Bronfenbrenner’s Bilge
- Ann Cognito
- Sep 25, 2021
- 6 min read
A Human Ecological Perspective on Boats, People, and Planets
“Let us see the bilge!!!” you say? No. Lettuce you may see, bilge — no.
A lot of people I know tell me I have a one track mind… Everything relates to the climate crisis. Well, it’s true everything does, but I actually have a two track mind — I also obsess about my sailboat! However… even a straightforward boat inspection does give me perspectives about global ecosystem collapse.
A lot of people in general know a lot more about boats than I, and boat folks are usually really good people. I already have new friends who take the cake in both those departments, and two were kind enough to spend Saturday doing a very thorough inspection of sails and boat with me.
It was extremely interesting and very informative— it was also a day happily spent with very good company. Both former navy men, one has designed some of the icebreakers currently up north discovering how useless they’ll soon become on this planet, and the other has done voyages I’ve only ever dreamed of. They both make me understand even more how little I know… and how much I can do.
To start with, I can do a lot of cleaning. Skoro didn’t get the thorough cleaning she deserved at the beginning, and though Sarah and I did lots, we were doing a lot and all on the fly and — Skoro needs a boatload of scrubbing inside and out.
Her wiring is good, though. So are her sails. The compass does work (when the depthfinder isn’t near it, so that means a longer transducer cord). Leaks are minor and fixable. There’s needs, in terms of elbow grease and budget (and much emailing to try to mitigate the latter), but all addressable.
The centreboard could be a big job, but has to be done, and there’s not yet enough information to think with let alone worry, until further inspection. And I already knew about that. A lot of these boats have the same issue.
But… of course there was going to be a but… the supports in the bilge were rotten. It happens. Often, you sister or twin a matching fitted piece and join them. This is what’s been done here, because that’s what you do. But these have gone wonky, and some bad parts needed removing so as not to cause continuing damage. I’d’ve seen that and done it in June if I could have been working on her, but if could-haves were dids then our planet wouldn’t be falling apart.
From reading articles and forum discussions online, and from trying to recall previous boatly readings in conjunction with what I’ve learned from home work and renovation, I think it’s going to be a matter of rebuilding and reattaching ribs. Those ribs matter, so much. They hold her heart.
But we have the technology and it’s actually pretty low tech… a lot of work, and/or maybe a lot of expense, or some combination thereof, but basically, it’s about rebuilding proper supports. I’ll probably write a whole ’nother blog post after the situation is more thoroughly evaluated by the brilliant and beyond capable folks at Sirens, but meanwhile, rebuilding proper supports fits a pattern present and occurring throughout every layer of the social ecological model of human development and contextual relationships.
Bronfenbrenner’s ‘fried egg’ social theory model has been applied to everything from profound research to, well, fried eggs, and I learned it in the context of Human Ecology studies. It actually does apply to everything, because it’s basically just valid observation. We function in layers. Everything does. The layers are interdependent.
In the usual application of the model, working in concentric circles from inside outward, the first layer is the individual.
The next layer is the microsystem, or immediate context… our closest circle of mutual influence and support.
The mesosytem, next, is the layer of community.
The exosystem can be seen as the larger systems we function within. Perhaps humanity as a whole is another layer, between this and the next.
In that case , the overarching mesosystem is the planetary ecosystem.
The health of any layer is dependent upon the health of the others, and so also, upon its own health and its own support of the other layers.
They are inextricably intertwined, part and parcel of each other.
Skoro is the individual at the core of this particular example. Her ribs are broken but she has supports in other senses, and that means positive growth. I know good boatworks people who will give me an informed evaluation, and I’ll figure out how best to fix it.
Those other supports, Skoro’s figurative/social supports, are the mesosystem. Sometimes we catalyze growth , sometimes we need support. The communities we are part of are not extra bonuses in life, nor are they distractions from life. They are life. They the resin of our lives, and we are threads of glass that render the resin unbreakable.
We — all of us, humanity — are the exosystem. The larger systems we are part of need positively functioning and connected mesosystems to be able to function in a positive direction.
Some of our human built systems, however, rely upon exactly the opposite; pirates prey on isolated vessels, crooked customs agents pocket fees from the unknowing and disconnected boats for nonexistent infractions, giant octopii crunch lost ships like pie.
But healthy communities, with networks and support systems, encourage growth. Growth can be grindingly slow to observe when switching into forward from reverse, but that’s all the more reason to shift now, and there’s no time to lose navigational ability by floundering in neutral in between.
The human built systems are clearly not functioning positively. They try to operate outside the model, and that doesn’t work. You can be the most beautiful expensive marina, but if you’re nasty and there’s a free, safe, simple anchorage with clean water and accessible shore with a community run boatyard as an alternative, you’ll end up drowning in debt even if you manage to force people to stay a while.
Maybe we just need to fix the supports for that anchorage harbour… clean out the rot, install new ribs, join them to the boat with the fibres of our lives and the resin of our communities.
We know the macrosystem is falling apart. We’ve rotted it’s supports.
Salvage boats can’t be made seaworthy, but they’re not salvage till they’re written off. Other systems are working, and growing…Skoro herself is very far from being a salvage boat, and this metaphoric boat we’re all in is not scuttled yet. We’re still here, bailing the bilge, getting information, and learning how to build functional supports fast. We are still afloat, and so many other things are in working order.
We need to clear the rot. Bail, clean, stop the spread. Build supports. Check everything affected by the supports and do what’s needed there. Maybe even paint the bilge bright green (though I’m pretty sure actual bilge paint probably only comes in limited unbright shades).
We all need supports… we need healthy ribs with good attachments. We need to make sure the leaks aren’t exacerbating the rot. We need repairs when bits do rot.
We need friends and boatyards with knowledge and expertise and care. We need networks that support repair and growth. We need connections and we need to learn to build and care for supports.
So we’ll do that with Skoro’s own supports, and we’ll keep wandering through all the microsystems and mesosystems we can in Skoro, twinning supports and adding threads to the resin.
With hope and determination,
Ann
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If you can help with support, repairs, or support repairs, I’ll ask those geese just beyond the dock to please never poop on your microsystem…
Sporadic and one-time support through Chuffed, at
Ongoing support via Patreon (I’m still having trouble posting there, my apologies), at
Thank you, so much——————————————
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Not many photos (and no, none of the bilge, I’m not giving you all nightmares requiring Sigourney Weaver!!!)… been too busy doing boat stuff and writing… but here’s a snoozy puppy in his messy looking but organized microsystem, and a couple others.
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