Policy support tool
Global Transformation in the Mirror of the Ecosystemic Approach
Instead of isolating problems, an ecosystemic approach for the planning of public policies, research and teaching programmes, encompasses four dimensions of being-in-the-world (intimate, interactive, social and biophysical), as they combine, as donors and recipients, to induce the events (deficits/assets), cope with consequences (desired/undesired) and contribute for change (potential outputs). The proposal provides leadership and encourage partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing, and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life.
An ecosystemic framework for public policies, research and teaching programmes is posited to define and deal with the nexus environmental problems, quality of life and the state of the world, considering fundamental causes, worldviews, values and perceptions, from a thematic (“what”), an epistemic (“how”) and a pragmatic (strategies) point of view (boundaries, structures, prevalent paradigms)
In the socio-cultural learning niches, the individual and collective projects of life are unveiled and dealt with by heuristic-hermeneutic experiences; intermediary objects (curious things, images depicting everyday life), are presented to the participants to generate awareness, interpretation and understanding beyond established stereotypes.
The contributions of the participants are analysed from a thematic (“what”), an epistemic (“how”) and a pragmatic (strategies) point of view, encompassing the emphasis and inclusiveness of contents in the different dimensions (“thematic”) , the structure of thought embedded into subject-object relationships (“epistemic”) and the actions embedded in the outputs (pragmatic).
The methodology is experiential and reflexive, “reality” is revealed in a specific space-time horizon of understanding, feeling and action: subject-object relationships are unveiled (intimate dimension), statements are shared (interactive dimension), setting the ground to examine different forms for being-in-the-world (social and biophysical dimensions).