Which Kind of Sustainability for a Social Environmental Psychology?

Abstract

Based on the experience of the psychosocial international project "City, Identity and Sustainability" (CIS) and the discussions of the CIS network, the concept of sustainability is analyzed in terms of its political origin, the texts of international documents on sustainable development, and the ambiguities and polysemia of its definitions and use by different actors and agencies. Also addressed is the issue of how political diversity is confronted with the aims of common action in a world made of diverse regional economies and international predatory corporations, and where the inequity between North and South is responsible for the destruction of sustainable traditions.