Speakers: Flávia Guerra, Thieu Besselink, Ethan Gordon, Johanna Couvée, Bouchra Lamsyeh
Flávia GuerraThis presentation challenges the audience to find out what their climate mindset is through a BuzzFeed-type quiz. This user-friendly and fun quiz was designed based on the results of advanced statistical analysis of a annual survey applied in five Urban Labs in the context of the Transformative Urban Coalitions (TUC) project. By collecting extensive data from over 150 individuals from government, academia, civil society and the private sector, including their emotions, beliefs, values, worldviews, perceptions, attitudes and behaviors around climate change, three ‘personas’ were identified: the skeptical activist, the optimist technocrat and the bystander with mixed feelings. After the session participants receive their quiz results, TUC’s analytical framework will be briefly presented and the defining characteristics of each persona further detailed to contextualize our transdisciplinary mindsets research within transformation theory and practice. Mimicking the TUC project’s co-creation approach, this exercise is aimed at fostering active engagement of all session participants in assessing the transferability of TUC personas beyond our pilot cities in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, and possibly even triggering mindset shifts. Another important goal is to stimulate a debate around what comprises enabling mindsets for transformations towards more just and zero-carbon cities as well as identify entry points and tools for mindset shifts in different political economy-ecology settings, with particular emphasis on linking individual and collective action through knowledge & capacity sharing, participatory governance and social innovation. The main takeaways and learnings from the discussion will be integrated in a peer-reviewed article currently being finalized, thus making a key contribution to advance the conceptualization and operationalization of transformations towards sustainability in Latin America and beyond.
Regenerative Regions Through Transformational Education in Place
Thieu Besselink
In search of a pedagogical approach that bridges academic education and the regeneration of self, society and place, we started embedding education and action research in place, taking the land and its communities, economies, and cultures as our curriculum. By engaging with the local environment, students can develop a sense of place-based identity, empathy for other beings, and a deeper understanding of the social and ecological systems that sustain life. We will explore in what ways place plays a crucial role in transformative learning, and how transformative learning is essential in the regeneration of place.
Sustainability education alone does not address important aspects of the systemic challenges that bioregions face, nor does it help students navigate the complex and existential pressures of our time. How can we form a transformative learning community that empowers students to not only learn about regenerative practices, but also to address underlying patterns, develop agency, explore and transgress existing values and norms, challenging existing structures, and re-imagine our relationship with our selves and the natural world?
More-than-human partnerships for regenerative agricultural transformations
Ethan Gordon
What capacities need to be cultivated for researchers and farmers to be ‘good partners’ with the more-than-human world? My research explores the different interpretations of regenerative agriculture and their subsequent implications for transformation. I found that the further regenerative farmers depart from mainstream agricultural values (particularly productivism), the more they start valuing more-than-human relationships. Farmers I interviewed stopped thinking of their animals as commodities and started seeing them as kin or partners in the management of ecosystems. Transitioning to regenerative agriculture, these farmers also undertook a gendered shift by developing a feminine ethic of care that challenges hegemonic masculinity in agriculture (e.g., valuing bigness, mechanization, and domination). This transformation is evident in the behavior between farmers and their animals/plants/microbes/landscapes. Some regenerative farmers have animist spiritualities and work in partnership with nature spirits or subtle energies to regenerate the land. Relational worldviews have their roots in Indigenous knowledge systems all over the world. Regenerative agriculture has been critiqued by Indigenous people for repackaging Indigenous practices and isolating them from these worldviews. This is reflected in attempts to define regenerative agriculture within the scientific paradigm (considering only what is measurable, e.g., practices and outcomes). This marginalizes the relational aspects of regenerative agriculture that are not quantifiable. If regenerative agriculture is to be transformative, it must move beyond reductionist definitions that can exist only in Western frameworks. Relational values create the opportunity for transformative partnerships with the more-than-human. Researchers should not disregard the non-quantifiable aspects of regenerative agriculture but seriously consider their transformative potential. Perhaps, as researchers, it is time to acknowledge the legitimacy of ancient knowledge systems, explore more-than-human participatory methodologies, and in this process be open to our own radical transformation.How might a ‘narrative coalition’ respect the diverse interpretations of regenerative agriculture, while also developing the unified power to deliver agricultural transformation? My research explores the different interpretations of regenerative agriculture and their subsequent implications for transformation. I found that there are at least nine ways of ‘storying’ regenerative agriculture – which I will share in this presentation. This means regenerative agriculture looks and sounds different in different contexts. However, the groups behind each of these narratives share the same intention – regeneration. Either of land, community, or entire agricultural systems. Whilst regeneration is the single and shared intention behind these narratives, there is not a single or shared way of doing regenerative agriculture. This makes sense because regenerative agriculture is not a defined lineage of farming practice. It is what it sounds like – the act of regenerating. Therefore, groups from different agricultural lineages – e.g., permaculture or organics – are thinking about how to regenerate through their own lenses. This is how different narratives and practices emerge. If regenerative agriculture is to be transformative, the ‘movement’ will need to foster translocal partnerships between these different interpretations, from local place-based engagements to global networks. This means that regenerative agriculture can be a specific practice, relevant to local conditions and cultures, whilst retaining multi-interpretability at the global level. A ‘narrative coalition’ means that regenerative agriculture can continue speaking the language of different approaches, whilst helping these groups commune around the shared intention to regenerate.
’There’s Nothing Wrong with People (TiNWwP), but you cannot self-love your way out of systemic oppression’
Johanna Couvée, Bouchra Lamsyeh
‘There’s Nothing Wrong with People, but you cannot self-love your way out of systemic oppression’ is a cultural program composed of four chapters that looks at the intersection of mental health and social justice. While mainstream psychology too often individualizes and depoliticizes our mental health, TiNWwP explores the ways in which the personal is political, and the political is personal. It investigates the impact of patterns of oppression on our well-being through workshops, performances and conversations. At the heart of each edition lie personal stories and healing practices of people who experience the consequences of systemic oppression, to counter the increasing invisibility of marginalized voices. TiNWwP is conceived as a communal, transdisciplinary and cross-sectoral space in which culture-workers, artists, therapists, experiencers and audiences can unite around the urgent question: how do we create collective well-being? TiNWwP plants fertile seeds of awareness and exchange on these subjects through a mix of artistic practices, personal stories and psycho-educational and body-centered techniques. Johanna Couvée and Bouchra Lamsyeh will discuss their approach to collective transformation through participatory action research. Johanna Couvée is a Brussels-based cultural manager, consultant and artist coach hailing from the Netherlands with a background in Sociology and Psychology. She believes in the power of art for collective healing, as a medium to change habits and attitudes, and as a rich source of inspiration to work toward new social realities. She is also trained as a somatic psychologist and explores ways to build bridges between therapeutic, embodied practices and collective action towards social justice. Bouchra Lamsyeh is a cultural doula and multidisciplinary artist. She studied international law and geopolitics in Paris, and also works as a legal consultant. She has experience in a wide variety of activities and organizations that have a strong social impact through employing artistic practices in innovative ways.