Abstract

VANHULST, Julien  and  GUNTHER, María Griselda. Thinking sustainability from Latin America. A retrospective look at academic discourse based on a bibliometric analysis between 1970 and 2012. Rev. colomb. soc. [online]. 2019, vol.42, n.1, pp.41-71. ISSN 0120-159X.  https://doi.org/10.15446/rcs.v42n1.73141.

Faced with evidence of an anthropic global environmental crisis, the scientific community has been called on to design collectively a transition toward socio-ecological sustainability. The objective of this article is to describe academic discourses on sustainability in Latin America, based on the analysis of the citation network of a sample of 93 Latin American intellectuals that have participated in these debates between 1970 and 2012. This review of citation networks is complemented with a qualitative analysis of the contents of the most influential authors thought. Empirically, the study provides a cartography and a systematic analysis of the participation of Latin American intellectuals in global deliberations on socio-ecological sustainability.

The research covers three great periods: the first goes from 1970, when modern environmental concerns arise, to 1987, the year of publication of the Brundtland Report. The second period (1987-2002) begins with the moment when the idea of sustainable development was institutionalized and ends with the Johannesburg Conference, in which the Rio agreements ceased to influence global political priorities. The third period extends from 2003 to 2012, year of the Rio+20 Summit.

These forty years have seen the gradual structuring of the academic field of sustainability in the subcontinent. On the one hand, the study observes Latin America's participation and the intensification of the field of study over time. On the other hand, it identifies the most important actors and subnetworks, as well as the institutions that have hosted the research projects, teams, and programs that have played a crucial role in shaping Latin American environmental thought. The findings of our research also show that many academic discourses are rather critical, calling for a profound transformation of current societies, and that those discourses have been developed in synergy with certain social movements that are struggling for justice and socio-environmental sustainability.

Keywords : academic discourses; citation networks; global environmental change; historical analysis; Latin America; Latin American environmental thought; sustainable development; sustainability.

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