Foundational
Questions
At Sideways we build coherence among groups through shared experiences, stories and network infrastructure.
Resources
Foundational Questions
These Foundational Questions invite responses to the ontological, epistemological and methodological roots of our planetary predicament. The three layers offer design provocations to people responding to planetary problems and scope to find coherene among a plurality of responses.
The Foundational Questions were initially developed by Foundations Earth. They have been used to inform generative interviews and workshops with change-makers across Europe and Asia. We continue to use these at Sideways as sense-making and response-making tools.
How can we create the conditions to practice new or since-forgotten ways of being that hold uncertainty and complexity, challenge dominant understandings of separability and human exceptionalism, and continuously move us towards new systems and paradigms?
Many of us have few opportunities to practice alternative ways of living outside of our dominant systems and paradigms.
We believe that to address the roots of our planetary-scale problems, we need more opportunities to live in and through these alternatives. This involves exploring new ways of being and relating – not only to each other and the other-than-human world, but also to uncertainty and complexity – that respond to notions of separability and human exceptionalism.
How can we create, maintain and evolve systems of learning that improve our capacity to respond to planetary problems, while being proportionately accountable to those affected?
Our capacity to evaluate and respond to planetary problems is limited by narrow understandings of knowledge, learning and intelligence.
We believe that to make wise decisions, we need to be able to access, harvest, analyze and synthesize data at a planetary scale.
How can we create and make accessible systems of governance that enable people to participate in response-making processes for the issues that they care about and which affect their lives, while ensuring sufficient coherence to interoperate at a planetary scale?
Our current systems of governance do not enable us to participate equitably in the response- and decision-making processes that affect our lives, nor do they generate inclusive and effective outcomes at a planetary scale.
We believe that enabling equitable participation in governance systems is a prerequisite for improving outcomes for the people and places affected, and that such processes must interconnect with multiple governances at different scales.