Finding Rootedness in the Age of Vulnerability

[marmar]

from YES! Magazine:



Finding Rootedness in the Age of Vulnerability
In a world increasingly vulnerable to external shocks, we’re searching for rooted communities—and what we can learn from them.

by John Cavanagh, Robin Broad
posted Dec 06, 2010


It seems that almost everyone we know is feeling vulnerable these days—whether they are rich or poor, employed or unemployed, their lives are feeling fragile. So we are setting out to discover places where people are finding ways to counter that vulnerability, creating more secure paths of living based on a concept we are calling "rootedness." We are learning from communities in the United States and also abroad—in the Philippines, Trinidad, and El Salvador.

Fifty years ago, when our parents deposited money in the bank, it was almost certainly a local bank, which then lent the money to people and businesses in that very community. Today, money goes to giant financial institutions that partake in casino-like activities that undermine local economies. Fifty years ago, most farmers grew a variety of crops from traditional seeds and most regions were largely self-sufficient in food; today, most farmers produce a single crop with seeds purchased from global firms.

Indeed, today, so much of what we eat, invest, borrow, and purchase is the product of global assembly lines. As a result, all of us are vulnerable to external shocks. So when the 2008 Wall Street crash spread like wild fire around the world, it hit families and communities everywhere, accelerating unemployment, suffering, inequality, and uncertainty. That same year, billions of people in poorer nations found that wildly fluctuating prices of wheat, corn, rice and other key food products increased their chances of going hungry. And extreme weather events related to climate change have been hitting people hard, in all parts of the globe.

In the United States and around the world many people and some governments are working to reduce their vulnerability to these global shocks by becoming more rooted.

This year, the two of us are taking a pause from our other work to dig into a fascinating array of communities and countries that are finding rootedness in this “age of vulnerability.” We are discovering the same yearning for roots and community in such far flung places as the Philippines, Trinidad, and El Salvador that we are seeing in communities across the United States. We feel it ourselves in our community of Takoma Park, Maryland. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/john-cavanagh-and-robin-broad/finding-rootedness-in-the-age-of-vulnerability