The Ecology of Belonging Research Program

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This stream examines how exclusion is created, reinforced, and reproduced through social, cultural, and institutional systems.

Drawing from liberation psychology, systems theory, critical social analysis, and transformative social change, this work explores the ways exclusion affects identity, participation, and well-being.

Areas of inquiry include:

• Social exclusion
• Belonging and participation
• Race, identity, and power
• Disability and neurodiversity
• Community formation
• Systems transformation

One outcome of this research is the development of Exclusion Feedback Synpraxis (EFS), a theoretical framework that describes how exclusion becomes self-reinforcing through recursive social and institutional feedback loops.

EFS explores how marginalization, misrecognition, and disconnection can create patterns that reproduce exclusion across individuals, communities, and systems.

This stream investigates how human flourishing emerges within relational and ecological contexts.

Rather than viewing well-being as an individual achievement, Cognitive Ecology examines the dynamic relationships among people, communities, institutions, cultures, and environments.

Research questions include:

• What conditions support flourishing?
• How does ecological fit influence well-being?
• How do systems privilege certain cognitive styles?
• What does thriving look like from neurodivergent perspectives?

Developed through graduate research in Transformative Social Change, the Cognitive Ecology Model proposes that distress and flourishing emerge through interactions among:

• Personal meaning-making
• Relationships
• Communities
• Institutions
• Cultural narratives
• Environmental conditions

The model challenges deficit-based understandings of neurodiversity and offers an ecological approach to understanding identity, belonging, and human development.

The newest area of inquiry focuses on identity development following major recognition events.

Current doctoral research examines the experiences of late-identified autistic women who come to recognize their autism in adulthood.

This work explores:

• Identity reconstruction
• Internal coherence
• Relational adaptation
• Meaning-making
• Authenticity
• Flourishing following recognition

Relational Processes of Identity Reorganization Following Adult Autism Recognition in Late-Identified Women

Using Constructivist Grounded Theory, this study seeks to develop a process-oriented explanation of how identity reorganizes following adult autism recognition and how individuals develop new forms of internal coherence within evolving relational contexts.

The study contributes to emerging scholarship in autism studies, neurodiversity, adult development, and transformative social change.

The Ecology of Belonging Research Program currently includes several developing frameworks:

A framework describing collective action through relational synthesis, emphasizing the role of collaboration, emergence, and shared meaning-making in transformative change.

A theory of recursive exclusion and the systemic reproduction of marginalization.

A relational ecological model of flourishing and well-being.

An emerging framework investigating identity reconstruction following significant recognition events.

This research is not confined to academic settings.

Insights generated through scholarship inform:

• Organizational consulting
• Leadership development
• Community-building initiatives
• Educational programming
• Public scholarship
• Neurodiversity advocacy

Research findings are translated into workshops, trainings, publications, community initiatives, and applied frameworks through Broad Spectrum Consulting Services and related collaborative projects.

Future directions for the Ecology of Belonging Research Program include:

• Neurodivergent flourishing and leadership
• Participatory and community-based research
• Organizational belonging and inclusion
• Community mental health innovation
• Ecologies of recovery
• Systems design for collective flourishing
• Educational applications of Cognitive Ecology

As the program continues to evolve, its central commitment remains the same:

To understand and support the conditions through which people and communities move from exclusion toward coherence, belonging, and flourishing.