Keystone Communities - sustaining life through polycrisis

Widening and deepening the impact of the Ecovillage Resilience project – we’re exitied to build on what we know about the resilience of ecovillages to climate change, include more people and communities, provide new learning opportunities, and continue to weave knowledge exchange and solidarity throughout the GEN network.

The Keystone Community project aims are to;

️ Scale and amplify local community leadership for community resilience to polycrisis

Build additional capacity, tools, and frameworks for local communities to assess, monitor, and act on systemic risk and respond to disaster

Enhance social & psychological resilience to polycrisis through the use of art & narrative

What is a Keystone Community?

The ecovillage network is committed to navigating the polycrisis not only to survive, but to safeguard and nurture human dignity, the more-than-human world, and the conditions for life to thrive. Project vision holder and founder Anna Kovasna came up with the concept of Keystone Communities as a life-affirming vision and ethical framework for navigating polycrisis together. Drawing inspiration from ecology, indigenous science and communities, and resilience thinking, she defines a Keystone Community as one that:

• plays a powerfully positive role in safeguarding life-affirming conditions in its local social-ecological system
• is based on values that encourage long-term thinking, reciprocity and solidarity
• leverages culture and creativity to craft meaning, resistance, recovery and regeneration in the face of crisis
• and is able to do so while absorbing shocks, avoiding tipping points, and retaining capacity for system transformation.

ReGENerating a positive role for human beings

Through this project and our ongoing work, GEN hopes to play a small part in equipping people everywhere with inspiration, resources and tools to claim for themselves the power of imagining a positive role for human beings on Earth, and of creating or upholding autonomous but connected local communities able to act as safety nets and sources of resilience, regeneration, and meaning during deepening ecological and social unraveling – not only for human beings, but for all life.

We are grateful to deepen this heart-opening and challenging work, and share our learnings with everyone.

More background on the concept of Keystone Communities

In ecology, a keystone species is able to uphold entire food webs and play a powerfully positive role in the ecosystem – they live lives that support balance and health in entire ecosystems. What if human beings could do that? As Pat McCabe, Weyakpa Najin Win, Woman Stands Shining, inquires – How do I become that being, that human, whose presence and way of being supports and causes all other life to Thrive? Existing now and throughout human history, there are civilisations persisting and caring for the ecosystems they belong within for millennia, whose ways of life embody reciprocity, mutuality and interbeing with the-more-than-human world. Places where, as Lyla June Johnston says, humans are ‘architects of abundance’. How about if we became architects of true abundance, and built communities whose very existence supported both human and non-human life to thrive?

Another indigenous scholar, Gerald Vizenor, inspired us with the concept survivance. He speaks about survivance in the context of native american cultures after the genocide of settler arrival. He says – ”Survival is a response; survivance is a standpoint, a worldview, and a presence”. He points to indigenous culture, stories and creative self expression as resistance to dominant paradigms. Others speak about survivance as a combination of survival and resistance. In learning to navigate crisis for the benefit of all life, the idea of survivance points us to the potential for liberation, transformation, resistance and the beauty inherent in human imagination, creativity, and culture. What if human creativity and imagination was liberated to work for beauty, (re)connection, and love for all life? What if our stories brought healing, meaning, and strength as we recover from disaster and navigate crisis?

Finally, resilience. The linked challenge of a global polycrisis and climate change is dramatically changing the conditions and course of life on Earth. Building capacities to live and develop with change and uncertainty, absorb shocks and retain capacity for system transformation in the face of crises and unsustainable pathways is a necessary part of any strategy or project that aims to create better conditions for people, other beings, and ecosystems in a turbulent future.

Facing mass extinctions, pollution, and the unravelling of ecosystems as well as centuries of global injustice and the crumbling of dominant economic systems, we urgently need to return to life-centred design and become architects of abundance again. We need cultural expressions that support reconnection to ourselves, each other, and the more than human world, and provide pathways away from hopelessness and destruction, and towards healing, meaning, resistance and regeneration. And we need the skills and capacities to keep reweaving locally appropriate and life-affirming ways of being human while also navigating crises.

We are grateful to the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation for their ongoing willingness to support our work of weaving ways of hope, resilience, and local empowerment during deepening polycrisis.