“Politics of being”: my ten-year gestation (3/3)
Part 3: the professional journey
In 2003, I started to work in Mexico in the microfinance sector. It showed me that a beautiful idea conceived for the greater good could easily be transformed into an instrument of exploitation by corrupt minds and systems. The same technology can be used to help people come out of poverty or make them fall into over-indebtedness for the sake of profit. It all depends on the intention with which you use it.
While doing a PhD in (ecological) economics, I started working as an independent consultant on environmental conservation and sustainable development in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, for international organizations, such as UN agencies, companies, and NGOs. This is what I have been doing for the last fifteen years. As an environmentalist, I have always felt we are working against the flow, as general economic dynamics so intrinsically oppose the logic of environmental sustainability. I have come to the conclusion that there is no hope for achieving sustainability without a real paradigmatic change, a profound reorientation of our economic systems, our societies, and lives. It has to do with rediscovering our true reason for being here on Earth.
Though I have led strategic work, such as national green development strategies, I have never really had a chance to approach my work from the perspective of this book and put forward the vision that has been growing in me of humanity searching for its evolution. There is never the space to go back to the deep roots of our problems. Cultural change is sometimes identified as a potential key lever to fight for example climate change. However, this option remains often theoretical and not really discussed as if this was something out of our reach, that we could not deliberately pursue. It is the “elephant in the room” no one dares to speak about, even less acknowledge its spiritual nature. The inner pathway to change is so foreign to our cultural software, that its potential is left untapped. Like someone looking for a lost object in a dark street where the light is rather than where it fell, we rather keep searching our solutions through the traditional options we are comfortable with (technology, financial incentives, etc.), even though they cannot, by themselves only, address the great challenges we are facing.
That is why I felt I should take the time to write this book that I have patiently nurtured since 2012. Writing this book has been a crazy journey to embark on. I am often asked what team supported me to cover this incredibly broad agenda and the related scientific research. It has been so much work, it has been so much love, so much joy, and above all the very clear feeling that this was what I was meant to do.
At the moment, I am working for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on the Conscious Food Systems Alliance. The increasing recognition of the potential of inner transformation for a regenerative future is a hopeful sign. It has of course a lot to contribute to the “wholesale shift in mindsets”, which according to the last Human Development Report “is needed to navigate the brave new world of the Anthropocene” and “ensure that all people flourish while easing planetary pressures”.
Read the rest of this story here:
