A pluralistic and integrated approach to action-oriented knowledge for sustainability
Research output: Journal contributions › Scientific review articles › Research
Authors
Sustainability science needs more systematic approaches for mobilizing knowledge in support of interventions that may bring about transformative change. In this Perspective, we contend that action-oriented knowledge for sustainability emerges when working in integrated ways with the many kinds of knowledge involved in the shared design, enactment and realization of change. The pluralistic and integrated approach we present rejects technocratic solutions to complex sustainability challenges and foregrounds individual and social learning. We argue that research institutions devoted to sustainability should focus more on creating the conditions for experimenting with multiple kinds of knowledge and ways of knowing to foster sustainability-oriented learning.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Nature Sustainability |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| Pages (from-to) | 93-100 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| ISSN | 2398-9629 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 02.2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:
G.C. thanks the Marie-Curie Individual Action (grant no. 752135) for supporting the project ‘What Epistemology for Sustainability Science? Experiments and Theories for Social Transformations’. D.J.L. thanks the Volkswagen Foundation and the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture for funding the project ‘Leverage Points for Sustainable Transformations: Institutions, People and Knowledge’ (grant no. A112269). G.C., D.J.L. and M.D.L. thank the Volkswagen Foundation and the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture for funding the project ‘Complexity or Control: Paradigms for Sustainability Science’ (grant no. A112135) and the Smart Family Foundation for support. We thank researchers in the Faculty of Sustainability at Leuphana University for engaging in critical and constructive conversations that have inspired many of the thoughts and arguments in this Perspective.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, Springer Nature Limited.
- Sustainability Science - Climate Sciences
- Ecosystems Research - ecology, environmental sciences, environmental social sciences
Research areas
- SDG 7 - Affordable and Clean Energy