Expertise for Social Transformation

Many scholars consider environmental expertise crucial for discovering, diagnosing and solving environmental problems, but do not discuss in any depth what constitutes expertise or the mechanisms through which it influences various settings. This is also the case in much environmental sociology, where expertise is often investigated empirically but rarely explained in any depth. How is the status of being an expert achieved? What role does it play in environmental discourses and in environmental regulation? What kinds of expertise are needed to facilitate and guide efforts to address current environmental challenges?

There is therefore a need to elaborate sociologically the meaning and role of environmental expertise. This need is further reinforced by the growing demand for more fundamental societal change. The increasing severity of the current environmental situation has led to the conclusion that moderate and incremental change is insufficient. It has also prompted a search for new forms of environmental expertise, characterised by a radically new, broader and more complex task that challenges disciplinary and institutional boundaries and raises fundamental epistemic and normative questions.

This session focuses on the opportunities and challenges involved in developing expertise for transformative change. It welcomes conceptual papers that discuss how best to conceptualise and understand this kind of expertise, as well as empirical papers analysing particular forms of expertise and their experience in efforts to initiate, facilitate and guide transformative change.