Sustainability and the Social Sciences

Last week, Nicole Ardoin and I presented our perspective on the role of the social sciences in developing a new school of sustainability at Stanford at the Sustainability Seed Grant Speaker Series. The video is now up. In addition to laying out the context of the problem, I summarize the results of our listening sessions, where we invited a wide range of social scientists to speak about how they see the social sciences contributing to sustainability science.  I draw seven take-aways from these sessions:

1. Sustainability is a process, not a destination
2. We need to think about joint outcomes
3. The study of inequality and structural violence is essential to any real effort for sustainability
4. We need specific projects on which interdisciplinary teams can collaborate 
5. We need to formulate new/better modes of co-creation of science
6. The social sciences are inherently "ecological" and we should integrate ecologists with social scientists if we really want to have a division of integrated socio-environmental sciences
7. Cultural evolution is the science of change and it was born at Stanford; it should be an element of any school of sustainability