“We don’t always need to name things to be in relationships with them.” — Marjolein Pijnappels, toekomstecoloog (futures ecologist).

Amid ecological emergencies demanding greater attention and intervention, Symbiotic Futures explores how learning to build relationships across species and communities is an act of rebellion.

Based in the Netherlands, Pijnappels emphasises how Western approaches to understanding the world through naming, categorising, and abstracting flatten relationships with the world.

Inspired by indigenous understandings of personhood, she stresses that our desire to understand can prevent us from meeting other beings. “To really meet another being, you must stop making them fit into your logic.”

Offering a solution starting with the education system, which currently and mainly teaches children to focus on intellect over intuition, Pijnappels calls for imparting the importance of bodily, emotional, and relational learning.

Stories allow us to feel before we think—sometimes that’s all it takes to care, Pijnappels states.

Widening circles of care

On a wider level, where global crises can cause people to freeze and question what part they can play to drive a relational approach to the world, Pijnappels reminds us to start with what you can already control.

To her, raising her children, tending her garden, and fostering community have shown her it is not difficult to take action. The focus is not perfection but practice.

“The more geopolitical threats there are, the more I feel the need to focus on the things I can actually control—my kids, my community, the stories I choose to tell.”

Not every act has to be seen. Invisible acts of kindness around you, not just with people but also with the spider in your house or certain “unwanted” plants growing in your garden, are changing the way you are and interact with the world.

“If we can all expand the circle we care about just a little bit, it will make a big difference.”

Watch Pijnappels’ interview to catch the whole conversation. Explore plurality through Peruvian midwives, give decision-making power to natural entities in New Zealand and the Netherlands, combine science and Indigenous perspectives, and learn about keeping hope alive.

Written by Venya Patel.