Methods of Sustainability Research in the Social Sciences

Sustainability is a key word in the environmental vocabulary informing how research projects in the social sciences are framed. This book provides a systematic and critical review of the key research methods used when studying sustainable strategies and outcomes. It is divided into four areas: Part I examines the key challenges inherent to social scientific sustainability research, examining the issues involved in combining social and natural/physical research methods; Part II covers methodologies aimed at the investigation of attitudes and behaviour observable at the local level - from families and households to individual organizations within communities; Part III looks at sustainability research at the regional and national level - from the link between citizens and local communities to supra-national and global organisations; and, Part IV covers recent developments in social scientific sustainability research which are both multi-scalar and interdisciplinary. Bringing together contributions from international social scientists, the book will be suitable for academic and non-academic audiences in sustainability research and will be a core teaching text for undergraduate and postgraduates on courses in sustainability and sustainable development, geography and the environmental sciences.