1. 2011 ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE ASSOCIATION OF BUSINESS
HISTORIANS
‘SUSTAINABILITY’
FRIDAY 1ST JULY- SATURDAY 2ND JULY
Proposed Conference Paper
Five Hundred Years of Nonlinear History:
A Complex Adaptive Meshworks Approach to the Property-Environment
Relationship (in the Lower Kennet Valley)
Joe Doak
Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning & Development,
Henley Business School,
University of Reading
Abstract:
The (post) modern concept of sustainability emphasizes a holistic view of the world in which human and
environmental processes are inextricably linked. It supports systemic and relational models of
understanding, whereby actions and activities in one place and at one time have impacts and
implications for other places and times. Similarly, the causes, processes and outcomes of human
activities (including business activities) need to be conceptualized as multiple, dynamic, structured and
complex.
So, if sustainable development is now being worked out through a complex adaptive meshwork of
collaborative, and conflictual, stakeholders, shouldn’t we extend this thinking both forward and
backwards in time? Why shouldn’t (business) history be (re)conceptualised as a set of inter-connected
networks or meshworks, made up of heterogeneous assemblies of human and non-human materials,
responding to and drawing upon environmental resources and shaping and reshaping that environment
as it processes materials, produces commodities and generates wastes and wealth? Just such an
approach has been advocated by Manuel de Landa in his seminal work ‘A thousand years of non-linear
history’ and this paper will explore the value of De Landa’s work (and other writers working in this
holistic, relational vein) to our understanding of the dynamics of property development and the social
regulation of land (to secure environmental objectives) through a number of historical epochs.
Although the paper will focus on the theoretical building blocks required to understand the property-
environment relationship over time, the intention is to use the resulting framework as a lens to help
shine light on 500 years of non-linear history in the Lower Kennet Valley (i.e. Central Reading). In this
way, linkages and inter-relationships between land ownership, property development and the social
regulation of that process can be mapped and contextualized, exploring how those things shape and are
shaped by wider social, political, cultural and ecological processes and trends.
