Loss and damage from climate change, recognized as a unique research and policy domain through the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) in 2013, has drawn increasing attention among climate scientists and policy makers. Labelled by some as the “third pillar” of the international climate regime—along with mitigation and adaptation—it has been suggested that loss and damage has the potential to catalyze important synergies with other international agendas, particularly sustainable development. However, the specific approaches to sustainable development that inform loss and damage research and how these approaches influence research outcomes and policy recommendations remain largely unexplored. We offer a systematic analysis of the assumptions of sustainable development that underpins loss and damage scholarship through a comprehensive review of peer-reviewed research on loss and damage. We demonstrate that the use of specific metrics, decision criteria, and policy prescriptions by loss and damage researchers and practitioners implies an unwitting adherence to different underlying theories of sustainable development, which in turn impact how loss and damage is conceptualized and applied. In addition to research and policy implications, our review suggests that assumptions about the aims of sustainable development determine how loss and damage is conceptualized, measured, and governed, and the human development approach currently represents the most advanced perspective on sustainable development and thus loss and damage. This review supports sustainable development as a coherent, comprehensive, and integrative framework for guiding further conceptual and empirical development of loss and damage scholarship.
In recent years, a strong natural science hegemony has predominantly framed our understanding of sustainability challenges and, as a result, the production of solution strategies. In countering this, some academic centers have sought to promote interdisciplinary research, starting from the recognition that the scale and complexity of sustainability challenges necessitates a plurality of different social science perspectives to be incorporated in research. In this article, we analyze the process and outcomes of one of these centers, namely, the Lund University Centre of Excellence for Integration of the Social and Natural Dimensions of Sustainability (LUCID), maintaining a heavy emphasis on incorporating social sciences into interdisciplinary sustainability research from its inception. First, we identify and motivate the selection of a consistent set of criteria for evaluating interdisciplinary research processes and outcomes. Second, we apply these criteria in an analysis of a selection of scholarly work produced at LUCID. Third, we evaluate the impacts of LUCID's institutional settings on the process of interdisciplinary research. Finally, we assess to what degree the outcomes of LUCID research have managed to produce the synthetic integrated knowledge required to analyze and address complex sustainability challenges. Although the LUCID work in aggregate represents a plurality of social science perspectives, our analysis suggests that a meaningful synthetic integration of knowledge was accomplished in cases where researchers employed retroductive logic and adhered to the principles of methodological pluralism. In highlighting the need to systematically incorporate these essential elements into the research process, we stress the importance of institutional settings in terms of finance, administration, and providing a conducive intellectual environment wherein authentic interdisciplinarity can emerge. Maintaining the kinds of horizontal and vertical institutional integration characteristic of such conducive settings, however, poses a major challenge in light of current trends, at least in Sweden, toward more compartmentalized, disciplinary university structures.
There has been widespread recognition in the Global South of the role of participatory governance approaches to urban development in responding to citizens' immediate concerns. However, critiques note that participatory initiatives are often avenues for the political and economic elite to ensure their interests and profits, rather than improving the livelihoods in nonserviced urban peripheries. This article investigates how transition management (TM), as a promising participatory governance framework, can be implemented effectively to improve access to water for disadvantaged groups. First, we highlight lessons learnt from the TM applications in urban and water sectors. Second, we draw on empirical data from low-income urban areas in Ghana and Tanzania to bring the importance of social relations to the fore. By employing open-ended interviews, following the water points and conducting narrative walks, we identify three precautions that need to be addressed through adaptations of the TM approach in order to achieve the emancipatory promises of participatory governance models. In suggesting some guidelines for facilitators and active groups in participatory arenas, we discuss the importance of power dynamics in the communities, potentials and shortcoming of reflexive governance processes, and the need for capacity-building in transition teams.
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