More-than-human governance

There is a growing network of people and places exploring and practising how governance and policy design can draw on more-than-human and planetary intelligences.

‘More-than-human’ was initially coined by David Abram in his 1997 book The Spell of the Sensuous. The term refers to the animate earth and the impossibility of separating our human- ness from our relationship with it. Our exploration related to governance has been around how we might meaningfully consider our relationship with the living world when making decisions.

In May 2024, we embarked on an exploratory research project to learn who is conducting new governance experiments in Europe in order to start mapping mapping the field, learn from best practices, and share these findings.

Then, in June 2024, we hosted a convening which brought together the cutting edge innovators in more-than-human governance. This project was commissioned by Arising Quo as a shared inquiry. In the paper, we explored the following questions:

• Who is doing more-than-human governance practice in Europe? Or enquiring about it?
• Where is the work being applied in policy and governance?
• Who is doing what, where?
• What is emerging in this field in Europe?
• How can it be further supported?

In 2026, we launched a project with the University of Sydney, “Including the more-than-human in decision making”, in which we will:

• Create an inventory of existing methods, approaches, and their impact.
• Conduct two original experiments on more-than-human inclusion in decision making.
• Support a global community of practice to connect practitioners, and share knowledge and learning across continents.