The Emergence of Sustainability As A Professional Field, Laura Resendez

Experts in science and technology, the social sciences and business administration are aware of the social and ecological challenges faced by the planet and look for sustainable alternatives within their areas of expertise. In this way, various disciplines interact and contribute their particular bodies of knowledge to solve a common problem. This offers an opportunity to learn about the ways in which interactions take place and how these professionals work together. The paper analyzes how the concept of sustainability is constructed through the activities of a multidisciplinary community of experts. While traditional disciplines and professions consolidated during modernity by focusing on a specific body of knowledge; today it seems that the relational nature of sustainability problems requires collaboration across disciplines and occupational areas. At the same time, an ideological shift seems to be taking place; the culture and beliefs of the professional class, the economic paradigms of neo-liberalism, and the ethics of capitalism require recognizing the urgent environmental and social needs in the current transition towards sustainability. Central to this analysis are two questions: whether sustainability is an emerging discipline into itself and how sustainability operates as a conceptual lens in urban environments. To learn first hand about how these issues are being addressed among those who participate in the decision making process of sustainability implementation; an ethnographic exploration was conducted in the case of the VII De Lange Conference Transforming the Metropolis: Creating Sustainable and Humane Cities held at Rice University on March 2-3, 2009. The material includes an analysis of experts views about sustainability and the various disciplinary differences that emerged.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Anthropology of Sustainability
• Experts Culture Research
• Disciplines and Professions