MURPHY Laura
Tulane University, New Orleans
lmurphy2@tulane.edu

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An illustrated Glossary for the Pluriverse aims for greater participation in co-creating Pluriversal worlds that resist injustices and promote well-being and living in harmony with nature. A-Z entries will capture different stances and ideas as “thinking tools”– such as the scientific “Anthropocene” and the post-structural “Anti-Politics Machine” to “Diffuse Design”; “Commoning” and “Pachamama” as existing pathways; the “Networked Society” representing our globally internet connected world; the “Pluriverse” itself; “Theory U” as one pathway; “Zoonotic disease” as a challenge. These terms reflect different epistemological and ontological stances; they arise in thought-provoking and dense academic works, post-development dictionaries, and social movement manifestos. Some are transdisciplinary, solution-seeking approaches; many capture viewpoints of post-structuralist and post-colonial scholars (esp from the Global South) who have been challenging hegemonic ideas of “Development” (even the optimistic UN “SDGs”). To start, this new glossary will offer short, accessible paragraphs in everyday English with illustrations such as diagrams (Panarchy cycle) and scenes of nightmarish landscapes (petrochemical complexes of southern Louisiana), as well as Pluriversal realities.

Keywords: Pluriverse, post-structural, transdisciplinary, Coffee Time

Laura Murphy is fascinated by human-environment-technology interactions and the pursuit of transdisciplinary solutions to wicked problems. My research and teaching are shaped by living, playing, and working around the world. I began unpacking socio-cultural baggage in Jakarta (1980s). I gained respect for small-scale farmers as ‘aid worker’ in Kenya. I missed the lives of real people behind the statistical analysis of Ecuadorian Amazon deforestation (my 1990s dissertation). I am a middle-class, able-bodied, non-straight, white woman; still holding an American passport; a delighted parent to a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic global citizen.