Three Ecologies Diffracted: Intersectionality for ecological caring

Abstract

This essay commemorates the 30th anniversary of the publication of Félix Guattari’s The Three Ecologies. It does so by proposing a ‘diffractive’ reading of the book, suggesting latent potential in each of the overlapping “ecologies” that conformed the ecosophy sketched by Guattari. There are mainly two aspects of The Three Ecologies addressed in this essay. Firstly, the understanding of the general frame of the interrelation of the three ecologies as an “intersectional” approach. Secondly, the understanding of this form of intersectionality as a possible platform to acknowledge other-than human ‘intersections’. Through the essay I exemplify with one of my own design projects to help situating the claims and the questions raised. Finally, I propose a multimodal explorative framework of the three ecologies to explicitly articulate human and other-than-human beings inter and intra-relatedness.