Test of first PRIO-prototype in Stockholm

A number of institutions and organizations in our society seem to amplify the crises and challenges of our time, due to their will to persist at any cost. In short, they are dying, but refuse to admit it.

Our modern society undoubtedly places great value on for instance progress, conquest and exploitation. At the same time, qualities such as listening, empathy, and care are hardly valued at all. The efficiency with which our institutions and organizations perpetuate such an unsustainable pattern is in itself an interesting phenomenon, and breaking with such a deeply institutionalized cultural framework is also extremely difficult.

However, Indigenous knowledge systems can inspire a path beyond the confinement of modern ways of thinking and acting – a liberation from patterns that endlessly generate “more of the same” rather than true change, even when such change is pursued with great determination and urgency.

Many have, in this pursuit, found inspiration in Vanessa Machado de Oliveira, who in her book Hospicing Modernity invites the reader to sit at modernity’s deathbed – not to repair, save, or reform it, but to accompany its dying with humility, responsibility, and care.

The notion of “hospicing” here implies a palliative stance – a way of being with social systems that are dying, while simultaneously preparing to relate to what may emerge from their passing.

Drawing on decolonial theory and Indigenous knowledge systems, Machado de Oliveira challenges us to resist modernity’s impulse to master and fix, and instead to cultivate the ability to be present with the complex, the uncertain, and the lost.

Trying such a stance is advisable for anyone who believes they have a solution to one of our time’s many crises. However, it is also important to not simply try to replace one worldview with another.

As a strategy for societal healing, we at RITE therefore explore ways to carefully and respectfully preserve and cultivate valuable parts of both. This is the basis for our thematic investigation PRIO: Palliative Rites for Institutions and Organizations.