Knowledge is a navigation in an ocean of uncertainties through archipelagos of certainties. Edgar Morin
Many authors (Morin, Damasio, Deleuze, Winnicott, Latour, Cyrulnik, Caillé...) have emphasized the importance of narratives in that they underlie our social, family and personal organizations, but also our scientific and economic theories. Knowledge is told.
By becoming cooperators in NaturiaWe want to reacquaint ourselves with the world around us, to create an environment, an "incentive" to escape from what determines us, especially at the socio-economic and managerial level, but also at the political level.
The arrival of the COVID-19 has upset the order of these narratives that underlie our social and economic organization, when it has not affected their very structure. The economic narrative that has been so inescapable until now, promoting commodification and speculation, is now challenged by other narratives that support other relationships. Holes in knowledge appear, insecure uncertainties arise. We must learn to navigate again, find new reference points.
Not necessarily new, these narratives are now proving to be inspiring and structuring for thinking about and living through what gave rise to the confinement and the accompanying measures. Karl Polanyi (1886-1964), for example, proposed several years ago the concept of "fictitious commodities" to designate economic objects that were never conceived, produced and thought of as commodities and yet became so through the capitalist narrative[1].
These new narratives question our relationship with the land and the territory, the place of inequalities, the modalities of economic exchanges, the meaning of gender and identities...
NaturiaFrom its particular site, it wishes to give rise to the construction of narratives and imaginaries that can inspire the implementation of new social and economic structures. We are around two ponds, on a hill, on the edge of a meadow and a forest, at the end of a village. We are anchored in a principality in which there is also a Cistercian abbey. So we have no shortage of sources of inspiration, both earthly and spiritual, to create new fictions that engage us differently in the world.
This is why we have decided to organize ourselves as a cooperative by structuring our cooperator links around sociocratic practices. This is also why we want to think of the site in terms of permaculture concepts, and why we want to develop socio-economic relations with the surrounding region by taking inspiration from the social and solidarity economy and the contribution economy.
These practices of developing thoughts lead us to live and think differently, to develop new narratives. We hope that they will inspire people who spend time on the site. We also hope that the people who pass by, for a longer or shorter period of time, will contribute to enriching these narratives, by telling us bits of their story, by sharing the discoveries they made during their stay, by bringing in elements that shift and revive.
The "Welcome and Departure" circle works on collecting all traces that allow the structuring of narratives, the telling of structuring stories, readings of the world and relationships that open up the thought of space and time. Drawings, objects, texts, traces left on the site will be gathered to invite to associate ideas, words... which will give place to new drawings, deposits of objects...
We want to make Naturia a place of intentions where other stories can be lived, written and discovered.
Generally speaking, we suggest that future cooperators write a text that anticipates what they imagine for the eco-camp, which could join the writing of an inspiring sociotopia. This sociotopia will feed, beyond our necessary differences, a common background of dreams of the future.
For the tenants we ask them to be able to tell or write how they would like to live, to dress the place during their tenancy, during a meeting with the members of the "Welcome and Departure" circle.
For the 'nomads', we propose a short text that will be sent to them before their arrival and that explains what we are trying to do. We suggest that they bring an object, a text, a song.... that could say something about the intention that brings them to Robechies.
We also hope to offer as a welcome stories that shift, set in motion and allow us to see the world differently. Our sources of inspiration will be the tales of the region, the words of the elders, the emotions of plants, Cistercian stories...
And when they leave, perhaps they will have something to tell about one of the two ponds, about the hill and the plants there, about the meadows or the forest, about the village, the principality or the Cistercian abbey.
The "Welcome and Departure" circle collects the different stories and intentions and can imagine to make a moment of common exchange, an exhibition, ...
[1] https://saw-b.be/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2020/09/A2001-Interview-Eynaud.pdf