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Fostering the next generation of sustainability leadership: Graduate student experiences with ecohealth communities of practice

Mathieu Lawrence Feagan (Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA)

International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education

ISSN: 1467-6370

Article publication date: 7 March 2018

Issue publication date: 30 April 2018

904

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to explore graduate student experiences of ecohealth communities of practice in Canada, West and Central Africa and Central America, to better understand the role of student knowledge in advancing innovative practices in transdisciplinary, participatory and equitable research approaches.

Design/methodology/approach

This ethnographic analysis builds on observations of graduate student participants in ecohealth communities of practice activities, along with 26 in-depth interviews conducted in 2011 with graduate students and professionals trained in ecosystem approaches to health. Interviews are transcribed by the author, and coded and analyzed using a grounded theory approach.

Findings

Although ecohealth communities of practice open new space for students to experiment with innovative practices in transdisciplinary, participatory and equitable research approaches, the surrounding disciplinary, top-down structure of academic and professional careers continue to pose significant obstacles to how students can take up the principles of ecohealth in practice. Through their collective experiences of these obstacles, students have considerable knowledge about the opportunities and constraints that the ecohealth communities of practice afford; however, this student knowledge has not yet been systematized or adequately mobilized.

Practical implications

Student knowledge gained through shared experiences of ecohealth communities of practice appears to be a critical, necessary and underused component in working on systemic change in the structure of sustainability leadership in higher education. However, more research is needed to understand how greater emphasis could be placed on putting students in charge of confronting the conditions of their own training, to collectively produce alternatives that challenge dominant structural norms.

Originality/value

The ethnographic approach re-centers student voices within debates about the relevance of ecohealth communities of practice for realizing the aims of transdisciplinary, participatory and equitable research approaches within the context of international sustainability challenges and graduate training.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Marta Berbes, Ben Brisbois, Lesley Johnston and Kris Erickson for their comments on earlier drafts.

Citation

Feagan, M.L. (2018), "Fostering the next generation of sustainability leadership: Graduate student experiences with ecohealth communities of practice", International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, Vol. 19 No. 4, pp. 681-698. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSHE-11-2016-0202

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited

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