As part of our transition from England to Arizona as I begin my new role of Academic Dean at Prescott College, I was fortunate to spend some time on trails around Prescott earlier this month, taking some tentative steps in these new mountains of home – up into the deeper snow atop Granite Mountain and along the switchbacks up the side of Thumb Butte just west of town — and farther afield to the Colorado River nestled deep in the February shadows of the Grand Canyon.
The landscape and climate around Prescott could hardly be more different from our home in the southwest of England, where we are only now emerging from a mild and wet winter, with the River Exe washing over our riverside path nearly every day in the past fortnight. Although I describe Arizona as being ‘nearly the opposite’ of my beloved landscapes from Dartmoor to Cornwall to southern Wales, there is a shared openness in the undulations of this leavened land — here punctuated year-round by brilliant yellow plashes of prickly gorse, there of prickly pear — where I can become lost enough to find myself in ways that nourish head, heart and hands.
Thomas Merton tells us, ‘action is the stream, and contemplation is the spring’. We each have our entry to moments and places that balance contemplation and action, and over the past four years, Dartmoor has been mine — often finding me ankle-deep in bogs that coalesce to headwaters of one of the more than two dozen rivers that rise high on the moor. It’s hard to relinquish a place that so quickly so deeply permeated my skin and muscle and bone — but having been to nearly every corner of Dartmoor, the headwaters of many river, and well more than two hundred tors, I’m ready to trade these brilliant waterlogged greens for whatever comes next.
In the hills to the west of Prescott ten days ago, my pace slowed and my breathing and heart rate climbed as I tried to get used to the elevation on the switchbacks above Blair Pass (around 2000 metres), passages from books I’d read years before slowly started to seep in at the edges of my senses. Anne Zwinger, Leslie Marmon Silko, Mary Austin, Colin Fletcher, Gloria Anzaldúa, Gretel Ehrlich, Terry Tempest Williams, and so many more. The place and pace opened my literary memory the way a hint of a smell can so readily transport us back to childhood. The largely open chaparral landscape with a few fire-scarred pinion pine here was drawing me both upward and into myself.
Terry Tempest Williams’ triptych, The Open Space of Democracy, has, with Gretel Erlich’s Solace of Open Spaces, long been a touchstone for my engagement with changing ecologies and the human communities that make their home within them. Williams’ opening essay, ‘Commencement,’ is a transcription of her graduation address at the University of Utah in 2003. With the shadow of September 11, 2001 then an inconceivably heavy weight upon so many, she asks ‘What does the open space of democracy look like?’ and offers,
‘In the open space of democracy, the health of the environment is seen as the wealth of our communities.
In the open space of democracy, beauty is not optional, but essential to our survival as a species. And technology is not rendered at the expense of life, but developed out of a reverence for life.
The open space of democracy is a landscape that encourages diversity and discourages conformity.
Democracy can also be messy and chaotic. It requires patience and persistence.
Democracy is an insecure landscape.’
Landscapes are always in flux, adaptable, and resilient, and unreservedly open to the world, as democracies must also be. Although I often find the solace of inner spaces seductive — the close focus, isolation and quiet a welcome respite from a fraught world, I’ve found more recently that letting go is also core to building resilience and can open to a sweeping outward spiral from contemplation to action — from spring to streamto sea — and invite a confluence of worlds to deeply enrich my own.
In recent years and with increasing urgency, I’ve taken these embodied moments, where inner and outer ecologies interweave, to build a framework for a similar adaptability and openness in learning, where practice-led, ecologically-focused and community-grounded learning serve as the foundation of education that is regenerative, democratic, accessible, distributed and deinstitutionalised. As Benjamin Freud has recently and succinctly put it, at its core, ‘Regeneration is about becoming with the world, it is about understanding that we are not separate from the world, entangled with every particle in the universe’. There are rich stories of regeneration everywhere to guide us; perhaps we just need to (re)learn how to listen to them.
Along her journey from Wyoming snowfields to the confluence with the Colorado, Ann Zwinger writes the layered ecologies and histories of the Green River into herself, seeing its meandering like lizard prints ‘calligraph the sand, precise patterns laid in loose, open arcs’. Even in the depths of the Desolation Canyon, openness prevails in each meandering arc and blossoms into invitation — to place, to self, to history, to time. Upstream from Zwinger, Gretel Ehrlich finds in the hardscrabble wind-swept beauty of Wyoming’s ranch country, ‘Everything in nature invites us constantly to be what we are. We are often like rivers: careless and forceful, timid and dangerous, lucid and muddied, eddying, gleaming, still’.
In my soon-to-be-published chapter in One Day in 2050: Clima Utopyas, I point toward an aspirational future, where systems and networks have opened across difference, and ‘The narrative of ‘I’ had yielded to the symphony of ‘we’, an all-encompassing paean of life sharing our radiant globe. ‘Ecology’ had faded, supplanted by ‘unity’, ‘harmony’, ‘symbiosis’ . . . [and] humans were no longer mere observers but engaged participants, active choreographers in the always emergent dance of life, finally at home.’
As I step into this new chapter of ground truthing, commencement and engagement, rather than drawing a recursive, circular path, I am more than ever part of an outward-unfurling spiral, with open heart, open arms, and open mind.
At a moment when continuing ecological crises and social inequities converge and manifest themselves at nearly every turn as are more insistent calls for systemic reform, it is heartening to see the convergence of innovative practices in education as we recognise the role of learning in identifying, exploring, trialling and implementing powerful new initiatives for driving forward change.
Recognising the limitations of current educational frameworks to meet the evolving demands of learners, human and more-than-human communities and our shared socio-ecological systems, there is an ever more urgent need to fundamentally reimagine and reshape an approach to education through a collaborative and regenerative approach. Following UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ plea for urgent collaborative action at COP28 — to ‘reject incrementalism. . . . One thing is for certain: “I win, you lose” is a recipe for collective failure‘, meaningful collective action is imperative.
Central to my engagement was a focus on regenerative learning — particularly as a way of reimagining education in a non-linear and living-systems design framework. The panel I was invited to join at the IHE annual conference was titled ‘Building sustainable independent higher education’ and included co-panelists Kirsten Scott, Head of Research at Istituto Marangoni and Jess Neil, Chief Executive of the Stephen Lawrence Day Foundation. Our focus was multi-fold, from a broad overview of the possibilities of regenerative framing to examples of participatory organisational structures and collaborative initiatives linking social justice and socio-ecological sustainability to asking ‘How might the Earth want us to design?’ Throughout the session and in the conversations that followed, it was clear that although our stories were different, we shared a commitment to co-creating and cultivating a thriving learning ecosystem that empowers all participants — students, teachers, directors, trustees, communities and more-than-human stakeholders — to flourish together in an evolving regenerative paradigm.
Building on the IHE event, KCWS brought together sessions on Educational Futures and the need to transform learning with shared my perspectives along with those of Keri Facer Professor of Educational and Social Futures at the University of Bristol; Chrissie Sorenson, Head of the Bavarian International School, Haimhausen; Cathy Garner, Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Lancaster; and Monika Schröttle, Political and Social Scientist at RWU. With threads of innovation from participatory student governance and decision-making to practice-led learning to decentralised university models, we again shared both our concerns for a wholesale transformation of higher education as well as compelling examples of what is already possible. For many of us, a key challenge is scaling this much-needed transformation so that innovation becomes foundational and sustainable for the long-term — all through an authentic process that draws from regenerative principles including:
Ecological Design and Living-Systems Thinking
Agency, Empowerment, Engagement
Adaptability and Resilience
Restoration and Renewal
Social and Ecological Justice
Distributed and Decentralised Networks
Diversity and Cultural & Historical Contexts
Reflection, Regeneration and Continual Feedback
Interdependence, Integration and Interdisciplinarity
Co-creation and Collaboration
Adaptation
Community, Bio-regional and Global Perspectives
Practice, Action and Impact
These two wonderfully generative panels at IHE and KCWS were prefaced for me by a visit with Sachin Nandha, Director of the ICfS, where I serve as a Fellow, during which we explored the applications of regenerative thinking in educational systems in (and across) the UK and India and considered places and partnerships to effect transformational regenerative change at scale. I immediately recognised in our discussion an aligned desire to build profound cross-sector collaborations (my bias being that education undergirds everything else!), and I am very excited to begin collaborative work with the Centre’s other Fellows and researchers as we start to move forward.
Finally, in my two days at MOME in Hungary, I met with several colleagues working at the forefront of European arts and design education who are already looking to a reimagined learning paradigm in arts, ecology and community from a bioregional perspective including deep cultural, agroecological and socio-ecological connections with the nearby Lake Balaton. The projects underway at MOME are themselves a significant leverage point at the transdisciplinary intersection of arts, ecology and democracy that are already beginning to move along an authentically regenerative pathway.
As Halla Tómasdóttir recently said about the ongoing COP28 on Outrage and Optimism with Tom Rivett-Carnac, ‘we all know, and have been saying for a while, that the solutions are there. This is not a question of us not having solutions. We also know there is plenty of money in the system. The missing piece is courageous leadership from all of us’. For me, the events of the past two weeks illustrate just this: innovation is certainly prevalent — particularly in small and often fragile and unconnected initiatives — leveraging the power of co-creation is what can be the catalyst for substantive transformation.
The past fortnight has been for me a testament to the growing recognition of the need for a transformative shift in education at all levels. From London to Bavaria to Budapest, the common thread weaving through my conversations has been the urgency to reshape learning in a way that moves us beyond simply sustaining an inadequate status quo and toward an approach that reimagines learning as practice-led, community-focused and ecologically-centred — an intersection where I have spent much of the last 20 years of my professional career.
Being part of these conversations has further solidified my belief in the power of collaboration and collective action and the immense possibilities inherent not only in individual innovation but in weaving together these many approaches to craft a fabric fit for our next generations of learners: It is time for us to reimagine, realise and regenerate — together.
Unde aether sidera pascit? Lucretius, De Rerum Natura I.231
On this World Philosophy Day, I find myself in the not-always comfortable position of recognising just how the ever-present movement of our world can pull, unravel, remake, and how stillness and rest are nonetheless intrinsic elements of our general dance through the world.
Yesterday saw me at the gym, perhaps embodying this (non)contradictory complexity when I was walking (rather than running) uphill (on a level floor) on a treadmill (rather than outside) as I continue to rehabilitate following a vertebra fracture after a fall 16 days ago. I counted the fractional kilometres as they digitally ticked by, watched the slope increase on the screen as I felt it steepen beneath me, and, over the better part of an hour, got nowhere at all, although my watch registered I’d walked precisely 5k.
Movement has been a profoundly important part of my life — across personal achievements and aspirations through my endurance running Climate Run project — and professional initiatives like designing the MA Movement Mind and Ecology at Schumacher College, undergraduate trail running and climbing courses I taught at Sterling College, and more recently an evolving engagement with networks and relationships, which draws from a life woven many strands, though here principally from my more than 30 years of endurance running and 20 years of academic leadership to help inform a (re)imagining of what active learning across networks — what the future of education — could become.
Much like Tim Morton suggests, always, ‘here is shot through with there‘, these ideas move through conversation, writing and practice — themselves building a relational network that is always in the process of becoming that
enfolds, refolds, reintegrates, generates, regenerates and spirals both inwards and outwards in an energetic dance that supports the whole while expanding outward to create new community clusters wherever tendrils of learning reach into new places, take root and flourish. (Cenkl, Transformative Learning)
This World Philosophy Day, UNESCO invites us to participate in a ‘collective exercise in free, reasoned and informed thinking on the major challenges of our time’. I would add not only that I wish we could devote more than a day to such thinking, but even more so that the practice and action engendered by free, reasoned, and informed thinking is more critical than ever. Urgently putting in practice
In the face of mounting ecological and social crises, the urgency for a public-facing philosophy is amplified. Such a philosophy inspires us not only to challenge definitions and enactments of power and ideology, but also to actively contribute to the creation of new regenerative networks and interconnections that foster relationships that are holistic, resilient, cooperative, inclusive, adaptive and living-systems oriented.
Although I hope to soon return to more fluid movement over undulating terrain, the fluid metronomic stillness of yesterday’s treadmill had me ‘daydreaming about something not real‘ whilst ideas coalesced and flowed through my emergent movements, shaping abstraction into expression as seed and dye into tapestry, weaving together threads of the tangible and ethereal in a dance of possibility.
A few reflections from RLN Founder Pavel on some recent regenerative learning successes:
I was reflecting today on some more recent ways that I have found in my now 20 years in academic leadership to put into practice the ideas behind regenerative learning. Apart from these programmes, the of my academic career in the shape of things I had ‘made’ — always with the help, guidance and support of expert colleagues, students and other stakeholders.
Transformative Education — a Master’s programme at Schumacher College developed in 2022-23. Inspired by the College’s three decades of community-focused head, heart and hands pedagogy, this programme explores the interwoven fabric of place-based learning, global pedagogies, complexity and ecological thinking. Students will be ‘guided to frame, develop, and practice skills that can help shift both thinking and practice to make meaningful change in relationships between the human and more-than-human world through their own development of curriculum, programme design, and framing of learning experience’.
Movement Mind and Ecology — a Master’s programme at Schumacher College established in 2020 and currently in its third year led by the exceptional team of RLN’s own Rachel Sweeney and Marie Hale. The programme’s focus on the intersection of ecological thinking, movement practice and environmental philosophy is a truly transdisciplinary engagement of how we can leverage our relationship with the more-than-human world through practice-led learning to facilitate authentic change in the world.
Local Leadership for Regenerative Food Systems — a programme begun in 2021 with the UNDP Conscious Food Systems Alliance (CoFSA). A truly globally distributed learning curriculum co-created from the ground-up with the help of a global Network of Local Hubs, to facilitate an equitable exchange of knowledge and experience for food systems practitioners of diverse backgrounds to develop the inner capacities needed to build regenerative and conscious food systems at grassroots level. The programme will be built of a series of dynamically interlinked modules offered both online and facilitated at site-based practice centres in locations around the world with plans to pilot the programme in 2024.
There are of course many more examples (and even more from my RLN colleagues!) — from regenerative agriculture programmes to integrating the management of learning and ecology in an organisational leadership framework to bioregion-based learning networks to implementing place-based and practice-led learning in hybrid and online settings — but as many of us struggle with what we can tangibly do and how we can best implement regenerative frameworks in our organisations, it’s helpful to reflect on what’s possible.
The possibilities of a new network philosophy that engages with principles of critical realism and system-oriented ontology points toward a new pathway that explores the role of ideology and power in relational network and organisational structures — one that could help articulate a level network ontology as an emergent relational space in the process of becoming.
Particularly in times of crisis — ecological, social, political, economic — global or organisational — there is an imperative for us to be open to entangling with the emergence of incipient and unexpected events inherent in complexity. In exploring what “making with” can mean in Times of Trouble, Dona Haraway concludes, we always only ever “become-with each other, compose and decompose each other, in every scale and register of time and stuff in sympoietic tangling, in ecological evolutionary developmental earthly worlding and unworlding.”
As a brief thought experiment — how might layering sympoiesis within architectures of network agency, ideology and power help us to re-imagine network and organisational structures? Can relationships themselves have agency? Drawing from influences of new materialism, movement philosophy, and critical realism (among other threads) can help focus the dynamic interplay of all material entities and interrogation of embedded binaries, boundaries and hierarchical structures, whilst recognising how ideologies shape actions, interactions and power relationships within organisations and networks such that they can also be reinforced, challenged, or transformed by these actions and interactions, which can, in turn, provide fertile terrain for reimagining organizations.
(Yes, I do note the length of the previous sentence — itself a meandering ideational desire line)
Though individually these concepts are not necessarily novel, imagining an organisational network within which desire lines are themselves active participants in shaping, relating, connecting and co-becoming within and across ideological performativities and embedded networks of power (think Žižek, Foucault, Deleuze & Guattari, and more), there is a new space to reimagine relationality, build alliances, and forge new collaborative pathways.
Engaging complexity across dynamic and adaptive ontologies and network structures, distributed agency, relational iterations and collaborative cultures, responsiveness and adaptability — all foundational tenets of new network and organizational design — can yield a level ontology where all not only entities, human or more-than-human, are seen as actants with agency, but where relational spaces (like links in a network) serve as active and fully engaged participants. In organizational design, this is apparent in flat, non-hierarchical structures which emphasise distributed agency, a commitment to regenerative culture, and an ethics embedded in ecological and social justice.
We must reimagine our networks and organisations through the lens of a level ontology and engage with the non-hierarchical, the inter-relational, and the evolving, charting a course towards a more adaptable, resilient, and just future. This journey, underpinned by the foundational tenets of new network and organisational design, challenges us to navigate uncertainty, adapt to change, and embrace possibilities presented by the incipient relational spaces we are co-creating. It is, in essence, an invitation to a new philosophy of networks and organisations — one where all entities and relational spaces are seen, heard, and valued equally in their dynamic interplay, and where resilience is built through our shared commitment to regenerative culture, ecological balance, and social justice.
Network Philosophy: Structures and Scholarship (Midjourney)
In the rapidly evolving landscape of learning network design, there’s a critical need to construct networks that are at the same time resilient and adaptable, equitable and accessible, authentically engage the human and more-than-human, and are capable of handling increasingly complex challenges. One response might be the speculative concept of the hybrid ecological network — a living synthesis of principles from material ecology, movement ecology and corridor ecology that allows a reimagining of distributed network design.
Midjourney – movement & material ecology
Material Ecology: Reimagining Nodes
Neri Oxman’s pioneering work in material ecology offers a robust framework for conceptualizing nodes within networks. Each node, akin to a unique material entity in Oxman’s schema, possesses inherent characteristics that enable complex interactions and gives each node a unique material identity (material ontology) that reflects a symbiosis between the human and more-than-human worlds.
Material ecology integrates design and computational biology with traditional fabrication and building processes. It emphasizes the idea that materials are not simply passive substances used to build objects; they participate in the ecological systems in which they’re situated.
If we apply this framework to network design, nodes in the network can be viewed as material entities with their own unique attributes, capabilities, and contexts. Nodes are no longer merely points of connection; instead, they’re akin to unique material entities possessing distinctive characteristics that influence their interactions and behaviour within a network.
In a speculative hybrid ecological network, ‘material’ characteristics could manifest in multiple ways — a node’s ability to process and generate information (its computational capacity), its connectivity to other nodes (its position within the network), or even its resilience in the face of network disruption.
These characteristics aren’t static — just like in Oxman’s articulation of material ecology, they’re continually shaped by their interaction with/in the network environment. A node might develop new ‘material’ characteristics (such as enhanced computational capacity) or lose others (like connectivity) based on its interaction with the rest of the network. This dynamism gives each node a unique material identity or ontology, reflecting the symbiotic relationship between nodes and their network environment.
This perspective enables a more nuanced understanding of networks. By acknowledging the inherent variability and dynamism of nodes, we can design more flexible, resilient networks that can adapt to changing circumstances—much like a natural ecosystem. This outlook resonates with the ethos of material ecology, where the synergy between design, materials, and environment leads to innovative and regenerative solutions.
Midjourney – envisioning network flows I
Movement Ecology: (Re)envisioning Network Flows
Thomas Nail’s exploration of movement ecology provides significant insights into understanding network flows. His theoretical perspective portrays information and ideas as migratory entities, subsequently reshaping the way we perceive the traversal of knowledge and ideas within networks.
Nail postulates that society is essentially constituted by movement, with entities (be they people, objects, or ideas) constantly in flux.
Applying Nail’s philosophy to network design, we can reframe the way we conceptualize the flow of information and ideas within networks. Rather than viewing data as static entities being transferred from point A to point B, Nail’s theories encourage us to see information and ideas as migratory entities.
In this paradigm, information (experience, knowledge, skills) moves, evolves, and interacts with the nodes it encounters, akin to how creatures migrate and interact with their environment in natural ecologies. Just as migratory patterns in nature aren’t purely linear but are influenced by various environmental factors and the organisms’ own agency, the traversal of knowledge and ideas within networks isn’t merely dictated by the network structure but is also influenced by the ‘behaviour’ of the information itself and the nodes with which it interacts.
For instance, some pieces of information might ‘migrate’ quickly across the network due to their relevance or urgency, while others might move slowly or even become ‘dormant.’ The nodes that this information encounters can be seen as ‘habitats’ (see corridors, below) that may alter the information, hold onto it temporarily, or help it evolve or develop further.
This dynamic view of network flows allows for a richer understanding of networks. By acknowledging the agency of information (leading to the potential autonomy of data objects) and the impact of nodes on its movement, we can create networks that are more adaptable and effective in facilitating the migration of knowledge and ideas. This conceptualization of networks as motion interweaves with the hybrid ecology view of networks as vibrant, living ecosystems.
Corridor Ecology: Pathways in Networks
Corridor ecology, an interdisciplinary field including biodiversity corridors and landscape linkages, lends principles crucial to designing pathways within networks. The proposed ‘corridors’ enhance inter-node connectivity and encourage diversity, mirroring the facilitation of movement and genetic diversity through biological corridors in nature.
Seeing network pathways as analogous to biodiversity corridors can open our perception of them as dynamic conduits that facilitate the flow of information and interactions, similar to how ecological corridors facilitate species movement. They are not just passive infrastructure but active and vital parts of the network that can adapt and evolve to better serve the network’s needs.
Ecological corridors are essential for connecting fragmented habitats, allowing species to move and interact — often over multiple generations — thereby enhancing biodiversity, resilience and integration with the surrounding environment. Similarly, in a network context, these ‘corridors’ or pathways can connect different nodes — individuals, groups or systems — and allow for steady, organic evolution of connections between nodes that might otherwise remain siloed from one another. They invite the transfer, mixing, and evolution of ideas and knowledge and foster intellectual diversity and innovation.
By designing pathways that facilitate diverse interactions, we can create networks that are not only more cohesive but also more resilient. These networks can better withstand shocks (such as the loss of a node or disruption to network connections) and are more adaptable, capable of evolving based on the needs of their nodes and the environment.
In addition, the concept of corridor ecology introduces the idea of ‘permeability,’ which refers to how conducive a landscape is to species movement. In network design, this would translate to how easily information and ideas can flow through the network. Designing a learning network with high permeability would mean creating pathways that enable the smooth and efficient flow of knowledge and ideas.
By integrating corridor ecology principles, we can transition from a perception of networks as static, rigid structures to an understanding of them as dynamic, adaptable, and resilient systems, much like ecological landscapes themselves.
Midjourney – envisioning network flows II
Computational Gradients
Computational gradients, representing the dynamic spectrum of data processing and learning capabilities, are incorporated into network design. Nodes adapt and evolve flexibly based on their interactions with the environment and other nodes, reinforcing the network’s dynamism. Gradients can represent the varied capacity of different nodes in the network (individuals, institutions, and technologies) to process, generate, and leverage knowledge and information. Some nodes, equipped with a deeper or richer constellation of resources or positioned advantageously within the network, might be situated on a ‘high’ gradient, processing, creating connections and sharing knowledge at a higher rate.
Conversely, nodes on a ‘low’ gradient might have limited access to information or the means to process it effectively. In a rapidly evolving digital society, the position on this gradient is not fixed; nodes can move along it, driven by technological advancements, education, and societal changes. In the context of a hybrid ecological network, capacities are not uniformly distributed but varied across a spectrum or gradient in a network, influenced by multiple social, economic, and technological factors.
Receptive Learning Networks
Incorporating the principles of receptive learning, nodes in the network transition from passive receivers to active learners, which draws from Bruno Latour’s ideas that networks are both constituted by and constitute their components, making them receptive as they respond to the characteristics and behaviours of their components. and other network theorists. This perspective introduces a radical openness wherein nodes absorb, process, and respond to new knowledge, thereby fostering a dynamic learning environment.
Traditionally, networks are seen as conduits for the transfer of information from one node (or point) to another. A receptive learning network proposes a significant shift in this paradigm. Drawing from the principles of receptive learning, nodes within the network are reimagined not as passive receivers but as active learners (akin to material, movement, and corridor ecologies). This shift is transformative, positioning each node as an active participant in the network, contributing to and shaping the information that flows within it. Each node actively contributes to the network, and the ‘shape’ or state of the network is continuously evolving based on the actions and interactions of its nodes.
Receptive learning, in essence, emphasizes the importance of active engagement and receptivity to new knowledge. In the context of networks, this translates to nodes that are capable of not just receiving but absorbing, processing, and responding to new information. This could mean refining or transforming the information based on the node’s unique context or generating completely new information as a result of learning processes.
In the context of a hybrid ecological network, each node—whether an individual, an organization, or an AI system—is continuously learning and adapting. This fosters a dynamic learning environment within the network, allowing it to stay responsive and resilient in the face of new information or changing contexts.
In essence, the network becomes a vibrant, living ecosystem of learning and adaptation, creating a complex, rich, and diverse environment for the generation and flow of knowledge and experience.
Emergence of Hybrid Ecological Networks
The integration of these ecologies invites a radically open framework that yields a speculative approach to network design that engages the complexity, interactivity, and adaptability found in natural ecosystems. This innovative design interweaves the complexities of material ecology, the directed flows of movement ecology, the interconnectedness of corridor ecology, the evolving computational gradients, and the dynamic principles of receptive learning. In this model, each node — whether an individual, an ecosystem, a more-than-human actor, a group, or automated system — actively engages in the learning process. Knowledge transfer thus evolves from a unidirectional process to a continuous cycle of interaction, adaptation, and evolution.
Each node in the network has the capacity itself to become an active participant more than just a passive presence — one capable of engaging with, processing, and responding to new knowledge and new experiences. This dynamicity and adaptability mark a radical departure from traditional, static network designs and open possibilities for the creation of more resilient, adaptable, and effective networks.
Hybrid ecological networks, while theoretical, underscore the potential of new transdisciplinary thinking, demonstrating how insights from diverse fields can converge to innovate upon established paradigms.
Given the escalating complexity of global ecological and social challenges, the demand for more resilient, adaptable, and interconnected learning networks is paramount. While speculative, hybrid ecological networks propose a dynamic revision of network design — one that embraces complexity, cultivates receptiveness, and advocates for continuous adaptation and learning. This transdisciplinary approach insists upon reimagining traditional boundaries, fostering dialogue and collaboration across different areas of expertise and highlighting the potential for innovation.
Framing a learning network as relational (drawing on Bruno Latour) can radically open learning to the complex web of interdependencies that exist across teachers, students, institutions, ecosystems, cultures, experiences, and indeed all parts of a learning network. In the context of practice-led learning, such networks underscore that learning is a shared endeavour grounded in authentic relationship – often through community practice, service, or shared activity inclusive of a full diversity of stakeholders allowing learning to be a cooperative evolving process influenced by multiple actors.
Receptive network ontologies further acknowledge the importance of openness to new ideas and different viewpoints in learning. The synergy between relational and receptive networks empowers learners to actively engage with a range of information sources and build their unique understanding. This shifts learners from passive recipients to active contributors and empowering them to explore, share, interrogate, and critically scrutinise information, practice, and experiences.
The combination of relational and receptive network ontologies offers a potent theoretical structure for understanding and promoting a reimagined learning paradigm that foregrounds relationship, receptivity co-creation and collaboration in an authentically distributed framework. Acknowledging learners’ interconnectedness and their openness to a diversity of knowledge and experience allows the co-creation of inclusive and participatory educational spaces.
Interweaving relational and receptive network ontologies emphasises learners, their agency, interconnectedness, and openness to diverse perspectives. By adopting this perspective, a de-institutionalised learning paradigm – such as a distributed network – can foster an environment that promotes active learning, collaboration, and critical engagement. Specifically, it can empower exploration in the following areas:
Distributed Agency: Agency would be distributed among all nodes – student, teacher, human and more-than-human, treating each as a valid and capable participant. This could translate into a network where participants are not just passive receivers and providers of information, but active participants that engage and shape the network in unique ways. Beyond an emphasis on nodes, the receptivity of such a network would give equal agency to connections and relationships as to objects in relation.
Collaborative Learning: A relational and distributed learning network would emphasize collaborative, experiential, and embodied learning. The network could facilitate interactive experiences, encourage peer-to-peer learning, and even integrate with physical or augmented reality environments to support embodied learning experiences.
Fluid and Dynamic Structures: Such a network would also have a fluid and dynamic structure, reflecting the constant flux and change of ecological complexity. Rather than being fixed and static, the network would continually adapt and evolve in response to the actions and interactions of its participants – human and more-than-human (from Aardvark to Albedo to AI)
Ethical and Inclusive Design: A key element braided together within an authentically de-institutionalised distributed network model is a foundation of ethical, inclusive, accessible and equitable design principles. The network would be designed to inclusively evolve, giving all nodes a voice in shaping network changes, and ensuring that adaptations don’t disadvantage certain groups. New identities that blend definitions of learner, teacher, and co-creator roles would be valued within the network and contribute to a diverse, vibrant learning ecosystem. Any accessible network would also engage in what EF Schumacher described as ‘appropriate technologies’, here in the context of minimal computing to empower ‘students to be their own arbiters of engagement’ (Lee Skallerup Bessette).
Development of new network identities: Finally, such a network (inspired as it is by the work of Karen Barad, Felix Guattari, Bruno Latour, Thomas Nail, Rosi Braidotti, Jussi Parikka and others) would necessarily break down barriers between node and relationship; between human and more-than-human; between learning and experience. A receptive relational network could yield an evolution in network identities, an ‘ecology of practices’ that ‘opens up a world: a world of relations, abstractions, spaces that turn into movements … and it becomes an onto-epistemological framework’ (Parikka).
Inroads into the development of distributed and relational learning are not entirely uncommon; however, engaging with dynamic learning networks in the context of institutional frameworks can prove challenging. Nonetheless, there are huge opportunities for learning in innovative network ecologies if learning is to continue to develop as a meaningful way to engage in the global ecological and social challenges that increasingly come to define this century.
What could higher education look like if we understand and engage with our world as a complex, integrated socioecological system?
This post outlines both theoretical framework and practical application of resilient learning networks in an ecologically-focused experiential higher education curriculum delivered in a hybrid online and site-based context. An ecosemiotic approach to curriculum design and delivery is introduced that situates humans as deeply enmeshed in a complex sympoietic network.
This multi-scale learning network is always already in the process of co-becoming, manifesting a world in which organisms communicate always in an unfinished processual dynamic.
A globally distributed site-based experience can build a far more resilient learning network than existing site-based, online, or hybrid higher education allows.
Our covid-influenced present and unpredictable future demand radical revision of higher education’s traditional forms of delivery. An ecosemiotic approach to scaffolding distributed site-based learning can help make a pathway toward a resilient, adaptive, and multi-scale curriculum.
a) Development of new network identities and ecologies for interspecies collaboratory spaces
Experiential learning is grounded in interspecies collaboration through enactivist approaches to help learners explore their relationships with the more-than-human world through embodied practice, site-based experience, and participant reflection.
It is essential to support learner understanding and exploration of interweaving network identities — from online learning networks to socioecological networks to local and bioregional networks that underscore the complexity of a multi-sited, multi-temporal, multi-species, and transdisciplinary learning network. Such an understanding must be embedded in the context of programme structure, delivery, and class rhythms.
b) Framing learning in a distributed global learning network (DGLN) in the context of our situatedness within a complex socioecological system
A distributed global leaning network is based on ecological systems and affords learners active co-creative engagement with delivery, projects, and assessments. Attributes include: non-linear dynamics; unpredictability; sympoietic co-organisation.
A globally distributed model integrates a diverse range of site-based experience from different locations in the world and thus creates a rich, complex ecosystem of experience shared across students and engaged with across reflections and formative and summative assessments. In a master’s programme, the breadth of socio-ecological engagement can build a broader, more solid and ultimately more resilient foundation for a final project or dissertation.
c) Deployment of learning clusters of colocated off-site students to enable face-to-face collaboration and experience when travel is not possible
On-site facilitation is key to support learners’ sensual engagement with more-than-human actors that are subsequently shared through both synchronous and asynchronous multi-media. Relationships with global partners able to support and facilitate student experience around the world is a key component to a successful and vibrant DGLN. Indeed, such a network fosters genuine collaborative two-way learning due to the unique nature of global site-based learning. The pedagogy and curricular frame are held online and enriched by a breadth of experience across the different participating sites in an approach that underscores decoloniality through the sharing and application of global ways of knowing and practice.
For example, in a postgraduate module on soil health (MSc Regenerative Farming, Food and Enterprise at Schumacher College), the course would frame theory and research methods whilst drawing on local knowledge, traditions, methods, and understanding of local socioecological networks in sites with very different climates, soil structures, and seasonality.
d) Equitable site-based facilitation of experience-based learning for all students, whether on or off campus
A key challenge for hybrid learning is the ability to provide equitable experience for on and off-site learners. An adaptive and distributed curriculum must be grounded in facilitated site-based experience through a robust learning network.
Typical hybrid or hybrid-flexible learning blends synchronous and asynchronous online learning to support simultaneous learning for students both on-site and off-site. The learning in the majority of settings is centralised and focused on the delivery of information and assessment. In a distributed model, learning is the network (to echo George Siemens’ Connectivism: Learning as Network Creation (2004)), and relationships among students, teachers and the more-than-human world are the foundation for a process-based enactivist approach to collaborative experiential learning.
e) Implementation of Next Generation Digital Learning Environments (NGDLEs) that integrate a self-organised set of tools to complement the use of a VLE or LMS.
NGDLEs comprise a complexity model and empower learners to identify appropriate tools for connecting ecosomatic practice and ecosemiotic engagement. Tools must be simple, student-aligned, and alive. If the development of a suite of online tools adapts to the systems-approach to learning, they can be adapted from simple platforms already used by students and supported by a learning management system (principally only as a platform for delivering content). In a co-created learning network, the tools may evolve and vary based on need, accessibility (including government censorship and bandwidth access).
For more on NGDLEs, visit the research published at Educause by Malcolm Brown, Jeffery Pomerantz, and D. Christopher Broooks. “The NGDLE: We are the Architects” is a good place to start.
Ultimately, an ecosemiotic approach to learning can help build a more regenerative and resilient model for higher education. A regenerative approach continually enfolds, adapts, and participates in complex socio-ecological system dynamics through acts of interspecies listening, co-creation, and collaboration. Further, an understanding of multi-level and large-scale socioecological resilience factors can help learning programmes to build a resilient relationship between human and more-than-human participants.
Maintaining diversity — among learners, tools, experiences, approaches, and means of access to learning
Establish and cultivating connectivity among network participants
Being receptive to feedbacks in an authentically regenerative model
Embracing complex thinking to enable new connections, new collaborations, and innovative ways of thinking that draw on a diversity of models — effectively leveraging a complex socioecological learning network to build new ways of knowing and practice.
Finally, a regenerative learning model — such as those developed at Schumacher College and Dartington Trust — grounded in an ecosemiotic approach that recognises the essential role that the development of place-based knowledge and practice through experience across diverse sites around the world is a key component of the future in the rapidly changing landscape of higher education.
Over the past year, I have been invited to participate in a number of different podcasts and interviews — on topics from endurance running to resilience to global learning networks. Please see the list below and enjoy!
Open Ambient is a soundscape project that employs ambient sound recording, data sonification, photography, GPS, and place-based experience in an exploration of the “Sugarbush” at Sterling College in Craftsbury Common, Vermont.
Over the spring, summer, and fall of 2018, I spent many hours in a 10 acre section of mixed hardwood forest that is dominated by more than 100 sugar maple trees, most of which are tapped each spring for their sap, which is then boiled in Sterling College’s sugarhouse to make maple syrup for use in the College kitchen.
One result of my time with the maples is a 4-track playlist of sounds inspired by the relationship between humans, the trees, and climate change.
The four tracks of Open Ambient: Maple Acoustics are a sonic exploration of the potential impacts of climate change on maple syrup production in the Sterling College, VT sugarbush. Data used to drive the music include the 2% ‘typical’ sugar content in sugar maple sap; a projected 20% decrease in sap sugar content by 2100; the 1.6% sugar content projected at the end of the century; and the 40:1 ratio of sap required to syrup produced, which will increase over time given projected warming temperatures. All 4 pieces are overlaid atop ambient sounds from the sugarbush recorded over 2 sessions in summer 2018.
“Open Ambient” is borrowed from the work of philosopher Susanne Langer.
Ecologies of Knowing 