Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Transitions to Sustainability

Demonstrating how a university can, in a very practical and pragmatic way, be re-envisioned through a transdisciplinary informed frame, this book shows how through an open and collegiate spirit of inquiry the most pressing and multifaceted issue of contemporary societal (un)sustainability can be addressed and understood in a way that transcends narrow disciplinary work. It also provides a practical exemplar of how far more meaningful deliberation, understandings and options for action in relation to contemporary sustainability-related crises can emerge than could otherwise be achieved. Indeed it helps demonstrate how only through a transdisciplinary ethos and approach can real progress be achieved. The fact that this can be done in parallel to (or perhaps underneath) the day-to-day business of the university serves to highlight how even micro seed initiatives can further the process of breaking down silos and reuniting C.P. Snow’s ‘two cultures’ after some four centuries of the relentless project of modernity. While much has been written and talked about with respect to both sustainability and transdisciplinarity, this book offers a pragmatic example which hopefully will signpost the ways others can, will and indeed must follow in our common quest for real progress.

Part 1: Setting the SceneContexts of Transdisciplinarity: Drivers, Discourses & ProcessGerard Mullally, Colin Sage and Edmond Byrne Disciplines, Perspectives and ConversationsGerard Mullally, Edmond Byrne and Colin SageSustainability as Contingent Balance between Opposing though Interdependent Tendencies; A Process Approach to Progress and Evolution Edmond Byrne Part 2: Transdisciplinary Conversations and ConceptionsParadigmatic Transformation across the Disciplines; Snapshots of an Emerging Complexity Informed Approach to Progress, Evolution and SustainabilityEdmond ByrneFear and Loading in the Anthropocene: Narratives of Apocalypse and Salvation in the Irish MediaGerard MullallyBio-fuelling the Hummer? Transdisciplinary Thoughts on Techno-Optimism and Innovation in the Transition from UnsustainabilityJohn Barry The Gulf between Legal and Scientific Conceptions of Ecological ‘Integrity’: The Need for a Shared Understanding in Regulatory Policy-MakingOwen McIntyre and John O'HalloranPrecaution and Prudence in Sustainability: Heuristic of Fear and Heuristic of LoveBénédicte Sage-Fuller Sustainable Future Ecological Communities: On the Absence and Continuity of Sacred Symbols, Sublime Objects and Charismatic HeroesKieran Keohane Using Energy Systems Modelling to Inform Ireland’s Low Carbon FutureBrian Ó Gallachóir, Paul Deane and Alessandro Chiodi Markets, Productivism and the Implications for Irish Rural Sustainable DevelopmentMary O’Shaughnessy and Colin SageNanomaterials as an Emerging Category of Environmental PollutantsDavid SheehanPart 3: ConclusionsSustaining Interdisciplinarity? Reflections on an Inter-institutional Exchange by an Early Stage ResearcherStephan Maier, Michael Narodoslawsky and Gerard MullallyIn Praise of Intellectual Promiscuity in the Service of a ‘Passion for Sustainability’John BarryTransdisciplinarity within the University: Emergent Possibilities, Opportunities, Challenges and ConstraintsEdmond Byrne, Colin Sage and Gerard Mullally

Dr Edmond Byrne is Senior Lecturer in Process & Chemical Engineering at University College Cork, Ireland.Dr Gerard Mullally is Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at University College Cork, Ireland.Dr Colin Sage is Senior Lecturer in Geography at University College Cork, Ireland. All three are lead collaborators on the ‘Sustainability in Society’ transdisciplinary research group at University College Cork, Ireland.