Diorama—An Opening for Addressing the Global Challenges

Abstract

Throughout his academic life, Hägerstrand showed a genuine concern for global environmental challenges. In order to come to grips with detrimental environmental trends, he was seeking ways to better understand humanity's role in changing the face of the earth. The article Diorama, Path and Project marks the intensification of Hägerstrand's ambitions to draw a holistic framework for the integrated relations between humans, human society and the physical environment. Here, I reflect on Hägerstrand's thinking over the years since 1982, and how that relates to contemporary efforts to address sustainability challenges, from three overlapping questions: how to address complexity?; how to comprehend the materiality of humans?; and how to meet across disciplines?.