Collapsonomics: Making a good job of living through difficult times

April 30 – May 4, 2012

http://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/courses/collapsonomics-making-a-good-job-of-living-through-difficult-times

Teachers: Dougald Hine and Vinay Gupta

As financial and ecological systems collapse around us, people can feel paralysed by despair or fear. This course looks at the tremendous opportunities offered by current crises, helping people realise quite how much cultural room-for-manoeuvre we actually have, as we face the challenges ahead. Drawing on the inspiration of thinkers such as Ivan Illich, Gandhi and Buckminster Fuller, the course teachers will examine the early 21st century through a number of different lenses and propose strategies for a radically different future.

“We know things can’t go on like this, and we can’t imagine them ever really changing.” Welcome to the paradox of collapsonomics: the study of what happens when systems we grew up taking for granted let us down. This course aims to develop resilient thinking about what it means to live well in a time of massive social, economic and ecological disruption.

Collapsonomics combines practical lessons from engineering, systems analysis and appropriate technology, with an invitation to cultivate new habits of thinking, drawing on the history and philosophy of other generations that have lived through times of great change. This starts from a blunt acknowledgement of the depth of the mess we are in and the failure of our attempts to take control of this situation, but it is not about doomer scenarios or survivalist fantasies. “The end of the world as we know it,” as the Dark Mountain manifesto puts it, “is not the end of the world, full stop.”

It seems we need a term for big, obvious threats that are sure to emerge – think asteroid impacts – but which few want to face. Handily, students of “collapsonomics” have already coined one: “black elephants.” The New Scientist

From both a technical and cultural perspective, the aim is to become more aware of the amount of headroom we have for adapting to the changes around and ahead of us. Using the techniques of Strategic Critical Infrastructure Mapping, participants will develop realistic models of community-level response to disruption in key systems.
Teachers

Vinay Gupta and Dougald Hine are co-founders of the Institute for Collapsonomics, a multi-disciplinary research group founded in London in early 2009.

Vinay Gupta

Vinay’s work on infrastructure mapping and conceptual and practical tools for responding to disaster situations has led to collaborations with the Rocky Mountain Institute, the US Department of Defense and the Occupy movement. It is founded on the attempt to integrate the engineering insights of Buckminster Fuller with the philosophy of Gandhi’s Satyagraha. His early training was in computer science and meditation. He belongs to the Indian tradition of the kapalika, or ‘bearers of the skull bowl’, and the Nath Sampradaya, an ancient yogic sect. He is best known as the inventor of the Hexayurt, an open-source shelter design which has become the dwelling of choice for participants in the Burning Man festival.

Dougald Hine

Dougald is a writer, thinker and cultural instigator, known for the creation of a series of agenda-setting organisations. In 2009, he co-founded the Dark Mountain Project with Paul Kingsnorth, former editor of the Ecologist: a movement of artists, writers and makers seeking a deeper cultural response to an age of global disruption. Sharon Astyk wrote of ‘Uncivilisation: The Dark Mountain Manifesto’, “It may be the most honest attempt at literature we’ve seen.” In 2011, Dougald’s work as the founder of Space Makers Agency — mobilising communities to bring life to underused urban spaces — was highlighted in the Portas Review on the future of local high streets, and led to him featuring as the face of the Observer’s search for Britain’s New Radicals. He is also the co-founder of School of Everything, an online community of 30,000 people dedicated to self-organised learning. He is a guest lecturer in universities, art schools and architecture institutions across Europe. His work takes inspiration from dialogue with thinkers including David Abram, Alastair McIntosh and Anthony McCann, as well as the writings of John Berger and Ivan Illich.

Course Fees - £750  All course fees include accommodation, food, field trips and all teaching sessions.

http://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/courses/collapsonomics-making-a-good...