Sustainable interdisciplinarity focuses on human–nature relations and a multitude of contemporary overlapping research between society and the environment. A variety of disciplines have played a large part in better understanding sustainable development since its high-profile emergence approximately a quarter of a century ago. At present, the forefront of sustainability research is an array of methods, techniques, and growing knowledge base that considers past, present, and future pathways. Specific multidisciplinary concentrations within the scope of societal changes, urban landscape transformations, international environmental comparative studies, as well as key theories and dynamics relating to sustainable performance are explored. Specializations in complex sustainability issues address international governance arrangements, rules, and organizations—both public and private—within the scope of four themes: sustainability, human geography, environment, and interdisciplinary societal studies. This book contains eleven thoroughly refereed contributions concerning pressing issues that interlink sustainable interdisciplinarity with the presented themes in terms of the human–nature interface.

Sustainable interdisciplinarity focuses on human-nature relations and a multitude of contemporary overlapping research between society and the environment. A variety of disciplines have played a large part in better understanding sustainable development since its high-profile emergence approximately a quarter of a century ago. At present, the forefront of sustainability research is an array of methods, techniques, and growing knowledge base that considers past, present, and future pathways. Specific multidisciplinary concentrations within the scope of societal changes, urban landscape transformations, international environmental comparative studies, as well as key theories and dynamics relating to sustainable performance are explored. Specializations in complex sustainability issues address international governance arrangements, rules, and organizations--both public and private--within the scope of four themes: sustainability, human geography, environment, and interdisciplinary societal studies. This book contains eleven thoroughly refereed contributions concerning pressing issues that interlink sustainable interdisciplinarity with the presented themes in terms of the human-nature interface.

This book addresses sustainability thinking and the bigger picture, by taking into consideration how and from where contemporary schools of thought emerged approximately a quarter-century ago. Evidence from the literature illustrates a number of key concepts and techniques that have been tested and continue to be tested, within various multi-disciplinary fields, on societal functionality. Research into sustainable societies needs to be sound, ethical, and creative. A cross-sectoral, interdisciplinary examination of challenges and strategies is used to interlink sustainability thinking and human-nature relations. With an ever-growing number of people now concentrated within urban areas, providing not only environmental quality and livable space, but also security and resilient urban systems, is becoming increasingly important. This urbanization trend has overlapped with environmental degradation, consumption of natural resources, habitat loss, and overall ecosystem change. Consequently, the goal is for cleaner, safer societies – with higher standards of living – to excel in support of current and future generational communities. The book tackles these challenges by integrating environmental scholarship, economic evaluation, and urban strategies under one umbrella of thought. The relational paradigms presented include examples that correlate developed and developing countries, socioeconomics and community development, and governance of knowledge and education. As such, the book argues, furthering of knowhow should be accessible and shared in order to achieve maximum innovation and benefit. Sustainability thinking, after all, is a metric for intrinsic human-nature relations in terms of past performance, present development, and future goals. This book discusses this metric and offers novel approaches to growing societies and what we can do next.

Interdisciplinarity is a hallmark of contemporary knowledge production. This book introduces a Philosophy of Interdisciplinarity at the intersection of science, society and sustainability. In light of the ambivalence of the technosciences and the challenge of sustainable development in the Anthropocene, this engaged philosophy provides a novel critical perspective on interdisciplinarity in science policy and research practice. It draws upon the original spirit of interdisciplinarity as an environmentalist concept and advocates an essential change in human-nature relations. The author utilizes the rich tradition of philosophy for case study analysis and develops a framework to disentangle the various forms of inter- and transdisciplinarity. Philosophy of Interdisciplinarity offers a foundation for a critical-reflexive program of interdisciplinarity conducive to a sustainable future for our knowledge society and contributes to fields such as sustainability sciences, social ecology, environmental ethics, technology assessment, complex systems, philosophy of nature, and philosophy of science. It injects a fresh way of thinking on interdisciplinarity – and supports researchers as well as science policy makers, university managers, and academic administrators in critical-reflexive knowledge production for sustainable development.

This book offers support for interdisciplinary research on the interactions of nature and society. It is based on the hypothesis that a science of coevolution is needed to explore paths to a sustainable future. Jens Jetzkowitz initially discusses why social science knowledge only rarely finds its way into sustainability discourse. One significant issue is a view of science that separates knowing and acting, and the book illustrates current problems in conceptualising interdisciplinary knowledge production. It then goes one step further and introduces a workable alternative concept, taking philosophical pragmatism as a point of departure. Sustainable development goals and transdisciplinarity are currently subject to widespread discussions and Jetzkowitz takes a stance on the debates from the perspective of coevolutionary science. This book will appeal to scholars and students interested in environmental and sustainability discourses and to anyone willing to think outside the box.

Sustainable Knowledge rethinks the nature of interdisciplinary research and the place of philosophy and the humanities in society and offers a new account of what is at stake in talk about 'interdisciplinarity'.

This book presents seminal readings from existing literature alongside specially commissioned, critical vignettes from leading thinkers with interests in sustainable development and learning. The book sets out to inform readers about the many perspectives that exist, and to challenge assumptions they may have about both sustainable development and learning. Through the readings and vignettes, the book raises wide-ranging issues of how we choose to act. Following the format of its companion volume, Sustainable Development and Learning: framing the issues, the book builds on existing work across a number of fields as well as on original international research. Key Issues in Sustainable Development and Learning: a critical review is a major resource for anyone studying for masters degrees focusing on environment and sustainable development. It is also a valuable tool for professionals in both public and private sector who are dealing with these issues daily. Bill and Steve's book for Routledge, Sustainable Development and Learning: framing the issues is one of the academic sources cited by the United Nations in its draft international implementation scheme for the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (which was launched by Kofi Annan last month).