The Dictionary of Human Geography

Comp. by: VPugazhenthi Stage : Revises1 ChapterID: 9781405132879_4_S Date:1/4/
09 Time:15:23:42 Filepath:H:/00_Blackwell/00_3B2/Gregory-9781405132879/appln/3B2/
revises/9781405132879_4_S.3d

to the concept being measured along with

assessments, on the same scale, for each of

several hypothetical benchmark situations

described in the vignettes. Interpersonal

incomparability is the only reason the response

can differ, as the vignettes are literally the

same. Statistical models have been designed

to require only a small random sub-sample to

correct the respondent’s reply for the personal

element. kj

Suggested reading

Groves, Fowler, Couper, Lepkowski, Singer and

Tourangeau (2004); King, Honaker, Joseph

and Scheve (2001); Little and Rubin (2002);

Skinner, Holt and Smith (1989). Excellent prac-

tical advice on missing data can be found at

http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/msu/missingdata/index.

html and the Anchoring Vignettes website is at

http://gking.harvard.edu/vign/.

surveying To survey is to assess or study

aplaceor population, the salient features

of which might then be mapped or recorded.

From a cadastral (land ownership) perspective,

surveying is to apply the principles of math-

ematics (geometry and trigonometry) to deter-

mine points on the Earth’s surface delimiting

a land boundary. Alternatively, a physical sci-

entist might apply the principles of physics,

chemistry or biology to survey a site, whereas

a polling company uses techniques of statistical

inference to survey a population by means of

a sample (seesurvey analysis). Geographical

research includes not only mathematical/

scientific conceptions of surveying but also

qualitative methods. rh

Suggested reading

Aldridge and Levine (2001).

sustainability Sustainability, like sustain-

able development, is becoming increasingly

difficult to invoke with any critical weight. In

fact, it would be fair to say that in critical

circles, and among those interested in progres-

sive or radical environmental politics in par-

ticular, use of the word will almost certainly

elicit a cringe. This may point to an abiding

cynicism, but it probably also reflects the pro-

liferation of this term as a form of discursive

gloss over disparate material and political pro-

jects, including no shortage of mobilizations

in corporate ‘greenwash’ campaigns. Indeed,

while sustainability as a buzzword does much

work to enhance environmental awareness,

it may just as easily be viewed as evidence

of an increasingly promiscuous convergence

of capitalaccumulationand certain kinds of

environmentalism(Katz, 1998). To this may

be added the concern that this word – and

much more so sustainable development – has

become hopelessly co-opted by an instru-

mentalist and administrative connotation

that takes from it any edge as a challenge to

prevailing ways of thinking about and relating

to one another, and to the non-human world.

It is in fact difficult to argue that that any

serious progress is being made in the name of

this term when, by any reasonable definition

and notwithstanding rosy portraits of

dematerializing industrial economies, the

global political economy and ecology – what

Luke (2005) provocatively calls a system of

‘sustainable degradation’ – is characterized

by more and more aggregate material and

energy throughput, and by greater and

greater social inequality (Harper, 2004) (cf.

political ecology).

There are nevertheless good reasons to take

this word and some of what it conveys ser-

iously, and in particular to differentiate the

word from the term ‘sustainable develop-

ment’. For one thing, sustainability is much

less easily and intuitively grafted on todevel-

opmentorthodoxy aimed at sustaining little

more thaneconomic growth. Sustainability

continues to function more as an ambiguous

mantra than as a new paradigm of apost-

colonialdevelopment agenda, the latter a

critique levelled at the institutionalization of

sustainable development (Escobar, 1995).

Instead, sustainability has been more success-

fully mobilized in ways that challenge conven-

tional development paradigms – including, for

example, in the notion of sustainable liveli-

hoods – and in directing attention towards

‘satisficing’, or meeting basic needs (Sneddon,

2000).

Sustainability is also deployed more con-

cretely in scientific and technical parlance.

This includes efforts to develop sustainability

indicators (O’Riordan, 2004) to be used as

benchmarks, fixed goals by which the

abstractionand obfuscation so typical of sus-

tainabilitydiscoursesmight be reined in. It

also includes the use of the term in policy-

oriented or more applied ecological sciences

(e.g. conservation biology) seeking to develop

and apply notions of specifically ecological

sustainability, particularly when both human

and non-human systems exhibit uncertain

behaviour. As thin as this literature typically

is in conceptualizing human behaviour, impor-

tant principles such as adaptive management

and precautionary action have taken hold

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_S Final Proof page 737 1.4.2009 3:23pm

SUSTAINABILITY