PhD defence Ana Campos Marques

We are facing a sustainability challenge so complex that it could influence all life on the planet. To solve this challenge, we, as humankind, have placed a great deal of faith in the development of new technologies, with a belief that they will miraculously solve this complex issue. The problem is that technology is a double-edged sword: it can help to address the sustainability challenge, but it could also lead to the situation deteriorating further. This all depends on the narrative basis on which the technology is developed and is subsequently used. Thus, while sustainability research typically focuses on facts and logic, in this study Campos Marques focuses on the very narratives that construct the human world, specifically on those regarding sustainability. To deeper understand the sustainability narratives, Campos Marques reflects on their philosophical underpinnings on different dimensions (personal, individual, organizational and societal). 

This study reveals that the philosophical underpinnings of today’s sustainability narratives have been constructed in different contexts from the current one, where the rapid advancement of technologies that can be highly destructive is combined with the disequilibrium of natural systems of the planet. The use of the same philosophical underpinnings of the past to construct sustainability narratives in the present context of humankind and the planet can thus have disastrous consequences for both. So, Ana Campos Marques proposes to consciously rethink, discuss and change the outdated philosophical underpinnings. To begin this discussion,she suggests basing the new sustainability narratives on philosophical underpinnings that are deeper, closer to the being. Campos Marques also suggests future directions for sustainability research and practice.