Mark asked for more on bioregionalism Here's the bible for it: BIOREGIONALISM, edited by MichaelVincent McGinnis (New York and London: Routledge, 1998 October 29). The book includes contributions from Dan Kemmis, Dan Flores, Doug Aberley, Freeman House, William Jordan III, Chet Bowers, Ronnie Lipschutz, Tom Ankersen, Catherine Wilt, David Feldman, Bruce Goldstein, and McGinnis. [ ISBN 0-415-15445-6] Here are excerpts from two articles which give the basics. The first is linear, simplistic and to the point and I don't agree with some of the anthropomorhism in it, the second has better "feel", more informative . and turgid. Best I could do on short notice. Finish those up and I'll serve ya some more if ya ask. Tom WHAT IS BIOREGIONALISM? The notion of bioregions emerged from descriptions of planetary diversity in terms of "biogeographical provinces." If, as Gary Snyder says, "the world is a place of places," then what makes up the world are not nation-states and global corporations but rather bioregions and peoples -- the difference is fundamental. The breakthrough to the notion of bioregions came in the 1970's when human culture was added to biogeographical provinces as an integral element of a new vision of the human relationship with nature. Peter Berg, along with the well-known wildlife ecologist Raymond Dasmann, gave the first and most influential definition of a bioregion. "Bioregions are geographic areas having common characteristics of soil, watershed, climate, native plants and animals that exist within the whole planetary biosphere as unique and intrinsic contributive parts A bioregion refers both to geographical terrain and a terrain of consciousness -- to a place and the ideas that have developed about how to live in that place... A bioregion can be determined initially by use of climatology, physiography, animal and plant geography, natural history and other descriptive natural sciences. The final boundaries of a bioregion, however, are best described by the people who have lived within it, through human recognition of the realities of living-in-place...there is a distinctive resonance among living things and the factors that influence which occurs specifically within each separate place on the planet. Discovering and describing that resonance is a way to describe a bioregion." Bioregions should replace arbitrary political jurisdictions such as Washington and British Columbia. Watersheds, ecoregions, and macro-bioregions should become the basis of analysis, planning and "resource management" for they are our prime natural addresses. Each provides a natural and holistic frame of reference. In a scientific sense, bioregionalism seeks to join ecology to anthropology through geography. The key is linking ecosystem, region, and culture. The problem today is how to link the local and planetary levels of life and culture. What fascinates me is precisely that forgotten country which lies "in between" local and global spheres of action. And what joins local life to planetary levels is the region itself, for the region mediates between parts and wholes. More than ever we need to learn to find our way carefully and respectfully stepwise through all the concrete mediations between parts and wholes, local and planetary life. Rather than repeating tired cliches such as "think globally, act locally" we might say instead "dwell regionally," for then our actions consciously resonate on every other level in a way appropriate to it. Regions are not artificial spaces arbitrarily imposed by distant powers, but rather shared life-contexts, natural integrities as well as structures of meaning and value, a common "house" that holds us, creature and human alike, together in the arms of the earth itself. Mobile beyond our wildest dreams, ready to leap off-world into outer space or descend into the uncharted realms of electronic "cyberspace," we need to learn how to "live-in-place." As Peter Berg and Raymond Dasmann suggest: "Living in place means following the necessities and pleasures of life as they are uniquely presented by a particular site, and evolving ways to endure long-term occupancy of that site. A society which practices living-in-place keeps a balance with its region of support through links with human lives, other living creatures, and the processes of the planet -- seasons, weather, water cycles, as revealed by the place itself. It is the opposite of a society which makes a living through short-term destructive exploitation of land and life." The first task, then, of "knowing home" -- reclaiming a natural address and discovering a placed identity -- is what bioregionalists refer to as "reinhabitation." As Raymond Dasmann and Peter Berg observe: "Reinhabitation means learning to live-in-place in an area that has been disrupted and injured through past exploitation. It means becoming native to a place through being aware of the particular ecological relationships that operate within and around it. It means understanding activities and evolving social behavior that will enrich the life of that place, restore its life-supporting systems, and establishing an ecologically and socially sustainable pattern of existence within it... Simply stated, it involves becoming fully alive in and with a place" THE PLACE AND THE STORY: BIOREGIONALISM AND ECOPSYCHOLOGY Article by Ralph Metzner Ecopsychology and bioregionalism are two fields of the emerging new ecological worldview. Both are concerned with revisioning our understanding of human identity in relationship to place, to ecosystem and to nature. Traditional people had a much closer telationship to place. We need to learn to understand ourselves in relationship to a place, and to the story of that place.(Excerpted from the forthcoming book Green Psychology). Ecopsychology may be defined as the expansion and revisioning of psychology to take the ecological context of human life into account.2 It is not a variation of environmental psychology, which deals mostly with the impact of institutional environments on psychological states. It offers a critique of all existing schools of psychology -- including the psychodynamic, object relations, cognitive, behaviorist, humanistic and transpersonal -- for focusing their research solely on the intrapsychic, interpersonal and social dimensions of human life, and ignoring the ecological foundation. The most basic facts of our existence on this Earth -- that we live in these particular kinds of ecosystems, in biotic communities with these kinds of species of animals and plants, in these particular kinds of geographical and climatological surroundings -- appears to be irrelevant to our psychology. Yet our own personal experience as well as common sense contradict this self-imposed limitation. In that regard, ecopsychology parallels similar revisionings taking place in other knowledge disciplines: philosophy is being challenged by environmental ethics and deep ecology;3 economics by green or ecological economics;4 religion and theology by the concept of creation spirituality and other ecotheological formulations;5 and new ecological perspectives are emerging in sociology and history.6 All of these foundational revisions may be seen as part of an emerging ecological or systems worldview, a worldview that can also be called ecological post-modernism.7 Underlying these fundamental revisionings of our systems of knowledge is a major paradigm shift in the natural sciences, a shift from physics to ecology and evolution as the foundational or model science.8 Ecology has been called the "subversive science" because it deals with systemic interrelationships, and is therefore in essence transdisciplinary and subversive of academic specialization. Ecological concepts are ideally suited for helping the knowledge disciplines transcend their specialized blinders, and consider the wider contexts of ecosystem and Gaia. Bioregionalism is one of four socio-philosophical movements that could be characterized as "radical ecology" movements, the other three being deep ecology, ecofeminism and social ecology (with socialist ecology a possible fifth). These movements are radical, and even revolutionary, in that they are not limited to advocating conservation or anti-pollution legislation. They challenge the very foundations of the modernist industrial worldview, its most cherished value systems and deeply engrained attitudes and habits of thought. The focus of the deep ecology critique is what is called "anthropocentrism", but can more accurately be described as a humanist superiority complex. The ecofeminist diagnosis of our eco-cultural malaise is that it is based on patriarchal "androcentrism", rather than anthropocentrism. The social ecology movement, critiques all social structures of hierarchy and domination, whether toward ethnic groups, the poor, women or nature. For socialist ecologists, the crucial diagnosis is via the analysis of capitalist class oppression, which includes the domination and exploitation of nature.9 Bioregionalism offers a radical critique of the conventional approach to place, revolving around the idea of ownership of land and the attendant right to develop and exploit. Political control over the ecology and economy of local regions rests with the nation-state government, which is generally allied with and supportive of the interests of large industrial corporations. The bioregional approach advocates replacing the man-made, historically arbitrary political boundaries of nations, states and counties. It suggests, instead, using natural ecosystem features, such as watersheds, mountain ranges and entire biotic communities (human and non-human) as the defining features of a given region. The primary values, from a bioregional perspective, are not "property rights" and "development", but preserving of the integrity of the regional ecosystem and maximizing economic self-sufficiency within the region. Political control would thus rest with the community of people actually living in the region: this is the concept of "reinhabitation".10 The bioregional movement, like the other radical ecology movements, contains within it a challenge to change our perception and understanding of the human role in the natural world. It encourages us to become aware of native plants and animals in the region where we live so we can feel and experience our actual place in the natural order. It encourages us to learn about the historical and present-day indigenous peoples of that region, and how they sustained themselves before the arrival of European culture with its industry and technology. It thus forges an explicit connection and solidarity with existing native peoples, their cultures and their struggle for autonomy. These cultures are clearly bioregional in their explicit sense of rootedness in the land, and have been gently offering a radical critique of Eurocentric arrogance ever since the time of Columbus and the Conquest.11 Bioregionalism also involves something like a consciousness-raising practice or, we might say, an ecopsychological practice. [snip] ********* The article trails off into what a Marxist would call "hoogy moogy" after the above passage. Ya'll ain't ready for that yet. _______________________________________________ Crashlist resources: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/crashlist
