When social change happens: observation of experience and the paradoxes of pivot-making

ABSTRACT This article is an attempt to draw attention on passages when social change happens, beginning with people’s efforts to observe demanding experiences in order to work through them. This work is made possible by “pivots,” i.e. resources found in culture (a story, a conversation, a memory, an image) that allow a person to gain an eccentric position for observing his/her experience – and regain the ability to make intentional choices within it. In the process, people add to the trail of “pivots” that can help others make new distinctions in their particular circumstances – and so contribute to social change.