Guest blog: New Ways of Thinking and Acting in the Anthropocene
In the age of the Anthropocene, we urgently need new ways of thinking and acting. Economists are predicting that biophysical limits will determine the post-growth world and, as things stand, this will be characterised by mass migration, profound natural hazards, and huge discontinuities for human and natural systems (Crownshaw et al., 2018). Epidemiologists warn how climate change will create a world of unprecedented new diseases.
The current pandemic is sending disruptive
shockwaves through all our interconnected global, environmental, socio-economic
and human systems. With this, we have opportunities to alter current systems at
the deepest of levels.
The SDG Transformations Forum (TF), established
in 2017, is a growing global community of enablers and transformations
initiatives. The forum recognises where large-scale challenges – reflected in
the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – call for urgent
interventions. By providing and making widely available the necessary resources,
practical knowledge and organisational infrastructure for positive
transformations, TF aim to support and amplify the efforts of the world’s
change agents on their journeys towards a flourishing future.
Wherever harmful and disruptive events
destabilise the status quo, they can prompt the critical reflections which lead
to new thinking. TF recognises the importance of these discontinuities for
triggering systemic change. In a recent newsletter, TF featured two of their current programmes
for encouraging transformational responses to such events. One is the “Global
Assessment for the New Economy” (GANE) – lead by Jasper Kenter of York
University – which will gather insights on and from economic transformations,
synthesise the findings and distribute practical knowledge across an emerging
new network. GANE will work alongside a second initiative, “Bounce Beyond,”
which provides the necessary infrastructure to mobilise and enable actions (for
GANE and other transformations initiatives alike). To do this, TF will apply a
growing body of knowledge and action research regarding transformations. The
shock of Covid-19 could provide the springboard to ‘bounce beyond’ a mere
return to the pre-pandemic business-as-usual.
Too often, theory and practice are deemed to
be separate pursuits. By using approaches based upon a knowledge of
systems thinking and practice, in contrast to conventional methods situated within
systems, there may be greater possibilities to explore and resolve wicked,
intractable problems in a more integrated and emergent way (Scoones et al., 2020). The
SDG Transformations Forum adopts a three-step approach of seeing ●
connecting ● acting: whereby complex situations are
better understood ● valuable actors and interventions are identified and brought
together ● so that appropriate, context specific actions can occur.
In this way, they can enable change by i)
identifying ineffective mechanisms and behaviours; ii) generating new ways of
working; and iii) implementing enabling structures. These can be achieved
simultaneously: actions from one serving as enablers and agency for all.
Transformations “require
deep innovation in the ways we organize”. The need for unifying diverse
approaches raises difficult questions about the transformational learning
spaces for co-creation via participatory methods. Effective governance,
facilitation, guidance and education (capacity-building) will be needed to
yield appropriate value from such inclusive processes. These factors are elucidated by recent experiments in deliberative
democracy in the UK via Citizens Assemblies, established to tackle Climate Emergencies
(see e.g. Citizens UK, 2020).
Further, there is a need to address the acquisition of key sustainability
competencies which underpin social learning processes, which link knowledge and
action. These should include, inter alia:
- Systems thinking competence
- Futures thinking or anticipatory
competence
- Values thinking or normative
competence
- Strategic thinking or
action-orientated competence
- Collaborative or interpersonal
competence
Digital competencies are being fast-tracked under the Covid-19 conditions and TF are embracing the complementary power of technology (e.g. developing a Multi-Sided [transformations] Platform). Bounce Beyond will be making use of virtual learning and multilocal collaboration to swiftly up-scale actions.
A primary focus within the TF initiatives
is the transformation of mainstream economics. Many alternative, often radical
conceptual reworkings of the economy have been emerging in recent
decades and the pandemic has now centre-staged their importance. Transformation
of current economic models can be hard for citizens to ‘buy into’, in part as
understandings of the existing systems offer a fantasy of security.
Powerful narratives will be important:
taking root beneath existing biases, nurturing societal understanding of what
transformations can look like. It is narrative and communication (between humans
and natural systems) which orient us and guide our journey. TF recognise the
difficulty in working with heightened levels of complexity and so the story is
best created through acting, with both pen- and script-in-hand.
We need to clear away the broken shards of
failing systems and identify the best placement for precautionary crash mats.
Creating new attractors
within our stories can lure our behaviour towards the new, the exciting and the
flourishing. In the example of the economy, uncovering its original meaning of
‘household management’ (Oxford English Dictionary, 2009) creates space
for innovative stories and fresh understandings of creating
new and better. How do we, as humans with active influence
and responsibility over systems, transform how we manage our home?
Against our best intentions, it was perhaps
easier and often more attractive, pre-pandemic, to approach transformations in
a genial way (ambling on rather than bouncing beyond). This approach more often
than not lacks impact. ‘Light-impact’ can be easily countered by established
structures and world views and their efforts subsumed back into existing
systems: e.g. the status quo is re-rebranded using greenwashed packaging.
The SDG Transformations Forum was
established in response to the urgent existential needs of our time, and it is
identifying the crucial pathways used or imagined by transformations experts.
The Covid-19 pandemic is having a fundamentally destabilising effect, such that
systems can be tipped into a new order, repurposed, or eradicated and replaced
with better. ‘Bouncing beyond’ demands swift and decisive action, which will
require new breakaway mechanisms and above all, wise leadership. Where will
this come from? Our universities are outstanding in the acquisition of
knowledge but much less effective in the acquisition of wisdom apt for
fundamentally addressing wicked challenges (Tassone et
al., 2017). At present, our educational systems do little to consider the
ethical and ontological challenges related to sustainability science. There is
an ongoing need to understand the philosophical basis and impacts of our
beliefs.
One of the biggest challenges will continue
to be launching en courage into [and thus creating] new paradigms. This
is an action call to us all – a time to ask, “who am I in the interconnected
universe and which systems do I want to support?” Is it time to explore these
questions through agency now? We must be prepared to recognise old systems and
navigate past pitfalls along the way. To truly create a movement of movements,
we need to keep living the stories of collaboration, seeing our worldview
rather than seeing with it, and committing decisively to acting as one
flourishing system.
Bibliogrpahy:
References:
·
Citizens
UK (2020) Local chapters > Leeds. Available at: https://www.citizensuk.org/leeds
(Accessed: 26/05/20)
·
Crownshaw,
T., Morgan, C., Adams, A., Sers, M., dos Santos, N., Damiano, A., Gilbert,L.,
Haage, G., Greenford, D. (2018), ‘Over the horizon: Exploring the conditions of
a post-growth world’, The Anthropocene Review, 1 –25.
·
Oxford
English Dictionary (2009) Concise Oxford English Dictionary: Luxury Edition.
11th Edition. New York: Oxford University Press.
·
Scoones,
I., Stirling, A., Abrol, D., Atela, J., Charli-Joseph, L., Eakin, H., Ely, A.,
Olsson, P., Pereira, L., Priya, R., van Zwanenberg, P., Yang, L. (2020) ‘Transformations
to sustainability: combining structural, systemic and enabling approaches’, Current
Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 42, 65-75. Doi:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2019.12.004
·
Tassone,
V., O’Mahony, C., McKenna, E., Eppink, H., Wals, A. (2017) ‘(Re-)designing
higher education curricula in times of systemic dysfunction: a responsible
research and innovation perspective’, Higher
Education, Doi:
/10.1007/s10734-017-0211-4
Hyperlinked websites:
·
https://transformationsforum.net/
·
https://transformationsforum.net/q2-2020/
·
https://transformationsforum.net/transformation-governance-and-organizing/
·
https://transformationsforum.net/transformations-interaction-platform-2/
·
https://transformationsforum.net/metanarratives/
·
https://be-benevolution.com/2020/01/31/attractors/
·
https://transformativefuturelearning.home.blog/2020/05/18/ideas-for-a-grown-up-economy/
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