The question “What is sustainability?” is answered by three leading voices in the field.

Deepa Pullanikkatil, founder of Abundance, has worked with communities living in vulnerable contexts in Malawi. A key lesson learned by Deepa is that to advance sustainable solutions it is critical to understand that communities live integrated lives. Therefore, when promoting the exercise of new practices (for instance, sustainable food management), as crucial as ensuring access to resources or capacity development it is key to analyse to what extent those practices are doable within highly demanding contexts.

Mia Perry, professor of Arts and Literacies in Education, sustains that we need to explore new systems of communication and knowledge to develop a sustainable relationship with the environment. This means moving away from the text and numeracy to develop other ways of making meaning and connecting with the world around us.

Jude Robinson is a social anthropologist and has dedicated much of her research to understanding the relationship between peoples’ health and wellbeing outside of conventional health care settings. In this episode, Jude shares valuable insights concerning her studies in refugee camps and how this has shaped an approach to sustainability primarily focused on the ability of communities to make sustained positive life choices over time.

AboutSUS is produced in collaboration with Multiplied By and edited by Emilia Rubensson. These episodes were funded by the Small Projects Funding, School of Education, University of Glasgow and supported by the Sustainable Futures Global Network.

Theme music “Algorithms” created by Chad Crouch and sourced from Envato.