Abstract
In this article, I outline the foundations of a consistent and systematic approach to conceptualizing communities in action-oriented sustainability research. More specifically, I develop a conceptual heuristic based on key questions related to ontology, epistemology, methodology and motivation that should be useful for researchers regarding the process of initiating, clarifying and reporting on research with communities. While the use of the community concept in sustainability research is particularly prominent, variability in the possible types of social groupings combined with the concept’s long and complicated etymology in the English language means the community concept lends itself easily to ambiguous and unspecified use. This can lead to problems of both conceptual vagueness and concept-object mismatch in scientific research, which in turn can influence the applicability and efficacy of research outcomes. While problems with community conceptualization are generally recognized, the heuristic developed here contributes by providing researchers with a framework and procedure for addressing these persistent challenges. The heuristic supports the rational and systematic development of a community concept that is sensitive to concrete contextual characteristics, while maintaining roots in a consistent philosophy of scientific knowledge production.
Highlights
In this article, I propose a conceptual heuristic for initiating, clarifying and reporting on community-based sustainability research
While I touch on these issues, the significance of this article lies in its grounding of the scientific conceptualization of community in a consistent philosophy of science and methodology capable of handling the dialectical relationship between concept and object, which makes community conceptualization challenging
My reasoning has been grounded in the critical realist perspective that scientific conceptualization has practical implications, and that reflexive and rational development of scientific concepts in dialogue with a concrete research context is more likely to support salient and effective research outcomes
Summary
I propose a conceptual heuristic for initiating, clarifying and reporting on community-based sustainability research. In my discussions with these elected officials that do “represent” the residents of Flagler Beach in the formal political sense, they often referred to ongoing conflicts within what I had originally conceptualized as the aggregate municipal “community”. The point I want to emphasize with this anecdote is, while I started with an initial idea of what community meant, reflexive interplay in the research process between my conceptualization of the context and the empirical reality of the context itself allowed me to fill what I realize was initially a quite empty conceptualization of community with difference and nuanced meaning This developed concept of community better reflected the complex, concrete realities of social interactions, relationships and conflicts which characterize the City of Flagler Beach, and allowed me to more clearly understand the potential implications of my own research outcomes
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