Biomimicry and the Problem of Praxis. (1st October 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Mathews, Freya
• Is Part Of: Environmental values. Volume 28:Number 5(2019:Oct.)
• Page Start: 573
• Page End: 599
• Publication Date: 2019-10-01
• Subjects: Environmental ethics -- Periodicals; Environmental policy -- Periodicals; 179.105
• DOI: 10.3197/096327119X15579936382400
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0963-2719

Abstract

Biomimicry can serve as a design template for an ecological civilisation by showing how cyclical, no-waste, mutually adaptive production systems designed 'after nature' could render human industry fully 'sustainable'. However, unless the modes of praxis involved in such a reformed industrial base are also redesigned, the value orientation fostered by the new order would remain anthropocentric. Biomimicry would accordingly result in an eco-modernist-type scenario in which society was 'decoupled' from nature, with dystopian consequences for the larger community of life. Drawing on Indigenous modalities, I explore ways in which modern industrial systems could include participatory modes of praxis that would emanate in genuinely bio-inclusive forms of consciousness and hence lay the ethical foundations for an ecological civilisation.