Dynamics of Place & Discourse: Empirical, Methodological, and Theoretical Research into Socio-Cultural Transformations Toward Sustainability

Abstract

Amidst concerns for more-than-human outcomes and emancipatory approaches to systemic change, sustainability is experiencing a resurgent interest in topics of place– conceptually and in practice. My thesis uses discursive research methods to sample and analyse how topics of place are influencing the pursuit of sustainability from three perspectives: (i) a global perspective, offered by a corpus-assisted study of academic and public texts on sustainability, place and change; (ii) a trans-place perspective, offered by research into the global bioregioning movement; and (iii) a situated perspective, exploring discourses and discursive agency influencing the work of a local government in the Blue Mountains of Australia. The findings present new insights into the tensions, opportunities, and politics that a focus on place presents to concepts and practices in sustainability. In its analysis and approach, the thesis also makes conceptual and methodological contributions to the study of sustainability dis-courses in society, extending established approaches to consider inter-scalar connections, the role of materials, and the contextuality of social-ecological systems. Thematically, I found that while a focus on place often carries a vision of socially and ecologically literate citizens taking control of their fate toward a diverse, globally connected and normatively transformed society, the pursuit of this agenda can carry tensions that elide those core objectives in practical and conceptual ways. Looking across the themes and findings of my research led me to highlight a need for reflexive questions and conversations about the interface of sustainability research, knowledge, and practice with the aspirations of a place-based approach to change. What kind of ‘knowledge’ is useful if we view sustainability through a place-based lens? What is the role of sustainability research in those dynamics? How do the emerging concerns about rela-tionality, place, and power intersect? I complement empirical studies with reflexive and conceptual discussions to ask these questions and explore opportunities for progress. I point to opportunities for place-based publications to complement knowledge systems for society, and for practices in local government to be re-interpreted and valued as their own knowledge co-production process. In addition to its empirical contributions, the thesis will aid researchers interested in (i) tracing environmental discourses across space or time, (ii) considering the role of practices and materials in social change, and (iii) conceptualising discursive change and agency within complex, nested social-ecological systems. Most broadly, it provides another source of enquiry and experimentation to probe and extend relational paradigms in social science and sustainability.