Meanings of Place
From organisational cosmologies to organisational location and navigation, 'place' matters to ecological organisations.
In the English language and culture, as I know it, place holds many different meanings.
The first place that first comes to mind is the place that’s locating us in space, time, and meaning. This place is full of tender memories and relational deepenings, the place of: ‘I’ll meet you at that riverside cafe on the quay where we met last time’; of gentle, everyday relational irritations, such as the muttered: ‘Why did he leave the keys there again?; and the shared evocations that seemingly simple descriptions can ignite, where a few words like: ‘I currently live in Exeter, on the edge of the Jurassic Coast and Dartmoor’ offers tales of deep time and geographic and ecological wonders, as well as stories of a life.
Then there’s the second place, that of social location. This is the place of ancestral lines, what nationality we’re born into, who and where our family is, where ‘home’ lies; and all the questions and emotions and yearnings that questions of social location hold. This is the place of feeling ancestrally or nationally displaced or rooted; of family of origin or family of choice or no family at all; of places that we know and that knows us, being at home as an always-explorer, or walking ourselves into a new place.
The third place is that of social navigation. This is how we ‘know our place’ within family and community, institutions and organisations. In organisations, this can look like knowing if it’s our place to make a decision, give voice to a concern or idea, or be in leadership or stewardship. In families, this can look like understanding how we act and love as a family member. In the UK, this can look like the awful ‘knowing our place’ depending on which social class we’re born into, affecting what level of education we might receive, what jobs and careers we might aim for, and who’s advocating for us and what response we receive when we advocate for ourselves.
If we’re fortunate, all of the above combine into a knowing of where and how we each fit into communities, families, place, ecosystems, social systems, and on this Earth. A ‘knowing our place’ that shows us that we are irreplaceable and necessary to the complex web of relationships we’re daily weaving and weaved into. A ‘knowing our place’ that’s of being an ecological creature in a multispecies world. A ‘knowing our place’ that guides us into how best to hone and share our gifts, capacities, and interests, while trusting that our needs will be taken care of.
What I discover when I look to ecological organisations is that here, too, there are different meanings of place; and I find relationship between meanings of place in relation to humans and meanings of place in relation to organisations.
Place as organisational cosmologies or worldviews
The first of these meanings for organisations is place as organisational cosmologies or worldviews. This place is not only the cosmologies or worldviews that originate organisational purpose and design, but also holds the importance of placing cosmologies and worldviews within the ancient human need to create and share stories of what this world is and how to be in it.
Cosmologies or worldviews that organisational purpose and design arise from are the often unvoiced, perhaps even subconscious, stories that organisational founders (and then organisational members) hold about how the world works, what are right and wrong ways to be in the world, and the role of organisations in the world. These cosmologies and worldviews influence the form and design of an organisation, whether non-profit, profit, community-led, or other, or whether organisation members co-own the organisation, share profits, or other. Cosmologies or worldviews ignite people to form organisations or institutions that focus on activism, justice, useful technological designs, breakthroughs in medicine, new understandings in physics and engineering and chemistry, and so on. It’s also our cosmologies or worldviews that bring us new political parties, investment banks, lobbying groups, and so on.
Once we have noticed an organisation’s cosmologies or worldviews, we can then recognise these cosmologies or worldviews as stories. Recognising them as stories gives us the space to step back and reflect on the origin, truth, and helpfulness of these organisational cosmologies or worldviews. For example, whether an organisation adopts Sociocracy, Holacracy, managerial hierarchy, or something else, as their governance protocol reflects stories the organisational founders and members hold about the right/best way for an organisation to operate and to most fully meet its purpose, as well as stories about the relationship of organisations to people; all of which arise from deeper stories of how humans should be collectively, which themselves arise from deeper stories about what is to be human.
I find, when I enquire into the cosmologies or worldviews I hold, there are stories about humans and organisations as ecological, as enmeshed in a living web of relationship, as deeply affecting and affected by ecosystems, social systems, the more-than-human, the other-that-human, and this Earth (which is likely no surprise if you know my work and the Ecological Organisations Framework). I meet cosmologies or worldviews of humans and organisations as stewards and receivers and as source. I also meet cosmologies or worldviews of organisations as animated, as living systems with both imagined and real edges.
All of these stories arise from deeper stories I hold about how humans should be collectively, which themselves arise from deeper stories I hold about what is to be human.
Place as organisational location and navigation
The second meaning of place in relation to ecological organisations is a story of what becomes possible if organisations were not only aware of how deeply relational organisations are, just by existing, but then became interested in understanding their organisational location within these webs of relationality and how to navigate their location with deep care.
This, then, is place as organisational location and navigation.
A while ago, I was in speaking to a group about ecological organisations and the EO Framework. One of the group asked me one of the best questions I’ve ever been asked. As I remember it, the question was: ‘If an organisation’s edges are a co-created story, and therefore an organisation has many, many relationships that can be traced into ecosystems and social systems, how does an organisation decide what lies within its sphere of influence and what doesn’t, if an organisation wants to be ecological and take responsibility for the wellbeing of those relationships?’
I have been pondering this ever since, because it’s such a great question: how do organisations navigate the enormity and never-ending relationality we can trace into and out of organisations, if we want to be useful and careful ecosystem and social system members?
I’m sure there are many different ways forward, but one that keeps tugging at my attention would be for ecological organisations to map out their web of relationality within the capacity they hold to offer a depth of relational tending, so defining the sphere of influence, or ecology of relationality, that they have capacity for, in relation to neighbourhoods and communities, place and ecosystems, social systems and the more-than-human. Through this process, an organisation would be locating itself (or, to put it another way, ‘placing’ itself) in the world.
Yet, if each organisation does this in isolation, would that likely leave us with blind areas? Possibly. One way we could mitigate this possiblity would be if organisations also located themselves within organisational networks.
When I sit with the idea of these networks, I’m imagining organisations doing this in dialogue with other organisations and in dialogue with those impacted by their organisation (i.e. an ecology of relationships). Through these networks, organisations with greater capacity and size and influence and resources could hold larger spheres of responsilibity and responsiveness, and those with lesser capacity and size and influence and resources could hold smaller ones.
Much like with us humans and our social location and navigation, this place is about organisations locating their place and then navigating it with care and attention.
Ecological humans ⇆ ecological organisations
It still awes and delights me how inseparable explorations of humans as ecological and organisations as ecological are. In the same way that I have found that the people that were exploring self-organising like Sociocracy and Holacracy were also exploring deeper questions about the role of humans, and what it means to be human, within organisations, so questions of place in relation to organisations are questions of place in relation to humans.
For organisations, enquiring into place as organisational cosmologies or worldviews helps us discover the stories we hold about the role and nature of organisations, and through these, the deep stories we hold about what it means to be human. These enquiries can also help us hold these stories as stories, giving us the space to explore where our stories arise from and whether the stories we hold help move us into becoming a more ecological organisation (and a more ecological human).
Enquiring into place as organisational location and navigation can help us place organisations in the world, and guide us on how to navigate that placement with deep care. This is a ‘knowing an organisation’s place’ through the relationships with communities and neighbourhoods, place and ecosystems, social systems and the more-than-human, and other organisations. A ‘knowing an organisation’s place’ that shows organisations that they are irreplaceable and necessary to the complex web of relationships each organisation is daily weaving and weaved into. A ‘knowing an organisation’s place’ that’s of being ecological in a multispecies world. A ‘knowing an organisation’s place’ that guides organisations into how best to hone and share the organisation’s gifts, capacities, and interests, while trusting that the organisation’s needs will be taken care of.
May we all find our place in the world - and keep on finding new placings.
I was thinking about each of these three kinds of place as being in relationship to belonging....as on-going interactions, feelings of acceptance, and a longing to engage.