This paper concludes a special feature of Sustainability Science that explores a broad range of social value theoretical traditions, such as religious studies, social psychology, indigenous knowledge, economics, sociology, and philosophy. We introduce a novel transdisciplinary conceptual framework that revolves around concepts of 'lenses' and 'tensions' to help navigate value diversity. First, we consider the notion of lenses: perspectives on value and valuation along diverse dimensions that describe what values focus on, how their sociality is envisioned, and what epistemic and procedural assumptions are made. We characterise fourteen of such dimensions. This provides a foundation for exploration of seven areas of tension, between: (1) the values of individuals vs collectives; (2) values as discrete and held vs embedded and constructed; (3) value as static or changeable; (4) valuation as descriptive vs normative and transformative; (5) social vs relational values; (6) different rationalities and their relation to value integration; (7) degrees of acknowledgment of the role of power in navigating value conflicts. In doing so, we embrace the 'mess' of diversity, yet also provide a framework to organise this mess and support and encourage active transdisciplinary collaboration. We identify key research areas where such collaborations can be harnessed for sustainability transformation. Here it is crucial to understand how certain social value lenses are privileged over others and build capacity in decision-making for understanding and drawing on multiple value, epistemic and procedural lenses.

This special feature provides an impression of the plurality of social values for sustainability, taking into account theoretical traditions within mainstream and heterodox economics; positive, social and environmental psychology; human geography; anthropology; sociology; religious and indigenous studies and business management. Papers in this issue respond to questions of: how do we conceptualise social values; how do we integrate or share social values; what are processes for learning about and mechanisms for forming and changing social values; and what are the associations between social values and behaviour or well-being? Consistent with post-normal science, we suggest that there is no one correct way of conceptualising, assessing, integrating or activating social values for sustainability. We present five arguments: (1) the plurality of social values can be conceptualised along many different dimensions, with reference to value, epistemic and procedural lenses; (2) values are nested in different hierarchies, resulting in the potential for different forms of value articulations and pathways of value expression; (3) not all social values are pre-formed and readily drawn upon, instead needing pathways of deliberation or intervention to be activated; (4) social values may change through different processes or pathways of intervention, and; (5) power matters in the formation and assessment of social values. We discuss the tensions that arise when attempting to integrate different perspectives and introduce the notion of 'navigation' to begin to address these tensions. Navigation requires scholars to adopt a more critical and reflexive approach to value enquiry than is currently espoused in sustainability science and practice.

Values can be useful for identifying what is important to individuals and communities, yet there is currently not a coherent way to conceptualize, identify, and organize the breadth of values that can be affected by a natural disaster. This research proposes a conceptual framework for how to conceptualize, identify, and organize values, and proposes a concrete, tangible value called the valued entity. The framework is applied in two studies of bushfire in Victoria, Australia: 112 submissions from individuals to the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission and interviews with 30 members of the public in bushfire risk landscapes. Our findings suggest that: what people value ranges from abstract to concrete; prevalent abstract values include benevolence and universalism; prevalent mid-level valued attributes include natural attributes of landscapes and human life and welfare; prevalent valued entities are people and properties close to the person. Comparison between the two studies suggests people with more recent experience with bushfire refer less to the importance of natural places and natural attributes. The conceptual framework can act as a boundary object to facilitate researchers and policy-makers understanding the breadth of values affected by natural disaster events and management actions and how governance can better consider values at different scales.

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. 2017. Ways forward for resilience thinking: lessons from the field for those exploring social-ecological systems in agriculture and natural resource management. Ecology and Society 22 (4) ABSTRACT. Resilience thinking appears to offer a holistic approach that can be used by social researchers to interpret past and contemporary conditions and identify possible futures for social-ecological systems (SES). Resilience thinking is shaping contemporary environmental policy and its implementation in Australia, Europe, and North America. At the same time, social researchers have raised concerns about the limitations of resilience thinking, particularly in its handling of human agency, power relationships, social thresholds, and the social construction of SES definitions. We argue for a reflexive turn in resilience thinking as a way to address these concerns. We draw on lessons from three Australian case studies where a reflexive application of resilience thinking generated insights for research and practice. We propose six areas for reflexive inquiry: (1) focal scale and level, (2) SES definition, (3) narratives of change, (4) processes of knowledge production, (5) social transition trajectories, and ( 6) social thresholds. In so doing, the assumptions of resilience thinking are politicized and problematized, which improves its theoretical analytical utility, and in practice generates new insights into social processes. Reflexivity offers opportunity for greater cross-disciplinary dialogue between resilience thinking and the social sciences, while allowing methodologies with differing ontologies and epistemologies to be applied in a complementary manner.

The role of social learning in deliberative processes is an emerging area of research in sustainability science. Functioning as a link between the individual and the collective, social learning has been envisioned as a process that can empower and give voice to a diverse set of stakeholder viewpoints, contribute to more adaptive and resilient management decisions and foster broader societal transformations. However, despite its widespread use in the context of participatory management of natural resources, the empirical properties of social learning remain understudied. This paper evaluates the role of social interaction and social capital to achieve transformative learning in discussions about social values. We employ a longitudinal design involving three consecutive surveys of 25 participants of an expert workshop focused on social values, as well as approximately 12 hours of transcribed audio and video recordings of participant interactions. Our mixed methods approach demonstrates the potential of using changes in social networks and definitions of social values that emerge from qualitative coding as indicators of social learning. We find that individuals with a weaker conceptual understanding of social values are more likely to change their definitions of the concept after deliberation. Though slight, these changes display a shift towards definitions more firmly held by other group members.

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