---
type: summary
title: Bioregioning Through Bindings (Johar, 2026)
description: Indy Johar's essay proposing that a bioregion is a living relational body of bindings and knots, and that institutions and capital should start from those relationships.
status: draft
confidence: medium
validation: machine
timestamp: 2026-10-09
licence: CC BY-SA 4.0
tags: [bioregioning, bindings-and-knots, boundaries, responsibility, relational-finance, governance]
sources: []
---

# Bioregioning Through Bindings (Johar, 2026)

*A public Substack essay by Indy Johar, titled "Bioregioning through Bindings and Knots" with the subtitle "Beyond Boundaries". It was published on 5 October 2026 (raw/bioregioning-bindings-and-knots-2026-10-05.md, header). The essay has no section headings, so locators below are paragraph numbers. Read for this page: the whole essay, all 15 paragraphs.*

## What it argues

Johar challenges a habit: imagining bioregions as new territories, larger than cities and more ecologically informed, yet still defined by boundaries (raw/bioregioning-bindings-and-knots-2026-10-05.md, paragraph 1). A boundary creates an inside and an outside. It produces a new "other" to whom consequences can be displaced (raw/bioregioning-bindings-and-knots-2026-10-05.md, paragraph 1). Even a boundary drawn from ecological knowledge can turn a living field into an enclosed object (raw/bioregioning-bindings-and-knots-2026-10-05.md, paragraph 3).

He proposes instead that a bioregion is a living relational body made of bindings and knots (raw/bioregioning-bindings-and-knots-2026-10-05.md, paragraph 1). Boundaries can still help to describe a place and act within it. Johar denies them only the role of founding theory (raw/bioregioning-bindings-and-knots-2026-10-05.md, paragraph 2).

The second half draws out what follows for risk, responsibility, authority, institutions and capital. Its conclusion is that bioregioning begins when relationships become the basis of shared commitments (raw/bioregioning-bindings-and-knots-2026-10-05.md, paragraph 15).

## Key points

- **A binding.** It is "a relationship through which the condition of one participant matters to the viability, agency or future possibilities of another" (raw/bioregioning-bindings-and-knots-2026-10-05.md, paragraph 4). Bindings can be material, social, legal and temporal (raw/bioregioning-bindings-and-knots-2026-10-05.md, paragraph 4).
- **A knot.** A knot is a configuration in which several bindings shape one another. It holds difference and tension without merging its participants (raw/bioregioning-bindings-and-knots-2026-10-05.md, paragraph 5).
- **The water knot.** Rainfall alone does not show whether a place stays hydrated. That depends on soils, vegetation, groundwater, settlements and the institutions governing use (raw/bioregioning-bindings-and-knots-2026-10-05.md, paragraph 6).
- **Risk travels through bindings.** A weakening water knot can undermine food production and livelihoods, which then deepens the original damage (raw/bioregioning-bindings-and-knots-2026-10-05.md, paragraph 8).
- **Some bindings harm.** Debt can bind a community to extraction. Bioregioning needs judgement about which bindings to repair, loosen or remake (raw/bioregioning-bindings-and-knots-2026-10-05.md, paragraph 9).
- **Responsibility is uneven.** It follows causal contribution, exposure, benefit and capacity to respond (raw/bioregioning-bindings-and-knots-2026-10-05.md, paragraph 10). A binding establishes relevance. Authority still needs legitimate grounds, and affected parties must be able to contest decisions (raw/bioregioning-bindings-and-knots-2026-10-05.md, paragraph 11).
- **Capital follows the relationships.** A bioregional financing facility would gather distributed benefits, costs and responsibilities into a capacity for stewardship. "The object of investment becomes the capacity to keep multiple futures possible" (raw/bioregioning-bindings-and-knots-2026-10-05.md, paragraph 13).
- **An ongoing inquiry.** Maps must stay revisable. "A complete map is neither available nor a precondition for responsibility" (raw/bioregioning-bindings-and-knots-2026-10-05.md, paragraph 14).

## Where it sits in this wiki

- [[Bioregioning as Critical Infrastructure (Seefeld, 2026)]] defines bioregions by functional boundaries. This essay questions starting from any boundary at all (synthesis).
- [[The Dark Matter Labs bioregions platform]] describes bioregions through hard, soft and human lines. Johar would treat such lines as tools for description (synthesis).
- [[Bioregional Financing Facilities (book, 2024)]] sets out the facility model that Johar re-reads as a way to share stewardship costs across a knot (synthesis).
- [[RZ Studio (rz.capital)]] holds a position on security, written in the same relational terms (synthesis).