Video: How the network is organized:
Video: What are domains and sectors?
(transcripts below)
In order to discuss different aspects of social sustainability, we have identified a preliminary set of thematic domains that will be used to start discussing social sustainability:
- characterizing social sustainability;
- cultural and temporal factors in social sustainability
- social sustainability in institutional contexts; and
- assessing social sustainability.
Some individuals on the steering committee will moderate a specific domain or sub-domain of social sustainability, posting prompts for discussion when needed and clarifying trends in the conversations. Annual conferences will allow each domain to communicate more formally with each other and with their members (through in-person and virtual participation, as well as archived videos of presentations), and will be recorded in a set of conference proceedings available to each network participant. Beyond providing a simple clearinghouse of resources on social sustainability, we expect that this network will encourage a burgeoning of ideas and applications of social sustainability.
The thematic domains we have selected are also designed to encourage participation in the network, and each participant can follow one or more of these, depending on her/his interests, or can propose an entirely new domain. A focus on sector-specific aspects (such as those associated with water, food, housing, physical mobility, etc.) of each domain is also intended to draw in specialists in those areas who have less experience with social sustainability but whose interests would be well served with a better definition of the term.
Figure 1 shows how we see the relationships, roughly, between thematic domains and the different sectors.
This integration is intended to promote conversation and discussion as well as to inspire unique and long-lasting collaborations that might result in new proposals for research, publications, or other products that would help communicate ideas about social sustainability beyond the network. In later years, we hope to focus this work around specific urban settings, bringing the group discussions to bear on specific metropolitan examples.
Video transcript
Brett Tempest: Our goal in building the Integrated Network for Social Sustainability is to bring together scholars and practitioners who represent diverse perspectives on sustainability. Network members will associate with others from their professional sectors and will form cross-disciplinary relationships by participating in network activities. For logistical purposes, the network structure includes three organizational groups, the Steering Committee, the Charter Stakeholders and the Network Members.
At the beginning, the network will be composed of a group of eleven steering committee members and seventeen charter stakeholders who were initially involved in defining the purpose and scope of the network and defined the thematic domains of characterizing social sustainability, cultural and temporal factors, social sustainability in institutional contexts and identifying assessment tools. Throughout the INSS project, the steering committee will provide conceptual and organizational leadership and will plan and host the conferences. The charter stakeholders are representatives from academia, federal and municipal agencies or other nonprofits and professions where social sustainability may be an important aspect of assessment. The Charter stakeholders will help recruit more network participants who will join face-to-face and virtual conferences hosted by the network. We hope that this structure will facilitate the formation of many rich and fruitful relationships amongst many great thinkers in the sustainability field.
Helene Hilger: My name is Helene Hilger, and I’m an environmental engineer. I want to give you some idea of how the project team grappled with the dilemma of how to keep the network topic and discussion highly interdisciplinary and yet provide some means for us to manage the breadth of the topic with some kind of focus.
We came up with a matrix to guide network discussion and products. Imagine the following four major themes as headings across the top of a table:
- First: characterizing social sustainability (although some say it can’t be done!)
- Second: assessing social sustainability (very important to engineers!)
- Third: cultural and temporal factors in social sustainability – is it different in different cultures and does it change with time?
- Fourth: How do we consider social sustainability in institutional contexts?
And then, to create the matrix, a series of sectors for which each theme is considered, is listed down the side of the table. Those sectors might include water, food, shelter, safety, transportation and mobility, health, and education. Groups within the network may be working within a sector or within a theme.
