ABSTRACT
The National Science Foundation in the Customs and Patent Appeals has suggested that integrative, place-based studies are necessary to answer important policy questions related to dynamic interactions among environmental and social variables. However, when science interacts with society, it does so in particular eco-social contexts, each the result of multiple, interacting, place-based histories. The Mennonites emerged, in the 16th century, from the left wing of the Reformation. Mennonite communities in Prussia, and later in Russia, were committed to sharing worldly goods, complete separation of church and state, adult baptism and pacifism. Gemeinschaft is an organic, place-based community. In a sustainability 'project', this most closely corresponds to the emphasis on local knowledge and bottom-up strategies. An historical examination of how scientists have interacted with cod-fishing communities in Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada provides some interesting insights in this regard. The interactions between economic well-being and environmental and social disruption have deep social and political roots.
