2011 ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE ASSOCIATION OF BUSINESS HISTORIANS

‘SUSTAINABILITY’

FRIDAY 1ST JULY- SATURDAY 2ND JULY

Proposed Conference Paper

Five Hundred Years of Nonlinear History: A Complex Adaptive Meshworks Approach to the Property-Environment

Relationship (in the Lower Kennet Valley)

Joe Doak Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning & Development,

Henley Business School, University of Reading

Abstract: The (post) modern concept of sustainability emphasizes a holistic view of the world in which human and environmental processes are inextricably linked. It supports systemic and relational models of understanding, whereby actions and activities in one place and at one time have impacts and implications for other places and times. Similarly, the causes, processes and outcomes of human activities (including business activities) need to be conceptualized as multiple, dynamic, structured and complex. So, if sustainable development is now being worked out through a complex adaptive meshwork of collaborative, and conflictual, stakeholders, shouldn’t we extend this thinking both forward and backwards in time? Why shouldn’t (business) history be (re)conceptualised as a set of inter-connected networks or meshworks, made up of heterogeneous assemblies of human and non-human materials, responding to and drawing upon environmental resources and shaping and reshaping that environment as it processes materials, produces commodities and generates wastes and wealth? Just such an approach has been advocated by Manuel de Landa in his seminal work ‘A thousand years of non-linear history’ and this paper will explore the value of De Landa’s work (and other writers working in this holistic, relational vein) to our understanding of the dynamics of property development and the social regulation of land (to secure environmental objectives) through a number of historical epochs. Although the paper will focus on the theoretical building blocks required to understand the property-environment relationship over time, the intention is to use the resulting framework as a lens to help shine light on 500 years of non-linear history in the Lower Kennet Valley (i.e. Central Reading). In this way, linkages and inter-relationships between land ownership, property development and the social regulation of that process can be mapped and contextualized, exploring how those things shape and are shaped by wider social, political, cultural and ecological processes and trends.