PROJECT TITLE: JUSTAINABILITY – Just sustainability. Rhizomatic social innovations, transformative knoweldge, and prefigurative practices for a just transition”

Scientific Responsible of the research unit CNR ISMed: Bruno Venditto 

Partners 

• UNIVERSITA’ DEGLI STUDI DI CATANIA  
• UNIVERSITA’ DELLA CALABRIA

Funding: PRIN 2022 codice 2022HKE2CY

Total: 234.989

Duration:  24 months (October 23 – September 25)

Abstract 

JUSTAINABILITY examines social innovations generated in frontline communities affected by heavy environmental burdens and analyses their experiences in terms of social mobilization, co-production of knowledge and experimentation with alternatives. Its aim is to propose a new concept of sustainability that more deeply includes issues of socio-environmental justice. It intends to achieve this by working on two main social changes: first, implementing ways in which the knowledge and experiences produced in environmental justice campaigns can be transferred and communicated to achieve equitable sustainable policies; and, second, testing how basic solutions to socio-environmental problems work and how they can be scaled up or applied to different contexts. The project focuses on a key challenge of socio-environmental sustainability, that of the contamination/waste nexus. Although waste has always been part of human civilization, with the so-called “Great Acceleration” waste production has increased to become a major challenge for sustainability. Waste devours space in the form of landfills; it pervades ecosystems and bodies through contamination; and transform people, places, and even the planet’s geology and climate into the Anthropocene. The waste/contamination nexus is often highly visible to those affected by it, although its effects on ecosystems, bodies, and public health are not equally transparent and obvious, raising difficult questions about the construction of scientific knowledge and the distribution of environmental harm. Thus, a focus on contamination/waste is a perfect case to demonstrate the argument for just sustainability.. 

Project research objectives 

• Redefining the knowledge creation paths on ‘sustainability’, soon into the fourth decade after the Brundtland report – this is timely and necessary (Theoretical objective) especially facing ecological transition projects.
• Documenting the cross-temporal and cross-spatial relevance of local environmental justice movements for grassroots knowledge / citizen science (Empirical research objective)
• Increasing the capacity of grassroots organizations to tackle global environmental challenges and unearthing the potential of their citizen science practices for socio-ecological sustainability (Policy onjective)

Keywords: Just sustainability; social innovations; environmental justice; commons; Wasteocene