ABSTRACT
Sustainable development issues are interdisciplinary, emergent and contextual. They are therefore characterized by many layers of information which sometimes necessitates the use of different theoretical perspectives in undertaking research in the field. This assertion is discussed in this chapter in the context of a study which sought to understand how Rhodes University is responding to the interdisciplinary and rapidly changing sustainable development discourse and to explore the development of a systems approach in mainstreaming sustainability at the university. Mainstream versions of systems theory lack an adequate theory of epistemology and therefore tend towards either positivism or relativism. Complementing systems-thinking tools with a critical realist methodology enabled depth explanations of the causal factors which influenced Rhodes University to make sustainability issues part of their institutional ‘mainstream’. The chapter proposes that, while sustainability research requires frameworks like systems thinking that recognize the interconnectedness of phenomena, they can result in shallow, empiricist explanations. Therefore it is necessary to complement such frameworks with naturalistic theories like critical realism which recognize structural, cultural and geo-historical components.
