Refocusing Sustainability (Asynchronous Session)
A Pattern Language of Traditional Music for Sustainable Development View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Anna Beresford
In this paper, I provide a ‘pattern language of traditional music’ as a method for sustainable development. While directly facilitating the socio-economic resilience of rural areas and small towns, a pattern language of traditional music can also serve as a novel entrant for larger socio-economic systems, contributing to the transformation to a new, sustainable socio-economic basin of attraction (Walker et al. 2004). Where traditional music thrives it is associated with high levels of social capital, community values, and a deep love and sense of place. However, the last fifty years have seen a decline in traditional music cultures. This decline is attributed to the increased spatial and social mobility of youth, the loss of traditional industries, the de-population of rural areas, and the saturation of social media influencing new patterns of behaviour. In essence, the problem is that rural areas and small-town communities are in ‘the wrong place’, abandoned by capitalism and often ignored by the state. I argue that, by developing a pattern language of traditional music, we may re-establish the context for grassroots development for rural areas and small towns, thereby increasing social capital and facilitating a commitment to place and in so doing develop local economies that combat a consumer-driven one. Furthermore, as innovation at the smaller scale can inform innovation at the larger level, pattern languages of traditional music can act as novel entrants, informing sustainable development practices for the larger socio-economic systems in which these small town systems are nested.
Nature-centered Leadership: The Power of Six-word Drawings to Promote a Shared Vision for a Sustainable Future View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Spencer S Stober
Imagine that one were to hold up a large mirror to our entire species. How might we react? Our ability to develop technologies and complex social systems has enabled us to transcend population constraints that limit other species, that is, until now. Our inability to manage the global commons exhibits the characteristics of a tragedy, as described by Garret Hardin. Climate change has become what Kelly Levin and others refer to as a “super wicked problem.” Our image in the mirror is of a species that is the cause, and we cannot agree on a path forward. There is a need for a realistic, yet hopeful, action-oriented, and shared vision for collective action. Nature-centered leaders recognize that a “We Can Do It!” approach is needed, such as the call to action by J. Howard Miller’s classic war-time poster. This paper builds on the concept of “nature-centered leadership” as transformational leadership. Nature-centered leaders empower us to act on a shared vision for a sustainable future. This study demonstrates the power of images and short stories in efforts to understand our relationship with Nature. The author developed the concept of a “six-word-drawing” in the tradition of Ernest Hemingway’s legendary “six-word stories.” The efficacy of several six-word drawings is discussed—they are metaphors for an imaginary mirror held up to our species. How do we react?
Sustainability at the Age of Climate Justice: Rethinking a Useful Concept View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Alberto José Franco Barrera
The impact of the climate crisis is mediated by the specific characteristics of the societies it affects. In other words, its main risk is that it acts as a multiplier and intensifier or pre-existing conflicts. For this reason, societies must not only work to mitigate the causes but also need to be able to minimize the societal cost of extreme weather events. That is to say: whether to mitigate it, to adapt to it, or to avoid the consequences of not doing so, climate change will completely transform the societies in which we live. What is in dispute, then, is the meaning, rhythm and scope of these changes. That is: who will benefit and who will bear the cost. It is debated whether the ecological transition will be a lever for greater social justice and democratization or if, on the contrary, it will deepen the global trends towards greater inequality and more authoritarian regimes. In this sense, undoing the contradiction between quality of life in the short term and the natural conditions that sustain it in the medium and long term is the great challenge of a just ecological transition. This research focuses on analyzing whether the concept of sustainability is able to untie the knot of the aforementioned contradiction and to help us imagine decarbonized, democratic, and socially just societies or if we will need other ways to achieve climate justice.
