opportunities in choosing specific strategies. An early
definition of SL by Chambers and Conway (1992)
reflects both these pragmatic and normative or ethical concerns: “[a] livelihood is sustainable when it can
cope with and recover from stresses and shocks, maintain and enhance its capabilities and assets, and provide
sustainable livelihood opportunities for the next generation; and which contribute net benefits to other
livelihoods at the local and global levels and in the
short and long term” (p. 6).
While it might be sufficient to see a SLA directly
engaging the culture of markets and corporate entities
(including corporatized universities) by employing
their roles and conceptual tools this, in itself, does
not address the deeper question, namely the motivation(s) that underlie this market culture. Do SLs
fulfill or address these deeper motive(s) at the heart
of market culture? Here early comments by Aristotle (1946) in his Politics are helpful. At a time when
markets were gaining prominence, Aristotle was trying to make sense of what motivated some to pursue
unlimited acquisition of wealth through retail trade,
levels of wealth that went well beyond what they
needed to meet the needs of their own households
(p. 25–26; 1257b–1258a). For Aristotle merchants
engaged in this kind of acquisition were motivated
differently from those who transacted as traditional
managers of the household, thereby acquiring materials needed to fulfill basic human needs that contributed
to well-being—a form of wealth acquisition that had
limits. Instead those engaged in retail trade were motivated by “a general anxiety about livelihood” (p.
26; 1257b), an anxiety that lent itself, in Aristotle’s
view, to limitless acquisition of wealth. While a SLs
framework ordinarily incorporates the fulfillment of
basic human needs in its set of livelihood outcomes
(the concerns of Aristotle’s household manager), the
framework itself deals much more profoundly with
addressing livelihood anxiety generated by a range
of uncertainties from one’s livelihood context beyond
one’s control. These include whether there is predictable access to assets (or resources) from which
to construct one’s livelihood strategies, the hazards
to which these assets are exposed, changing capabilities shaping one’s viable livelihood strategies tied
to shifting institutional and organizational contexts,
uncertainties in managing various livelihood activities
to produce outputs (e.g., goods or services), whether
or not these outputs achieve one’s desired livelihood
outcomes (e.g. desired components of well-being),
and whether, ultimately, one’s chosen livelihood outcomes are even well founded. All of these uncertainties
compound one’s livelihood anxiety. Yet strategies to
advance sustainable livelihoods in a wholistic way
can realistically relieve all these anxieties, likely more
constructively than the unlimited resource acquisition
exhibited by Aristotle’s merchant class.
That this livelihood anxiety is a central concern
of our times, particularly in an area of high levels
of joblessness—even before COVID-19—will not be
argued for here. Addressing this anxiety is a shared
motivation for those engaging in market activity and
is reflected in modern, for-profit corporate structures
that also seek to amass wealth without limit. Yet even
if livelihood anxiety is generally held, can a SLA be
successfully integrated into the basic culture of universities—especially in light of the relative lack of
structural uptake of the SLA elsewhere? Even in areas
where it has been employed (such as development
agencies seeking to advance rural agrarian livelihoods especially in developing countries—a focus of
Scoones (2015, p. 11)), Universities are a very different livelihood context. In order to answer the general
research questions of (1) whether a SLA can be used
to create a new (and viable) Sustainable Scholarly
Livelihood (SSL) identity and (2) how the corporatized
university might be restructured to advance this shared
identity for innovation for sustainable consumption
and production, two avenues will be explored. The first
avenue provides general argumentation for the viability of implementing a SLs identity in universities,
restructuring their institutions guiding their production
processes and the organization itself through changes
in governance. This will be done by addressing four
core political areas of the SLA identified by Ian
Scoones (2015) needing to be addressed to revitalize livelihood analysis in a given context (p. 110).
These are “the politics of interests, individuals, knowledge and ecology” (ibid.). The second avenue looks at
a particular university case study—the University of
Regina (U of R), in Saskatchewan, Canada—to illustrate the universities engagement of sustainability at
a cultural level, both at the level of the entire organization and also in a particular area of production and
consumption. Here the university’s most recent strategic planning process is presented to illustrate how the
wholistic mobilization of the general membership of a
campus can occur attentive to its shared cultural concerns while addressing the 17 SDGs. A specific goal
emerging from this plan, the development of campus
living laboratories is then discussed in light of existing
U of R programs focused on the sustainable production and consumption of food on campus that sustain
diverse livelihoods.
4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
4.1 A sustainable livelihood approach to
revitalizing the scholarly identity in universities
The previous discussion has suggested that a core
motivation for pursuing sustainable livelihoods is to
address various types of anxiety about livelihood. If
we are to implement the ethics of SLs within the
cultural context of universities, thereby shaping its production and consumption processes, we need to step
back to first ask, what is the core value(s) shaping
the current scholarly identity that informs these scholarly institutions and processes? While some of these
have already been outlined, one underlying core value
that informs the need for investigator driven pursuit
of knowledge is that of curiosity or wonder, whether
32
definition of SL by Chambers and Conway (1992)
reflects both these pragmatic and normative or ethical concerns: “[a] livelihood is sustainable when it can
cope with and recover from stresses and shocks, maintain and enhance its capabilities and assets, and provide
sustainable livelihood opportunities for the next generation; and which contribute net benefits to other
livelihoods at the local and global levels and in the
short and long term” (p. 6).
While it might be sufficient to see a SLA directly
engaging the culture of markets and corporate entities
(including corporatized universities) by employing
their roles and conceptual tools this, in itself, does
not address the deeper question, namely the motivation(s) that underlie this market culture. Do SLs
fulfill or address these deeper motive(s) at the heart
of market culture? Here early comments by Aristotle (1946) in his Politics are helpful. At a time when
markets were gaining prominence, Aristotle was trying to make sense of what motivated some to pursue
unlimited acquisition of wealth through retail trade,
levels of wealth that went well beyond what they
needed to meet the needs of their own households
(p. 25–26; 1257b–1258a). For Aristotle merchants
engaged in this kind of acquisition were motivated
differently from those who transacted as traditional
managers of the household, thereby acquiring materials needed to fulfill basic human needs that contributed
to well-being—a form of wealth acquisition that had
limits. Instead those engaged in retail trade were motivated by “a general anxiety about livelihood” (p.
26; 1257b), an anxiety that lent itself, in Aristotle’s
view, to limitless acquisition of wealth. While a SLs
framework ordinarily incorporates the fulfillment of
basic human needs in its set of livelihood outcomes
(the concerns of Aristotle’s household manager), the
framework itself deals much more profoundly with
addressing livelihood anxiety generated by a range
of uncertainties from one’s livelihood context beyond
one’s control. These include whether there is predictable access to assets (or resources) from which
to construct one’s livelihood strategies, the hazards
to which these assets are exposed, changing capabilities shaping one’s viable livelihood strategies tied
to shifting institutional and organizational contexts,
uncertainties in managing various livelihood activities
to produce outputs (e.g., goods or services), whether
or not these outputs achieve one’s desired livelihood
outcomes (e.g. desired components of well-being),
and whether, ultimately, one’s chosen livelihood outcomes are even well founded. All of these uncertainties
compound one’s livelihood anxiety. Yet strategies to
advance sustainable livelihoods in a wholistic way
can realistically relieve all these anxieties, likely more
constructively than the unlimited resource acquisition
exhibited by Aristotle’s merchant class.
That this livelihood anxiety is a central concern
of our times, particularly in an area of high levels
of joblessness—even before COVID-19—will not be
argued for here. Addressing this anxiety is a shared
motivation for those engaging in market activity and
is reflected in modern, for-profit corporate structures
that also seek to amass wealth without limit. Yet even
if livelihood anxiety is generally held, can a SLA be
successfully integrated into the basic culture of universities—especially in light of the relative lack of
structural uptake of the SLA elsewhere? Even in areas
where it has been employed (such as development
agencies seeking to advance rural agrarian livelihoods especially in developing countries—a focus of
Scoones (2015, p. 11)), Universities are a very different livelihood context. In order to answer the general
research questions of (1) whether a SLA can be used
to create a new (and viable) Sustainable Scholarly
Livelihood (SSL) identity and (2) how the corporatized
university might be restructured to advance this shared
identity for innovation for sustainable consumption
and production, two avenues will be explored. The first
avenue provides general argumentation for the viability of implementing a SLs identity in universities,
restructuring their institutions guiding their production
processes and the organization itself through changes
in governance. This will be done by addressing four
core political areas of the SLA identified by Ian
Scoones (2015) needing to be addressed to revitalize livelihood analysis in a given context (p. 110).
These are “the politics of interests, individuals, knowledge and ecology” (ibid.). The second avenue looks at
a particular university case study—the University of
Regina (U of R), in Saskatchewan, Canada—to illustrate the universities engagement of sustainability at
a cultural level, both at the level of the entire organization and also in a particular area of production and
consumption. Here the university’s most recent strategic planning process is presented to illustrate how the
wholistic mobilization of the general membership of a
campus can occur attentive to its shared cultural concerns while addressing the 17 SDGs. A specific goal
emerging from this plan, the development of campus
living laboratories is then discussed in light of existing
U of R programs focused on the sustainable production and consumption of food on campus that sustain
diverse livelihoods.
4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
4.1 A sustainable livelihood approach to
revitalizing the scholarly identity in universities
The previous discussion has suggested that a core
motivation for pursuing sustainable livelihoods is to
address various types of anxiety about livelihood. If
we are to implement the ethics of SLs within the
cultural context of universities, thereby shaping its production and consumption processes, we need to step
back to first ask, what is the core value(s) shaping
the current scholarly identity that informs these scholarly institutions and processes? While some of these
have already been outlined, one underlying core value
that informs the need for investigator driven pursuit
of knowledge is that of curiosity or wonder, whether
32