Group Facilitation on Societal Disruption and Collapse: Insights from Deep Adaptation

Jem Bendell,Katie Carr

doi:10.3390/su13116280

Abstract

This article synthesises the practice and rationale behind ways of facilitating gatherings on topics of societal disruption and collapse, which is argued to be useful for lessening damaging responses. The authors draw on first-person inquiry as facilitators of gatherings, both online and in person, in the post-sustainability field of ‘Deep Adaptation,’ particularly since 2018. This term describes an agenda and framework for people who believe in the probable, inevitable or unfolding collapse of industrial consumer societies, due to the direct and indirect impacts of human-caused climate change and environmental degradation. Some of the principles of Deep Adaptation facilitation are summarised, such as containment, to enable co-responsibility for a safe enough space for difficult conversations. Another key principle is welcoming radical uncertainty in response to the anxieties that people feel from their anticipation of collapse. A third principle is making space for difficult emotions, which are welcomed as a natural and ongoing response to our predicament. A fourth aspect is a curiosity about processes of othering and separation. This paper provides a review of the theories that a reason for environmental destruction is the process of othering people and nature as being less significant or meaningful. One particular modality called Deep Relating is outlined.

Highlights

The call for papers for this Special Issue recognised the extent of destruction occurring in the natural world as well as the dangerous situation our civilisation is in.Recognising that environmentally-influenced societal disruption is already underway, the editors asked us “How can we disrupt the practices, structures, values, norms, manufacturing processes, relationships and/or foundational principles that form our thinking around organisations and guide our behaviour within them?” Their question was not about the established organisational domains of either positive ‘disruptive innovation’ or the ‘business continuity’ that is sought in the face of external stressors
It was in response to a perceived inevitability of disruptive change being forced upon organisations and societies and the implicit realisation that certain “foundational principles” in our organisations, societies, markets, and inner selves could be implicated as causal in those disruptive changes [1]
This article responds to those questions by explaining and justifying an approach to the facilitation of group processes for facing societal disruption which explicitly invites participants to relate in ways that are different to what we, your authors, perceive to be problematic foundational principles for relating in modern societies

Summary

Introduction

Recognising that environmentally-influenced societal disruption is already underway, the editors asked us “How can we disrupt the practices, structures, values, norms, manufacturing processes, relationships and/or foundational principles that form our thinking around organisations and guide our behaviour within them?” Their question was not about the established organisational domains of either positive ‘disruptive innovation’ or the ‘business continuity’ that is sought in the face of external stressors. The editors asked us “How might rapid changes in social norms be achieved so as to prioritise pro-environmental values such as benevolence?” [2]. This article responds to those questions by explaining and justifying an approach to the facilitation of group processes for facing societal disruption which explicitly invites participants to relate in ways that are different to what we, your authors, perceive to be problematic foundational principles for relating in modern societies ( in organisations). Our aim for sharing this new approach to facilitation is to offer a modality for people seeking to be helpful in a post-sustainability era, where past hopes seem less valid or motivating [3]

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