Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies e.V, Berliner Strasse 130, 14467, Potsdam, Germany.
Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Universitätsallee 1, 21335, Lüneburg, Germany.
Ambio. 2021 Jan;50(1):74-84. doi: 10.1007/s13280-020-01322-y. Epub 2020 Feb 28.
Relational thinking has recently gained increasing prominence across academic disciplines in an attempt to understand complex phenomena in terms of constitutive processes and relations. Interdisciplinary fields of study, such as science and technology studies (STS), the environmental humanities, and the posthumanities, for example, have started to reformulate academic understanding of nature-cultures based on relational thinking. Although the sustainability crisis serves as a contemporary backdrop and in fact calls for such innovative forms of interdisciplinary scholarship, the field of sustainability research has not yet tapped into the rich possibilities offered by relational thinking. Against this background, the purpose of this paper is to identify relational approaches to ontology, epistemology, and ethics which are relevant to sustainability research. More specifically, we analyze how relational approaches have been understood and conceptualized across a broad range of disciplines and contexts relevant to sustainability to identify and harness connections and contributions for future sustainability-related work. Our results highlight common themes and patterns across relational approaches, helping to identify and characterize a relational paradigm within sustainability research. On this basis, we conclude with a call to action for sustainability researchers to co-develop a research agenda for advancing this relational paradigm within sustainability research, practice, and education.
关系思维最近在各个学术领域越来越受到重视，试图根据构成过程和关系来理解复杂现象。例如，跨学科研究领域，如科学技术研究（STS）、环境人文学科和后人类学科，已经开始基于关系思维重新构建对自然-文化的学术理解。尽管可持续性危机作为当代背景，实际上需要这种创新形式的跨学科研究，但可持续性研究领域尚未挖掘关系思维提供的丰富可能性。在此背景下，本文旨在确定与可持续性研究相关的本体论、认识论和伦理学的关系方法。更具体地说，我们分析了在与可持续性相关的广泛学科和背景下，如何理解和概念化关系方法，以确定和利用未来与可持续性相关工作的联系和贡献。我们的研究结果突出了关系方法的共同主题和模式，有助于在可持续性研究中确定和描述关系范式。在此基础上，我们呼吁可持续性研究人员共同制定一项研究议程，以在可持续性研究、实践和教育中推进这一关系范式。
