Arun Agrawal, a renowned expert in sustainable development and environmental politics, joined the University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs in January 2025 from the University of Michigan.
A member of the National Academy of Sciences, Agrawal is the Pulte Family Professor of Development Policy in the Keough School and the inaugural director of the Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative, a new University-wide strategic initiative for sustainability. He also is a core faculty affiliate of the Keough School’s Pulte Institute for Global Development.
In the conversation below, Agrawal discusses the key themes of his research, explains why he has found Pope Francis so inspiring, and shares what gives him hope during challenging times.
What motivates your research?
I am excited about three aspects of my research. First is its relationship to sustainability and the distinct contribution that the field of sustainability offers. People often confuse sustainability with environment and research on sustainability with that on the environment. But there are two important differences between sustainability and environment. One, sustainability is a multidimensional concept that tries to understand the relationship between the social, economic and environmental dimensions over time. How does a change in the economy affect changes in the environment or society or the other way around? How do efforts to pursue some societal goal also affect the environment and the economy? And to what extent do different social, economic and biophysical processes simultaneously unfold in relation to each other?
The second difference is that environmental research often focuses on how things are and why they are that way. Sustainability researchers, in contrast, also often ask not only what is, but also what should be. So there is a strong normative component that may not always be missing from environmental research, but that is typically not a necessary focus or interest of those who do research on the environment.
This emphasis on thinking through what to do about what is happening is a key part of the motivation that led me to work on sustainability science and sustainability.
The second idea I’m excited about is transformative change. Over the last three years, I’ve been co-chairing a global assessment of transformative change for a more just and sustainable world. Although it may appear that the current political climate is not one that is open to this concern, it’s critical to remember that the kinds of disasters and changes and unsustainable trajectories that we are undergoing are not going to wait for policymakers or decision-makers to take action. The world is changing, and will continue to change, and these changes will hit us with particular viciousness the longer we wait to do anything about them.
Thus, one may think that the most important thing right now is whether gas at the gas station sells for $4.00 dollars a gallon or for $2.50 a gallon. But if our leaders don't address the long-term sustainability challenges that we are facing, this question will turn out to have been minor. So, I feel this issue of how to work towards a world that is more just and sustainable than the one we have and one towards which we are currently headed is essential. It is especially important for our universities and for those of us who care about the extraordinary levels of deprivation and destitution that exist in the world and for those who want to do something about it.
The third thing, which is more on a personal level is the importance of what I have now come to call commoning following a growing literature on the subject. Commoning is when people work together to achieve shared goals, to achieve shared purpose. Often the way social scientists think about working together is that it is very costly because it takes time and may lead you to do things that you wouldn't do if you're only acting in your self-interest. But there is substantial evidence that shows working with others is rewarding; that doing things with others is what really gives a life meaning. We are social beings and we find fulfillment in connecting with others. This is a recognition that what we are doing is more than simply pursuing money or power.
Commoning is particularly relevant to sustainability and transformative change because it allows us to think about how we can work together not just as part of a government or corporation or with the goal of accumulating more power and wealth. It helps us think about how what we do is also a way to realize a deeper purpose and meaning.
Working together with others is especially consistent with both Notre Dame as a university and Catholic social teaching about what it means to be human. When Pope Francis talked about sustainability, he talked about care for a common home. The idea of commoning is central to thinking about sustainability and also to Pope Francis's views about integral ecology – about the intertwined fate of humanity and the environment.
What does “commoning” look like in an academic environment?
Research on the commons goes back to the 1950s and 1960s. This research is mostly focused on small-scale natural resource systems on which people depend, on how the commons can be important sources of benefits to people. Research on commoning began to pick up steam around 2010. This research focuses more on contemporary issues of urbanization, climate adaptation, renewable energy systems, waste management and grassroots social movements, among others. In much of this work, researchers seek to understand why and when people “common” (as a verb). Why is it and how is it that we achieve commoning? Among characteristics of commoning are open engagement; reciprocity; equity in participation and shared purpose. Although it’s a relatively recent idea, there are now more than 1,000 studies on the idea of commoning.
The process of commoning differs from collective action or collective cooperation. Those who work on commoning see it as influencing who you are. So it is not as if one comes to this collaborative process, collaborates, and then ends that collaboration being just the same person as one was before the collaboration started. Commoning highlights the idea that when you engage in collaboration, when you work with others, you undergo a change in who you are. And that understanding of how you undergo change through the collaborative and commoning process is not part of how most scholars of collective action or cooperation think about cooperation and collective action. They see the cooperation in collective action as essentially something that one engages to achieve a goal but without undergoing any change in how one views or defines oneself. This is a major shift in how researchers of commoning view their process of interest as being different from how those studying collective action and cooperation see them.
What makes change transformative? What sort of working definition do you use?
I think Pope Francis said it very well. He talks about sustainability requiring transformation in thoughts, structures and actions. I think that way of understanding transformative change is essentially what integral human development is about because it talks about transformation of the whole person, both in terms of how they think, how they feel, and how they understand the world and what they do in it. And Pope Francis talked about structures, which are the conditions under which people both think and do. So, transformation leads not only to shifts in thinking and in your actions, but also to changes in structures within which one is thinking and doing. This is the understanding of transformative change that Pope Francis articulated in his encyclical Laudato Sí. It is also the understanding of transformative change upon which we arrived as part of our work on the Transformative Change Assessment after three years of collaborative work.
Transformative change is about an integral change; it's about more comprehensive shifts in how people think and do; feel and act; and are regulated or connected. But the emphasis on the person and on individuals and their inner lives is really important in thinking about transformative change. Other words for change or other types of change tend not to focus on this integral nature of change that transformative signifies. It's this connection between social changes and inner change that's really important for transformative change.
How does your research fit in with what is happening in the world today?
Everywhere around us there is evidence of the planet undergoing changes for which our current political systems don't have an answer. Consider sea level rise. It is not going to stop at the borders of the United States. It is going to affect us in ways that some people have begun to think about, but in other places, our leaders have said, it’s not necessary to talk about sea levels. They have denied climate change is happening. They have denied the existence of climate change.
The short-term focus we adopt to defer action on issues that are going to have immense effects in our world will not make those issues go away. Banning words does not magically make issues disappear. We must see the world as it is, not the way we would like it to be — and there are aspects of the world that power exercised by the government or by corporations or or by individuals acting on their own will not change. We need action that translates our best understanding and knowledge about the world into effective strategies to deal with the kinds of disasters that are happening and will continue to happen. Drawing people's attention away from real problems through short-term solutions will not fix the problems we must confront.
Could you share an anecdote that shows how you find meaning in your work?
I remember when the COVID outbreaks coincided with a whole slew of student-led protests addressing climate change all over the world. I think these protests brought home with special clarity how our youth see what is going on, and how they see ongoing changes and catastrophes much more clearly than older adults, and even than many leaders and politicians do. There was one particular march that the Sunrise Movement had planned throughout the U.S., and then because of COVID shutdowns most movement members agreed that they shouldn't organize in-person matches. Within a week, the Sunrise Movement pivoted and organized online classes to teach high school students about climate change, attracting thousands of students across the U.S. to these online classes. And these were young people, teenagers – 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 years old. They felt the urgency of the moment really deeply in their hearts. While adults may have more resources, more knowledge, more money, the children — it turns out — were more able to do what was needed because they understood the importance of action. Seeing their action pivot motivated and convinced me to be involved in something that can support action for change in addition to research.
That's one reason why I find the Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative to be attractive. It promises to connect research and curricular innovation with action and change in the world.
What is giving you hope right now?
I am reminded of T. S. Eliot’s words, “do not hope, for hope will be hope for the wrong thing.” But it is all too human to have hope. And love. And faith. Waiting without hope or love or faith is difficult for those in touch with their humanity. I think for hope one has to shift one's focus away from what is in the mainstream public discourse. If one pays too much attention to the news and to what is happening every day, and one also cares about sustainability and transformative change, there’s a great mismatch between what one wants and what is going on. In the United States, one has to shift attention from the national level to the state and local and municipal levels and even to the international arena.
I feel hope in the conversations I have with people who are interested in bringing about change. If anything, many of them are more energized and more committed than ever. They have greater intensity and greater purpose and the conviction that without changes in a different direction — directions that favor those who are marginalized and who do not have a voice — we are all going to be worse off.
I think both of these ideas – that one can accomplish things that are immediate in both the temporal and spatial dimensions, and that the number of people who want to walk on the same journey — are really important sources of hope. And not just of hope, but also for renewal and inspiration.
Originally published by at keough.nd.edu on April 24, 2025.