Area Studies for Urban Sustainability Research. Current Practice and Untapped Potential

This paper discusses the potential of Area Studies (AS) to inform scientific inquiry for urban sustainability. I draw from two strains of scholarship: (a) systemic and place-based research for sustainability; and (b) the post-1989 reflection on the conceptual foundations of Area Studies. I start from the assumption that AS and sustainability studies share a similar concern over place(s), shaped over time by by human-to-nature and human-to-human relations. I then lay down two pathways of contribution of AS to urban sustainability research. The first pathway reflects the role of AS in multi-/inter-disciplinary research to foster holistic understandings of sustainability. The second relates to the capacity for self-reflexivity inherent in AS, an important resource for transforming socio-ecological patterns characterizing human civilization.