Resistance and Reconfiguration: 1 Mapping the Field: Seeing the Invisible Architecture

1. The Prerequisite for Reconfiguration

No field can be re-aligned without first being understood.

Cognitive fields are invisible:

• they guide what is noticed and ignored

• they structure attention and salience

• they stabilise participation without overt rules

Attempting change without mapping the field is guesswork, not strategy.

Reconfiguration begins with diagnosis, not persuasion.

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2. Field Elements to Identify

A field can be mapped by identifying its structural components:

1. Attention Flows – What captures notice? What is backgrounded?

2. Salience Structures – What is treated as urgent, normal, or trivial?

3. Affordances – What actions feel possible, easy, or natural?

4. Constraints – Which options are cognitively costly or impossible?

5. Stabilisers – Symbols, routines, metrics, infrastructures, and temporal rhythms that preserve the field.

These elements exist relationally, not in isolation; they define how participation emerges.

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3. Mapping Methods Without Interference

Mapping does not require persuasion or altering beliefs:

• Observation: Track attention patterns and response rhythms.

• Trace Interactions: Identify recurring sequences of participation.

• Audit Symbols and Routines: Note which symbols, metrics, or procedures anchor behaviour.

• Identify Breakpoints: Look for areas where friction or confusion naturally arises.

The goal is structural understanding, not correction.

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4. Patterns, Not Individuals

Mapping must focus on fields, not minds:

• Individuals are effects of the field, not sources of its stability.

• Alignment, compliance, or misalignment occurs along structural trajectories.

• Understanding the field reveals why cognition follows particular paths without needing to “convince” anyone.

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5. Visualisation and Abstraction

Fields can be conceptualised using abstract models:

• Nodes = salience points

• Pathways = attention flows

• Constraints = high-friction zones

• Anchors = stabilising routines or symbols

These models are diagnostic tools, not prescriptions. They reveal where intervention is possible.

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6. The Analytic Shift

This is the essential inversion:

• Traditional resistance targets minds.

• Field-based reconfiguration targets structural relations that shape cognition.

• Strategy is not persuasion; it is alignment, friction, and affordance management.

Mapping the field is the foundation for all subsequent reconfiguration. Without it, any attempt at change is fragile, transient, or accidental.

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7. What Comes Next

With the field mapped, the next post examines Points of Fragility: Where Fields Can Shift:

• Breakdown, misalignment, and vulnerabilities

• Opportunities for small interventions to cascade

• Differentiating robust stabilisation from weak spots