Contested terrains: Politics, stories and discourses of sustainability

McManus, Phil

doi:10.1080/09644019608414247

Cited by 127 publications

(82 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Adger, Benjaminsen, Brown, & Svarstad, 2001;Barry & Proops, 1999;Connelly, 2007;Dryzek, 1997;Hajer, 1995;McManus, 1996). These studies have been influenced by diverse conceptualizations of discourse but perhaps the most widely cited definitions are those of Maarten Hajer and John Dryzek.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contemporary Discourses of Green Political Economy: A Q Method Analysis

Stevenson

2015

Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contemporary Discourses of Green Political Economy: A Q Method Analysis

Stevenson

2015

Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning

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“…Beyond this general statement, and consistent with claims in the literature of the contested nature of the sustainable world concept (McManus 1996;Porritt 2005;Wissenburg 2001), there is little common ground between Reformist and Transformational formulations. Answers to questions such as which life forms matter?, how is wellbeing to be achieved?, what does it mean to act in a just way within and between generations?, what does it mean to maintain diversity?…”

Section: 'A Sustainable World Has To Do With the Flourishing Of Life mentioning

confidence: 60%

“…Second, world-view typologies are those that focus on presenting key aspects of different world-views that have a sustainability orientation, such as ecological modernisation, ecofeminism, deep ecology, and so on. Examples of this form of typology include those of McManus (1996) and McGregor (2004). Third are prose-based typologies that present descriptions of alternate sustainable world approaches in paragraph rather than tabular form (Williams and Millington (2004) is an example).…”

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confidence: 99%

Representing a Sustainable World – A Typology Approach

Clifton¹

2010

JSD

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This paper presents, as a 'sustainable world typology', the findings of a current research project that is concerned with what it means for there to be a sustainable world and how humanity might go about achieving this. The typology is framed around key sustainable world dimensions and displays, for each of these dimensions, how Reformist and Transformational approaches are conceived in terms of giving meaning to the concept of a sustainable world. Key themes evident in the typology are discussed namely: (a) the primary sustainable world goal of flourishing life, (b) the anthropocentrism-ecocentrism divide, (c) approaches to human interests satisfaction, and (d) optimisation vs resilience living. The paper notes the mere descriptive nature of the typology and concludes with some thoughts on ways in which the typology might be critiqued to identify which approach, Reformist or Transformational, is more likely to see the primary sustainable world goal achieved. Keywords: Sustainability, Sustainable world, Reformist, Transformational, Typology 1. Introduction 1.1 Purpose of this paper This paper reports on a component of a current research project that is concerned with what it means for humans to live sustainably on the Earth, that is, for there to be a sustainable world, and how humanity might go about achieving this. The full project considers three key questions namely: (a) what does it mean for there to be a sustainable world?, (b) what approach to a sustainable world is being pursued by a specific Australian state government?, and (c) what are the implications of this government's sustainable world approach in respect of its contribution to, or detraction from, a global sustainable world goal? This paper presents the findings from research undertaken to answer the first of these three questions. Dobson (1996), in considering ways in which the meaning of complex pluralistic concepts such as that of a sustainable world can be presented, proposes a typology approach as preferable to alternates such as definitional or discursive methods. The approach taken in this paper follows Dobson's advice and presents a summation of different perspectives of what it means for there to be a sustainable world in the form of a 'sustainable world typology' (SWT), shown as Figure 1. A number of existing typologies that are oriented towards sustainable world issues are evident in the literature and these can be categorised into three main forms. First, sustainable world dimension (SW Dimension) typologies are those that focus on what are seen as key dimensions (or principles) that collectively present a picture of what is means for there to be a sustainable world and how this might be achieved. These SW Dimensions typically include items such as how natural resources are to be used, how human interests are to be satisfied, intergenerational equity obligations, and so on. Typologies of this form display different approaches to these dimensions, with these approaches often collapsed into 2, or at the most 4, representative c...

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“…Indeed, sustainability is an "essentially contested" concept [2,3,4], and thus sustainability of a product can be interpreted in many ways. We take the view of the consumer and focus on two central elements: quality and staying powerhow to create a high-quality product that is usable as long as possible.…”

Section: Sustainability and Planned Obsolescencementioning

confidence: 99%

Perspectives on Code Forking and Sustainability in Open Source Software

Nyman

Mikkonen

Lindman

et al. 2012

IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology

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Abstract. The ability to create high-quality software artifacts that are usable over time is one of the essential requirements of the software business. In such a setting, open source software offers excellent opportunities for sustainability. In particular, safeguarding mechanisms against planned obsolescence by any single actor are built into the definition of open source. The most powerful of these mechanisms is the ability to fork the project. In this paper we argue that the possibility to fork serves as the invisible hand of sustainability that ensures that code remains open and that the code that best serves the community lives on. Furthermore, the mere option to fork provides a mechanism for safeguarding against despotic decisions by the project lead, who is thus guided in their actions to consider the best interest of the community.

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Contested terrains: Politics, stories and discourses of sustainability

Cited by 127 publications

References 25 publications

Contemporary Discourses of Green Political Economy: A Q Method Analysis

Contemporary Discourses of Green Political Economy: A Q Method Analysis

Representing a Sustainable World – A Typology Approach

Perspectives on Code Forking and Sustainability in Open Source Software

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