Ellen Swallow Richards and the 'Science of Right Living': 19th century foundations for practice research supporting individual, social and ecological resilience and environmental justice

摘要

Ellen Swallow Richards (1842–1911) was a pioneering sanitary engineer, social reformer, and educator whose transdisciplinaryaction research addressed the coupled social and ecological crises of the rapidly growing industrial cities of her time. She recognizedhumans as part of ecological systems, even though dominant narratives focused on subjugating nature. She believed that if womenwere empowered through education in science and technology, they could develop a more socially and ecologically responsibleapproach to economic growth. She established the field of oekologie, or the “science of right living,” to support communities inmanaging co-evolutionary social and ecological processes in dynamically changing, complex, home environments, from the scale ofthe household, neighborhood, city, and beyond (Clarke, 1973; Hunt, 1958; Swallow, 2014; Walsh, 2015).