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The Real Farming Trust and Animate Earth explore our reciprocal relationship with the Land. Hosted by Francesca Price and Rachel Fleming.

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Hoe wandelen helpt om de natuur te herstellen

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Neurowetenschapper Eric Scherder beveelt ons al enkele jaren aan dagelijks 10.000 stappen te zetten. Dat zou goed zijn voor onze mentale en geestelijke gezondheid. Veel mensen zijn door hem overgehaald te gaan wandelen, kijken elke avond gespannen op hun stappenteller en lopen desnoods nog een ommetje als ze hun dagelijkse doel niet hebben gehaald.

Zelf ben ik pas gaan lopen in de pandemie. Wie in de lockdown aan huis gekluisterd zat, kreeg sterk de behoefte even een luchtje te scheppen en de benen te strekken. Op een gegeven moment liep ik dagelijks zelfs tien of vijftien kilometer en zag ik ook vele vrienden door de stad banjeren. Het werd druk in de parken van de grote steden, en dat kwam ditmaal niet alleen door hondenbezitters.

Ik ben niet meer met wandelen gestopt. De ervaring van het lopen heeft mijn leven fundamenteel veranderd. Toen ik in 2022 hoogleraar in Groningen en Delft werd, koos ik ervoor om als planoloog het wandelen niet alleen te gaan bestuderen, maar ook als onderzoeksmethode te gaan gebruiken, en zelfs als uitgangspunt voor ruimtelijke toekomstplannen te nemen. Natuurlijk is dit een daad van verzet en een stil protest. De traagheid ervan past niet bij deze moderne tijd. En de moderniteit voert ons naar de ondergang. Dit is mijn doel: wandelen centraal stellen in de Nederlandse ruimtelijke ordening.

Wandelen doen Nederlanders nog altijd relatief weinig, hoogstens in hun vrije tijd. Wandelaars tellen dan ook niet echt mee. Dat heeft een duidelijke reden. Na de Tweede Wereldoorlog kwam de auto binnen het bereik van de gemiddelde Nederlander. Een razendsnelle uitbreiding van het autosnelwegennet heeft de massa-automobiliteit in ons land sterk bevorderd. Ze werd een symbool van vooruitgang, snelheid en moderniteit. Het netwerk was rond 1985 voltooid, daarna begon Rijkswaterstaat met spitsstroken en wegverbredingen. Het totale snelwegennetwerk omvat nu zo'n 5,5 duizend kilometer. Geen land ter wereld kent zoveel kilometers autosnelweg per hoofd van de bevolking. Het is dit massale autobezit - nu ongeveer negen miljoen personenauto's - dat onze generatie van het wandelen heeft vervreemd.

De dominantie van de auto als symbool van vooruitgang is nog allerminst geweken, maar kreeg in de loop van de tijd gezelschap van andere modaliteiten die hogere snelheden en meer comfort beloven. Stelselmatig worden steeds hogere snelheden van overheidswege bevorderd. Schiphol spant in dat opzicht de kroon. Vliegen wordt door de overheid op alle manieren bevorderd. Dat is steeds openlijker omdat infrastructuur economische groei stimuleert. Hogere snelheden betalen zich uit, want tijd is geld en tijdverlies schaadt de productiviteit. Vooral het zakelijke verkeer is daardoor het verkeersbeleid gaan bepalen, het goederenvervoer niet in de laatste plaats. Files worden in kosten van urenverlies uitgedrukt. Schiphol, de Rotterdamse haven, de hogesnelheidstrein, de achterlandverbindingen, het verkeersbeleid is in Nederland in de eerste plaats een verlengstuk van het economische beleid.

Geen wonder dat wandelen politiek slecht scoort. En als het dan een keertje aandacht krijgt, dan wordt het gezien als een linkse hobby. Dat was het begin de jaren zeventig ook echt, toen in ons land de eerste wandelaars zich manifesteerden. De ruilverkavelingen naderden hun voltooiing. Voor het landelijk gebied gold dat het vooral productief moest worden gemaakt. Alles draaide om de boeren. Daartegen rees verzet vanuit de grote steden. Het was een jonge, linkse generatie die meer natuurruimte, romantiek en vrije toegang eiste. Wandelen werd een daad van verzet, onderdeel van de tegencultuur. Eerst was er het NIVON, dat in 1975 wandelpaden uitzette tussen natuurhuizen in Drenthe. Daarna volgde de wandelstichting Op Lemen Voeten. Sinds 1988 is er Nemo met zijn ludieke en anarchistische Nemorianen: vrije wandelaars die buiten de gebaande paden lopen en die actie voeren voor onverharde paden. Spreekbuis werd uiteindelijk de stichting LAW (Lange-Afstand-Wandelpaden, inmiddels de stichting Wandelnet), waarbij een groot aantal organisaties zich aansloten. Deze nationale koepel vertegenwoordigt de inmiddels meer dan een miljoen Nederlanders die graag willen wandelen. Hun aanwezigheid in het landelijke gebied heeft echter nog altijd weinig gewicht. Beleidsmatig is het wandelen ondergebracht bij 'openluchtrecreatie in niet-georganiseerd verband'. Maar dat beleidsterrein bevordert vooral de aanleg van fietspaden en door de nadruk op toerisme gaat het ook daar steeds meer om geld verdienen. Twintig jaar geleden werd de eerste fiets- en wandelbeurs in Nederland georganiseerd. Inmiddels trekt die jaarlijks ruim 25.000 bezoekers. De nadruk ligt op de fiets. Commercieel gezien tellen wandelaars nog nauwelijks mee.

Een van de pioniers van het Nederlandse langeafstandswandelen was Roel van Duin. Het verhaal gaat dat Van Duin, hoogleraar Cultuurtechniek in Wageningen en directielid van de Rijksdienst voor de IJsselmeerpolders (RIJP), eind jaren zestig op een excursie naar de nationale parken in de Verenigde Staten kennismaakte met het verschijnsel van de zogenoemde trails. Zoiets wilde hij ook in de IJsselmeerpolders. Tot dan ontbraken voetpaden in de plannen voor de nieuwe polders. Het moderne platteland, vonden de ingenieurs, kon heus wel zonder. Het verkavelingsplan van Oostelijk Flevoland was juist gereed en daarin waren voor het eerst bosgordels geprojecteerd zoals je die in de jaren dertig ook in de Verenigde Staten en in de Sovjet-Unie aantrof. Ook de geprojecteerde eerste grote stad van de polders, Lelystad, zou in een bos worden opgetrokken. Zo kwam het dat op de kust van Flevoland in mei 1974 het Flevopad werd geopend: een 35 kilometer lang onverhard pad van Ketelhaven naar Harderhaven, het eerste wandelpad in de IJsselmeerpolders, tevens een van de oudste gemarkeerde paden in Nederland. Later zou het Flevospoor volgen: 29 kilometer vanaf Lelystad tot Harderwijk, een nieuw pad door een jonge bosgordel.

Vanuit de RIJP liet Van Duin in Wageningen een studie verrichten naar het wandelpadennetwerk in Nederland. De uitkomsten stelden flink teleur. Buiten het NIVON-pad in Drenthe gerekend, konden mensen in ons land eigenlijk alleen over de Hondsrug lopen. In het oosten van het land waren weliswaar meer paden, maar die waren vooral voor prestatielopen bedoeld. In het buitenland daarentegen waren indrukwekkende langeafstandswandelpaden voor natuurvrienden, echte wandelaars en genieters van het fraaie landschap. Vaak betrof het oude pelgrimsroutes, maar in Nederland waren die afwezig. De twee nieuwe paden in de polders konden feitelijk nergens op aansluiten.

Het zou nog acht jaar duren voordat Toos Goorhuis-Tjalsma en Bertje Jens tussen het Groningse Pieterburen en de Sint Pieterberg bij Maastricht hun Pieterpad ontwikkelden. Daarna verschenen meer langeafstandswandelpaden. Had het NIVON in 1983 duizend kilometer paden in beheer, eind 1984 telde de pas opgerichte stichting LAW al 2700 kilometer paden. Voor de particulieren en de particuliere stichtingen die daartoe het initiatief namen betekende het ontwikkelen van een LAW echter een eindeloos overleg. Veel instanties werkten tegen. Wandelervaring door pelgrimsroutes in het buitenland te lopen hielp mee in deze ondanks alle tegenwerking relatief snelle ontwikkeling. Vooral de voettocht naar Santiago de Compostela bracht steeds meer mensen op de been. Toen Herman Vuijsje zijn Pelgrim zonder God (1989) schreef, was hij een van de eersten, maar inmiddels lopen jaarlijks ruim drieduizend Nederlanders het Spaanse deel van de camino. Maar laten we de Nederlandse Spoorwegen niet vergeten, die met boekjes vol wandelingen tussen de 7 en 22 kilometer bijdroeg aan de popularisering van het wandelen. Die waren ooit verkrijgbaar op elk station. Ze bestaan nog steeds: de NS-wandelingen.

Het Pieterpad ter hoogte van de Steile Oever in Ommen. De Steile Oever bevindt zich langs een oude waterloop van de Regge. © Eugene Winthagen / ANP

Afgelopen zomer zocht ik het oude Flevopad op. Ik wilde het pad van Van Duin nu eindelijk wel eens lopen. Maar, hoe ik ook zocht, het is er niet meer. Grote delen bleken omgezet in verhard fietspad. Ook de context bleek veranderd. Het voetpad van de RIJP was ooit gecombineerd met strandjes en parkeerhavens, maar die recreatievoorzieningen zijn inmiddels dikwijls leeg en functioneren nauwelijks meer. Recreëren vanuit de kofferbak van de auto dicht bij huis is dertig jaar na de aanleg kennelijk verleden tijd geworden. Toch moet de overheid zulke recreatiegebieden nog onderhouden. Dat valt niet mee. Datzelfde geldt voor de vele recreatieparken. Slechts enkele zijn goed onderhouden, zo goed zelfs dat hun gebruik zich niet van permanente bewoning onderscheidt. Een enkele blijkt omgezet in een asielzoekerscentrum. En overal zag ik slagbomen.

De snelheidscultuur heeft ons van het landschap vervreemd

Is het op het oude land beter? Mijn studiegebied is Noord-Nederland. Buiten Drenthe gerekend zijn onverharde paden daar hoogst zeldzaam. Maar op ruilverkavelingswegen kun je ook best lopen, al is de ervaring van het wandelen daar veel minder. In Friesland werd in 2009 het project Oude paden nieuwe wegen afgerond. Uit die provinciale inventarisatie blijkt dat door ruilverkavelingen en schaalvergroting veel historische paden zijn verdwenen, maar ook dat er nog verrassend veel in het Friese landschap aanwezig zijn. Ze worden echter niet of nauwelijks onderhouden, of ze zijn niet meer toegankelijk. In Groningen is het Routebureau actief, dat wandelpaden vat in een regionaal netwerk en dat via Landschapsbeheer Groningen de markeringen en het onderhoud verzorgt. Lijkt Drenthe zich te richten op fietspaden en Friesland op waterwegen, Groningen omarmt voetpaden, ook al zijn die in die provincie bijna allemaal verhard.

Mijn leerstoel gaat over de revitalisering van stad en platteland, in het bijzonder van Groningen en Friesland. Als bezetter van de Abe Bonnemaleerstoel heb ik in mijn onderzoek het wandelen centraal gesteld. Dat is riskant, want politiek kan ik daar niet mee scoren, wetenschappelijk betreed ik een nieuw terrein. Maar gelet op de klimaatcrisis en het snelle verlies van biodiversiteit is er voldoende reden om het wandelen naar voren te schuiven. Door te lopen zoek ik contact met het landschap en met de mensen in de twee genoemde provincies. En door mijn voorbeeld hoop ik anderen daartoe aan te zetten. Een toekomstvisie op Noord-Nederland wil ik vanuit het gevarieerde landschap van de noordelijke provincies ontwikkelen, niet vanuit de economie.

Zo liep ik afgelopen jaar het Hollandse kustpad over een afstand van 280 kilometer van Stavoren in het westen naar het oostelijke Bad Nieuweschans pal aan de Duitse grens. Ik liep door de kwelders ten noorden van Moddergat, omcirkelde het Lauwersmeer, doorsneed de haven van Delfzijl, liep door de dorpen in het aardbevingsgebied, zag uit over de Punt van Reide, overnachtte op zolders, schuren en in kerken. De ervaring van het wandelen, ontdekte ik, is volstrekt anders dan het raadplegen van kaarten of het lezen van boeken. Beleidsstukken lees ik natuurlijk wel, maar door te wandelen ervaar ik pas echt het landschap, doordat ik al mijn zintuigen gebruik. Door met anderen te wandelen sta ik in direct contact met de mensen die in het gebied leven en werken. Zo overbrug ik de abstracte systeemwereld van het planologische beleid en de leefwereld van mensen.

Steeds liep ik in gezelschap van anderen, waarbij ik na elke vijftien kilometer van wandelpartner wisselde. De mensen met wie ik wandelde kozen mij uit, want doorgaans kende ik hen niet. Ik had alleen de route bepaald, waarop zij konden intekenen. Later, in juni, liep ik met mensen die mij iets wilden laten zien: de bedreigde weidegrond ten zuiden van Goutum, het ommeland van Buitenpost, het boerenland bij Pieterzijl, de velden ten noordoosten van Ten Boer, de blauwgraslanden tussen Aldeboarn en Goengahuizen, het Fochteloërveen op de grens van Friesland en Drenthe, de bossen, beekdalen en heidegronden ten oosten van Assen. Steeds liet ik me meevoeren besprak ik wat we zagen.

Het viel mij op hoe belangrijk het is om echt de tijd te nemen om alles in je op te nemen. Een wandelaar ziet, hoort en ruikt gewoon veel meer. Tijd is kostbaar, dat weet ik. Wie weinig tijd heeft en met hoge snelheid rijdt ziet weinig, beleeft alleen vage contouren. Wie achter de computer zit, vaart blind op abstracte kaarten. Door de aanwezigheid in het landschap en de opzettelijke vertraging ontstaat oog voor het detail. Maar er is meer. Ook de gesprekken tijdens het lopen duren langer en verdiepen zich naarmate de tijd verstrijkt. Wie in het landschap loopt, begint met elkaar over de geschiedenis te spreken, want alles heeft een oorzaak die in het verleden ligt en die vraagt om een verklaring die historisch is. Het appreciëren van de elementen wordt beantwoord, want het landschap reageert. Het toont zich in al zijn schoonheid, en wie lange tijd loopt gaat steeds meer schoonheid zien.

Het bij het wandelen ervaren landschap blijkt doorgaans complex. Zeker in Groningen en Friesland is het oud en gelaagd, ook al heeft de moderne tijd soms zijn best gedaan om alles uit te wissen. Opzettelijk vertragen en tijd nemen om waar te nemen blijken bepalend voor contactherstel. 'Walking, ideally, is a state in which the mind, the body, and the world are aligned', stelt de Amerikaanse schrijver en activist Rebecca Solnit in Wanderlust (2002). Ik kan het als wandelaar ronduit beamen. Lichaam, geest en wereld gaan tijdens het wandelen met elkaar in gesprek. En Noord-Nederland is niet alleen mooi en afwisselend, het landschap vergt ook tijd om het te doorgronden.

Maar wie heeft nog zoveel tijd? Bijna niemand, schat ik. Geen wonder dat onze landschappen op bestemmingsplankaarten beginnen te lijken. Hier een stukje natuur, daar een waterwingebied, ginder een recreatiepark, in de verte een bedrijventerrein. Het bepalen van de begrenzing van vrijwel alle functies lijkt vooral op papier gemaakt. Zeker, er werden alternatieve tracés getekend, varianten doorgesproken en alles is daarna met iedereen afgewogen. Maar het resultaat ziet er op de grond allesbehalve vriendelijk uit. En elk gebiedje blijkt onderhevig aan strikte beleidsregels van vaak heel verschillende instanties. Ten slotte zijn er nog de boeren, van wie er velen pachter zijn. Ook zij hebben zich steeds meer gespecialiseerd en hun bedrijfsvoering werd rationeler. Hun functioneren lijkt steeds meer door regelgeving te worden gedomineerd. Toch valt dit in Noord-Nederland nog mee. Het landschap is er gaver, weliswaar aangeroerd maar doorgaans niet teveel aangetast. Het gevoel van dorp naar dorp te lopen, van kerk naar kerk, is er nog.

Het is volgens mij niet zozeer vanwege de bevolkingsdruk en de vele ruimteclaims dat ons landschap zo snel versnippert en verrommelt, maar in de eerste plaats de regelgeving en de hoge druk waaronder alle instanties en betrokkenen moeten handelen, en dus het gebrek aan tijd, ook bij bestuurders, om te wandelen en het geheel te overzien dat ons opbreekt. De snelheidscultuur heeft ons van het landschap vervreemd en ons aangezet tot ruimteconsumptie. En dan die schaalvergroting. Echt lelijk is de uitkomst misschien niet, maar het is wel pover, onverschillig, en ambtelijk.

Maar nogmaals, in Groningen, Drenthe en Friesland valt dit alles nog reuze mee. Het landschap is daar op veel plaatsen nog steeds echt om te genieten. Vandaar de waarschuwing dat uitgerekend daar de komende jaren veel valt te verliezen, zeker indien het Noorden de Randstad zou willen volgen.

Het zet mij aan om het wandelen de komende jaren voort te zetten. Ik ben ervan overtuigd dat provinciale omgevingsplannen die het publieke voetpadenstelsel en daarmee het wandelen principieel als uitgangspunt nemen, al op zeer korte termijn een rijker en gezonder leefmilieu zullen opleveren. Rebecca Solnit beschouwt in Wanderlust wandelen zelfs als belangrijker dan de veelbesproken energietransitie. Door opzettelijk te vertragen zullen we veel duurzamer gaan leven. Natuur, landschap, leefomgeving, ze kunnen echt worden hersteld.

Dit artikel is een bewerking van de oratie die Zef Hemels op 15 september uitsprak aan de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.

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Hoe wandelen helpt om de natuur te herstellen

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Natuur, landschap, leefomgeving, ze kunnen echt worden hersteld, meent planoloog Zef Hemel. Door opzettelijk te vertragen kunnen we veel duurzamer gaan leven.

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Navigeren naar een gezonde, leefbare en veilige toekomst voor iedereen in Nederland. Vanuit gebiedsgedreven innovatie

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Een bloeiende toekomst van Nederland is geworteld in gebieden

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At the Heart of Art and Earth - Jan van Boeckel

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At the Heart of Art and Earth - Jan van Boeckel

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Thomas Hübl, PhD, is a renowned teacher, author, and international facilitator who works within the complexity of systems and cultural change, integrating the core insights of the great wisdom traditions and mysticism with the discoveries of science. Since the early 2000s, he has led large-scale events and courses on the healing of collective trauma.

He is the author of Attuned: Practicing Interdependence to Heal Our Trauma-and Our World and Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds. He has served as an advisor and guest faculty for universities and organizations, as a coach for CEOs and organizational leaders, and is currently a visiting scholar at the Wyss Institute at Harvard University.

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Practicing Interdependence to Heal Our Trauma-and Our World

Thomas Hübl provides a visionary guide for tapping into our collective human consciousness - with tools, techniques, and new insights to help heal our traumatized world.

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Excerpt from the book

In this introduction, explore how attunement can reshape our daily lives and help build mastery in our relational skills, bringing us into clearer alignment, deeper coherence, and truer connection-with ourselves and one another, with nature, and with the cosmos.

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We are all connected―and we are all dependent on each other and the world we live in.

Yet even though technology has allowed us to virtually share our lives with more people than ever, the result has been a growing pattern of personal isolation, alienation, and division. Why is this? "We are seeing the manifestation of collective trauma," says luminary Thomas Hübl.

"The profoundly complex challenges we face demand a new level of human collaboration."

With Attuned, Hübl shares a bold and empowering guide for anyone committed to the healing of our struggling world. He begins with a compelling exploration of the "relational field," through which we transmit and receive experiences, hopes, fears, and dreams within the collective.

By embracing our interdependence, we can activate what is needed to respond and evolve through the challenges of our age. "It may take only a small number of us," writes Hübl, "to establish a new level of collective coherence―to share our light, heal our wounds, and realize the unawakened potential of our world."

"Attuned is a unique guide to reconnection and coherence with self and universe, past and present. It is informed by wisdom teachings gleaned from science, philosophy, theology, and Indigenous tradition, all refracted through Thomas Hübl's own finely honed spiritual sensibility and illuminating experiences of Reality."

"There is good medicine here, wise understandings and a vision for the transformation of heart and culture."
- Jack Kornfield, author of A Path With Heart

"In Attuned, Thomas Hübl brilliantly articulates the profound message that the essence of humanity is linked to an innate and universal need to connect with others and nature. In his book we are alerted to both the optimistic and positive consequences of listening to this message and the dire consequence of ignoring the signals that trigger our need to connect."

"Thomas Hübl does it again by writing another incisive text and inviting us to develop one of the most important evolutionary skills that we urgently need in this historical moment. This book claims that the practice of interdependence through different levels of attunement could awaken profound levels of healing and reinvigorate our commitment to our collective flourishing. I am broken open by this invitation."

"There's something rigorous, earnest, and heartbreakingly kind about Thomas Huebl's gentle approach to the matter of trauma and how we might address it today. This book is engorged with a beautiful generosity that's difficult to turn away from. Read it. Better yet, feel it."

Practicing Interdependence to Heal Our Trauma-and Our World

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The U.S. and Canadian publication date was September 12, 2023. Pre-order and publication dates for Europe, Australia, and other parts of the world are estimated for November. Please check with your preferred bookseller for dates.

The book is currently available to order from the U.S. and Canada. For orders in other countries please check with your preferred bookseller for availability.

The book is currently available to order from the U.S. and Canada. For orders in other countries please check with your preferred bookseller for availability.

Spanish translations are not yet available for pre-order, check back for the publication date to be announced.

with Thomas Hübl and Dr. Gabor Maté Relational Attunement: How We Heal Together

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A visionary guide for tapping into our collective human consciousness - with tools, techniques, and new insights to help heal our traumatized world.

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If you agree that we must learn to

listen to the other-than-human,

investigate, acquire information, develop knowledge, beyond our standard scientific ways, in sensory and embodied ways,

learn from the future, keeping in mind the origins and wisdom of the past,

and all with awareness of current human capacity, then please accept my invitation to join as a group and work on this together with more-than-human others.

With love for the living and the non-living,
Carry

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Parliament of Things / Parlement van de Dingen - Bruno Latour

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Parliament of Things / Parlement van de Dingen - Bruno Latour

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Het parlement van de dingen

November 2020 | ISBN 9789024433285 | 01.01 | 152 blz.

Over Gaia en de representatie van niet-mensen

November 2020 | ISBN 9789024433285 | 01.01 | 152 blz.

Vandaag besteld, dinsdag in huis

De Franse filosoof Bruno Latour lanceerde een spraakmakend idee: we kunnen de wereld vanuit het gezichtspunt van andere mensen, dieren, planten en zelfs objecten bekijken door ons ermee te vereenzelvigen. Via rollenspellen is het mogelijk om andere personen en zaken een stem te geven in een theatraal 'parlement der dingen'.
Latours idee, dat zich bevindt op het raakvlak van filosofie en kunst, is vooral aangeslagen in de wereld van de natuurbescherming. Zijn aanpak blijkt zeer geschikt om de ecologische rijkheid te verbeelden en politiek hanteerbaar te maken.

De stem van Gaia

In dit boek staan vertalingen van de belangrijkste Franse en Engelse teksten van Latour over het parlement der dingen en de ecologie. Daaronder ook zijn recente teksten, zoals 'Esquisse d'un parlement des choses', 'A Fictional Planetarium', 'Waiting for Gaia', 'War and Peace in an Age of Ecological Conflicts' en 'Extending the Domain of Freedom, or Why Gaia Is So Hard to Understand'. Met deze teksten geeft Latour niet alleen alle levende wezens op de planeet een stem, maar ook de Aarde, Gaia, zelf.
Dit boek is verschenen ter ere van de toekenning van de Spinozalens 2020 aan Bruno Latour.

Bruno Latour (1947) is filosoof, antropoloog en socioloog. Van 1982 - 2006 was hij verbonden aan de École nationale supérieure des mines in Parijs en doceerde hij daarnaast aan de University of Ca... Meer

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Recensies & in de media:

Het beste van 2020. Religie- en filosofieboeken - Trouw
Spinozalens uitgereikt aan Bruno Latour
'Latour wijst er steeds op dat kennis ook vloeibaar is. Dingen die vast lijken te zijn en te staan - feiten, kennissystemen, de tastbare aarde zelf - zijn eigenlijk culturele fenomenen, die altijd anders geïnterpreteerd kunnen worden. Dat heeft iets griezeligs. Het lijkt of we dan ineens afglijden naar fake news of relativisme. Maar dat is niet wat hieruit volgt.' - De Groene Amsterdammer

'Latour bedenkt geweldige strategieën om de heersende tweedelingen te her-denken: natuur-cultuur, mens-natuur, maatschappij-wetenschap... Zijn oplossingen zijn nooit rechtlijnig: daarvoor is ons tijdsgewricht te complex. [...] Maar hij heeft de moed om erover na te denken en er originele ideeën over te ontwikkelen.' - Trouw

'Latour leert je dat het ongerepte niet bestaat. De aarde is niet die kille blauwe bal in de kosmos, maar een levend organisme dat verweven is met aardbewoners als mensen, dieren, dingen die hij allemaal "actanten" noemt. Ze kunnen allemaal handelen en werken op elkaar in. [...] Met die blik vergroot Latour de gevoeligheid voor onze omgeving.' - Trouw

Bespreking in De Groene (17-02-2021)

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De Franse filosoof Bruno Latour lanceerde een spraakmakend idee: we kunnen de wereld vanuit het gezichtspunt van andere mensen, dieren, planten en zelfs objecten bekijken door ons ermee te vereenzelvigen. Via rollenspellen is het mogelijk om andere personen en zaken een stem te geven in een theatraal 'parlement der dingen'.

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Welkom in het Parlement van de Dingen bestaat uit een manifestatie in november 2020, een ontwerpwedstrijd voor studenten en een programma voor het voortgezet onderwijs.

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In dit project staan de bomen van dit stadspark in Amsterdam centraal. De bomen, die in 1972 ter gelegenheid van de Floriade werden aangeplant, zijn stille getuigen van de opwarmende aarde. Zij leggen veranderingen vast in hun jaarringen. Het project bestaat uit een LivingLab, het Parlement van de Bomen en een speculatieve rechtszaak. In het LivingLab toont boombioloog Ute Sass-Klaassen samen met studenten van de Wageningen University & Research een vergelijkend hout-en jaarringonderzoek naar de bomen van het Amstelpark. In de tentoonstelling in de Orangerie kunnen bezoekers ervaren hoe jaarringonderzoek werkt en laten de onderzoekers zien hoe het met de vitaliteit van de bomen in het Amstelpark staat. Het onderzoek zal terugkomen in de speculatieve rechtszaak Rechtszaak in het park - de bomen spreken zich uit waarin Ute Sass-Klaasen als deskundige gehoord zal worden.

In de installatie Parlement van de Bomen onderzoekt kunstenaar Elmo Vermijs in samenwerking met milieujuristen Jessica den Outer en Jan van de Venis en diverse kunstenaars hoe we niet-menselijke entiteiten als bomen kunnen representeren en zo beter voor hun rechten op kunnen komen. Artistiek en juridisch onderzoek en educatie komen hier samen.

Kunnen bomen rechtspersonen worden en hoe kan deze juridische status bijdragen aan een betere bescherming van bossen en stadsparken? Dit resulteert in Rechtszaak in het park - de bomen spreken zich uit, het afsluitende event van Het Amstelpark - de bomen vertellen hun verhaal.

In het voorjaar van 2023 zal er een essay, podcast en documentaire verschijnen naar aanleiding van deze speculatieve rechtszaak. Tevens zal het dossier van de rechtszaak openbaar worden gemaakt via een aparte website. Voor meer informatie, stuur een email aan info@elmovermijs.com

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In dit project staan de bomen van dit stadspark in Amsterdam centraal. De bomen, die in 1972 ter gelegenheid van de Floriade werden aangeplant, zijn stille getuigen van de opwarmende aarde. Zij leggen veranderingen vast in hun jaarringen. Het project bestaat uit een LivingLab, het Parlement van de Bomen en een speculatieve rechtszaak.

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Andy Goldsworthy is an international artist, sculptor, photographer and environmentalist based in Scotland

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Landschapskunstenaar Bruno Doedens onderzoekt de wederzijdse relatie tussen kunst en landschap. Hoe beeldende kunst, film, muziek en literatuur landschappen en hun natuurlijke wetmatigheden, en altijd in beweging zijnde processen, kunnen verrijken en vervormen. Zijn nieuwe, tijdelijke landschappen verbazen, verrassen en verwonderen. Het publiek is deelnemer en toeschouwer tegelijk, de natuur is mede-kunstenaar. En altijd is […]

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About

Building Conversation is a platform for Dialogical Art, which concentrates on the meeting of art, conversation and society.

In the dialogical art movement, which came into being in the 1970s, the conversation itself is presented as a work of art. Drawing on this politically engaged artistic practice, Building Conversation develops performances inspired by existing conversational practices from all over the world; from indigenous communities in New Zealand and Canada, to Occupy, Facebook and the root system of trees.

We have great faith in the possibility of actively contributing to the creation of new social and ecological forms of coexistence. We set to work on the basis of an active hope, in spite of and in reaction to the dystopian world described to us by science, politics and the media. In all our work we invite the public to be a co-creator and partner in conversation, the most important aim being to communicate the emancipatory power of the arts to as many people as possible in as many different places in society as possible.

Why The way we participate in social and ecological structures has to change. There is an urgent need for clear and unflinching reflection on the position we occupy, both in the world and in relation to each other. The increasing inequality between people and between man and nature demands a radical review of the value system our coexistence is based on.

Mission Our mission is to activate people to approach their own conversation culture like an artist. We challenge people to take charge of the reflection on and shaping of the way we talk to each other. With the aim of conscious participation in conversation in a dynamic social structure, while keeping in mind all the living beings with whom we coexist.

Vision The art space is a place for life exercises. Here, detached from everyday reality, we can reflect, rethink and reform in a free and experimental space. Practice, rehearsal and sketching are not preparatory side-effects of art, but the essence of what art is and should be. We establish art as an exercise area and as such return it to the world. An exercise area not just for professional artists, but even more for anyone who feels the need to rethink the structures within which they live.

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Building Conversation is a platform for Dialogical Art, which concentrates on the meeting of art, conversation and society. In the dialogical art movement, which came into being in the 1970s, the conversation itself is presented as a work of art.

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Ons Sparrenburgbos in Rosmalen is begin dit jaar in handen gekomen van een nieuwe eigenaar Merwestreek Bouw en Ontwikkeling.
Het bestemmingsplan laat beperkte bebouwing toe en dat is prima. Wijziging van het bestemmingsplan is onwenselijk: extra bebouwing maakt een inbreuk op het Sparrenburgbos. Om…

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- Declan Quirke

Tim Robinson's townland index for Connemara and the Aran Islands, Detail, Map of the Aran Islands, Oileáin Árann, Folding Landscapes, 1980. Published by NUI Galway's Digital Collections.

While walking the land, I am the pen on the paper; while drawing this map, my pen is myself walking the land. I wanted to short circuit the polarities of objectivity and subjectivity, and try keep faith with reality. - Robinson

We should maintain an awareness of the stories hidden about us. The measurement and markings of our surroundings exist as a palimpsest of past events; rituals, relationships and livelihoods each tracing their path in the physical world. When reminded to look closely we can see how the land contains its stories ​'like the lines of a hand' as Calvino so eloquently wrote. In our current systems of globalisation and virtuality, localising ourselves in the physical reality can be a source of comfort and dignity. It can humble and ground us, reminding us of our small place in this continuum.

To me the drawings of Tim Robinson are a radical poetry about the importance of place. They contest the generalisation in mass-productions which separate our emotions from the world around us. Each large ink-on-paper study exists as a careful record of a specific piece of ground and so claims its importance. The pieces he chose were harsh and beautiful; ​ The Aran Islands, at a scale of 2.2 inches to the mile, Burren at 1.8 inches to the mile and Connemara at one inch to a mile. These maps have changed the psychological experience of the place for locals and visitors alike. They heighten our awareness of history and give a deeper understanding into the complex traces of life on a storied terrain.

On moving to the West of Ireland in 1972, Robinson fell in love with the intense beauty that he discovered there. A weighty disconnection, however, was to be found between lived experience and the descriptions recorded of it. The maps of the area were bland and inaccurate. They ​had been made carelessly with crudely translated placenames, blurring and forgetting the richness in the landscape. He began to explore and record his surroundings closely; walking on foot, drawing by hand. Through looking carefully and taking the time to talk to people, the area was recorded from a first hand lived experience. He would wander the countryside foraging information to add, layer upon layer, atop an Ordnance Survey map made a century before. This became not only the record of a place but indirectly a record of a long process of appreciation. It required hunkering in amongst the dry stone walls, clambering over fences and stopping in for a cuppa on the way home.

Maps have so often omitted the stories of quiet lives. The cartographer controls what is important and what is to be overlooked. Authors become authorities of information and their drawings are held as a utensil of power. Describing from above, their downward looking splay holds up the observer to see as a God. Where locals can see heritage, community rituals and hard fought battles, visitors will often see empty plots awaiting development.​ ​Robinson's drawings democratically took the landscape back for the appreciation of the ordinary people. They were made to be held in the hand; entire landscapes captured to fold up and fit in your rucksack.

Tim Robinson's townland index for Connemara and the Aran Islands, Map of the Aran Islands, Oileáin Árann, Folding Landscapes, 1980. Published by NUI Galway's Digital Collections.

I came to it from a fine arts background and used it as an art form. I wasn't remotely interested in what the standard way of representing limestone was, for example. I was much more interested in using some sort of graphic texture on a map that would represent my own experience of the place.
- Robinson

Thousands of tiny hand drawn black marks layer into dense textures stretching over large pieces of white paper. Each page is full. Open boxes of notes allow the viewer to sense the sea running clear through them. The translations, points of interest and travel options are placed to square the space between irregular coastline and rectangular paper. The font, line-weight and ornamentation are chosen carefully to work together and come to your eye's attention at just the right moment. The tracks and trails, the name of each monument and bay, individually marked and distinguished on close inspection, merge into a light grain when viewed all at once. This stoney grain allows us to feel present in that karst place. Robinson spoke of whiteness as the ignorance of unknowing and each black mark added was something learned.

The maps are as valuable for their extensive detail as for their artistry. The character gives an expression of a written landscape. Each is an encyclopaedic novel spread over a single page, easily flowing from abstract notation to figurative description and from two dimensions to three. This is particularly beautiful in the axonometric elaboration of the cliffs of Inis Mór. It allows the work to be dually descriptive, the record of the place alluding to its beauty. The place becomes alive when scanning your eyes across it; you can feel the salty sting of sea-air, the carved planes of rocky glacial ground under your feet.

The thousands of Irish placenames are an important feature in these maps. John Montague's line ​'The whole landscape a manuscript/ We had lost the skill to read' speaks of Anglicised placenames, a remnant of British power in Ireland, and how they detach the Irish people from their dinnseanchas or ​lore of place.​ Robinson, who was born and raised in Yorkshire, learned his Gaeilge from the locals in order to properly convey these meanings. He called it ​'a small act of reparation'.​ The correct placenames which he salvaged in roadside conversations reveal an oral topography that is full of colourful folklore telling of the area; Muiceanach Idir Dha Shaile translates as the pigshaped hill between two seas. Fo na Slanntrai, ​ the cove of the scales, he says ​'came from the mica schist rock of which it is formed, and which shines like silvery fish scales when newly broken by waves'. Uraid, so the locals said, was to be the place where the last battle for Christianity will be fought, when the forces of evil will be defeated.

Tim Robinson's townland index for Connemara and the Aran Islands, Map of Burren, Folding Landscapes, 1990. Published by NUI Galway's Digital Collections.

The extent of the detail present is a testament to the effort invested in its gathering. With your eyes close to the paper you will find lost monuments hidden in thickets of blackthorn, fences and drains, little improvised quays, stone-pile walls and old forgotten relics. Seeing the delicate marks of a hand-held pen on paper creates a tangible landscape of information. The act of walking and recording closely has invested them with a close connection to the earthy nature of the land. They remind us of the similarity between the maps and landscapes, both are physical evidence of human life. Now that he has looked closely and recorded, those that appreciate the area after him can see with his wealth of information and be reminded of the deep material value that the land holds.

Robinson also wrote several books about these areas, further detailing their rich culture, botany, geology and history. From his house in Roundstone, Connemara, he and his wife Máiréad published his many important works of cartography and literature under the name Folding Landscapes. They exist now as monuments to the value in a sense of place.

Declan Quirke is an Irish architecture student. He is currently studying a Masters degree at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

This text was entered into the 2020 Drawing Matter Writing Prize. Click here to read the winning texts and more writing that was particularly enjoyed by the prize judges.

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Folding Landscapes: The Maps of Tim Robinson

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While walking the land, I am the pen on the paper; while drawing this map, my pen is myself walking the land. I wanted to short circuit the polarities of objectivity and subjectivity, and try keep faith with reality. - Robinson We should maintain an awareness of the stories hidden...

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Govan Graving Docks Deep Map by Imogen Humpris

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Govan Graving Docks Deep Map by Imogen Humpris

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This website is a gathering of traces from the Govan Graving Docks in Glasgow, Scotland. This evocation of the place pushes back against those more traditional representations in maps and charts that depict it as an empty void simply awaiting development. Instead this website shows the docks as a living place right now, in the present; full of voices, meanings and memories. Many of these recordings were made together with those who use the site to whom I am very grateful for the sharing of their knowledge, stories and sentiments.

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This website is a gathering of traces from the Govan Graving Docks in Glasgow, Scotland. This evocation of the place pushes back against those more traditional representations in maps and charts that depict it as an empty void simply awaiting development.

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https://www.nieuwwij.nl/achtergrond/het-bos-spreekt-horen-jullie-ons/

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How kunst de wereld redt
Hoe worden we ecologisch intelligent?
tentoonstelling GEM, Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Fotomuseum en Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, van 16 maart tot 12 augustus 2013

'Ja natuurlijk' is een grootse manifestatie in en rond het Gemeentemuseum Den Haag waarin kunstenaars ons uitnodigen tot het loslaten van vastgeroeste denkbeelden over natuur, cultuur en technologie. De rijk geïllustreerde publicatie Ja Natuurlijk presenteert werken van meer dan 80 kunstenaars onder wie Francis Alÿs, Jimmie Durham, Olafur Eliasson, Damien Hirst, Zeger Reyers, Superflex en Ai Wei Wei.
Ja Natuurlijk gaat over relaties, zowel bestaande relaties als nieuwe vormen van samenwerking, en stelt inclusie en wederkerigheid als voorwaarden voor een betere wereld. Daarmee geeft Ja Natuurlijk niet alleen een signaal, maar ook een na te volgen voorbeeld. Kunstenaars laten ons anders kijken naar onszelf, onze samenleving en omgang met de aarde. Door de centrale positie van de mens te relativeren komen ook niet-menselijke spelers in beeld, zoals dieren, planten en bacteriën. Ja natuurlijk behandelt op kritische en speelse wijze - van zelfdenkende bacteriën tot wegen voor bijen - een actueel en maatschappelijk relevant thema: hoe worden we ecologisch intelligent?

ISBN 978-94-6208-062-1 | 1e druk | maart 2013 | leverbaar | Ine Gevers | design: potvandervelden | Nederlands | paperback | 24 x 28 cm | 240 pag. | in samenwerking met: Ja natuurlijk (Stichting Niet Normaal and Gemeentemuseum Den Haag) | met steun van: Mondriaan Fonds, Prins Bernard Cultuurfonds and Pauwhof fonds

NAi Boekverkopers / Booksellers

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How kunst de wereld redt Hoe worden we ecologisch intelligent? tentoonstelling GEM, Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Fotomuseum en Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, van 16 maart tot 12 augustus 2013 'Ja natuurlijk' is een grootse manifestatie in en rond het Gemeentemuseum Den Haag waarin kunstenaars ons uitnodigen tot het loslaten van vastgeroeste denkbeelden over natuur, cultuur en technologie.

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Learning to Live with Forest (Again) - Anna Fink

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Learning to Live with Forest (Again) - Anna Fink

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LEARNING TO LIVE WITH FOREST (AGAIN) | Atelier Fischbach

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Learning to live with forest (again) is an ongoing research project that investigates peoples relationship with their small forests through the lens of personal taskscapes.

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About Plant

Plant is een indringende muzikale trip. Zangeres Nynke Laverman kruipt in het fluisterregister van haar stem en wisselt kwetsbare, ijle soundscapes af met beats en spoken word. De gedempte pianoklanken en explosieve, vulkanische drumsessies van Sytze Pruiksma trekken je moeiteloos mee in de filmische, surreële werelden van videokunstenaar Douwe Dijkstra. Juist door minder te doen en zachter te zingen, is Nynke haar oproep luider dan ooit: wie willen we zijn als mens?

Nynke: "Ik vraag me af waarom we eigenlijk onderscheid maken tussen 'mens' en 'natuur'. Bij de nomaden in Mongolië zag ik hoe het anders kan en sindsdien gaat mijn werk hierover. Plant is een hoopvol protest dat gaat over het omgooien van onze manier van denken, over verandering in jezelf. Durven we bekende wegen te verlaten, vertrouwde patronen te doorbreken, de stilte toe te laten? Durven we het even niet te weten?"

'To not get lost in the future, you must know your past, right?'

Plant is een album, een live performance en een podcastreeks. Vanaf november 2020 laat Nynke de nummers een voor een wortel schieten bij haar luisteraars via een Slow Album Release. Elf nieuwe songs en elf podcasts met bijzondere gasten waaronder natuurfilosoof Matthijs Schouten, komiek Jochem Myjer en denker Roman Krznaric. Plant groeit door tot in september 2021 en ontpopt zich dan verder op vinyl en CD. Op 15 oktober gaat de live performance in première in DeLaMar in Amsterdam.

Credits
Teksten: Nynke Laverman | Muziek: Sytze Pruiksma & Nynke Laverman | Video: Douwe Dijkstra | Dans: Dunja Jocic | Toneelbeeld: Ascon de Nijs | Kostuums: Dieuweke van Reij | Eindregie: Koos Terpstra | Geluid: Bo Bruijs | Licht: Patrick Kramer | Operator video: Remko Smids | Met dank aan: Guy Weizman

Plant wordt mede mogelijk gemaakt door provincie Fryslân, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, BankGiro Loterij, Fonds Podiumkunsten, BNG Cultuurfonds, De Lawei, Leeuwarden-Fryslân 2028 en Explore the North.

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Plant is een indringende muzikale trip. Zangeres Nynke Laverman kruipt in het fluisterregister van haar stem en wisselt kwetsbare, ijle soundscapes af met beats en spoken word. De gedempte pianoklanken en explosieve, vulkanische drumsessies van Sytze Pruiksma trekken je moeiteloos mee in de filmische, surreële werelden van videokunstenaar Douwe Dijkstra.

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Braiding Sweetgrass - Robin Wall Kimmerer

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Braiding Sweetgrass - Robin Wall Kimmerer

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A New York Times Bestseller
A Washington Post Bestseller
A Los Angeles Times Bestseller
Named a "Best Essay Collection of the Decade" by Literary Hub
A Washington Post "2020 Holiday Gift Guide" Recommendation
A Minneapolis Star Tribune "2020 Holiday Book Recommendation"
A Book Riot "Favorite Summer Read of 2020​"
A Food Tank Reading Recommendation for Fall 2020
Updated with a new introduction from Robin Wall Kimmerer, the hardcover special edition of Braiding Sweetgrass, reissued in honor of the fortieth anniversary of Milkweed Editions, celebrates the book as an object of meaning that will last the ages. Beautifully bound with a new cover featuring an engraving by Tony Drehfal, this edition includes a bookmark ribbon, and five brilliantly colored illustrations by artist Nate Christopherson. In increasingly dark times, we honor the experience that more than 350,000 readers in North America have cherished about the book-gentle, simple, tactile, beautiful, even sacred-and offer an edition that will inspire readers to gift it again and again, spreading the word about scientific knowledge, indigenous wisdom, and the teachings of plants.

As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on "a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise" (Elizabeth Gilbert).

Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, a mother, and a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings-asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass-offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices. In a rich braid of reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.

Indigenous, Nature, science, Native American, traditional ecological knowledge, Natural history, Ecology, botany, plants, essays, environment, spirituality, nonfiction, life sciences, spiritual, teaching, wisdom

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Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling collection of essays Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants.

Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling collection of essays Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants.

American conceptual artist Jenny Holzer is no stranger to addressing the biggest issues of our times through art. In the...

Join Robin Wall Kimmerer at Door County Library for the Write on Door County Reads 2024.

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A New York Times Bestseller A Washington Post Bestseller A Los Angeles Times Bestseller Named a "Best Essay Collection of the Decade" by Literary Hub A Washington Post "2020 Holiday Gift Guide" Recommendation A Minneapolis Star Tribune "2020 Holiday Book Recommendation" A Book Riot "Favorite Summer Read of 2020​" A Food Tank Reading Recommendation for Fall 2020 Updated with a new introduction from Robin Wall Kimmerer, the hardcover special edition of Braiding Sweetgrass, reissued in honor of the fortieth anniversary of Milkweed Editions, celebrates the book as an object of meaning that will last the ages.

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Creative engagements with ecologies of Place - Mary Modeen, Iain Biggs

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Creative engagements with ecologies of Place - Mary Modeen, Iain Biggs

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Table of Contents

1. Geopoetics in context 2. Seeing, listening, acting 3. Deep mapping and slow residency 4. A call to action: reclaiming habitats through creative eco-social collaborations 5. Perception and cultural memories of place 6. Creative communities of practice: towards an ecosophical understanding of collaboration 7. Emergent practices 8. On the curation of landscapes and volcanoes 9. The slow pursuit of fidelity 10. 'Fieldwork', reconsidered

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Creative Engagements with Ecologies of Place: Geopoetics, Deep Mapping and Slow Residencies

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This book explores an exciting range of creative engagements with ecologies of place, using geopoetics, deep mapping and slow residency to propose broadly based collaborations in a form of 'disciplinary agnosticism'. Providing a radical alternative to current notions of interdisciplinarity, this book demonstrates the breadth of new creative approaches and attitudes that now challenge assumptions of the solitary genius and a culture of 'possessive individualism'.

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Designs for the Pluriverse - Arturo Escobar

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Designs for the Pluriverse - Arturo Escobar

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"Escobar's literature review and theoretical discussion stand out. Some of the ground he covers includes critical design studies, ethnographic approaches to design, participatory design, and decolonized design. Anthropology has a lot to offer design, Escobar argues, because we study the interplay of materiality, meaning, and practice. . . . Escobar's discussion is built on a foundation of work emanating from a panopoly of Latin American scholars, all of whom appear to be fascinating in their own rights. . . . Through Escobar I felt like I was glimpsing the depth and breadth of that body of literature for the first time." - Matt Thompson, Anthrodendum

" Designs for the Pluriverse is a heavy-hitting theoretical framework with potential to inform the practice of the design scholar or professional in any field, from planning or architecture to product design, engineering, and beyond. The work makes sense of generations of decolonial scholarship, pushing the reader towards understanding their design work as more relational, long-term-oriented, and transformative than previously assumed." - Darien Williams, Carolina Planning Journal

"I can emphatically state that Designs for the Pluriverse is a superb and welcome addition both to the expanding literature on design in anthropology, and to design theory more broadly. . . . Indeed, there are so many ways to read this book that almost anyone who picks it up will find something to think with."
- Keith M. Murphy, Anthropological Quarterly
"[Escobar] has woven together a timely book that lends insight from situated, present experience as opposed to abstract, universal prescriptions."
- Hanna E. Morris, InVisible Culture
"Questioning the Western concept of modernity, Escobar wants to build bridges between transition design visions in the Global North and the Global South."
- Gert Hasenhütl, Sehepunkte
" Designs for the Pluriverse is an excellent text for design studies scholars who are interested in exploring methodologies and theories of collective existence and creation, intertwining a series of case studies that support autonomous design with the theories to challenge modernist anthropocentrism. Together, they provide a strong foundation for readers to continue pursuing how to decolonize the world by redesigning the human being and designing the pluriverse, a world in which many worlds fit."
- Juan Carlos Rodríguez Rivera, Design and Culture
"The greatest strength of the book is its marvellous journey through hundreds of projects, ideas and practitioners that are rethinking the very foundations of design and implementation. Ultimately, this has inherent value to the pluriverse of different ideas and initiatives that are encountering the powerful developmental machine. Challenging the status quo, both theoretically and otherwise, can feel like such a solitary and exhausting battle. Designs for the Pluriverse addresses this by highlighting the community that exists and is growing." - Ritodhi Chakraborty, Lincoln Planning Review

"Escobar's book brings together a wealth of relevant perspectives, initiatives, and references and is essential reading for all those interested in design and its potential for transition movements and the struggle of marginalized communities." - Ton Otto, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

" Designs for the Pluriverse invites readers to join the collective effort to make other livable and sustainable worlds possible by not only critically thinking, but also making and designing otherwise. The book also demonstrates how sophisticated conjunctions can serve as scaffolding for this pluriversal ambition, and the many changes that would need to occur if we were to follow this path." - Atsuro Morita, Technoscienza

"In this impassioned call for design for the pluriverse, Arturo Escobar asks how we might translate insights of a relational ontology into politics of transformative change. He turns to the prospects of 'transition,' led by autonomous communities and social movements in Latin America and the global South. This remarkable book is a way forward for all who are yearning for the radical remaking of design, as a contribution to decolonizing and remaking worlds." - Lucy Suchman, author of Human-Machine Reconfigurations: Plans and Situated Actions

"For so long, design researchers have been waiting for social researchers to take heed of the ontological politics of designing. Arturo Escobar does so but precisely to clear a space in global consumerist modernism for urgently needed alternatives. A by-product of this thorough and clear book will be the project of decolonizing the discipline and practice of design." - Cameron Tonkinwise, Professor of Design, University of New South Wales Art and Design

"In this exciting work Arturo Escobar steps out of the familiar territory we associate him with to engage with the cultural study of design. Significantly advancing thinking about societal transition in the context of climate change, Latin American politics, and the ongoing challenges of decoloniality, Designs for the Pluriverse makes a timely and important intervention." - J. K. Gibson-Graham, coeditor of Manifesto for Living in the Anthropocene

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Duke University Press - Designs for the Pluriverse

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“Escobar’s literature review and theoretical discussion stand out. Some of the ground he covers includes critical design studies, ethnographic approaches to design, participatory design, and decolonized design. Anthropology has a lot to offer design, Escobar argues, because we study the interplay of…

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A hopeful education for the end of the world? - Club of Rome

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In Ecology without Nature, Timothy Morton argues that the chief stumbling block to environmental thinking is the image of nature itself. Ecological writers propose a new worldview, but their very zeal to preserve the natural world leads them away from the "nature" they revere. The problem is a symptom of the ecological catastrophe in which we are living. Morton sets out a seeming paradox: to have a properly ecological view, we must relinquish the idea of nature once and for all.

Ecology without Nature investigates our ecological assumptions in a way that is provocative and deeply engaging. Ranging widely in eighteenth-century through contemporary philosophy, culture, and history, he explores the value of art in imagining environmental projects for the future. Morton develops a fresh vocabulary for reading "environmentality" in artistic form as well as content, and traces the contexts of ecological constructs through the history of capitalism. From John Clare to John Cage, from Kierkegaard to Kristeva, from The Lord of the Rings to electronic life forms, Ecology without Nature widens our view of ecological criticism, and deepens our understanding of ecology itself. Instead of trying to use an idea of nature to heal what society has damaged, Morton sets out a radical new form of ecological criticism: "dark ecology."

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ecology without nature: rethinking environmental aesthetics

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nature: environmental conservation & protection

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Timothy Morton argues that the chief stumbling block to environmental thinking is the image of nature that most writers promote: they propose a new world view, but their very zeal to preserve the natural world leads them away from the 'nature' they revere.

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Getting Deep into Things - Imogen Humphris, Lummina G. Horlings & Iain Biggs 

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Getting Deep into Things - Imogen Humphris, Lummina G. Horlings & Iain Biggs 

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Openings

We begin this chapter with a map (Fig. 12.1). It is not a particularly unusual type of map, in fact it's one that is quite commonly used to depict areas of wasteland, cartographically employing empty outlines or hatched boxes to show a plot available for development, as is the case here. Dotted traces might hint at the remnants of some former life but typically such maps resist telling us any further details of these wasteland places. Their emphasis, rather, is on the plots' status as awaiting development or the reinstatement of formal use.

(Source Glasgow City Council. Published with permission from Glasgow City Council: © Crown Copyright and Database Right 2014. All rights are reserved. OS Licence number 100023379)

Map of the Govan Graving Docks as used by Glasgow City Council.

When we take a walk through such a place however, we find far more that is actively present than passively 'waiting' (see Fig. 12.2). Stepping over that heavyweight boundary-line, we might immediately be confronted with an unabated ecology; grasses that rise to mid-thigh, unfamiliar spider species disturbed underfoot, and buddleia exploiting the cracks in decommissioned concrete footings. We might also detect the traces of others who have come this way before us. Perhaps dog walkers, children in search of wilderness, or graffiti writers looking for the perfect wall. Striking up conversation with local residents we might well find that the site is alive with memory of former jobs worked in former shipyards, of the friendships formed on factory floors and the smell of the hot roll stand at the end of the street.

These things all elude the kind of instrumental and reductive cartography most commonly utilized in planning and policy-making. The fragmentary, heterogeneous nature defies neat outlines with singular meanings. Further, these things are never still, but a continually shifting tangle of narratives. Like eels, the more tightly we try to contain them, the more readily they slip from us. Despite the certainty with which maps like the one above are presented, they are hollowed out by the reductive instrumentality implicit in their making. It is only when we question what might be missing from such representations, what they avoid telling us, that their air of absolute and objective authority begins to crumble.

Pivotally, it is most commonly those more marginalized narratives that are filtered out from the sanitized map. Given the power that such representations can have, sitting on the desks of planners, speculative developers and policy-makers, omissions can serve to further exclude and invalidate. In this text, I argue that arts-based methods can play a potent role in this context (Kester, 2013) by offering avenues for spatial representation that allow for the multiplicitous, non-aligned and emergent nature of place (Massey, 2005). While the methods I explore are not restrained to any particular type of landscape, I maintain that some of the values that underpin them are particularly helpful and relevant to marginalized landscapes and 'wastelands' as the multiplicity of voices is often overlooked in these spaces.

Despite the existence of multiple, tangential narratives across landscapes such as wastelands, they are often overshadowed by and reframed within dominant meta-narratives. Hegemonic discourse centres around the future use of the land, overlooking uses and meanings in the present. In order to draw out marginalized narratives, there is a need to unsettle rhetorical notions about what the site means and who has the authority to speak about it. It is here that arts approaches can serve as a helpful catalyst to conversation and investigation. Arts practices such as deep mapping seek to harness the capacity of the aesthetic experience to disrupt dominant narratives, creating spaces that allow individuals to speak outside of their commonly held positions (Kester, 2013). This notion of art as a context setting device may be linked to Viktor Shklovsky's ( 1917, as cited in Lemon and Reis, 1965) ideas around defamiliarization whereby art, as a device, is used to make the 'familiar strange' so that it may be freshly perceived. Through its ability to creatively remake and therefore reframe the present, art practice can situate common, everyday experiences in new contexts, prompting new discussions. Michelle Henning ( 2020) describes this as 're-presenting the present', in which the reflecting of the present back to the viewer in a way that is 'recognizable', 'negotiable' and 'accessible' creates the conditions for individuals to detect, reflect upon and mediate their being within it.

We consider the field of deep mapping, as an archaeological, geo-social and ethnographically informed art research practice which offers opportunities to generate representations that 'dive into' the heterogeneity and non-aligned multiplicity of place (Modeen & Biggs, 2020; Roberts, 2016; Smith, 2015; see also Reitz, this book). Deep maps embrace, as their starting point, the tensions that exist between incompatible narratives and between one slice of time and the next. They seek to draw out those discordant, micro-narratives that are commonly swallowed up within meta-narratives of a place. This approach also brings into question the role of the artist-researcher who is themself bound up within the present that they seek to re-present, calling for a move towards an ensemble of roles and an acknowledgement of their embodied being within the representational process (Bailey, 2018).

In this chapter I reflect back on an ongoing deep mapping process that holds divergent multiplicity as its central motive in depicting a location normally understood as wasteland. My starting point is the tract of land depicted in the opening of this text-the Govan Graving Docks in Glasgow, Scotland. The site formerly lay at the heart of Glasgow's shipbuilding industry which, when it collapsed in the latter half of the twentieth century, brought significant consequences for the local working community (High, 2013; Tovar et al., 2011) from which it still has not fully recovered (Butler et al., 2012). Having been decommissioned in 1987, this site stands as one of the few remaining markers of Govan's industrial past, given that all other shipyards have either been cleared completely or (as is the case with the one remaining yard) unrecognizably modernized and walled off geographically and socially from the Govan community. However, in the 34 years since its closure, the Govan Graving Docks has been almost continually appropriated by local citizens for a broad spectrum of informal purposes. The site is alive with shifting and heterogeneous narratives yet these are commonly precluded by traditional cartographic forms. Through reflections on the empirical and methodological challenges of applying a deep mapping approach to this setting, in this chapter we explore the broader questions around how such a research process can actively seek out and amplify heterogeneous and marginalized narratives in a deindustrialized urban landscape. This holds critical relevance for the recognition and reclaiming of citizen agency within those many European cities now experiencing an upswing in development following the industrial decline of the late twentieth century. While acknowledging implicit tensions around scientific rigour and identifying the alternative forms of exclusion that can serve to hinder the polyvocality of deep mapping, this chapter outlines the helpful contributions that this approach can offer place-based investigations in marginalized landscapes.

The Arts Research Approach of Deep Mapping

The term deep mapping is embraced by a broad variety of artists, creative practitioners and researchers that utilize arts- or performance-based approaches to stimulate conversations about and investigations into place (Biggs, 2010; Roberts, 2016). Broadly, this approach sets out to contend the totalizing and irreducible nature of traditional cartographic representations, aspiring instead towards the ideal of encompassing 'everything you might ever want to say about a place' (Pearson & Shanks, 2001, p. 65). Clearly practitioners do not regard such an endeavour as a realizable objective as Cliff McLucas ( 2014), a proponent of deep mapping, described:

Whilst I can talk about deep maps, whilst I can imagine such things ... whilst I can even dream about deep maps, unfortunately, I have to admit that I have never seen one.

This is not to say that McLucas made no attempt to create deep maps (he did in fact leave several precedents), rather, alongside many advocates in the field such as Least Heat-Moon ( 1999), he recognized that one could never complete the object of a deep map, only engage in deep mapping. Instead, we may read the wide-ranging manifestations of deep maps as efforts to describe place in its fullness and unending complexity. Implicit in this is an immersive, performative 'dance' between the mapper and the place, as Wood ( 2015) describes:

[W]hat's essential is getting out in the field [...] and looking hard at stuff. Walking through it and writing it down forces a valuable kind of attention, an irreplaceable kind of attention [...] This kind of immersion makes you think about things, dream about them, and this prompts new questions, which send you back out into the field. It doesn't take long to get deep into things when you're paying attention, and mapping focuses attention.

Consequently, examples of deep mapping appear across a broad range of arts' and humanities' disciplines that gain strength in their avoidance of tight definition (Modeen & Biggs, 2020). These include auto-ethnographic texts (Least Heat-Moon, 1999), journeying (Bissell & Overend, 2015; Sinclair, 2017), participatory archaeological digs (Lewis, 2015) and photo collage (Reddleman, 2015) amongst others (see also Reitz, this book). Though diverse in form, they are loosely unified by their effort to lure the mapper into this dance, prizing open discursive interactions with place.

Considering my task of 're-presenting' the Govan Graving Docks, drawing out the many tangential and overlooked narratives that exist there, I identify several pertinent sentiments from discussion on deep mapping. Three themes emerge as offering particularly productive lines of inquiry to the context of the Govan Graving Docks:

Polyvocal

A central motive of deep mapping is to pursue investigations of place beyond that which is immediately evident. Implicit in this notion of 'digging' is the drawing out of multiple, discordant narratives and associated meanings and material manifestations. In a sense, deep mapping removes the confining boundaries of the instrumental, reductive map, creating the space needed for tensions and contradictions in narratives to exist simultaneously. Faced with a polyphony of narratives, I argue that the position of the deep mapper, from a constructivist perspective, is never neutral but rather consciously present and actively seeking to give platform to those voices commonly drowned out in reductive representations. As Cliff McLucas (n.d.) states:

Deep maps will not seek the authority and objectivity of conventional cartography. They will be politicized, passionate, and partisan. They will involve negotiation and contestation over who and what is represented and how. They will give rise to debate about the documentation and portrayal of people and places.

Such a position offers margin for the individualized and intimately personal to be heard while also providing an arena for collective storytelling and knowledge construction. It carves out room to fully acknowledge lived experiences, not as events confined within the place itself, but rather as the collision between the physical landscape and the continuum of life trajectories that extend far beyond the bounds of the site (Ingold, 2017).

This contesting of 'what is represented and how' (McLucas, n.d.) also holds promise for vacant land in particular. In such locations where strong confluences of meanings are wrapped up in either the period of use prior to closure or the speculative, forthcoming use, deep mapping processes may helpfully redirect focus away from the past or future place and instead create opportunity for the present place to be acknowledged and validated. Giving precedence to this marginalized time frame, the creation of a deep map can incrementally shift speculation about a place away from 'what it should become' and towards 'what it is '.

Generative

Deep maps can be interpreted as both catalytic objects and actions taken into the field to stimulate investigation, unearth further questions and open up conversation. In iterative fashion, these 'traces' subsequently prompt reflection and generate the impetus for further, more divergent investigation. The artist-researcher is inextricably embedded in this process as the deep map comes into being through discursive interaction with place. It is through such imperfect and meandering efforts to create reflections of place, that deep mapping simultaneously invites debate about both the place and the process of representation. McLucas (n.d.) further points to the collaborative nature of deep maps in this regard: 'Deep maps will bring together the amateur and the professional, the artist and the scientist, the official and the unofficial, the national and the local'. By placing emphasis on the process, the creating of a deep map becomes a space of generative exchange, elevating inhabitant knowledge alongside that of the artist-researcher and resetting traditional hierarchies.

Open-Ended

Given the common preoccupation of deep maps with the 'fundamental unmappability of the world' (Roberts, 2016, p. 5), the creative outcomes of deep mapping might more effectively be read as 'forever incomplete' processes. Such objects are candid in acknowledging their own inadequacy to embrace the unending and entangled tapestry of narratives surrounding place. However, as Modeen and Biggs ( 2020) point out, these are the contexts where art comes into its own power: 'It is precisely this inadequacy that enables the arts to evoke our lived experience as always exceeding and falling short of the conceptual definitions central to analytical thinking' (p. 53). In its ability to situate itself within and gesture towards that which we do not know or cannot express, art can avoid the closing down and flattening out of the continual emergence of place. In this sense, the art research practice of deep mapping suggests a representational approach that tentatively presents a subjective and discursive 'window' in the continual becoming of place.

For our location of interest and, indeed, our particular preoccupations with it, these three sentiments collectively offer fruitful underpinnings for the creation of a conversational, representational research method. As the Govan Graving Docks has majoratively been understood as 'vacant' or 'awaiting development', the many histories of lived experiences and citizens appropriations in the site since its closure have passed largely unrecorded. This lack of formally assigned use can be seen to have created an entirely different kind of space in the urban landscape, one in which many narratives are present, overlapping and confronting each other (Humphris & Rauws, 2020). However, the objective of our representational effort here is not to uncover and pin down meaning in a place where it appears to be missing; in a site that is so actively in a state of becoming, we feel that this would be entirely unconducive. Instead, by putting these sentiments of polyvocal, generative and open-ended into action, we intend to create a representational space that contends the very notion that the place is without meaning. It is an effort to create a representational space around this very different kind of territory that commonly falls out of the urban imagination (Shoard, 2000).

Beyond such attitudes to investigation, the tools and practices used in the actual creation of deep maps are dependent upon the demands of the place and the skills and resources available to the map initiator. This active steering away from any notions of a formalized approach stands central to their offer. As Biggs ( 2010) proposes, the value of deep mapping partially pertains to its ability to resist 'becoming complicit in its "disciplining"' (p. 21) (see also Modeen & Biggs, 2020; Roberts, 2016). What follows is the development of and reflection upon a deep mapping method that is highly specific to our research interests in the site, and the artistic practice and even personal traits of the lead author who undertook this fieldwork.

Methodology

This first phase of deep mapping the Govan Graving Docks was conducted over a period of two months during which I spent extensive time on the site and in conversation with local individuals. The site is located on the edge of Govan, a formerly prolific boat building community that has seen a high level of vacancy and deprivation since the closure of the majority of the shipyards in the late twentieth century. While the site is privately owned, the owner has failed on several occasions to secure planning permission for a largely private housing development. The site closed in 1987 and in the early 2000s most of the remaining buildings were demolished. The only remaining architectural features are the listed pump house, one tidal dock and three impressive dry docks with stone walls that remain largely intact. Despite this, the site feels relatively 'wild' given the significant amount of flora and fauna that have established there. The gated entrance to the site is almost always left open and there is a general acceptance, including from the police, that individuals may access the land; there are few days that pass where it sees no visitors. Individuals are frequently seen walking, adventuring, graffiti writing, drinking alcohol and nature watching. Over the 2-month period, I spent 19 days on the site, visiting for between 1 and 4 hours. I also hired a studio space in the centre of the community where the map was gradually created and I spent much time walking back and forth between the two locations, observing the surrounding neighbourhood along the way.

I made the recordings for the map using two parallel practices. The first was an iterative interview process of discussion and illustration with individuals closely connected to the site. The second involved regular onsite observational drawing and recording the presence of site users and informal conversations with them.

Interviews

I made contact with the local inhabitants that were interviewed through both snowballing local connections and from chance encounters while onsite. Given that the site is predominantly used by a collection of disparate individuals between whom very little network exists, my sustained presence onsite was a critical factor for making connections with inhabitants. The process involved two interviews; the first taking place on site and the second in my local studio space for a more reflexive conversation that explored emergent themes in greater depth. The primary interview was intended to gather a general overview of the inhabitant's connection to the site. I placed emphasis on how it related to them personally and how their relationship to the place had changed with time. My lines of questioning framed the site as particular and different from other places in the neighbourhood, such as a park and, through this, sought to unearth what the particular qualities were that resonated with them and repeatedly drew them back to the site. As we talked together, we walked around the site itself allowing the conversation about the place to become embodied and thus further illuminated; speaking theoretically about its meanings while physically negotiating its terrain.

From these recordings, I made partial transcriptions, pulling out key quotes and drawing these together into 4-6 emergent themes through a process of inductive coding, categorizing and labelling. The thematic labels were either words taken directly out of the transcript or created by myself in instances where the topic was discussed more abstractly. For each I sought a landscape metaphor to reflect the theme in the particular way that the individual had expressed it. For instance, one inhabitant made several references to change in the community with the inevitable coming and going of development; for this I depicted fishing boats in a harbour, sitting on the mud, waiting for high tide to return and transform the landscape once again. The quotes themselves were then woven around the illustrations to create a landscape of sentiment.

In the second interview, I presented the collection of illustrated themes back to the inhabitant. I gave them time to read through and review their quotes, correct anything that they felt was inaccurate, discuss their thoughts further around the themes and metaphors I had chosen and add any additional themes they felt were missing. Following this, I asked them to consider how the themes might relate to one another by laying the illustrations out spatially to form their own narrative map. Those themes that felt closely related or causational could be placed close together while others could be set down in a more distant location. Pinning these down and drawing strings between them, we discussed the nature of these connections and what the 'spaces in between' might mean. I also asked the inhabitants to consider what the connections might be between themes that they had initially thought were unrelated. Finally, together we laid their map down on top of those maps that had been created by other inhabitants and explored the differences, connections and tensions that lie between them. The intention of this was to empower the inhabitants in the process of compiling the full representation, by electing where to position themselves within it, and to further identify the nuance of their own narratives in the presence of others'.

Observational Drawings

In parallel to these interviews, we routinely spent time on the site making observational drawings and talking with other site users. By making drawings of objects that had been left behind by visitors, I was able to get to know the life of the place more intimately. The practice was often quite sedentary, sitting in one location for 30 minutes to 2 hours at a time in which individuals often felt confident to approach me with passing hellos or asking questions, and, on quiet days, sufficient stillness for resident wildlife to emerge. In line with Causey's ( 2017) exploration of drawing and ethnography, this practice additionally disciplined me to 'see' the site, to focus my gaze and speculate about objects and markings that I would otherwise overlook. As explained in the findings section, these sketchbook pages of drawings and notations moved from a tool for initial observation to becoming an important component of the overall map themselves as a gathering of traces reflecting my own experiences and encounters on site.

These recordings, notations and illustrations form a growing body of content that constitutes the open-ended deep map (see Table 12.1 that documents the quantity of content so far). Such divergent forms of gathering require different modes of practice. Within these, the role of the researcher becomes dynamic, continually shifting positions throughout the research field rather than occupying one static point of observation. At one moment the researcher plays the role of the engaged listener while at other times the passive observer. Sometimes the central focus lies on context setting. At other times the primary role is that of the reflexive academic (Wittmayer & Schäpke, 2014). In this sense, the role of the researcher becomes adaptive, moving between positions in response to the ever shifting circumstances on the ground (see also Franklin, this book). Throughout the project, this 'ensemble-self' approach to the researcher role has afforded the vital flexibility needed to contend with the multiplicitous nature of place.

Table 12.1 Content of map collected and created so far (over two month fieldwork November-December 2020)

Uncoverings: Reflections on a Deep Mapping Method in Practice

In my time spent actively deep mapping in the field, I have avoided treating the method set out above as an instructional guidebook, but rather adopted it as a performative tool for investigating and probing within this highly specific context. Thus the method is mediated by the ensemble-researcher; it is alive in response to the landscape in which it is played out. Here I offer reflections that have emerged from this reflexive negotiation between the performative-artist-researcher and the method; drawing out and amplifying those dimensions that proved to be generative and stepping into alternative positions and modes of practice when the method appeared to be reaching its limit.

Divergence

One of the central aspirations of the Govan Graving Docks deep map is to pluralize narrative representations of the site. As explained in the methodology, interviews began with individual discussions that were subsequently woven into an agglomerated, layered form of representation (see Fig. 12.3 depicting many agglomerated narrative representations).

I found that postponing the moment of assembly to the end of the discussion process created a suspended space in which inhabitants were able to delve into, grapple with and eventually articulate their own nuanced relationships to the site before being confronted with the narrative 'worlds' of others.1 Together we were able to use this space to follow traces of meaning away from the site itself, out into their broader continuum of life experiences, detecting enduring themes of importance before bringing them back to the context of the Govan Graving Docks. In this way we incrementally 'felt out' their own narrative world.

While this suspended space allowed for greater divergence of narratives, explicitly common themes between the narratives did arise, such as heritage, or the need for sanctuary. However, in employing metaphor and illustration to reflect the sentiments expressed, it was possible to intentionally seek and draw out minutiae differences between the positions held. As such, one theme could appear in several different narrative worlds but with different expressions. Heritage, for instance, was at once depicted as a cliff face, progressively eroded by a hostile sea, while elsewhere it was characterized by a makeshift house continually built upon and adapted through time (see Figs. 12.4 and 12.5). In discussion these variated illustrations appeared to assist individuals in qualifying their own perceptions as being different from others, or even different but partially aligned in some aspects.

Through the process of defining their own narrative 'worlds', several inhabitants made connections between their preoccupation with the site and their own personal traits and preferences, with a sense of being different from the common majority with regard to their needs in the built environment and expectations of urban living. These expressions included the need for quiet and distance within the city, the ability to be alone and unregulated (see Figs. 12.6, 12.7, 12.8 and 12.9).

In my pursuit of multiplicity in the deep mapping process, I detected other knowledges present in the field but requiring other modes of recording and representation. While the interview approach was certainly proving successful in deeply investigating personal connections and drawing out diversity in perspectives, it was clear that, culturally and practically, it was not an accessible approach for all, particularly in a community facing multiple disadvantages such as Govan.

The following intersecting cultural factors played a role in the process of deep mapping:

language barriers: adult illiteracy is a recognized issue in Govan and, with a large migrant population, some experience challenges with English as a second language. We recognized this in some individuals we met on site and found that, while many would pass with a smile and acknowledgement, they often avoided stopping to talk;

cultural context: after some failed attempts, we also came to understand that for some the interview format (whereby one member in a conversation holds a designated 'power' to ask questions and set the agenda or strategically guide the conversation) was culturally unfamiliar or could even be instrumental in further perpetuating historic power imbalances. We also found different cultural attitudes towards making arrangements, agreements and plans;

personality: as the site is used by many who feel the need to be by themselves or away from other people, it was not uncommon for individuals to avoid interaction.

drink: alcohol addiction is not uncommon around the site with a handful of individuals drinking from early morning. While some were very open to discussion, interactions were based upon regular, informal, unstructured chats;

While these may be acute and limited issues, this list encompasses a broad range of individuals whose diverse perspectives could be easily overlooked were the deep mapping relying solely on formally conducted interviews. It seemed my method was beginning to confine rather than kindle the momentum of the investigation. However, as I spent periods of time on site conducting the observational drawing part of the mapping practice, I found myself increasingly engaging in spontaneous interactions with these inhabitants. Our presence on site and the stillness of the drawing practice lent me a familiarity and approachability, creating space for longer, less pressured conversations. I had originally intended to utilize the drawing practice to make purely visual observations of the site and chiefly as a segue into interviewing inhabitants. However, I came to acknowledge these serendipitous interactions as a crucial touch point between these inhabitants and the mapping process, and thus the sketchbook evolved into a valuable and direct input tool for the map. The recordings I made became richer in content and the pages filled out with details of interactions and stories told alongside the observational drawings (see Figs. 12.10, 12.11 and 12.12). As it grew, I was able to share and reflect on progress together with those who stopped to chat. One regular local even affectionately named this practice as 'going for a doodle'. As such our ethnographic drawing practice became one that not only prompted us to 'see' the site more deeply (Causey, 2017) but also to 'hear' it.

Over time it became clear that these sketchbook pages, as both recordings and mediators of conversation, would exist in the deep map with equal prominence to the content generated through interview. As McLucas (n.d.) eludes to in his statement 'Deep maps [...] will involve negotiation and contestation over who and what is represented and how', deep mapping allows for a 'playing' of value attribution that actively attempts to create representational space for voices that might otherwise be overlooked by those research methods that require more formalized processes of data collection driven by hegemonic calls for scientific rigour and replicability.

Disruption

Given my aspiration to detect and represent diversified spatial narratives around the Govan Graving Docks, I was acutely aware that a necessary objective would be to disrupt commonly held notions about what the site means and who has the authority to talk about it. Indeed, many times on initial encounter with inhabitants, I was met with responses that reflected the prevalence and strength of such meta-narratives. 'Oh I don't have much to tell you'. 'I don't know much about the history'. 'You should go to the Fairfield Heritage Museum; you'll find what you need there'. Given such initial reactions, it became evident that one of the most foundational daily tasks of my deep mapping in the field would be the carving out of this disruptive space. The advantage that this leant the investigation was twofold. First, the creation of this space allowed for the reattribution of value away from commonly recognized sources of knowledge and towards the myriad inhabitant voices from those informally using the site day to day. It was a critically necessary component, supporting inhabitants to safely step beyond the structures of marginalization held within them in order to explore and voice their own narratives. Second, this disruptive space also allowed for the reattribution of value to the present, giving favour to the last 33 years of vacancy and life of the site in the here and now as opposed to the dominant conversations about either its historical use or its proposed future. Naturally, the present could not be extracted from the past or the future; however, the creation of the map provided the opportunity for them to be viewed through the lens of the present, appearing themselves as elements sitting within the narrative landscapes created (see Fig. 12.13).

Carving out such a space was an incremental process ushered in by moment to moment interactions. The type of questions I asked, or didn't ask, the things that inhabitants saw me note down, the points I lingered on in conversation, the objects I chose to spend hours drawing in the field, the people that I chose to speak to, and the persistence of my digging, questioning and recording over the two months, all served to generate and maintain this disruptive space. The overwhelmingly contingent and even subjectively personal nature of such concerns is reflective of the kind of arts-practice thinking that courses through deep mapping ventures and the consequentially broad and irreplicable outcomes they generate.

Combining verbalization (interviews) and visualization (drawings) evidently helped the process of disrupting hegemonic narratives. The creation of hand-made drawings spun directly from inhabitants' descriptions and storytelling appeared to play a powerful role in expressly attributing value to their personal narratives. When inhabitants were presented with the drawings I had generated based upon their voices, the conversations expanded and almost all began to share their reflections and life experiences, to add them to the map. Indicated by the responses and enjoyment of the drawings as aesthetic objects, it appeared that this time-invested 'making' stage of the mapping process was interpreted by inhabitants as the artist-researcher literally making time for them. One inhabitant responded: 'It feels like you're really listening to me and that doesn't happen much in society these days' (J interview 2). While it is not unusual for individuals to respond positively when their viewpoints are given time and attention in interactions such as an interview, the creation of a physical artefact evidenced that this attention was additionally being given outside of the moment of our face-to-face conversation. Thus, we may read this art-production as a kind of 'gifting' in the discussion process. This did raise notable challenges to my aspirations of co-creation as, engaged as they were by the illustrations, inhabitants were mostly hesitant to critique them and challenge them. As such, the majority of the investigative discussions around the illustrations were driven by additive comments.

These written landscape objects became catalytic agents in the reflexive, cyclical process of investigation between the place, the inhabitants and the artist-researcher. The creative outputs generated (be they objects, actions, writings, performances, etc.) acted as 'safe harbour' to the many tangential narratives that revolve around the Govan Graving Docks, creating a rich polyvocality in the process. They therefore serve to incrementally construct space around these wells of inhabitant knowledge like momentary voids that beckon further thought, further questioning and further exchange.

Absence

As the investigation progressed, another necessary dimension of the map emerged. The unfolding COVID-19 pandemic and the travel restrictions in place across Europe put significant limitations on the fieldwork. Although the initial stage of the fieldwork went ahead eventually, the outcomes of this period and the path of investigation it generated still warrant discussion. Unable to physically be present in the field, I made efforts to connect with individuals online; however, this proved challenging for several reasons, including many of those contextual factors that limited the interview process. Gateway community groups and community leaders were also not in a position to collaborate, being overwhelmed by the crisis themselves. I found myself compiling a list of groups and individuals whose inhabitant knowledge would enrich the mapping yet whom I was unable to talk with. This was not only a result of the pandemic but other systemic issues at play, such as a funding crisis for the arts and community organizations and, more broadly, local contextual factors or attitudes held by individuals. This period of limited access made it clear that not only was 'absence' prevalent, but it would also be necessary to represent 'absence' itself as a critical component in the mapping process.

This line of inquiry led me to create a further illustrated map component that would serve to both record and prompt investigation of absent voices and the causes that lie behind them. The illustration entitled Loch Absence (see Figs. 12.14 and 12.15) is a simple illustration of a loch with the names of identified absent voices concealed within it by printing black on black. It challenges the viewer to move around the work, in order to position themselves at an angle in which the names may be read. This additional open-ended illustration serves as a task-based device to prompt my own detection and mapping of absence that continues throughout the investigation. As the identities of those voices not present are rarely forthcoming, I adopted tactics for detecting absences such as making conscious records of those declining or unable to talk, opportunities missed, and my own limitations in the field, such as not visiting the site after dark and hesitations about approaching certain individuals. By introducing the open-ended Loch Absence illustration into conversations and interviews, and thus the idea of acknowledging voices absent from the discussion, it further became possible to invite inhabitants in as co-researchers in this process.

The Role of the Researcher: The Place, the Map and Me

The onsite drawing practice compelled me to spend up to 10 hours on site each week during the winter months. Some days I stayed on site until the cold or driving rain or darkness forced me home. Indeed, as Wood ( 2015) had forewarned, I did dream about it. Beyond observing, listening, recording, I was living the site for myself. Committing the whole of myself to the place in this way led me to reflect upon what had brought me to do this particular work in this particular place. Memories surfaced of my own teenage ventures into wild and vacant spaces in my home landscape and the parts of my own identity that had called me there. Over the course of the two months in the field, I found these dimensions of myself increasingly seeping into the research investigation. While the roles I occupied as a researcher were multiplicitous, this effort to understand the place was also mirrored by a reciprocal process of self-understanding. This internal 'movement' alongside the movement of the research investigation drove me deeper into the field. In line with McLucas' assertion that deep maps should be 'politicized and partisan' (n.d.), I began to clarify my own political compulsions and allegiances.

Critically, however, this affected a notable change in the conversations I had with the many inhabitants I encountered. This embodiment, this inviting my own life-world into the mapping process, gave me the ability to meet with and sympathize with the life-worlds of others-to hear the experiences of those with whom I spoke. It generated the space within which individuals could express those life experiences that extended far beyond the bounds on the site. Only by relinquishing the position of researcher as neutral, immutable observer could these expressions of place emerge using the conversation space to understand our own experiences together.

My own art practice was central to this gradual embodiment. My employment of illustration was not as a convenient, aesthetically pleasing additive in the creation of a deep map, but rather part of the continuing evolution of my own artistic practice. The nights I spent scouring my thoughts for a suitable metaphor and a suitable image to portray it. The apprehension I felt in the moments before I tentatively offered those objects I had laboured over back to the inhabitants, just hoping I had pulled out the right words from what felt like a cacophony of meanings. The invitation of personal art practice into the making of a deep map is also (to varying degrees) the inviting of oneself into the process. The production of art is inherently rife with vulnerabilities and only in my vulnerability could I step down from the ivory tower and turn my questioning back upon myself.

Conclusions

Deep maps do not present a more accurate representation of place but rather an alternative 'truth' that can resist and confront hegemonic accounts. They do not seek to replace those conventional, instrumental depictions of place such as the map at the opening of this chapter. Instead a deep map may come into an active role when situated alongside existing representations. In such a way they bring into question assumptions that the social context of place is too layered, too contingent, too 'messy' to be included in the debate. The existence of a deep map serves to put a stake in the ground that is difficult to ignore. By making effort to represent what would otherwise be left in silence, it breaks through the cloak of omission curbing the momentum of those forces that serve to exclude and invalidate. In this way the deep maps hold the capacity to redefine the boundaries of debate over place, to voice both the 'cry and demand' over the right to the city (Lefebvre, 1991).

These advantages also draw attention to the potential complications and limitations of deep mapping as a highly context-specific approach to investigations of place. Disrupting or suspending commonly held perspectives in order to draw out more marginalized narratives clearly requires considerable time in the field. These are incremental processes contingent upon the building of trusting relationships with inhabitants, and they therefore do not lend themselves so well to research situations in which outcomes are predisposed and time pressured. Further, as is common to ethnographic approaches, it is necessary for the researcher to continually transition through different roles, engage closely with inhabitants and be reflexive about their own positionality in the process. This can be an intensive undertaking, particularly when working in places where socio-economic deprivation is prevalent. With regard to the creative output of the deep mapping process, its efficacy is also dependent upon where it resides. As a living object of representation and dialogue, a deep map would amount to nothing were it extracted entirely and solely enclosed within academic archives or frozen within publications. Resisting this requires partnership at the local level and a transferability of ownership so that it may be alive and in service of those inhabitants it endeavours to give platform to. And while multiplicity and inclusion remain central to the values of deep mapping, the ways in which this less familiar, arts-based approach may create alternative exclusions, demand sensitivity and discussion. This points to the need for further research on deep maps in action within the fields of decision-making, investigating their capacity to be recognized alongside traditional cartographic representations and to advocate for those spaces and peoples they seek to represent.

In the context of place-based research methods, deep maps possess a special ability to foreground absence rather than side-stepping it. As a principal condition of arts approaches are their persistent confrontation with their own inadequacy to describe (Holub, 1990), they decisively leave loose ends untied, inviting the viewer to draw their own conclusions. This permits the researcher to bring all that is missing into focus as a component of the subject matter itself. In this way a deep map may situate conversations about a place within the 'presence of absence', positioning itself with honesty within the fullness of the social landscape. Such a research practice may have resonance in many fields (migration, homelessness or climate adaptation for instance) where singular spatial narratives are held by positions of power at the exclusion of others. They bring us back to and keep alive those vital and difficult questions about how our rural and urban landscapes are produced and for whom. And thus, while deep maps have by no means freed themselves from the dilemmas of representative inclusion, I propose that they offer a far greater contribution than creating an aesthetic, representational object of any sorts. In continually questioning assumptions about who holds the authority to speak about a place, deep mapping empowers marginalized individuals to recognize that they hold within them knowledge that is of value and significance, that without them there is no place.

Acknowledgements

This research received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklowdoska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 765389.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

1. University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

Imogen Humphris & Lummina G. Horlings

2. University of Dundee, Dundee, Scotland, UK

Iain Biggs

3. Bath Spa University, Bath, UK

Iain Biggs

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Imogen Humphris .

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Editors and Affiliations

Centre for Agrecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR), Coventry University, Coventry, UK

Dr. Alex Franklin

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Humphris, I., Horlings, L.G., Biggs, I. (2022). 'Getting Deep into Things': Deep Mapping in a 'Vacant' Landscape. In: Franklin, A. (eds) Co-Creativity and Engaged Scholarship. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84248-2_12

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'Getting Deep into Things': Deep Mapping in a 'Vacant' Landscape

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We begin this chapter with a map (Fig. 12.1). It is not a particularly unusual type of map, in fact it's one that is quite commonly used to depict areas of wasteland, cartographically employing empty outlines or hatched boxes to show a plot available for development, as is the case here.

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Gerechtigheid voor Dieren - Martha C. Nussbaum

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Gerechtigheid voor Dieren - Martha C. Nussbaum

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Onze collectieve verantwoordelijkheid

Overal zijn dieren in gevaar. Of het nu gaat over de gruwelijke mishandeling in de vleesindustrie, de jacht, de vernietiging van de natuurlijke omgeving of de verwaarlozing van huisdieren: de positie van dieren vraagt dringend om een wereldwijd ethisch reveil, om een bewustzijnsverandering van internationale proporties. In dit boek presenteert Martha C. Nussbaum een fundamenteel nieuwe benadering van dierenrechten, -ethiek en -wetgeving.

Van dolfijnen tot kraaien, van olifanten tot octopussen, Nussbaum beziet de levens van dieren met verwondering, ontzag en compassie, en geeft antwoord op de vraag hoe wij een klimaat kunnen scheppen waarin de mens het dier als een evenwaardig wezen beschouwt, niet als een handelsobject of een gebruiksvoorwerp. Gerechtigheid voor dieren scherpt ons denken over dieren en hun recht op een goed bestaan. Het is een vurig pleidooi voor verandering, waarin Nussbaum ook laat zien hoe politiek en wetgeving onze ethische verantwoordelijkheid ten opzichte van dieren kunnen waarmaken: de mensheid heeft de collectieve plicht dierenleed te onderkennen en op te lossen.

Voor tal van haar boeken, waaronder Het koninkrijk van de angst, De breekbaarheid van het goede, Grensgebieden van het recht en De kosmopolitische traditie oogstte Nussbaum lof en bewondering. Zij behoort tot de invloedrijkste hedendaagse denkers over ethiek en recht. Gerechtigheid voor dieren is een nieuw hoogtepunt in haar omvangrijke en belangrijke oeuvre.

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Gerechtigheid voor dieren - Singel Uitgeverijen

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Overal zijn dieren in gevaar. Of het nu gaat over de gruwelijke mishandeling in de vleesindustrie, de jacht, de vernietiging van de natuurlijke omgeving of de verwaarlozing van huisdieren: de positie van dieren vraagt dringend om een wereldwijd ethisch reveil, om een bewustzijnsverandering van internationale proporties. In dit boek presenteert Martha C.

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https://www.taschen.com/en/books/architecture-design/04698/julia-watson-lo-tek-design-by-radical-indigenism/

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The Power of Lo-TEK: A Design Movement to Rebuild Understanding of Indigenous Philosophy and Vernacular Architecture

A Mythology of Technology: Stemming from the Greek mythos, meaning "storyofthepeople," mythology has guided mankind for millennia. Three hundred years ago, intellectuals of the European Enlightenment constructed a mythology of technology. Influenced by a confluence of humanism, colonialism, and racism, the mythology ignored local wisdom and indigenous innovation, deeming it primitive. Guiding this was a perception of technology that feasted on the felling of forests and the extraction of resources. The mythology that powered the Age of Industrialization distanced itself from natural systems, favoring fuel by fire.

Today, the legacy of this mythology haunts us. Progress at the expense of the planet birthed the epoch of the Anthropocene-our current geological period characterized by the undeniable impact of humans upon the environment at a global scale. Charles Darwin, the scholar and naturalist who is seen as the father of evolutionary theory, said "extinction happens slowly," yet 60% of the world's biodiversity has vanished in the past 40 years. Coming to terms with an uncertain future, and confronted by climate events that cannot be predicted, species extinctions that cannot be arrested, and ecosystem failures that cannot be stopped, humanity is tasked with developing solutions to protect the wilderness that remains and learning how to transform the civilizations we construct. While we are drowning in an Age of Information, we are starving for wisdom.

Columns of bundled reeds are prestressed by insertion into the island at opposing angles, then bent and tied into arches. Photo by Stephen Foote.

Built entirely of qasab reed without mortar or nails, reed islands and houses can last up to 25 years. Image created by Julia Watson and Berke Yazicioglu.

Ancient Wisdom

Only a sliver of the technologies that existed at the time of the Enlightenment were valued and shepherded through to the present. Meanwhile, an alternative mythology of technology has been with us since well before the Enlightenment. It is unacknowledged, at the far ends of the Earth, with its contributors deemed "primitive" for centuries. While "modern" societies were trying to conquer Nature in the name of progress, these indigenous cultures were working with it.

Indigenous technologies are not lost or forgotten; they are only hidden by the shadow of progress in the remotest places on earth. Even as society values and preserves the architectural artifacts of dead cultures, like the 4,000-year-old pyramids of Giza, the living are displaced, like the 6,000-year-old floating-island technology of the Ma'dan in the southern wetlands of Iraq. Extending the grounds of typical design, Lo-TEK is a movement that investigates lesser-known local technologies (Lo), traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), indigenous cultural practices, and mythologies passed down as songs or stories. In contrast to the homogeneity of the modern world, indigeneity is reframed as an evolutionary extension of life in symbiosis with nature.

Conveyed through mythology and explaining the complexity of the natural world, TEK is translated into a western scientific framework and described as four interrelated levels by the Knowledge-Practice-Belief Complex. Image created by Julia Watson and Berke Yazicioglu.

Continuing the conversation on vernacular architecture as popularized in Bernard Rudofsky's Architecture Without Architects exhibition at MoMA in 1967, Lo-TEK explores the intersection of design and radical indigenism. Coined by Princeton professor and citizen of the Cherokee Nation Eva Marie Garoutte, "radical indigenism" argues for a rebuilding of knowledge and explores indigenous philosophies capable of generating new dialogues. The concept of radical indigenism takes its name from the Latin derivation of the word "radical": radix, meaning "root." Design by radical indigenism imagines a movement that rebuilds an understanding of indigenous philosophies in relation to design, to generate sustainable and climate resilient infrastructures. This Lo-TEK movement fills a void at the intersection of innovation, architecture, urbanism, conservation, and indigenism. Once hybridized and scaled, these indigenous technologies could offer a new path to exponentially shrink the ecological footprint of humankind and mitigate the forecast collapse. While the action of individuals is important, it is action at the scale of infrastructures, designed with a mythology that connects individuals to an ecosystem, that can catalyze a global shift.

"The Architecture Without Architects" exhibition curated by Bernard Rudofsky, November 11, 1964 through February 7, 1965, Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photo by Rolf Petersen.

Lo-TEK

Lo-TEK is a movement that orients us toward a different mythology of technology, one that evolves humanism with radical indigenism. In the book of the same name, this mythology is told in a compendium of over a hundred indigenous innovations from four ecosystems across the globe: mountains, forests, deserts, and wetlands. A nexus of peoples, places, and practices is explored at the material, module, structural, and system scale from such diverse places as Peru, the Philippines, Tanzania, Kenya, Iran, Iraq, India, and Indonesia.

Aerial view of Rendille village huts and anok corrals in Kenya. Photo courtesy of Martin Harvey/Alamy stock photo.

In an arid plain at the feet of Macedonia's Mogila mountains, a migrating convoy is flanked by women, children, and donkeys. Photo by Gwenn Dubourthoumieu.

Lo-TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism catalogues sustainable, adaptable, and resilient technologies that are borne out of necessity. These indigenous infrastructures expand the definition of contemporary technology. They are local, inexpensive, handmade, and easily constructed soft systems, embedded with traditional ecological knowledge, practices, and beliefs. Lo-TEK counters the idea that indigenous innovation is primitive and exists apart from technology. An emergent term, calling to mind the common phrase "low-tech," Lo-TEK rethreads the fabric of innovation, rewrites the mythology of technology, and reconceives the primitive as innovative.

It redefines a misconception of indigenous innovation as being original, authentic, complex, and culturally momentous. Often predating the Industrial Revolution, Lo-TEK indigenous innovation can be mistaken as low-tech; however, it is sophisticated and designed to work with complex ecosystems. Innovations are arranged to amplify mutually beneficial interactions between multiple species, which is defined in this book as species symbiosis. These Lo-TEK systems are embedded in culture and climate and can range in size from single river crossings in India to entire watershed reconstructions in Bali. Lo-TEK is inherently sustainable, being both an everyday response for human survival and an extraordinary response to environmental extremes: famine, flood, frost, drought, disease. Lo-TEK is a movement that prompts us to retrace our steps and reconsider the root of technological innovation. Through an anthropological and architectural lens, this catalogue recovers the systems and the knowledge that will allow us to reimagine our co-evolution. Rather than primitive, as Corbusier would say, this knowledge is primal and known to us all.

A New Mythology on Technology

The field of design is at a pivotal moment, expanding to confront complex problems that require robust and adaptive responses. With environmental and societal collapse imminent in the coming decades, design at the intersection of anthropology, ecology, and innovation is the most pressing discussion of our time. A new mythology that acknowledges Lo-TEK is critical to advancing the co-existence of man with nature.

In this era of the Anthropocene, humankind will need to redefine the mythology of technology to include indigenous innovation. The indigenous cultures of the world need to be recognized as innovative rather than primitive and have their knowledge embedded in the thinking of our future. Harvard professor Edward O. Wilson predicts that during this next hundred years, the protection of biodiversity will be our highest priority. However, species extinction alone won't be the 21st century's greatest loss. The same forces that drive species extinction endanger the indigenous technologies that may hold a key to humanity's survival. As indigenous communities are among those most impacted by climate change, precipitated by many activities in the name of progress, their knowledge is in fact an essential part of the solution.

Constructing A New Mythology

In the age of the Anthropocene, humanity's impact on the planet is undeniable. Whether by destruction or by conservation, all ecological systems are impacted by human action. We are at a crossroads where we can either continue a narrow view of technology, informed by our distance from nature, or we can acknowledge that this is just one way, and not the only way, for humans to live. Designers today understand the urgency of reducing humanity's negative environmental impact, yet perpetuate the same mythology that relies on exploiting nature. We cast nature both as a menacing force now retaliating against us, and as a forlorn figure surrendering to our saving by way of savvy technological innovation. By building hard infrastructures and favoring high-tech homogenous design, we are ignoring millennia-old knowledge of how to live with nature in symbiosis.

Khasi tribe / tribal woman with bamboo conical head basket standing on a 'living root bridge' ladder - an ancient bridge / ladder / walkway created down the side of a steep cliff face made from the living roots of the banyan tree and stones , Warthumbalong , East Khasi Hills , Meghalaya , North East States , India. Photo courtesy of Timothy Allen / Axiom.

Called a Living or Root bridge (Ficus elastica), this was constructed by the Khasi Tribe in Meghalaya, India. Photo by Pete Oxford.

Meghalaya is a state in northeastern India. The name means "the abode of clouds" in Sanskrit, translating to "above the clouds." Photo by Rajesh Dutta.

Climate change has shown us that our survival is not dependent upon superiority, but upon symbiosis. A new mythology of technology in the era of the Anthropocene can replace the pending threat that nature will destroy us with the optimism that a collaboration with nature can save us. In the shift toward designing resilient cities, Lo-TEK and indigenous technologies are critical in the conversation for designers addressing climate change, as they are living examples that embody resilience thinking. We need to expand our definition of sustainable technology to encompass the Lo-TEK movement, and, in this effort, alter the course of collapse. Acknowledging the mistakes of modernity, we can shift our position of authority over nature to one of collaboration with nature. This will involve incorporating the nuances of indigenous innovation. Considering drastic sea level rise, recurrent storm events, and other unpredictable impacts from climate change, static infrastructures have proved to be limited as a response to dynamic change. Without implementing soft systems that use biodiversity as a building block, these infrastructures remain inherently unsustainable. We must begin telling an emergent, yet ancient, mythology of technology, one in which progress is found not simply in our fascination with the future.

A New Ground For Human Nature

Our global survival is dependent on our thinking shifting from "survival of the fittest" to "survival of the most symbiotic" as a critical first step. As designers, we need to remember that we are a part of nature. Indigenous communities, which adopted this thinking thousands of years ago, now hold a global bank of eco-intelligence and indigenous innovation that is unequivocally invaluable-but only if we invest in retaining it. In the foreseeable future, the extinction of these technologies will stand alongside the extinction of species as one of the great losses of the 21st century.

Ironically, many contemporary green technologies, such as green roofs and floating wetlands, have been around for thousands of years, "rediscovered" only when they can be packaged as something new. The vision for the Lo-TEK movement is similar. By gathering a compendium of indigenous design and innovation, a framework for adaptation and innovation is posed. Lo-TEK retells an ancient mythology-that humankind can, and must, live symbiotically with nature-and provokes an emergent movement of design. One that intentionally hybridizes the innovations of indigenous peoples across the globe to radicalize the progress of humanism with the spirit of indigenism, rerooting our very relationship with nature from superior to symbiotic.

Featured image: A young fisherman walks under the root bridge at Mawlynnong village. In the relentless damp of Meghalaya's jungles in northeast India, the Khasi people have used the trainable roots of rubber trees to grow bridges over rivers for centuries. Photo by Amos Chapple. Lo-TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism,published by Taschen, will be released in October 2019.

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The Power of Lo-TEK: A Design Movement to Rebuild Understanding of Indigenous Philosophy and Vernacular Architecture

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A Mythology of Technology: Stemming from the Greek mythos, meaning "storyofthepeople," mythology has guided mankind for millennia. Three hundred years ago, intellectuals of the European Enlightenment constructed a mythology of technology. Influenced by a confluence of humanism, colonialism, and racism, the mythology ignored local wisdom and indigenous innovation, deeming it primitive.

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Meeting the Universe Halfway - Karen Barad

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Meeting the Universe Halfway - Karen Barad

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Subjects
Science and Technology Studies > Feminist Science Studies, Theory and Philosophy > Feminist Theory, Cultural Studies

Meeting the Universe Halfway is an ambitious book with far-reaching implications for numerous fields in the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. In this volume, Karen Barad, theoretical physicist and feminist theorist, elaborates her theory of agential realism. Offering an account of the world as a whole rather than as composed of separate natural and social realms, agential realism is at once a new epistemology, ontology, and ethics. The starting point for Barad's analysis is the philosophical framework of quantum physicist Niels Bohr. Barad extends and partially revises Bohr's philosophical views in light of current scholarship in physics, science studies, and the philosophy of science as well as feminist, poststructuralist, and other critical social theories. In the process, she significantly reworks understandings of space, time, matter, causality, agency, subjectivity, and objectivity.

In an agential realist account, the world is made of entanglements of "social" and "natural" agencies, where the distinction between the two emerges out of specific intra-actions. Intra-activity is an inexhaustible dynamism that configures and reconfigures relations of space-time-matter. In explaining intra-activity, Barad reveals questions about how nature and culture interact and change over time to be fundamentally misguided. And she reframes understanding of the nature of scientific and political practices and their "interrelationship." Thus she pays particular attention to the responsible practice of science, and she emphasizes changes in the understanding of political practices, critically reworking Judith Butler's influential theory of performativity. Finally, Barad uses agential realism to produce a new interpretation of quantum physics, demonstrating that agential realism is more than a means of reflecting on science; it can be used to actually do science.

" In Meeting the Universe Halfway, Barad takes us carefully through the science, the science studies, and the critical theory that inform her arguments. One of the most impressive things about this book is her facility in each of these disciplinary modes of inquiry. She provides an excellent overview of science studies. . . . Barad writes . . . in a way that is accessible to the lay reader, but that nonetheless provides rigorous descriptions and illustrations. . . . Barad's posthumanist performative ethics is among the most promising of posthuman philosophies for animal studies, one that promises to make the 'post' not just beyond humanism or the human-as-currently-conceived, but rather a 'post' to an anthropocentric world." - Sherryl Vint, Science Fiction Studies

" Meeting the Universe Halfway is an ambitious, thought-provoking, challenging book. . . . The book is a provocative, generative, contribution to our attempts to provide effective tools to describe and understand the rapidly changing world we are part of. It deserves wide analysis and discussion. My intent here is to argue that it merits the serious attention of historians, philosophers, sociologists of science, and science studies and STS scholars." - S. S. Schweber, ISIS

"[A]n elegant mesh of detailed explanations of social theories, scientific concepts and new pathways of technological innovation; all explored and then rewoven to form the carefully constructed foundation for her theory of agential realism." - Jennifer M. Wilson, Feminist Review Blog

"[Barad's] background in theoretical physics enables her to open a much needed dialogue the sciences and the humanities, one which is as happy discussing social theories of materiality, as the waves and particles which constitute it." - Vita Peacock, Opticon1826

"Among the numerous merits of Karen Barad's finely researched and thought-provoking book is the fact that she writes with the authority of a theoretical physicist about a field that is all too often co-opted by non-scientists and used in ways that seem forced or artificial, not to mention misguided" - Lisa M. Dolling, Hypatia

" Meeting the Universe Halfway is highly original, exciting, and important. In this book Karen Barad puts her expertise in feminist studies and quantum physics to superb use, offering agential realism as an important alternative to representationalism." - Arthur Zajonc, coauthor of The Quantum Challenge: Modern Research on the Foundation of Quantum Mechanics

" Meeting the Universe Halfway is the most important and exciting book in science studies that I have read in a long time. Karen Barad provides an original and satisfying response to a perennial problem in philosophy and cultural theory: how to grasp matter and meaning or causality and discourse together, without either erasing one of them or introducing an unbridgeable dualism. These theoretical abstractions come alive in Barad's vivid examples; she shows that uncompromisingly rigorous analysis of difficult theoretical issues need not sacrifice concreteness or accessibility. Her methodological lessons from the diffraction of light and her convincing interpretations of familiar puzzles and recent experimental results in quantum physics also display how science and science studies can genuinely learn from one another. What other book could be a 'must read' in such diverse fields as science studies, foundations of quantum mechanics, feminist and queer theory, and philosophical metaphysics and epistemology?" - Joseph Rouse, Wesleyan University

"Karen Barad's Meeting the Universe Halfway makes fundamental contributions to science studies, philosophy, feminist theory, and physics-it is a rare book that can do that. This is an important, ambitious, readable, risk-taking, and very smart book, one to savor and grow with. Barad elaborates Niels Bohr's philosophy-physics in the light of feminist science studies to propose an account of material-discursive practices in scientific knowledge. Eschewing all romantic appropriations of quantum physics that evade strong knowledge claims, Barad argues that Bohr's interpretation of the experimental-theoretical nexus of quantum mechanics is crucial to understanding how observations and agencies of observation cannot be independent. 'Agencies of observation' are not liberal opinion-bearers, but situated entities made up of humans and non-humans in specific relationship. Reality is not independent of our explorations of it; and reality is not a matter of opinion, but of the material consequences of some cuts and not others made in the fabric of the world. As Barad reminds us, identities are always formed in intra-action. Ethical practices and consequences are intrinsic to the web. These issues are at the heart of debates about 'constructivism,' 'realism,' and the import of science studies, including feminist science studies, for configuring the nature of objective knowledge and the kinds of authorized actors in public worlds deeply shaped by science and technology." - Donna Haraway, author of Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium.FemaleMan©_Meets_OncoMouse™: Feminism and Technoscience

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Subjects Science and Technology Studies > Feminist Science Studies, Theory and Philosophy > Feminist Theory, Cultural Studies Meeting the Universe Halfway is an ambitious book with far-reaching implications for numerous fields in the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. In this volume, Karen Barad, theoretical physicist and feminist theorist, elaborates her theory of agential realism.

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New Eyes for Plants - Margaret Colquhoun & Axel Ewald

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New Eyes for Plants - Margaret Colquhoun & Axel Ewald

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New Eyes for Plants | Margaret Colquhoun, Axel Ewald | 9781869890858 | Hawthorn Press

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New Eyes for Plants offers fresh ways of seeing nature on a journey through the seasons with observation and drawing exercises. Simple observation exercises interwoven with inspiring illustrations invite you "to see" with a fresh pair of eyes. This opens a door onto a new way of practising Science as an Art, using the holistic approach of Goethe.

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New Materialism - Rick Dolphijn and Iris van der Tuin (Ed.)

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New Materialism - Rick Dolphijn and Iris van der Tuin (Ed.)

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This book is the first monograph on the theme of "new materialism," an emerging trend in 21st century thought that has already left its mark in such fields as philosophy, cultural theory, feminism, science studies, and the arts. The first part of the book contains elaborate interviews with some of the most prominent new materialist scholars of today: Rosi Braidotti, Manuel DeLanda, Karen Barad, and Quentin Meillassoux. The second part situates the new materialist tradition in contemporary thought by singling out its transversal methodology, its position on sexual differing, and by developing the ethical and political consequences of new materialism.

"In New Materialism four prominent theorists who have grappled throughout their careers with crucial issues of materiality, embodiment and subjectivity present their latest thinking in lively and engaging dialogues. In their follow-up analysis Dolphijn and Van der Tuin expertly contextualize the discussions in relation to the current debates around speculative realism and process thought. New Materialism's contribution to the discussion will be highly appreciated by all those concerned with the current renewal of interest in realist perspectives respecting the autonomy of the nonhuman."

Brian Massumi - Université de Montréal

"New Materialism is a title intended to provoke. The authors concede that the book's various arguments are not exactly new, and further, that certain expressions of materialism are uncannily immaterial. And yet it is precisely here, in this muddling of conventional analytical terms and oppositional co-ordinates that the book offers a fresh and lively intervention. If the error of binary and hierarchical thinking can be corrected and dispatched through diagnosis and negation (because such responses inadvertently reiterate and entrench the problem), and if past, historical arguments can appear strangely contemporary, then the authors encourage us to revisit every detail of our practice and its routine justifications. This collection of essays embarks on such an exercise, and it does so with an honest and eager curiosity that is both refreshing and useful. Interviews with luminaries such as Rosi Braidotti, Karen Barad, Manuel DeLanda and Quentin Meillassoux make for compelling reading, especially as their collective voices are only sometimes in unison. Indeed, it is the uneasy frisson between these different visions that underlines the book's aims and rhythms; namely, to find wonder, again and again, in the complex nature of being."

Vicki Kirby - University of New South Wales

Editor Bio

Rick Dolphijn is assistant professor at the Department of Media and Culture Studies and senior fellow at the Centre for the Humanities, both Utrecht University, the Netherlands. In 2004 he published Foodscapes, towards a Deleuzian Ethics of Consumption. He has published on continental philosophy, art and new materialism in Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, Deleuze Studies, Collapse: Journal of Philosophical Research and Development and Inflexions: a Journal for Research Creation (to which he is a contributing editor).

Iris van der Tuin is assistant professor of Gender Studies at the Department of Media and Culture Studies, Utrecht University, the Netherlands. In 2011-12 she was visiting scholar at the Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, the USA. Her work on new feminist materialism has appeared in Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, Australian Feminist Studies, European Journal of Women's Studies, and Women's Studies International Forum.

Series Design

The New Metaphysics series design is by Katherine Gillieson with cover illustrations by Tammy Lu

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This book is the first monograph on the theme of "new materialism," an emerging trend in 21st century thought that has already left its mark in such fields as philosophy, cultural theory, feminism, science studies, and the arts.

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Never before has there been a greater need for deeper listening and more open communication to cope with the complex problems facing our organizations, businesses and societies. Renowned scientist David Bohm believed there was a better way for humanity to discover meaning and to achieve harmony. He identified creative dialogue, a sharing of assumptions and understanding, as a means by which the individual, and society as a whole, can learn more about themselves and others, and achieve a renewed sense of purpose.

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Never before has there been a greater need for deeper listening and more open communication to cope with the complex problems facing our organizations, businesses and societies. Renowned scientist David Bohm believed there was a better way for humanity to discover meaning and to achieve harmony.

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Ons denken staat niet los van ons lichaam - interview met Renate Schepen

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Ons denken staat niet los van ons lichaam - interview met Renate Schepen

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https://www.filosofie.nl/ons-denken-staat-niet-los-van-ons-lichaam/

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Pedagogy in the Anthropocene -  Michael Paulsen, jan jagodzinski, Shé M. Hawke (Ed.)

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Pedagogy in the Anthropocene -  Michael Paulsen, jan jagodzinski, Shé M. Hawke (Ed.)

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1. Michael Paulsen

Department of the Studies of Culture, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark

2. Shé M. Hawke

Mediterranean Institute for Environmental Studies, Science and Research Centre of Koper, Koper, Slovenia

Adds to the current academic discussions of the anthropocene and education

Connects prominent researchers and perspectives from ecological communities, organisations and formal networks

Focuses on the human - nature relationship, epistemology and value-oriented education

About this book

This book explores new pedagogical challenges and potentials of the Anthropocene era. The authors argue that this new epoch, with an unstable climate, new kinds of globally spreading viruses, and new knowledges, calls for a new way of educating and an alertness to new philosophies of education and pedagogical imaginations, thoughts, and practices. Addressing the linkages between the Anthropocene and Pedagogy across a broad pedagogical spectrum that is both formal and informal, the editors and their contributors emphasize a re-imagining of education that serves to deepen our understanding of the capacities and values of life.

Reviews

Much has been written about the Anthropocene but surprising little about its implications for education. This book tackles that fundamental issue head-on. The definitions and interpretations of the Anthropocene are vast, but they all point towards the same formidable challenge - we need to examine who we are and what relationship we should have with the rest of the planet. The next generations will feel the full force of the Anthropocene, so there is nothing more important than preparing them for the uncertain future of the human epoch.

-Will Steffen, Emeritus Professor, The Australian National University, Canberra

"This book, written by authors of passion and conviction, charts pedagogical pathways for an unknown future. The offerings range from those who believe that the future is dark yet hold a flickering torch of hope, others who believe that our hope for the future lies in our ability to re-member, re-new, re-gain our deep relationality to all species, to re-wild and re-pair the extraordinary damage that we have done to the beautiful planet we call home, and those whose call is to re-vitalize our spiritual consciousness and connection to the nonhuman and more-than-human world. Wherever we are on this continuum, this book points to critical pedagogies for a liveable future - for our children, for our grandchildren and for our more-than-human relations. It is a much-needed and magnificent book. I am honored to write its endorsement."

-Makere Stewart‐Harawira, Professor, Faculty of Education, University of Alberta, Canada. Dr Stewart‐Harawira is of Māori and Scots descent; her primary iwi affiliation being Waitaha ki Te Waipounamu. She is the author of The New Imperial Order: Indigenous Responses to Globalization

Editors and Affiliations

Department of the Studies of Culture, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark

Michael Paulsen

University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

jan jagodzinski

Mediterranean Institute for Environmental Studies, Science and Research Centre of Koper, Koper, Slovenia

Shé M. Hawke

About the editors

Michael Paulsen is Associate Professor and Head of Intercultural Pedagogy Studies at the University of Southern Denmark.

jan jagodzinski is Professor of Visual Art and Media Education at the University of Alberta, Canada.

Shé M. Hawke is Assistant Professor and Head of the Mediterranean Institute for Environmental Studies (2019-2021), Science and Research Centre, Koper, Slovenia. She is also an Honorary Associate in the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies, University of Sydney, Australia.

Bibliographic Information

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Michael Paulsen Department of the Studies of Culture, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark Shé M. Hawke Mediterranean Institute for Environmental Studies, Science and Research Centre of Koper, Koper, Slovenia Adds to the current academic discussions of the anthropocene and education Connects prominent researchers and perspectives from ecological communities, organisations and formal networks Focuses on the human - nature relationship, epistemology and value-oriented education This book explores new pedagogical challenges and potentials of the Anthropocene era.

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Propositions for an Environmental Arts Pedagogy - David Rousell, Alexandra Lasczik Cutcher, Peter J. Cook & Rita L. Irwin   

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Propositions for an Environmental Arts Pedagogy - David Rousell, Alexandra Lasczik Cutcher, Peter J. Cook & Rita L. Irwin   

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

1. Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK

David Rousell

2. School of Education, Southern Cross University, Bilinga, QLD, Australia

Alexandra Lasczik Cutcher & Peter J. Cook

3. University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Rita L. Irwin

Corresponding author

Correspondence to David Rousell .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

1. School of Education, Southern Cross University School of Education, Coolangatta, Queensland, Australia

Amy Cutter-Mackenzie

2. Centre for Educational Research, Western Sydney University Centre for Educational Research, Penrith, New South Wales, Australia

Karen Malone

3. Department of Education, University of Bath Department of Education, Bath, United Kingdom

Elisabeth Barratt Hacking

Section Editor information

1. Manchester Metropolian University, Manchester, UK

David Rousell

2. Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, USA

Dilafruz Williams

Copyright information

© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature

About this entry

Cite this entry

Rousell, D., Cutcher, A.L., Cook, P.J., Irwin, R.L. (2018). Propositions for an Environmental Arts Pedagogy: A/r/tographic Experimentations with Movement and Materiality. In: Cutter-Mackenzie, A., Malone, K., Barratt Hacking, E. (eds) Research Handbook on Childhoodnature . Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51949-4_95-1

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Propositions for an Environmental Arts Pedagogy: A/r/tographic Experimentations with Movement and Materiality

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Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK David Rousell School of Education, Southern Cross University, Bilinga, QLD, Australia Alexandra Lasczik Cutcher & Peter J. Cook University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada Rita L. Irwin Correspondence to David Rousell .

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https://www.aritabaaijens.nl/living-landscapes/

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Illeris, Helene; Arvedsen, Karsten (2012). Fenomenos e eventos visuais: algumas reflexoes sobre curriculo e pedagogia da cultura visual. Culturas das Imagens: desafios para arte e para educacao. ISBN: 978-85-7391-167-1. Editoraufsm - Editora da Universidade Federal de Santa Maria. kapittel. s 283 - 310.

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All single authored unless otherwise stated. To conform with copyright where papers are made available they are usually in the final draft form.

Journal articles and book chapters are arranged under subject areas: environmental philosophy, aesthetics, Goethean science, although there are overlaps.

Environmental Philosophy

'Ethics of Agricultural Landscapes and Food production' in Zeunart, J. & Waterman, T. (ed) 2018 Routledge Handbook of Landscape and Food, London: Routledge.

'Restoring or Re-storying the Lake District: applying responsive cohesion to a current problem situation, Environmental Values 27, 2018: 427-445.

'Make, do, and mend: embodied environmental engagement' in Brady, E. and Phemister, P. eds 2012, Human-Environment Relations: transformative values in theory and practice, Dordrecht: Springer, 109-120.

'The Virtues of Gardening' in O'Brien, D. ed. 2010, Gardening: Philosophy for Everyone, London: Wiley, pp. 13-25.

'The Importance of Nature, Green Spaces, and Gardens in Human Wellbeing' Ethics, Place and Environment 13.3, 2010: 295-312.

'Why Study Environmental Ethics' in Keller, D. ed. 2010, Environmental Ethics: the big questions London: Blackwell.

United Kingdom in Callicott, B. and Frodeman, R. eds 2009, Encyclopaedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy Farmington Hills, MI, Macmillan, 335-339.

'Can Spirit of Place be a Guide to Ethical Building?' in Ethics and the Built Environment Fox, W. ed. 2000, London: Routledge, 139-151.
Reprinted in Thompson, I. 2009 Rethinking Landscape: a critical reader, London: Routledge, 216-225.

'Restoring Landscapes: The authenticity problem' Earth Surface Processes and Landforms 31, 2006, 1600-1605.

'Can Merleau-Ponty's Notion of "Flesh" Inform or even Transform Environmental Thinking' Environmental Values 14:3, 2005, 353-362.

'Making Here Like There: Place attachment, displacement and the urge to garden' Ethics, Place and Environment 6:3, 2003, 223-230.

'Experiencing Place: Ocularcentrism and Merleau-Ponty's Redeeming of the Role of Vision' Journal for the British Society for Phenomenology Vol. 33:1 2002 pp. 68-77.

Environmental Aesthetics

'Wonder Revisited' Journal of Scottish Thought, Vol 11: Aesthetics, Nature and Religion: Ronald W. Hepburn and his Legacy, Part II (2019).

'Aesthetic Appreciation of Landscape' in Howard, P. et. al. (eds) 2019, The Routledge Companion to Landscape Studies, 2nd edition, London: Routledge, 39-50.

'Reinterpreting the picturesque as an engaged appreciation of nature' Chapter 9 in Malpas, J. ed. 2011, The Place of Landscape: Concepts, Contexts, Studies, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 165-181.

'Wildness in the English Garden Tradition: A reassessment of the picturesque from environmental philosophy' Ethics and the Environment 13:1, 2008, 105-120.

'The Aesthetic Qualities of Unauthorized Environmental Interventions' Ethics, Place and Environment, 10:3, 2007, 307-318.

With Emily Brady 'The Ethics and Aesthetics of Topiary' Ethics and the Environment 8:1 2003, 127-142.

'Without waste or destruction: the aesthetics of coppicing', Thingmount Papers, Philosophy Department, Lancaster University, ISSN 1362-7066, 1999.

Goethean Science

'A New Science from a Historical Figure: Goethe as Holistic Scientist' in Wright, J. (ed) 2021 Subtle Agroecologies: farming with the hidden half of nature, pp.71-80: London: CRC Press.

'Engaging in the Goethean Method: an approach for understanding the farm?' In Wright, J. (ed) 2021 Subtle Agroecologies: farming with the hidden half of nature, pp.229-238: London: CRC Press.

'Dualism, Monism and the Wonder of Materiality as Revealed through Goethean Observation' Philosophy Activism and Nature 6, 2009, 33-39.

'Goethean Science as a Way to Read Landscape' Landscape Research Vol 23, No. 1, 1998, . 51-69.

With Vernon Pratt 'Goethe's Archetype and the Romantic Self' Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Vol. 26, 1996, 351-365. (sorry I don't have a digital copy of this but will try to find one)

Books

Brady, E., Brook, I. & Prior, J. 2018 Between Nature and Culture: the aesthetics of modified environments, London: Rowman and Littlefield.

Edited Collections

Brook, I. 2010 ed. Environmental Aesthetics a special issue of Environmental Values 19.3.

Editorials

'Education for Sustainable Development' Environmental Values 22:6, 2013

'Building on the Past, Creating a Future' Environmental Values 20:4, 2011.

'Ronald Hepburn and the humanizing of Environmental Aesthetics' Environmental Values 19:3, 2010.

'Turning up the heat on climate change: are transition towns an answer?' Environmental Values 18:2, 2009.

'Convergence, Divergence and the Complex Nature of Environmental Problems' Environmental Values 17:1, 2008.

'Ethics Gets Real' Environmental Values 15:4, 2006.

'Collaborative Working' Environmental Values 14:2, 2005.

Book Reviews

Powell, J. 2019 Dancing with Time: the garden as art. Reviewed for British Journal of Aesthetics, 2019.

Schwartz, E. 2009, At Home in the World: human nature, ecological thought, and education after Darwin. Reviewed for Environmental Values 18:4, 519-521, 2009.

Berleant, A. 2005, Aesthetics and Environment: Variations on a theme. Reviewed for Environmental Values 15:4, 534-535, 2006.

Clayton, S. and Optow, S. 2003, Identity and the Natural Environment: The psychological significance of nature. Reviewed for WorldViews, 2006.

Smith, M. 2001, An Ethics of Place. Reviewed for Environmental Values, 12:4, 542-543, 2003.

PhDs Examined

Helena Fox, 2023, 'From Anaesthetic to Aesthetic in the Clinic: an arts, practice-based inquiry into everyday aesthetic experience for healthcare practicioners'. (Oxford Brookes University).

Maris Palmi, 2015, 'Energy trees for a humane and viable future: a social sculpture approach linking individual and social capital' (Oxford Brookes University).

Guȏbjörg Rannveig Jóhannesdóttir, 2015, ' Icelandic Landscapes: beauty and the aesthetic in environmental decision making' (University of Iceland).

Claudia Schluermann, 2014 'Material as a gateway to other forms of knowing: what the secrets in materials and processes have to offer in the field of transformative social practice' (Oxford Brookes University)

Jonathan Prior, 2012, 'The Roles of Aesthetic Value in Ecological Restoration: Cases from the United Kingdom' (Edinburgh University).

Mary-Lou Barrat t, 2010, 'We are the revolution: social practice art' (Oxford Brookes University)

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All single authored unless otherwise stated. To conform with copyright where papers are made available they are usually in the final draft form. Journal articles and book chapters are arranged under subject areas: environmental philosophy, aesthetics, Goethean science, although there are overlaps. Environmental Philosophy 'Ethics of Agricultural Landscapes and Food production' in Zeunart, J.

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https://research.hanze.nl/en/persons/jan-van-boeckel/publications/

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Jan van Boeckel is a Dutch artist-educator and researcher. Currently he is professor art & sustainability at the Research Centre Art & Society of Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen. Previously (2018-2019) Jan was senior lecturer in visual art education at the Academy of Design and Crafts of Gothenburg University. That year Jan was also guest educator and researcher at CEMUS, the Centre for Environment and Development Studies in Uppsala, Sweden. From 2015 until 2018, he was professor in art education at the Estonian Academy of Arts in Tallinn. Jan van Boeckel has also been program director in design theory at the Iceland University of the Arts in Reykjavik (2014-2015). In 2019, he started teaching painting courses at MK24 in Amsterdam. Jan has regularly taught and facilitated courses at Schumacher College in Dartington, the UK; at University College of Southeast Norway; and in previous years also at CEMUS in Sweden.

Together with others, Jan established the international Research group on arts-based environmental education at Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture in Helsinki. In 2013, he presented his doctoral thesis, At the Heart of Art and Earth: An Exploration of Practices in Arts-Based Environmental Education (4 th print, Dec. 2022). In 2016, Van Boeckel was a member of the British Educational Research Association's commission that focused on the potential and challenges of developing STEAM education through creative pedagogies. From 2014 onward, Jan is member of the Research group on art & science in education at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences in Ås. Since 2007, he is part of the international eco-art network, and more recently, of the Independent AIR - State of the Art network, and the Consortium of Environmental Philosophers. He regularly performs peer-reviews of article submissions for Environmental Education Research.

In 1989, Jan van Boeckel obtained his University degree in Social Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam, with the thesis De Onthulling van het Sacrale: Inheemse Volken en de Media ('Revealing the sacred: Indigenous peoples and the media'). The world-views and environmental philosophies of indigenous peoples have remained a lasting field of interest. Together with film-making group ReRun Productions, Jan produced a series of documentaries on this theme, as well as films on philosophers such as Jacques Ellul and Arne Naess, who provide a critical analysis of Western industrial society. These films include, among others: The Earth is Crying (1987), It's Killing the Clouds (1992), The Betrayal by Technology (1992), and The Call of the Mountain (1997).

In the early 2000s, Jan lived with his family in Hällefors, deep in the forests of central Sweden, where he was an art teacher for both children and adults, and consultant on international cultural projects. Here he conceptualized the international art project Cloudberry Dreams, on the cultural interpretation of wetlands. From 2004 to 2006, Jan was head of communications at the Netherlands Centre for Indigenous Peoples in Amsterdam.

On basis of his inspiration by indigenous cultures, his own engagement in art-making and teaching, and the experience of living close to wilderness in Sweden, Jan's interest has moved to art as a mode to connect with what David Abram aptly called 'the more-than-human-world.' One of his research interests is the tension between trying to open the senses whilst coping with the enormity of the current ecological crisis - an issue all the more pressing when practising arts-based environmental education with young people.

Jan van Boeckel is content editor for the O pen Air Philosophy project where selections of writings by (and about) Norwegian ecophilosophers Arne Naess, Sigmund Kvaløy Setreng and Peter Wessel Zapffe are made available to a broad international audience. Here is a podcast interview with him, at the occasion of the launch of the website in 2020.

For a special issue of Arts and Teaching Journal , Jan was guest editor-in-chief. The theme of the edition (2017) was the triad of art, education, and the natural environment. Jan van Boeckel has regularly participated in sessions on artistic research of the ArtEZ International Research school (AIR) in Arnhem, the Netherlands.

Jan regularly teaches wildpainting courses across Europe. In the summer of 2022, the latest course took place in Kandal, Norway, entitled A Mountain of Colour. Between August 27 and 31, 2023, the Painting among Giants course is scheduled to take place in the Norwegian Jotunheimen mountains.

It has become a tradition that Jan teaches an intensive course in the autumn in Lahemaa National Park, Estonia, on the theme of art and sustainability education. Participants are students of the Estonian Academy of Arts and Erasmus exchange students.

In 2019, Jan van Boeckel was interviewed by Anneli Porri of the Estonian Academy of Arts for the cultural magazine SIRP ( here is a link to the original transcript in English). An interview with Jan from 2015 can be accessed here (or at the website of the Estonian Academy of Arts). And two early interviews (in Dutch) - one in the daily newspaper Trouw (2013) and the other as part of the book Hoor de Zon (2012) - can be accessed here.

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Jan van Boeckel is a Dutch artist-educator and researcher. Currently he is professor art & sustainability at the Research Centre Art & Society of Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen. Previously (2018-2019) Jan was senior lecturer in visual art education at the Academy of Design and Crafts of Gothenburg University.

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Biography

Tim Ingold was born in 1948. He received his BA in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge in 1970, and his PhD in 1976. For his doctoral research he carried out ethnographic fieldwork (1971-72) among the Skolt Saami of northeastern Finland, and the resulting monograph ('The Skolt Lapps Today', 1976) was a study of the ecological adaptation, social organisation and ethnic politics of this small minority community under conditions of post-war resettlement. Following a year (1973-74) at the University of Helsinki, he was appointed to a Lectureship in Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester. Here he continued his research on northern circumpolar peoples, looking comparatively at hunting, pastoralism and ranching as alternative ways in which such peoples have based a livelihood on reindeer or caribou. His second book, 'Hunters, pastoralists and ranchers: reindeer economies and their transformations', was published in 1980. A further spell of ethnographic fieldwork, this time among Finnish rather than Saami people, was undertaken in the district of Salla, in northern Finland, in 1979-80. The purpose of this research was to examine how farming, forestry and reindeer herding were combined on the level of local livelihood, to investigate the reasons for the intense rural depopulation in the region, and to compare the long term effects of post-war resettlement here with those experienced by the Skolt Saami.

Ingoldâ€™s research on circumpolar reindeer herding and hunting led to a more general concern with human-animal relations and the conceptualisation of the humanity-animality interface, as well as with the comparative anthropology of hunter-gatherer and pastoral societies, themes which he also explored while teaching courses at Manchester in economic and ecological anthropology. These concerns led to a number of essays which were collected together in his book 'The Appropriation of Nature', published in 1986. The same year also saw the publication of another major volume, 'Evolution and Social Life', a study of the ways in which the notion of evolution has been handled in the disciplines of anthropology, biology and history, from the late nineteenth century to the present. Two important conferences also took place in that year: the World Archaeological Congress (Southampton), in which Ingold organised a series of sessions devoted to cultural attitudes to animals, and the Fourth International Conference on Hunting and Gathering Societies (London), of which he was a principal organiser. Ingold edited one of the volumes to arise from the Southampton Congress, 'What is an animal?', published in 1988, and was co-editor of the two-volume work 'Hunters and Gatherers', consisting of papers from the London conference and published in the same year.

Through a reconsideration of toolmaking and speech as criteria of human distinctiveness, Ingold became interested in the connection, in human evolution, between language and technology. With Kathleen Gibson, he organised an international conference on this theme in 1990, and the resulting volume, edited by Gibson and Ingold ('Tools, language and cognition in human evolution'), was published in 1993. Since then, Ingold has sought ways of bringing together the anthropologies of technology and art, leading to his current view of the centrality of skilled practice. At the same time he has continued his research and teaching in ecological anthropology and, influenced by the work of James Gibson on perceptual systems, has been exploring ways of integrating ecological approaches in anthropology and psychology. In his recent work, linking the themes of environmental perception and skilled practice, Ingold has attempted to replace traditional models of genetic and cultural transmission, founded upon the alliance of neo-Darwinian biology and cognitive science, with a relational approach focusing on the growth of embodied skills of perception and action within social and environmental contexts of development. These ideas are presented in his book 'The Perception of the Environment' (2000), a collection of twenty-three essays written over the previous decade on the themes of livelihood, dwelling and skill.

Ingold was appointed to a Chair at the University of Manchester in 1990, and in 1995 he became Max Gluckman Professor of Social Anthropology. He was Editor of 'Man' (the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute) from 1990 to 1992, and edited the Routledge 'Companion Encyclopedia of Anthropology', published in 1994. In 1988 he founded the Group for Debates in Anthropological Theory, and edited a volume of the first six annual debates ('Key Debates in Anthropology', 1996). He was elected to a Fellowship of the British Academy in 1997, and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2000. In 1999 he was President of the Anthropology and Archaeology Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

In 1999, Tim Ingold moved to take up the newly established Chair of Social Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen, where he has been instrumental in setting up the UK's youngest Department of Anthropology, established in 2002. In his latest research he has been exploring three themes, all arising from his earlier work on the perception of the environment, concerning first, the dynamics of pedestrian movement, secondly, the creativity of practice, and thirdly, the linearity of writing. These issues all come together in his current project, funded by a 3-year ESRC Professorial Fellowship (2005-08), entitled 'Explorations in the comparative anthropology of the line'. Starting from the premise that what walking, observing and writing all have in common is that they proceed along lines of one kind and another, the project seeks to forge a new approach to understanding the relation, in human social life and experience, between movement, knowledge and description. At the same time, and complementing this study, Ingold is researching and teaching on the connections between anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture (the '4 As'), conceived as ways of exploring the relations between human beings and the environments they inhabit. Taking an approach radically different from the conventional anthropologies and archaeologies 'of' art and of architecture, which treat artworks and buildings as though they were merely objects of analysis, he is looking at ways of bringing together the 4 As on the level of practice, as mutually enhancing ways of engaging with our surroundings.

Internal Memberships

Head, School of Social Science, 2008-2011

Research Overview

Geographical: Finland, Lapland, northern Europe, northern circumpolar (including N America, Siberia).

Interests relating to past fieldwork: Work, environment and identity among Saami and Finnish people in Lapland; reindeer herding and husbandry in northern Finland; domestic organisation and rural economy among northern Finnish farmers; migration and rural depopulation; long-term effects of displacement and resettlement; social and environmental aspects of technical change.

Theoretical interests: Ecological approaches in anthropology and psychology; comparative anthropology of hunter-gatherer and pastoral societies; human-animal relations; theories of evolution in anthropology, biology and history; relations between biological, psychological and anthropological approaches to culture and social life; environmental perception; language, technology and skilled practice; anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture; the anthropology of lines and line-making.

Current Research

Learning is understanding in practice: exploring the relations between perception, creativity and skill (2002-2005). See http://www.abdn.ac.uk/creativityandpractice/

This project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Board, was undertaken in conjunction with the School of Fine Art at the University of Dundee. The project combines approaches from fine art and anthropology to examine the relation between perception, creativity, innovation and skill, through an empirical study of the knowledge practices of fine art. The research has also explored the potential of a practice-based approach to teaching and learning in both disciplines.

Culture from the ground: walking, movement and placemaking (2004-2006). See http://www.abdn.ac.uk/anthropology/walking.php

This project, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, builds on a previous study that focused specifically on recreational rambling and hillwalking in Scotland. The current research is designed to reveal the sociality of walking over a broader canvas. Through an ethnography of everyday pedestrian movements we are exploring how walking binds time and place in people's experience, relationships and life-histories
Lines from the past: towards an anthropological archaeology of inscriptive practices
This project is to convert a series of six public lectures delivered in Edinburgh in May 2003 into a short book, Lines from the past, scheduled for completion early in 2006. These were the Rhind Lectures, sponsored by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. In them, I sketched an initial agenda for the comparative anthropology of the line, focusing on the themes of: language, music and notation; traces, threads and surfaces; the gestural trace and the point-to-point connector; writing and drawing, and the significance of the straight line.

Explorations in the comparative anthropology of the line (2005-2008)

This project, funded by a Professorial Fellowship from the Economic and Social Research Council, pursues the implications of treating the human being not as a self-contained entity but as growing along a way of life. Every such way is a line of some kind. Through a comparative and historical anthropology of the line, the research will forge a new approach to understanding the relation, in human life and experience, between movement, knowledge and description. As a work of intellectual synthesis, the research will be library- based, spanning literatures in several disciplines within and beyond the social sciences. It will lead to the production of two major books. 'Life on the line' will explore how, in the transition from the trace to the connector, the growing line was shorn of the movement that gave rise to it. 'The 4 As' will examine the relations between anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture as disciplinary paths along which environments are perceived, shaped and understood.

Bringing things back to life: creative entanglements in a world of materials (2011-2013)

Conventionally, creating things has been understood as imposing form onto matter. Funded by a Major Research Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust, in this project I aim to challenge this 'hylomorphic' model of creation and to replace it with an ontology that assigns primacy to forces and materials. I will show that: (1) that things are not reducible to objects; (2) they are generated within processes of life; (3) a focus on life-processes requires us to attend to flows of materials; (4) these flows are creative, and (5) creative practice unfolds along a meshwork of interwoven lines.

Knowing From the Inside: Antropology, Art, Architecture and Design (2013-18)

This project, funded by an Advanced Grant from the European Research Council, promises to reconfigure the relation between the practice of academic inquiry in the human sciences and the knowledge to which it gives rise. Conventional research protocols expect the scholar to treat the world as reserve from which to draw empirical material for subsequent interpretation in light of appropriate theory. Against this, we will establish and trial an alternative procedure whereby theory is not applied after the fact, to a corpus of material already gathered, but rather grows from our direct, practical and observational engagements with the stuff of the dwelt-in world. Theoretical thinking, then, is embedded in observational practice, or knowing in being, rather than vice versa. This way of knowing, by studying with things or people instead of making studies of them, has long been key to anthropology. It is also, however, central to arts practice, as it is to the contingent disciplines of architecture and design. All four disciplines offer paths to knowing-in-being which challenge the division between data gathering and theory building that underwrites normal science. By bringing them together, this project will customise this general approach to knowing to specific contexts of practice including landscape management, craft heritage, environmental conservation, building and restoration, drawing and notation. Our method will be distinguished by observation and experiment, the outcomes of which will be not just written texts but works of art or craft, performances and installations. The project will contribute to both education and design for sustainable living through a renewed emphasis on the improvisational creativity and perceptual acuity of practitioners. It will promote the dissemination of knowledge through shared experience, and advance a new view of interdisciplinarity as an intertwining of lines of interest.

Teaching Responsibilities

Introduction to Anthropology I (one-semester course for around 200 Level 1 students, taught from 1999 - when teaching in Anthropology receommenced at the University of Aberdeen - until 2004). Course code AT1002.

Anthropological Theory (one-semester course for around 30 Level 3 students, 2001-03). Course code AT3501.

The 4 As: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture (one-semester course for around 12 Level 4 students, 2004 to present). Course code AT4511.

Publications

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Tim Ingold was born in 1948. He received his BA in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge in 1970, and his PhD in 1976. For his doctoral research he carried out ethnographic fieldwork (1971-72) among the Skolt Saami of northeastern Finland, and the resulting monograph ('The Skolt Lapps Today', 1976) was a study of the ecological adaptation, social organisation and ethnic politics of this small minority community under conditions of post-war resettlement.

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Relational and Critical Perspectives on Education for Sustainable Development -  Margaretha Häggström, Catarina Schmidt (Ed.)

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Relational and Critical Perspectives on Education for Sustainable Development -  Margaretha Häggström, Catarina Schmidt (Ed.)

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Relational and Critical Perspectives on Education for Sustainable Development

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This volume approaches sustainability from various angles to challenge preconceptions about sustainable education.

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Siberia - Rane Willerslev talking about other - indigenous - world views

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Siberia - Rane Willerslev talking about other - indigenous - world views

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A plea for slowness on different levels, ranging from individual to collective to global

Successor of the successful Slow Reader (Valiz, 2016), in which - just like in this book - slow is the starting point for other rhythms, qualities, and scenarios.

Trans-disciplinary, travelling through collective and individual power of imagination

Author/Editor: Carolyn F. Strauss

Contributors: Lara Almarcegui, Marijke Annema, Martina Buzzi, Nicolas Buzzi, Sol Camacho, Cave_bureau (Kabage Karanja and Stella Mutegi), Renske Maria van Dam, Chiara Dorbolò, Cocky Eek, Anna Maria Fink, David Habets, Ian Hanesworth, Maria Hassabi, Beate Hølmebakk, Saba Innab, Kū Kahakalau, Bronwyn Lace, Daniel Lie, Pia Lindman, Ruth Little, Megumi Matsubara, Ash McAskill, Kate Morales, Salima Naji, Ligia Nobre, Alessandra Pomarico, Maria Popova, Raqs Media Collective (Monica Narula, Jeebesh Bagchi, and Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Jane Rendell, Angela Sakrison, Cristine Takuá, Li Tavor, Alice Van der Wielen-Honinckx, Françoise Vergès, Sara Wookey

Design: Zuzana Kostelanská

Summer 2021, Valiz in collaboration with Slow Research Lab | supported by Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds and Creative Industries Fund NL | Pb | 352 pp. | 21 x 16 cm (h x w) | English | ISBN 978-94-92095-97-8

Presentation on July 8th at Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, that can also be followed via online livestream.

Slow Spatial Reader was read by MYCKET as part of the september 2021 edition of Site-Reading Writing Quarterly

Slow Spatial Reader offers a collection of essays about 'Slow' approaches to spatial practice and pedagogy from around the world. The book's contributors are from twenty-four countries on five continents. Each one brings distinct philosophical and disciplinary approaches-from 'spatial' fields like architecture, sculpture, and installation, but also performative, somatic and/or dramaturgical practices-, exploring how we think about and engage with space at a range of scales, tempos, and durations. The essays chronicle projects and processes that amplify tangible and intangible qualities of spatial experience: reaching into the cracks of the body, probing the fuzzy borders of atmospheres, and extending out across both geographical and epistemological coordinates. The term 'radical affection' in the book's title was coined to unite those diverse approaches in a call for tender acts of individual and collective imagination through which new forms of caring, connection, and resilience might emerge. Like its predecessor, Slow Reader (Valiz 2016), this new publication is intended to spur meaningful dialogue between disciplines and cultures, inspiring not only a different velocity of engaging the world but also critical shifts in consciousness that only Slow thinking and practice can provoke.

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A plea for slowness on different levels, ranging from individual to collective to global Successor of the successful Slow Reader (Valiz, 2016), in which - just like in this book - slow is the starting point for other rhythms, qualities, and scenarios. Trans-disciplinary, travelling through collective and individual power of imagination Author/Editor: Carolyn F.

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Subtitle Eco-Activists for Change

Description Description Small World, Big Ideas collects twelve of the most inspiring and courageous activists together to share their stories and present an inspiring vision of what each of us can do to build a better world today.

There's an activist in all of us, and you don't have to shout about it to be heard.

And to prove it, life-long campaigner and former Jain monk Satish Kumar has invited twelve of those activists he most admires to share their own inspiring stories in Small World, Big Ideas, revealing-some, for the very first time- who or what made them want to change the world and what kind of world they want to help create.

This book collects the thoughts, hopes and visions of some of the most significant figures in the global fight for a better and more compassionate world. As well as Satish Kumar, we hear from:

Deepak Chopra - The mind-body healing pioneer discusses his journey from growing up in post-war India to learning about Ayurvedic medicine, to his current work promoting spiritual knowledge and working for world peace.

Jane Goodall - The renowned scientist and conservationist tells of the people who have inspired her in her work to pretect animals, and the reasons she has for hope in the future.

Franny Armstrong - The McLibel filmmaker writes about her politicisation as a teenager, her involvement with the Greenpeace movement and the next steps in the fight against climate change.

Bob Brown - The Australian Green politician shares stories from his time as an ecologist and lawmaker, and his belief in how democracy can be used to bring people together to fight the looming crises facing Planet Earth.

Tim Flannery - The explorer and ecologist tells of watching the ecosystems around him disappear, his travels to remote areas around the world and how the only hope for our future lies in connecting with others to act together.

Polly Higgins -The late environmental lawyer discusses how the concept of Earth Law, and how she came to fight for ecocide to be recognised as a crime against humanity.

Caroline Lucas - England's only Green MP, Lucas writes about how she has fought all her life to change the political system, and how radical change is always possible!

Bill McKibben - The writer and activist discusses moving from writing to political campaigning, and how he founded 350.org, the global grass-roots organization that works to halt and reverse climate change.

Carlo Petrini - The slow food advocate tells of growing up in Piedmont, and of how we can change the world by putting food back at the centre of our lives.

Vandana Shiva - The ecofeminist discusses how the multiple crises which she has fought - climate change, misogyny and inequality - are all interlinked, and how our response must be similarly all-encompassing.

Whether they have championed the tragic plight of Indian farmers impoverished by the domination of the agro-giants or shamed Hollywood into treating climate change as a serious concern these are the people who have made their voices heard.
Their illuminating and often moving life stories will inspire all of us to get off the couch and do something ourselves to help shape a better world.

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There's an activist in all of us, and you don't have to shout about it to be heard. In Small World, Big Ideas, Satish Kumar collects the voices of some of the most passionate activists fighting for a better world, and shares their insights into how we can achieve this.

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Soil, Soul, Society: A New Trinity for Our Time

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Read 24 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. A new trinity for our time. We are members of a one-earth society, and caring for the earth...

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Soul Hunters: Hunting, Animism, and Personhood among th...

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This ethnography of a tribe of Yukaghir hunters in the Sakha Republic's extreme northeast region is almost a re-evaluated addition to Vladimir Jochelson's the Yukaghir and the Yukaghirized Tungus (1926), that the author quotes all through the first part of the book to introduce us to the scene.
The book's central premise is a careful exploration of how hunters view their connection with their target animals, based on eighteen months of fieldwork between 1999 and 2000. The author provides a compelling case for the unsuitability and difficulty of developing a single clear cosmology of animals and spirits in this region of Siberia, drawing on a wide range of thinkers from Martin Heidegger to Jacques Lacan. To cast doubt on Jochelson's attempt, he uses Michael Taussig's (1993) theory of mimesis to suggest that a successful hunter tries to attract rare game species by imitating them while maintaining his sense of identity. He elevates this practical example of imitation (evocatively depicted in a beautiful ethnographic narrative of a Yukaghir elder shooting an elk, where the author was also hunting) to a broader concept about identity and existence.
Because of the mimesis, the Yukaghirs believe that people can take on various forms, such as rivers or animals, all of which have intellectual, emotional, and spiritual qualities similar to those of humans. They also believe that humans and animals can temporarily inhabit each other's bodies to experience different perspectives. Willerslev refers to these beliefs and practices as animism, emphasizing that mimesis is at the heart of Yukaghir animism. In contemporary anthropology, animism is seen as either "erroneous thinking" or a "symbolic construction of nature" founded on Cartesian theory, which the author highly criticizes and even abandons. Furthermore, he charges that many anthropologists see indigenous statements concerning the presence of nonhumans as a cultural construct with no genuine basis. Willerslev, arguing against this academic tendency, advocates phenomenologically studying animism from Heidegger's "dwelling" viewpoints, which is the most vital part of the book. When siding with Heidegger's theory, he also agrees with Tim Ingold's account on Koyukon people in Alaska (2011), where he also criticizes the contradiction between humanity and animality, which has thus been placed among those between objectivism and subjectivism, person and thing, mind and the body, intentionality, and instinct, and, most importantly - culture and nature. And this idea also relates to Philippe Descola's (2013) discussion on reincarnates.
While Descola and Ingold can agree with the author, one component of this ethnography is particularly ironic. The empirical backdrop of the book is exceedingly limited, given the book's theoretical solid attitude against "mapping cosmologies and establishing clear theoretical descriptions of existence and also being "in the world." The book then focuses on a succession of little ethnographic stories of hunting ― luck and prophetic dreams, interspersed with relatively extensive theoretical reflection and reference parts. The reader is not provided much information on the history and geography of this part of Siberia, let alone the microecology of the valley where he hunted. The biggest downfall was the thin layer of the empirical data in comparison to the philosophical part of the book while executing it literary flawlessly.
The author also fails to account effectively for Yukaghir village life and their political-economic interactions with Russians, neighboring Sakha people, nongovernmental organizations, and the concept of the nation-state in the global system. And throughout the book, there was a minimal quotation of Yukaghir hunters. Finally, this leads to the author omitting descriptions of life and animism practices of males and women in the community other than hunters. While also writing it from the perspective of male hunters alone. As a result, more study on these areas is required.
While searching for the additional account of Yukaghirs, it is possible to conclude that there are very few modern ethnographies or studies of Siberian hunter-gatherer indigenous religions. As a result, this book is a valuable addition to both. Willerslev shows how Cartesian body-soul dualism fails to account for Yukaghir animism beliefs and practices and emphasizes the importance of mimesis in animism activities. He also questions the widely held concept that any faith or religion is methodically arranged in human cultures using evidence from Yukaghir beliefs.
While one of the author's purposes was to criticize the Cartesian body-soul dualism idea and the presence of nonhumans as a cultural construct with no factual basis, he succeeds in this flawlessly by providing several examples from not only Yukaghirs but also other hunter-gatherer tribes and doing in a readably enjoyable way. While the second purpose is to carefully explore how hunters view their connection with their target animals, he passes the bar marginally, where, as stated before, this ethnography falls short on the empirical part.
While being exceptionally theoretically hard to understand, this book is an excellent analysis of animism.

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Soul Hunters: Hunting, Animism, and Personhood among th...

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Read 14 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. This is an insightful, highly original ethnographic interpretation of the hunting life of t...

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Staying with the Trouble - Donna Haraway

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Staying with the Trouble - Donna Haraway

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"Chthulucene is not a simple word, yet it is a productive motif for Haraway. With it she laces ideas from urban pigeons, woolen coral reefs, writing workshops, Inupiat computer games, canine estrogen and Black Mesa sheep. The thready and the tentacular form the subject and the framework of her theory-making, as well as the structure of her writing." - Archie Davies, Antipode

"[W]e should take seriously the implications of kin versus family, of kin as encompassing all non-human relations. There is an ethics here, on a micro and macro level. Haraway is no moralist, but replacing 'human relations' with 'kin' arguably brings about a transformation in our hierarchies and priorities - why not care as much about a wildflower as you do about your niece? If it is not a zero-sum game, and let us hope it is not, we can make room for all kinds of lives, and all kinds of ways of living. Staying with the trouble is also a matter of sticking with all the things that currently live and will die alongside us, whether we cause it or notice it or not."
- Nina Power, Spike

"Haraway's book is a pleasure to read because of the playful complexity she is famous for. While her affection for science-fiction tropes is evident across her oeuvre, Staying with the Trouble is the closest she has ever come to a sci-fi genre piece. As a totality of examples from the reparative arts of The Crochet Coral Reef project, to her dog Cayenne's fraught medical imbrication with Big Pharma via the horses that are factory farmed for the high-oestrogen urine they produce-both of which could be found just as easily in the feminist futurism of Margaret Atwood-Haraway's book is best navigated with an openness to the speculative quality of her writing and its reimagining of the world." - Jennifer Mae Hamilton, Cultural Studies Review

"The book enacts different forms of analysis and activism. It is not only that the book transcends disciplinary boundaries of biology, sciences studies, art history, philosophy and dense descriptions of political activism most often found in social sciences. These approaches are interwoven in a very rich and exquisite manner for which the author is well known." - Waltraud Ernst, Angelaki

"Haraway is probably as aware as a writer can be that what she has to offer at the moment is nowhere near enough to engage with all the 'trouble' that needs to be engaged with. All she can do, she seems to be saying, is to stay with it a while, worrying at the very edges of her capacity, and then pass it on. 'We need each other's risk-taking support, in conflict and collaboration, big time,' is how she ends that infamous two-page endnote. 'The answer to the trust of the held-out hand', as she also puts it. 'Think we must.'" - Jenny Turner, London Review of Books

"Conceptually and ... stylistically compelling, there are many productive ideas and fascinating examples within its pages." - Leila Riszko, Kelvingrove Review

"[Haraway's] newest work is a guaranteed conversation starter for sf scholars in any number of disciplinary fields." - Miranda Butler, Science Fiction Studies

"This is a text that embraces presence and alert attention to this moment - sticking it out in the here and now to trouble the waters of entrenched capitalist models that collectively contribute to ongoing destruction of the very systems that sustain us in all their rich and challenging complexity. Inspiring, to say the least. And we are in deep need of it." - Julie Poitras Santos, The Chart

"Staying with the Trouble is a kind of Whole Earth Catalogue of thought devices for attuning our senses to the damaged ecosystem of the still-blue planet. It makes It makes inspiring and imaginative use of science fiction, art projects, geology, evolutionary theory, developmental biology, science and technology studies, anthropology, environmental activism, philosophy, feminism, horticulture, linguistics, pigeon fancying, and many other ways of thinking and knowing about ourselves, our worlds, and the many imbricate relations through which life on earth comes into being and dies." - Sarah Franklin, American Anthropologist

"The book enacts different forms of analysis and activism. It is not only that the book transcends disciplinary boundaries of biology, sciences studies, art history, philosophy and dense descriptions of political activism most often found in social sciences. These approaches are interwoven in a very rich and exquisite manner for which the author is well known."
- Waltraud Ernst, Angelaki

"In advancing an approach that is at once hopeful but grounded, attuned to the realities of history but open to the possibility of alternative futures-in other words, in adamantly insisting on 'staying with the trouble' of the present-Haraway provides a ray of light in an otherwise- gloomy world of Anthropocene scholarship." - Leah Aronowsky, Endeavor

" Staying with the Trouble offers a glimpse of the newer paths [Haraway] is travelling with her formidable analytic and imaginative skills." - Catriona Sandilands, Annals of Science

"For anthropologists Haraway's book will read as an invitation to think and write in terms that allow for symbiosis throughout.... Readers may not find clear road maps that guide them to struggle for more just flourishings or to understand the powerful and violent articulations of economies and ecologies in the Capitalocene. But they will perhaps rethink and expand the diverse relationalities that constitute the very preconditions of collective action. This is an invitation both to theorize and to make unexpected collaborations." - Caterina Scaramelli, American Ethnologist

"Haraway's kinships offer a brave opening in feminist theory.... Haraway has a long history of making brave moves-and winning feminism over." - Paulla Ebron and Anna Tsing, Feminist Studies

"Ceaselessly and creatively questioning the kinds of stories that we tell about the relations of science to society and nature (and their endlessly complex and partial interrelations), this volume troubles relations of all kinds." - Luis Campos, Quarterly Review of Biology

"Haraway engages the feminist techno-scientific thinkers and ideas that have always marked her work, as she stays with different sticky, murky, complicated practices and companions, laying out the ethical dilemmas presented on a damaged planet and making suggestions about how we are to navigate them. . . . The book will likely continue to have wide impact and influence on the fields of feminist science studies, eco-criticism, and the Anthropocene/Capitalocene/Chthulucene." - Alison Sperling, Europe Now

" Staying with the Trouble is also where Haraway most prominently brings art into the entanglement of biology and activism, in what Haraway refers to as 'art science worldings.' The resulting text is one that affirms science and creativity as one in the same web of intrigue and possibility, which offers exciting opportunities for artists to explore and engage." - Shannon Lee, ArtSpace

"A poetic and reference riddled ride, [Haraway's] latest work, like the work that precedes it, does not disappoint. . . . An absorbing page turner." - Paul Hansen, Anthrozoös

"Haraway's emphasis on the power of storytelling and the need to radically alter the kinds of stories we tell should be required reading for all academics, artists, and activists committed to finding more ethical ways to live and die well. . . . Haraway's multiple SF figurations and her clarion call for response-ability are timely, necessary, and contagious forms of thinking, acting, living, and surviving." - David R. Anderson, Feminist Formations

"Sticks with the reader, proffering unfinished stories and vital lessons. . . . Staying with the Trouble is not a text of hard lines or neat takeaways. It is soft, suggestive, and entangling." - Will McKeithen, Gender, Place & Culture

"Haraway has successfully made the debate around the Anthropocene more complex by bringing in alternative paths. The book has - through SF practices - contributed to building a habitable earth in times of sustained trouble." - Julian R. A. Swinkels, Social & Cultural Geography

"As always [Haraway's] work is capacious, sharp, inventive, and informed." - Kyla Tompkins, American Quarterly

"Taken together, the myriad arguments, claims, and speculations return time and again to the anything-but-simplicity of Haraway's title: the point of all this 'tentacular thinking' (30-44) is that we cannot plead out of the conditions of precarity in which we find ourselves or the processes which have accelerated and unevenly distributed that precarity, but that instead we must strive to live and die together towards a future that we make ourselves in this thick present." - Jesse A. Goldberg, ASAP/Journal

" Staying with the Trouble is written with love and rage, making it felt what it takes not to turn one's back against the demands of this terrible time which some dare to call the Anthropocene. Donna J. Haraway mobilizes the power of words, images, and tales to shake off the dual temptation of faith in providential technofixes and of bitter 'game over' pseudo-wisdom. Her book forcefully demands that we consent to participate in the ongoingness of the world." - Isabelle Stengers, author of In Catastrophic Times: Resisting the Coming Barbarism

"Donna J. Haraway asks how to think-with, live-with, and be-with other planetary organisms in a world that does not forget how much ecological trouble it is in. This is not to lament at the world's destruction, but to see afresh what the possibilities of life have always been. Staying with the Trouble is at once a compelling sequel to a series of major works, a manifesto full of intellectual energy to put beside her famous Cyborg Manifesto, and at the same time only a momentary resting place in a life still committed to making us think." - Marilyn Strathern, Cambridge University

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"Chthulucene is not a simple word, yet it is a productive motif for Haraway. With it she laces ideas from urban pigeons, woolen coral reefs, writing workshops, Inupiat computer games, canine estrogen and Black Mesa sheep. The thready and the tentacular form the subject and the framework of her theory-making, as well as the structure of her writing."

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https://www.groene.nl/artikel/de-storm-die-over-de-aarde-woedt?utm_source=De+Groene+Amsterdammer&utm_campaign=887ab35d4a-Wekelijks-2023-07-09&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_853cea572a-887ab35d4a-[LIST_EMAIL_ID]

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The Ecology of Wisdom -  Arne Næss, Alan Drengson (Editor), Bill Devall (Editor)

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The Ecology of Wisdom -  Arne Næss, Alan Drengson (Editor), Bill Devall (Editor)

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The Ecology of Wisdom: Writings by Arne Naess

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Read 21 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. A founder of the Deep Ecology Movement, Arne Naess' has produced articles on environmentali...

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The Nutmeg's Curse - Penguin Random House India

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The Nutmeg's Curse

Parables for a Planet in Crisis: From bestselling author and winner of the 2018 Jnanpith Award

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Before the 18th century, every single nutmeg in the world originated around a group of small volcanic islands east of Java, known as the Banda Islands. As the nutmeg made its way across the known world, they became immensely valuable - in 16th century Europe, just a handful could buy a house. It was not long before European traders became conquerors, and the indigenous Bandanese communities - and the islands themselves - would pay a high price for access to this precious commodity. Yet the bloody fate of the Banda Islands forewarns of a threat to our present day.

Amitav Ghosh argues that the nutmeg's violent trajectory from its native islands is revealing of a wider colonial mindset which justifies the exploitation of human life and the natural environment, and which dominates geopolitics to this day.

Written against the backdrop of the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests, and interweaving discussions on everything from climate change, the migrant crisis, and the animist spirituality of indigenous communities around the world, The Nutmeg's Curse offers a sharp critique of Western society, and reveals the profoundly remarkable ways in which human history is shaped by non-human forces.

Imprint: India Allen Lane

Published: Oct/2021

ISBN: 9780670095629

Length : 350 Pages

MRP : ₹599.00

The Nutmeg's Curse

Parables for a Planet in Crisis: From bestselling author and winner of the 2018 Jnanpith Award

Before the 18th century, every single nutmeg in the world originated around a group of small volcanic islands east of Java, known as the Banda Islands. As the nutmeg made its way across the known world, they became immensely valuable - in 16th century Europe, just a handful could buy a house. It was not long before European traders became conquerors, and the indigenous Bandanese communities - and the islands themselves - would pay a high price for access to this precious commodity. Yet the bloody fate of the Banda Islands forewarns of a threat to our present day.

Amitav Ghosh argues that the nutmeg's violent trajectory from its native islands is revealing of a wider colonial mindset which justifies the exploitation of human life and the natural environment, and which dominates geopolitics to this day.

Written against the backdrop of the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests, and interweaving discussions on everything from climate change, the migrant crisis, and the animist spirituality of indigenous communities around the world, The Nutmeg's Curse offers a sharp critique of Western society, and reveals the profoundly remarkable ways in which human history is shaped by non-human forces.

Select Preferred Format

Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta in 1956. He grew up in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India. He studied at the universities of Delhi and Oxford and published the first of eight novels, The Circle of Reason, in 1986. The first novel in his Ibis trilogy, Sea of Poppies, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. He received the Jnanpith Award in 2018.

Exploring Nutmeg's Tumultuous History

The Nutmeg's Curse is a compelling read that talks about the now ubiquitous spice, and how it was once so rare that wars were fought over its possession. In his latest masterpiece, Amitav Ghosh explores and explains the connection between nutmeg and climate change, and how its tragic history can be traced back to the [...]

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The Nutmeg's Curse - Penguin Random House India

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Before the 18th century, every single nutmeg in the world originated around a group of small volcanic islands east of Java, known as the Banda Islands. As the nutmeg made its way across the known world, they became immensely valuable - in 16th century Europe, just a handful could buy a house.

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"Do plants have something to say? One scientist is definitely listening."
- The New York Times

"If plants can 'learn' and 'remember,' as Gagliano believes, then humans may have been misunderstanding plants, and ourselves, for all of history."
- The Paris Review

In this revelatory new book, we are brought into the presence of gifted storytellers in three different forms: a scientist, traditional plant practitioners, and the plants themselves. Gagliano's discoveries uproot assumptions about the plant world as insensate, revealing their capacities to listen, learn and remember. This is a compelling story of discovery at many levels, simultaneously personal, scientific, and spiritual. It will change the way you see the world."
-Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor, director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, and author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

"Beautifully written and thought provoking, this book brings to light the relationship of an accomplished evolutionary ecologist deeply rooted in Western science and culture, and some plant species, which guide her through dreams and visions with the support of indigenous wise women and men. An inspiration for those willing to listen to the many voices of nature, living as we are in an animated intelligent world we are rapidly destroying."
-Luis Eduardo Luna, author of Vegetalismo: Shamanism Among the Mestizo Population of the Peruvian Amazon, and co-author of Ayahuasca Visions: The Religious Iconography of a Peruvian Shaman

"In part guided by indigenous shamans, in part by the author's own cultivated receptivity, Gagliano dives into isolation with various plant species which have been recognized as having strong voices that humans can hear. She consults with plants that give specific instructions about how to prove botanical consciousness in both the seen and unseen worlds."
-Kathleen Harrison, MA, ethnobotanist, Botanical Dimensions

"Those who wish to see how a shamanic approach can help advance the
scientific understanding of plants need to read this wonderful book.
Monica Gagliano opens up new frontiers and her methods deserve broad
attention."
-Jeremy Narby, PhD, author of "A cure for biases and preconceptions. An antidote to tunnel vision. A book that reverberates well after you've laid it down. Gagliano's brave disclosures, both professional and personal, transcend plants. Thus Spoke the Plant is about them, if only through the author's out-of-the-box way of listening to plants. As in a pairing of food and wine that blurs the boundaries between the ingredients, you will not think of science and intuitions as detached anymore. Thus spoke Gagliano."
-Professor Paco Calvo, director of the Minimal Intelligence Lab (MINT Lab) at the University of Murcia, Spain

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Thus Spoke the Plant by Monica Gagliano: 9781623172435 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

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"Do plants have something to say? One scientist is definitely listening." - The New York Times "If plants can 'learn' and 'remember,' as Gagliano believes, then humans may have been misunderstanding plants, and ourselves, for all of history."

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Description

In our current global networked culture that puts so much emphasis on the virtual and the visual, the mind and the body have become detached and ultimately disconnected. Though physical appearance is idolised for its sexual appeal and its social identity, the role of the body in developing a full understanding of the physical world and the human condition has become neglected. The potential of the human body as a knowing entity - with all our senses as well as our entire bodily functions being structured to produce and maintain silent knowledge together - fails to be recognised.

It is only through the unity of mind and body that craftsmanship and artistic work can be fully realised. Even those endeavours that are generally regarded as solely intellectual, such as writing and thinking, depend on this union of mental and manual skills.

In The Thinking Hand, Juhani Pallasmaa reveals the miraculous potential of the human hand. He shows how the pencil in the hand of the artist or architect becomes the bridge between the imagining mind and the emerging image. The book surveys the multiple essences of the hand, its biological evolution and its role in the shaping of culture, highlighting how the hand-tool union and eye-hand-mind fusion are essential for dexterity and how ultimately the body and the senses play a crucial role in memory and creative work. Pallasmaa here continues the exploration begun in his classic work The Eyes of the Skin by further investigating the interplay of emotion and imagination, intelligence and making, theory and life, once again redefining the task of art and architecture through well-grounded human truths.

About the Author

Juhani Pallasmaa is one of Finland's most distinguished architects and architectural thinkers. His previous positions include: Rector of the Institute of Industrial Arts, Helsinki; Director of the Museum of Finnish Architecture, Helsinki; and Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Helsinki University of Technology. He has also held visiting professorships in several universities internationally. Pallasmaa is the author/editor of 24 books, including The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses (Academy, 1995 and John Wiley & Sons, 2005), The Architecture of Image: Existential Space in Cinema (Helsinki, 2001) and Encounters (Helsinki, 2005).

Table of contents

Introduction: Embodied Existence and Sensory Thought 010
Chapter One: The Mysterious Hand 024
The Multiple Essences of the Hand

What is the Hand?

Hand, Eye, Brain and Language

Hand as Symbol

Gestures of the Hand

Languages of the Hand
Chapter Two: The Working Hand 046
The Hand and the Tool

The Hand of the Craftsman

Collaborative Craftsmanship

Architecture as Workmanship
Chapter Three: Eye-Hand-Mind Fusion 070
Experimentation and the Art of Play

Skill and Boredom

Eye, Hand and Mind
Chapter Four: The Drawing Hand 088
Drawing and the Self

Tactility of Drawing

The Computerised Hand

Primacy of Touch: Hapticity of Self-image

Unconscious Touch in Artistic Experience
Chapter Five: Embodied Thinking 106
Creative Fusion

The Work of Thinking: The Value of Uncertainty

Resistance, Tradition and Freedom

Thinking Through the Senses

Embodied Memory and Thought

Existential Knowledge
Chapter Six: Body, Self and Mind 122
The Body as Site

The World and the Self

The World and the Mind

Existential Space in Art
Chapter Seven: Emotion and Imagination 130
Reality of Imagination

The Gift of Imagination

Reality of Art

Art and Emotion

Artistic Experience as Exchange
Chapter Eight: Theory and Life 140
Theory and Making

Opposition of Theory and Making

Architecture as Image of Life

The Task of Art

Index 153

Photo credits 159

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The Thinking Hand: Existential and Embodied Wisdom in Architecture

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In our current global networked culture that puts so much emphasis on the virtual and the visual, the mind and the body have become detached and ultimately disconnected. Though physical appearance is idolised for its sexual appeal and its social identity, the role of the body in developing a full understanding of the physical world and the human condition has become neglected.

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The Work that Reconnects by Joanna Macey

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The Work that Reconnects by Joanna Macey

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Joanna macy Ph.D, author & teacher, is a scholar of Buddhism, systems thinking and deep ecology. A respected voice in movements for peace, justice, and ecology, she interweaves her scholarship with learnings from six decades of activism.

Her wide-ranging work addresses psychological and spiritual issues of the nuclear age, the cultivation of ecological awareness, and the fruitful resonance between Buddhist thought and postmodern science. The many dimensions of this work are explored in her thirteen books, which include three volumes of poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke with translation and commentary.

As the root teacher of The Work That Reconnects, Joanna has created a ground-breaking framework for personal and social change, as well as a powerful workshop methodology for its application.

Based in Berkeley, California, close to her children and grandchildren, Joanna has spent many years in other lands and cultures, viewing movements for social change and exploring their roots in religious thought and practice.

Since the early 1980's her travel was governed by invitations to teach the group work that she and a growing number of colleagues were developing. Many thousands of people around the world have participated in Joanna's workshops and trainings. These methods, incorporated in the Work That Reconnects, have been adopted and adapted yet more widely in classrooms, community centers, and grassroots organizing.

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Her wide-ranging work addresses psychological and spiritual issues of the nuclear age, the cultivation of ecological awareness, and the fruitful resonance between Buddhist thought and postmodern science. The many dimensions of this work are explored in her thirteen books, which include three volumes of poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke with translation and commentary.

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Unfolding Irish landscapes - Tim Robinson

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Unfolding Irish landscapes - Tim Robinson

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'Robinson comes across not only as a brilliant storyteller and interpreter of the landscape but also as intensely human. Thus, the contributors to Unfolding Irish Landscapes mirror Robinson's own practice: just as he unfolds the Irish landscape, revealing its history to his readers, so, too, do these scholars reveal Robinson to us.'
Leila Crawford, University of Otago, Irish Studies Review, Issue 24.4, November 2016

'The volume is an impressive, ambitious and timely endeavor to chart the depth and range of the career of one of the most influential and original figures in the field of Irish Studies and the philosophy of landscape.'
Anne Karhio, National University of Ireland, Nordic Irish Studies

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Manchester University Press - Unfolding Irish landscapes

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'Robinson comes across not only as a brilliant storyteller and interpreter of the landscape but also as intensely human.

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“Vibrant Matter promises to invigorate ethical and political judgment by attuning us to the material world, to ourselves, in new ways. Bennett wisely encourages us to practice such judgments without the banisters of deadening binaries of subject-object and human-nonhuman. In this way, we are left wi…

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free U.lab's - practising Theory U - Presencing Institute, Otto Scharmer

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free U.lab's - practising Theory U - Presencing Institute, Otto Scharmer

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u-school for Transformation by Presencing Institute

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u-lab 1x 2023

Leading From the Emerging Future

At a Glance

This MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) run in partnership with MITx Online is a 6-week program on the foundations of Theory U, a process for transformative change that blends systems thinking, consciousness and wisdom traditions, and civic action. It is a "learning by doing" program where you get familiar with Theory U tools, methods, and frameworks and start cultivating your ability to apply them to your life and work. This is an online self-paced course complemented with synchronous live sessions bringing together thousands of change makers from around the world.

Online Only

Your u-lab 1x journey is supported by two online spaces.

Here on the u-school for Transformation platform, you will connect with other participants, form a coaching circle if you don't have one, engage in dialogue and access the tools and methods introduced in the course.

On the MITx Online space, you will find all of the course content and will be guided through each of the five modules that make up u-lab. If you are pursuing a verified certificate from MITx Online, this is also where you will track your work.**

**The u-lab 1x course and all materials are available at no cost. The option exists to pursue a verified certificate from MITx Online for a fee of $99. Click "Enroll Now" button and join for free, while the option to pursue a verified certificate from MITx Online for a fee of $99 will be prompted after enrollment.

u-lab 1x is part of all u-school for Transformation Certification Pathways.
Registrations are now open and the program will start August 2023. Click below to register at u-school first, and then you will be prompted a link to register at MITx Online as well.

"Many of us sense that the civilization we are a part of is hitting the wall... we want to be part of a different story - we just don't know how."

The program starts in August. It is a 6-week program completely free to attend, with an optional possibility to apply for a (paid) MITx Online verified certificate.

The u-lab 1x program and all materials are available at no cost. The option exists to pursue a verified certificate from MITx Online for a fee of $99.

The program is an introduction to a method called Theory U, developed at MIT, for leading change in business, government, and civil society contexts worldwide. It is run by Senior Lecturers at MIT, Senior Faculty and expert Practitioners from the u-school for Transformation (by Presencing Institute) who are actively engaged in cross-sectorial societal transformation.

This program has attracted around 200,000 enrollments from around the world, with over 185 countries represented, since its launch in 2015.

u-lab 1x is an interactive program with live sessions and activities in self-organized local or interest-based hubs where prototype seeding can take place to activate the transformation that needs to happen at a community level.

Although this is a program in English, the community has been kindly volunteering to translate the materials in more and more languages, helping to remove language barriers.

The program focuses fully on the specific challenges of our current moment and on how to apply Theory U to the absencing patterns in our cultures and societies for a transformation that benefits all.

The program is free, thanks to the contributions of our partners and supporters who also believe that it is possible to create and scale profound societal innovation.

The program is part of the Pathways of Certification offered by the u-school for Transformation.

In the past years, we have witnessed unprecedented disruption. Climate crisis and related natural disasters, rising unease about the impacts of AI, global protests against racial injustice, and social and political polarization shape our current landscape and point to a pressing need for societal renewal. To catalyze this renewal we need to learn not from the past, but from a future wanting to be born. How to activate our capacity to lean into the emerging future may well be the most important leadership challenge of our time. How do you cultivate curiosity, compassion and courage in the face of prejudice, anger and fear? How do you step into action for the well-being of all?

This program is an introduction to a method called Theory U, developed at MIT, for leading such change in business, government, and civil society contexts worldwide. u-lab will guide you in applying Theory U to an issue that matters to you, building your capacity to lead transformative change in the process. You will do so with fellow change-makers locally and around the world. Join us as we co-pioneer new approaches to today's most important social and environmental challenges.

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The facilitated u-lab course, including live broadcast sessions from MITx Online is 6 weeks in duration: September 14, 2023 to October 26, 2023. The Orientation Module will be made available two weeks prior, beginning August 31, so you can get acquainted with the course format and platform before we begin. The instructed part of the course will be held September 14, 2023 - October 26, 2023.

September 14 - October 26, 2023: Facilitated u-lab course, including live broadcast sessions from MITx Online (6 weeks duration). All program materials will be made available.

Live Session Dates

Thursday / September 14th, 10am-11.15am ET: Live Session 1

Thursday / October 5th, 10am-11.30 am ET: Live Session 2

Thursday / October 26th, 10am-11.15 am ET: Live Session 3

Ask-Us-Anything Dates

Thursday / September 21st / 10am-11am ET: Ask-Us-Anything 1

Thursday/ October 12th, 10am-11am ET: Ask-Us-Anything 2

Thursday / November 9th, 10am-11am ET: Ask-Us-Anything 3

After October 26, 2023, the course will be available as a self-paced learning experience until May 30, 2024. The course will not be monitored between October 26, 2023 and May 30, 2024.

Self-knowledge: The leadership capacity that matters most

Practices to cultivate deep listening, precise observation, and dialogue

Methods for creating innovations that generate wellbeing in society

Your u-lab 1x journey is supported by two platforms.
Here on the u-school for Transformation platform, you will connect with other participants, form a coaching circle if you don't have one, engage in dialogue and access the tools and methods introduced in the course. P lease register for u-lab 1x above.

On the MITx Online platform, you will find all of the course content and will be guided through each of the five modules that make up u-lab. If you are pursuing a verified certificate from MITx Online, this is also where you will track your work.

Once you have registered for u-school for Transformation, you will be redirected to register for u-lab 1x on MITx Online. Note: you will leave the u-school for Transformation website.

For any questions please write to: u-lab@presencing.org.

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u-school is a platform for capacity building, innovation labs, action research and deep dialogues using Theory U for awareness-based systems change. Our work is focused on activating and supporting a network of places and hubs for taking action for the healing and regeneration of society and self.

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cards to take with you on a walk or send to a loved one - ENGLISH

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cards to take with you on a walk or send to a loved one - ENGLISH

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Carry Rosenblatt Limpens - Docent - Academie van Bouwkunst Groningen | LinkedIn

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Carry Rosenblatt Limpens - Docent - Academie van Bouwkunst Groningen | LinkedIn

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Mijn hele leven werk ik al aan transformatie: als kind in de tuin en de natuur, als rebelse tiener in de maatschappij, en later beroepsmatig, als stedenbouwer en als social innovator en publiek ondernemer aan maatschappelijke, zakelijke en persoonlijke vraagstukken in het sociale, ecologische en spi…

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Bruno Latour states that law should not be centered around Men, but around Life. We are just one party, among all animals, plants and Things.

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Formative tendency / formatieve tendens - Carl  Rogers

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Formative tendency / formatieve tendens - Carl  Rogers

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Who Do We Choose to Be? - Margaret J. Wheatley

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Who Do We Choose to Be? - Margaret J. Wheatley

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T he earth is exhausted. We humans, living in the prosperous West, need to radically rethink our way of living and acting. To do so, we must adjust the ideas and value systems that underlie this action. How do we do that? How do we install a different, more embodied thinking about ourselves in the world?
RHIZOME is a nomadic work of art with which we travel along abandoned and overgrown industrial sites and urban fringes of cities in Europe. These places are alive with the vestiges of time past, and the convergence of 'nature' and 'culture', like glimmers of a possible future. Inspired by the proliferating life force that we find in these places shaped by capitalism, we search for a new and different conversation with the people and things around us.

In the places we visit with RHIZOME, we are inspired by rhizomatically growing shrubs and plants. We delve into the way their roots branch off, connecting everything tot everything. And we pay attention to the way we too are woven into everything. In an attempt to think like a blackberry bush grows, we look for a different way of being in the world.
With RHIZOME we invite you to join us in a Driftage through challenging terrain. Based on a simple set of principles and a few magic spells for the journey, we take you into a challenging physical thought game and tempt you to different ways of relating and experiencing. After the driftage, we serve a hearty soup and conclude with a Conversation.
RHIZOME premiered 20 November 2021, on the site of a former starch factory in Ter Apel (Groningen) during Jonge Harten Festival.
'We need to think, think, think', says philosopher Rosi Braidotti in one of her lectures, in response to the question of what we should use theatrical space for today. RHIZOME does just that: creating space to think, contemplate and reflect, but in combination with plants, animals, things, microbes and our own bodies.

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T he earth is exhausted. We humans, living in the prosperous West, need to radically rethink our way of living and acting. To do so, we must adjust the ideas and value systems that underlie this action. How do we do that? How do we install a different, more embodied thinking about ourselves in the world?

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Genius loci : towards a phenomenology of architecture : Norberg-Schulz, Christian : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

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Sense of Place maakt het onzichtbare zichtbaar. De langzame onstuitbare processen waaraan het Waddengebied onderhevig is. De schoonheid van dit prachtige UNESCO werelderfgoed en de bijna vergeten geschiedenis er van. Met culturele landschapsprojecten wordt dit herontdekt en uitvergroot.

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Sense of Place initieert projecten op het gebied van culturele landschapsontwikkeling om veranderingen in het landschap rond de Waddenzee te bewerkstelligen en de beleving van en de waardering voor het landschap van - met name- het UNESCO Werelderfgoed Waddengebied te vergroten bij een groter publiek.

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In StagingWood zoekt Elmo Vermijs samen met een wisselende coalitie naar nieuwe verhoudingen tussen mens en bos. Wat betekent het om in dialoog te zijn met het bos op Terschelling? De vier stadia van de levenscyclus – ontkiemen, groei, verval en afsterven – zijn het uitgangspunt voor onderzoek dat l…

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Goethean science as a way to read landscape - Isis Brook

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Goethean science as a way to read landscape - Isis Brook

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'Solliciteren bij de Noordzee' is het slotakkoord van het filosofisch taalexperiment 'Taal voor de toekomst', dat in 2021 van start ging in samenwerking met diverse partners, waaronder De Groene Amsterdammer. Op haar reizen merkte schrijfster, bioloog en ontdekkingsreizigster Arita Baaijens dat natuur overal tot mensen spreekt, behalve in Nederland. Om onze bazige omgang met natuur, en heel specifiek de zee, om te buigen naar een respectvolle relatie, neemt Arita zich voor om bij de Noordzee te solliciteren op de functie 'Spreker voor het leven in de zee'. Inspiratiebron voor de sollicitatie vormt de eerste zoöp ter wereld: Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam. Zoöp?? Ja. Een zoöp is een bestaande organisatievorm waarbij samenwerking voorop staat tussen mensen en andere vormen van leven. Een bestuurszetel is gereserveerd voor de 'Spreker voor al het leven'. Arita neemt zich voor 'zees' leren spreken en de technocratische en functionele Nederlanse taal herwilderen tot een ziltige en poëtische taal waarin mens en zee elkaar kunnen verstaan.

De ongewone sollicitatie bij een ongewone werkgever zou je een mission impossible kunnen noemen. Gelukkig zijn onmogelijke missies de specialiteit van ontdekkingsreizigster Arita Baaijens. Vragen die zij het komende jaar onderzoekt: Wat vindt de zee van het plan? Wie of wat is de zee eigenlijk? Hoe verstaan mens en zee elkaar? Kan een mens het leven in zee wel vertegenwoordigen? Op de haar kenmerkende eigenzinnige wijze gaat Arita te rade bij orka's, plankton, de golfstroom en bij mensen, waaronder zee-kenners, filosofen, juristen en kunstenaars in binnen- en buitenland. Zij hoopt dat de nog niet bestaande functie

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Taal voor de Toekomst - Taal voor de toekomst

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'Solliciteren bij de Noordzee' is het slotakkoord van het filosofisch taalexperiment 'Taal voor de toekomst', dat in 2021 van start ging in samenwerking met diverse partners, waaronder De Groene Amsterdammer. Op haar reizen merkte schrijfster, bioloog en ontdekkingsreizigster Arita Baaijens dat natuur overal tot mensen spreekt, behalve in Nederland.

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BIJLAGE 4_Kunstvak - De stem van de omgeving

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Talking Landscapes by Building Conversation - Metropolis DK

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Talking Landscapes by Building Conversation - Metropolis DK

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Building Conversation during Talking Landscapes - Metropolis (DK)

In February we took off to Aarhus, Denmark to prepare, and do research, for the upcoming Talking Landscapes project which is initiated by Metropolis. We met with all the partners involved, met future Danish conversation facilitators, and already went looking for suitable locations for the conversations we are going to have in the summer.
In May we will go back to share our practices of ,Parliament of Things and Impossible Conversation with the new Danish conversation facilitators and start our participation in Talking Landscapes. During Talking Landscapes, from May to September we conduct a series of conversations spread over eleven cities between Copenhagen and Aarhus.
Talking Landscapes is a series of conversations and exchanges in rural areas that look at how we communicate. With and without words. With and without body. With and without things. The project is part of the triptych Walking Landscapes (2021), Talking Landscapes (2022) and Creating Landscapes (tbc), initiated by Metropolis - art and performance in public space, an annual summer program from Københavns Internationale Teater.

2023
In 2023, inspired by our contribution to Talking Landscapes, a few of the conversation leaders trained by us participated in the program of Talking Landscapes with Parliament of Things.

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Building Conversation during Talking Landscapes - Metropolis (DK)

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Building Conversation during Talking Landscapes - Metropolis (DK) In February we took off to Aarhus, Denmark to prepare, and do research, for the upcoming Talking Landscapes project which is initiated by Metropolis. We met with all the partners involved, met future Danish conversation facilitators, and already went looking for suitable locations for the conversations we are going to have in the summer.

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The Turn Club is een netwerk van kunstenaars, creatieven en veranderaars die zich inzetten voor complexe vraagstukken. Wij zetten onze verbeeldingskracht en vindingrijkheid in om samen met overheden en organisaties een vastgelopen proces te doorgronden of een ingewikkeld vraagstuk met creatieve maakkracht aan te pakken. Dit doen wij door ieders kunstenaarsmindset te activeren en speelruimte te scheppen. Door idealen praktisch te maken, verkennen we nieuwe wegen naar de toekomst.

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The Turn Club is een netwerk van kunstenaars, creatieven en veranderaars die zich inzetten voor complexe vraagstukken. Wij zetten onze verbeeldingskracht en vindingrijkheid in om samen met overheden en organisaties een vastgelopen proces te doorgronden of een ingewikkeld vraagstuk met creatieve maakkracht aan te pakken.

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Walking Landscapes by Building Conversation - Metropolis DK

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Walking Landscapes by Building Conversation - Metropolis DK

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Walking Landscapes 2021

Metropolis and 12 municipalities across the country present WALKING LANDSCAPES - a walking project that connects art and nature in a programme of 140 artistic walks through different Danish landscapes in the period June to October 2021.

The walks will interpret and communicate the landscapes through differing artistic perspectives - as a nationwide manifestation and symbolic action at a time when people and nature must find a new balance.

The concept is based on Wa(l)king Copenhagen - a project created by Metropolis and 100 artists in the summer of 2020 as an artistic manifestation in the time of corona.

- See the 100 walks here: WA(L)KING COPENHAGEN
The programme with places and artists will be launched 1 June.

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Metropolis and 12 municipalities across the country present WALKING LANDSCAPES - a walking project that connects art and nature in a programme of 140 artistic walks through different Danish landscapes in the period June to October 2021.

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De huidige tijd wordt gekenmerkt door radicale technologische, economische, culturele en sociale veranderingen. Het Nieuwe Instituut wil deze snel veranderende wereld in kaart brengen en zichtbaar maken, en tegelijkertijd de discussie bevorderen over onderwerpen gerelateerd aan het ontwerpveld.

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https://exposure.hku.nl/p/onder-druk-1

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Na een klein uur is het tijd voor de groepjes om te presenteren waar ze aan gewerkt hebben. De eerste presentatie benaderde de kwestie van de Japanse duizendknoop vanuit de grondhouding van eigenaar. Ze stellen voor de gebieden waar de plant groeit hermetisch af te sluiten en de plant uit te roeien. Een andere groep met dezelfde combinatie stelt: zowel de Natura 2000-gebieden als de Japanse duizendknoop zijn problemen die we zelf gemaakt hebben, dus die kunnen we ook zelf oplossen. Dus graven we de hele heide af en planten nieuwe heide.

Een groep die zich vanuit rentmeesterschap met de vleermuizen heeft bezig gehouden, stelt twee verschillende opties voor. Enerzijds kan er gestopt worden met het isoleren in de spouwmuur en dat alleen nog maar aan de binnenzijde gedaan worden. Maar ze stellen ook graag de temperatuur ter discussie die we in huis willen hebben. Want als vijftien graden daar genoeg is, is isolatie dan überhaupt nog wel nodig?

De eerste groep die een speelsere manier van presenteren heeft bedacht, hield zich bezig met de vleermuizen als partner. De deelnemers nemen verschillende rollen op zich en geven de vleermuis letterlijk en figuurlijk een stem: in de presentatie, maar ook in de VVE. De conclusie is dat het mogelijk moet zijn om als menselijke en dierlijke bewoners samen in het huis te blijven wonen, maar dat het verhuizen van een van de partijen ook overwogen moet worden als dat niet lukt.

Degenen die zich als participant tot de vleermuizen hebben verhouden, presenteren hun bevindingen door elkaars zinnen steeds aan te vullen, zo komt de grondhouding ook tot uitdrukking in de presentatievorm. Ze zetten de vleermuis 'op de radar' en maken plekken in de stad waar vleermuizen het naar hun zin zullen hebben. Want: "we wonen toch samen?".

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NL2100 is het platform dat ontwerpend toekomstdenken inzet om ruimtelijke opgaven te doorgronden en de leefkwaliteit te borgen.

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Opinie | We moeten weer meer gevoel krijgen voor de natuur

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Sinds de Provinciale Statenverkiezingen is de tegenstelling tussen landbouw en natuur aangescherpt. Biodiversiteit legde het af tegen de romantische gevoelens die veel Nederlanders koesteren bij het boerenleven. En de BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB) won bijna overal.

Kris van Koppen was onderzoeker milieubeleid aan de Wageningen Universiteit.

Ellen Mangnus is post-doctoraal onderzoeker aan Wageningen Universiteit.

In dit essay bepleiten wij dat de natuurbescherming dichter bij de beleving van mensen zou moeten aansluiten. Als we de emotionele verbintenis tussen mens en landschap en mens en natuur niet voorop stellen, zullen we er niet in slagen onze natuur te redden.

Het is zaak de beleving van natuur en het landschap als uitgangspunt te nemen. Dat staat haaks op dominante trends in het natuurbeleid van de afgelopen eeuw. Tot de Tweede Wereldoorlog was het gebruikelijk om dat wat natuurliefhebbers proberen te beschermen aan te duiden als 'natuurschoon'. De eerste inventarisatie van waardevolle Nederlandse natuurgebieden, uitgebracht in 1939 en gebaseerd op een lijst van Jac. P. Thijsse, heette dan ook 'Het Voornaamste Natuurschoon in Nederland'.Natuur en natuurbeheer ressorteerden ooit onder het ministerie van Cultuur, Recreatie en Maatschappelijk Werk.

Na de Tweede Wereldoorlog werd het natuurbeleid sterk gerationaliseerd. Natuurbeschermers gingen daarin mee. Wanneer de natuur niet juridisch of economisch verankerd zou worden, dan zou ze uiteindelijk het loodje leggen, was hun indruk. In politieke discussies zou de waarde van de natuur anders gezien worden als subjectief, en zouden de harde belangen van woningbouw en industrie het winnen.

Natuurschoon

Het begrip natuurschoon maakte plaats voor de termen als 'ecologische waarden' en 'intrinsieke waarden'. Vandaag de dag duiden we de natuur met begrippen als 'biodiversiteit' en 'natuurlijk kapitaal'. Dat heeft een weerslag op de praktijk van natuurbescherming, die berust steeds meer op technische waarderings- en afrekeningsmethoden.

Daarmee komt de natuur verder van de mens te staan en tussen ecologen en burgers gaapt een kloof. Voor de meeste burgers is natuur op de eerste plaats een bos waarin ze kunnen wandelen of fietsen en niet zozeer een beschermd gebied waar ze geen toegang toe hebben.

De beschermde natuurreservaten trokken de aandacht van staatssecretaris Henk Bleker (Economische Zaken, Landbouw en Innovatie, CDA). Hij rekende in 2011 af met 'het geneuzel' van technocratische natuur-en milieuorganisaties 'uit het Westen'. Hij bezuinigde fors op natuurbeheer en de uitbreiding van de Ecologische Hoofdstructuur en introduceerde de term: 'elite-natuur'. Dat was natuur die niet toegankelijk zou zijn voor de 'gewone' mens. Het moest maar eens afgelopen zijn met organisaties die overal prikkeldraad en verbodsborden neerzetten.

In het boerenlandschap komt tot uiting dat we onderdeel zijn van de natuur

Natuurbescherming werd controversieel. Bleker schrapte budgetten voor de aankoop van natuurgronden en natuurbeheer .

Kortom, rationalisering, ecologisering en juridificering kunnen ertoe leiden dat mensen zich juist van de natuur distantiëren. Wie wordt warm van een Ecologische Hoofdstructuur? Of van een 'corridor'? Wie droomt er van Natura2000? Het zegt de meeste mensen weinig. Ook de berekeningen van de economische waarde van natuur zijn voor de gemiddelde burger niet te volgen. Het zijn begrippen die staan voor een technocratische benadering die bruikbaar is op planbureaus of provinciehuizen.

Lees ook: Hoe staat de natuur ervoor? Vragen en antwoorden over het Nederlandse stikstofprobleem

Afstand tot de natuur leidt niet alleen tot afkeer van natuurbescherming, mensen verliezen ook een reëel beeld van wat natuur is. 'Verkleutering' en 'verknuffeling' van de natuur, noemt natuurfilosoof Jozef Keulartz het. Hij observeert dat mensen in toenemende mate kinderlijke eigenschappen toekennen aan dieren en planten, ze zien hun huisdier als een gezinslid dat een kinderrol vervult.

Zo worden huisdieren aangekleed, hun verjaardagen worden gevierd met cadeautjes en er worden hondenhuwelijken voltrokken.

Ook planten en bomen worden vermenselijkt, ze zouden kunnen voelen en communiceren. In 'Het verborgen leven van bomen' (2016) bespreekt Peter Wohlleben onder meer de 'emoties' en 'gevoelens' van bomen. Hij spreekt over de 'strenge opvoeding' van hun 'boommoeders', die met hun kronen maar beperkt zonlicht doorlaten en zo voorkomen dat jonge bomen te snel groeien.

Recreatiegroen

Onterecht wordt het dieren- en plantenrijk zo verbeeld als een lieflijke vredige plek waarin voor elkaar zorgen en hulpvaardigheid centraal staan. De natuur wordt neergezet als ideale wereld die scherp contrasteert met de kunstmatige werkelijkheid van onze samenleving.

Dat dit beeld weinig strookt met de werkelijkheid realiseert de van de natuur vervreemde mens zich niet. Maar gevolgen voor het natuurbeheer heeft het wel. Dat zagen we terug in discussies over bijvoeren van paarden in de Oostvaardersplassen. Mensen vonden de hongerige paarden zielig en gingen ze eigenhandig bijvoeren. Daarmee brachten ze natuurlijke processen uit balans; in tijden van voedseltekort neemt de vruchtbaarheid van de paarden af, daardoor krimpt normaliter de populatie en is er weer voldoende voedsel beschikbaar.

Lees ook: 'Onze boeren laten de natuur zoveel mogelijk hun werk doen'

Wanneer we er van uitgaan dat natuurervaring essentieel is voor een gezonde mens-natuur relatie, pleit dat voor natuur overal, natuur die toegankelijk is, natuur die beleefd kan worden. Het onderscheid dat ecologen maken tussen 'echte natuur' en 'recreatiegroen' doet er dan niet toe. Waarom zou je mensen niet via een barbecueplek met natuur in contact brengen? Als ze op die manier interesse krijgen in de soorten die daar leven, komt de interesse voor de heide of de veengebieden ook wel. Er is niks minderwaardigs aan recreatiegroen.

Ook het boerenlandschap is een belangrijke vorm van toegankelijke natuur. Voor de meeste Nederlanders is het agrarische landschap het dichtstbijzijnde natuurlijke landschap, als we parken en tuinen niet meerekenen. Juist daarom is het zo belangrijk. Hoezeer het argument dat het boerenland ons voedt misbruikt wordt in politieke debatten, het bevat een belangrijke waarheid: in het boerenlandschap komt tot uiting dat we onderdeel zijn van de natuur.

Verbondenheid

Wat verbindt een mens aan de natuur? Het antwoord heeft te maken met schoonheid, met gevoelens van verbondenheid, troost en ontspanning en met de fascinatie voor dieren.

Door mensen te vragen naar zintuiglijke indrukken als geur, klank, tast, smaak en kleur van een gebied raken vooropgezette ideeën op de achtergrond en komen verhalen los, er wordt gepraat over ervaringen die direct uit het landschap voort komen, toonde onderzoek van Maarten Jacobs en Arjen Buijs van Wageningen Universiteit.

En onderzoek van Frans Sijtsma, van de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, naar natuur en landschapsbeleving van Nederlanders toonde dat de gebieden die mensen het meeste waarderen sterk overeenkomen met de huidige natuurgebieden. Máár er waren nog veel meer gebieden die ze mooi vonden. Door de waardering van burgers mee te nemen, zou er misschien veel meer natuur beschermd kunnen worden.

Betekent dit, dat natuurbeschermers niet meer mogen rekenen met natuur? In een bepaalde omgeving kan het noodzakelijk zijn jargon te gebruiken. Het heeft ook zijn effectiviteit bewezen, anders kunnen we de natuur niet tegen stikstof beschermen. Maar we moeten voorkomen natuurbescherming puur juridisch en ecologisch te motiveren, dan wordt de natuur losgemaakt van zijn omgeving en verliest de bescherming ervan draagvlak. De basis van natuurbescherming ligt in de beleving van natuur.

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Een versie van dit artikel verscheen ook in de krant van 28 september 2023.

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Opinie | We moeten weer meer gevoel krijgen voor de natuur

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Natuur: In de natuurbescherming zou minder technisch moeten worden gekeken naar de natuur, schrijven Kris van Koppen en Ellen Mangnus. Sinds de Provinciale...

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November 2022 | ISBN 9789024448265 | 01.01 | 160 blz.

Gevierd socioloog Hartmut Rosa laat zien hoe we ons kunnen wapenen tegen de vervreemding van de moderne wereld.

Het centrale streven van de moderniteit is om de wereld beschikbaar te maken: wetenschappelijk kenbaar, juridisch berekenbaar, politiek beheersbaar en technisch controleerbaar. Maar een volledig bekende, geplande en beheerste wereld is een dode wereld: een wereld waarmee we niet in dialoog kunnen treden en waarvan we vervreemd raken. Vitaliteit, aanraking en echte ervaringen ontstaan juist in de ontmoeting met het onbeschikbare, het onkenbare en het onbeheersbare.

In dit essay analyseert socioloog Hartmut Rosa onbeschikbaarheid als fundamentele voorwaarde voor het menselijk leven en de menselijke ervaring. Als we beter willen begrijpen hoe we als moderne subjecten in de wereld staan, moeten we onderzoeken hoe we ons individueel, cultureel en institutioneel verhouden tot het onbeschikbare. Rosa doet hiertoe een eerste aanzet, op zoek naar de voorwaarden voor een zinvol leven in moderne tijden.

Over de auteur

Hartmut Rosa (1965) is hoogleraar sociologie aan de Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena en directeur van het Max Weber‑Kolleg van de Universität Erfurt. Hij heeft vele onderscheidingen ontvangen voor zijn werk, waaronder de Tractatus Preis, de Erich Fromm Preis en de Paul Watzlawick Ehrenring. Bij Boom verscheen in 2016 Leven in tijden van versnelling.

Lees meer

Bedankt voor je beoordeling.

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Gevierd socioloog Hartmut Rosa laat zien hoe we ons kunnen wapenen tegen de vervreemding van de moderne wereld. Het centrale streven van de moderniteit is om de wereld beschikbaar te maken: wetenschappelijk kenbaar, juridisch berekenbaar, politiek beheersbaar en technisch controleerbaar.

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https://emergentfutureslab.com/newsletter

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Thinking Forest is an initiative of artist Gerbrand Burger and it is realized by the Thinking Forest Foundation.

En Plein Air, Landgoed Welna, 2025

Alice Bonnot, Nina Backman, Germaine Kruip and Siebe Tettero, Landgoed Welna, 2024

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Een stevige oostenwind door de dennenbomen, zachte voetstappen op de bosgrond, machinegeluiden in de verte en de roep van een enkele vogel. Verder is het stil, als we achter Remi Hougee, boswachter van Staatsbosbeheer op Terschelling, het bos van Hoorn inlopen. 'We', dat zijn de deelnemers aan het seminar Doorbomen #2, onderdeel van het meerjarig onderzoeksproject StagingWood (zie kader). Organisator en beeldend kunstenaar Elmo Vermijs heeft ons uitgenodigd de wandeling te beginnen met een 'gesprek zonder woorden', verwijzend naar ecologisch denker Thomas Berry.

In het project StagingWood (2021-2025) onderzoekt beeldend kunstenaar Elmo Vermijs nieuwe houdingen in relatie tot een niet-menselijke omgeving als het bos. Hij werkt hierbij samen met een wisselende coalitie van dekoloniaal denkers en activisten, juristen, kunstenaars, ecologen, (natuur)schrijvers, bosbeheerders, filosofen, wetenschappers, adviseurs, een bodemdeskundige, lokale houtverwerker, systeemopsteller, transitietrainer en programmeur van Oerol.

September 2022 vond in het Amstelpark het proefproces 'Rechtszaak in het park - de bomen spreken zich uit' plaats. Hierover is een documentaire gemaakt. Op Terschelling volgt StagingWood de levenscyclus van het bos: ontkiemen, groei, verval en afsterven. Elk jaar wordt gewerkt aan (materiaal)onderzoek, publicaties, workshops en een installatie tijdens Oerol. Jaarlijks vindt ook het seminar Doorbomen plaats, waarin de coalitie van het voorgaande en huidige stadium op Terschelling gezamenlijk een dag reflecteren, onderling uitwisselen en verdiepen.

De installatie How Forests Think is dagelijks (11-17 uur) op Oerol te zien van 9 tot 18 juni. Op 13, 14 en 16 juni is er ook een verdiepend programma, zie: www.oerol.nl.

Doordat we niet praten heb ik meer oog voor de mossen en zaailingen naast het pad, merk ik. Dat is niet alleen omdat ik nu niet word afgeleid door conversatie. Taal zit ook vaak in de weg bij het waarnemen, omdat woorden een extra laag leggen over wat je ziet of hoort. Een boom wordt dan 'een eik' of 'een den'. Zelfs het algemene woord 'boom' verandert al iets, want het maakt van een boom een object dat losstaat van het levende systeem waarvan het onderdeel uitmaakt. Maar, in de woorden van Thomas Berry: 'Als we 'boom' zeggen, hebben we het eigenlijk over een relatie tussen bodem, lucht, zon en vocht. Uitsluitend een boom aanduiden is onmogelijk, een abstractie.'

Zijn uitspraak wordt geïllustreerd als we stoppen. 'Adem een paar keer diep naar je buik', verbreekt boswachter Hougee het zwijgen. 'Welke boom is ouder, denken jullie?', vraagt hij, wijzend naar een dunne en een aanmerkelijk dikkere dennenboom. De dunne, vermoeden sommigen, want het is vast een strikvraag. Dat laatste klopt, maar anders dan verwacht. Alle bomen hier blijken namelijk even oud. De dennenbomen op Terschelling zijn voor de Tweede Wereldoorlog aangeplant om het stuivende duinzand vast te houden. Bepalend voor de dikte is waar een boom staat en hoeveel licht, water, voeding en bodemleven daar beschikbaar is, ofwel: de relatie met de omgeving.

Hoewel Staatsbosbeheer pas sinds kort beschikt over meer kennis over het ondergrondse bosleven, maakte de 'Terschellinger plantmethode' daar vorige eeuw onbewust toch al gebruik van, vertelt Hougee. 'Omdat aanvankelijk 90 procent van de aanplant doodging, werden de boompjes geplant met een bolster van natgemaakte turf uit Drenthe. Nu pas weten we dat dit niet alleen water en voedsel bood, maar ook microleven.'

We gaan op zoek naar de Dennenorchis en Kleine keverorchis. Die zijn zo klein en onopvallend groen dat we ze zonder wat hulp van de boswachter zeker over het hoofd zouden hebben gezien. Omdat we met veel aandacht naar de grond kijken, zien we meer. Maar de wereld ónder onze voeten onttrekt zich aan de waarneming. Tijdens een boswandeling ben je je er dan ook doorgaans niet van bewust dat je over leven heen loopt. Dan is de bosgrond toch vooral een bodem en het bos een decor, of verzameling bomen.

'Voor de inheemse bevolking is het regenwoud hun huis, hun apotheek, supermarkt, museum en school', zegt Raki Ap, rijksambtenaar, storyteller, activist en woordvoerder van de Free West-Papua Campaign. Inheemse volkeren vormen slechts 5 procent van de wereldbevolking, maar beschermen 80 procent van de biodiversiteit wereldwijd. Dit, terwijl 96 procent van de wereldwijde boskap plaatsvindt in hun gebieden. De afgelopen 60 jaar werden rond de 500.000 Papua's vermoord[1]. Om de bevolking en de biodiversiteit beter te kunnen beschermen, wil West-Papua de eerste Green State[2] ter wereld worden. Centraal staan dan waarden als welzijn, zorg en harmonie. Die leren we in het Westen onvoldoende, vindt Ap. 'We leven in een doorgeslagen consumptiecultuur en zijn vervreemd geraakt van het bos en van de natuur. De behoefte aan nieuwe verhalen is daarom groot.'

Het manifest Het Bos Spreekt: de grondbeginselen van het Bos dat vervolgens gepresenteerd wordt, voorziet in die behoefte. 'Wij het Bos. Holland, Holtland, Houtland, ik voel mij onttroond. Jullie noemden het land naar onze bomen. Maar waar zijn zij? Economisch gewin. Alleen Ierland en Malta zijn nog armer dan ik', luiden de eerste zinnen. Het manifest is een voortvloeisel uit het verdiepende programma Assembly of Trees van StagingWood, afgelopen Oerol. De tekst is opgesteld door jurist, rijksambtenaar en kunstenaar Dorine van Norren, samen met vijf andere deelnemers, onder wie Raki Ap.

Voor haar proefschrift verdiepte Van Norren zich eerder in drie niet-westerse filosofieën: Ubuntu in Zuidelijk Afrika, Gross National Happiness in Bhutan en Buen Vivir in Ecuador. Als enige land ter wereld heeft Ecuador rechten voor de natuur in de Grondwet opgenomen. Hieruit zijn vier artikelen in het manifest verwerkt. Een ervan gaat over de intrinsieke waarde van natuur, ofwel: de natuur heeft waarde van zichzelf, los van wat ze voor de mens betekent. Andere gaan over het belang van natuurlijke processen, herstel en compensatie bij schade, het voorzorgsprincipe, bescherming van bedreigde planten en dieren en het recht van de mens om te leven in harmonie met de natuur. 'Dat laatste klinkt antropocentrisch, - gecentreerd rond de mens -, maar de in het manifest opgenomen grondwetartikelen zijn biocentrisch, dus gericht op ál het leven', benadrukt Van Norren. Grondbeginselen erin zijn: respect voor het web van het leven en de verscheidenheid ervan, erkenning van verbondenheid en wederzijdse voeding, gelijkwaardigheid en waardigheid van al het leven.

Het manifest belicht verschillende perspectieven en getuigt van veel inlevingsvermogen en verbeeldingskracht. De tekst is prikkelend en inspirerend. Het bos klinkt verwijtend en assertief, maar ook dromerig, poëtisch en wijs. Het spreekt ons niet alleen toe, maar stelt ook veel vragen, zoals: Zien jullie ons? Beschermen jullie ons? Begrijpen jullie ons? En: Horen jullie ons? Het vraagt zich af welke taal het moet spreken, zodat wij het kunnen verstaan. 'Een taal van wetenschap is ons te kil. Een taal van emotie is ons te zwoel. Een taal van geld is ons te goedkoop. Een taal van stilte.... Ja, een taal van stilte die past onze boodschap heel aardig.'

Maar het manifest is een tekst en door de noodzakelijke taligheid ervan krijgt het bos ongewild toch iets menselijks en komt het wezenlijk anders zijn ervan minder tot uitdrukking. Misschien hebben bomen behoefte aan 'houtiger woorden' dan waarover onze taal beschikt. Of misschien kunnen we beter naar hun sapstromen luisteren, om hun stress door droogte en teveel stikstof te horen. En spelen wij eigenlijk wel een rol in de wereld van bomen? Of draait het daarin om andere zaken, waardoor ze ons nauwelijks opmerken?

Tree tree, what do you think of me; What do you see. When you look at me, vraagt zangeres Nynke Laverman zich af in een nummer op haar album Plant. Ze eindigt dat met de vraag Have you actually noticed me? Want ze realiseert zich dat bomen een totaal ander leeftempo hebben dan wij. Do I amuse you; Do I confuse you; Running around and around; Like I'm used to; A fast forward movie; Played at your feet; At repeat at repeat at repeat, zingt ze. Terwijl wij onze drukke mensenlevens leiden, geeft de boom blijk van kalme waardigheid: A solemn dignity; In how you take it slow; Moving gracefully through centuries.[3]

Een nog veel ruimer tijdsperspectief kiest bodemlevendeskundige Tanja Dekker in haar presentatie tijdens het seminar. Om duidelijk te maken hoe bijzonder het is dat onze planeet bedekt is met een vruchtbare laag aarde, zoomt ze uit naar het ontstaan van het universum. 'Honderden miljoenen jaren terug was er nog geen zwarte aarde', vertelt ze. Pas zo'n 450 tot 500 miljoen jaar geleden maakte de samenwerking van bodemschimmels en plantenwortels het mogelijk dat planten op het land gingen groeien. 'Aan die stap in de evolutie danken wij ons bestaan. Want zo ontstond langzamerhand een humuslaag en vervolgens aarde.'

Ze noemt bacteriën en schimmels, ofwel fungi, de 'mijners' voor de aarde, want ze brengen bouwstenen en voedingsstoffen zoals fosfor naar boven. Dat er wijngaarden bestaan waar de druivenranken rechtstreeks op de rotsen staan, is mogelijk doordat fungi mineralen uit het gesteente halen en via de wortels doorgeven. Het is tweerichtingsverkeer, want schimmels halen voedingsstoffen uit de aarde, in ruil voor suikers die planten via fotosynthese hebben gemaakt. De planten spelen een actieve rol in de samenwerking, weet Dekker. Zo moeten fungi eerst 'op audiëntie' bij de plant.

Planten die kunnen samenwerken met bodemschimmels zijn weerbaarder tegen ziektes. 'Maar wie kunstmest gebruikt, zegt tegen een plant: je hoeft geen samenwerking aan te gaan met het bodemleven', legt ze uit. 'Het is een zout en lost op in regen en spoelt vervolgens weg. De plantjes kunnen niet terugvallen op schimmels en raken dan in de stress, waardoor ze kwetsbaarder worden voor luizen en slakken. Het antwoord daarop is: pesticiden en insecticiden.' Maar dat is funest voor het bodemleven. Terwijl een plant, als die daar goed door bediend wordt, veel in z'n product kan stoppen. Dat zorgt voor een hogere nutriëntendichtheid. We moeten minder doen en meewerken met de natuur en het bodemleven, is daarom Dekkers boodschap.

In een gezonde levende bodem bevindt zich rondom wortelstelsels een enorme hoeveelheid voedsel en wemelt het van de bacteriën, protozoa's, regenwormen en aaltjes (nematoden). Het spuug van microgeleedpotigen maakt de bodem 'waterstabiel', bacteriën zorgen voor structuur in de bodem en schimmels waarborgen de bodemstructuur. Micro-organismen breken organisch materiaal af, zuiveren water, spelen een cruciale rol in de mondiale kringlopen van koolstof, stikstof en zuurstof en ruimen afval en schadelijke stoffen op. 'Bacteriën en schimmels kunnen álles afbreken wat wij maken. Zelfs plastic en nucleair afval', zegt Dekker waarderend.

Wereldwijd is sprake van ernstige bodemdegeneratie. Inmiddels is een derde van de landbouwgrond onvruchtbaar door langdurig gebruik van kunstmest en bestrijdingsmiddelen, monoculturen, inklinking en drainering.[4] Steeds meer boeren werken regeneratief en de bodemdiversiteit kan zich dan gelukkig goed herstellen, zegt Dekker. Om de boeren die ze adviseert zich bewuster te maken van het bodemleven, laat zij ze hun grond bekijken door de microscoop en ruiken, voelen en kneden.

Dat we steeds meer zijn gaan leven in versteende steden en het verbouwen van voedsel hebben uitbesteed, heeft geleid tot grootschalige bodemvergetelheid.[5] Maar dat verandert, nu we steeds meer over het belang van het bodemleven weten. Zo bevatten bodems maar liefst 25 procent van de biodiversiteit op aarde.[6] Ook blijkt de bodembiodiversiteit van invloed op ons microbioom.[7] Dat laat zien hoe verweven we als mens zijn met onze omgeving.

Om het 'bodembewustzijn' te vergroten, zal de installatie How Forests Think[8] tijdens Oerol dit jaar het ondergrondse bosleven vertalen in beeld en geluid. Het bodemleven is dan zichtbaar via vier kokers die door Dekker gefilmde microscoopbeelden tonen. Ook komen er geo-sensitieve sensors die gebruikt worden in de mijnbouw en seismologie. 'Normaal leveren die grafiekjes op, maar je kunt de metingen ook hoorbaar maken', vertelt datavisualisatiekunstenaar Richard Vijgen. Tijdens Oerol horen bezoekers via vijf observatiepunten via koptelefoons hoe voetstappen, het geritsel van gras, of beestjes ondergronds klinken. Er zijn voortdurend allerlei trillingen in de bodem. Zo heeft de zee ook een frequentie, weet hij. 'Na enkele minuten luisteren ga je patronen onderscheiden. Dat nodigt bezoekers uit tot onderzoek en tot spelen, zoals op een boom kloppen.'

De installatie zorgt voor een omkering van het normale perspectief. Want door te luisteren naar wat ondergronds te horen is, realiseer je je - waarschijnlijk voor het eerst - dat het bodemleven onze aanwezigheid ook waarneemt. How Forests Think is geïnspireerd door het werk van antropoloog Eduardo Kohn. Hij onderzocht in het Amazonegebied van Ecuador hoe mens en omgeving elkaar wederzijds betekenis verlenen en stond stil bij vragen als: hoe denkt het oerwoud? En: hoe ziet de jaguar óns? Bij een ander onderdeel van de installatie kunnen Oerolbezoekers op een open plek omringd door boomstammen een tekst van intercultureel filosoof Renate Schepen beluisteren. Ook daarin draait het om een perspectiefwissel. Het bos spreekt de luisteraar toe en nodigt uit een handje aarde te pakken, de turfgeur te ruiken en met je vingers 'de aarde te vertalen als braille'.

Het bos focust op zintuiglijke ervaringen en blijkt kritisch over taal. 'Met jullie taal, hakken jullie de wereld in splinters en scherven', zegt het. 'Steeds kleiner'. Het bos ziet dat we verdelen, ordenen en rangschikken in soorten en hiërarchieën. 'Filosoof Aristoteles ordende het leven in hoog en laag. Onderaan planten. Daar boven de beesten. Bovenaan de mens. Bioloog Linnaeus bracht hiërarchie aan in het plantenrijk', zegt het bos. Maar: 'De Oromorobevolking in Ethiopië heeft geen woord voor dieren en deelt niet in in hoog en laag, maar ziet 'vijftenigen': mensen, honden en katten, en 'vrijlevenden': konijnen, insecten, onkruid en wild gras.'

Het bos denkt dat we vergeten zijn om echt te luisteren. En dat we, omdat wij al zo lang woorden gebruiken, doof zijn geworden voor andere talen. 'Als wij denken dat alleen wij denken, leggen wij onze taal aan iedereen op', houdt het ons voor. Maar: 'De bossen denken ook, maar anders.' Schepen benoemt dat taal een manifestatie van overheersing kan zijn. Zo werd vaak de taal van de kolonisator opgelegd aan de oorspronkelijke bevolking. Doordat muzikant en verhalenverteller Roberto Callisaya in Bolivia Spaans moest spreken in plaats van zijn moedertaal, veranderde de relatie van de inheemse bevolking met de natuur, vertelt hij, in reactie op Schepens tekst. 'Onze cultuur is daardoor beschadigd. En ook door het katholicisme. Want daarvoor zagen we een berg, een rivier of een bos als een God.' In zijn Aymara-cultuur speelt dankbaarheid een grote rol en daarbij horen rituelen. 'We bedanken de aarde als we een boom kappen, planten oogsten, of bloemen plukken. Want we beseffen dat zonder onze moeder, Pachamama, niemand kan leven.'

Dezelfde gedachte is aanwezig in andere niet-westerse filosofieën. Zo luidt de kerngedachte van de Ubuntu-filosofie: Ik ben omdat wij zijn. Wij zijn, omdat de aarde is. Dat is een heel ander mens- en wereldbeeld dan dat van de christelijke traditie waarin de mens gezien werd als kroon op de schepping. Maar dat verhaal plaatst ons óp de aarde, terwijl we in werkelijkheid ván de aarde zijn. Onze cultuur lijdt aan aardevervreemding, constateerde filosoof Hannah Arendt.

Het Westerse denken zag lang een scherpe grens tussen de bezielde mens en de onbezielde wereld om ons heen. En tussen de mens met bewustzijn en de onbewust levende en niet-levende wereld om ons heen. Maar die strikte grens bleek onhoudbaar. Niet alleen werd duidelijk dat veel andere dieren - mensapen en olifanten, maar ook octopussen en kraaien - intelligent zijn en zelfbewustzijn tonen. We weten nu ook van het bestaan van een wood wide web, een complex levend netwerk van boom- en plantenwortels, schimmeldraden en bodemorganismen.[9]

Door boeken als die van Simard is het besef gegroeid dat het bos en de (bos)bodem levende systemen zijn, waarin het draait om symbiose en samenwerking. Deze 'nieuwe' kennis verandert ons wereldbeeld en helpt ons om - letterlijk - grondiger te denken. Maar denken alleen is niet genoeg. Want daarmee verdwijnt de natuurvervreemding niet. Om mensen te helpen zich meer verbonden te voelen met de natuur, ontwikkelt seminardeelnemer Arjan Berkhuysen, oud-directeur van De Waddenvereniging, daarom met anderen een methode voor Earthfulness[10] met oefeningen om in het dagelijks leven natuur aandachtig waar te nemen.

Over wat er kan gebeuren als je wérkelijk waarneemt, schreef de Joods-Oostenrijkse filosoof Martin Buber in zijn bekendste boek Ich und Du (1923): 'Ik bekijk een boom... Ik kan hem bij een soort indelen en als exemplaar observeren, naar bouw en levenswijze, maar in alles blijft die boom dan mijn object. Het kan echter ook gebeuren, uit wil of uit genade, dat ik bij het bekijken van de boom die niet langer zie als een 'het', maar ermee in een relatie word opgenomen.' Bubers relationele denken is actueler geworden door de ecologische crisis. Daardoor groeit het besef dat we, ook voor ons eigen welzijn en voortbestaan, een meer wederkerige relatie moeten aangaan met het andere leven om ons heen. Dat kan dan van een verzameling objecten om te gebruiken een partner worden om mee samen te werken.

Hoe dit in de praktijk vorm kan krijgen, laten organisaties zien die een zoöperatie - kortweg zoöp - willen worden, een coöperatie met al het leven (zoë) in het gezamenlijke ecosysteem. Zij wijzen een 'Spreker voor de Levenden' aan die de belangen van het niet-menselijk leven aan de bestuurstafel vertegenwoordigt.[11] Op steeds meer plekken krijgt de natuur zélf een stem. Zo laat de Ambassade van de Noordzee de politieke stemmen van dingen, planten, dieren, microben en mensen in en rond de Noordzee horen. Bij initiatieven voor het toekennen van rechten aan de natuur spreekt een voogd of vertegenwoordiger namens een rivier of natuurgebied. Het je inleven in niet-menselijke perspectieven kost moeite. Maar dat kunnen we oefenen. En door er allerlei verschillende vormen voor te bedenken: een organisatiemodel, kunstinstallatie, songteksten en een biocentrisch manifest met grondbeginselen, zal het steeds vanzelfsprekender worden.

Noten:

[1] Don't bother, just let him die, Killing with impunity in Papua: www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa21/8198/2018/.

[2] www.greenstatevision.com

[3] https://nynkelaverman.nl/song/tree-tree

[4] Goed leven als aardbewoners. Filosofie van een leefbare planeet, Michiel Korthals, 2023, p.187.

[5] Bodemfilosofie, Maarten Meijer, Wijsgerig Perspectief nr. 4, Ondergronds. Waarom we het ondergrondse nodig hebben, 24 nov. 2022, www.filosofie.nl/bodemfilosofie

[6] Plant-Soil interactions: The Cycle of Life, TED Talk Franciska de Vries, hoogleraar Earth Surface Science, www.ted.com/talks/franciska_de_vries_plant_soil_interactions_the_cycle_of_life_jan_2022

[7] Onze darmen zijn de sleutel tot een lang en gezond leven, Michiel Bussink, https://www.vn.nl/darmen-sleutel-lang-gezond-leven/

[8] De titel is ontleend aan het boek How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human, Eduardo Kohn, (2013).

[9] Op zoek naar de moederboom: Ontdek de wijsheid van bossen, Suzanne Simard, 2021.

[10] https://earthfulness.nl/

[11] https://nieuweinstituut.nl/projects/zoop

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Het Bos Spreekt: Horen jullie ons? - Nieuw Wij

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Beschermen jullie ons? Begrijpen jullie ons? Wat zou een bos ons te zeggen hebben, als het onze taal sprak? Het manifest Het Bos Spreekt, dat onlangs op Terschelling werd gepresenteerd, geeft een prikkelend antwoord op deze vraag. Net als bij de installatie How Forests Think, waarin tijdens Oerol dit jaar het bodemleven en de ondergrondse ...

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Former Professor of Sustainability Leadership and author of Breaking Together: A Freedom-Loving Response To Collapse Jem Bendell tells us to stop pretending and learn how to navigate climate change through deep adaptation.

About Jem Bendell
Professor Jem Bendell is a world-renowned scholar on the breakdown of modern societies due to environmental change. Downloaded over a million times, his Deep Adaptation paper is credited with inspiring the growth of the Extinction Rebellion movement in 2018, and generated a global network to reduce harm in the face of societal collapse. He completed his PhD at the University of Bristol and his Geography BA (Hons) at the University of Cambridge. He was one of the few intellectuals on the green left who criticised many of the policies during the pandemic as being ineffective and harmful. Away from that work, and having stepped back as a Professor, he is now a regenerative farmer in Bali and a singer-songwriter, releasing an EP with the band Sambiloto.
Before the summer of 2023, Bendell was a full Professor of Sustainability Leadership and Founder of the Initiative for Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS) at the University of Cumbria. Bendell was also the Founder of the Deep Adaptation Forum and the co-Founder of the International Scholars' Warning on Societal Disruption and Collapse. A major transformation in Bendell's career began in 2017 as he took a year out to study the latest climate science, and released the Deep Adaptation paper which went viral.

📘 Now Available: Breaking Together: A Freedom-Loving Response To Collapse

Keep up with Jem Bendell
Website | Bateson Institute

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Ep. 270 Former Professor of Sustainability Leadership and author of Breaking Together: A Freedom-Loving Response To Collapse Jem Bendell tells us to stop pretending and learn how to navigate climate change through deep adaptation.