started by a small group of staff, faculty, and students
from biology, psychology, and environment and sustainability with the advice of a local beekeeper who
shared their knowledge and experience with the group
to help them establish the hive. A volunteer manager (a
U of R staff member who has beekeeping experience)
coordinates and delivers care for the hive, including
monitoring the bees, identifying maintenance issues,
diseases and pests, and preparing the bees for cold,
prairie winters. They group connects with the local
bee club for education and technical advice. Then of
course there is the bonus of honey for the volunteers
in return for their labor.
This case provides an example of sustainable scholarly livelihood opportunities through the increase of
scholarly assets and capabilities for teaching and
research on the University of Regina campus. The
gardens and apiary living lab promotes exploring the
interconnections of local food systems and our relationships to and responsibility within these systems.
These new spaces for experiential learning can form
the basis for more traditional scholarship. This living
lab is a hub for education and research, and allows a
better understanding of biodiversity and how to grow
healthy food on the Canadian prairies while minimizing adverse impacts. It also contributes to understanding how more sustainable patterns of food production
can contribute to livelihood outcomes beyond satisfying only basic needs, such as experiences of nature
that enhance well-being along with the benefit of
forming new social networks between people from different disciplines, and of differing cultures and ages yet
having shared interests. Living labs on campuses challenge us to be curious and look at our roles, not just as
passive local consumers of food but as local producers
as well, in our pursuit of education and knowledge for
sustainability.The formation of new local food production and consumption linkages between the university
campus and local community share mutually reinforcing and positive feedback loops. This highlights how
attempts to advance sustainable scholarly livelihoods
provide, at the same time, positive impacts on the
livelihood assets, capabilities, strategies, and livelihood outcome achievements of community member
livelihoods more generally.
5 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The paper has attempted to show how a Sustainable
Livelihoods Approach (traditionally used in the context of international development projects) can reshape
the scholarly identity to transform universities at a
deep cultural level. Such a cultural shift could help
sustain scholarly production processes and enable new
innovations for sustainable livelihoods (SL) and sustainable development. The case was made that there
exists a strong congruence between the traditional
values and commitments of the university and four
political areas identified by Scoones (2015) needed
for revitalized livelihood analysis. In reviewing each
area, specific institutional and organizational changes
to construct Sustainable Scholarly Livelihoods (SSL)
were proposed. The paper then introduced a case study,
the University of Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada, to
illustrate how open, highly participatory planning processes and campus-led living laboratories in the area of
food production and consumption could both engage
an entire campus community at the level of culture
while advancing sustainable livelihoods both on and
off campus.
The implications of this analysis for non-university
organizations, we believe, are many. By transforming
universities around a shared SSL identity, universities
can model new governance patterns and institutional
processes for other organizations. These models promote robust notions of autonomy and self-sufficiency
for both the organizations themselves and individuals
that participate within them. Such a new SL model
reflecting self-sufficient individuals, organizations,
and communities, addresses key livelihood anxieties
that some have traditionally addressed by pursuing
unlimited accumulation of wealth (whether as physical or financial capital). Addressing these shared
human anxieties through a shared SL identity within
the global economy may halt the current unsustainable
use and accumulation of global resources. At the same
time sustaining universities as innovators through their
institutional restructuring around the concept of SSL
is increasingly an imperative—especially when other
organizations are in crisis due to COVID-19 creating
weaknesses of the global economy. Universities themselves viewed as integrated and self-sufficient SSL
(alongside other universities viewed in the same light)
have the potential for rapid innovation of technologies
and livelihood strategies tied to each university’s own
ecosystems and the communities they serve within
their region. Central to pioneering these livelihood
strategies will be the new living laboratories universities construct. A SSL framework provides the ethical
and pragmatic norms needed for their construction.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors received no financial support for the
research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
REFERENCES
Aristotle. 1946. The Politics of Aristotle (E. Barker, Trans.
Oxford: Oxford University Press. Aristotle. 1947. Metaphysics (W.D. Ross, Trans.). In Introduction to Aristotle.
R. McKeon, ed. New York: The Modern Library.
Carmichael Outreach. n.d. Carmichael Outreach. https://
carmichaeloutreach.ca (Accessed July 14, 2020).
Chambers, R. 1997. Whose reality counts? Putting the
first last. London: Intermediate Technology Publications
(ITP).
Chambers, R. & Conway, G. 1992. Sustainable rural livelihoods: practical concepts for the 21st century. Brighton:
Institute of Development Studies.
Dyball, R. & Newell, B. 2015. Understanding Human Ecology: A Systems Approach to Sustainability. New York:
Routledge.
37
from biology, psychology, and environment and sustainability with the advice of a local beekeeper who
shared their knowledge and experience with the group
to help them establish the hive. A volunteer manager (a
U of R staff member who has beekeeping experience)
coordinates and delivers care for the hive, including
monitoring the bees, identifying maintenance issues,
diseases and pests, and preparing the bees for cold,
prairie winters. They group connects with the local
bee club for education and technical advice. Then of
course there is the bonus of honey for the volunteers
in return for their labor.
This case provides an example of sustainable scholarly livelihood opportunities through the increase of
scholarly assets and capabilities for teaching and
research on the University of Regina campus. The
gardens and apiary living lab promotes exploring the
interconnections of local food systems and our relationships to and responsibility within these systems.
These new spaces for experiential learning can form
the basis for more traditional scholarship. This living
lab is a hub for education and research, and allows a
better understanding of biodiversity and how to grow
healthy food on the Canadian prairies while minimizing adverse impacts. It also contributes to understanding how more sustainable patterns of food production
can contribute to livelihood outcomes beyond satisfying only basic needs, such as experiences of nature
that enhance well-being along with the benefit of
forming new social networks between people from different disciplines, and of differing cultures and ages yet
having shared interests. Living labs on campuses challenge us to be curious and look at our roles, not just as
passive local consumers of food but as local producers
as well, in our pursuit of education and knowledge for
sustainability.The formation of new local food production and consumption linkages between the university
campus and local community share mutually reinforcing and positive feedback loops. This highlights how
attempts to advance sustainable scholarly livelihoods
provide, at the same time, positive impacts on the
livelihood assets, capabilities, strategies, and livelihood outcome achievements of community member
livelihoods more generally.
5 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The paper has attempted to show how a Sustainable
Livelihoods Approach (traditionally used in the context of international development projects) can reshape
the scholarly identity to transform universities at a
deep cultural level. Such a cultural shift could help
sustain scholarly production processes and enable new
innovations for sustainable livelihoods (SL) and sustainable development. The case was made that there
exists a strong congruence between the traditional
values and commitments of the university and four
political areas identified by Scoones (2015) needed
for revitalized livelihood analysis. In reviewing each
area, specific institutional and organizational changes
to construct Sustainable Scholarly Livelihoods (SSL)
were proposed. The paper then introduced a case study,
the University of Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada, to
illustrate how open, highly participatory planning processes and campus-led living laboratories in the area of
food production and consumption could both engage
an entire campus community at the level of culture
while advancing sustainable livelihoods both on and
off campus.
The implications of this analysis for non-university
organizations, we believe, are many. By transforming
universities around a shared SSL identity, universities
can model new governance patterns and institutional
processes for other organizations. These models promote robust notions of autonomy and self-sufficiency
for both the organizations themselves and individuals
that participate within them. Such a new SL model
reflecting self-sufficient individuals, organizations,
and communities, addresses key livelihood anxieties
that some have traditionally addressed by pursuing
unlimited accumulation of wealth (whether as physical or financial capital). Addressing these shared
human anxieties through a shared SL identity within
the global economy may halt the current unsustainable
use and accumulation of global resources. At the same
time sustaining universities as innovators through their
institutional restructuring around the concept of SSL
is increasingly an imperative—especially when other
organizations are in crisis due to COVID-19 creating
weaknesses of the global economy. Universities themselves viewed as integrated and self-sufficient SSL
(alongside other universities viewed in the same light)
have the potential for rapid innovation of technologies
and livelihood strategies tied to each university’s own
ecosystems and the communities they serve within
their region. Central to pioneering these livelihood
strategies will be the new living laboratories universities construct. A SSL framework provides the ethical
and pragmatic norms needed for their construction.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors received no financial support for the
research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
REFERENCES
Aristotle. 1946. The Politics of Aristotle (E. Barker, Trans.
Oxford: Oxford University Press. Aristotle. 1947. Metaphysics (W.D. Ross, Trans.). In Introduction to Aristotle.
R. McKeon, ed. New York: The Modern Library.
Carmichael Outreach. n.d. Carmichael Outreach. https://
carmichaeloutreach.ca (Accessed July 14, 2020).
Chambers, R. 1997. Whose reality counts? Putting the
first last. London: Intermediate Technology Publications
(ITP).
Chambers, R. & Conway, G. 1992. Sustainable rural livelihoods: practical concepts for the 21st century. Brighton:
Institute of Development Studies.
Dyball, R. & Newell, B. 2015. Understanding Human Ecology: A Systems Approach to Sustainability. New York:
Routledge.
37