SUSTAINABILITY FRAMEWORKS IN SOCIOLOGY: IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS by Dr Emma Porio

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SUSTAINABILITY

FRAMEWORKS IN SOCIOLOGY:

IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH

AND PUBLICATIONSby

Emma Porio, PhD

Professor of Sociology and Chairperson, Department of Sociology and Anthropology,

School of Social Sciences, Ateneo de Manila University. Presented at the research cluster on”Environment, Society and Sustainability ” seminar, Jan. 18, 4:30pm, LH Conference Room, Ateneo

de Manila University. Please send comments to:[email protected]



Introduction and Key Messages

• Introduction to the Research Cluster Activity

Cluster description, goals, activities• Sustainability Frameworks in Sociology

•

Sustainability Research:1) Theory of Practices examining its

assumptions, patterns and consequences

2) Identifying transformative possibilities or

sustainable anchors for these practices



Sustainability Frameworks: A Precis

• Sustainability Frameworks in Sociology

Environmental Sociology Sociology of Development/dev sociology

Concepts/theories of sustainable

development

• World System Theory

• Neo-Marxist “treadmill of production” theory

• Modern systems theory,

• All address development issues eventually

sustainability questions.

• Approach: Very global; the least national



Data Bases/References

Sustainable development thinking and practices:

beginning a major societal paradigm shifttransforming social, economic, and cultural

conditionsSociology and the social sciences

shld play critical roles in documenting thispotential revolution:

a) monitoring and collecting data;

b) analyzing, explaining, identifying the patterns

of social articulations

c) providing assessments of social impacts and

related developments



Sustainability Frameworks: In Search of

Evidence and Methodological Issues

• Global Goals vs. National-Local Practices• Search for Cases and Evidence

• Heavily Macro; Need for more Meso and

Micro Levels of Analysis• Breaking down to researchable issues

and questions

• Appropriate mobilization of concepts andmethodologies in given contexts to

contribute to knowledge building



Research-Publication Spaces/Opportunities

• Illustration: WSSC 2013-14 Call for Papers

and research questions focusing on Consequences of climate change and

environmental change

Conditions and visions for change:Interpretation and subjective sense making

Responsibilities & Ethics

Governmentality and decision making Changing research practices and new ways

of working in the social sciences



Illustrative Cases: Research-Publication

Spaces/Opportunities

• Interrogating Sustainability Indicators:Guidelines and Methodologies (2007)

Driving force-state-response frameworks

Issue- or theme-based frameworks

Capital frameworks Accounting frameworks

Aggregated indicators

Other indicator approaches

* Sustainability hinges on local practices

not on global goals!








• Documenting local patterns, articulations and

revising the understanding/hierarchy

of indicators, variable components or

relationships giving rise to new knowledge

* Sustainability hinges on local practices /interrogationsnot on global goals!






• Illustrative Concept(s): sustainability prism—

sustainability practices; ecological economics

and trans-disciplinarity

• Research/publication in the Northvis-à-vis

interrogations/theorizing in the South

(expanding the evidence base in social scienceknowledge productions)

* Sustainability hinges on local practices

/interrogations, not on global goals!





*Sustainability politics: politics of development * Sustainability hinges on local practices

not on global goals!

Example : production of income poverty, foodsecurity and extreme inequality vs. national elite

strategies and state (national-local) governance

strategies



Methodologies for Sustainability Research

•Transdisciplinarity

•Sustainable development

•North-South; East-West

•Participatory Research; Reflexive

Methodologies

•Systems Analysis/Holistic but Very

Disciplined

•Three interlinked dimensions: direction,

diversity and distribution



Day After Typhoon Milenyo: Children Looking at playgound in Navotas



Bangkulasi, Navotas City: After Typhoon Milenyo



.

.

Child crossing makeshift bridge to buy food across waterway inswam Iba o Ti as, Ta ui Cit , West Man ahan Flood Basin



)

Concluding Comments:

Building/Producing Knowledge

•Sustainability theory as a theory of practices

•The sustainability prism— economy,

environment, equity (quality of life)

the appropriate balance of the three factors

articulates the practice of sustainability as well as

the writing and publishing about it



Research-Publication Spaces &

Opportunities: Concluding Comments

Sustainability hinges on local practices

and interrogationsnot on institutional-global goals!



)

Concluding Comments: Knowledge Building

(KP) and Our Scholarship

•Theory-averse environment (legacy of ML);

•Locating ourselves within the larger, globaluniverse of KP/scholarship;

•Developing the reflexivity in ourselves as

scholars of the global south (Interrogating theconcepts and theories produced in the North);

• A consciousness of building our intellectual

identities and location within the epistemiccommunities• Sustainability theory as a theory of practice(s)



Maraming salamat po!!!

Thank you very much!

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SUSTAINABILITY FRAMEWORKS IN SOCIOLOGY: IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS by Dr Emma Porio