Rethinking Human–Nature Relationships: Daoism’s Contribution to Transcultural Sociotechnical Imaginaries

Abstract

Humans’ imaginaries toward nature have profound implications for environmental governance and natural resource management strategies. Driven by relentless technological advancement, such imaginaries have undergone a series of transformations. Through a phenomenological and social constructivist perspective, this article aims to explore and explain the dynamics of transcultural sociotechnical imaginaries found in the connection between Western posthumanism’s relational perspective on humans, nonhuman entities, and agency, on the one hand, and the emphasis on human–nature unity in the Chinese Daoist tradition, on the other hand. We argue that, by displacing an anthropocentric and Eurocentric frame, such transnational deliberation efforts grounded in a relational, geo-centered, and mediated frame offer planetary viewpoints to tackle the vast challenges currently faced by humanity. This discourse provides an alternative way of thinking to approach current environmental governance and natural resource management practices in the context of the increasing interconnectedness and cultural plurality of globalization. Hence, this article suggests exploring the potentials of the ideas of dwelling, landscapes, new ecologies, and mutual embeddedness suggested by Daoism and critical more-than-human geography at a local scale, which will pave the way for pragmatic pluralism and cultivate new attitudinal dispositions and capacity for systemic change. Key Words: Daoism, environmental governance, human–nature relationship, postenlightenment, sociotechnical imaginaries.