Don't overlook the basics while rushing to do multispecies work
We likely need to relearn to sit, stand, and walk before with can run with the multispecies transitions
This week, I had to take on a huge new challenge: relearning to stand and walk. Don’t worry, it’s not some emergency. More of a funny story. My running attempts were cut short by some pain, and now I have a choice: either relearn the most basic and mundane things or give up my aspirations. And this unexpected challenge has many parallels with what I, and many of you, will likely do as we navigate transitions towards multispecies work. In this essay, I will attempt to draw the parallels I see and urge myself and you to (re)focus on the basics.
DISCLAIMER: All views are my own and do not reflect those of my employers or other affiliated organizations. Multispecies Digest essays are not peer-reviewed, do not constitute scientific theories or findings, and can change as new information emerges.
So, let’s start with a little backstory. How did I even end up with this challenge? Similar to many people, after reaching the age of (cheekily vague) thirty-something, I started to think about healthy aging. Even if climate change and crazy men in power might take it away from me, I want to build a future where I am mobile with steady muscle mass and bone density, and my heart and cardiovascular system intact. So I have focused on building stability, flexibility, and muscle mass. I have also wanted to get back into my favorite cardio - running. It brings me joy. It’s good exercise. And it makes me feel alive. So why not? And what could go wrong?
Turns out… quite some things.
A few months after starting my running journey, I ended up at the doctor’s. With feet pain (like, come on, not even a sexy running injury… just dull, on-and-off, heat-like, annoying pain and tingling in my feet). These sensations and my doctor’s referral landed me in the physiotherapist’s office.
With my running shoes in hand (or in a bag, actually), there I was. Ready to be told that I need to strengthen some muscles in my legs, do some exercises for 6-8 weeks, and be done with it.
Instead, I was told that my running shoes are too small (ok, easy fix… or so I thought at first). That I stand wrong and will have to relearn that. That I walk wrong and will also have to relearn that. And by proxy, I probably also run wrong. So yeah. All wrong.
And now, instead of doing a couple of squats or resistance band exercises, I have to track every moment of standing… Make sure I’m not locking my knees… Make sure I’m holding my legs right… Make sure of so many little things… Do foot exercises daily… Find new wide-toe shoes… Track how I walk… Sometimes laugh about it… Sometimes whine in despair (and from feeling like an idiot for doing the most basic things in a human’s life wrong).
As I was processing the news, my physio told me to just focus on standing for the first two weeks. It will be overwhelming enough, she said. If you try to fix both standing and walking at the same time, it will be too much for youtr brain, she said. So far, it looks like she was right.
About 6 months ago, this same physiotherapist told me that I was sitting wrong. Sitting… Wrong… And I have been relearning to do that as well.
So here I am. A thirty-something-year-old. Re-learning to sit, to stand, and to walk. All for a chance to have a healthy, mobile, and comfortable future.
What does all this have to do with multispecies work?
The level of rethinking, relearning, and doing things differently required in multispecies work (regardless of whether you are a designer, researcher, consultant, politician, or everyday citizen), in my mind, is similar to what is required to relearn to move after doing it incorrectly for decades.
As with many aspects of our personal and professional lives, my incorrect sitting was habitual (even though with dedicated work over the past six months, ‘correct’ sitting has also become habitual!). My wrong standing is habitual. My wrong walking is habitual. What that means is that my brain and body do it automatically. I am not aware of how I stand at every moment. And it takes a tremendous amount of brainpower, capacity, patience, and emotional processing - a massive amount of mental work - to relearn these habitual things.
Similarly, the way we think (or do not think) about nature, species, and ecosystems is habitual. As toddlers, teens, university students, and professionals, we have observed how we should think and behave, what the norms are, and what the accepted view of nature is. We have also been explicitly instructed on how to perform our jobs. How to be a ‘good’ designer… How to be a good researcher… A good businesswoman… A good leader… And if there were no nature, species, or ecosystems in any of that, we learned to habitually exclude them from our considerations. It’s habitual. It is literally built into our brain structures. Our neurons (e.g., via our mirror neurons) create stable states in our brain. Rewiring that will take time and dedicated effort. Just like it will take time and dedicated effort for me to rewire my brain to stand differently.
What we need to relearn
In the following sections, I will draw five parallels of what we need to rewire and relearn to move towards a multispecies reality:
‘Sitting’ - (re)building awareness of self, motivations, and goals for multispecies work.
‘Standing’ - (re)building knowledge about nature and its presence in daily life and work practice.
‘Getting correct shoes’ - re-evaluating and adding tools, methods, and theories.
‘Walking’ - practicing new tools, techniques, and approaches in low-pressure settings.
‘Running’ - working and performing well on multispecies projects.
This is not an exhaustive list, but I believe it is a good starting point.
‘Sitting’ - (re)building awareness of self, our motivations, and goals for multispecies work
Firstly, let’s focus on ‘sitting’. I link it to how we view ourselves and the world around us, which directly and indirectly links to why each of us even wants to work with multispecies topics.
Without actually doing anything yet, this is a critical basic step.
Going back to my running, I know deep inside that I am not motivated to run a marathon. I just want to run 5-10km here and there. I want to be mobile. I want to enjoy the sun on my face and the wind in my hair as I run. Even if I run slowly. Even if some might think I should go harder. And I want to run for the next 50 years. I also know that I have many other hobbies and interests, running is just one aspect of what I do. I am not willing to invest countless hours in weekly training. I’m also not supremely fit… So 5km after work is definitely more my speed than attempting to run a marathon as soon as possible.
So, one of the main things you can do to build a good foundation for your multispecies work is to gain a deeper understanding of yourself.
Where are you at? Ask yourself how much you already know. What did you learn about nature in school? What part do nature and multispecies approaches already play in your work?
Why do you want to do this? Ask yourself: Why does multispecies work interest you? Is it about animal rights? Or about ensuring that we have a livable present and future? Is it because someone told you that this is what you should be doing? Is it because you love the forests and the oceans? Is it because you want to enjoy the four seasons? Is it because it’s the hot new thing and you want to be trendy? Is it because you’re worried about natural disasters and want to prepare for those? Or is it all of the above?
What is the ‘multispecies you’re trying to do? It might be good, from the beginning, to figure out what multispecies thing you are trying to do. If you are not sure what ‘multispecies’, ‘socio-ecological,’ ‘regenerative,’ ‘rights of nature,’ or ‘nature-positive’ mean… Learn! Find videos on YouTube, listen to podcasts, or read industry reports, white papers, and open-access academic publications (Yeah, I know, they can be challenging to get, ‘cuz many of my fellow academics sure don’t make it easy to follow what they mean). What frameworks already exist? What would you do with those?
What is the goal? What do you want to achieve with multispecies work? Is it running a marathon (like massive policy-level shifts to prevent global climate change and biodiversity loss) or running 5k twice a week without ever competing in a race (like including nature in daily things and protecting your local forest from being cut down)? Where would you want to go?
What are you willing to do? Ask yourself and be really honest about what you are willing to do. Are you willing to learn about nature? Are you willing to relearn the basics, or do you just want a shortcut? Are you willing to feel discomfort and feel confused? To feel like an outsider or different from the current norm? To what extent? In what circumstances?
And maybe the answers to these questions change as you go along the journey. You can come back, ‘sit’ down, and rethink at any point. New goals. New motivations… There is always room for that. But starting with some answers will be a good guiding compass.
‘Standing’ - (re)building knowledge about nature and its presence in our daily life and work
Before we even start applying anything - aka walking or running - it’s important to get a relevant knowledge foundation.
Drawing parallels to running, it’s essential for me to learn how to stand without locking my knees, as this form directly translates to how I walk and run. Running while habitually locking knees (this is as far as I understood from the appointment, so don’t quote me on this) puts a lot of pressure on the joints and will ruin my feet, knees, and hips in the long run. So, the base that I need to fix is the standing. Building a new habit there to unlock healthy movement.
In multispecies work, similarly, I think it is important to work on our knowledge foundation before (or as we) hit the ground running to work on projects.
After you have (hopefully) taken stock of what you know, it’s a good moment to build the knowledge muscle. Learn about nature! If ‘nature’ is too broad of a term, then break it down.
Don’t know where to start? Learn about local species, like urban rabbits, trees, bees, or how food grows in your rural area. Check out what species are protected in your area. Do you know how water flows and circulates in your city? How does water enter and leave your building? What seasons does your place have (beyond the westernly enforced 3-month periods of spring, summer, autumn, and winter)?
Want to know more? Learn about the atmosphere. The oceans. What key challenges do global ecosystems face? What are the critical nature-related impacts of each economic sector and industry that the World Economic Forum has identified? What organizations and companies already do the work that you want to do? What are the treaties that protect nature? How does global nature and biodiversity protection operate?
If you still have them, pull out your high school biology books. Read about cells. What do they need to survive? Read about different organisms and species. What do cells need for photosynthesis (what even is that)? Check some geography books and learn about rock formations and river basins. Learn!
If you stop and think now, how many rock bands, car types, fashion brands, latest TikTok trends, or influencer dramas, do you know… What if you knew as much about nature?
There are endless opportunities for building new knowledge. New knowledge that will come in handy in projects to come. So, when you get an opportunity to propose or work on a multispecies project, you don't need to learn everything from scratch (though you will likely have to learn some things on the spot).
And if learning about nature is uninspiring and dull - sit with it. Why is nature boring to you? Is it the whole nature? Or that an external teacher does not force you to learn about it?
I hope we can all give ourselves time to learn about nature without feeling pressured, as we are not yet doing anything or applying the knowledge.
‘Getting correct shoes’ - re-evaluating and changing tools, methods, and theories that no longer serve us
Checking our ‘gear’ is another thing we can do before applying (or as we start to apply) multispecies thinking and knowledge about nature into our professional lives.
In my running situation, I was wearing shoes that were too small: both too narrow and too short. And I did not think that there was anything wrong with them until the physio pointed it out. Now, even if I continue building my standing and walking, and strengthen my feet, I will undo a lot of the work if I keep running in shoes that suffocate my feet. A lot of my effort will go to waste. I need longer shoes (easy to get) and wider shoes (not so easy to get, as wider-toebox running shoes are hard to come by).
And yes, I still wish that I could magically click a button and make my current running shoes fit. And nice that we can do that with methods and theories a bit more easily than with neon green trainers.
So, there are four things we need to do with our ‘gear’ - like methods, tools, theories, frameworks, jobs - as we head towards multispecies work. First, taking stock of how our current ‘gear’ fits. Then, removing the ‘gear’ that no longer serves, modifying what’s fixable, and finding and adding new things that fit what we are trying to do.
Taking stock: So first of all, see what you have. What did you learn at school and uni? What are the key frameworks you use at work, and how does each of them include nature? How did your studies talk about nature? (Interestingly, one of my students recently noticed that there is barely any nature in many sustainability theories and frameworks… go figure!) What tools do you use? Personas? Maybe business model canvas? Maybe SWAT analysis? Where is nature in each of them? On a more daily note, who do you follow on LinkedIn and social media, and do any of these individuals or organizations promote nature or nature-positive approaches? How do you expose yourself to nature and news about it?
Removing unfit ‘gear’: Then, especially from the lens of your new goals and knowledge about nature, some gear might obviously be outdated. It’s hard for me to imagine exactly what you are working on to make a good example. But I’ll try to use social media for that. If you are following design professionals who do not work with nature at all and are (still) focused only on human desires or smooth user interfaces that drive sales, maybe it’s time to hit that unfollow button. Similarly, with some of your work frameworks, maybe it’s time to retire some of them.
Modifying what’s fixable: Another option is to rethink some of the ‘gear’ that you have. Are you using personas? If yes, how would you apply that to nature, species, and ecosystems? Are you using systems maps or the iceberg model to analyze them? If yes, how would you modify those tools to fit in nature? Do you interview people? Then how would you use the interviews to study nature-related issues? Many of the tools that designers, researchers, and business professionals use can be modified, extended, adjusted, and iterated upon. And, yes, it takes brain power and thinking, but it is doable. And the more you learn about nature, its different elements, and multispecies/nature-positive framings, the easier it will be for you to see what is possible.
Adding new: Like shopping for new gear, you might need to search around for new theories, frameworks, or tools. Many people are working on multispecies, socio-ecological, and nature-positive issues. Sometimes, it might seem that you are the only person working on this and that you need to reinvent everything by yourself. But that is far from true. Google around! Read some reports! See new perspectives and ideas. They’re out there! Some of my recent interesting finds are:
the EY report A new economy: Exploring the root causes of the polycrisis and the principles to unlock a sustainable future.
the World Economic Forum report series for key economy sectors and cities on how to approach nature-positive transitions.
The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) and their disclosure recommendations and guidance for businesses to assess, report and act on their nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities.
‘Walking’ - practicing new multispecies tools, techniques, and approaches in low-pressure settings
This post has been so long, and we have not gotten to the part where we actually start doing something.
So yes, once we have taken stock of ourselves, learned about nature, and checked our gear (or maybe in parallel to doing those things, because it might be a never-ending iterative circle), we should also practice new ideas and tools in low-pressure settings.
In terms of me relearning to walk, I am not fully there yet. I’m still learning to stand. But every day, I try to take a couple of minutes to practice walking with the right foot placement and approach to rolling the foot. Just a few minutes of very targeted and mindful movement. I still walk throughout the day, don’t get me wrong (and yes, in the wrong position, but a girl gotta work and live), but I make sure to take a few minutes during which I can practice how it might be to walk differently.
And it’s similar to multispecies approaches. If you have a work task, can you take 15 minutes to think how you would add nature to it? On the weekend, can you take 1 hour to make a persona of the tree in your yard - what’s the species, how does it live, how does it reproduce, and how old might it be? And then maybe another persona next weekend? Or maybe a simple socio-ecological systems map? Or maybe write out five arguments of how you could tell your supervisor that you should consider nature and nature-positive framings in your next work project?
There are many opportunities to try out the tools, methods, and theories. Practicing them before applying them in client projects will help you ingrain those skills in your mind. And ease some of the pressure.
‘Running’ - working and performing well in multispecies projects
The final part (or perhaps not final, if it’s an iterative process where you can transition from sitting to walking to getting new gear whenever you want), once you have established the basics, is working on novel, sometimes high-pressure, multispecies, or nature-positive projects.
To be good at them and reduce the massive stress that can come with them, we need to have the basics. (Because honestly, I have been working in this area for like eight years, and if I would need to build a set of nonhuman personas, my first response would be terror and a sense of “I dunno what I’m doing, please somebody help me”…)
This is where the basics you’ve built will carry you. How are you going to work on water-positive futures if you have no idea what water is or how it circulates? Or how can you reimagine futures to be just towards all species, if you have no idea what those species are and what they need?
Covering the basics of sitting, standing, having the right gear, and practicing walking correctly will help you (and all of us) to know what to do and strive for once the opportunity hits.
Closing remarks
This essay was inspired by two things.
First, by my struggle to relearn standing and how much mental power it will take me to break habitual patterns.
Second, over the years, I have observed students (and young professionals) who really want to do multispecies work. But it sometimes seems that they want to be told what to think and do and exactly which tools to use, when, and how. They (understandably) want to know they’re doing the right thing. But sometimes it also feels that they want to outsource the cognitive and emotional workload so someone else figures out what they should do. Some (based on the style of education in the country, of course) might not have learned a single bit about nature since the 8th grade. Some may not be aware of the reasons behind their interest in multispecies work, beyond the fact that it’s trendy. Some might have read all the papers and heard all the lectures and panel discussions, but have never tried to test any of the tools in their practice. And, understandably, some of them might be overwhelmed. It’s like they want to run in a new way, but they might not be aware that to do so, they have to relearn the basics as well.
In light of my recent standing adventures, it seems that a lot of multispecies discourse might focus on how we should be running, but not on the basic skills and muscles we need to build to get there.
So I tried to reflect on that in this essay.
If you are serious about shifting to multispecies practices, I think it’s important to remember that no one can build the basics for you. No one will be able to tell you what to do, and then, magically, with a snap of the finger, you are a skilled, knowledgeable, committed multispecies practitioner. Just like my physiotherapist cannot fix my standing just by telling me that I stand wrong. I have to do the work, day by day, to relearn how to stand, sit, and walk, so that I can run again.
So, what are you going to relearn first?
If any of this resonated, comment below.
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Hope to catch you in the next one!
Multispecies digest
Lighthearted yet research-informed analysis of situations, projects, and life through the multispecies lens.