Ecocene Design Economies: Three Ecologies of Systems Transitions

@ecocene // @ecolabs
Ecocene Design Economies
Three Ecologies of Systems Transition
Dr. Joanna Boehnert
Lecturer, Loughborough University
@Ecocene

Contents
1. Ecological Theory
2. Against Nature
3. Naming the Epoch
4. Ecocene Design Economies

“most of us are governed by
epistemologies we know to
be wrong.”
Gregory Bateson 1972, 493

The three domains concept
Gregory Bateson: Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972)
Felix Guattari: The Three Ecologies (1989)

mental ecology
social ecology
environmental

environment
society
self
human subjectivity
social relations
the environment

“So, wherever we turn, there is the same nagging
paradox: on the one hand the continuous development
of new techno-scientific means to potentially resolve
the dominant ecological issues and reinstate socially
useful activities on the surface of the planet, and, on
the other, the inability of organized social forces and
constituted subjective formations to take hold of these
resources in order to make them work.”
(Guattari 2000, 22)

In response to this dilemma, Guattari calls an “ethico-political
articulation” that will consider the dynamics between the three
ecologies for “the production of human existence itself in new
historical contexts...literally reconstructing the modalities of
‘group-being’… through ‘communicational’ interventions” for
the modification and reinvention of the ways in which we live
by “the motor of subjectivity”. (Guattari 2000, 24).
“to ward off, by every means possible, the entropic rise of a
dominant subjectivity”(Guattari 2000, 45).

Anthropocene
What is occurring?
Capitalocene
Why is this occurring?
Ecocene
What would we like to occur?

The Anthropocene must be
“as short/thin as possible”
Donna Haraway 2015, 60

“there is no advantage to us to bring
the Anthropocene into the future…
..the mythos of the Anthropocene does
not help us…
...we must re-imagine our world and
enable the Ecocene.”
Rachel Armstrong 2015

Includes the scientific analysis of the
Anthropocene, the critical perspective of the
Capitalocene, and an ecologically engaged
generative perspective.

Includes the scientific analysis of the Anthropocene
+ the critical perspective of the Capitalocene
An ontology, epistemology and ethic emerging from
critical ecological thought

• including the scientific analysis of the Anthropocene +
the critical perspective of the Capitalocene
• an ontology, epistemology and ethic emerging from
ecological thought, i.e. critical ecological literacy
• intersectional feminist lin ing ecoism to other isms
+ types of oppressions.

• ell versed ith the scientific analysis of the Anthropocene +
• an ontology, epistemology and ethic emerging from ecological
thought, i.e. critical ecological literacy
• intersectional feminist lin ing ecoism to other isms + types
of oppressions
• facilitated y e panded design practices transition design,
systems oriented design, design activism, etc.

The problem is not in the particular techniques of design,
which have become very sophisticated, but in the haphazard
structures – economic, political, social – in which design
occurs, which slows the effort to take ecological design to the
necessary scale. The rules of the system permit change only at
the margins....
Orr 2018, 8

A Hierarchy
of Systems
A. ecological
B. social
C. economic
A is the context for B and C.
A existed before and will
exist after both B and C.
B and C must regulate
activities according to A’s
patterns & processes.
C
B
A

market
sustenance
nature
The unstable constellations of three domains
Interpreted from Shiva 2005, 52
CURRENT ECONOMIC SITUATION SUSTAINABLE ALIGNMENT / HIERARCHY OF DOMAINS
nature
sustenance
market
The stable constellations of three domains

Economies of design refers to the
“context and processes where design
functions.”
Design economies are where
“design is the driving force of the way a
context is organised.”
Guy Julier 2017

A Continuum of Design Approaches (Irwin et al. 2015).

• ell versed ith the scientific analysis of the Anthropocene +
• an ontology, epistemology and ethic emerging from ecological
thought, i.e. critical ecological literacy
• intersectional feminist lin ing ecoism to other isms + types
of oppressions
• facilitated y e panded design practices transition design,
systems oriented design, design activism, etc.
• dependent on a redirection of the political economy of design,
ith regenerative, distri uted design economies

Ecocene Design Economies: Three Ecologies of Systems Transitions

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Ecocene Design Economies: Three Ecologies of Systems Transitions