Intelligence of Place: Earth-Human Relations in Real Life
The Center for Earth Ethics is excited to announce the Intelligence of Place Network, a Columbia Climate School Earth Network co-directed by CEE Executive Director Karenna Gore, Susan Bodnar, PhD (Teachers College, Columbia University) and Dr. Joshua L. DeVincenzo (Columbia Climate School).
Karenna Gore
Karenna Gore is the founder and executive director of the Center for Earth Ethics and teaching professor of practice of earth ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Karenna formed CEE in 2015 to address the moral and spiritual dimensions of the climate crisis. Working at the intersection of faith, ethics, and ecology, she guides the Center’s public programs, educational initiatives, and movement-building. She is an adjunct faculty member at the Columbia Climate School.
The Intelligence of Place Network is devoted to understanding the state of the relationship between human societies and natural ecosystems. This includes emotional, moral, spiritual and cultural dimensions of the human experience. It also includes tracking how humans are tuned into the intelligences of nature, whether that contributes to their well-being, and what social systems facilitate or hinder that. In a time of dominance by technical data, computer modeling and abstract concepts, we propose to pay attention to how human beings perceive the environment in the most intimate and constant setting: the places they live. By taking account of the role of sentience as well as culture, we anticipate coming to a better understanding of the way that the clash between manmade systems and natural systems is felt locally. We will prioritize respectful engagement with those in long term reciprocal participation with the ecosystems they live in, with special regard to Indigenous Peoples. Finally we will keep in mind what all this means for the quality of collective decision-making that results in laws, policies and social norms.
Susan Bodnar
Susan Bodnar is a practicing psychologist who researches the human relationship to the environment with a focus on the impact of building a powerful psycho-spiritual-environmental connection as a pathway to health for all species. She has published multiple papers in this field of study—driven by people’s lived experiences. She recently co-edited “Unmoored Yet Unbroken: Eco-Psychology for a Changing World,” and has another on the way.
Places hold knowledge. Soil, water, plants, animals and the people who live alongside them carry information that no single discipline can fully read. The Intelligence of Place Network brings together psychologists, biologists, ecologists, theologians and Indigenous Peoples to listen to and witness these many layers at once, from biology and chemistry to psychology and spirituality—and to build a systemic understanding of the intelligence embedded in places.
Our aim is to affirm and strengthen alternate systems of knowledge, including cultural and spiritual ways of knowing, as ground for redefining how place shapes the human psyche, faith and culture. Through convenings, shared inquiry and public dialogue, the Network asks what becomes possible when we treat place not as backdrop, but as a participant in human life.
Joshua L. DeVincenzo
Dr. Joshua L. DeVincenzo is the assistant director of applied research, education and training at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, and an adjunct assistant professor at the Columbia Climate School, specializing in disaster risk reduction, behavioral science and organizational development. He has led the instructional design and strategic oversight for a portfolio of federally, state, local and internationally-funded programs focused on building capacity in climate resilience, economic recovery and equitable preparedness.
I am excited about the Intelligence of Place Network’s potential to create lasting connections across the university and beyond, fostering new dialogue and reflection on climate and human experience. The network aims to dive deeper into the “something missing” that we may often sense in climate-related work. It offers an opportunity to remove perceived barriers to entry into the broader climate discourse and lead with both experience and place. I am most looking forward to this incredible collaboration that brings together the Center for Earth Ethics, Union Theologia l Seminary, Teachers College and Columbia Climate School in a new and promising way.