Critical Methodological Pluralism

Critical Methodological Pluralism

Since its inception, ecological economics (EE) set itself apart from the reductionist methodologies of positivist natural and social sciences by embracing and promulgating what Norgaard (1989) termed methodological pluralism in the first issue of the EE journal. This entails moving away from reductionist and positivist science to a pluralistic approach in which a multiplicity of methods from different disciples are taken into consideration when investigating complex ecological economic issues.

Norgaard proposed a conscious pluralism, which calls for self-reflection about the values and judgments involved in science when conducting interdisciplinary work (Lele & Norgaard, 2005) based on:

(1) being conscious of their own methodologies;

(2) being conscious of the advantages and disadvantages of the methodologies used by others; and

(3) being tolerant of the use of different methodologies used by others.

Methodological pluralism in EE became the basis for encouraging interdisciplinary (working across disciplines) and transdisciplinary (e.g., including traditional knowledge, beyond discipline specific approaches) research to address complex environmental, social and economic issues because “our scientific understanding is ultimately dependent on collective processes of learning and understating” (Norgaard & Baer, 2005; Lele & Norgaard, 2005).

Pluralism or post-normal science allows for the “extension of the peer communities”, where the inclusion of wider circles of stakeholders, who desire to participate in resolving issues involving policy and decision making, is fostered (Funtowicz & Ravetz, 2003). This is important for consensus building and thus to extend the accountability of governments and decision making. Furthermore, pluralism provides a vital opportunity for non-mainstream knowledge such as traditional knowledge to be utilized, harmonized, enhanced and validated anew (Norgaard, 1989, 1994; Funtowicz & Ravetz, 2003). In sum, pluralism is essential to address complex social-ecological systems because it facilitates both cultural and biological diversity, promotes participation and decentralization, and it helps us to acknowledge the limits to our problem solving methods by understanding the uncertainties of complex systems.

However, although methodological pluralism is essential for addressing complex sustainability issues, it has been argued that we need to be more critical about its use to avoid furthering the hegemony of neoclassical economics in the frameworks and logics that we use in EE (Goddard et al., 2019).