European School of Governance, fellow policy paper #250606 by Adrian Wagner and Kosha Joubert (Pocket Project Policy Brief 1 in cooperation with EuroSense)
Keywords: GlobalSocialWitnessing, resilience, globalcitizenship, traumaticevents, collectivememory, gentlegrowth, actionresearch – GSW, complexity
As global systems face compounding crises—climate instability, armed conflict, cultural fragmentation, and systemic trauma—our institutions and citizens are increasingly overwhelmed. In this era, it is not enough to respond with technical solutions alone. What is urgently required is a societal upgrade in sensemaking—the capacity to feel, think, and relate in ways appropriate to the complexity of our time. This means aligning intention and action, ensuring we can take the next right step as swiftly as possible. It calls for a deep integration of attention, intention, and agency.
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” African proverb
Global Social Witnessing is an emergent response to this need. It is a social practice that cultivates embodied awareness of world events, enabling individuals and collectives to respond from coherence, compassion, and deeper embodied understanding. As a subtle civic technology, Global Social Witnessing grows our capacity to hold complexity and navigate polarisation without collapse. This brief positions Global Social Witnessing as a strategic tool for democratic resilience, post-traumatic integration, and cultural renewal.
Modern societies function within complex adaptive systems—nonlinear, emergent environments where patterns unfold in unpredictable ways. In such systems, “best practices” are insufficient. Instead, as the Cynefin Framework suggests, we must “probe – sense – respond”—iterating our understanding in real time.
This mirrors the approach of Global Social Witnessing, which invites us to sense into what is happening — not only cognitively, but emotionally, physically, and relationally. This whole-system sensing contrasts with linear, disembodied approaches to news, governance, and decision-making.
“Global Social Witnessing is the practice of turning toward, rather than away from, the world’s suffering. It allows us to become present with what we usually suppress—and this presence itself has transformational power.” PhD. Thomas Hübl
In complexity science terms, Global Social Witnessing enables us to attune to the early signals of emergence. Those weak signals are often missed by dominant narratives. It supports us to deepen our situated, embedded and distributed cognition to co-create meaning from fragmented realities. And it enhances our ability to have more space for the messy coherence we face in the world today to allow systems to self-organize toward higher functioning.
Global Social Witnessing: Definition and Function
Global Social Witnessing is defined as the human capacity to attend to global events with embodied awareness, creating an inner space that reflects and brings compassion to outer realities. Similar to first responders, you don’t rush into action, but stay present to take the next right step. It is a practice of relational presence that transforms how we perceive, process, and respond in uncertain and painful environments.
Key features of Global Social Witnessing include:
“Presence is action, when we are truly present with suffering, we are already changing the field in which that suffering unfolds.” PhD. Thomas Hübl
Framed within the language of complexity and systems thinking, Global Social Witnessing offers key capacities needed for 21st-century governance and collective resilience, such as:
Global Social Witnessing helps build sensemaking architectures that include embodied, emotional, and intuitive knowing—essential in navigating complexity where linear logic falls short.
Drawing on trauma theory and the science of relational healing, Global Social Witnessing reveals the hidden fractures in the social field and supports their integration. This transforms trauma loops into post-traumatic learning.
By training people to stay with discomfort without dissociating or attacking, Global Social Witnessing helps soften polarisation and reduce fragmentation across political, cultural, and generational lines.
Unlike reactive or performative activism, Global Social Witnessing supports slow, coherent participation that regenerates relational health in society. It activates what complexity theory calls attractors for positive systemic evolution.
Global Social Witnessing reinvigorates democracy by turning citizens into system-sensing agents—participants who not only vote or protest, but feel their embeddedness and agency in the unfolding of society.
“Wherever I cannot feel you, I contribute to separation, wherever I restore presence, I contribute to healing.” PhD. Thomas Hübl
Citizen Sensing and Embodied Awareness
There is growing interest in approaches like the Citizen Sensor Network (as described on eurosense.eu), which recognize the value of human sensing in decision-making. Global Social Witnessing can complement this movement by adding depth—bringing embodied, relational, and trauma-aware awareness into systems thinking. Here are five invitations:
Bring Global Social Witnessing into Civic Education and Leadership Training
Encourage schools, universities, and training programs to include Global Social Witnessing. This can help develop a more grounded, emotionally intelligent form of citizenship—one that brings awareness and presence into public life.
Support Global Social Witnessing in Public Institutions and Civil Society
Fund pilot programs that explore how Global Social Witnessing can support conflict resolution, refugee integration, or climate dialogue. These initiatives can deepen collective insight and strengthen community connection.
Train Facilitators to Hold Complexity with Global Social Witnessing
Equip facilitators and leaders in healthcare, education, and government with Global Social Witnessing practices. This can support their ability to stay grounded, navigate polarization, and hold space for emergence. A starting point for training is currently the GSW Facilitator Training.
Include Trauma Awareness in Policy Design
Recognize that trauma is part of the social landscape. Design processes that take into account emotional capacity and nervous system regulation, allowing for slow and respectful engagement with difficult topics.
Encourage Participatory, Qualitative Research Methods
Support distributed ethnography and abductive reasoning as part of public inquiry and innovation. These approaches allow deeper insight and uphold epistemic justice by including lived experience and embodied knowledge.
In this time of urgency, Global Social Witnessing may be one of the essential capacities we need. It invites us to meet the world not with control, but with curiosity. Not with certainty, but with care. It does not separate inner growth from social change, but brings them together into a shared field. By practicing Global Social Witnessing, we open the door for a different kind of intelligence to emerge—one that is embodied, relational, and rooted in our interdependence.
It is both a practice and a principle—a call to re-engage with the world not as spectators, but as participants in its unfolding wholeness to take the next right step of action in times of global upheaval.
“Every time we integrate a fragment—of our past, our society, our culture—humanity gets wiser. Global Social Witnessing is a way to do just that, together.” PhD. Thomas Hübl
Global Social Witnessing Facilitator Training
Eurosense – European Citizen Sensor Network
