Ecological Citizen(s)

Ecological Citizenship is defined as: “transcending consumerism, undertaking challenges: impacting culture, enacting sustainable change and empowering resilience.

Ecological Citizenship is embedded within communities large and small, urban and suburban from all social classes” (Phillips et al., 2020). We open the dialogue, for you and others to identify your role and that the secret to this contemporary challenge is all of us.

Ecological Citizenship (EC) seeks to question, provoke and challenge norms of our involvement in sustainable decisions that impact all of us… it’s a contemporary approach to catalyse, pilot, and include citizens in sustainable practices, proposing new economies and means to get there. 

Ecological Citizen(s): Prototypes, Provocations and Preferable Futures… Activating and catalysing post-sustainable practice(s)... A Narrative of Hope shares doers and thinkers What if questions, opening creative spaces of what Ecological Citizenship could look like, from practical experience of piloting projects. 

Collectively our primary focus must be reversing planetary damage, with an aim to re-balance ourselves as custodians, through a mixed economy of perspectives, expertise, communities and care. We do not think we are ‘right’... we hope to inspire people to ‘default to care’, possibly becoming Ecological Citizen(s) of their own domains through exploring, learning, listening and growing with the challenges.

We are all citizens of the world living with; wildfires, floods, heat waves that don't care about our residential status… From the materials constructing our homes, the food we eat, to the air we breathe… Our lives are intertwined with the natural world. That co-dependent relationship is broken through exploitation, extraction and resource commoditisation as often we don’t witness the impacts, as our livelihoods are less seasonally and environmentally dependent. 

Ecological Citizenship (EC) seeks to question, provoke and challenge norms of our involvement in sustainable decisions that impact all of us… it’s a contemporary approach to catalyse, pilot, and include citizens in sustainable practices, proposing new economies and means to get there. 

Ecological Citizen(s): Prototypes, Provocations and Preferable Futures… Activating and catalysing post-sustainable practice(s)... A Narrative of Hope shares doers and thinkers What if questions, opening creative spaces of what Ecological Citizenship could look like, from practical experience of pilot projects. Our primary focus must be reversing planetary damage, with an aim to re-balance ourselves as custodians, through a mixed economy of perspectives, expertise, communities and care.

Through this book we open up new discourse through sharing preferable futures and opinions from world leading doers, thinkers and creatives. The What if questions are from citizens of… design, arts, geography, citizen science, water, risk, acoustics, forestry, materials, technologists, ai, farmers, business, architects, and more including leading labs, research institutes from Shetland (in Scotland), to the beaches of Cornwall.

Ecological Citizenship is not about ‘high-tech’ but ‘appropriate and historic technologies’. Bound by their context(s), scenario, nature-based solution(s) and how we deploy knowledge through materials and systems, navigating place-based knowledge of indigenous technologies.

These letters, provocations and invitations from the future inspire anyone to become an Ecological Citizen… It will also be so different depending on your culture, location, demographic and so much more. We are keen to inspire, but more importantly learn from others and collectively build what a preferable future for Ecological Citizens could look like…

Edited and afterword by Robert Phillips, illustrated by Amber Anderson, with contributions by Jessica Adams, Michael Blencowe, Daniel Bos, Loretta Bosence, Ben Bosence, Xan Browne, Amy Burnett, Abigail Campbell-Mapplebeck, Jayne Carrick, Miguel Prado Casanova, Caroline Chapain, Rebecca Collins, Kate Davies, Lauren Davies, Rachael Davis, Volker Deecke, Lena Dobrowolska, Emily Doolittle, Emily Dowdeswell, Charles Dowding, Samia Dumbuya, Alice Eldridge, Tony Elkington, Negar Esmaeilishirazifard, George Fereday, Catarina Fontoura, Nick Gant, Luke Gooding, Carmen Hijosa, Ella Hubbard, Pimpen Irlam, Saana Isojunno, Helen Job, Sarah Jones-Morris, Eunji Kang, Paul Kirtley, Daniel Knox, Julian Dobson and Alban Krashi, Finn Livingstone, Matt Lobley, Hannah Lyons-Tsai, Ashley Mason, Bridget McKenzie, Kris De Meyer, Eve Mosher, Aura Murillo, Lisa Norton, Caroline Nye, Fernando Oliveira, Alastair Parvin, Ian Perkins, Sharon Prendeville, Patricia Fraga Pérez, Thomas Deacon and Patricia Fraga Pérez, Jamie Quince-Starkey, Mohammad Idrees Rasouli, Daniel Raven-Ellison, Emmanuel Ricrese, Robin Roussel, Chris Sandom, Allison Savage, Navjot Sawhney, Anthony Schrag, and Kate Sedwell, Alec Shepley, Rachel Shucksmith, Ravi K Sikhwal, Tracy Simpson, Louise Skajem, Christina Stanley, Tom Stanton, Chantelle Steele, Jenny Sturgeon, Emma Surman, Ida Telalbasic, Nazlı Terzioğlu, Mikey Tomkins, James Tooze, Phil Tovey, Mitch Turnbull, Renata Tyszczuk, Rebecca Upton, Pamela Warhurst, Sarah West, Katharine Wheeler, Andrew J Whitehouse, Emma Whiting, Savitta Willmott.