90
Subtle Agroecologies
Development over larger scales and longer time horizons can thus become an evolutionary growth
process (Smitsman and Smitsman, 2020).
Our mainstream growth models have a tendency to focus only on the quantitative dimensions of
growth, based on a mechanistic and dualistic worldview of the reality of life and the process of evolution. Instead of seeing life as a unifed, interdependent and interconnected reality, life is perceived
in a dualistic manner in which the external and internal are regarded as separate realities, and where
the world is seen in terms of random events of separate particles. This mechanistic worldview also
has a tendency to create extractive degenerative growth dynamics and constantly polarised, win–
lose divisions, which have brought not only us but also millions of other species, and even possibly
the entire biosphere of Gaia, to the brink of extinction.
Over the last 50 years, we have reduced biodiversity by half (IPCC, 2018; WWF, 2018). The
anthropogenic damage to our planetary ecosystems, biodiversity resilience and climate systems
extensively evidences that we are triggering the sixth mass extinction event in our planet’s history
(Meyer, 2019). The recent renaming of our age from the Holocene to the Anthropocene (Zalasiewicz
et al., 2016), due to the irreversible human impacts on the geosphere and biosphere of our planet, indicates the urgency for seriously examining how to change our societal models (Bauer and Ellis, 2018).
In order to transform our growth and development models, and our mechanistic, separatist systems, we frst need to become aware of and address our dualistic relationship with food and the
ecology of life (Haukeland, 2013; Smitsman et al., 2019). The concept of sustainable development
was initially adopted to address the impacts of these mechanistic systems, with the Brundtland
Commission of 1987 coining the term and defning sustainable development as development that
meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their
own needs (Brundtland et al., 1987: 1). Through the years that followed, the concept of sustainable
development expanded to include the safeguarding of the Earth’s life-support systems on which the
welfare of current and future generations depends (Griggs et al., 2013). Whilst this focus on safeguarding is important, it does not invite people to participate in a transformational change process
that invokes their own evolutionary development.
We therefore offer the concept of thrivability, or our ability to thrive, as the transformational
change process that invites people into a generative and evolutionary model that is both life-centred
and future-oriented. To better understand what we mean by thrivability, we offer the following defnition by Anneloes Smitsman, based on her PhD research on this topic:
Thrivability is the Life-intrinsic developmental potential for our self actualizing evolutionary growth.
Thrivability as a developmental potential unfolds through an ecosystemic evolutionary learning process. Through this process we develop the future creative capabilities, awareness, and love to enact and
embody the actualization of the thrivability potentials within the worlds and systems of which we form
part. Embodied, these potentialities become possibilities for further growth and development in a way
that is Life generative and creates conditions for each of us, and Life as a whole, to thrive.
Anneloes Smitsman (2019: 37)
A thrivability growth model, as will be explained further in greater detail, seeks to safeguard and
strengthen the vital conditions of life that should never be sacrifced in the pursuit of food and
resource development. With a broader focus, thrivability also invites us to explore the conditions
and qualities of food cultivation systems and consumption patterns that honour and support our
reciprocity, mutuality and inter-being with Gaia and the larger ecology of life.
THE COST OF CONVENTIONAL PROGRESS
When considered from an ecological whole-system perspective, the question ‘what are progress
and success?’ provides a very different focus and narrative compared to how it continues to be
defned by our mainstream economic, political and educational systems (Brewer and Smitsman,
Subtle Agroecologies
Development over larger scales and longer time horizons can thus become an evolutionary growth
process (Smitsman and Smitsman, 2020).
Our mainstream growth models have a tendency to focus only on the quantitative dimensions of
growth, based on a mechanistic and dualistic worldview of the reality of life and the process of evolution. Instead of seeing life as a unifed, interdependent and interconnected reality, life is perceived
in a dualistic manner in which the external and internal are regarded as separate realities, and where
the world is seen in terms of random events of separate particles. This mechanistic worldview also
has a tendency to create extractive degenerative growth dynamics and constantly polarised, win–
lose divisions, which have brought not only us but also millions of other species, and even possibly
the entire biosphere of Gaia, to the brink of extinction.
Over the last 50 years, we have reduced biodiversity by half (IPCC, 2018; WWF, 2018). The
anthropogenic damage to our planetary ecosystems, biodiversity resilience and climate systems
extensively evidences that we are triggering the sixth mass extinction event in our planet’s history
(Meyer, 2019). The recent renaming of our age from the Holocene to the Anthropocene (Zalasiewicz
et al., 2016), due to the irreversible human impacts on the geosphere and biosphere of our planet, indicates the urgency for seriously examining how to change our societal models (Bauer and Ellis, 2018).
In order to transform our growth and development models, and our mechanistic, separatist systems, we frst need to become aware of and address our dualistic relationship with food and the
ecology of life (Haukeland, 2013; Smitsman et al., 2019). The concept of sustainable development
was initially adopted to address the impacts of these mechanistic systems, with the Brundtland
Commission of 1987 coining the term and defning sustainable development as development that
meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their
own needs (Brundtland et al., 1987: 1). Through the years that followed, the concept of sustainable
development expanded to include the safeguarding of the Earth’s life-support systems on which the
welfare of current and future generations depends (Griggs et al., 2013). Whilst this focus on safeguarding is important, it does not invite people to participate in a transformational change process
that invokes their own evolutionary development.
We therefore offer the concept of thrivability, or our ability to thrive, as the transformational
change process that invites people into a generative and evolutionary model that is both life-centred
and future-oriented. To better understand what we mean by thrivability, we offer the following defnition by Anneloes Smitsman, based on her PhD research on this topic:
Thrivability is the Life-intrinsic developmental potential for our self actualizing evolutionary growth.
Thrivability as a developmental potential unfolds through an ecosystemic evolutionary learning process. Through this process we develop the future creative capabilities, awareness, and love to enact and
embody the actualization of the thrivability potentials within the worlds and systems of which we form
part. Embodied, these potentialities become possibilities for further growth and development in a way
that is Life generative and creates conditions for each of us, and Life as a whole, to thrive.
Anneloes Smitsman (2019: 37)
A thrivability growth model, as will be explained further in greater detail, seeks to safeguard and
strengthen the vital conditions of life that should never be sacrifced in the pursuit of food and
resource development. With a broader focus, thrivability also invites us to explore the conditions
and qualities of food cultivation systems and consumption patterns that honour and support our
reciprocity, mutuality and inter-being with Gaia and the larger ecology of life.
THE COST OF CONVENTIONAL PROGRESS
When considered from an ecological whole-system perspective, the question ‘what are progress
and success?’ provides a very different focus and narrative compared to how it continues to be
defned by our mainstream economic, political and educational systems (Brewer and Smitsman,