Caught yet blind in Indra’s Net: Reflections on Interconnected Crises in the Late Capitalist Anthropocene

With the Global Financial Crisis of 2007/08, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the opening decades of the 21st century has already been a period of global crises. While these three crises emerged out of what are commonly conceptualized as different spheres of human activity (economics, human-nature relationships, politics/ideologies), they have demonstrated not only the transnational economic, political, and social interconnectedness of human societies, but also the connections between the human and the non-human worlds, as well as between the realms of ideas and of physical existence.

These connections and mutual influences are of course well known. More holistic approaches to address them have already been introduced. One Health, for example, explicitly takes into consideration that human health rests on a healthy environment. However, there is a tendency to develop such new concepts by building on European discourses hinged on nature/culture distinctions that differentiate between human and nonhuman worlds. The widely discussed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) demonstrate this. This has of course its practical merits. Political authority is just as limited as capital to pursue more sustainable practices or the willingness of interest groups to support them, which makes a portfolio or building block approach to sustainability most practical. Yet, the past crises have shown the limitations of such approaches.

The philosophical traditions of South, East, and Southeast Asia know the metaphor of Indra’s Net (Sanskrit: Indrajāla, Japanese: indara-mō因陀羅網) to express the fundamental interconnectedness and interdependence of all existence. With this frame as an inspiration, this workshop aspires to explore holistic multispecies worldviews stemming from intellectual traditions found across South, Southeast, and East Asia. Instead of remaining within Indra’s Net of inescapable interconnection and interdependence while remaining blind to it, this workshop will critically connect recent theoretical debates to concrete case studies in order to advance programs for achieving social and environmental justice.