Why the name String Theory?

String Theory was first used in 2014, when I worked as an independent consultant for a few years. I returned to regular work for a while and then launched String Theory again in 2020. People often ask me about the name. I have trouble coming up with one simple and concise reason! But I have narrowed it down to a few explanations.

1. It has theory in the title, and building theories of change is a big part of our work. Pretty straightforward. :)

2. The photo at the top right has held particular resonance for me for a long time. This photo is named 'Untangling', and is the work of Canadian artist named Jeff Wall. For me, doing an evaluation is like trying to untangle a ball of string. You want to get all the knots out and keep the string in good condition so it can be used. You want the string to stay strong and reliable. It can feel very satisfying to untangle string but sometimes untangling is very frustrating.

Jeff Wall said that this photoshoot took place over several days. By the third day, the person in the photo had given up trying to untangle the string, and his relationship with the tangle changed from one of action and activity to one of acceptance. When I first saw this photo, I did not feel accepted in my evaluation work. I felt shame because I wasn’t working in ways considered best practice by my peers in my department. I felt frustrated and exhausted. I thought I was being asked to take something messy and make it neat because it made the jobs of people above me easier, not because untangling had any benefit. It has taken a long time to feel comfortable telling people that sometimes strings can't be untangled, and that is ok. All we can do is appreciate the beauty of the string in all its messy glory and let it have a different place in the world from the one we intended.

3. When I was a child, I stupidly, secretly, and against all advice watched a movie on TV called Threads, a 1984 UK movie about the aftermath of a nuclear war in Leeds. It terrified me and had a big impact on me even into adulthood. The screenwriter decided to name the movie Threads because the movie centres on themes of social connection and what happens when the ‘threads’ of society unravel. The movie was influential to me and the way I think about the vulnerability of populations in the face of broad geopolitical forces we feel are beyond our control (which I have seen first-hand in my work and travels), about rights and justice for our communities, about how we need to work together to shape the society we want.

I learned early on what it means to feel terrified and afraid, and I carry this with me. As the internet arrived, I was connected to an online community of people who had watched this film as children and had similar experiences. This piece of art that terrified me as a child also led to me making connections with people worldwide with shared experiences, hopes, and dreams. So the string part of string theory speaks to ongoing themes I contemplate around connection, communities, resistance, and social justice.

4. When I first started independent consulting work, I was reading a book called ‘The Trouble With Physics’ by Lee Smolin. Smolin’s book talked about the concept of String Theory had become (at the time) a dominant paradigm in physics, so much so that it was difficult to forge a career by referring to this paradigm in some way. This resonated with me because I had seen in my career how dominant discourses shape the practices of researchers and evaluators around me, not always to our benefit. It may seem counter-intuitive to adopt the name String Theory (after all, it refers to a way of being I am trying to avoid). I took the name String Theory because it reminds me of the need to weave in and out of dominant discourses and pull in the strings you need to create your tapestry.

So that is how the name String Theory came to be, and the name reflects my worldview.