HOCHACHKA, Gail

(Canadian)

Title of contribution:

Sustainability transformation: metaphor to metrics

Where & when:

Panorama
Thursday, May 28th, 2020
11:30 – 13:30 

Presentationt: Sustainability transformation: metaphor to metrics

Increasingly, the word transformation is used to describe the kind of social change we need in order to more effectively address global issues today. A key global challenge is climate change. Consequently, “transformation” is now included in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change materials, frequently cited in academic articles, and increasingly highlighted in mainstream media. The word “transformation” points to a dramatic change across a system, yet too often remains under-defined or metaphorical, which in turn makes it difficult to track whether change as such is actually occurring. In this paper, we look first into what is meant by transformation in each quadrant of Integral Theory and then we consider what methodological framework might be needed to comprehensively assess these multidimensional forms of change. Finally, we bring together these ideas with findings from empirical studies on transformational change in each quadrant to present an integral assessment for sustainability transformations.

About Hochachka Gail:

Gail spent 17 years working with non-profit organizations in sustainable development, experimenting with pathways to transformative change. She is now is a PhD candidate at University of Oslo, Norway, but is based at UBC, Vancouver in the Social-Ecological Systems Research Group. Her research draws on integral theory and focuses on whether and how different types of transformations can contribute to successful adaptation to climate change.