Sustainable Development

Abstract

This article explores the origins, meanings, and impacts on development policy and practice of the increasingly widespread notion of sustainable development in relation to the global South. As a term, it reaches widely into daily lives and has become linked into ever-larger movements of the modern world. The multiple definitions, ambiguities, and varied interpretations of the term are investigated. The paper highlights a number of frameworks that have been forwarded for handling the evident diversity and dynamism associated with the notion. The substance of the article provides an overview of the origins of the concept in two key literatures, of modern environmentalism and of development studies, where the evolution of mainstream ideas is tracked. Emphasis is on the ways in which the notion and practice of sustainable development has brought these literatures closer together, but areas of continued contestation are also highlighted. As the notion of sustainable development has become a primary policy goal of many of the major institutions of the world, subsequent sections critically consider the way in which global and local environmental concerns are fostered within the contemporary framework of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the policy prescriptions of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers. The article considers the potential of and continued challenges for human geographers in the understanding and policy demands of a more sustainable future for society on Earth, particularly through work in political ecology.