Roles in Sustainability: Place, Politics, and Partnerships

To understand sustainability and its implementation, context is key. In this talk, we explore the role of place in sustainability. By examining experiences of sustainability contestation and pluriversalistic perspectives to sustainability implementation, we get a better sense of the diverse organizing roles that each actor or organization plays. We review existing research and emerging topics on the themes of place, politics, and partnerships in sustainability and illustrate the inherent tensions through an in-depth analysis of University of Amsterdam’s dialogue on collaborating with fossil fuel companies.