It’s wonderful to see that process-relational theory is getting noticed in the study of social-ecological systems. A new article in Ecology and Society, Garcia et al’s “Adopting process-relational perspectives to tackle the challenges of social-ecological systems research,” argues that a process-relational perspective, “which focuses on nonequilibrium dynamics and relations between processes,” can help the field of social-ecological systems research (SES) overcome several challenges that currently face it. These challenges include the integration of the social and the ecological, the understanding of complex interactions and dynamics, issues of scale, and the integration of different knowledge systems.
From my perspective, the article provides a useful overview of these challenges and of the responses that a process-relational paradigm offers them. But it spends less time than it could defining key terms and, as a result, leaves room for some clarification of concepts, which I’ll try to do here.
The authors, from the Stockholm Resilience Center and South Africa’s Stellenbosch University, make clear that there is no single process-relational perspective, but rather that such perspectives “have a long history in philosophy” and that their renewed interest was “inspired by the seminal work of Alfred North Whtehead, and, to a lesser extent, the works of Henri Bergson, C. S. Peirce, William James, and Gilles Deleuze.” (They cite me on the latter point, which I appreciate.) Given that multiplicity, it’s important to think about the differences between process perspectives, relational perspectives, and the mixing of the two. The authors write:
Processes and relations are typically viewed as synonymous in philosophy, and this conceptual conflation has carried over into other disciplines (Mesle 2008). However, there is also an emerging body of research that views processes and relations as different, and as belonging to different traditions (Garud et al. 2015). SES research specifically has recently witnessed a boom of works on “relationality,” including relational values and relational approaches (Cooke et al. 2016, West et al. 2018).
(As an aside, I wouldn’t exactly say that processes and relations are considered “synonymous,” but the conflation of the two traditions does occur in philosophy, as the authors suggest. On relational perspectives, see my recent post.)
“In contrast,” they continue,
the concept of process has received less attention in this field. In this paper, we shall employ the term “process” when emphasizing dynamics, and the term “relations” when emphasizing linkages. Yet, because this paper invites a reflection on ontology, we follow the philosophical tradition that tends to see processes and relations as two sides of the same coin (Ivakhiv 2018).
This wording is faithful enough to my own account, but could benefit from a little more clarity. In my writing, I focus on the processual nature of relations and the relational nature of processes. To understand what this means, let’s define the two terms more precisely.
Dictionary definitions of “process” tend to emphasize the serial nature of what the word is describing: a process is something like a “series of operations,” “steps,” or “actions” taken toward a particular goal, which may be a desired end state or simple self-preservation. I find the goal-directedness in these definitions to be too teleological, and the seriality a little overly specific. A more general definition could be “organized” or “patterned” “change over time,” where the organization or patterning may or may not be “intended” — it could be emergent, and it could also be, in part, a product of observation (as with Schrödinger’s cat) — but it is always more than just random. The qualifier “over time” is also potentially confusing if it implies that this series occurs in time, with time being a kind of container within which processes occur. (I’ve written about the problems of the “time as container” model elsewhere; for process-relational philosophy, time is more a product of relational process than it is a pre-existent space or domain.)
Processes, however, are never entirely self-contained — they are always relational in that relations, and changing relations, make them up at each step of the way. This is a premise of the process-relational critique of substance metaphysics: that there are no things that remain entirely self-identical “over time.” All things are dependent on other things, which means they are constituted, at least in part, by their relations with those other things, to the point that the “thingness” of any of them begins to blur. What exists, as concretely as anything, are the events that make up relational processes.
Garcia et al. emphasize the point that processes are dynamic, while relations are about “linkages,” and this is a reasonable starting point for thinking their differences. It’s important, however, to recognize why linkages are central. (The word “linkage” sounds too substantialist to me, as if things are related through concrete objects that link them. But if it’s clarified that these linkages are also always dynamic, then that’s fair enough.) Every processing entity is inherently relational: it consists of a “taking account” of things in its environment, which in turn makes it what it becomes.
To bring this to the field the authors are addressing: ecologically speaking, it’s possible to say that there are relatively “closed systems” in which relations between entities may be dynamic, but which over time remain stable or “steady-state.” In this case, there are processes occurring at a systemic (e.g., ecosystemic) level, and there are the relations that make them up, relations that are internal to these larger, systemic processes. But this view of processes and relations is, to my mind, inadequate as an ontological starting point. One reason for this is the simple one that “closed systems” are never entirely closed — every relational system in the universe can only ever be relatively closed. There are always outside forces that shape them, that threaten to invade them, that actively support the boundaries that make their stability possible, and that connect in various ways with others that are internal to them.
The more important reason, however, from a Whiteheadian process-relational perspective, is this. It is that any entity — any actual occasion, which is Whitehead’s term for the most basic phenomenon making up the universe — is relational at its outset. As Whitehead puts it early on in Process and Reality,
The coherence, which [this metaphysical] system seeks to preserve, is the discovery that the process, or concrescence, of any one actual entity involves the other actual entities among its components. In this way the obvious solidarity of the world receives its explanation. (1978, p. 7)
What he means here, as I understand it, is that every actual entity/occasion involves other actual entities. The phrase “among its components” does not mean that these components are exclusively “internal” to the actual entity. Quite the contrary, in fact: an actual entity, in Whitehead’s account, is made up of prehended elements of other (previous) actual entities (alongside the pure potentialities that he, somewhat confusingly, calls “eternal objects”). An actual entity is never a closed system: it is open at every point in its “processing,” from the initial encounter between an arising subjectivity and objects set before it, to its final “concrescence” or “satisfaction,” at which point it passes over into other actual entities that take it among their components.
Another way of saying this is that the “process” of any actuality always involves other actualities, in a way that the latter are both external and internal to the first. It involves them, or “prehends” them, in specific ways, and it is this constellation of relations that makes up the processing entity (or actuality). Process is in this sense the action, while relations are its medium; they are that which is acted upon, with, and through. The two are intimately interwoven; together they make up the becoming of any actual entity.
And it is this mutual “involvement” (we might call it “inter-involvement” or “intervolvement”) between entities, which are perpetually coming into being and passing away — becoming “stubborn facts” for the coming into being, or creative advance, of the next generation of entities — that explains the “solidarity of the world,” that is, the intimate relatedness between all things, which Whitehead is justly famous for positing.
All of this reflects a particular form of process-relational ontology — Whitehead’s, or at least my interpretation of it (elsewhere I draw upon Pierce’s processual semiotics to complexify things).* There are others out there, to be sure. For any of them to be considered “process-relational,” they must at least have some account of what is processual and what is relational in their metaphysical conception.
Garcia et al’s article does not get into this level of ontological parsing. That said, its account of the potential gains that process-relational theory offers the study of social-ecological systems is spot on.
The authors make clear how process-relational approaches, with their focus on relational and dynamic change, draw attention to the intimacies by which the social and ecological are bound together from the outset; to the same regarding ontology and epistemology, which can never be cleanly separated (but which nevertheless are not identical); and to the porosity of boundaries between entities, systems, scales, and disciplinary perspectives. All of these are highly relevant to understanding the complex and dynamic relations encountered in the study of social-ecological systems.
*Whitehead’s definition of “process” is of course more complex than this brief account can convey. He refers, for instance, to the “macroscopic” process by which the universe expands “in respect to actual things,” and to the “microscopic,” “organic” process by which each actual entity proceeds “from phase to phase” through to its satisfaction (Process and Reality, 1978, pp. 214-215). I am referring, above, more to the latter, microcosmic conception, but in the earlier paragraphs I also have in mind the broader understanding of process found in other processual conceptions of reality. See here for some examples.
