A Field Guide to More-Than-Human Governance
Humans didn’t invent government. Governance is as ancient and as ubiquitous as life on Earth. As we stand at the precipice of anthropogenic environmental collapse – apparently lacking the political wherewithal to do anything about it – we need to discover the governing wisdom of nature.
A Field Guide to More-Than-Human Governance explores the practical and philosophical dimensions of self-organization in nature as inspiration for future human governance. Jonathon Keats critically examines the lifeways of nonhuman communities from bacterial colonies to dolphin pods as well as the self-regulating properties of ecosystems and the biosphere as a whole. Keats also describes a methodology for discovering the governing principles of nature, leading readers out into the field to explore the biosphere for themselves.
Written for a general readership, and appealing especially to people interested in nature and environmental politics, A Field Guide to More-Than-Human Governance seeks to reintegrate humans into nature and to facilitate the political and cultural transformations needed to make human activity compatible with all life on Earth.
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"The political incompetence of Homo sapiens is the plot line of the Anthropocene," Keats writes in this landmark volume of speculative environmental politics. "Under our hegemony, the world has become less livable for almost every species, including humans. Geopolitical differences prevent cooperative responses to problems that have attained planetary proportions. Our governments inhibit governance."
Roaming across five biomes - forest, desert, tundra, ocean, and savanna - Keats explores the ways nonhumans have evolved surprisingly sophisticated mechanisms of governance that make the efforts of human beings seem comparatively juvenile. One of the most critical tasks of good governance is making it possible for all species to live in harmony among themselves and with other species over the long term, and accomplishing that task, in Keats's view, necessarily must include investigations and adaptations based on the knowledge of other creatures.
So what could the rodent community of the Songo plateau in Mozambique teach us about the separation of powers in democratic governments? Are there lessons for long-term planning in the predictive capabilities of common wheat? What do the sneezes of African wild dogs or the snap choices of three-spined sticklebacks reveal about collective decision-making? How might the adaptive mutualisms and symbiotic partnerships of lichens answer the problems of belligerent states with violent extraterritorial ambitions? Does the multi-stage lifecycle of the arctic wooly bear moth, which somehow survives in the harsh climate of the far north, suggest ways to revise and adjust national constitutions? Maybe the Sonoran desert tortoise, which can suspend practically all bodily functions and take refuge underground for months on end, suggests a climate-friendly pace of life for society as a whole. Maybe the dromedary camel, with its judicious use of limited resources and ability to maintain bodily stability through varying environmental conditions, can teach political scientists and technologists how to thrive amid change over time.
Humans ought to learn to be more like velvet mesquite, Keats notes, and nurture the life that surrounds us rather than oppress or ignore it. “What would we learn if we considered what the trees actually express about land possession? Instead of inspiring property ownership as a right without responsibilities, I see mesquites as encouraging us to consider relationality, to recognize the dynamics between site and occupant as a basis for sustained tenancy. Islands of fertility are spaces of exchange. Ownership is a commitment to a community. A tree’s hold on the land is contingent on all the tree does, much of which is done with the underlying soil and living understory. Since time immemorial, mesquite has sustained a fertile environment for other plants and animals, including humans. Having taken possession of Earth, we need to own this symbiosis."
Filled with fascinating insights into ecology and political philosophy, this remarkable book will provoke and inspire anyone interested in the constellation of Earth’s living beings, the wisdom of others, the long arc of evolution, and how humans might learn to live in greater harmony with such wondrously diverse life.
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Jonathon Keats is an experimental philosopher, artist, and writer whose transdisciplinary projects explore all aspects of society, adapting methods from the sciences and the humanities. He is the author of six books on subjects ranging from science and technology to art and design, most recently You Belong to the Universe: Buckminster Fuller and the Future (Oxford University Press).
He is a research associate at the University of Arizona’s College of Fine Arts, the Metropolitan Autonomous University of Mexico City’s UNESCO Chair in Futures Studies, a visiting scholar at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Biofrontiers Institute and San José State University’s CADRE Laboratory for New Media, a lecturer at the University of Zurich’s School for Transdisciplinary Studies, a research fellow at the Highland Institute and the Long Now Foundation, an artist research fellow at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, principal philosopher at Earth Law Center, and an artist-in-residence at the SETI Institute and Biosphere 2.
