Rediscovering place and accounting space: how to re-embed the human economy

Abstract

This article proposes to move beyond monetary assessments of ecosystem services in order to counteract an important mechanism behind their current undervaluation: the process of disembedding. Disembedding describes the influence of modernity on social relationships. It also clarifies how Human-Nature relationships have been affected. Modern societies have become disembedded from the context of local ecosystems, resulting in diminishing knowledge of, and attention to, ecosystem services. The emergence of general purpose money is presented as a key factor in the disembedding process because it has brought with it the message of substitutability and the possibility of an increasing appropriation of distant ecosystems. The paper argues that, in order to re-embed societies instead of pursuing current trends, the limits to human expansion in the biosphere have to be made visible. Therefore, a strategy of re-embedding the human economy into the life-support context is put forward, where bioregional thought and its intention of rediscovering, mapping, and ‘re-inhabiting’ local places is combined with the ecological footprint tool. In contrast to monetary assessments of ecosystem services, the ecological footprint assessment presents the limits of the services’ availability, and thus clarifies the fact that increased appropriation of bio-productive space normally involves increasing pressure on remaining ecosystems.