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I was prepared for a dull exchange of emails. Apparently, that was ambitious.

An American friend suggested last month that I make a video explaining why my Facebook had filled up with newspaper clippings and references to the United Nations.

So here I am, at the desk where I wrote the work that started it all.

In five short parts, I explain how my writing about human flourishing became entangled in a dispute involving Åland’s government and a planned UN-Habitat publication. The premise was simple: if my work travelled, my name needed to travel with it.

What followed involved lawyers, a cancelled publication, oversight complaints, and considerably more material for a writer than anyone presumably intended to provide.

Some of this has been awful. Some of it has been so absurd that it has also been funny. Occasionally both at once.

For everyone who has been trying to piece the story together from scattered posts, here are the basics, in English, from me.

Five parts. 1 minute intro. About ten-eleven minutes altogether in two minute segments.

Video is landscape to show various visual aids.

Why has my Facebook filled up with newspaper clippings and references to the United Nations? It began with the fairly modest expectation that my writing would carry my name.
It began with a beautiful public promise: everyone can flourish. I wanted to work out what that would actually mean, and how public institutions could help make it possible.
My boss asked me to share my work with UN-Habitat. The lead author confirmed that I would be credited. As publication approached, I began asking how those promises would be honoured.
I asked about my authorship. The government responded with instructions about whom I could contact, what I could publish, and whether I could associate myself with my own writing.
I hired a lawyer. She supplied the facts, the legal arguments and a proposed solution. The government maintained its demands, and I made sure UN-Habitat received the correspondence.
The publication was cancelled. The consequences remained. On the loss behind the absurdity, the pursuit of accountability, and finding rather more material for a writing career than anticipated.

Further reading

The videos tell the story in brief. These pieces explore the correspondence, the public explanations and the larger questions about sustainability, governance and human flourishing behind it.

  • Everyone Can Flourish*
    Terms and conditions apply. The unpublished publication, the parliamentary debate and the curious distribution of responsibility when a public promise encounters an actual person.
  • The Phantom Steps Forward
    Where I first identified myself as the “former government employee” in the reporting and explained what had happened.
  • “Good Question. I Don’t Know.”
    Micke Larsson’s public explanation, considered alongside the emails, credit confirmations and records of my involvement.
  • The world is larger than this room, folks.
    On expertise, institutional self-promotion and what gets lost when familiar voices decide which ideas deserve a hearing.
  • The buck stops here.
    The government’s demands, my lawyer’s response and the correspondence behind the story.
  • Everyone Can Speak
    Micke Larsson’s account of his leadership, and the difference between being allowed to speak and receiving an answer.
  • Of Cows, Commitees and Kaffeklubb
    Parliament’s recurring questions about sustainability, concrete action and who takes responsibility for what happens after the meeting.
  • Driven to Abstraction
    Philosophy at the kitchen table: what goes into a sustainable society, who gets to write the recipe, and why measuring the ingredients cannot tell us everything about the meal.

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