The Embodied Governance Project is conducting open research towards a suite of collaborative techniques for managing commons infrastructures using embodied collective-sensing methodologies.

Cosmo-local communities, comprising technologists and Earth stewards from diverse backgrounds, are experimenting with socio-economic changes that require a body capable and ready to respond to the complexity in which it is immersed.

The new systems we are building must include beauty, love and emotional depth as inputs, even if they are not quantifiable. Without these, the systems will continue to optimize for profit and growth, as these inputs are more easily measured.

Our hypothesis is that the body - meaning the full individual in relationship to its environment - are the providers and maintainers of a system’s subjective input and the regulators of its health. An opinion or desire becomes more granular as it moves further away from the body, to a word, to a pen, to a keyboard. The body is an under-appreciated sensing device within collective space and as a result our disembodied practices make gray commons stewardship.

Learning from a wealth of experience from the literature, embodied facilitation, systemic constellation work and beyond, we will develop a conceptual framework around physical presence and sensory sensibility that creates emergent properties and realities for decision-making. In our experience, this can connect physical spaces with their online counterparts, enhancing the warmth, meaning, and sense of belonging that come from being an active part of these communities.

The outcome of this research will be a playbook with practices for meaningful governance, including a suite of workshop tools for use within civic spaces to transform idealism into tangible impact through actionable solutions for local issues. The playbook will combine practices within three key threads:

Hyperstition is a cybernetic term which describes how ideas can create their own reality.

Proprioception is the internal sense of body position, it’s what allows us to move our limbs without looking at them.

Exteroception is the awareness of external stimuli, it’s how we sense the bodies of others.