Nonhuman Ecosystems Research Articles

Buddha and nature as depicted in Aśvaghoṣa’s buddhacarita

This paper emphasizes the deep interdependence of nature and the Buddha as depicted in Buddhacarita of Aśvaghoṣa Bodhisattva. The text contends that the Buddha was inextricably linked with the natural world throughout his life. Nature is the Buddha's ally in the path to enlightenment, cultivating a deep regard for nature's extraordinary beauty and diversity. The accounts of the Buddha's life in Buddhacarita are difficult to divide between stories, facts, and myths. Many plants, flowers, animals, and trees are linked to Buddha's life story. Animals affected the Buddha's yearning for Nibbāna; observing the suffering of both mankind and animals motivated him to seek enlightenment. Furthermore, the Buddha's relationship with natural events is portrayed as one of the Buddha's vast and amazing traits. This paper employs the literary analysis method on three well-known English translations. The first is The Buddhacarita, or Acts of the Buddha, which E.H. Johnson translated from Sanskrit and augmented with the Tibetan version. The second is E.B. Cowell's translation from Sanskrit titled The Buddhacarita of Aśvaghoṣa. The last is Samuel Beal's translation from Chinese of The Fo-Sho-Hing-Tsan-King. According to the findings, Buddha's life is a remarkable example of the close relationship between humans and nature. It serves as a reminder that human and nonhuman ecosystems are intrinsically linked and intertwined.

Impact and implications for practice

Impact and implications for practice

Impoverishing Moral Ecologies

In this paper I consider the notion of “moral ecology” in relation to the social/cultural construction known as “narco-culture.” My claim is that the moral ecology of narco-culture is one that is both destructive and prohibitive of human flourishing. The general idea of a “moral ecology” is that the moral space of human conviviality is not unlike an ecological, or environmental, space—both are constituted by various interdependent relations which, when working harmoniously and in optimal capacity, maintain the overall well-being of its inhabitants (i.e., human agents or the flora and fauna). Within non-human ecosystems, the quality or health of rivers, trees, earth, air, predator-prey relationships, etc., define what Allen Hertzke calls the system’s “carrying capacity.” The carrying capacity refers to what the system can handle while staying balanced and healthy and also indicates the point beyond which the system, if overburdened or degraded, begins to fall apart. In a social setting, the ecology is constituted by moral rules and behaviors, the degradation of which can cause the degradation of the entire system.

Sustainable business model innovation and ethics: A conceptual review from the institutional theory addressing (un)sustainability

Being this a period when human activities and creations profoundly alter many geological conditions and processes, here we conceptualise how the sustainable innovation of business models acts as yet another lever for the dissemination of human misbehaviours against the planet and its ecosystems. Departing from the Institutional Theory approach to entrepreneurship and sustainability, we identified institutional and ethical standards and norms that allow a better understanding of the institutional logic behind sustainable business model (SBM) innovation, how it is formed and its consequences in terms of inequity, oppression and exclusion. We have linked those standards with 12 constructs that can guide further empirical analyses; incubators, trainers, investors and policy makers could use them to support entrepreneurs avoid planet challenges and enhance human and non-human ecosystems.

Vocal Performance Through Electrical Flows: Making Current Kin

What do we hear in a human voice that vibrates through electrical flows? In this paper I argue for listening (and vocalizing) beyond the human in performances with audio media. I propose understanding such performance practice as engaging with what I call plasmatic voice, a phenomenon distinct from the merely additive, prosthetic conception of voice + electricity. Instead, plasmatic voice functions as instances of queer assemblage stretching to reach the radically Other that constitutes ourselves—facilitating the sense of what Alaimo (2010) terms transcorporeality, an understanding of human embodiment as “intermeshed with the more-than-human world” (2). The vibrations of plasmatic voice—as an example of Eidsheim’s (2015) intermaterial vibrational practice—loosen (post)human social constructs of race and gender and reverberate with nonhuman ecosystems, as I illustrate through analysis of musical examples.

Global Change and the Soil Microbiome: A Human-Health Perspective

The importance of the gut and the soil microbiomes as determinants of human and ecosystem health, respectively, is gaining rapid acceptation in the medical and ecological literatures. This suggests that there is a wealth of highly transferable knowledge about the microbial ecology of human and non-human ecosystems that is currently being generated in parallel, but mostly in isolation from one another. I suggest that effectively sharing this knowledge could greatly help at more efficiently understanding and restoring human health and the functioning of ecosystems, which are currently under wide-spread pressure. I illustrate this by comparing the effects of nitrogen deposition on ecosystem carbon sequestration with unhealthy dietary habits and human disease. The deposition of N, a key nutrient for plant growth, may increase carbon sequestration (equivalent to obesity) through several mechanisms, including a reduction in the ability of soil microbes to process organic matter, which some argue could help mitigate climate change. However, this usually results in a degradation of ecosystem health and, thus, cannot represent a real solution. Similarly, human obesity is linked to an alteration of the composition and functioning of microbial communities inhabiting the gut, which is often attributed to unhealthy dietary habits, including ingesting high amounts of simple sugars and processed foods. Finally, I advocate for the explicit recognition of the many commonalities between the functioning of the gut and ecosystems and a broader multidisciplinary collaboration among experts in ecology and human health, including the engineering of soil microbial communities designed ad-hoc to restore ecosystem health.

Remarkable Properties of Human Ecosystems

This paper explores some of the that set human ecosystems apart from nonhuman ecosystems. The identification of these provides a framework for bridging the theoretical and methodological divide between biological ecology and human ecology. The unique information-processing capability of humans in ecosystems is central to this framework. We discuss several manifestations of human cognitive and behavioral abilities, termed remarkable properties of human ecosystems. A cross-cultural and historical approach is taken in demonstrating some of these properties. Related to these are the ways in which complex functional and dysfunctional or maladaptive processes take place in human ecosystems. We assert that one of the greatest challenges for human ecology is to integrate belief systems as a major component of human ecosystems.

Faludi, Fight Club, and Phallic Masculinity: Exploring the Emasculating Economics of Patriarchy

Both Susan Faludi's Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man (text) and the film Fight Club (image) insist that men have been emasculated by consumerism; that the post-war legacy of the so-called good life has shifted men from active, heroic, confrontational roles into the passive, ornamental roles usually assigned to women; and that, without a Great Depression, or Great War, or any other dragon to slay, emasculated men have become imprisoned in their job cubicles and possessed by their possessions, often with not only negative, but even violent repercussions. Ecofeminism and ecotheology provide the tools for better understanding this idolatrous false god of consumerism, as well as for beginning to explore how the economics of plenty affect seemingly privileged men. Importantly, however, this study does not further privilege the already privileged, but seeks instead to understand how the globalizing economy negatively impacts both the human poor and the nonhuman ecosystems which altogether constitute our fragile planet (including population growth and environmental racism). Finally, the essay pushes beyond deconstructive criticism to explore “green” alternatives—at once returning to the masculinity/economics issues in popular culture, insisting on the need for both an economic theory and a value system that do not reduce all value to monetary terms, and seeking a renewed commitment to relational justice in ecosystemic communities. Here, Faludi and Fight Club part company, the latter focusing not on community but upon the heterosexist isolationism and individualism which others argue is a symptom, perhaps even a cause, and certainly not the solution for our current economic and environmental woes.