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Hybridizing sustainability: towards a new praxis for the present human predicament

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  • Sustainability science: bridging the gap between science and society
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Abstract

Sustainability science has emerged within an essentially modern framework. We start from discussing the inherent contradictions and paradoxes of this framing model and then move to a new pragmatic defining space, articulated through a plurality of epistemologies, languages, styles of research, experiences, and actions, all coming from a global civil society and defining a variety of epistemic and normative stances and methods. We then propose and explore a scenario in which sustainability is fruitfully hybridized with artistic research and practice, with local agricultural practice and indigenous culture, and, finally, with animal culture for “nonhuman” knowledge and rights. These hybrids can work as encouragements to abandon modern divides and pitfalls and engage in a new kind of collective diagnose and praxis for our present.

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Acknowledgments

We are most grateful to Jerome Ravetz, Bruna De Marchi, Francesca Farioli and anonymous referees for their constructive comments during the preparation of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. IRIS, Interdisciplinary Research Institute on Sustainability, University of Torino, Turin, Italy

    Alice Benessia

  2. Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Silvio Funtowicz

  3. The Kerulos Center, Jacksonville, OR, USA

    Gay Bradshaw

  4. Trio Francesca Ferri and O Thiasos Teatro Natura, Rome, Italy

    Francesca Ferri

  5. Environmental Sustainability Centre, Cayetano Heredia Peruvian University, Lima, Peru

    Ernesto F. Ráez-Luna

  6. MASIPAG, Los Baños, Laguna, Philippines

    Charito P. Medina

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  1. Alice Benessia
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  2. Silvio Funtowicz
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  3. Gay Bradshaw
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  4. Francesca Ferri
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  5. Ernesto F. Ráez-Luna
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  6. Charito P. Medina
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alice Benessia.

Additional information

Handled by Francesca Farioli, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy.

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Benessia, A., Funtowicz, S., Bradshaw, G. et al. Hybridizing sustainability: towards a new praxis for the present human predicament. Sustain Sci 7 (Suppl 1), 75–89 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-011-0150-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-011-0150-4

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