Nora Bateson

Nora Bateson (born April 13, 1968) is an American born research designer, independent film-maker, writer, and lecturer. She is the daughter of Gregory Bateson, sister of Mary Catherine Bateson and granddaughter of William Bateson and is president of the International Bateson Institute (IBI). The IBI is a research group specializing in the development of a methodology for transcontextual research of living systems. Bateson is best known for her film An Ecology of Mind, which accessibly explicates much of Gregory Bateson's theoretical work while also providing insight into Nora Bateson's own relationship with her father. Bateson's first published work takes the form of a Thai cookbook and cultural exploration titled 4 Paws of Crab, which provides recipes for Thai cooking alongside historical information pertaining to Thai culture as compared to the culture of the United States.
Bateson's theoretical style is chiefly characterized by the conflation of complex systems theory and analysis with an aesthetic component, and the exploration of diverse and disparate topics such as education, communication, and cybernetics. This aspect of Bateson's work is exemplified in An Ecology of Mind, which successfully merges an illustration of Bateson's personal story with an explanation of her father's theoretical publications.
In addition to the production of her film, Bateson is also credited with the innovation of the neologism "symmathesy," and the corresponding theoretical essay bearing the same title. Bateson defines this neologism as "An entity composed by contextual mutual learning through interaction. This process of interaction and mutual learning takes place in living entities at larger or smaller scales of symmathesy."

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