Sustainable Citizenship as a Methodology for Engagement: Navigating Environmental, Economic, and Technological Rationalities

The emergence of more and more new technologies ranging from genetic modification to nanotechnology is significantly affecting the environment in many different ways. Yet, policy making has not been able to keep pace with the rapid development of these technologies because of deeply entrenched divisions among stakeholders who prioritize different, often radically opposed, sets of values associated with technological interventions. Drawing on a theoretical framework of “sustainable citizenship” and a methodological platform of Q-surveys, this article identifies the shared values embedded in the overtly polarized positions of stakeholders to provide policy makers a common ground to work on. The article highlights a novel form of public engagement that interweaves socio-ecological rationalities with those of the economic and the technological. Mapping the values and beliefs of a variety of stakeholders and finding what is common to them paves the way for more inclusive policy responses to the challenges of new and emerging technologies.

Published by lynkathlene

I am a Director at Spark Policy Institute, an organization that provides research-based approaches to help solve complex, multi-sector problems. Current and recent projects include: (1) Colorado Farm to School that helps build the resources needed to link schools with producers, with the intent to bring fresh locally-grown produce into K-12 schools and create new agricultural markets for Colorado producers; (2) Lead staff for the legislatively mandated Colorado Farm to School Interagency Task Force; (3) Development of the statewide Colorado Food Systems Assessment Framework; (4) Food hub feasibility study for Southeastern Colorado; and (5) The statewide implementation of the MAYSI-2 in juvenile justice sites. In addition to major projects at Spark, I recently completed work on a Sustainable Citizenship project in New Zealand; past co-chair for the National Advisory Committee of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Leadership for Healthy Communities initiative to reverse childhood obesity by 2015; and a panel reviewer for the National Science Foundation (NSF) IGERT centers.