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- Berg, Monika, 1979-, et al.
(author)
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Global environmental assessments and transformative change : the role of epistemic infrastructures and the inclusion of social sciences
- 2024
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In: Innovation. The European Journal of Social Science Research. - : Routledge. - 1351-1610 .- 1469-8412. ; , s. 1-18
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The gap between what is known about climate change and the action taken to prevent it has instigated debates around how to reconfigure global environmental assessment organizations to better inform and foster transformative change. One recurring request involves the need for a broader and better inclusion of social scientific knowledge. However, despite such intentions, the inclusion of social scientific research remains limited. How can this be explained? Through a detailed analysis of the IPCC special report on limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees, this article reveals how the institutional conditions of global environmental assessments condition and shape what knowledge is included in these assessments, as well as how this knowledge is represented. It discusses how and why the understanding of social processes and structures remains underdeveloped, despite such knowledge being critical for transformative change. To integrate such knowledge into environmental assessments would require substantial changes to the current epistemic infrastructure used by global environmental assessments. It is therefore time to think beyond global environmental assessments and consider complementary institutional science–policy relations through which social scientific research can assist policy actions to promote deep transformative change.
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| 2. |
- Berg, Monika, 1979-
(author)
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The valuation of a mine – values, facts and contested notions of sustainability in the prospecting for new mines
- 2024
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In: Environmental Sociology. - : Taylor & Francis. - 2325-1042. ; , s. 1-14
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- With the current technology-based transition strategy, prospecting for new mines has increased, and the extractive damage involved in mining is justified as a means of protecting the climate. The mining permit process involves fundamental trade-offs between values and goals (environmental, social, and economic) relating to global security and local livelihoods, as well as conflicting understandings of sustainability. These value conflicts and dilemmas lie at the heart of sustainable transformation. Drawing on pragmatic sociology and the orders of worth established by Boltanski and Thévenot, this paper illustrates that competing standpoints claim legitimacy by referring to different modes of judging what is good, right, and sustainable. The analysis shows that institutionalized ideals about legitimate forms of proof constrain and limit the possible ways of justifying a position, and this shapes the way nature is valued, as well as how contestation is formulated. When critics adopt legitimate forms of justification, they might win the case, but at the same time, strengthen the dominance of specific ways of ascribing value. The paper concludes that active engagement with diverging ways of ascribing worth, and thus different forms of proof, may enable governance that leads to more just and sustainable futures.
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| 3. |
- Boström, Magnus, 1972-, et al.
(author)
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Reflexivity and anti-reflexivity
- 2024
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In: Elgar Encyclopedia of Environmental Sociology. - : Edward Elgar Publishing. - 9781803921037 - 9781803921044 ; , s. 474-480
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Book chapter (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Reflexivity and its counterpart— anti-reflexivity— are key concepts in environmental sociology. Reflexivity and similar concepts are presented as means for taking constructive steps towards sustainability in face of the often wicked nature (complex, uncertain, dynamic, value-laden, dilemmatic, ambivalent) of socio-ecological problems and risks. Anti-reflexivity is the suppressing or resisting of reflexivity. This entry discusses definitions of reflexivity, anti-reflexivity and related concepts based on key scholarly work in environmental sociology. From this field of research, reflexivity— or its absence/resistance— is discussed with regards to the system or macro level (society at large, state apparatus, the scientific field or general discourses in the public sphere), the process level (governance networks, decision-making processes), or at the level of individual and collective choices of action (consumption/lifestyle choices, social movements).
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