The Ecology of Life: Science, Craft and Biodiversity

Abstract

This paper argues that the crafts provide an alternative to the (unsustainable) scientific view of the world and have a distinctive role to play in defining new pathways to sustainability conceived of as “the art of longevity”, i.e. the long-term, strategic thinking that promotes effective stewardship of the world natural, social, and economic resources. To date, the majority of studies on pathways to sustainability have neglected or under-explored the possibilities that the crafts and craftsmanship represent for sustainability thinking and movement.

Based upon an anthropological discussion of the different worldviews, philosophies and ethos of the crafts and science, this paper provocatively argues that the shift towards more sustainable societies and life styles requires of more crafts and less science. It does so by using the example of biodiversity, the current rapid loss of which is taken as one of the major indicators of the unsustainability of the current state of affairs. Defined conventionally as “the wide variety of ecosystems and living organisms: animals, plants, their habitats and their genes”, the scientific view of biodiversity excludes humans and considers them as a threat to nature. This scientific view of the world, premised upon the principle
of detachment and upon a model of life that radically disjoins Humans from Nature, lies at the core of the current environmental, economic and societal crisis. Craft ethos based upon practice not only does question the separation between humans and nature, but it also presents the possibility of a genuine
“ecology of life” that stems from the principle of engagement with, rather thandetachment from, the world. As such, it provides a better way to conceptualize a notion of the environment in which humans are an integral rather than a separate part of the earth community, and helps theorizing the relationship between humans and their environment in terms of stewardship rather than exploitation.