incorporates diversity. This non-essentialist grand narrative
of sustainability
rejects theoretical
frameworks as the basis for a problem definition; instead attention is focused ‘on the arguments
that are reasonable and persuasive to the partici- pants in the relevant communities of inquiry’
Hoksbergen 1994: 686. These communities of inquiry, of course, include the diverse array of
stakeholders
that have
been identified
here through the revealed sustainability narratives, as
well as others that fall outside this particular categorization. These ‘discursive communities’
more imply an orientation for action that pro- motes diversity in participation than requiring
certain representative groups. Sustainability ‘calls for open communication and decision-making,
community and organizational learning, and co- operative approaches to management that cross
jurisdictional boundaries’ Wallace et al., 1996: 18. Recognition of the importance of language is
essential as it ‘is a representation of the culture in which we live and, as such, frames the possibilities
and meanings that are available to us’ Murphy, 1995: 212. This is the non-essentialist ‘grand nar-
rative’ of sustainability whose quest is the contin- ual enhancement of processes for culturally
defining meaning as a way of articulating the effective and efficient development of environ-
mental strategies.
4. Transdisciplinary sustainability
The proposed communicative approach in- volves listening carefully to the different stories or
narratives in the environmental discourse see Mandelbaum, 1991. Additionally, it requires ‘a
different and complimentary way of organising our intellectual activities that is non-territorial,
cooperative, collaborative and focused on solving the many problems attendant on designing a sus-
tainable and desirable way for humans to live on this planet and share it with other species’
Costanza, 1997: xiv. Essentially this approach promotes a transdisciplinary focus that depends
on the mutual consideration of economic, socio- cultural and environmental issues for effective
policy formulation. Transdisciplinary notions aim to ‘unmake’ con-
ventional ideas, conceptions and mindsets about sustainability. In practice this enables discussions
of sustainability to be shaped by theories in fields other than the traditional scientificeconomic dis-
course. Jameson 1984: vii has described such a transdisciplinary style of approach as ‘a kind of
crossroads in which a number of different themes intersect and problematize each other’. These in-
tersections occur socially, and Geertz 1983: 161 advocates
the development
of conversations
where ‘people inhabiting different life worlds [can] have a genuine and reciprocal impact on one
another’. Geertz recommends a series of steps to help foster social interaction. The first step is to
accept the depth of differences that exist within our social structure. The second is to understand
what these differences are; and the third is to construct some sort of vocabulary in which the
differences can be publicly formulated. This social interaction represents the contested terrain for
developing the meanings within sustainability.
This articulation of a transdisciplinary orienta- tion for sustainability argues that ‘ecological eco-
nomics’ is the study of communicative strategies and processes that function between disciplines
and worldviews to expand the communicative vo- cabulary for policy development. This idiom of
the environmental debate focuses on unearthing the assumptions within disciplines, perspectives
and world views as a strategy for developing the description of common interpretations and prob-
lem definitions. A disciplinary focus will have superior expertise in its focal activity, for instance;
engineers in bridge and dam construction meth- ods, ecologists in ecological surveys, entrepreneurs
in business activity, anthropologists in interpret- ing human motivations, etc. However, transdisci-
plinary ecological economics has a different focus, that of clarifying and deepening communication
channels allowing for the emergence of a more shared and therefore more complete understand-
ing of the problem under consideration. This search for common understanding of an environ-
mental problem e.g. carbon monoxide emissions by reflective stakeholder participation is the en-
abling process for the development of efficient and effective environmental strategies.
Communication requires explicit attention to the role of language and therefore social relations,
as communication is based on social relations rather than ‘things’. This centering of relation-
ships through communicative strategies dissolves the traditional reliance on cause and effect reason-
ing in environmentalism as ‘absence’ can be a ‘cause’, but in a different, non-physical relational
sense. With their emphasis on communications, and consequently language and relationships,
transdisciplinary orientations seek critical self- reflective theory rather than objective theory.
These transdisciplinary themes when applied to policy constitute discursive approaches that focus
explicitly on values that underpin various argu- ments and therefore promote diverse disciplinary
involvement in the policy process. Without the capacity for discussion of differing value-based
assumptions, arguments representing a broader range of disciplinary and special interest insights
are largely devoid of potential for direct policy engagement.
Communicative strategy requires that the con- cept of sustainability be articulated through par-
ticipatory context-dependent processes for the development of shared meaning. In this respect
the culturally derived, context-dependent meaning of sustainability becomes the focus for collective
attention. So that sustainability can be defined as a process for defining meaning in environmental
policy engagements and from this process emerges environmental strategy Meppem and Gill, 1998.
We believe that a transdisciplinary approach to sustainable policy development will be cognisant
of the shortcomings of self-referential disciplinary approaches, which by their structure, thinking,
and orientation, have led to sustainable develop- ment being a largely inoperable concept. It is
further postulated that a transdisciplinary propen- sity is a way of thinking that broadly encompasses
many discourses which interact to invent and define creative approaches to understanding issues
within a discourse. As Costanza puts it, disci- plinary borders prevent problems being inter-
preted
in ‘their
broadest possible
sense’ Costanza, 1991.
At this point an alternative conception of sus- tainability is formulated that relies on the devel-
opment of
‘discursive communities’
of stakeholders
to articulate
context-dependent strategies for sustainable development. This posi-
tion rejects all forms of universal dictate for sus- tainability. Instead it promotes the development
of discursive practices for articulating shared meaning. This questioning orientation for think-
ing is different, we think, from a truth. It is argued that sustainability is the embodiment of
processes for developing shared meaning, and from these processes emerge environmental strat-
egy. This is proposed as an alternative to conven- tional ‘truth’ seeking contests of sustainability
with their implicit power inequities which have largely demonstrated complicity in the mainte-
nance of ineffective environmental policy.
5. Background to discursive practice in planning
