Interview with author Nora Bateson

The Nature of Science

She is a film maker, writer and lecturer. And she leads the Bateson Institute.Becoming a competent graduate can be an asset to a hard labour market. But Nora Bateson, who leads the International Bateson Institute, believes that academic research the way it is conducted today leads to us into fragmenting reality. Nora Bateson is a very busy woman. Constantly on the move. When I call for an interview, she’s just on her way to Greece. She chooses to meet at the artist café Ritorno in central Stockholm. When I enter the room, I am struck by its atmosphere that has the scent of a bygone era. Everything has a slightly archaic tinge. There aren’t many people this early in the day. Only in a few places in the room do people sit and exchange thoughts. I sit down and wait for Nora. When she shows up and I start the tape recorder, I want to get insight into her life story. My first question in consequence is, ”Who are you?”. She laughs: ”Your question makes me think of the butterfly slearn in ”Alice in Wonderland” that asked Alice that very question.” She replied, ”I can’t say that because I’ve changed so much.”Nora actually works in many fields: she is, among other things, a film maker, writer and lecturer. And she heads the Bateson Institute. It is now based in Stockholm, although it includes a network of researchers all over the world. She was born in the United States in 1968. But her love for a Swedish musician led to her moving to Sweden. It is obvious that she is used to lecturing: she speaks quickly and energetically.

 

Father Gregory Bateson

Her father was Gregory Bateson. To me, he is known as one of the most significant researchers in the field of anthropology. But Nora says he was much more than that. A psychologist would probably think that he was most important to psychology, an ecologist that he had made efforts on this subject while a system theorist would reflect on his contributions in system theory, she says. In fact, she says, Gregory was active in all these subjects! He worked at a variety of universities. But he never agreed to be hired by any of them. It would certainly have meant financial security and led to prestige. But at the same time, it would have hindered the kind of scientific research that he wanted to conduct. For example, if he had become a professor of anthropology, he would no longer have been able to work in the ecological field. And that’s exactly what he wanted to do: cross the tight academic boundaries. In this way, he was radical in his thinking, she says. As a child, Nora had a very good relationship with her father, something she also shows in the film ”An Ecology of Mind”. The father learned from everything, and from all people she claims. And from him, Nora learned that the learning process is something that never ends.It turns out that she is a descendant of a long line of relatives who – in a similar way – have gone their own way. Her grandfather, William Bateson, was a leading figure in genetic research. He also coined the word ”genetics”. He left a job at the University of Cambridge. The reason was that he did not believe that the genetic inheritance could only be understood as a linear process as it was claimed within the popular chromosome theory of his time. He realized that genetic information must be seen as dependent on its context. It must be understood based on how the organisms interact with and mutually learn from each other. This is how evolution works. This is not about anything static. That’s why he left academia, too.Right now, there is a lot of talk that research should be interdisciplinary. If I want to study you, I’d have to choose the angle of approach. Are you a biological project? Are you an anthropological project? Or are you a project that you can study in terms of economics? There are many scientific ways to look at you. Who are you? And then we realize that if we choose an approach, we lose a lot of information. This is why interdisciplinary science has become popular.“Okay, “ says Nora, but if I tell you: ”Dear Leif, you are not really interdisciplinary. You are you. Life is not interdisciplinary. It’s just life.”That’s basically how her father and grandfather looked at research. It was not about customary interdisciplinary science where different disciplines exchange information (”science across” it has also been called). Instead, their research had a theme. They wanted to study living beings, their relationships and interdependence. How all life is related to everything else.The green environment consists of is an intricate web of interdependents. The problem is that we as human beings seem to ignore its clearness leaving no stone unturned out of disrespect. Instead, we tend to view nature as an object. This in turn has led to an ecological turmoil at that. Ultimately, it’s about a conflict between how we humans think and how nature works. Our way of perceiving nature is also not something ”natural” but something culturally constructed. Nor do we see how human relations are interdependent and the relationship between subject areas. We’re really splitting up reality.

 

Trade union specialization

When I tell Nora about the specilization of trade unions in Sweden between ”workers”, ”officials” and ”academics”, she thinks for a while and then says:“Well, I think the kind of special organization like the one you just described is an absolutely predictable result of an epistemology that sees life as detached.”At the same time, she does not think it would be very helpful to reorganize the system. Everyone sees things their way: it’s right according to their way of seeing. Everything is okay. The problem lies not in the organization as such, but in our way of thinking: how we perceive our existence as divided.Nora has great respect for the knowledge and rich history that exists in academia. She has also worked for many academics and universities worldwide. It’s just that she doesn’t think it’s the only way to knowledge. It’s not the center of the universe. If you have not yet published any works, does that mean that you do not have sufficient knowledge, she wonders.

 

A new take on research

For me – says Nora – it is important that research finds other ways and ways to be in relation to our economy. She doesn’t believe economy should be excluded. But it can’t be everything. What we have to do is study the small things but at the same time have the ability to zoom out to discover the larger contexts. It’s the same with the big challenges we’re facing right now. For example, we cannot separate environmental problems from great migration, she says. Yet that is precisely the mistake we are making. We see different issues as isolated from each other. And that is why it is also thwarted and misconstrued when we try remedy the problems. But there is hope:“This is where my work with the International Bateson Institute comes in. The most important thing in our time, I think, is that we develop a way of research that can take into account the complex relationships and connections that exist.”She recently finished the book ”Small Arcs of Larger Circles” which also reflects the Bateson Institute’s research approach. But there are challenges along the way. “We are constantly working actively to get funding,” she says. But it is very difficult for people in our existing systems to understand how important our research approach is. It is difficult for someone who supports educational research to understand that knowledge about the environment or research on migration patterns should also be supported. But, she exclaims, all of this is connected. The big challenge so far is to get people to fully understand the connections. Sounds interesting to me. We finish the interview and the day is still quite young.

By Leif Jacobsson

Master of Philosophy in social anthropology and co-worker at TAM-Arkiv TAGS: #norabateson #filmmakerwriterandlecturer #theinternationalbatesoninstitute #thenatureofscience #aliceinwonderland #butterflyslearn #gregorybateson #interdependencies #anecologyofmind #epistemologies #smallarcsoflargercircles #interviewbyleifjacobsson #leifjacobsson #interview #ritorno #stockholm #sweden #stockholmbased #niotillfem #2016 #alternativeacademia