Knowledge and power in the Anthropocene: Transcending the hegemony of the Enlightenment paradigm in sustainability discourses

In this article it is argued that scientific sustainability discourses are largely informed by the Enlightenment paradigm. This paradigm, the argument goes, is not only hegemonic but also deeply problematic for sustainability science. Its ontological assumptions about nature as a collection of natural resources that must be mastered for human purposes (such as peace, prosperity, well-being) inform a mastery of nature that is unsustainable and has come to pose existential threats to the whole planet. This article therefore questions this hegemony
of the Enlightenment paradigm in sustainability science, to pave the way for a trans-paradigmatic understanding of sustainability. Anthropogenic and academic sustainability discourses, it is argued, are fundamentally pluralistic and therefore informed by rivalling paradigms that come with rivalling ontologies and
corresponding understandings of nature, sustainability, and justice. It follows that trans-paradigmatic ecological knowledge requires not so much a shift of paradigm as the transcendence of bounded paradigmatic knowledge
through a dialectical process in sustainability science. The dialectical process, however, is still being hindered, or so we argue. To illustrate the attempts at trans-paradigmatic knowledge, we consider the ‘Rights of Nature’ (RoN) movement. As a discourse, RoN may be considered both as an Enlightenment translation of the indigenous worldview and as an indigenous integration of the Enlightenment theories of social contract and natural rights. We argue that this ‘fusion’ might have the potential to inform trans-paradigmatic discourses if RoN evokes nonindividualist and non-atomist ontologies and thereby escapes the hegemony of the Enlightenment paradigm.