Relationality

This important new book argues that at the root of the contemporary crisis of climate, energy, food, inequality, and meaning is a certain core presupposition that structures the ways in which we live, think, act and design: the assumption of dualism, or the fundamental separateness of things.

The authors contend that the key to constructing livable worlds lies in the cultivation of ways of knowing and acting based on a profound awareness of the fundamental interdependence of everything that exists - what they refer to as relationality. This shift in paradigm is necessary for healing our bodies, ecosystems, cities, and the planet at large.

The book follows two interwoven threads of argumentation: on the one hand, it explains and exemplifies the modes of operation and the dire consequences of non-relational living; on the other, it elucidates the nature of relationality and explores how it is embodied in transformative practices in multiple spheres of life.

The authors provide an instructive account of the philosophical, scientific, social, and political sources of relational theory and action, with the aim of illuminating the transition from living within seemingly ineluctable 'toxic loops' of unrelational living (based on ontological dualism), to living within 'relational weaves' which we might co-create with multiple human and nonhuman others.

Arturo Escobar, Michal Osterweil and Kriti Sharma

Introduction: Coming Up against the Nonrelational 1. Rethinking and Reweaving the Web of Life: Relationality in Four Dimensions 2. The Epistemological and Political Failures and Promises of Theories of Relationality 3. Sources and practices for Relational Living 4. The Political Activation of Relationality 5. Designing Relationally: Enacting Pluriversal Forms of World-making Conclusion: Making (a Relational) Reality into a Reality