Situated sustainability: a research programme for conflict-affected settings and beyond

Abstract

Sustainability is not a universal concept. Instead, research should acknowledge that it is anchored and expressed in many different variations of local practices, understandings and imaginations of resource use across and within significantly different contexts. Presently, the SDG discourse supersedes other understandings of sustainability. Even where it claims to be participatory, it tends to streamline visions and practices of sustainable living along SDG-principles. Researchers should seek deep engagement with stakeholders and disadvantaged communities who are not being given a voice in these processes (slum-dwellers, undocumented migrants, etc.). Researchers, policy and development practitioners should make efforts to balance the ecological bias in sustainability research and implementing practice and acknowledge insights from social science and interdisciplinary fields such as urban planning, peace and conflict research as well as forced migration/ refugee studies. Situating sustainability means co-production of knowledge through input from academics and laypersons alike in research design, analysis, dissemination and implementing change. Urban spaces represent particularly fruitful sites for research because it is here that people of different backgrounds (e.g.migrants, the forcibly displaced, established communities) mix and competing as well as complementing ideas of sustainability might coexist. By combining the three dimensions of the suggested research agenda, i.e., contextualizing sustainability, acknowledging alternative ideas beyond the SDGs and conducting transdisciplinary research, scholars could aid societal transformation that is not only ecological but will eventually call for socio-political changes towards more inclusive, equal and just societies. The research agenda of Situated Sustainability could mitigate associated ethical risks.