Stewarding Aliveness in a Troubled Earth System

Abstract

The state of the world suggests we are at a crossroad—the next 15 to 20 years will have a decisive impact—more than in any period before—on the conditions of life on Earth. Rising awareness about the urgency of dealing with climate change is symptomatic of an increasing concern for the future of humanity and our life support system. Most approaches to solving the global challenges, however, stay within a framework of thinking that calls for technical and administrative solutions only. The questions regarding the underlying conceptual foundation of how transformations are approached are seldom asked. Yet, if—as many scientists predict—humanity needs to rise up to our capacity for a stewardship approach to stabilize the trajectories of our planet, it becomes clear that we need to become more humble partners of life’s potential to renew and replenish. This article argues that understanding what gives life to systems can become a guiding force for approaching the large systems change we so deeply need. It explores the conceptual foundations for principles that govern socio-ecological systems in support of what the authors term ‘systems aliveness’: the capability of small and larger systems to gain resilience, regenerate and maintain their vitality in mutual consistency with other systems. The idea is that the capacity to create the transformative change such as that envisioned by aspirational goals like the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can be enhanced by understanding such principles, and translating them into the design and implementation of collective action. The paper draws from multiple, interdisciplinary sources to build the conceptual scaffolding and the academic support for the six principles: intentional generativity, mutually consistent wholeness, permeable containment, emergent novelty, contextual interconnectedness with requisite diversity, and proprioceptive consciousness (Kuenkel, 2019; Waddock & Kuenkel, 2019). We argue that applying these six principles to transformation initiatives potentially provides a pathway to a new civilization with human and ecological flourishing.