Post-class comments and discussion on Session 4

This discussion thread is meant for comments building on today's discussion, and for eventual inclusion into the Cambridge group's write-up of this session.

Previously Elizabeth Barron wrote:

This discussion thread is meant for comments building on today's discussion, and for eventual inclusion into the Cambridge group's write-up of this session.

One of the interesting things that came up in our discussion was the fact that a lot of work has already been done by the authors regarding disciplinary differences and tension points. A comment was made that perhaps, at least for the purposes of discussion, it might be useful for the students to see a bit more about how that process unfolded. Since we have all been trained, to various extents, within specific disciplines, seeing how the authors worked through these challenges might illuminate for us how to think past our own disciplinary boundaries.

Another comment that was made in our group discussion was that it is important to recognize that each tool has its own problems and politics that it is important to be aware of. When trying to understand how systems work, how the authors proceed as they choose names for parts of the system and identify conventions for that system also empowers certain approaches over others. I would argue that recognizing these choices and being explicit and clear about why they were made, would contribute to an overall understanding of the field and help to bound it in certain ways. For example, the point made early on that human-wellbeing is a fundamental starting point in sustainability science does, as the authors point out, privilege humans over the environment. This is part of their explanatory framework that is then built upon and creates a boundary between human and non-human dimensions of the problem. Having these sort of decisions clarified, and the effects that they have recognized and justified, would hopefully address a lot of the issues of clarity that have been raised up to this point.

One final thing about post-positivist theories of the mid-range, I found an article by Jessie Poon to be helpful in thinking through the application of quantitative methods using a post-positivist approach.

This isn't actually a reply to the previous comment, but I can't figure out how else to post a comment here! Sorry.

Anyway, I think the group discussion in Cambridge after the session raised some important questions stemming from the battery metaphor. Someone asked whether the idea is to create people who know something about a lot of different fields related to sustainability (carbon cycling, environmental economics, governance, etc.) or to create a kind of template that can be overlaid on top of all these fields and show the system dynamics that are shared. Okay, the commenter put it much more eloquently. But that was, I think, the general question. Bill's metaphor for this was whether sustainability science should be Radio Shack--build a battery for every tool out there--or instead try to invent one all-purpose battery. 

This discussion raised a related question for me: Is sustainability science meant to be truly "interdisciplinary" (a word academics like to toss around, but which often just means "multi-disciplinary")? Or something that might be better described as "adisciplinary"? It seems like an important distinction, and I'm not sure I know the right answer from what we've read so far. 

 

Previously Elizabeth Barron wrote:

Previously Elizabeth Barron wrote:

This discussion thread is meant for comments building on today's discussion, and for eventual inclusion into the Cambridge group's write-up of this session.

 

One of the interesting things that came up in our discussion was the fact that a lot of work has already been done by the authors regarding disciplinary differences and tension points. A comment was made that perhaps, at least for the purposes of discussion, it might be useful for the students to see a bit more about how that process unfolded. Since we have all been trained, to various extents, within specific disciplines, seeing how the authors worked through these challenges might illuminate for us how to think past our own disciplinary boundaries.

Another comment that was made in our group discussion was that it is important to recognize that each tool has its own problems and politics that it is important to be aware of. When trying to understand how systems work, how the authors proceed as they choose names for parts of the system and identify conventions for that system also empowers certain approaches over others. I would argue that recognizing these choices and being explicit and clear about why they were made, would contribute to an overall understanding of the field and help to bound it in certain ways. For example, the point made early on that human-wellbeing is a fundamental starting point in sustainability science does, as the authors point out, privilege humans over the environment. This is part of their explanatory framework that is then built upon and creates a boundary between human and non-human dimensions of the problem. Having these sort of decisions clarified, and the effects that they have recognized and justified, would hopefully address a lot of the issues of clarity that have been raised up to this point.

One final thing about post-positivist theories of the mid-range, I found an article by Jessie Poon to be helpful in thinking through the application of quantitative methods using a post-positivist approach.