Introduction: Sustainability Science as Co-Creative Research Praxis

Abstract

This chapter explores the relationship between collaboration and creativity within social sustainability research. Aimed at stimulating further reflection and debate on the role of ‘co-creativity’ in enabling transformative sustainability agendas, the chapter acts also as an introduction to the entire edited collection. A key guiding question posed from the outset is how co-creative research practice, as a generative process, can best support the emergence of alternative—potentially even transformative—ways of being in the world. The discussion proceeds with a conceptual review of creativity, followed by a detailed explanation of how co-creativity is defined for the purposes of this edited collection. The remainder of the chapter looks towards the nurturing of co-creative practice within social sustainability research; particular attention is given to socially inclusive forms of co-creative and engaged research praxis. The term co-creativity is used in reference to both individual methods and overarching research approaches that, through action and reflection, stimulate alternative understandings of why and how things are, and how they could be. Accordingly, emphasis is placed throughout this chapter on co-creative research practice as requiring a retained sensitivity to the importance of researching ‘with’.

Energy communities of repair in remote infrastructures: a study of Puerto Edén in the Chilean Patagonia

“…It is grounded in iterative processes of induction and critical theoretical reflection, combining conventional methods and techniques of qualitative research with innovative approaches to speculative design. In the context of social sciences focused on the environment and sustainability, our approach is very close to "sustainable science and cocreative research praxis" (Franklin, 2022).…”

What comes to count as sustainable in Rosendal? : a study of how sustainability is being reproduced in an urban sociomaterial assemblage

“…This acceptance was related both to the nature of PAR-inspired approaches, and to how I had gradually begun to frame my research topic. Participatory approaches can be seen as one type of 'engaged scholarship' where researchers are looking to make a 'real world difference'; however, such research tends to fit poorly within time frames and requirements of doctoral education programmes (Franklin 2022). Further, my interest in what comes to count as sustainability in Rosendal, had little to do with the interests of possible research participants and more to do with my own research interests.…”