For cosmopolitan bioregionalism

Eileen Crist

The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 Suppl C 2020: 21–9

Share via browser: | |

ACCESS PDF OF ARTICLE

First published: 4 March 2020 | PERMANENT URL | DOWNLOAD CITATION IN RIS FORMAT

Abstract

This article sketches a vista of human inhabitation within the expanse of the natural world freed from human physical and discursive ownership. In that future, humanity is downscaled within the ecosphere, where the sixth extinction has been averted, climate change made tractable, and chemical poisons banned. To live bioregionally is to live in concord with the land and in accordance with its affordances; it is to belong with all its members, non-human and human, equitably and generously. To live as cosmopolitans is to be open to, connected with, and hospitable toward all Earthlings. Also cosmopolitan, in this article's argument, is the pursuit of self-realization by a creative mash-up of cultural shards – a kind of intra-individual cosmopolitanism. Cosmopolitan bioregionalism is an imaginary founded on belonging to place and planet. It is a way of life inspired by the desire to remain near Earth's being and cosmic wealth, with all the existential biddings of respect and delicacy such nearness entails.

Keywords

Human supremacy, Societal change, Visions