Questioning Sustainability: A Transformative Approach to Human Resettlement

What does sustainability mean in practice? Through a literature review on the implications of sustainable development in alternate epistemologies this paper builds a critique of the current practice. The view of sustainable development is carried forward into the case study of a series of sustainable development projects on Namdrik atoll, Republic of the Marshall Islands, which earned the Equator Prize in 2012. The rising issue of human resettlement as the next embodiment of sustainable development is brought to light and the implication for the future resettlement of low lying atoll nations, such as the Marshall Islands, is discussed. Resilience is brought into the discussion in order to propose a way leading toward the sustained role of social justice in policies and practice.

keywords: Sustainability, resilience, development, resettlement, displacement