VITAE · Vital Interpretations of Trans-ecologies Animacy and Epistemologies

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Project objective

VITAE investigates how the meaning of “life” is being redefined in an era marked by ecological crisis, technological innovation, and cultural pluralism. Despite major advances in biology, astrobiology, and AI, no shared or operational definition of life exists, over 100 competing definitions, as collected in The Handbook of Astrobiology, reveal a fragmented landscape. This uncertainty has direct consequences for biodiversity governance, legal personhood, and rights-of-nature policies, affecting the implementation of the European Green Deal, the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, and UNESCO’s initiatives on biocultural diversity.The project asks a fundamental question: What forms of life do environmental policies aim to protect, and why? It addresses this by bridging Western scientific models with Indigenous ecological cosmologies through an innovative, interdisciplinary methodology. Fieldwork in Colombia with Embera, Misak, and Kogi communities will generate an Indigenous Ecological Corpus, analysed through biosemiotics, philosophy of biology, and cognitive linguistics, and compared with a Scientific Corpus. This analysis will inform a definitional model of life, tested through a cross-applicability matrix to assess implications for European governance.VITAE pursues two objectives: (i) to empirically evaluate how environmental governance would change if Indigenous perspectives, where rivers, mountains, and ecosystems are recognized as living agents, were integrated; and (ii) to develop a trans-ecology as a new epistemological framework for ecological responsibility.The project will produce scientific outputs (open datasets, publications, definitional model) and public-facing results (short film, exhibitions), advancing the state of the art while supporting Horizon Europe priorities in Clusters 2 and 6. VITAE strengthens Europe’s leadership in sustainability science and delivers inclusive, coherent, and ethically robust frameworks for future ecological governance.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

• UNIVERZITA KARLOVA · Praha 1CoordinatorCzechia
• UNIVERSIDAD EAN · BOGOTAColombia

Links

• View on CORDIS
• DOI: 10.3030/101275697