Disciplinary lines must cross for sustainability, professor says

More than 100 people crowded into the President’s Room at the Indiana Memorial Union to hear professor and renowned social scientist Elinor Ostrom speak about how disciplines can cooperate more efficiently to improve sustainability.

Thursday night, Ostrom became the first Karl F. Schuessler lecturer.

Schuessler, who died in 2005, founded IU’s Institute of Social Research in 1963, when he was chair of the department of sociology. The institute was re-named in his honor in 2003. Jack Martin, the current director of the institute, said their purpose is to help support faculty and graduate research in the social sciences.

The lecture, expected to become an annual event, was established by a gift from Schuessler’s family, said the institute’s administrative manager Megan Glass.
Ostrom’s topic was “Sustaining Social-Ecological Systems: an Ontological Approach,” and she discussed recent research that draws on both social and ecological data and a new framework for interdisciplinary communication between various areas to bring together the social and biophysical sciences with a common dialect and vocabulary.

“We talk about ‘community’ and the biologists think we’re talking about bees, a community of bees,” Ostrom said. “We need to slowly but surely develop an interdisciplinary language.”

While she acknowledged that understanding social-ecological systems is difficult, Ostrom stressed the importance of that knowledge for experts.

“Otherwise, we recommend policies that make things worse,” she said.

She encouraged diversity for sustainability, not only biologically, but in terms of the institutions running an area. She described privatized, government-owned and co-managed lands as panaceas, or cure-alls, that should be mixed. To illustrate her points, Ostrom used images from across the world, such as satellite photos of the Maya Biosphere Reserve and India’s Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve.

Ostrom recently published an article in “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” on her framework. At IU, she is the Arthur F. Bentley professor of political science and professor of public and environmental affairs.

“Dr. Ostrom is definitely one of the leading people in her field in the world, and she knew Karl, so it seemed fitting,” Martin said.

In the doctor’s introduction, Provost Karen Hanson listed several of Ostrom’s professional accomplishments, titles and awards.

“The only way we know she’s not getting another one right now is because she’s here,” Hanson said.

Emilie Rex, a grad student and member of the Sustainable Development Association, said her group is interested in learning more about Ostrom’s research.

“I’m really excited about the turn-out. ... It seems like there’s a really fair balance of faculty and students here,” Rex said. “Dr. Ostrom has done incredible work in this field.”