An excerpt from my research writings
Reciprocity in its more basic terminology refers to giving as much as you take. Environmental reciprocity (E.R.) focuses on the way individuals learn how to interact with the environment in a way that is more honorable, stewarding, responsible, and nurturing. There is a way to learn the understanding and practices for an individual, and thus the community, and how to engage with those Lived spaces.
A conversation about environmental reciprocity is less of questions like: “How do I benefit from this?” or “How does this serve me?” and a more selfless discourse that asks, “How do I step into a greater practice that serves more outside of myself to permit prosperity beyond my finite life?” There will be more action than words. Reciprocity is not generosity. Reciprocity requires understanding personal responsibility and acting on it.
The following actions are something that I think falls along the guides of the practice of environmental reciprocity:
- Future resource abundance focus that is based on responsibility more than ownership, profit, or personal-benefit
- Restorative activities that include the community and, therefore motivates further community engagement
- Changing state laws to formally recognize reciprocal relations and negotiate legally binding agreements that harm the Living World. This will lead to policy change. With a policy change, there is less focus on what the individual has rights to and, more so, to what said individual is responsible for.
Environmental reciprocity is not about where you are nor whose you are. Although actions may differ in regard to cultural and social history alongside the geography and locality of things, it is cosmic or spatial. Thus, there is an invisible legacy of environmental reciprocal relations between the human, non-human, and more-than-human—the animate and the inanimate. There is an intergenerational reciprocity that is in place under the larger umbrella of E.R.
Stay tuned to find out where we go from here. Real places will go real places.
All the Best,
CLG
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