Every CLD you've drawn in this course left things out. Every one.

You chose which variables to include and which to ignore. You drew some connections and not others. You decided where the system 'starts' and 'stops.'

These choices are boundary judgements — and they are the most powerful, least examined decisions in any systems analysis.

A boundary isn't a mistake. You must simplify to analyse. But every boundary choice has consequences: it determines what's visible and what's hidden, what seems relevant and what's ignored, who's a 'stakeholder' and who's invisible.

Boundary critique is the practice of making these choices explicit and questioning them.