No Bystanders Any Longer: Social sciences, social responsibility and sustainability research in an emerging revolution

Authors

  • Nora Inés Machado des Johansson Centro de Investigaçao e Estudos de Sociologia (CIES) ISCTE-IUL Instituto Universitario de Lisboa, Portugal
  • Tom R. Burns Department of Sociology, University of Uppsala

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22409/conflu16i1.p340

Keywords:

sustainability, paradigm shift, revolution

Abstract

This paper argues that sustainable development in thinking and in practices is the beginning of a revolution, a major societal paradigm shift, which eventually will match the industrial revolution in transforming social, economic, and cultural conditions. The first part of the article discusses several features of this revolution and what it shares with, and how it differs from, the industrial revolution. The second part of the article discusses the role that social sciences in general and sociology in particular can and should play in relation to the revolution of sustainable development, among other things, monitoring and data collection, analyzing, explaining, identifying and providing assessments of social impacts and related developments, but also of an ethically engaged research in sustainability problem-solving as well as policy analyses.

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Author Biographies

Nora Inés Machado des Johansson, Centro de Investigaçao e Estudos de Sociologia (CIES) ISCTE-IUL Instituto Universitario de Lisboa, Portugal

Nora Machado des Johansson is an associate researcher the Center for Research and Studies in Sociology CIES, at the Lisbon University Institute, and to the Department of Sociology, University of Gothenburg in Sweden. She earned her Ph.D. in Sociology (1996) and obtained degree of Docent (Reader) in Sociology (2002) at the University of Uppsala in Sweden.

Machado´s main areas of research are sociology of culture and organization, applied in diverse areas such health and technology, and more recently studies of culture and sustainability.

Tom R. Burns, Department of Sociology, University of Uppsala

Tom R. Burns (Professor Emeritus at Uppsala University, Sweden; Visiting Scholar, Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University; Senior Researcher, LUI/ISCTE, Lisbon) received a B.S. in Physics and an M.A. and Ph.D in Sociology, all from Stanford University. He has published more than 15 books and 150 articles in the areas of governance and politics, environment and technology, administration and policymaking. He has also published extensively on social theory and methodology, with a focus on the new institutional theory, a sociological game theory, theories of social systems and socio-cultural evolution.

References

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Published

2014-02-01

How to Cite

Machado des Johansson, N. I., & Burns, T. R. (2014). No Bystanders Any Longer: Social sciences, social responsibility and sustainability research in an emerging revolution. Confluências | Interdisciplinary Review of Sociology and Law, 16(1), 27 - 40. https://doi.org/10.22409/conflu16i1.p340

Issue

Vol. 16 No. 1 (2014): Confluências

Section

Artigos

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