The importance of relationality: A note on co-determinism, multispecies relationships and implications for COVID-19.

Abstract

The paper aims to highlight the importance of subjective, objective and intersubjective domains when engaging in public education and research on wicked problems such as violence, poverty, climate change, loss of habitat and pandemics. The case is made that critical systemic thinking and practice—underpinned by a meta Design of Inquiring Systems—could help to foster a more relational response to the convergent social, economic and environmental policy challenges that pose ‘existential risks’. This paper explores the implications of ‘mismeasuring our lives’ by not understanding relationality. It reflects on the factors that are linked with the ‘unravelling’ of well‐being, in order to prevent and restore the multispecies relationships that have been forgotten. This requires a bio‐political approach to reframing not only economics but our relationships with one another and with nature. ‘Power and knowledge are linked’ and nowhere is Foucault's linkage more marked than in the biopolitical determination of what species are valued and why. Taxonomies are constructs based on values that need to be carefully considered in terms of the consequences of policy decisions.