Re-embedding economies in ecologies: resilience building in more than human communities

The modern hyper-separation of economy from ecology has severed the ties that people have with environments and species that sustain life. A first step towards strengthening resilience at a human scale involves appreciating, caring for and repairing the longstanding ecological relationships that hav...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Building research and information : the international journal of research, development and demonstration development and demonstration, 2016-10, Vol.44 (7), p.703-716
Main Authors: Gibson-Graham, J.K., Hill, Ann, Law, Lisa
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Buildings
built environment
climate change
Communities
Construction
Ecology
Economics
ethical behaviour
Ethics
local economy
local resilience
negotiations
Repairing
Resilience
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Summary:The modern hyper-separation of economy from ecology has severed the ties that people have with environments and species that sustain life. A first step towards strengthening resilience at a human scale involves appreciating, caring for and repairing the longstanding ecological relationships that have supported life over the millennia. The capacity to appreciate these relationships has, however, been diminished by a utilitarian positioning of natural environments by economic science. Ecologists have gone further in capturing the interdependence of economies and ecologies with the concept of socio-ecological resilience. Of concern, however, is the persistence of a vision of an economy ordered by market determinations in which there is no role for ethical negotiation between humans and with the non-human world. This paper reframes economy-ecology relations, resituating humans within ecological communities and resituating non-humans in ethical terms. It advances the idea of community economies (as opposed to capitalist economies) and argues that these must be built if we are to sustain life in the Anthropocene. The argument is illustrated with reference to two construction projects situated in 'Monsoon Asia'.
ISSN:0961-3218
1466-4321
DOI:10.1080/09613218.2016.1213059