Jacob McLean

Research question: Must any conception of belonging necessarily become diluted and softened to include newcomers, or can we entirely reconceive belonging to allow for a radical openness?

This working group starts from the premise that those best equipped to envisage a just and sustainable future are proving least capable of speaking convincingly about meaning and belonging. Meanwhile, those resisting societal transformation share a narrative core: meaning and identity are under threat and must be restored. Progressives have proved staunchly resistant to taking this narrative at face value. Instead, they demonise people for clutching at apparently archaic forms of meaning in a rapidly changing world. And they double down on technocratic politics. The result? Divides deepen, and nativists continue banging at the doors of power.

Against this backdrop, our aim is to explore possibilities for a progressive narrative of ecology and belonging that can draw support across the political spectrum. To do so, we take a bold turn: we draw together experts on ecology and belonging among the technocratic left; the far right; conservatives; indigenous peoples; and deep ecologists.

The challenge is to find meanings as deep as those provided by indigenous peoples and deep ecologists, with the mass appeal of nativism, but the openness and geopolitical sobriety of cosmopolitanism.