Between August 27 and 30, I had the opportunity to visit the picturesque Porto, a small town in the north of Portugal. There I attended the 16th European Sociological Conference, where more than 3,000 sociologists presented their papers.
As part of the research panel RN36 Transformations East and West, I presented my work on the topic of planetary consciousness, which I placed in the context of European citizenship.
In my work, I emphasized the importance of the concept of planetary consciousness in social science frameworks, as it offers a different consideration of the role of human in the social and natural environment and recognizes people as important actors in steering future development paths. It provides a conceptual basis for thinking about who we are and what we can do as individuals and citizens. It refers to the awareness and understanding of the interconnectedness of all life on Earth that transcends national and cultural boundaries. In relation to the European Union, it emphasizes the interconnectedness of Europeans, which goes beyond persiting national and other differences between people.
European citizenship can also include the idea of a shared identity and cooperation between EU member states and beyond. I comply with the understanding of Earth as an auto-poetic system that reproduces itself. Its biosphere possesses intelligence as an emergent, collective property. Humans as the integrative part of the biosphere and its planetary intelligence, can also actively contribute towards better and more sustainable life on Earth.
The existing scholarly debate has been so far predominantly placed in the context of indigenous people and has delt with the relationship between humanity and nature predominantly from the lens of Latin America issues. The current presentation is relating the planet-centric orientation to the European context, where this discussion has not become a broadly established approach yet.
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