Commoning social–ecological networks through the lens of relational ontologies and other economies: How ecologists can diversify their notions of human–non-human relationships

Abstract

The study of social–ecological networks (SENs) has mainly approached nature through a modern and functional to capitalism conception, i.e. a matrix over which human societies develop. Such a conception (1) neglects interdependencies among human and non-human entities and therefore between “culture” and “nature” reproduction, (2) assumes the existence of many cultures but only one nature, (3) understands nature as a pool of resources, goods or services that can be exploited, appropriated or enclosed, and (4) has been pointed out as one of the main causes of the current biodiversity crisis. Based on the work of sociologists and communitarian feminist scholars, here, we propose to conceive a social–ecological system s (SES) as the common, i.e. systems that need to be produced through communal political practices that consider human–non-human interdependencies. In this vein, we introduce two frameworks related with the production of the common, relational ontologies and other economies, and present two examples applying them. One example helps rethinking the so-called “humans–wildlife conflicts”, by illustrating the emerging relational role of the “cabrero” (a livestock guardian dog) as a “mediator” of such conflicts, through the lens of ethnobiology. The other example analyzes human and non-human co-production of SESs that produce (and are produced by) honey, honeybees and beekeepers’ Social and Solidarity economies. We think such perspectives may diversify ecologists’ understanding on human–human and human–non-human relationships and thus ecologists’ ideas about the representation of SENs and the reproduction of SESs as the common.