D-transitional ecology

DIVYARAJSINH RANA

ECOLOGY refers to the networks or circuits that exist within an ecosystem or environment, and it is these networks that define us as humans, shape our beliefs, and connect us to nature as a whole. All through our daily lives, we are surrounded by ecologies, which can be hidden within an object, as simple as a newspaper, or as broad as the spaces in which we live and work. Designers contribute to the establishment of new ecologies or networks within existing ecologies by analyzing the components of a system in context and then building new relationships between these components by envisioning design products. Hence, ecologies expand, contract, vanish, and transition daily as a result of newer design interventions, due to changes in our relationship with nature, the emergence of new technologies, evolving traditions, and changing climate conditions.

These transitional ecologies are critical for discussion now, since we are not currently on a path towards sustainable futures for the larger earth ecosystem in which we live. On the other hand, with newer digital innovations such as AI or Google Lens, as well as digital products such as Alexa or VR headsets, we are deeply interwoven within this manmade digital ecology. Today, it is impossible for us to perceive anything without the frame of the digital being present. Recall the last time you may have been in nature without any digital gadgets, enjoying through the naked eyes. Today, this experience is shifted into the small screen of phone cameras, and thus we have started perceiving nature through the frame of digital. Not to mention the circumstance of Covid 19, which has accelerated this digital ecology to even bring in the real-life experience now into digital space where physical interactions have been replaced by virtual interactions – whether it is between humans or with nature.

Hence, digital technology is a constant factor towards transforming our relationship with both human and more than human worlds. This article is written to comprehend how our relationship with nature is changing (and contributing to unsustainable existences) and how digital is shaping and can reshape our current understanding of nature, driving us to develop a new set of networks and
thus ecology. We refer to this as D-Transitional Ecology. Here, rather than criticizing digital, it is accepted as a part of our daily life as a tool that may transform our current unsustainable ways of thinking about nature. Beginning with secondary data analysis for transitional ecologies concerned with human-nature interactions and progressing to digital ecologies concerned with human-digital interactions, this article presents a case study at these intersections to culminate into defining the larger concept of D-Transitional Ecology.

The underlying premise of capitalism is that material and economic prosperity is to be sustained by viewing nature as a resource pool for extraction, with individuals competing with one another for a progressing part of the wealth derived from it. This belief has led us down an unsustainable path, with rising global warming, increasing natural disasters in human history, and the emergence of unprecedented scenarios like Covid-19, forcing us to rethink humanity on an ecological level. To have any impact on how we and our society operate in terms of sustain-ability, a transitional strategy at the level of human behaviour is required, rather than Fischer and Clive’s ‘fiddling around the edges’ or Lindblom’s ‘muddling through’. To comprehend the consequences of changing earth ecology, we must first comprehend our relationships with regional earth systems, local ecologies, and reimagine nonhuman worlds as active actors rather than a passive reservoir of resources.

Transitional change in societal values towards nature must occur on three levels: first, at an ethical level of being responsible in our interactions with other humans and nature; second, at an integrational level of considering ourselves as part of a larger community of nature; and third, at a reimagination level of valuing both human and more than human worlds. According to Clive, there are three viable methods for modifying human behavior towards nature by: (i) imposing social stigma or legal penalty; (ii) changing one’s mind; and (iii) changing one’s motivation. Transitional ecology can be defined at the intersection of these defined networks of transitional change and methods for bringing this change.

Transitional ecology can be outlined as the ‘networks or circuits that are designed to exist at the intersection of human-nature relationships for ethical, integrational, or value level change, either through legal actions or by reshaping our human beliefs and motivations towards more than human worlds in order to redefine humans as part of the larger web of life of the ecosystem.’

The current trajectory towards transitional ecology requires transparency, inclusivity, and accountability using data and information to raise awareness of the state of our planet, influence consumer behavior, inform markets, reframe policies, and alter governance structures. How, one could wonder, are such transformational conversations and actions possible towards the establishment of newer networks of transitional ecologies? This question may be answered by information. Information has enormous potential to be used as a powerful resource for developing resistance to the ways in which modernist ontologies offer nature as a resource to be exploited, as well as for better understanding challenges and threats to develop targeted interventions and actions for a more sustainable and inclusive futures. On the other hand, intelligent-interactive digital technologies are becoming an increasingly important element of our daily life.

In this digital context, information is far more easily accessible, and audiences are turning into active participants in various public discourses on nature issues, thus leading to a development
of ‘pluralistic, participatory, and social’ digital ecology. This digital ecology is a tool for presenting information on transitions, which is the further discussed in the following section of the article.

Many scholars and practitioners have defined digital ecology in a range of manners. Forlizzi characterizes it as a product ecology, Jung et al. as personal ecology, Nardi and O’Day as information ecology, Vyas and Dix as artefact ecologies, Goumopoulos and Kameas as ambient ecologies, Resmini and Rosati as ubiquitous ecologies, and Enquist et al. as interaction ecologies. Three of these definitions have a strong theoretical foundation: product ecologies, personal ecologies, and information ecologies. Personal ecologies focus on a single user and generalize by examining how diverse digital artefacts are used by a single user, whereas product ecologies focus on digital products and generalize by researching how different users engage with them. The research that focuses on these two definitions allows for a better understanding of how a digital ecology is experienced as well as interwoven into people’s daily lives.

Information ecology is a system of people, practices, values, and technologies in a specific local context. The research that focuses on this concept provides for an understanding of digital ecology keeping information at the centre to examine the intricate relationships between humans and digital artefacts. Raptis et al. combined these definitions to outline digital ecology as ‘A closed set of digital and non-digital artifacts and a user acting as nodes of a network where its boundaries are specified by an activity and the structure and patterns of organization are either user and/or designer defined.’

Digital information is all around us nowadays. People can access this information on platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, blogging sites such as WordPress, organizational websites, digital archives, and many others arising. Digital ecologies offer us opportunities, can impact our habits, and improve our current practices by making information easily accessible and available to us. Let us return to the question: ‘What if designing digital ecologies may also facilitate transformational conversations and actions towards the development of newer networks of transitional ecologies?’

A digital ecology presenting information related to nature and more than human worlds and transitions within the same can be envisioned, which can provide us with improved ability to make informed decisions at the intersection of economy, society, and nature and devise action towards more sustainable future trajectories. This digital ecology might contain transitional narratives and information about the current state of the environ-ment and how human actions are contributing to this devastation we are facing today. This digital ecology can thus become D-Transitional Ecology, and we will describe it further by giving an example of a designed digital ecology of the ‘What is Missing?’ digital archive.

What is Missing? is a multi-sited memorial designed by Maya Lin to raise awareness about the current sixth mass extinction of species and to connect the cause of extinction to habitat loss and global degradation. This project is intended to be a memory map, focused on the bigger question: ‘How can we protect it if we don’t realize it’s missing?’ This designed ecology map displays the natural histories of habitats, species, waterways, cities, and current issues worldwide. It is an open invitation platform that allows everyone to contribute their own memory or story about something that has vanished or been conserved from the natural world. It seeks to create a collective memory of the planet by combining short videos, sound recordings, ecological histories, and personal memories to produce a sense of environmental ‘diminishment’, connecting the user at the micro level to both the quantity and quality of biodiversity loss using digital technology.

As Ladino defines it, this digital space is grappling with slow violence and global change, which, while not normally felt rapidly at the scale of everyday human experience, is accelerated when portrayed geologically. Not only does this digital archive clarify the issue, but it also presents solutions and possibilities of plausible sustainable futures within this digital environment, allowing us to reconsider our relationship with nature and giving us hope to make a difference at an individual level.

The outcomes of this digital project range from the construction of archives that serve as memory sites to inspiring action by conserving personal voices and memories related to natural worlds. This digital archive sits at the crossroads of Tom Schofield’s concept of ‘archival liveness’ with Jarret Drake’s concept of ‘liberatory archive’, in which participants are active contributors of archival material and can see the archive grow and maintained in the present, with new memories and stories being added every day. Initiatives like these enable the dissemination of digital information that fosters change in the present by broadening the archive’s temporal scope through its continuous community-based development, as well as its importance in imagining alternate futures with a focus on transitional ecologies.

The information contained within such archives can be used not only to react to the past, but also to build or rebuild memory and action towards a sustainable future. It recognizes itself as a site of the future, a place where resilience and transition can flourish through its interactive design. The struggles that may not be clearly evident here is the authenticity of the information fed into the archive, as well as the dissemination of many mediums and articulation of memories-based perception of the natural world. Labeling this collection as a digital ecology or a transitional ecology is not only difficult, but also impossible, and would not do justice to the designer’s vision of this designed ecology. Subsequently, it can be classified as a D-Transitional Ecology, defined at the intersection of transitional and digital ecology.

Transitional ecology which is outlined as the ‘networks or circuits that are designed to exist at the intersection of human-nature relationships for ethical, integrational, or value level change, either through legal actions or by reshaping our human beliefs and motivations towards more than human worlds in order to redefine humans as part of the larger web of life’ in this essay. And considering the accepted unified definition of digital ecology by Raptis et al. which is ‘A closed set of digital and non-digital artifacts and a user acting as nodes of a network where its boundaries are specified by an activity and the structure and patterns of organization are either user and/or designer defined.’

The D-Transitional Ecology can be defined at the intersection of these definition as ‘A digital ecology of information designed to exist at the intersection of human-nature relationships, with humans and nature acting as nodes in a network for ethical, integrational, or value level transformations in our existing unsustainable human beliefs and motivations towards worlds other than human.’

This definition, following from arguments presented in this essay and responding to the case of ‘What is Missing?’ remains subjective to the author and his knowledge of transitional and digital ecology. Though it adds to this ‘Carnival of Ecologies’, it also calls for more research to be undertaken at these intersections of digital and transitions, while keeping transition design at the core. Further work could investigate the topics of authenticity of information related to nature transitions in digital environments, differences of physical and digital experiences of information on nature transitions, or more case studies to test the validity or evolution of the definition presented here to further expand on the concept of D-Transitional Ecologies.

References

Michelle Caswell, ‘Inventing New Archival Imaginaries: Theoretical Foundations for Identity-Based Community Archives’, in Dominique Daniel and Amalia S. Levi (eds.), Identity Palimpsests: Archiving Ethnicity in the U.S. and Canada. Litwin Books, Sacramento, California, 2014, pp. 35-55.

A. Clive, M. Leonie, G. Justin, J. Brian, J. William, H. Anne and R. Paul, ‘Transformational Change: Creating a Safe Operating Space for Humanity’, Ecology and Society, 2015, pp.56-57 https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-07181-200156.

Jarrett M. Drake, ‘Liberatory Archives: Towards Belonging and Believing’. Keynote presentation at the Community Archives Forum, Los Angeles, 2016. https://medium .com/on-archivy/liberatory-archives-towards-belonging-and-believing-part-1 d26aaeb0edd1.

J. Fischer, R. Dyball, I. Fazey, C. Gross, S. Dovers, P.R. Ehrlich, R.J. Brulle, C. Christensen and R.J. Borden, ‘Human Behaviour and Sustainability’, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 10, 2012, pp.153-160. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/110079

C. Hamilton, Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth About Climate Change. Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2010.

Jennifer K. Ladino, ‘What is Missing? An Affective Digital Environmental Humanities’, Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities 5(2), 2018, p 189. doi:10.5250/RESILIENCE.5.2.0189.

Maya Lin, ‘Maya Lin: A Memorial to a Vanishing Natural World’, Interview by Diane Toomey, Yale Environment 360, 2012. http:// e360.yale.edu/feature /maya _lin _a _memorial _to _a _vanishing _natural _world /2545/.

C.E. Lindblom, ‘The Science of “Muddling Through”,’ Public Administration Review 19, 1959, pp. 79-88. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/973677

Dimitrios Raptis, Jesper Kjeldskov, Mikael Skov & Jeni Paay, ‘What is a Digital Ecology? Theoretical Foundations and a Unified Definition’, Australian Journal of Intelligent Information Processing Systems 13(4), 2014.