Publication: new ZIN discussion paper "Participation as a central topic of interdisciplinary sustainability research".
Participation is a central requirement for successful sustainability transformation in democratic contexts - this is the consensus in politics and science and is reflected in many position papers and mission statements as well as countless research projects on the topic. At the same time, however, the large number of related research projects and publications also highlights the challenges of successful participation in the field of sustainability. Since sustainability is an inherently interdisciplinary topic, it is important to bring together perspectives from different disciplines on aspects of participation in the context of sustainability and to shed light on these different facets.
The recently published ZIN discussion paper "Participation as a central topic of interdisciplinary sustainability research" [https://www.uni-muenster.de/Ejournals/index.php/zin/article/view/3128/3116], published in December 2020, is dedicated to precisely this scientifically and practically relevant task: it brings together ZIN members and staff from the fields of geography, landscape ecology, political science, sociology, and theology in the identification of relevant conceptual issues and empirical developments. In the individual contributions, they address needs, conditions or barriers for participation in the context of sustainability from different disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives.
- Overall, the new ZIN discussion paper includes the following contributions:
- Participation and sustainability: needs, conditions, barriers.
- Bohn, Carolin; Hasenkamp, Victoria; Siepker, Lena: Why, and how? An Introduction to the Debate on Potentials and Limits of Deliberative Citizen Participation
- Schwarze, Sonja; Sarpong, Larissa; Schrüfer, Gabriele: Encouraging students to participate in sustainable development processes from a geographic didactic perspective
- Heimbach-Steins, Marianne; Salaske, Sebastian: Participatory justice and its relevance for enabling sustainable consumption
- Steinhäuser, Cornelia; Gumbert, Tobias: Local Participation as a Normative Driver of Agricultural Transformation: Food councils and participatory guarantee systems
- Kuhn, Lilith: Civil disobedience as a political space for action in local debates on the climate crisis
- Conclusion: Possibilities and limits of participation for a sustainability transformation