Think globally, act locally

Before converting the possible solutions you’ve mapped out into action, consider how traditional economic frameworks have contributed to many of the global issues we face, and discover a new model which recognises that the earth’s resources are finite.

The phrase ‘think globally, act locally’ has become a familiar term over the past 50 years as the global sustainability agenda has gained momentum. It’s commonly used in discourses of development, environmental protection, education and business, and highlights that communities around the world are interdependent. The phrase is highly relevant to discussions around global citizenship because it’s especially true in our current stage of globalisation, where we are interconnected via the global economy, the movement of goods and services, rapid transport links, and internet connectivity. And if we are all connected, then we also have a responsibility to consider the wider implications of what we do in our daily lives.

How might we begin thinking about our local actions as global citizens with responsibilities towards one another and the global environment which we all share?

A helpful framework is ‘doughnut economics’ – a theory developed by the economist Kate Raworth, which opposes dominant capitalist rhetoric where economic growth is the ultimate goal. Relying on growth alone to ensure the prosperity of people around the world ignores the fact that the resources we all share are finite. So the doughnut model instead measures the social and environmental needs of a population (based on the UN’s SDGs) against the pressure those needs place on the earth’s planetary boundaries, defined as the ‘safe operating space for humanity’¹. According to the model, the right balance is in the ‘green space’ where nobody is left behind (in shortfall) and the planet’s limits are not breached (overshoot). Currently, our world is dangerously out of balance. There are too many people in the ‘shortfall’, where their social and environmental needs are not being met, but we are also in ‘overshoot’, operating way beyond planetary boundaries².

by DoughnutEconomics via Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0

Some argue that this is the inevitable result of global capitalism, which favours individualist approaches to prosperity. In contrast, collective approaches such as those espoused by feminist economics and commons theory may offer us alternative frameworks. Feminist economics takes account of the unpaid and low paid labour which underpins society as well as looking at structural and institutional inequalities. Commons theory focuses on the challenges of managing and protecting resources that are shared with large numbers of people, such as forests, oceans and rivers. Both schools of thought have informed the development of doughnut economics.

Scholars suggest that indigenous communities might also offer alternatives to ‘western’ individualism because they tend to be based on more communal social structures. For example, the Siksika (Blackfoot) people of Canada influenced Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which is widely used in education and management to show how humans are motivated to achieve fulfilling lives. Maslow spent 6 weeks with the Siksika people and noted how their society was based on cooperation and a culture of generosity, trust and sharing of resources³. People’s basic needs – food, shelter, childcare – were met collectively rather than being viewed as commodities which were accumulated and consumed by individuals. Research has shown that Aboriginal Australians also have a more communal attitude towards society through the concept of ‘kinship’ which ‘describes a person’s responsibilities towards other people, the land and natural resources’. During the global pandemic, we started to see examples of collective and communal action supplementing or even replacing state systems which failed to protect and support communities. Since then, there has been an increase in mutual aid projects where communities band together to solve issues through ‘networks of care and generosity’. Mutual aid separates itself from charity, which tends to create a power imbalance between the giver and receiver and a culture of dependency, instead seeking to address ‘the root causes of challenges we face and demand transformative change’.

So, instead of thinking about human prosperity from the individualist perspectives we are accustomed to with post-WWII global capitalism, perhaps a more useful approach for the 21st century is to see all humanity as interconnected, not only with each other, but also with the world around us. Global citizenship requires us to consider the choices we make as members of a local community, as consumers, service-users and social agents. For example:

• who lives in our communities?
• where they have come from and where they might be going?
• who grows and produces our food and under what working conditions?
• where does our food travel from and who transports it?
• what are the environmental effects of the choices we make?

Instead of prioritising our own requirements for a fulfilling life over the needs of others and of the planet, perhaps we need to move towards a more distributive, sharing model.

Some of this thinking is already being done, for example, in environmental policy-making which emphasises the need to develop a regenerative, circular global economy. But what these strategies tend to forget, is the people themselves. Individuals within local communities are crucial to ensuring that alternative models of societies develop and function well. In her work on doughnut economies, Raworth asks a central question: ‘how can our place become a home to thriving people in a thriving place, while respecting the wellbeing of all people, and the health of the whole planet?’

What would it take for the place you live in to become a thriving place, home to thriving people, while respecting the rest of the planet? Share your ideas in the discussion area.

References

1. Rockström et al, A safe operating space for humanity. Nature 461:472–475. 2009
2. Dan O’Neill, Is it possible for everyone to live a good life within our planet’s limits?. The Conversation, Feb 2018.
3. Teju Ravilochan, Could the Blackfoot Wisdom that Inspired Maslow Guide Us Now?. GatherFor for Medium, April 2021.