SUSTAINABILITY RESEARCH: A GROUNDED THEORY APPROACH IN THE FIELD OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Vanessa C. Pinsky; Isak Kruglianskas; Clandia Maffini Gomes; Amir Rezaee

doi:10.5585/geas.v8i3.15766

Authors

Vanessa C. Pinsky Universidade Nove de Julho
Isak Kruglianskas
Clandia Maffini Gomes
Amir Rezaee

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5585/geas.v8i3.15766

Keywords:

Theory building, Grounded theory, Sustainable development research, Soft science, REDD , Climate change.

Abstract

Climate change is a complex and uncertain global problem because it is driven by human behavior, with long-term climate-related risks for natural and human systems. Changes in human behavior, financing flow, policy instruments, and multilevel governance are needed for mitigating and managing major climate risks. Understanding the social dimensions of climate change is, quite literally, a hot topic to be studied. Most of the scientific literature in the field is focused on the ‘hard science’. Different methods of theory building are used in applied social sciences. However, the use of the grounded theory approach in sustainability research, specially on ‘soft science’ in the field of climate change, is scarce. The intent of this paper is to discussion the use of the grounded theory method in an emergent research field that combines governance and climate change. The article presents substantive results of an emerging theoretical framework that explain the governance process of REDD+ in Brazil, an United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) climate finance mechanism focused on mitigating forest-related emissions in developing countries. Instead of discussing best procedures and techniques to build grounded theory, which are largely accessed through several peer-reviewed publications, our focus is to provide a practical guide and discuss lessons learned from the field to integrate the ‘REDD+ Governance Theoretical Framework’. Thus, scholars and graduate students are encourage to test and validate (or not) the emerging theoretical framework.

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