Abstract
Climate change threatens human and planetary health. While science has diagnosed the problem and proposed solutions, progress is often impeded by social and political realities. There is a growing recognition that the arts can play a critical role in fostering the cultural change necessary to enact sustainable solutions. Sustainability and the arts (SATA) is an emerging scholarly field that provides a radically creative space for cultural engagement with sustainability, for navigating the emotional toll of the climate and other environmental crises, and for both imagining destinations and mapping pathways to those futures. Yet, the field faces several challenges. It is highly cross-disciplinary, with research often fragmented and difficult to access, leaving scholars isolated. The lack of dedicated spaces for scholarly exchange and significant gaps in understanding are seen as barriers to advancing the field. There is also a need to better conceptualize what constitutes SATA scholarship to help define its boundaries and potential. In this paper we explore how SATA scholarship can be imagined. We begin by briefly summarizing the foundational concepts of “sustainability,” “the arts,” and “scholarship” individually, drawing on key ideas from each domain. We then investigate how these areas intersect and consider how their convergence might inform a working definition of SATA scholarship. What emerges is a vision of the field characterized by cross-disciplinarity, emergence, and pluriversality. The goal of this study is to provide a foundation for discussion that will help to shape a collective direction for this evolving field.
Presenters
Emma BuggStudent, Interdisciplinary PhD, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada Tarah Wright
Professor, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
The Arts in Social, Political, and Community Life
KEYWORDS
Sustainability and the arts, Environmental sustainability, Sustainability, Scholarship, Culture
