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may be important (cf. Peluso, 1992; 2005). Reference to 'culture' allows the authors
to avoid addressing relations of power in their study site. Against this trend, a more
carefully integrative approach is offered by Turner et al. (2003a; 2003b), in their
development of a framework for analysis of vulnerability to environmental change
(i.e. the likelihood of experiencing harm). As they present it, vulnerability analysis
aims not just to understand effects of environmental change on people, but also
how those effects are shaped by ongoing coupled human-environment interactions
at multiple scales. In other words, it is not enough to note there is a connection
between humans and the environment, but one must carefully identify links among
multiple, intersecting human-environment interactions.
Another key term in sustainability science (related to vulnerability) is
resilience
,
which refers to the ability of systems to bounce back from (or at least not change
state completely after) a stress or perturbation. Systems of humans and nature are
'interlinked in never-ending adaptive cycles of growth, accumulation, restructuring,
and renewal' that occur at multiple temporal and spatial scales (Holling, 2001,
p. 392). According to this framework, resilience is a function of the ability of the
system to restructure and renew, rather than grow and accumulate. A wealth of
research has refi ned the model, including making it more precise and useful for
empirical measurement of systems and their sustainability (e.g., Cumming et al.,
2005). Resilience theory improves on the literature cited above in that very little
distinction is made between human and non-human aspects of systems. The problem,
however, is that social dynamics are not well understood or addressed. There is
little effort to understand why people do what they do; the resilience model is not
explanatory. As a result, scholarship on resilience has very little to say about some
of the supposed pillars of sustainability, such as equity or social justice. Instead,
resilience is mainly about maintaining a given system and its ability to accumulate
resources, with no discussion about who or what benefi ts from it. Resilience may
be about 'understanding complexity' but that understanding is seen as objective and
technical, rather than normative and political.
This refl ects a larger problem with sustainability science, which is that scholars
in this fi eld tend to downplay political aspects of their work. Researchers do recog-
nise that they are participating in a political process. Because their work is problem-
oriented, sustainability scientists actively and openly 'promote a sustainability
transition' (Clark, 2007, p. 1737); this requires engaging in political debates. But
they claim to do so only on the basis of their research fi ndings. That is, sustainability
scientists see their science as a way of avoiding, and even trumping, the politics of
sustainability. Thus Kates and Parris, cited above, imply they are engaged in an
apolitical action of characterising goals and trends that already exist, rather than
in a political action of choosing which goals and trends are important (cf. Morse,
2004). Similarly, researchers use the resilience model to characterise complex
systems and identify key times and places for intervention, and they do so without
seeming to engage in subjective and political discussions about which systems and
interventions are good for whom and in what ways. Indeed, it is partly the ability
to seem apolitical that gives sustainability science its legitimacy, and proponents
themselves claim that they are trying to move away from overt politics. As Kates et
al. (2001) state, 'during the late '80s and early '90s...much of the science and
technology community became increasingly estranged from the preponderantly
societal and political processes that were shaping the sustainable development
agenda. This is now changing as efforts to promote the sustainability transition
