The Sustainability of Society: Semantics of a Concept

Abstract

This manuscript enquires into the emergence, meaning and performance of the semantics of sustainability within contemporary society. More precisely, my purpose is to identify the core conceptual structure of sustainability, as well as to describe and explain its performative effects, particularly focusing in the domains of science and politics. My guiding premise is that despite its significant ambiguity -or even because of such ambiguity- the concept of sustainability has the ability to enable and coordinate forms of communication and societal coordination while precluding or ignoring others. I refrain, at this stage, to provide a definition of sustainability. Nonetheless, I do specify that I will call ‘concept of sustainability’ or ‘sustainability semantics’ any word or expression which either contains the term ‘sustainability’ or ‘sustainable’, in any of their possible grammatical variations, or points out to an idea or a phenomenon generally recognizable as concerning sustainability.