WHAT
1S THE SUSTAINABILITY
INTEREST GROUP?
Based at ECU in Bunbury, a group has formed with an interest in developing
the vision of ecological sustainability. Development plans include the
incorporation of environmental community interests into the university,
the expansion of the environmental activities of the university, and
ultimately, the development of a Co-operative Research Centre in Sustainable
Regional Development. Community - based lectures, workshops and courses
in sustainability are envisaged, together with research which reflects
local environmental community needs.
This inaugural public lecture of the Sustainability Interest Group
(also known as R.E.S.E.A.R.C.H.) is part of a series designed to cultivate
closer relationships between tertiary education and issues of local
concern.
THE
PRESENTATION
The term "Sustainability" was introduced into policy discussions as
a means of bridging the perceived gap between environmentalists and
ecologists on one hand, economists and industrialist developers on the
other. At first it seemed that consensus was possible, but as the different
uses in the meaning of "sustainability" proliferated, so very different
societal outcomes are envisioned.
Aidan Davison has developed a new trans-disciplinary inquiry that presents
a new way of thinking about sustainability and technology that takes
us beyond preoccupations with privatisation of the ecological commons,
carbon credit trading and the rush to develop "green technologies".
This provocative presentation will show the mutually conflicting uses
of the term sustainability and how the cooption of the language of environmental
sustainability is in danger of building a world even more deformed than
that of the present. He proposes that we develop practical "crafts"
of sustenance, that are immediately useful.
From an analysis of debates about public policy, he draws on philosophical
interests in ecology, technology and morality to argue that the challenge
of sustainability is that of undermining those traditions that present
technology as value neutral, external to our concerns for deeper morality.
"The crucial tasks of reform is
that of crafting apparently disparate
experiments in the experience of sustainability into new social structures
capable of providing genuine alternatives"
THE
PRESENTER
DR AIDAN DAVISON:
Aidan Davison
is originally from Tasmania. He is currently a half-time Lecturer, at
the Institute for Sustainability and Technology Policy, Murdoch University
(dividing his time between teaching and tending his kids). He has a
background in both natural and social sciences, with qualifications
in biochemistry, science and technology policy and environmental philosophy.
Aidan's interest in questions about sustainability stems back to his
early 20s when, after a period in medical research, he became increasingly
dismayed and perplexed about the destruction of our living earth and
the social injustice of much of what we call 'development'. His current
concern is to move beyond despair, and a simplistic, blind optimism
in science and technology, to become clearer about what it is we most
want to sustain in our lives. He takes up this theme, in the context
of academic philosophical debates, in his recent book, "Technology
and the Contested Meanings of Sustainability" (Albany, NY:
State University of New York Press, 2001). He hopes to more on this
topic in the near future.
.WHERE
AND WHEN
TIME AND PLACE
Edith Cowan University South West (Bunbury) Campus
Friday 19th October, 2001 at 12.00 midday
Followed by a workshop with Aidan: 1.30PM
Afternoon tea and nibbles will be served at 1.00PM
DIRECTIONS:
Take the
turn left off the Central Roundabout, down Robertson Drive. Continue
through a set of traffic lights at the corner of Picton Road. Continue
down Robertson Drive. Turn left into the TAFE South West College entrance
to the left. Turn immediately to the right past the Edith Cowan sign.
Turn left at the roundabout to the Main Administration Building.
FOR ENQUIRIES:
