Scholarship
We have a normative impetus and seek change in socially just, ecologically integral ways using transdisciplinary, creative, reflective methodological approaches. Our teaching is interconnected with our research as forms of knowledge production and implementation, firstly, through research led teaching, and, secondly, through forms of pedagogical innovation that enable learners and educators to explore conceptual and practical barriers and opportunities for sustainable development.
Matrix of themes and approaches
Our scholarship can broadly be defined according to core themes and crosscutting themes, creating a matrix of research interests and approaches.
Core themes
This theme includes what we do and how we do it; including learning for sustainability, sustainability research, linking theory and practice, seeking policy coherence. We connect learning and research. We respect different forms of knowledge. We seek transdisciplinary, co-production, innovative approaches. We acknowledge reciprocity, respect and relationality in considering how we work with human and more-than-human actors. We embrace new framings – the seascape as well as the landscape – and we enjoy creative approaches inspired by art and imagination. We have a normative impetus. We integrate reflective, qualitative methods with science methods across the environmental humanities, social sciences and sciences, and we support change via both technology and social practice.
We explore and encourage sustainability governance. We critically examine environmental policy and governance – especially for marine and coastal, water, forest and woodland contexts. We work at different scales and across different places: across community, regional, Scotland, UK, Europe and international and global policies. We support co-production of futures through governance mechanisms inclusive of partnerships with communities and Indigenous people. Participatory approaches and multilevel governance are important approaches. We scale and integrate across the UN Sustainable Development Goals, whilst critically and constructively engaging with this framework and helping to shape future frameworks. We recognise and traverse tensions and trade-offs between environment and development, between neoliberal, productive and liberal, rights based views of sustainable development. In doing so, we embrace systems thinking and holistic approaches. Our sub-disciplines include sustainability studies, ecological economics, political ecology, environmental politics, education and development.
Theory informs and is informed by practices, including socio-technological transitions to sustainability, community-based approaches and nature-based solutions. Sustainability in practice requires partnerships with organisations and groups. Our specialist areas cover informality and Indigeneity, creativity and conservation. We study and suggest practices in contested areas e.g. conservation conflicts, plant health and biosecurity. Whilst we are concerned for community practices, we also consider impacts of mega-infrastructure.
We recognise relationality – the importance of human-nature relationships and nature connectedness, human relationships and intergenerational exchange. We weave connections across sectors and scales. We emphasise place based connections and cultural links.
We pursue scholarship across these themes with crosscutting themes:
- Innovation and imagination
- Looking back (history) and forwards (future thinking), intergenerational approaches
- Critical reflection and rigorous data analysis
- Respect, reciprocity and compassion across humans and more-than-humans
- Transdisciplinarity
- Creating, provoking, assessing change
