Human-nature resonance in times of social-ecological crisis – a relational account for sustainability transformation

Despite increasing efforts by research and policy to approach sustainability, human impact on nonhuman nature is intensifying the current social-ecological crisis. To foster sustainability transformation, there is a need to re-think qualities of human-nature connections which calls for relational discourses that provide alternatives to the predominance of mindsets postulating a human-nature divide. Against this backdrop, this conceptual paper introduces ‘human-nature resonance’ as a relational account that provides system, target, and transformation knowledge for sustainability transformation. The paper argues that the social-ecological crisis has one of its root causes in mute human-nature relations. On this basis, it is illustrated how the social-ecological crisis is only slightly affecting the behaviours of Western societies, which are subsequently failing to establish responsive human-nature relations. Considering that mute relations are fostered by making the world constantly available, the non-affective human-nature relation can be traced back to a lack of material and moral boundaries of nonhuman nature perceived as a lifeless object of infinite availability. For strengthening human-nature resonance, the paper calls for the vision of human-nature partnership neglecting hierarchical human-nature relations. To strengthen the human-nature partnership, nature will speak with an own voice by assigning her legal personhood, agency, and soulfulness. Furthermore, human self-efficacy needs to be strengthened to listen to nature by nourishing internal relational capacities such as compassion and self-worth. Future work on human-nature resonance can integrate basic and applied inter- and transdisciplinary research which links natural and social sciences, Western and Indigenous ontologies, and the scientific world of logos and transcendental wisdom.