Abstract
Sustainability science seeks to identify and implement workable solutions to complex problems. This transdisciplinary approach advances a commitment to work across boundaries that occur among individuals, disciplines, and institutions to build capacities for informed and innovative decision making in the face of uncertainty and change. The concept of boundary work and related discussions of boundary objects and organizations are important, expanding focal areas within sustainability science. While communication is described as central to boundary work, insights from the field of communication have largely yet to inform theorizing about boundaries within sustainability science. In this paper, we highlight three communication perspectives, namely media studies, collaboration and partnerships, and systems theories, which are particularly relevant for understanding how boundaries form, the social context in which boundary work occurs, and informed strategies for enhanced boundary spanning and management. We use three case studies to illustrate how communication theories and methods provide dynamic and strategic lenses within transdisciplinary processes to enable collaborators to build capacity for change, sustain critical and reflective inquiry, and approach difference as generative in collective efforts to produce sustainability.
Highlights
Research in the field of sustainability science has committed significant attention to the issue of boundaries [1,2], primarily focusing on the relationship between science and policy [3,4]
We briefly review the concept of boundaries within sustainability science, focusing on the core concepts of boundary work including (1) boundary spanning and management; (2) boundary objects; and (3) boundary organizations [1]
We take up the concept of transdisciplinarity, one that we find threaded into discussions of sustainability science [12], because this lens offers well-developed yet flexible frameworks to organize our discussion [10,11]
Summary
Research in the field of sustainability science has committed significant attention to the issue of boundaries [1,2], primarily focusing on the relationship between science and policy [3,4]. ―case studies, and in particular transdisciplinary case study (TCS), are a powerful tool for teaching and research on complex environmental problems to conduct individual, organizational, and societal sustainability learning.‖ We take our case studies from Maine‘s Sustainability Solutions Initiative (SSI), a statewide sustainability science program based at the University of Maine Orono in which the authors participated on interdisciplinary teams as social scientists and communication scholars. This organization provides a rich case study for the concept of boundaries because it has worked to address boundaries among disciplines, institutions, and communities since the inception of the project in 2009. Our conclusion offers a transdisciplinary process orientation and key questions to illustrate how communication can describe and produce context and encourage strategies for reflective, equitable, and sustained problem solving [21]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
