Strengthening Sensory Sustainability Science—Theoretical and Methodological Considerations

Abstract

Sustainability science is marked by a quarter century of conceptual and methodological development. Based on innovative approaches, such as transformative transdisciplinarity, sustainability science makes the claim to contribute solution-oriented knowledge to sustainable development. Despite successful expansion and promising experiences, there are limitations to be considered. This article argues that the multisensorial reality of human life in socio-material practices has not been adequately captured in sustainability science. Theoretical approaches addressing the sensoriality and corporality of human existence as well as methodological approaches of ethnography and arts-based research to access relevant human dimensions beyond the cognitive are discussed, and the perspective of sensory sustainability science is sketched.

Beyond words – the potential of arts-based research on human-nature connectedness

“…Gibbons 1994;Brand and Karvonen 2007;Spangenberg 2011;Lang et al 2012;Miller 2013), von call for method plurality and the opening of epistemological and disciplinary barriers underpinning methods. I would argue that embracing arts-based research as a (methodological) boundary object 1 between the arts and science could initiate promising chains of leverage for the transformation of sustainability science (Heinrichs 2018(Heinrichs , 2019. The practical challenges of integrating arts-based methods into research designs as well as an increased exchange between artists and scientists may lead to important reflections on the goals and performativity of science in the 21 st century, e.g.…”

Key advantages of the leverage points perspective to shape human-nature relations

“…Transformative art can be a powerful tool to guide and innovate sustainability transition, combined with research that points out the critical needs for transformative action and when building on multiple kinds of knowledges (Raatikainen et al 2020 this issue). From a leverage points perspective, arts-based interventions can advance the methods and methodologies of research and therewith change the rules of a system -and initiate promising chains of leverage for a different access to sustainability science (Heinrichs 2018(Heinrichs , 2019, as stated by Muhr (2020 this issue). By including other and potentially non-scientific types of knowledge, leverage points addressing human-nature relations may spark novel and powerful pathways towards sustainability transformation.…”

Origin and destiny of subjectivity: from professional roles to treatment processes, through an interpretation of the remains of the day by kazuo ishiguro

“…A queering approach is also an artful one, as I argued above and elsewhere (Kagan, 2017b); and the research field of "sustainability science" is in dire need of more artful research approaches (Dieleman, 2017a;Heinrichs, 2019;Heinrichs & Kagan, 2019;Kagan, 2017bKagan, , 2019a. Accordingly, in the constitution of this special issue, I thus sought contributions that would dare to merge academic and artistic or arts-based research elements.…”