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The terms social constructionism and (social) constructivism are employed in the context of different problematics and different philosophical assumptions. This article presents 'relational constructionism' as a social science perspective. The perspective centres language-based relational processes as they (re)construct more or less local relational realities. The latter includes western individualism and its construction of the bounded, separately existing individual relating to a separately existing other where 'other' is everything which is not self; this has been called 'hard' self-other differentiation. The perspective of relational constructionism allows that 'soft' self-other differentiation also is possible -for example, in the practice of relationally engaged inquiry and change work. Relational constructionism, as outlined here, has a number of distinctive features: it clearly speaks about ontology and power (unlike many other constructionisms); it centres and gives ontology to construction processes (to how, rather than what) and sees persons and worlds as emerging in processes (rather than assuming individual minds and actions); it opens up the possibility of soft self-other differentiation (rather than assuming that 'hard differentiation is 'how it really is'); and it centres dialogical practices as ways of relating that can enable and support multiple local forms of life rather than imposing one dominant rationality on others.

Appreciative Inquiry (AI) has become increasingly popular as a social constructionist approach to organizational change and development. Many claims are made about its status and value but there are few published evaluation studies. We discuss these matters by setting out our own version of social constructionism -and draw upon this to develop three themes. One key theme is that both AI and social constructionism should be viewed as variable social constructions and not fixed 'things'. This means that AI manifests in many different ways in different local-cultural and localhistorical contexts i . A related theme is that, if theory and method co-define one another then AI is much more than just a method. Last, when evaluation is also viewed as a variable social construction some evaluation practices will be more consistent with the premises of constructionsim and AI than others. These themes are developed in five parts. In the first, we set out what we regard as some key premises of relational constructionism. In the second part we examine AI, its multiple meanings, and its central premises. We then explore links between relational constructionsim and AI. This brings us to the point where we can introduce evaluation and its potential relations with AI. In the final part we write of how AI and evaluation could be performed in ways that put relational constructionist premises 'to work'.Here we reach the heart of our argument which is to suggest that a relational

This paper adopts a social psychological perspective to the study of social organization analyzed in terms of the skills of organizing. The arguments are intended to be general but discussion is grounded in research on womens' centers in Britain. Drawing on Hosking's work on small groups, leadership, and organization, and Brown's doctoral research on womens' centers, we focus on interlocking cognitive and social orders and the manner of their achievement. "Order" is found to be negotiated more or less successfully, the degree of success achieved depending on skilled performance in four main areas. These are outlined and illustrated. In the case of the womens' organization, a core value was found to be that of "distributed" leadership; they are argued to be successful to the degree that this is achieved.