The ecology of ownership: a new paradigm for an old phenomenon

Abstract

An unchallenged, culturally-constructed paradigm of ownership lies at the heart of social and environmental problems: this has reverberating impacts on research frameworks in both the humanities and sciences. This study reviews the history of the formation of Western worldviews of, and contemporary social norms and understandings around ownership. It then documents how the Western paradigm of ownership scaffolds and perpetuates exploitation and exceptionalism at the foundation of contemporary industrial societies. The foundational nature of ownership as an organismal phenomenon is then explored, and a novel new paradigm of ownership is proposed. The eco-evolutionary theories of niche construction and cultural niche construction are engaged to further illuminate the nature, function, and significance of ownership, and its broad utility to lifekind generally. To conclude, an ecologically and organismally-suffused paradigm of ownership is shown to have a variety of benefits to research in the life sciences; to analysis of societal norms, beliefs, worldviews, and schemas in the humanities; and to the study of the organism-environment interdependence of ecological and evolutionary change. Exploring ownership through these lenses enables new insight into the rich contours of interconnectivity of ourselves with - and our utter dependence upon - the Earth system.