Emergencing: A Strategy for Knowing What Others Can Know But Cannot Tell

This book is an attempt to explain how we can be effective in our work in global health. I used the emerging grounded theory design to investigate the paradoxical increase in the incidence of disease and poverty that exist at a time when there is increasing investment for fighting the diseases and poverty. I learned that failure to acknowledge tacit knowledge within local communities in developing countries leads to ultimate failure of many global health projects, creating a relevance paradox. We can overcome these problems in global health, and indeed other social problems by developing a skill for emergencing the more that people can know, but cannot tell. Emergencing is a theoretical model of knowledge emergence for effectiveness in our actions. Although the substantive area of study was global health, emergencing as a process of creating, and innovating, applies to all types of settings. Emergencing helps us to go beyond thinking outside the box, to thinking where there is no box.