Introduction
The prevailing unidirectional relationship with nature focuses on resource extraction, with minimal efforts toward sustainable practices (Ojeda et al., 2022). From the perspective of environmental and ecological engineering, there is a strong focus on environmentally friendly engineering. The focus of environmental and ecological engineering is on sustainable engineering methods. This involves analyzing the effects of industry and its waste on the environment. It recognizes that the natural world has a gradual and lasting reaction to the developments and actions of engineers who aim to enhance science and technology (Engineering Within Ecological Constraints, 1996). From this conversation, an adjacent one is born that calls engineers towards more holistic engineering. This includes engineering that looks at sustainable forest management (Guidi, 2023), city planning of hard and soft infrastructure (Voelz, 2022), and resilience of livelihood via food sovereignty (Fan et al., 2022). Drawing from the extensive research in holistic engineering, this study employs the environmental reciprocity (E.R.) framework established by Zheng et al. (2018) to explore the significant role of ecological engineering in shaping land-use changes and human influences in Indiana.
Background
Due to the uncertain future of the abundance and resilience of water and land in Indiana, scientists have investigated water resources, their use, and challenges to managing water quantity, quality, and availability in the state of Indiana (Bowling et al., n.d.; Report, n.d.; State Summary Highlights, n.d.). Due to the uncertain future of the abundance and resilience of water and land in Indiana, scientists have investigated water resources, their use, and challenges to managing water quantity, quality, and availability in the state of Indiana (Bowling et al., n.d.; Water Report, n.d.; Wilson & Lindsey, 2005). The current state of resource management for Indiana remains indigent with the cultural institutions and values of those who came before them, the ways they lived and existed, and how powerful their stories and ontologies are shaping our future within water governance. This has led to a plethora of reductions in the protection of habitats and landscapes, land dispossession, and agricultural expansion (Farrell et al., 2021; Lark et al., 2020; Lindsey et al., 1969; Parsons & Fisher, 2020; Peyton, 2023; Thiele, 2023).
To address this challenge, a reciprocal relations framework will be employed to analyze how changes in urban land use and land cover affect the modified hydrology of wetland dynamics in the Wabash River Watershed of Indiana. A watershed is called the land that drains into a collective system of waterbodies; wetlands, which combine vegetation, hydrology, and soils, connect a body of water and a watershed (Indiana Department of Environmental Management, n.d.). The Watershed serves as an important migration corridor and, in 2010, was called home by 4.3 million people (Our Watershed | Tippecanoe County, IN, n.d.). The diagram models the argument for environmental reciprocity and its influence on land use and stewardship well, as it shows the cyclical nature in which reciprocity operates (Zickar & Keith, 2023). With the onslaught of dramatic environmental changes, land dispossession, fragmentation, and emigration, there is a persistence to not focus much on what is gone or, likewise, what is lacking. The lack of a framework, or systemic thinking, within environmental and ecological engineering has led to an interest in establishing one. How does learning the land and its history become a potential solution to the issue of management, economic security, and sustainability? The elements of environmental reciprocity are unpacked to develop a framework, tracing its evolution from its inception as an idea to its material and theoretical foundations in thermodynamics and economics.
Methods
The search for literature regarding the qualitative systematic review of reciprocity or a review of published literature on environmental reciprocity was limited to definitions (Dostilio et al., 2012). Thus, thousands of journal articles were rendered. The citations were compiled through a targeted search that examined the contexts of the Gullah community and environmental science, covering the period from the late 1990s to the early 2000s, and utilizing resources such as Google Scholar and a university library system. Analyzing the literature through the framework of reciprocity posed challenges due to the considerable differences in the contexts presented by various authors. Dostilio et al. (2012) investigated the concept of reciprocity from diverse viewpoints, offering a comprehensive definition of generative reciprocity that is pertinent to this study. Their definition highlights not only actions but also modes of existence (Dostilio et al., 2012).
Towards an Integrative Framework for Local Environmental Reciprocity (ER)
E.R. as a definition
E.R. is livingly defined as the successful negotiation of humans, more than human and nonhuman systems and beings, and their experiences of relationships that determine survival and prosperity for one another as, often, one and another.
While this could likewise draw inspiration from posits practices in relational ontology, the definition utilizes multiple lenses from Indigenous epistemologies, human-nature relationships, and localized scholarship to establish a sense of contextualizing mutually beneficial relationships and responsibilities to land, water, animals, and resources in a more concise manner (Diver et al., 2019). The reader must note that it was less important to define local, traditional, or indigenous knowledge than to state the long-term goals of ER. These should help scientists, diplomats, and citizens better understand the terms. Reciprocity is a TEK of the ethnosphere. It lives as empirical knowledges, like Indigenous, local, and traditional knowledges, do (Jim Robbins, 2018). By providing such a definition, I am encouraging us to consider it collaboratively within the work we perform as engineers and servants of society. This approach is adapted to these areas by developing a dynamic definition of the term, as outlined by K. P. Whyte (2013).
To enhance the framework, a diagram was designed to depict social and cultural capital as mutual resources. This is key for fostering environmental reciprocity in both communities and society. The primary goal and indicators for environmental reciprocity (E.R.) are also outlined in Figure 1.
Theories that might also contribute to the development of this topic as a research framework include Black (in lieu of the word radical) ecology and frugal engineering methodologies that root themselves in recognizing, or restructuring, the way we couple policies and science by making room for multispecies kinships and the multiplicity involved within ontologies (Malshe et al., 2023; Moulton & Salo, 2022). Figure one draws the picture for the definition and pluralism that not only occurs as we address pathways to freedom in socio-ecological thought but also within the concepts of holistic restorations. There is not just a role to play for humans, but a convergence of actions that will require change, or openness, to change in thought. I explore this further in the following subheadings of E.R. as an idea and social and material process.
E.R. as an idea
Jumping back into the overall role of reciprocity, there is a general conceptual acceptance of its meaning to give and take in tandem. For E.R., it acknowledges that there has been more taking than giving. As such, it establishes that there is a coevolutionary and co-adaptive role and responsibility between culture and nature. As Robin Wall Kimmerer acknowledges in her book Braiding Sweetgrass (2013), this heritage includes the knowledge of our relationship to plants, and raising corn is not reciprocal when considering all the chemicals that are used to produce it that eventually flows to the Gulf of Mexico and create dead water, or areas in which aquatic life, flora, and fauna can no longer persist well. In this case, including Indiana, corn does not produce food to share, store, and enjoy, but generates money and slaughters’ lives downstream. This is corporate and industrial exploitation, not a relationship (Kimmerer, 2013). Industrialization has allowed agriculture to separate culture and growing food and, likewise, separate food from medicine. To engage in environmental reciprocity is shifting from a consumer to a co-producer. It involves seeing the different plants, animals, and landscapes, deciding how to live, or establishing an ontology and asking a series of questions. What is medicine? What is food? Which plant? Which animal? Which part of the plant? Which part of Earth? When do you harvest? How do you use it? How do you give back to what was given to you (Kimmerer, 2013)?
E. R. is not out of fear, addressing questions, such as what will we eat and what will be our resources? It is out of honor and respect: a nobility of history we carry forth with pride in dedication to continue to make life beautiful and even better for those who may come along. It is a service. In this way, culture forms and thrives.
E.R. as a social process
This section offers a historical overview and contextual framework addressing the coerced labor associated with enslavement, the ecological stories of enslaved individuals, and the lived experiences of marginalized groups, including the Gullah community. A multifaceted perspective on reciprocity is highlighted, acknowledging it as a continuum that encompasses a range of viewpoints and intricacies rather than being confined to a singular interpretation. The concept of reciprocity utilized in this analysis captures this diversity, allowing for its relevance in both environmental discussions and the dynamics of labor and society (Dostilio et al., 2012). In Black on Earth: African American Ecoliterary Traditions, Ruffin (2010) asks two questions: (1) what does it mean when work, rather than leisure, is your central ecological experience, and (2) what does it look like when the work is forced labor, or enslavement? If ecology is to be understood as a "moral and healthy relationship with the natural world,’ then ecological ontologies speak to the interdependence between the living world and humanity’s societies (Branch & Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, 1998; Stewart, 2005; The Ecological Life, n.d.).
Thus, as maroon societies such as the Gullah developed, as communities of enslaved people lived within the oppressive institution of slavery, knowledge of the natural world was required for survival. This can be seen within the narrative of the gardens of Gullah elders, who use gardening as a pathway to achieve the bodily knowledge necessary to survive (Fuller, 2015; Klindienst, 2006). Although their forced labor meant to reduce their humanity, the narratives of enslaved peoples testify that human beings are nature, and they need these relationships with nature (Ruffin, 2010).
Referenced as conjurers in Western epistemologies, these practitioners provided enslaved African Americans with the psychological tools to resist and persist. They were skilled in navigating the supernatural realm and providing spiritual healthcare. Since many enslaved people live in oppressive situations that require both metaphysical and physical attention, these practitioners are integral to healing practices, combining alternative worldviews with botanical access and knowledge (Barber, 2015). This is even locally supported by the Indiana Narratives recorded by George Fortman and Joseph William Carter in their dialogues on their experiences with “witchcraft” and practitioners’ ability to not only use environmental and ecological conditions to heal but to predict temporal conditions as well (Born in Slavery, n.d.). Thus, their narratives not only provide us with ecological knowledge, but also their ecological alienation as well—how people became othered in lieu of a social order that did not follow, or work with, natural order (Turner, 2012). In other words, Black-authored environmental narratives turn Thoreau’s retreat into Fortman and Carter’s refuge: commune, connect, experience, and reflect (Williams, n.d.). In other words, without addressing the human systems that influence these relationships, discussing how people relate to the land is meaningless (Ruffin, 2010).
In the transition of death or homegoings for the Gullah, people are not considered to have left. Rather, they remain (Homegoing, n.d.). Within the Gullah, ideologies refer to a lineage of relation: to language, knowledges, tradition, and work in tandem with the community. Their identity perseveres within a livelihood attached to communal reciprocity relations and is steadfast in an abundance and self-determination consciousness (Fuller, 2019). While being a descendant and representative in culture and research, there is much we will never scientifically know due to reciprocal relations being of work in an intimate and metaphysical knowledge of the living, or natural, world. This, within E.R., is a multidimensional social process, and as we find ourselves between imposed identities of African ethical frameworks and Native American epistemologies—We Gullah. We embody a distinct metaphysics wherein peoplehood is based on ties to land, shared use of resources, community, and reciprocity (Fuller, 2015). E.R. is based on that.
E.R. as a material process
In integrating E.R. in work and design, we must consider its current status in society, the economy, and the laws of physics and thermodynamics. This is mainly due to the range of ways in which resources, stocks, and flows are scientifically and monetarily subject to such pathways (Schmelzer et al., 2022). To address planetary boundaries effectively, a discussion on societal boundaries is required (Brand et al., 2021). To discuss societal boundaries, the economy and how resources are commodified must first be addressed (Liverman, 2004; Moreau et al., 2017; Sultana, 2023). Without building a narrative that couples environmental history and relation to the environment, things remain as waste and emissions, along with the growth demands of capitalism’s social metabolism—building entropy and harming the functioning of societies (González de Molina & Toledo, 2014a). How can the expansive nature of modernity be overcome without jeopardizing the social, cultural, and democratic achievements that have been accomplished (Ruffin, 2010)? Serving as indicators of material processes, econometrics and exergy are briefly analyzed.
Ecometrics and Ethics of Ecometrics
Ecometrics is a valuation system for the living World. To best capture the social and cultural value of ecosystems, people increasingly refer to the living World as a compilation of ecosystem services to encourage a broader group of individuals, including scientists, stakeholders, community members, corporations, and politicians, to make efforts in its protection, preservation, and conservation more seriously (Daily, 1997). This valuation system is almost always captured monetarily to communicate the immediate needs of the community and/or its ecosystem (Understanding Relationships among Multiple Ecosystem Services, n.d.) and exposes a sense of environmental fragility (Sampson, 2017). Although there is an alternative framework that includes reciprocity within this valuation system, ethnographic applications are lacking (Comberti et al., 2015). Due to this missing narrative, the valuation system has been exposed to both critiques and counter-arguments in environmental ethics, human-nature relationships, biodiversity, and commodification (Lampert, 2019; Schröter et al., 2014). For example, how can the spiritual significance of plants, animals, and insects be quantified (Garibaldi & Turner, 2004)? Instead, with more narrative than valuation system-centered discourse, the question becomes: how does what is significant become translated from its impact on a specific environment or community to, and as part of, scientific spaces? Ecometrics is a part of developing and promoting community-based approaches to protect communities from climate change risks and land loss. Historically, stakeholders have underestimated the costs associated with land dispossession and fragmentation. This is due to the non-communal-based valuation system, which does not include them. (Chong, 2014; Conrad & Daoust, 2008; Pascual et al., 2023). One alternative to monetary valuations is energy.
Exergy and Social Metabolism
Concepts of thermodynamics and energy processes depend heavily on the exploitation of limited resources (Papageorgiou, 2019). Exergy can help explain regenerative practices and the real value of environmental reciprocity (Nielsen et al., 2020). One challenge is that this may involve a ten-step proof that illustrates how reciprocity shifts away from equilibrium and balance towards restorative justice, which contrasts with the destructive cycle of depletion and replenishment present in our current systems. At this stage of framing the initial research on environmental reciprocity (E.R.), the existence of exergy and social metabolism in relation to E.R. is explained.
Exergy is the maximum potential “useful work” of an amount of energy (Papageorgiou, 2019). The production of useful work is subject to losses, including losses in efficiency and the ability to produce useful work. Exergy faces its own Jevons’ Paradox (Alcott, 2005), threatening to lose what people thought it had gained. That is, we dive deeper into reciprocal applications. The living world is an open system concerning energy (Nielsen & Müller, 2023). If matter is energy, the living world is also a closed system (Nielsen & Müller, 2023). The living world is the boundary if we were to draw one. Continuing the exergy explanation, available work is the maximum work that can be spontaneously delivered by a closed system without exerting any external force on it. The available work is the exergy. Exergy, or potentially useful work, anergy, or energy that is not regarded as useful work, together constitute energy (Papageorgiou, 2019). Reciprocity makes that difference unnecessary because no kind of effort or work is considered waste. Reciprocity exerts a multiplying effect that humans and non-humans alike do not always see immediately, but the second law of thermodynamics supports it (Grmela, 2002). Keeping the first law in mind, a change in energy may occur, but due to the reciprocity definition, one cannot consider the energy a downgrade regardless of its dissipation. They performed the work, and they used all the energy. Because there was no loss of work potential or efficiency, entropy was not ascribed to reciprocity, which means a loss in the quality of energy. In a way, all the energy used in a particular way or its order matters (Huber & Mills, 2007). Thus, energy efficiency defines how much useful work can be produced from available work. If a real thermodynamic process defines energy conservation and increased entropy, reciprocity does not increase (Kostic, 2020). Exergy is steady. What does this mean? The destruction of exergy occurs when entropy increases (Pal, 2017). This would mean that the processes could occur without loss, and exergy would not be zero, but entropy could be. Entropy is meaningful (Brissaud, 2005; Klimontovich, 1999). Everything is useful.
However, as aforementioned, researchers face a challenge in relating exergy to reciprocity because the historical restriction of application requires including emergy and entropy. It is difficult to estimate the exergy of different energy forms, such as human and animal labor (Zhou et al., 1996), relating exergy to sustainability (Rosen, 2021), relating exergy to the human body (Mady et al., 2013), and relating exergy to material flows (Ertesvåg, 2001). What is critical about this is that the greater the exergy available, the greater the possibility that humans need to be met (Stougie, 2014). To improve alternatives and regenerative practices for so-called natural resources (Dorninger et al., 2023), we must critically think about the social metabolism required to procure, retain, and maintain reciprocal relations, given the permanent reciprocity that scholars recognize as humans “affecting, transforming, and appropriating nature” (González de Molina & Toledo, 2014b). However, scholars have often conflated discourses on metabolism with monetary value in engineering, materials, substances, and services, leaving out socioecological analysis (Savini, 2023). Within the analysis of the five metabolic functions of the relations between society and nature—circulation, appropriation, transformation, consumption, and excretion—the relationship of reciprocity is better realized by combining the processes of funds and flows in modeling as nothing goes to waste (González de Molina & Toledo, 2014b). This model allows us to bridge the ecological and evolutionary biology that surrounds relationships.
Future Applications of the E. R. Framework
Recommendations for Practical Applications of Environmental Reciprocity Indicators
In conducting the literature review, efforts were made to identify indicators that encapsulate traditional, indigenous, and local knowledges through the examination of specific phrases, among others. However, a more distinct, compelling, and possibly more provocative question surfaced: What if the knowledge that already exists acts as the indicator?"
As aforementioned, there are things for which science does not have a standard measurement. There is no metric or imperial system. Rather, the indicators change based on what is being sought after, as TEK is currently used to complement professional science or challenge the results presented in professional science (Berkes et al., 2008). Operating without political influence allows science to persist in a manner that lacks locality. The TEK makes plural, deft, and dynamic what we see in science because what once existed on its own is now subject to multiculturalism and universalism (Eijck & Roth, 2007). In other words, TEK is rarely used alone. García-Moya et al. (2012) developed indicators for TEK based on their use in developing evaluation and monitoring techniques for plants, including measuring the availability of useful resources per unit area, the proportion of native useful species to introduced useful species, maximization of the number of uses assigned to a species, integral utilization of species, maximization of the available species of use in the wild, native species, or introduced species per location, number of parts of species used, and goods and services produced by a species by month and year (Moya et al., 2012). Thus, further research can serve to address and understand the ecological principles and biophysical systems of time, place, species, disturbances, and landscapes (Olsson & Folke, 2001; Reyes-García et al., 2020). One challenge with these studies is their scientific processes and revelations depended on having available local and traditional knowledge bearers who provided the knowledge to verify the computed data. Thus, in circling back to the original point, environmental and ecological knowledges can serve as indicators of coviability in place of that and in the absence of available bodies of knowledge that are not housed in a particular group of people, whether they have remained empirical or across generations (Sabinot & Lescureux, 2019). This allows us to go beyond the spatial and temporal scale, when necessary, and examine how socio-ecological and governing relationships, systems, and institutions enable the human-nature relationship to persist, survive, thrive, and adjust. Objectives and indicators for environmental reciprocity (E.R.) were established. Within the following tables, an objective can be paired with more than one indicator, allowing Western scientists, policy advocates, and others to manifest the management of climate change, natural resources, land, and water in alternative, nonstructural ways. Environmental, administrative (or pragmatic), and social indicators can be flexibly applicated.
Different indicators are best suited for various outcomes, and water quality parameters may take many years to change. So, it’s useful to document social or administrative indicators. They help track gradual changes in water quality. In Indiana, some key indicators of E.R. are current events. Table 1 lists concerns, problems, causes, and sources of problems that can be monitored in tandem with one another.
Preserving History and Culture
E.R. requires a sense of relationship-building that can hinge on trust and accountability. At the nexus of “wicked problems,” and the oppressive triad of institutions of colonialism, capitalism, and industrialization, affirming or establishing these qualities and relationships across societies has proven difficult (Buchanan, 1992; K. Whyte, 2020). This is partly due to a lack of awareness of historical, environmental stories and other effects of land fragmentation. Environmental Reciprocity can fit within management and governance practices. It can also help conserve, restore, and co-develop knowledge in assessing and observing species. It counters unsustainable resource practices. It offers alternative views and dialogues that include non-human perspectives. It invites us to resist environmental injustices and decolonize the dominant narrative. (Brondízio et al., 2021). Bryer says we must decolonize environmental and ecological stories and practices. We must, “overcome the colonial legacy of divide and conquer.” It created borders where none existed and severed people’s ties to land and community in the name of ‘civilization’ and economic ‘progress.’ (Bryer, 2023). Following this praxis, general objectives and their indicators are detailed in Table 2.
The Capacity to Reciprocate: Local and Government
Actors: Individual, Groups, or Networks of Reciprocators
We all retain the responsibility and capacities in which we can engage in reciprocal relationships. Reestablishing and nurturing relationships facilitates opportunities to overcome the oppression of socio-ecological agencies enacted during instances of colonialism, exploitation, and enclosure (Hickel, 2022). Land dispossession and fragmentation, along with the establishment of capitalism, have separated many people from the pluralism and possibilities of human-nature relationships. The capacity to engage in environmental reciprocity rests on reciprocal determinism. Social cognitive psychologist Albert Bandura explored how individual factors and the environment influence an individual’s behavior, and in turn, how that behavior influences individual factors and the environment. In other words, the environment influences human behavior, which influences environmental impacts, as identified in the following figure (Bandura, 1977). This is an empirical feedback loop.
With the narrative of environmental and ecological ontologies, based on traditional and/or local knowledge, more reciprocal actions can be produced regarding community-defined protection, care, or sustainable use of waterways. As depicted in the image, what is being demonstrated, practiced, and believed will return to us. Not just within climate, but water, energy, food, and even how we interact with one another.
Main Concerns for the Framework
There are concerns regarding the ignorance and effective documentation of TEK, which this framework rests on (Gordon (Iñupiaq) et al., 2023). There are also professed challenges in integrating the standards and methodologies of those from which the knowledge may come, including indigenous, traditionally associated, or local peoples, because eco-social violence has aggravated the misrepresentation, misunderstanding, and broad erasure of public and political discourses across generations (Ricketts, 2024). There has been a redirection of narratives to bolster economic and commodified priorities associated with land and its management due to the dominant view of land as property and an exploitable asset. This removes its identity in bolstering the sovereignty, cultural, and life-sustaining permanence of the land (Albuquerque et al., 2024). I reiterate and emphasize that the development of this framework continues to establish the voices of the historically ecologically othered: those forcibly marginalized in dominant ecological though, theory, and practice (Ruffin, 2010).
Conclusion
This article explores the integration of environmental reciprocity (E.R.) into resource planning and management. Regardless of the specific resource or the motivation behind implementing E.R., the legal, logical, and logistical considerations are essential in the design process, as they help establish the framework that can redefine societal relationships. The broader implications of E.R. suggest that incorporating Indigenous ontologies emphasizes the potential for human activities on land and water, particularly in wetland ecosystems, to be optimized for sustainable development, thereby enhancing the relationship between understanding and trust.
Author’s Positionality
This work was motivated by an exploration of Indiana’s ecological and environmental history. The stories were conveyed in various ways, including conversations in the kitchen, phone calls, and the dedicated practice of gardening. The preservation of knowledge within the African diaspora yields significant insights into the metaphorical, spiritual, and physical processes of sowing and reaping, emphasizing the importance of harvesting and the understanding that this journey is not solely personal. Knowledge should be shared, and there is much to learn from each individual. This perspective, influenced by the traditions of both Gullah and Native American cultures, highlights the communal and collective benefits of sharing these insights. The work aims to reflect on family heritage to encourage environmental reciprocity, strengthen group identity in ecological matters, and apply the Gullah ecological narrative to inform practices in land and water management.