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Sustainability as a Moral Discourse: Its Shifting Meanings, Exclusions, and Anxieties

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  • Shoko Yamada

    (Department of Anthropology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
    Yale School of the Environment, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA)

  • Lav Kanoi

    (Department of Anthropology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
    Yale School of the Environment, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA)

  • Vanessa Koh

    (Department of Anthropology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
    Yale School of the Environment, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA)

  • Al Lim

    (Department of Anthropology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
    Yale School of the Environment, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA)

  • Michael R. Dove

    (Department of Anthropology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
    Yale School of the Environment, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
    Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA)

Abstract

As sustainability gains popularity in public discourse, scholars have noted its diverse uses, multiple meanings, and contradictory outcomes. This paper explores how the current proliferation of the concept of sustainability stems in part from its varied normative appeals, which in turn motivate, legitimate, and unsettle its diverse mobilizations. As the concept of sustainability calls for an extension of moral horizons beyond the immediate here and now, this redrawing of moral boundaries has simultaneously produced new externalities as well as enduring anxieties and responses within these moral bounds themselves. Drawing on ethnographic and historical materials, we argue that sustainability’s moral boundaries have become both an object of scholarly critique and their own productive site of anxiety and negotiation. Questions about sustainability’s moral horizons and externalities often surface in the concept’s public deployment itself. We suggest that these tensions can be made visible by attending to the intersections between sustainability and a broader range of moral concerns at work.

Suggested Citation

  • Shoko Yamada & Lav Kanoi & Vanessa Koh & Al Lim & Michael R. Dove, 2022. "Sustainability as a Moral Discourse: Its Shifting Meanings, Exclusions, and Anxieties," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-17, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:5:p:3095-:d:765672
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