Part 1. Bioregional Regeneration Summit: Bioregioning in South Asia

Administrative divisions and national borders - often imposed from outside - are inattentive to local ecologies, languages and cultures. But respect for alternatives is growing - in India, and beyond. Bioregions are being mapped in ways that combine different knowledge systems There are campaigns for the rights of rivers, watersheds and nature. Traditional and local systems of decision making, rooted in ecological connection, are being explored as inspiration for today. In this conversation, the writer and curator John Thackara asks two activist-researchers - Shrishtee Bajpai, and Ashish Kothari: what are the best ways spread and weave these real alternatives, this pluriverse of practices?

▶︎ Shrishtee Bajpai
@shrishtee
Shrishtee's research focuses on indigenous, traditional, and customary ways of living, decision-making and their underlying worldviews. She helps coordinate the Vikalp Sangam process (Alternatives Confluence) and is a core team member of Global Tapestry of Alternatives. She helped found Rights of Rivers South Asia.

▶︎ Ashish Kothari
@chikikothari @global_tapestry @VikalpSangam @bioregionalism

▶︎ John Thackara
@johnthackara - an author, curator and professor - explores designing for life. He curated the celebrated Doors of Perception conference for 20 years, first in Amsterdam, later across India, and was commissioner of the UK social innovation biennial Dott 07, and the French design biennial City Eco Lab. In 2019, he curated the Urban-Rural expo in Shanghai.

◉ Bioregioning: Pathways to Urban-Rural Reconnection (John Thackara paper)

◉ On the Flower of Transformation (Ashisk Kothari paper)
Grounded radical alternatives demonstrate just and sustainable alternatives.

◉ Alternatives Transformation Format: A Process for Self-Assessment and Facilitation towards Radical Change (Kalpavriksh)

◉ Pluriverse: A Post Development Dictionary (Ashish Kothari et al, editors)

◉ Uncovering The Pre-District Bioregions of India (Research Report)

◉ South Asia Bioregionalism Working Group
- Knowledge creation and awareness of a bioregional approach to democratic decision-making in South Asia.
- Understand and highlight traditional/local systems of decision making and their ecological connections; revitalise democracy by re-situating ecology in individuals’ lives.
- Advocacy to integrate a bioregionalist perspective into policy, governance, socio-ecological-political structures, and community thinking.
- People-to-people communication/collaborations across current political and administrative boundaries.
- Envision, and work towards, dissolving current political and administrative boundaries where they are inappropriate or violate of bioregional principles. Replace these with bioregional governance, for example, systems constituted around river basins that cut across current nation-state boundaries.
- Support communities, movements, and groups working on the ground.
The working group collaborates with: Rights of Rivers South Asia; West Himalaya Vikalp Sangam; South Asia Vikalp Sangam; Pakistan-India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy; People’s SAARC, Community Conserved Areas in South Asia

◉ Nation-states are destroying the world. Could bioregions be the answer? (Shrishtee Bajpai, Juan Manuel Crespo & Ashish Kothari)

◉ Indigenous languages and machine translation (via Babitha George)
Mozilla’s Common Voice project is an example.

◉ The Colonial Roots of Present Crises (Amitav Ghosh)