TY - JOUR

T1 - Rethinking Economic Practices and Values As Assemblages of More-Than-Human Relations

AU - Ortiz-Przychodzka, Stefan

AU - Benavides-Frías, Camila

AU - Raymond, Christopher M.

AU - Díaz-Reviriego, Isabel

AU - Hanspach, Jan

N1 - Funding Information: During the preparation of this paper, Stefan Ortiz-Przychodzka, Camila Benavides-Frías, Isabel Díaz-Reviriego and Jan Hanspach were funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, Grant Number 01UU1903 ). Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors

PY - 2023/9/1

Y1 - 2023/9/1

N2 - The relational turn in the academic literature on environmental values explores ontologies that rethink the dualistic, hierarchical separations of humans from nature. In particular, the consideration of a plurality of values and ways in which humans connect to nature has brought new insights on the dynamic interconnections between people, place and environmental processes, all highly relevant for the world's sustainability challenges. However, many conceptualizations of economic practices and values are still predominantly dualistic and anthropocentric. To overcome this human-nature divide we propose a conceptual integration of relational values with assemblages of more-than-human relations, illustrated with examples from the literature and ongoing empirical research. These concepts offer a way of representing meaningful and dynamic interrelationships, including humans, physical elements, materials (e.g. technologies, tools), immaterial entities (e.g. sounds, lights, colors), and other non-human beings. We argue that such conceptual integration provides a useful framework to rethink diverse economies as the processes through which humans and non-humans co-constitute their interrelated livelihoods. With this, we extend the relational turn to research on economic human-nature connections, following the call of many scholars in the field of ecological economics to unveil non-utilitarian values and consider multiple economic agencies.

AB - The relational turn in the academic literature on environmental values explores ontologies that rethink the dualistic, hierarchical separations of humans from nature. In particular, the consideration of a plurality of values and ways in which humans connect to nature has brought new insights on the dynamic interconnections between people, place and environmental processes, all highly relevant for the world's sustainability challenges. However, many conceptualizations of economic practices and values are still predominantly dualistic and anthropocentric. To overcome this human-nature divide we propose a conceptual integration of relational values with assemblages of more-than-human relations, illustrated with examples from the literature and ongoing empirical research. These concepts offer a way of representing meaningful and dynamic interrelationships, including humans, physical elements, materials (e.g. technologies, tools), immaterial entities (e.g. sounds, lights, colors), and other non-human beings. We argue that such conceptual integration provides a useful framework to rethink diverse economies as the processes through which humans and non-humans co-constitute their interrelated livelihoods. With this, we extend the relational turn to research on economic human-nature connections, following the call of many scholars in the field of ecological economics to unveil non-utilitarian values and consider multiple economic agencies.

KW - Commodification

KW - Human-Nature Interrelations

KW - Livelihoods Co-Production

KW - More-Than-Human Agency

KW - Ontologies

KW - Sustainability sciences, Management & Economics

KW - Environmental Governance

KW - Environmental informatics

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85154543542&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2023.107866

DO - 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2023.107866

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85154543542

VL - 211

JO - Ecological Economics

JF - Ecological Economics

SN - 0921-8009

M1 - 107866

ER -