ABSTRACT
In reflecting on the writing assembled here, I wish to be seen as a defender of the natural world and all who are vulnerable in this changing world – notably grandchildren, their children’s children, and Indigenous peoples. The four parts in this book – “Other Voices,” “Creative Destruction,” “Museums without Borders,” and “Dangerous Times” – reflect the cumulative thought and action that underlie this aspiration. The various themes reflected in my writing are also characteristic of the natural world and its original inhabitants, including diversity, complexity, autonomy, paradox, interconnectedness, self-organization, non-linearity, and sustainability. As part of this perspective, I acknowledge my “ecological self” – the wider sense of identity that emerges when one’s self-interest includes the natural world (Macy and Johnstone 2012: 94).
