Ecosystems and Change

Advocacy, communication, public policies, research and teaching programmes should define the problems in view of  the whole phenomenon, instead of reducing them to fragmented issues (effects, consequences); reviewing the latest global challenges, evidence shows that the paradigms of knowledge, development, wealth, power, growth, work and freedom, embedded into the political, economic, social, cultural and educational institutions, favour the dominant political-technological-economical establishment, associated with a perverse system of production and consumption, energy squander, deforestation, mining expansion, hazardous wastes, pesticides, pollutants, degraded and violent urban centers, global climate change, diminishing biological diversity and state captured corruption.

Trying to solve isolated problems without considering the general phenomenon conceal the real problems: health, education, culture, natural and man-made environments should not be objects of segmented public policies, advocacy, research and teaching programmes, but should be integrated into an ecosystemic frmework in view of the design, development and assessment of the processes that enable individuals, groups and society at large to face the problems of difficult settlement or solution in the world, considering the weight of asymmetric power relations, irresponsible life styles and the preverse paradigms of development, growth, power, wealth, work and freedom embedded into the political, economic, cultural, educational and social institutions.

Coexistence, democracy, citizenship, peace, tolerance, respect, cooperation, empathy make up the principles and aims of present endeavours to change the ways of being in the world, a task that encompasses the media, entertainment, policy makers, market-place, socio-cultural learning niches, leadership in different areas (military, economic, political, educational, cultural etc.). For this reason, communication, public policies, advocacy, educational programmes need an integrated, ecosystemic framework to design, develop and assess the processes that enable individuals, groups and society to face the problems of difficult settlement or solution in our time, encompassisng the different dimensions of being in the world (intimate, interactive, social and biophysical), as they combine, as donors and recipients, to induce the events (deficits/assets), cope with consequences (desired/undesired) and contribute for change (potential outputs).

Refs.:

PILON, A. F., The ecosystem approach: challenges for public policies and educational programmes, Posted on The British Academy of Management, 10th March 2018 [on line]:

PILON, A. F., Governance, Science-Policy Interfaces, Societal Organisation and the Transition to an Ecosystemic Model of Culture, Univ. Lib. of Munich, MPRA Paper 84941, 2018: