The Legacy Maker Scenario: From Private Towards Collective Legacy-Making

Interrelated social and environmental challenges call for ideation and responses that integrate the environmental and the social. Arising from the global megatrends of wealth inequality and environmental degradation, two scenarios are outlined. The original scenario pertains to ‘the world as it is’ with increasing concentration of wealth and aggravation of environmental crises. In response to the destructive aspects of the original scenario, an alternative scenario is constructed with reference to socio-psychological theories and considerations that guide legacy-making in the interest of ‘heirs’ including future generations of humans and non-humans. The Legacy Maker scenario foregrounds longer timescales, the more-than-human, and diverse forms of justice, constituting a heuristic device that transposes private and kinship-based material legacies passed down family generations into consideration of enablers or obstacles to the viability of future human and non-human welfare.