The Ecumene: A Research Program for Future Knowledge and Governance

The ecumene defines a beyond-border space of strong cultural encounters, flows, and merging, grounded within the traditions of world-systems, globalization, transnationalism, and cosmopolitanism discourses. Furthermore, the ecumene links directly with international regions as core political platforms in the making. As such, there are several ecumenes on the forefront, as evidenced by the literature, which can be clustered into ideal types. Epistemologically, it is a relevant concept and tool for a science-of-the-future that focuses on conviviality and transformation for the yet-to-come. Analytically, the ecumene has a descriptive, normative, and critical dimension, and can be empirically accessed through operational concepts such as triggers, hubs, and types of beyond-border conviviality. To apply the ecumene as a research program means to detect convivial common-sense spaces within the global context.