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2.1 Introduction – What Has Become of Sustainability
Science?
The fact that sustainability science is ‘dealing with interconnected problems’
(Kauffman and Arico 2014) requires that researchers in the field take a comprehensive, integrated, and participatory approach to science and reality (Sala et al. 2013).
In line with this explicit ambition to integrate knowledge – across scales, sectors,
and substance domains; and across the divides of nature-society, science-society
and knowledge-action – sustainability science must build on several foundational
disciplines and inherently advocate theoretical and methodological pluralism
(Persson et al. 2018a, b).
The focus in early sustainability science was threefold. It centred on elucidating
nature–society interaction, providing scientific knowledge for sustainability, and
elaborating normative discussions on sustainability. For this purpose it gave prominence to problem-driven and solutions-oriented research on human-environmental
interaction – or what some call socio-ecological dynamics – while envisioning sustainable futures. In that endeavour, Cash et al. (2003) asked sustainability scientists
to apply credibility, legitimacy, and saliency in research, especially when it comes
to data and methods, focus and findings, and outreach and solutions. These quality
features are not necessarily exclusive to sustainability science but remind us of critical theory which also aims at social change and on which ideas sustainability science can build. What is more typical is perhaps that sustainability scientists are
expected to ask pertinent questions: what to sustain, for whom, for how long, and at
what benefit or cost?
In the absence of any universal criteria that define sustainability science (Shahadu
2016, p 2) we wish to point out some common denominators that unite the field.
Starting from interdisciplinarity while striving for transdisciplinarity, sustainability
science takes a broad approach to understanding and improving social life within
the broader context of earth’s life support systems. Sustainability science researchers are expected to pose integrated questions that capture human-environment conditions; and while doing so, develop theoretical and methodological frames for
overcoming constraining differences in research methods and procedures across
disciplinary boundaries. A sustainability science community would, ideally, bring
together researchers with a variety of disciplinary (or interdisciplinary) repertoires
to discuss and negotiate the multiple meanings of concepts and phenomena that are
significant in sustainability science research – and crucial for sustainability. Beyond
that, and again ideally, stakeholders other than academics would be called upon at
various stages in the research process to inspire problem formulations and help
sharpen the focus on conditions for and implications of human-environment interaction and interdependence.
At the risk of denying, ignoring, or limiting diversity and pluralism, some sustainability scientists have called for a certain degree of standardisation in sustainability science. This can take the form of a ‘core set’ of assumptions, concepts,
ideas, and understandings that would speak across research studies (Shahadu 2016).
A. Jerneck and L. Olsson
2.1 Introduction – What Has Become of Sustainability
Science?
The fact that sustainability science is ‘dealing with interconnected problems’
(Kauffman and Arico 2014) requires that researchers in the field take a comprehensive, integrated, and participatory approach to science and reality (Sala et al. 2013).
In line with this explicit ambition to integrate knowledge – across scales, sectors,
and substance domains; and across the divides of nature-society, science-society
and knowledge-action – sustainability science must build on several foundational
disciplines and inherently advocate theoretical and methodological pluralism
(Persson et al. 2018a, b).
The focus in early sustainability science was threefold. It centred on elucidating
nature–society interaction, providing scientific knowledge for sustainability, and
elaborating normative discussions on sustainability. For this purpose it gave prominence to problem-driven and solutions-oriented research on human-environmental
interaction – or what some call socio-ecological dynamics – while envisioning sustainable futures. In that endeavour, Cash et al. (2003) asked sustainability scientists
to apply credibility, legitimacy, and saliency in research, especially when it comes
to data and methods, focus and findings, and outreach and solutions. These quality
features are not necessarily exclusive to sustainability science but remind us of critical theory which also aims at social change and on which ideas sustainability science can build. What is more typical is perhaps that sustainability scientists are
expected to ask pertinent questions: what to sustain, for whom, for how long, and at
what benefit or cost?
In the absence of any universal criteria that define sustainability science (Shahadu
2016, p 2) we wish to point out some common denominators that unite the field.
Starting from interdisciplinarity while striving for transdisciplinarity, sustainability
science takes a broad approach to understanding and improving social life within
the broader context of earth’s life support systems. Sustainability science researchers are expected to pose integrated questions that capture human-environment conditions; and while doing so, develop theoretical and methodological frames for
overcoming constraining differences in research methods and procedures across
disciplinary boundaries. A sustainability science community would, ideally, bring
together researchers with a variety of disciplinary (or interdisciplinary) repertoires
to discuss and negotiate the multiple meanings of concepts and phenomena that are
significant in sustainability science research – and crucial for sustainability. Beyond
that, and again ideally, stakeholders other than academics would be called upon at
various stages in the research process to inspire problem formulations and help
sharpen the focus on conditions for and implications of human-environment interaction and interdependence.
At the risk of denying, ignoring, or limiting diversity and pluralism, some sustainability scientists have called for a certain degree of standardisation in sustainability science. This can take the form of a ‘core set’ of assumptions, concepts,
ideas, and understandings that would speak across research studies (Shahadu 2016).
A. Jerneck and L. Olsson