Narratives for Sustainable Biodemocracy: Bhutan and Beyond

在这个项目中，我们侧重于建立对不丹的生物民主理解，以定位和加强能够帮助发展进程更具活力、更具响应性、更透明、更负责任和更具协商性的各种叙述。我们通过启动规划者的反思，扩大政策制定者的参与，以及通过促进不同社会利益相关者的创造性倡议来做到这一点。不丹是一个即将发生重大变革的低收入喜马拉雅国家，可以将其概念化为“生物民主”，以便将政治和生态问题结合在一起。从生物民主的角度理解可持续发展，要求我们通过明确承认所有生命形式的相互依存，重新思考负责任的消费和生产(可持续发展目标12)。对于像不丹这样一个刻意倡导国民幸福总值(GNH)作为其发展哲学的国家来说，这一点至关重要；该国是碳减排国家，宪法规定其60%的领土永久处于森林覆盖之下。然而，这个地处高海拔、生态多样化、水电资源丰富、低收入国家的小国被人口众多、能源/资源匮乏的邻国印度和中国包围，两国正试图接受现代化和城市化。在这一过程中，它面临着日益高涨的消费愿望以及21世纪创造生计和就业的挑战。从1999年电视和互联网的引入，到2008年由其君主自愿发起的向议会民主的过渡，不丹在过去20年里加快了变革的步伐，但人们普遍对此感到担忧。在巩固了民主政府制度之后，在作出艰难的发展选择时，特别是在协调制定国民健康保险制度所需的价值观、政策和规划时，人们对问责问题的认识不断提高。经济统计数据很少告诉我们一个社会中不同社会群体所经历的发展。理解发展意义的另一种方式是理解关于发展的总体叙述(以不丹为例，国民幸福指数)，在这种叙述中进行规划并作出具体的政策选择，以及社会中不同的人和群体将自己视为发展进程的一部分时所利用的个别叙述。发展叙事构成了我们如何实现我们组织经济、空间和社会的潜力之间的牢固联系。因此，我们的跨学科跨界项目专注于通过四个方面在不丹共同创建知识网络--年度规划者反思研讨会、年度公众参与会议、创意对话理想化实验室和价值节/S。每一项都将专门针对不同但重叠的社区的不同人群，包括不丹规划者、政策制定者、议员、媒体、学者、民间社会组织、不丹的联合国等国际组织、企业家、艺术家、学生和青年领袖。创建这样的网络对于理解和解决个人和集体叙述在生态、经济和政治意识和同意如何促进负责任的生产和消费方面的作用至关重要。我们将通过一次知识交流访问来扩大在英国的网络，以建立学术和政策社区的联系，并通过发展创造性对话中出现的创业和专有技术联系。在英国举行的总结性会议将扩大我们的项目学习，并为今后的持续工作奠定坚实的遗产。

In this project, we focus on creating a biodemocratic understanding of Bhutan to locate and strengthen the kinds of narratives that can help the developmental process to be more dynamic, responsive, transparent, accountable, and consultative. We do this through initiating reflection by planners, widening engagement by policymakers, and by fostering creative initiatives by a diverse range of social stakeholders.Bhutan, a low-income Himalayan country on the cusp of major change, can be conceptualised as a 'biodemocracy' in order to bring together political and ecological concerns. Sustainable development understood in terms of biodemocracy requires us to rethink Responsible Consumption and Production (Sustainable Development Goal 12) through an explicit recognition of the interdependence of all life forms. This is crucial for a country like Bhutan that has mindfully pioneered Gross National Happiness (GNH) as its development philosophy; the country is carbon-negative, and constitutionally mandates that 60 percent of its territory remain under forest cover in perpetuity. However, this small, high-altitude, ecologically-diverse, hydropower-rich, low-income country surrounded by populous and power/resource-hungry neighbours India and China is attempting to come to terms with modernisation and urbanisation. In the process, it is faced with rising consumption aspirations and livelihood and employment generation challenges of the twenty-first century. The accelerated pace of change in Bhutan over the last two decades has been remarkable, from the introduction of television and the internet in 1999 to the transition to parliamentary democracy in 2008 initiated voluntarily by its monarch but widely viewed with apprehension by the people. Having consolidated a democratic system of government, there is ever expanding awareness about questions of accountability when it comes to making difficult developmental choices, especially when reconciling the values, policies, and planning needed for enacting GNH. Economic statistics tell us little about development as experienced by different social groups in a society. An alternative way of making sense of development is to understand the overall narrative of development (in the case of Bhutan, GNH) within which planning occurs and specific policy choices are made, and the individual narratives that different people and groups in society draw on in seeing themselves as part of the developmental process. Development narratives constitute the strong links between how we realise our potentialities for organising economies, spaces and societies. Our interdisciplinary, boundary-crossing project, thus, focuses on co-creating knowledge networks in Bhutan through four strands - annual planners' reflection workshop, an annual public engagement conference, a creative conversation idealab, and a festival of value/s. Each of these will specifically target a diverse range of people in different but overlapping communities, including Bhutanese planners, policymakers, parliamentarians, media, academics, civil society organisations, international organisations like the UN in Bhutan, entrepreneurs, artists, students, and youth leaders. Creating such networks is vital to understanding and addressing the role of individual and collective narratives in how ecological, economic, and political consciousness and consent can foster responsible production and consumption. We will expand the network in the UK through a knowledge exchange visit to build scholarly and policy community connexions, and by developing the entrepreneurial and know-how linkages emergent from the creative conversations. The overall concluding conference in the UK will amplify our project learning and establish a firm legacy for continued future work.