Action Research for Sustainability: Social Imagination between Citizens and Scientist

Analysing processes of social learning this work addresses how action research can further new research orientations towards sustainability. Empirically situated in the field of upstream public engagement, involving local residents, researchers and practitioners in bottom-up processes deliberating on urban sustainability the need to move towards sustainability at societal level is conceptualised as a democratic challenge questioning the way we live on planet earth. By understanding sustainability as an immanent and emergent ability of ecological and social life, continuously to renew itself without eroding its own foundation of existence, it argues that since sustainability cannot be invented but only supported (or eroded) by science, we need to reframe science in the role of sustaining sustain-ability. Through analyses of a three year action research programme, aiming to provide local citizens with a greater say in the future of urban sustainability research, the work shows how action research can make important methodological contributions to processes of social learning between citizens and scientists by enabling free spaces in peoples everyday life and within academia, where aspects of unsustainability can be addressed and new imaginations of more sustainable futures emerge.