Grounded agency is my reading of Swaraj. It's the capacity of people in a place to create and sustain the conditions for their own flourishing, and for the flourishing of the other beings who live there.
How the word moved
I wrote it down in October 2026, in the first essay of a series on the future of Socratus. We'd been playing with the idea for a while before that.
In my words
"We have been playing with the idea that Swaraj is grounded agency"
from Infrastructure for Agency, 28 Oct 2026
"Agency is not a human monopoly."
from Infrastructure for Agency, 28 Oct 2026
"A landscape can become more profitable while becoming less habitable."
from Infrastructure for Agency, 28 Oct 2026
Related
- Inherited from Gandhi - it starts from his Hind Swaraj.
- Related Swaraj - grounded agency is how I read it.
- Related Infrastructure for Agency - Socratus exists to support grounded agency.
- Related Habitability - a place can get richer and less livable at the same time.
Still open
Which people of a place get to say "we"? I'm treating that as a design problem, and I haven't solved it.