response on Palestinians in Gaza – moving beyond first-order to second-order evaluative practice. Both reviews (systems of interest) have legitimacy. The question is how might evaluative practice incorporate first-order STiEP as part of wider second-order STiEP in order to challenge ethical and political dynamics of an evaluand as well as corresponding dynamics of an evaluation? Three principles of STiEP are suggested as a vehicle for supporting evaluative practice in addressing zones of interest in a commissioned evaluation – drawing on and incorporating both first-order and second-order evaluative practice.
Plain Language Summary
The distinction between 1st and 2nd order practice as lenses on evaluative practice is a challenging idea in the tradition of systems thinking in evaluative practice (STiEP). The distinction between the two lenses is explored through examining two reviews of the Oscar-winning film The Zone of Interest; each review being proxy to 1st and 2nd order STiEP respectively. Appropriate deployment of both lenses are suggested through guidance provided by three general principles of STiEP.
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
