1. Introduction
Einstein’s observation suggests that ‘the prob- lems we have created’ are a consequence of cer-
tain ways of thinking which, at least in Western discourse, we have tended to prioritize, and that
these ‘problems’ of our own making cannot be adequately resolved by continuing to rely on the
same ways of thinking and knowing which ‘cre- ated’ the problems in the first instance. Einstein’s
proposition speaks of the need to explore ‘new’ or ‘alternative’ ways of thinking about problems.
These alternative ways of thinking, not being so rigorously bound to the logic and epistemological
premises of the dominant modes of thought, po- tentially offer new angles and perspectives on the
character of the difficulties we are confronted with. In so doing, they offer us the prospect of
new approaches and methods which will allow us to go to work on the problems with renewed
energy and hope.
The idea that the process of resolving certain problems may be disabled because the resolution
process is contaminated by the same ‘level of thinking’ endemic in the problem itself, is particu-
larly relevant to the issue of environmental ‘sus- tainability’.
This argument
proposes that
sustainability be considered as a response to an environmental problem which is unable to extri-
cate itself from the tensions which have effectively created that problem. In this respect, sustainabil-
ity will be revealed as an ongoing problem of meaning and definition. It will be argued that the
complexity and indeterminacy of the term is sel- dom taken into account by the dominant agents
within the environmental debate. Part of the difficulty is that sustainability as a conceptual
notion is often limited and constrained by ‘ways of knowing’ which are discipline specific. A domi-
nant scientificeconomic discourse has played a significant role in ‘creating’ the environmental
problems we face, and, therefore relying on this same discourse and its ways of thinking to define
and initiate sustainable practices may be itself a dubious and ‘unsustainable’ practice.
In arguing this case, we hope to expound the proposition that there is a pressing need to think
beyond the discipline-specific restraints of scien- tificeconomic discourse and to open up the sus-
tainability issue to a transdisciplinary approach, which, because of its potential analytical range
and diverse perspectives, offers the chance to break away from the mono-logical habits of en-
trenched and specialized disciplines. What this offers is the potential for the new ways of think-
ing about a problem which Einstein has in mind.
The proposed transdisciplinary approach is in- formed by critical theory, communicative plan-
ning theory, literary theory, ecological economics and postmodern philosophy. The implementation
of this approach will help to reveal that the problem issue in the environmental discourse re-
lates very precisely to the actual meaning at- tributed
to the
term ‘sustainability’.
‘Sustainability’, rather than being a term which glibly offers a ‘solution’, or, at least, a mediatory
position capable of abating the tide of environ- mental crisis, is, as we will argue, a term which
merely ‘encodes’ the tensions which it aims to resolve. As a perceived solution ‘sustainability’
merely suspends the crisis and defers the real terms of conflict between the environment and
economic development.
This investigation and critique of ‘sustainabil- ity’s’ meaning will draw on a communicative crit-
ical position to negotiate the particular tensions of the environmentalsustainability debate. This crit-
ical position aims to interpret the dominant ‘ways of knowing’ in the environmental debate by exam-
ining an argument’s historical context, its use of theoretical methods, its political orientation and
the textual language used to support a particular position. It is a position which has emerged from
a desire to see the active and reciprocal relations between material forces e.g. economic practices
environmental degradation and cultural phenom- ena
e.g. environmental
awarenesspolitics. Communicative approaches are based on the
proposition that material formations and cultural practices are interdependent, so that ‘culture’ is
not a by-product of primary economic relations, not merely a superstructure responding to an
economic base, but itself a determining agent in the shaping of history. Culture plays an active
role in the construction of our perceived ‘reality’ and therefore in our understanding and interpre-
tation of sustainability. Rather than stressing the primacy of the material over the cultural, or vise
versa, a communicative approach to sustainability concentrates on seeing the tensions between the
two as ‘contesting narratives’ rather than contra- dictory or antithetical values. By proposing that
the various positions within the environmental debate are narratives or stories within a discourse,
‘meaning’ is then not subject to a fixed and final interpretation, but can instead be understood as
culturally derived and context dependent. Mean- ing, in the current environmental debate, is re-
vealed to be contingent and often ambiguous, always available for subtle shifts in interpretation.
Therefore, it would appear that a term like ‘sus- tainability’ is not set in concrete, but operates
within a discursive process where shared meanings are negotiated and developed.
Communicative approaches,
which have
emerged from literary and cultural criticism, are concerned with exploring the ways in which the
rhetoric of various narratives operate as a form of ‘persuasion’ which seeks to legitimize the ‘cer-
tainty’ of particular propositions.
1
Insights from literary and cultural criticism, which seek to inter-
pret the socially mediated construction of ideas and practices, have informed the development of
communicative approaches to policy and plan- ning. Communicative positions, through their
recognition of the influence of cultural frame- works which lead to the social construction of
‘ways of knowing’, emphasize the need to unearth values associated with various arguments through
participatory styles of decision making for effec- tive policy development.
2
These developments have in turn provided creative stimulus for a
culturally informed approach to sustainable pol- icy development, which is the focus of this paper.
In doing so this research explores some of the ‘rhizomes unearthed’ in the earlier ground break-
ing work of Funtowicz and Ravetz 1994 and O’Hara 1996 in applying discursive ethics to
valuation in environmental policy.
It will be argued that the scientificeconomic narrative, which dominates the environmental de-
bate, is supported by self-referential analytical and instrumentalist tools, models and surveys,
which consciously and coercively attempt to verify the certitude of their own a priori ‘truth claims’.
However, these ‘truth claims’ are seen to be ques- tionable, or at least negotiable, when they are seen
alongside other contesting narratives which posit with equal vigour their own claims for ‘seeing
clearly’ and for ‘knowing the truth’. Just as scien- tificeconomic ‘truth claims’ are constructed upon
a ‘knowledge’ which is taken by its practitioners to be the appropriate basis for decision making,
all other interest groups participating in the dis- course also provide data and methods which tend
to confirm their own ‘preferred’ interpretation or narrative. So that the rhetoric of various stories,
perspectives or narratives are viewed as ideologi- cal ‘forms of persuasion’. Analytical tools support
and extend the rhetoric of a particular narrative, so that, surveys, models and forecasts can be
thought of as rhetorical tropes Throgmorton 1993. By thinking in this way the feedback of
rhetoric and analysis is viewed as being constitu- tive of a narrative.
Each contesting narrative will rely on certain forms of rhetoric to substantiate its claims. As
Foucault 1980 has implied, the rhetoric of a dominating narrative will reflect the rhetoric of
the dominating power structure. In the same vein Healey 1997 notes that, ‘the language of envi-
ronmental planning is that of the prevalent politi- cal power games’. Without close attention to the
underlying assumptions of the rhetoric implicit in ‘information’ and then the use of this information
to structure and support relationships, decision making is in danger of becoming an abstracted
process within a cultural void. As such environ- mental policy is susceptible to being overly deter-
mined by positions of power within the discourse. This may result in barriers capable of constraining
the environmental assessment of policy. These barriers can include: a lack of clear objectives,
1
Literary and cultural critics often referred to in commu- nicative approaches include; Michel Foucault, Raymond
Williams, Jacques Derrida, Frederic Jameson, Jergen Haber- mas, D. Harvey, E. Laclau, C. Mouffe, and C. Geertz
2
Communicative policy theorists include; Patsy Healey, Ju- dith Innes, John Friedmann, John Dryzek, Frank Fischer,
John Forester, Beth Moore Milroy, Leonie Sandercock and Jean Hillier.
insufficient political will to broaden the debate, the narrow definition of issues, the inability to
question the authority of existing organisational structures, the absence of accountability, bureau-
cratic politics, lack of integrated information and absence of incentives to participate in strategies
for change Brengha 1990.
The emphasis in this paper is to provide a detailed argument of how an environmental dis-
course that recognizes and incorporates the social construction of meaning in communicative pro-
cesses can more effectively accommodate the de- velopment of pragmatic environmental policy. In
structuring this argument insights from a range of discourses will be integrated to support and ex-
tend a culturally informed approach to sustain- able policy development processes.
2. Sustainability
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