Reimagining Planetary Governance & Responses to Climate Change in a Borderless World
By Natali Euale Montilla and Catherine Euale Montilla
The migration of all other-than-human beings is borderless. All of this earth's beings--humans, animals, plants, rivers, bacteria-- have moved freely across this planet for millennia. There is great hope in knowing that we have lived longer without imperialism and colonization and, thus, without the concept of "countries" than with them. In writing about futures without borders, we do not imagine that any Nation will quickly give up its control over people and resources and dismantle its borders by tomorrow. Yet, to imagine something that seems unachievable in the foreseeable future is nonetheless necessary, courageous, and worth fighting for.
A world without borders would require re-thinking ownership, control of the commons, forms of governance, economic systems, social services, migration, and citizenship. In thinking of borderless worlds, we consider the Zapatista concept of a "pluriversal" world, "a world in which many worlds fit." We want to make a case for fluid territories in a world without borders, without militarized border security, migrant detention centers, and the criminalization of migration. In this pluriverse, we reimagine what being a citizen of the earth, rather than a Nation-state, could look like. We use the term "reimagine" intentionally, as we are not proposing something new.
We draw inspiration from ancient methods developed by nature to imagine a borderless world. We envision an interconnected system of communities that are responsive to the needs of their kin. Like mycelial networks running through the soils of the "wood wide web," making alliances with plants, microbes, and critters, equally distributing nutrients among all beings in a larger decentralized and mutually beneficial organism: a forest. This web could consist of data systems that map critical climate disasters, pollution, resource shortages, disease, and conflict that forcibly displace individuals and communities. The mycelium web model can inform a biofeedback map to visualize and highlight regions capable of sustaining an influx of people or capable of redistributing resources. If our solidarity networks functioned in a similar way as networks of mycelium, it would ensure that we as humans consume more ethically and according to need, not based on the accumulation of wealth. Furthermore it would allow for the equitable distribution of so-called resources to countries that have been ravaged by ongoing colonization / imperialism / capitalism and would create a direct network of support for regions disproportionately suffering the burden of climate catastrophe. A core principle of a borderless world is that basic services, rights, freedom of mobility and access to emergency support when faced with climate change must not be dependent upon the colonial concept of ‘citizenship’.
The question of what governing bodies would look like within a borderless world is not difficult to imagine, as Indigenous Nations have stewarded the land based on responsibilities to traditional territories and to their other-than human kin, as well as based on their own local governance systems for centuries, not based on imperialism. Again, this is not something new, it is an opportunity to reimagine and reclaim the knowledge that colonialism has tried to erase. This borderless world could be re-imagined as a world-wide mutual aid network inspired by a mycelial network model and following local Indigenous governance systems.
Organization would come down to forming regional chapters that would steward specific bioregions. All people living within each bioregion would be responsible for this stewardship, and each chapter would follow local Indigenous protocol and law. All members of each chapter, including settler communities would collectively be responsible for working to map out and respond to changes to the regional environment and climate, and for calling on the worldwide mutual aid network (comprising all global chapters) for resources and support when needed, while also supporting other chapters within the network when called upon. A needs-based, borderless flow of beings, information, support, and responses to climate emergencies, based on Indigenous law and global solidarity.
Our vision is to dismantle imposed colonial systems of governance, return stolen lands and leadership to Indigenous communities, eliminate the xenophobic barriers to migration and asylum-seeking worldwide and re-create a sense of connection, respect and responsibility to the land and our other-than-human kin for all people.
By rejecting capitalism and imperialism we can start seeing the world through the lens of abundance rather than scarcity, where the hording of wealth and the race to pillage the land for its resources is no longer the norm.
Some of the steps required to manifest this vision include:
Rematriating stolen lands to respective Indigenous Nations;
Dismantling colonial systems of governance, including borders, and returning to Indigenous-led leadership and governance;
Affirming climate change as a planetary responsibility and recognizing Black and Indigenous communities and communities of color, especially in the global south, as the most at risk for mass displacement due to climate change;
Envisioning an equitable and just long-term migration scheme to support climate refugees (and all migrants and asylum seekers)
Remembering & upholding our responsibilities to the earth as its stewards rather than as "citizens" of a "nation.";
Collecting planetary data to identify global resource use and areas of resource scarcity, and creating maps to effectively and equitably redistribute resources to those areas.
Redirect funding currently used to fund harmful extractivism such as mining and fossil fuels towards creating more sustainable and ethical forms of energy aligned with our responsibility to take care of the land and all of its beings.
About the Authors
Natali Euale Montilla (She/Her), is a Venezuelan immigrant to Turtle Island, so-called Canada. She is of mixed ancestry from Cuicas territory in the Andes of Venezuela and from the Mediterranean. Her organizing and work is centered on exposing and dismantling all levels of oppression and violence towards Black and Indigenous folks and People of Color (BIPOC). She is particularly involved in Indigenous led struggles for land-rematriation and sovereignty.
Catherine Euale Montilla (she/her)
Textile artist and activist focused on natural material exploration, sparking dialogues between humans and non-human organisms, and advocating for planet-centric design. Inspired by natural processes, her work aims to merge cloth with earth and mirror the deep relation with the “other” - people, planet, animals, and the interconnected web of being.
