Overallétés

Overallétés is a neologism used to describe a quality of holistic integration or overarching coherence across systems, designs, or analyses. The term functions as a conceptual label for approaches that prioritize aggregated properties, emergent behaviors, and the relationships between parts and wholes rather than isolated elements.

Etymology and usage: the word combines an English sense of "overall" with a suffix that evokes abstract noun forms in several Romance languages. It is primarily used in contemporary discourse on design theory, systems thinking, urban planning, and cultural criticism to indicate attention to synthesis and context.

Characteristics: concepts described as exhibiting overalletés emphasize multi-scalar perspective, interoperability, resilience, and the negotiation of trade-offs between local details and global outcomes. Methodologically, it often involves cross-disciplinary collaboration, iterative modeling, and scenario-based evaluation to capture interactions that are not visible in single-domain analyses.

Applications: in practice, overallétés can inform integrated infrastructure projects, product ecosystems, organizational strategy, and environmental management. Advocates argue that it supports long-term adaptability and reduces unintended consequences by foregrounding systemic interdependence.

Criticism and status: critics contend that overallétés can be vague or used as rhetoric without clear metrics, and that holistic claims may obscure necessary attention to marginalized specifics. The term remains primarily heuristic, employed by practitioners and commentators as a shorthand for integrative thinking rather than a rigorously defined technical concept.