Socio-ecological innovation
The manuals that simplified our worldly questions have self-imploded. There is no set of seven, ten or twelve commandments that ensure harmony between us humans, the other living beings and all the rest that surrounds both us and them. But then, neither could thirty seven or even forty two instructions do that. This manual will remain unwritten, it will never come.
How are all the little things that live on the surface of this great planet to continue to survive? Those things that are nourished and feed (off of) each other. And that live and kill one another, getting more unaware, compulsive and efficient everyday.
Maps of the future have imploded as well. The description of a scenario is uncertain, known paths lead to terrible destinations. The terrain itself bends all the time. Road signs are switched, be it out of jest, ignorance or spite.
Many eyes seek afar, beyond the gray walls and the dark storms and the empty deserts, beyond nothingness itself. They seek afar, beyond the horizon, any sign of hope that can be trusted. A sign that one can breathe again. And even so, one does breathe. And one trusts. And even with no maps one walks through pretty places. And with no manuals one lives, and beings connect into networks, and love even more and in more diverse forms.
We need to realize that the answers might be not beyond the horizon, but right next to whoever seeks them. From molar to molecular. From the search of other worlds to recognizing the neighbourhood. From nonstarter to underestimated. There, where least expected, there one breathes deep. And smiles, and talks. One lives one’s life.
We lack definitive words, indeed. Words that establish in precise and undeniable ways what one wishes and explain well what one does. This lack of clarity must nevertheless be accepted, precisely because diverse are the wishes and many are the worldviews. A given expression will mean something to someone and nothing to another, or even something in between. It’s about finding terms albeit imperfect and perhaps unstable, temporary, but right enough. Terms that are not conclusive descriptions, but bridges between different possible understandings, which through their existence become points of cooperation between diverse perspectives. Contested terms, instruments of struggle. Boundary objects, interpreted differently depending on who’s looking, but even so, charged with potentiality and existence. Or even multiple existences, even more existing than other objects.
This text carries a proposal: that everything needed to build a better world is already at hand. It’s applied knowledge, worldviews and traditions. It’s tools, methods and rituals. The better world, is understood, is more diverse, fair, inclusive, and sustainable. And whatever is not at hand is by definition untouchable, thus should not take away our sleep or breath. The other possible world, as well as the better viable world, has been sewn by uncountable minds, backs and hands. Anywhere the unavoidable contradictions and inconsistencies of the mainstream history of contemporary world show up, there are people creating ways to overcome them. But where are these experiences? Fragmented as they are, and focused on their own issues, would they have a collective constitution? Sometimes ruled out as trivial, or too mundane to draw attention. Often situated very far from the epic narratives of contemporary world. And this discretion might be one of its most important characteristics.
There are people seeking precisely to observe these old and new practices, and working to create a narrative that identifies them, gets them closer to one another, boost and multiplies them. John Thackara, a British writer living in southern France, suggests we should think like a forest. He estimates in millions worldwide the amount of groups dedicated to initiatives of change for a better world. They are at the same time ultralocal and rooted, but also international and hyperconnected, as he enumerates:
His perception is sound. In Brazilian cities these themes are emerging as well. Here in Ubatuba, for instance, there are people involved with bioconstruction and permaculture, traditional communities that have always done what is now being called agroforestry, vernacular inventors, as well as the networks of organic food and social currencies, among many other examples. And even in a relatively small locality where many participants know each other personally, it’s hard to describe them as a collective. How can we talk about these initiatives then? Is there a name that encompasses and defines them?
Following the first part of this text, the proposal here is of a boundary object — a construction that allows talk about all these subjects, between groups adopting distinct or even conflictive vocabularies. A description that is consciously imperfect and unstable, but that is also meaningful. And in whose very dispute of meaning, useful paths can be walked.
The option made here is to treat all these initiatives as manifestations of “socio-ecological innovation”. A very ambiguous term, indeed. Particularly because of the use of “innovation” to build this boundary object, and it’s good to acknowledge some implications of that term. It’s necessary, obviously, to ignore the huge amount of crap so present in the central shelves of commercial bookstores. That perspective oscillates between the collections of obviousness, the creation of formulas impossible to apply (because they were created as biased rearview mirrors to look at nonlinear processes) or even a particular outfit of self-help manuals. It’s not about innovation as Schumpeterian “creative destruction” either, whose superficial (and wrong) use proposes systemic instability to promote economic growth with low political risk in industrial and post-industrial capitalist economies. Ricardo Ruiz and Emmanuel Costa show that, during almost two thousand years, the term “innovation” had a notably negative connotation, describing practices that went “against tradition and the custom of majority”. It was only recently that the term innovation has changed, becoming uncontested and assimilated by the establishment:
“The 20th Century turned innovation into an ideology, or an uncontested term: innovation acquired a connotation predominantly (and almost exclusively) positive. Innovation became a practice lacking on controversy, an institutionalized significant, ordering and structuring principle of thought and action.” (Ruiz and Costa, to be published).
Lee Vinsel and Andrew Russell, professors and researchers from the USA, identified a crucial moment of this transformation:
The socio-ecological innovation proposed here does not position itself as a mere slice of that apolitical and assimilated innovation. Quite the contrary, it wishes to dispute meaning and expand the universe of references and motivations for innovation. Firstly by undermining its valuation instruments. The market is to be recognized as only one amongst many ways to ascribe value to labor and ideas, and to mediate their relationships. It can be used in parts of socio-ecological innovation, but wont be its sole metric. The socio-ecological perspective is generally oriented towards building a better world, and this meaning requires thinking through more complex and intelligent forms than the mere reduction of everything to numbers. Less GDP, more Happiness Indexes — gross, net, ethereal and oniric! Calling that broad set of practices mentioned above socio-ecological innovation won’t come without problems. There are obvious limitations: oversimplifying complex issues, legitimate cultural or ideological refusals, fear of latent submission to the mainstream discourse and the market logics. Even so, it’s by seeking to create bridges between such diverse and spread out groups that it can be relevant as a boundary object — understood and mobilized in forms also diverse and spread out.
Socio-ecological innovation as an axis of reflection, action and purpose. We’re starting to build a platform to connect these practices. The ball is thrown, will anyone respond?
