EMBRACING THE UNKNOWN

SOPHIA

VON

BONIN

Talking to Sophia von Bonin brings to mind a quotation from Werner Herzog, who celebrates his 80th birthday this autumn: I’m better when it’s wild outside, when a storm is brewing. It’s an admission that captures the director’s abhorrence of film studios as sterile, artificial workplaces. Von Bonin is cut from similar cloth; never one to sidestep a challenge, she goes to the pain point and beyond, wanding the liminal regions between the familiar world of prosperity, in a rut of rigid rules, processes and complacency, and a terra incognita where new ways of thinking beckon.

 

Sophia von Bonin spent over ten years working in development aid in West Africa and Southeast Asia, immersing herself in global justice as a concrete area for action, not a merely theoretical concept. Far from exhausting her, confronting these extremes spurred her on to make things better. Today the 38-year-old works for the social impact organisation ProjectTogether and has embraced the next burning issue of our age: the transformation of an impetuously wasteful world into a mindful circular economy. In our interview, she reveals where she draws her motivation and her optimism in the face of these existential tasks.

Sophia, where do you find sources of optimism in this crisis-ridden year?

 

      S

   v B

Let me start by saying that I too have my fears and concerns. The past two and a half years have been particularly troubling for a generation previously blessed with prosperity. Suddenly we’re confronted with a loss of security, safety and affluence that would have been unimaginable only a short time ago. I don’t know anybody who can say they feel positive about the situation. However, at the same time I believe these crises also conceal a seed of opportunity within them if we can only make correct use of them. Systems are slow and lethargic. Nobody enjoys changing, and there’s always a certain default at play, a kind of routine in the way things work, which applies across every sector of society. It’s really difficult to push the envelope of what’s imaginable and to shift priorities. What gives me optimism is the knowledge that this is exact­ly what we have to do now, in this crisis—to re-evaluate what’s important to us with fresh eyes, and to push the boundaries of what is imaginable in this context. We’re experiencing the same in our own work.

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You mean at ProjectTogether?

 

      S

   v B

Yes. Interestingly, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine are moments that give me the feeling that the system is currently on hold, opening up a chance for things to realign. For example, in our Alliance4Ukraine project we’ve suddenly found ourselves in a dialogue with players—including in the public sector—who are engaged in developing a new form of openness, in working together and involving new stakeholders. It’s a kind of collaboration that wouldn’t have been possible in the past. That gives me hope.

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The ProjectTogether website states, From a circular economy to climate-positive agriculture and to support for refugees: we advocate across many different areas for a new way of building collaboration in our society. You don’t shy away from tackling any kind of problem. Are you a club of optimists?

 

      S

   v B

A few months ago, a colleague of mine said, I think being part of this organisation has been a kind of anti-depressant for many people, especially in the past two and a half years of the pandemic. ­After all, we’re living through times of crisis, life is unravelling before our eyes in all its messy complexity, and it’s easy to be overwhelmed very fast. Being part of this organisation means that pretty much every day, we get to flex our self-efficacy muscles and get a genuine feeling for the many great things happening out there. Of course we’re in our own little bubble to some extent, but we’re working hard on broadening our impact. True, at ProjectTogether optimism is in our DNA. That ­really motivates me to call a spade a spade, take a clear-eyed view of problems and not to fall into doubt and desperation, but to say: OK, let’s get shit done! 

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Sounds more like a club of superheroes! But seriously, how do you go about it?

 

      S

   v B

The motto we developed for Project­Together was a community of pragmatic idealists. I think it very accurately captures our position as a bridge between those two poles: the great vision of being part of progressive forces in society on the one hand, against following a line of healthy pragmatism on the other. Each project means starting out on a journey, and in each process we initiate, we try to identify what is actually needed in each individual case, where we are in the challenge and what kind of changes are necessary.

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Is this pragmatism, or is it realistic optimism—something that is lacking in the occasionally apocalyptic rhetoric of organisations like Letzte Generation or Fridays for Future?

 

      S

   v B

Setting any criticism aside, these are social movements that have succeeded in refocusing the socio-­political agenda within a very short space of time. Something that comes up again and again in conversations with partners from our extended network is that Fridays for Future has been particularly successful in raising awareness of the scope of climate change. Today major companies, some of which we work with, admit that five years ago, the topic was still sidelined by CEOs or heads of department as something nice to have; now those decision-makers are being interrogated by their own children about their position in the climate change battle, and suddenly there it is—a critical and constructive intergeneratio­nal dialogue. I can’t credit the movement highly enough for this achievement; it laid the foundations for the work we do.

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We live in the best of all possible worlds. You’ve spent a long time working in development aid. Do you share Leibniz’s view?

 

      S

   v B

One core experience from my time in development aid was that we have to move away from the belief that development is linear; that we are the pinnacle of what development means; and that all other countries, particularly those in the global south, have to aspire to our example. The idea of a good world, as a blueprint for civilisation, and a world of chaos as its ugly twin is something that fills me with ambivalence, and it’s one of the reasons why I left that political sphere.