Entanglements of knowledge and action in sustainability science: reclaiming reflexivity to embrace the uncomfortable

The trajectory of the current socio-ecological crises is not improving, motivating several researchers to suggest that sustainability scientists should engage more actively in the transformations our work demands of broader society. Possibilities for action range from placing pressure on powerful economic and political structures through individual advocacy or activism to adopting more reflexive, action-oriented and transdisciplinary approaches in our research. Yet, dominant perspectives at the science-policy-society interface often expect researchers to remain separate from and neutral to the complexities and politics of the ‘real-world’, particularly in times of geopolitical and economic change, pitting personal motivations and values against those of our work and institutions. As a result, sustainability scientists exist in a ‘double reality’ , in which they produce evidence supporting the need for transformative change but feel a lack of individual agency to act. In this paper, we aim to explore the uncomfortable space created by this double reality. We first propose that from a (critical) complexity worldview, the complex nature of sustainability challenges deems all research practice as a situated intervention, offering an opportunity for a more nuanced discussion about how sustainability scientists can take responsibility for their position in broader society. From this view, we unpack three sources of discomfort in the entanglements of knowledge and action: the resistance to confronting our own subjectivity in relation to others and our institutions; disorientation from getting lost in pluralism; and the fear of intentional engagement with power and politics. We then suggest that reclaiming the political and provocative roots of reflexivity can better equip researchers and their institutions to deal with the normative, plural, and political complexities that surface at the science-policy-society interfaces, thereby enabling a more critical and action-oriented approach to sustainability science.