Putting grant/d terms to work: from promise to practice in inter- and transdisciplinary research projects

Sustainability research is increasingly based on inter- and transdisciplinary research approaches (IDR and TDR). In this article, we examine how grant terms (used in grant proposals for IDR and TDR projects) are put into practice. We analyzed three research projects to study how TDR and IDR are performed and why, and what we can learn for sustainability research. From a feminist perspective and using a conceptual framework including empty signifiers, comfort words and non-performativity we explore the difficulty of performing the terms, and the risk that they remain merely grand terms, promising and useful for proposals, but not guiding everyday research practice. Based on the analysis, we present seven patterns that complicate performing the terms. We suggest that these patterns can be helpful for other researchers developing their TDR and IDR research practice

The quest for "nature" in selfies: how platforms shape nature/society relationships

Social media and other platforms have become an essential part of outdoor activities as they influence how nature is experienced and engaged with, but also what good nature is seen as. In this article, we explore how social understandings of nature and digital technologies are mutually performed. Using the empirical case of nature selfies-an archetype of imagery on social media platforms-posted on Instagram, Facebook, and Tripadvisor, and a small participatory "breaching experiment" aimed at collecting "ugly nature selfies," we analyse and interrogate nature/society relationships displayed online within the platform contexts of attention economy and affordances. We conclude that nature selfies reinforce the desirability of consuming "beautiful" nature, while attention economy and platform affordances limit the possibilities for alternative nature/society relationships to be developed and promoted

Storytelling to save the planet: who gets to say what is sustainable, who tells the stories, and who should listen and change?

In the last decade, storytelling has been popularised as a method for societal sustainability transformations. With this growing popularity, there has also been a rapid increase in those identifying as storytellers. Perhaps because storytelling for sustainability has an innocent ring to it, it has not yet been studied from a power perspective. However, as it is fast-spreading and has explicit change purposes, it is important to clarify assumptions about knowledge, power and change. This article offers a first step towards understanding and evaluating the wide variety of applications behind the label of storytelling for sustainability. We perform a frame analysis of how storytellers describe their storytelling for sustainability. Our findings demonstrate that the label of storytelling for sustainability encompasses fundamentally different ideas about whose knowledge counts. The article raises critical questions that can help assess the legitimacy and appropriateness of different applications of storytelling for sustainability

How research on communication can help to understand the management of natural resources and sustainability transformations: practices, concerns and new perspectives on environmental communication

Communication is an integral part of natural resource management and sustainability transformations, and questions on how communication helps or hinders the development of more sustainable relationships between people and their environments have become increasingly urgent. This special issue directs our attention to the processes and outcomes of such communication and explores what a focus on communication makes visible and accessible for practical as well as academic analysis. The twelve articles collected in this issue examine a wide range of contexts and practices of environmental communication, here understood as the joint construction of meaning related to environmental and sustainability issues. In this editorial, we propose five conceptual lenses that, as we argue, are crucial for an in-depth engagement with environmental communication. Together, these provide us with an understanding of communication as arising from manifold interactions that are shaped by and shaping disagreement, power relations and, more generally, the interplay between structure and agency. We examine the contributions to this special issue in light of these conceptual lenses and highlight how the twelve articles help us to understand the role of meaning-making in environmental management and sustainability transformations. We conclude with suggestions for future work, identifying spaces for further conceptual development and empirical scrutiny as well as scope for new ideas on environmental communication to gain in importance and influence

How justice shapes transition governance - a discourse analysis of Swedish policy debates

In both policy-making and academia, the realisation is growing that transitions striving for sustainability have to be just to be socially accepted. This insight has given rise to institutionalised approaches to a "just transition" - but also beyond these, justice is a key challenge in the governance of sustainability transitions. In this paper, we examine how justice arguments are being used in national-level discourses of transition governance in Sweden. Analysing 121 policy-related documents from 2019 to 2021, we found that justice was discursively treated in a way that essentially stifled change. Political actors attempted to trump each other's justice claims rather than to genuinely engage with them. Justice concerns that would not serve re-election, such as solidarity across social boundaries, were almost absent from the material. Based on these findings, we critically explore how justice arguments contribute to politicizing transition governance in particular ways, rendering some policy options impossible

How justice shapes transition governance–a discourse analysis of Swedish policy debates

Published online: 16 February 2023In both policy-making and academia, the realisation is growing that transitions striving for sustainability have to be just to be socially accepted. This insight has given rise to institutionalised approaches to a “just transition”–but also beyond these, justice is a key challenge in the governance of sustainability transitions. In this paper, we examine how justice arguments are being used in national-level discourses of transition governance in Sweden. Analysing 121 policy-related documents from 2019 to 2021, we found that justice was discursively treated in away that essentially stifled change. Political actors attempted to trump each other's justice claims rather than to genuinely engage with them. Justice concerns that would not serve re-election, such as solidarity across social boundaries, were almost absent from the material. Based on these findings, we critically explore how justice arguments contribute to politicizing transition governance in particular ways, rendering some policy options impossible

Critical, Engaged and Change-oriented Scholarship in Environmental Communication. Six Methodological Dilemmas to Think With

While calls for critical, engaged and change-oriented scholarship in environmental communication (EC) abound, few articles discuss what this may practically entail. With this article, we aim to contribute to a discussion in EC about the methodological implications of such scholarship. Based on our combined experience in EC research and drawing from a variety of academic fields, we describe six methodological dilemmas that we encounter in our research practice and that we believe are inherent to such scholarship. These dilemmas are (1) grasping communication; (2) representing others; (3) involving people in research; (4) co-producing knowledge; (5) engaging critically; and (6) relating to conflict. This article does not offer solutions to these complex dilemmas. Rather, our dilemma descriptions are meant to help researchers think through methodological issues in critical, engaged and change-oriented EC research. The article also helps to translate the dilemmas to the reality of research projects through a set of questions, aimed to support a sensitivity to, and understanding of, the dilemmas in context. critical, engaged, change-oriented, methodology, dillemmaspublishedVersio

Fridge stories and other tales from the kitchen: a methodological toolbox for getting closer to everyday food practices

In this paper we present a methodological toolbox as a useful research approach for investigating domestic food practices. Consumption research often relies strongly on interviews or surveys. While helpful, such methods inevitably create a distance between the verbalization of the studied practice and the practice itself, inviting post hoc rationalization. The toolbox helps the researcher to get closer to the studied practice by combining interviews with methods based on observation, visualization and verbalization, in or close to practice. The toolbox holds a variety of methods and we describe fridge stories, food mapping, shop-alongs and food diaries. Through a practical discussion of the advantages and difficulties of these methods, and their combined use, we hope our paper can be useful to other researchers and students interested in everyday food practices

Is it local? : A study about the social production of local and regional foods and goods

Local and regional products are often attributed positive qualities, such as a potential for developing Europe’s rural regions economically and reconnecting producers and consumers in more sustainable food systems. However, they are broad categories that include many different understandings. What is a local or a regional (food) product? Who gets to define and construct what products qualify as regional products and local food’? And most interestingly, what do these processes of meaning creation look like? This dissertation investigates the processes in which meaning and value are attributed to regional and local products. These processes are conceptualised as qualification and include sense-making, curating, positioning and labelling. Paper I focuses on sense-making and studies consumers’ everyday food choices. The study shows how these consumers talk similarly about local food but engage in surprisingly different food practices. I explain this finding by demonstrating how local food ideas are translated in practices influenced by identity work, social negotiation and logistics in the everyday. Paper II studies the role of curation for consumers’ ‘quest for good (local) food’. It shows how intermediaries, such as food apps and food boxes, curate, i.e. sort, evaluate and ascribe value(s) to products that, in turn, inform consumers’ food choice. Paper III focuses on positioning and presents a historical case study of the regional product Zeeland madder. I demonstrate that even if the link between a regional product and a place is highly unique, the ways in which a product obtains its regional identity is based on recognisable patterns in qualification. Paper IV focuses on labelling and evaluates theoretical explanations for the uneven distribution of labelled regional food over Europe through a statistical analysis. The findings highlight the need to differentiate between mechanisms for regional labels and those for regional food. I argue that the variety of understandings and practices constituting local and regional foods and goods often lie out of view; the general tendency is to assume that we all intuitively know what local and regional is. In this dissertation I problematise this tendency through an explicit focus on the processes that socially produce local and regional products

Is it local? : A study about the social production of local and regional foods and goods

Local and regional products are often attributed positive qualities, such as a potential for developing Europe’s rural regions economically and reconnecting producers and consumers in more sustainable food systems. However, they are broad categories that include many different understandings. What is a local or a regional (food) product? Who gets to define and construct what products qualify as regional products and local food’? And most interestingly, what do these processes of meaning creation look like? This dissertation investigates the processes in which meaning and value are attributed to regional and local products. These processes are conceptualised as qualification and include sense-making, curating, positioning and labelling. Paper I focuses on sense-making and studies consumers’ everyday food choices. The study shows how these consumers talk similarly about local food but engage in surprisingly different food practices. I explain this finding by demonstrating how local food ideas are translated in practices influenced by identity work, social negotiation and logistics in the everyday. Paper II studies the role of curation for consumers’ ‘quest for good (local) food’. It shows how intermediaries, such as food apps and food boxes, curate, i.e. sort, evaluate and ascribe value(s) to products that, in turn, inform consumers’ food choice. Paper III focuses on positioning and presents a historical case study of the regional product Zeeland madder. I demonstrate that even if the link between a regional product and a place is highly unique, the ways in which a product obtains its regional identity is based on recognisable patterns in qualification. Paper IV focuses on labelling and evaluates theoretical explanations for the uneven distribution of labelled regional food over Europe through a statistical analysis. The findings highlight the need to differentiate between mechanisms for regional labels and those for regional food. I argue that the variety of understandings and practices constituting local and regional foods and goods often lie out of view; the general tendency is to assume that we all intuitively know what local and regional is. In this dissertation I problematise this tendency through an explicit focus on the processes that socially produce local and regional products