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Participation and Sustainability

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Participatory Research in the Post-Normal Age

Abstract

To connect participation to the search for sustainability, it is imperative to recognize the role of diversity in socio-ecological systems and the imperative of forging better and fairer structures of multilevel governance. It means at reconnecting the individuals with the planetary boundaries, considering contexts of distinct vulnerability and knowledges, and promoting social and cognitive inclusion through the ecology of knowledges. Complex issues and interdependencies are the backgrounds of analysis and propositions, like the water-food-energy nexus. In that way, social practices and traditional knowings are to cope with resource constraints and scarcity, demystifying traditional knowledge through applicability for solving local problems aligned to the global crisis. Otherwise, anti-dialogical structures remain as imposing a reproduction of an oppressive model, hindering a natural ability of individuals and communities to self-organizing in the process of changing the world as changing themselves. For that matter, Paulo Freire’s theory of revolutionary action is considered with the power to be applied in the context of the current complex and multilayered challenges involving unsustainability and health-related issues.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See www.resnexus.org.

  2. 2.

    As the research involved human beings through qualitative research, it was in line with international standards of ethical criteria, such as free and informed consent, voluntary participation and the possibility of withdrawing at any time, and assurance of confidentiality of information provided and identity of participants. Young participants up to 18 years old had informed consent signed by responsible guardians. Although there was a diversity of collective activities as in the community meetings, in which the local social actors interacted among them and with researchers, the confidentiality was assured in terms of analysis, discussion, and dissemination of the research outcomes.

  3. 3.

    This initiative is related to the post-doctoral project of Carolina Monteiro de Carvalho on my supervision, funded by FAPESP (proc.n. 2015/21311–0), and held in the School of Public Health of the University of São Paulo.

  4. 4.

    “Ambienta Saúde” is an intersectoral program of the Guarulhos municipality launched in 2017 and headed by the Health Secretariat; its objectives are associated with searching improvements on socio-environmental local issues, like waste management, water and sanitation, energy consumption, urban forestation, biodiversity, responsible consumption, and zoonosis control.

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  1. School of Public Health, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Leandro Luiz Giatti

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Giatti, L.L. (2019). Participation and Sustainability. In: Participatory Research in the Post-Normal Age. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27924-0_3

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