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Christine Wamsler. Photo

Christine Wamsler

Professor, Docent, appointed Excellent Teaching Practitioner (ETP)

Christine Wamsler. Photo

Towards a relational paradigm in sustainability research, practice and education

Author

  • Zack Walsh
  • Jessica Böhme
  • Christine Wamsler

Summary, in English

Relational thinking has recently gained increasing prominence across academic disciplines in an attempt to understand complex phenomena in terms of constitutive processes and relations. Interdisciplinary fields of study, such as science and technology studies (STS), the environmental humanities, and the posthumanities, for example, have started to reformulate academic understanding of nature-cultures based on relational thinking. Although the sustainability crisis serves as a contemporary backdrop and in fact calls for such innovative forms of interdisciplinary scholarship, the field of sustainability research has not yet tapped into the rich possibilities offered by relational thinking. Against this background, the purpose of this paper is to identify relational approaches to ontology, epistemology, and ethics which are relevant to sustainability research. More specifically, we analyze how relational approaches have been understood and conceptualized across a broad range of disciplines and contexts relevant to sustainability to identify and harness connections and contributions for future sustainability-related work. Our results highlight common themes and patterns across relational approaches, helping to identify and characterize a relational paradigm within sustainability research. On this basis, we conclude with a call to action for sustainability researchers to co-develop a research agenda for advancing this relational paradigm within sustainability research, practice, and education.

Department/s

  • LUCSUS (Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies)

Publishing year

2021-01

Language

English

Pages

74-84

Publication/Series

Ambio: a Journal of the Human Environment

Volume

50

Issue

1

Document type

Journal article review

Publisher

Springer Science and Business Media B.V.

Topic

  • Philosophy
  • Other Social Sciences

Keywords

  • Complexity
  • New Materialism
  • Posthumanism
  • Process Philosophy
  • Relationality
  • Systems Theory

Status

Published

Project

  • The Contemplative Sustainable Futures Program

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0044-7447