Conviviality

“I choose the term ‘conviviality’ to designate the opposite of industrial productivity. I intend it to mean autonomous and creative intercourse among persons, and the intercourse of persons with their environment . . . I believe that, in any society, as conviviality is reduced below a certain level, no amount of industrial productivity can effectively satisfy the needs it creates among society’s members” (Illich 1973, 24).

“Human beings can no longer view themselves as proprietors and masters of nature. On the assumption that, far from being its adversary, they are actually a part of it, [the principles of conviviality] must be applied to animals—which must no longer be thought of as fodder for industry—and to the earth in general” (Convivialist Manifesto 2014, 33–34).

“To reconceive the green city as a site of more-than-human conviviality and hospitality, we would need to effect a cultural shift to resituate humankind ecologically, while resituating otherkind (plants, animals, and fungi, but potentially also rivers, wetlands, and woods, for example) ethically” (Rigby 2018, 73).

“If coexistence implies living with troublesome nonhuman natures despite the associated conflicts and costs . . . we might then conceptualize conviviality as co-flourishing, in which sustainable rural livelihoods and wildlife conservation each provides the preconditions for the other” (Martin 2024, 17).