This is a reflection written by Dr. Melissa Nursey Bray, Associate Professor at the Department of Geography, Environment and Population, Faculty of Arts, University of Adelaide, South Australia, for the new series from The Bahá’í Chair for World Peace on Learning During the Covid-19 Pandemic.
COVID – 19 is one of the greatest collective societal challenges the world has experienced in recent history. Unprecedented numbers have been made unemployed, rental and homelessness issues have intensified and we face one of the biggest economic downturns since we coined the term ‘depression’. Yet, moving out of such a crisis brings fresh opportunities to reflect on how we can rebuild and move forward. Many people have expressed to me their hope that this is the opportunity needed for people to institute change for good. Others (wistfully) reflect that COVID is perhaps nature’s way of telling us we need to give her a break and that the way we have managed for COVID offers insights into how we must combat climate change.
While I think it is naïve and indeed overly hopeful to think COVID will shift opinions and change ways of being in the long term, there are still some productive actions we can take which will assist in re-siting and rebuilding how we do things into the future. Urban living has created what Louv (2005) calls the extinction of experience, especially for children, and studies have confirmed that urban lifestyles cause experiential disconnection from nature. Further, capitalism and consumption – the practices that define our everyday life, reinforce that disconnection. These practices of consumption however, have been largely and abruptly halted as countries lock down.
All of our (Western) attention, previously consumed by leisure and desire to purchase, has been replaced by the need to pay attention to other, yet also very important, everyday practices, ones that involve our family, and emphasise more local lifestyles and priorities. This situation offers the opportunity to heed the call made by Yves Citton (2016) to pay attention and create connections between people and nature in cities. He argues that the question is not how to make attention but how to pay it; people need to pay attention to their place and each other, rather than give it over to more and more consumption, as they respond to being bombarded with media, adverts, promotions. He thus signals a shift from the attention economy, where our attention is a scarce resource, to an ecology of attention; here attention is a faculty, something that an individual possesses, rather than a relation that is produced. Moving out from under the shadow of COVID I suggest that Citton’s call could be answered in at least two ways.
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has (Margaret Mead)
As Margaret Mead argues, never underestimate the power of people. In cities, tactical urbanism can build citizen agency, and create new pathways by connecting people to place. Partnerships between ordinary citizens and local government throughout the world enable urban changes that can build the hope and togetherness needed into the future. In Miami for example, the Biscayne Green Pilot Project, transformed two parking medians along the Biscayne Boulevard in downtown Miami into a pedestrian place, with dance, and music events, and another area into a playground, dog park, lawn and seating terraces. This project enabled citizens to enjoy the region in new and unexpected ways.
In Santiago, Chile, an intervention by the NGO Cuidad Emergente, created an instant bike path that would be integrated into busy street – reopening debate about the co-existence of bikes and cars in cities. Verge gardening where streetscapes can be transformed into natural corridors, provide shade to cool streetscapes down and offset some of the damage climate related heat does. Or citizens could join a community garden – my own home state of South Australia has over 70 community gardens- that provide social comfort and friendship, an assured organic supply of food and places for our children to experience the outdoors. In all these cases, tactical urbanism opens up spaces of dialogue and introspection about sustainable ways to live. These are just a few examples of how we can build community identity and social capital but also help us refresh and reenergise fruitful ways of dealing with each other. Another dimension worth reflecting on is the power of the political. Gramsci puts it so well when he argues the case for being partisan:
I hate the indifferent. I believe that living means taking sides. Those who really live cannot help being a citizen and a partisan. Indifference and apathy are parasitism, perversion, not life. That is why I hate the indifferent (Antonio Gramsci).
Yet increasingly people have forgotten how to be political – or are scared to be. To be indifferent is to be safe; but only twenty years or so ago, it was possible to be assertively political, to protest, to resist. Today, many people who were the radicals, now carry titled positions, worry about superannuation, sustain mortgage pressure. Worst of all, the young spirits who might speak out now face the very real and ongoing threat of being sued for doing so. This situation has to change and COVID offers the opportunity to do this. Many barriers have been broken down as people seek different ways of living, being and communicating. People are feeling what it is like to be unemployed, and/or less affluent. People are remembering and appreciating local and more nostalgic activities – toy stores are running out of jigsaws, stationary shops out of colouring pens and pencils and craft shops, trade stores and sewing shops are doing a roaring trade.
Significantly, people are, as often happens in crises, becoming politicised – or at least aware of their politicians in ways not seen in a generation. Trump, Boris, Morrison, Macron, Merkel etc, we are looking to them for good governance, solid decisions and maintenance of our safety. This crisis reminds us that politics -and politicians- do after all matter, and it IS in our backyard. We have been shaken out of our indifference and cynicism towards politics and politicians. Moving out of this crisis, people need to retain that quality of paying attention, and become -and then – remain partisan. Have courage to fight for their future, their families and the planet – be political, speak up, write letters, vote. Let’s assert our rights to voice how we want to live with each other and the planet, encourage local voices to build a global crescendo that ultimately leads to action.
The emergence of COVID can be likened to a tsunami- it came slowly and then suddenly was on us, flooding the world and confounding us all. My son will tell his grandchildren about this as a ‘world event’ he lived through. Tragically we will all no doubt know someone who has died and we are not out of the woods yet. Yet magic has happened in all the corners of the globe: you can see fish in the Venice canals, air pollution in cities has decreased and peopled have contributed their time, money and skills to help others.
So, while I resist romanticised ideas that we will come out of this world event willing to change and shift institutional regimes, I believe there are some lights that can guide us towards more connected futures. Be active and pay attention by (re) creating our local geographies in ways that assert our collective political voice. We have an opportunity to inch a bit closer to building community in ways that will provide the foundation for the embedding of the kind of everyday practices we need to build sustainable, socially just and peaceful futures.
About the Author:
Melissa Nursey-Bray is an Associate Professor at the Department of Geography, Environment and Population, Faculty of Arts, University of Adelaide, South Australia. Her focus is on working with communities to build strategies to respond to and manage global environmental crises in socially just ways. She has worked with Indigenous communities, local government, government, and the ports and fishing sectors. Her current focus is on how to build socially just climate adaptation.
You can view Dr. Nursey Bray’s lecture from the Baha’i Chair for World Peace Conference on the Global Climate Crisis here.