social ecology as a framework for understanding and ... - CiteSeerX

SOCIAL ECOLOGY AS A FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING AND WORKING WITH SUSTAINABILITY

Stuart B. Hill University of Western Sydney

There is an urgent need to transcend the boundaries that commonly limit most current theory and practice relating to sustainability (Hill in press a). I believe that the value of this hotly contested concept can only be realised if it comes to be understood as inclusive of each of the following three focal areas, and of the complex relationships between them (this is in contrast to the naïve popular triple-bottom-line of the economy, society and environment): > People: individuals, families, groups, communities, small businesses (including especially concern for relationships, child-rearing, the nature of work, play and ‘spiritual’ aspects of life); > Socio-cultural (‘constructed’) institutional structures and processes: including politics, social services, economics, corporations, religions, education, technology, media; and > Nature: environmental and ecological aspects1. Also, rather than being viewed as a luddite concept, concerned only with the maintenance of the status quo, it is important that sustainability become associated also with enabling imaginative, progressive change (improvement) in all of the above areas, and at all levels, from home to planet, and from person to species to biosphere. It is important to think of this as a developmental and co-evolutionary process (Norgaard 1994) that includes, at one end of the spectrum, personal recovery and values clarification (Hill 1991, 2001, 2003a, Jackins 1992) and, at the other, the psychosocial evolution of our species (deMause 1982, Huxley 1952). Because both of these areas are commonly regarded as outside of the concern of sustainability, it is to be

Note: in the NSW Environmental Education Plan 2002–05 (NSW Council on Environmental Education 2002) Sustainability is defined as: the goal to be achieved through ecologically sustainable development. It refers to the ability to continue an activity into the future or maintain a state or condition undiminished (or enhanced) over time. Sustainability involves integrated ecological, personal and social (including economic) goals and implies changes in behaviour and practices by individuals and organizations. 1

Sustainability and Social Science: Round Table Proceedings

207

Social Ecology as a Framework for Understanding and Working with Sustainability

expected that such a proposal will likely be met with denial or, at best, marginalisation (‘we haven’t got time, we need to get on with the real job’). My experience is that this ‘real job’ is constantly and extensively being undermined and limited, largely subconsciously, by both the extent and persistence of personal and collective woundedness within most societies, and by the assumptions associated with the dominant evolutionary stage most humans exemplify. In relation to this latter point, I believe that the species challenge we face is to progress from relationships concerned primarily with ‘socialising’ (imposing the agendas of those in power on all others, through a diverse array of controlling, manipulating, persuading, legislative and educational strategies) to ‘enabling’ the full expression and potential of all humans (to develop and realise one’s own autonomous and mutualistic agenda; deMause 1982, Hecht 2004, Hill 2003a, Shem & Surrey 1998), and even of all (or most—I do have problems with smallpox virus!) life. The potential for this is exemplified in the findings of the Peckham Experiment in the UK (nearly 2,000 families, over a 15-year period, with no marriage breakdowns or bullying, little interest in competitive games, and the attainment of numerous competencies and high levels of collaboration, creativity, and wellness, and the building of negentropy and social capital; Willamson & Pearse 1980, Stallibrass 1989, Hill in press a). Because the ‘discipline’ of social ecology2 encompasses all of these areas, and is concerned with values (ethics, world views, paradigms) and processes of change, and is enabling of its own progressive development, it can, I believe, provide a valuable framework for progressing the theory and practice of sustainability (Hill 1999, in press a). Of particular importance is social ecology’s highlighting of the need to consider: > Issues of power, gender and ‘otherness’, particularly in relation to equity and social justice (I particularly like the concept of ‘co-operacy’, beyond democracy, of Hunter et al. 1997); > Ways to collaborate across difference, and to incorporate diverse ways of knowing, learning, acting and living, and to work with complexity and ‘profound’ simplicity (versus ‘naive’ simplicity; being holistic, holographic, paradoxical, synergistic, synchronistic, spontaneous);

I offer the following as a provisional definition of social ecology, knowing that it reflects my particular approach to understanding, my historical biases, and current interests: the study and practice of personal, social and ecological sustainability and change based on the critical application and integration of ecological, humanistic, relational, community and ‘spiritual’ values. Murray Bookchin (1995), the person most usually associated with social ecology, would probably leave ‘spirituality’ out of this definition. 2

Sustainability and Social Science: Roundtable Proceedings

208


> The importance of nurturing imagination, vision, creativity and design/redesign (and of proactive individual and collaborative initiatives, enabling well-functioning and wellbeing, versus the more common reactive, heroic, expert and technology-intensive, ‘problem-focus’); > Going beyond the immediate to the underlying assumptions, values and world views, and making space and time to articulate and understand their similarities, differences, meanings and implications; > Development of a sense and ‘spirit’ of place, and of ‘caring for country’; > Developing the supportive skills of communication, facilitation, community learning, leadership and team work, and self- and group-maintenance and nurturing; and > How to individually and collectively identify, prioritise and implement small, meaningful initiatives that are do-able, and how to publicly celebrate the processes involved in their implementation, and the outcomes, so that others may learn from them. Social ecology is particularly concerned with progressive change, and with the need to meet others at their edges of understanding and action, i.e., where they are versus where we might like them to be. This requires the use of strategic questioning (Peavey 1994), active listening (Gordon 2000), and having a range of effective and inclusive frameworks for enabling understanding, interaction and action. Frameworks that I have found helpful include the following: > Kurt Lewin’s (1935) force field analysis (driving and restraining forces); > Lloyd deMause’s (1982) six stages in our psycho-social evolution; > Rachel Lauer’s (1983) five developmental epistemes (based on the work of Bois 1970); > Clare Graves’ (1970) spiral dynamics (popularised and further developed by Beck & Cowan 1996); > Ruthellen Josselson’s (1996) eight stages in the development of relational competencies (see also Hill 2003a); > Stuart Hill’s (1999) version of social ecology, with its explicit inclusion of the ‘personal’ when considering change (see also Bookchin 1995); and distinction between efficiency, substitution and redesign strategies for progressive change (Hill 1998);


209


> Alan Savory and Joy Butterfield’s (1999) holistic (resource) management; > Ken Wilber’s (2000) four quadrants; > John Heron’s (2001) four up-hierarchy and six intervention strategies; > Mary Clark’s (2002) two contrasting world view gestalts (billiard ball and Indra’s net); and > Stuart Hill’s (in press a) five change stages. Social ecology also recognises the importance of whole person, experiential, embodied learning (Rogers 1969, Kolb 1984, Varela et al. 1991), learning communities and organisations (Senge 1994), and the role of drama and the arts in the processes of change (Boal 1999, Diamond & Mullen 1999). Perhaps most importantly, it recognises that most of what is remains mysterious and unknown, and that our over-emphasis on the known, rational and familiar, and on postponing (e.g., obsessively denying, and then only describing and measuring problems) is a major barrier to making significant progress towards sustainability (cf. Voisin 1959, Capra 2002). Related to this are the extensive, largely untapped opportunities to use our profound understanding in one area to enlarge our understanding in all other areas and, by doing so, to increase options for effective action. This is particularly the case with respect to the potential to apply our understandings of ecology (Mulligan & Hill 2001)—of the relationships between diversity, structure, function, relationships and processes in nature—to all human systems and to sustainability. In nature, for example, most processes are severely limited (and enabled) in time and space. Such processes require very specific pre-conditions and, because of this specificity, the side-effects of most of them are usually quite limited. In contrast, in human systems, partly because of the influences of market forces, globalisation, and an overemphasis on heavy-handed curative and technological responses to perceived problems, most activities and interventions are conducted as if they are largely time and place neutral (the homogenisation of the world), and the unintended side-effects are often extensive, and manifest over long time-frames. Industrial agriculture, for example, has become heavily dependent on curative interventions (biocides, pharmaceuticals, irrigation, fertilisation), and on impacting processes (planting monocultures, soil-inverting and exposing cultivation), all being carried out without much appreciation for the critical influences of time, space and method on likely outcomes (Hill 1998). To distinguish between the more holistic approaches being advocated here and these dominant current practice, I have chosen to use the prefix ‘deep’ for the former and ‘shallow’ for the latter (e.g. Hill 1998). Although I initially developed this understanding in relation to pest control in


210


agriculture (Hill 1985, in press b), I have found it to be equally applicable in all other areas that I have examined (e.g. Hill 2003b, in press a, c). So a key challenge, from my perspective, is to find ways to enable the shift from shallow to deep understanding and action. This is particularly aided in social ecology because of our emphasis on collaborative/co-operative inquiry (Heron 1996) and on a diverse range of approaches to action research (Reason & Bradbury 2001)—both of which enable understanding across conceptual boundaries and the development of collaborative change initiatives (learning our way into the future together through action and reflection)—together with the full spectrum of other qualitative (and quantitative) methods of inquiry (Denzin & Lincoln 2000).

References Beck, D.E. and C.C. Cowan 1996. Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership, and Change: Exploring the New Science of Memetics. Blackwell: Cambridge, MA. (See also: http://www.spiraldynamics.com/ ) Boal, A. 1999. The Rainbow of Desire: The Boal Method of Theatre and Therapy. Routledge: London. Bois, J. 1970. Breeds of Men. Harper and Row: New York. Bookchin, M. 1995. Re-Enchanting Humanity: A Defence of the Human Spirit Against Anti-Humanism, Misanthropy, Mysticism and Primitivism. Cassell: New York. DeMause, L. 1982. Foundations of Psychohistory. Creative Roots: New York. Clark, M. E. 2002. In Search of Human Nature. Routledge: New York. Denzin, N. K. and Y. S. Lincoln (eds.) 2000. Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd edn. Sage: Thousand Oaks, CA. Diamond, C. T. and C. A. Mullen (eds.) 1999. The Postmodern Educator: Arts-Based Inquiries and Teacher Development. Peter Lang: New York. Gordon, T. 2000. Parent Effectiveness Training: The Proven Program for Raising Responsible Children 2nd ed. Three Rivers, Crown, Random House: New York. Graves, C. 1970. Levels of existence: an open system theory of values. The Journal of Humanistic Psychology 10 (2): 131–154.


211


Hecht, Y. 2004. Personal communication (see also: www.democratic-edu.org) Heron, J. 1996. Collaborative Inquiry. Sage: London. Heron, J. 2001. Helping the Client, 5th edn. Sage: London. Hill, S.B. 1985. Redesigning the food system for sustainability. Alternatives 12 (3/4): 32–36 Hill, S.B. 1991. Ecological and psychological prerequisites for the establishment of sustainable prairie agricultural communities, in J. Martin (ed.) Alternative Futures for Prairie Agricultural Communities. Faculty of Extension, University of Alberta: Edmonton, AB. Hill, S.B. 1998. Redesigning agroecosystems for environmental sustainability: a deep systems approach. Systems Research 15: 391–402 Hill, S. B. 1999. Social ecology as future stories. A Social Ecology Journal 1: 197–208 Hill, S. B. 2001. Working with processes of change, particularly psychological processes, when implementing sustainable agriculture, in H. Haidn (ed.), The best of…Exploring Sustainable Alternatives: An Introduction to Sustainable Agriculture. Canadian Centre for Sustainable Agriculture: Saskatoon, SK. Hill, S. B. 2003a. Autonomy, mutualistic relationships, sense of place, and conscious caring: a hopeful view of the present and future, in J.I. Cameron (ed.), Changing Places: Re-imagining Australia. Longueville: Sydney, NSW. Hill S. B. 2003b, Yeomans’ Keyline design for sustainable soil, water, agroecosystem and biodiversity conservation: a personal social ecology analysis, in B.P. Wilson and A. Curtis (eds,), Agriculture for the Australian Environment. Proceedings of the 2002 Fenner Conference. Johnstone Centre, Charles Sturt University: Albury, VIC. Hill S. B. (in press a). Social ecology as a framework for understanding and working with social capital and sustainability within rural communities. In: A. Dale & J. Onyx (eds.), Social Capital and Sustainable Community Development: The Missing Link. University of British Columbia: Vancouver, BC. Hill, S. B. (in press b). Redesigning pest management: a social ecology approach. Journal of Crop Production.


212


Hill S. B. (in press c). Redesign as deep industrial ecology: lessons from ecological agriculture and social ecology, in R. Cote, J. Tansey and A. Dale (eds.), Industrial Ecology: A Question of Design. University of British Columbia: Vancouver, BC. Hunter, D., A Bailey and B. Taylor 1997. Co-operacy: A New Way of Being at Work. Tandem: Birkenhead, NZ. Huxley, J. 1952. Evolution in Action. Scientific Book Club: London. Jackins, H. 1992. A Better World. Rational Island: Seattle, WA. Josselson, R. 1996. The Space Between Us: Exploring the Dimensions of Human Relationships. Sage: Thousand Oaks, CA. Lauer, R. M. 1983. An introduction to a theory of adult development or, after Piaget, what? in M. Levy (ed.), Research and Theory in Developmental Psychology. New York State Psychological Association: Lovington, NY. (See also: http://www.generalsemantics.org/Education). Lewin, K. 1935. A Dynamic Theory of Personality: Selected Papers by Kurt Lewin. McGraw Hill: New York. Mulligan, M. and Hill, S.B. 2001. Ecological Pioneers: A Social History of Australian Ecological Thought and Action. Cambridge University: Melbourne, VIC. NSW Council on Environmental Education 2002. Learning for Sustainability: NSW Environmental Education Plan 2002–05. NSW Council on Environmental Education: Sydney, NSW. Norgaard, R. 1994. Development Betrayed: The End of Progress and a Co-evolutionary Revisioning of the Future. Routledge: New York. Peavey, F. 1994. By Life's Grace. New Society: Philadelphia, PA. Rogers, C.R. 1969. Freedom to Learn: A View of What Education Might Become. Merrill: Columbus, OH. Senge, P. M., Kleiner, A., Roberts, C., Ross, R. and Smith B. 1994. The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization. Nicholas Brealey: London. Savory, A. and J. Butterfield 1999. Holistic Management: A New Framework for Decision Making. Island: Washington D.C.


213


Shem, S. and J. Surrey 1998. We Have to Talk: Healing Dialogues Between Women and Men. Basic Books: New York. Stallibrass, A. 1989. Being Me and Also Us: Lessons from the Peckham Experiment. Scottish Academic: Edinburgh. Voisin, A. 1959. Soil, Grass and Cancer. Crosby Lockwood: London. Wilber, K.2000. A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science and Spirituality. Shambala: Boston, MA. Williamson, G.S. and I.H.Pearse 1980. Science, Synthesis and Sanity. Scottish Academic: Edinburgh.


214