Soil Yourself September! Futures for the pluriverse

In this seminar I will introduce a scenario approach designed in support of a regenerative governance – that is social coordination that promotes more concerted regenerative action. Regenerative governance has an axiology tied to the ethical premise of multi-species sustainability and associated human responsibilities. The scenario approach involved a four-year transdisciplinary research project set in Luxembourg from 2017-2021, that engaged over 100 actors in the co-production of a set of three scenarios for how we engage with land and water in 2045. The goal was to identify fields for concerted action for biosphere (and soil) regeneration that hold promise to all engaged. In the resulting set of three scenarios, each corresponds to a narrative rooted in a different ontology (understanding of what ‘matters’ – or what ‘elements the world is made of’): objectivism, subjectivism, and process relational understandings, respectively. Each ontology shapes relations in the human and to the more than human world in fundamentally different ways. The seminar will serve to discuss latest insights into transdisciplinary research approaches to catalyse knowledge co-production on human-environment relations with a focus on how we engage with land and soil across differences in interests, professions and understandings. In the joint discussion we can explore the extent to which differing ontological understandings may be roots of polarization and lack of (concerted) action for regeneration of land and soil. What role can scenarios play, and what other social, biological and/or physical structures can we creatively craft, to overcome prevailing paradigms prompting extractive behavioural patterns?

Join Ariane for a fascinating talk!

Ariane König is an Assistant Professor with a research focus on sustainability science and governance at the University of Luxembourg. Her transdisciplinary research and study programme serves to create concepts, spaces and processes for transformative governance with a focus on how we engage with water and land. She equips change agents with approaches such as collaborative conceptual systems mapping, scenario work and citizen science to tap into collective intelligence and develop an enhanced repertoire for regenerative thought and action in a networked knowledge society. Critical questions hinge on the role of science and other forms of knowing in deep transformation processes. She is a member of the Luxembourg Observatory of Climate Politics and the European Statistical Advisory Committee. Prior to Luxembourg, she had held positions at the Universities of Oxford and Harvard. Her transdisciplinary approach draws on her lived experience as a regulatory affairs manager at the interface of science, the law and public acceptance in diverse regulatory and scientific cultures, and her research and training as a biochemist and genetic engineer at the University of Cambridge.