We are ecologists

Proud and diligent generalists; expert surfers on data and manipulators of prior research; and shameless exponents of metaphor (which is the source of transferable knowledge and skills). 

Our willingness to stand on the shoulders of previous generations of academic and practical enquiry (data) means that we resist the temptation to be drawn into detail. This doesn’t mean that we don’t appreciate the value of detail – we just need to keep moving, making connections, retracing our steps, revisiting and revising our hypotheses with new insights (connections). 

We strive to embody methodology by orbiting the twin suns of connection and consequence, responding to the urgent need to push back against linear ‘artificial intelligence’ and reflecting the fluidity and dynamism of the environment(s) in which we exist. 

In a fundamentally fluid ecology, we must be thorough, disciplined yet also light on our feet – always looking for new angles and perspectives from which to view and appreciate the connections between multiple overlapping realities and the Real itself. 

We recognise that periodisation is a double-edged sword and that terms such as modernist and postmodern describe attitudes and approaches, not merely periods of history. We look for cycles, spirals and fractals where instinct and conventional wisdom encourage us to see straight lines. 

We do everything in our power to ensure that no action is taken in isolation because nothing in the Real world happens in isolation. 

Impertinent and transgressive, ours is a form of enquiry that responds positively to Mark Fisher’s (and the CCRU’s) modernistic desire for new forms of expression suited to a rapidly changing world. 

Whereas accelerationism (a CCRU construct), applied the voracious appetite of the (cultural) ecologist to outmoded, linear models of reality – and in so doing played to the simplistic utopian urges of both left and right – we are servants of circularity and refuse to acknowledge the existence of an end state, of a wall into which humanity, like a car occupied by crash test dummies, must one day collide. 

We acknowledge the accelerating pace of technology and its impact on our multiple realities, and we seek to adapt to its terrific pace by tilting it upwards and bending its trajectory into a curve that may not only regulate its speed, but also ensure that familiar landmarks come regularly into view, grounding us in shared (Real) experiences that cannot be escaped and therefore should not be feared.

This academia of impertinence (John Berger) crosses borders in pursuit of connections, forging relationships between entities that – while purporting to be driven by interdisciplinarity – too often operate in isolation. This is study without borders, constrained not by field but by attitude and approach. Ecology is the epitome of methodology, interdisciplinarity, collaboration and applied research – without it, academia becomes academic.

Crucially, ecologists are not disruptors because we embrace the idea of a universe that is in a state of active equilibrium – in constant flux and also balanced; its balance sustained by its constant motion – and, as creatures of the Real, we venerate both its fabric and its rhythms. 

We think in lines, circles, spirals and fractals because we recognise that everything is connected and all actions have consequences. We especially defy the disruption of natural/balanced/ sustainable cycles for the purposes of linear, extractive consumption, which is one of numerous toxic fantasies that compromise the integrity of the Real and threaten the existence of our many-layered reality. 

In this sense, ecology is every bit as political as critics who speak disparagingly of ‘tree-huggers’ seeking to impede ‘progress’ perceive it to be. But the only disruption that we engage in is disruption of the linear fantasies that have come to dominate consensus reality in the era of capitalist realism. Our ‘disruption’ involves bending straight lines into circles that allow us to better appreciate the consequences of our actions – consequences that humanity cannot escape, no matter how linear the fantasies it seeks to promulgate.