Life as we know it is changing rapidly and dramatically. We have entered what scientists now call the Anthropocene âa new geological epoch underscored by large-scale social and ecological changes. The truth is humanity has become a geophysical forceâone whose actions profoundly shape Earth systems and increasingly determine the conditions of life for its many inhabitants. By 2050, for example, the UNDP and the International Organization for Migration say there will be an exodus of about 250 million people due to drought (Brown, 2007; Pinto-Dobernig, 2008). It is high time we asked how we will meet the great challenges of the twenty-first century, including climate change , technological unemployment, and widening social inequalities.
Some have suggested that we can make a Great Transition to a socially just and sustainable future. But fundamentally, this would require a cultural transition aligned with a new economic system. All of us can easily recognize that the continuous changes we deal with exert an enormous pressure on us, our relationships, and our existing institutions. Few of these changes do not affect our economic interactions. By overcoming the presumed independence and a-historicity of economics, we may more accurately understand economic interactions in relation to society and as part of a broader set of human interactions. Most scholars agree that we are embedded in various systems of economic relationships, some of which are market-based, state-based, voluntary or non-profit-based, and household-based. What needs to be better understood, however, is the quality of these relationshipsâthe texture of the different binds that they create. This is why sociologist Viviana Zelizer (2012) prefers to define the economy as relational work.
It is difficult to understand the immense challenges of our everyday lives in such exciting and complicated times, since the changes we experience often appear new, confusing, and incapable of being easily encapsulated in established conceptual frameworks. The anxiety to classify our experiences under a known umbrella is quite strong, motivated especially by academicsâ never-ending battles for theoretical dominance, rather than their desire to transcend paradigms. As a result, there is a clear cultural need to develop tools and methods able to reduce our strong tendency toward divided thinking. When we attempt to go beyond the principles and values of our field and observe processes as they appear, then new interactional patterns will likely emerge. This, however, requires a return to the basicsâa return to the elementary condition of our humanity, considering all our relationships, so that no one and nothing is left out for lack of attention or empathy.
Contemplative social sciences place these processes at the core of their inquiry. Their specific contribution is to help us become aware of our pre-judgments and find a way to a more open-minded approach to understanding very different phenomena within a participatory , but not pre-classificatory, scheme. They establish wise and pragmatic methodologies to develop and nurture fresh approaches to social interactions. At the core, they are based on systematic efforts to integrate the wisdom traditions with the social sciences. This implies that the understanding of contemplative knowledge transcends the religious contexts in which they are typically born and cultivated. It also means that we are taking the first steps in uncharted territory, in which wisdom traditions and social sciences are invited to dismiss their respective dogmas and be open to unexpected solutions. Approximately 50 years ago, Michael Polanyi (2015) wrote that the production of knowledge is a personal enterprise that is neither subjective nor objective; rather, it is a personal commitment characterized by dwelling in.
John Dewey said rationality and reflective thought does not ground us (DâAgnese, 2016). Rather, we are all groundless, situated knowers. Our personhood and our capacity for knowledge are both processes. We are all events. With this understanding, we may use embodied , embedded, extended, and enactive (4E) approaches to cognition to provide us new ways of understanding how minds and bodies are co-produced in interaction with environments (Hutchins, 2010; Thompson, 2007). These innovative approaches help researchers better understand the role of cognition in social and ecological systems, affording them new ways to more consciously and sustainably design structures and systems to support ethical values. This can help us not only become aware of peopleâs subjective (cognitive and affective) processes, but also become aware of the social and ecological conditions underlying our existence and the possibilities for transforming perception and behavior âintra-activelyâ with material transformations (Barad, 2007).
This book creates dialogue between radical knowledge-practices and contemplative social science to create these connections more clearly. It seeks to transgress disciplinary boundaries, imagine, and implement new visions of realityâin short, to co-design economies in transition. What that specifically entails varies dramatically depending on a variety of factors, including oneâs scope of interests, expertise, and social and geographical location. The chapters in this volume thus do not all agree with one another, nor should they. Showcasing their differences is productive of grasping the interconnections between fields and disciplines, and including such difference is part of the task of mapping the Great Transition . In this sense, this book is more akin to a proposition, than a statement. Its chapters are intended to have an un-disciplining effect, decentering our habitual ways of thinking about challenges exclusively in terms of technical problems with technical solutions. They are intended instead to provoke thought and conceive possibilities, which exist but remain largely unseen. This is clearly tangible, for instance, if we pay attention to the newly distributed technologies and the efforts underway to implement a collaborative commons at the urban level. These changes are intended to forever modify our landscapes, and we can play a fundamental role in directing them toward collective well-being .
At the same time, despite such differences between its individual authors, this book presents a transdisciplinary vision pragmatically oriented toward social transformation, able to create islands of change chiefly concerned with disintermediate and dehierarchized social and economic ties. The languages and competencies of each author remain separate, but in our opinion, there is a thread that connects each of the following chapters. That thread is the awareness that we are entering an era characterized by new social and economic forms beyond our understanding.
Part I
In Part I, we examine the âTransdisciplinary Foundations for Contemporary Social and Economic Transformation.â Vincenzo M. B. Giorgino leads off the discussion in the first part of Chap. 2 by specifically addressing the disruptive potential of distributed ledger technologies toward our social and economic relationships. Some of these technologiesâ possible architectures can enhance our lives, while others may cause many challenges and enact certain prejudices in their support of collective well-being . Along these lines, the tokenization of non-material values is the most intriguing area for its unexplored potentialities. In the second part of his chapter, Giorgino maintains that it is important to pay attention to the forms of divisive thinking with which we interpret social relations and orient our social action so as to allow that kind of urban co-design that favors the joy of living and purposive action. He concludes, in the third part, by emphasizing the centrality of an enactive approach to ground our efforts.
Then in Chap. 3, Zack Walsh continues the discussion by mapping the conditions under which a socially just and sustainable global future could emerge from large-scale structural transformations to contemporary society. First, he considers how the global political economy is undergoing world-historical changes, in response to the pressures of mounting inequality, climate crisis, and the growing illegitimacy of neoliberal capitalism . Then, he examines how current political, economic, social, and technological changes could positively and negatively shape the construction of a new world system beyond capitalism. And, finally, he outlines possible avenues for exploring these world-historical changes by developing new fields of inquiry in the emerging transdisciplinary field of contemplative social sciences.
After the editorâs introductory chapters, Ugo Mattei and Michel Bauwens propose values frameworks for commons-based economics. In Chap. 4, Ugo Mattei approaches the positivistic distinction between subjects and objects as derived from Cartesianism and as historically developed and currently applied in private law. From early modern times, the institution of property has been constructed as the relationship between a free subject an...