Towards a Contemplative Commons: Building a Platform for Contemplative Social Sciences

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Zachary Walsh, Graduate Student, Claremont School of Theology
This poster presents a project that I am working on at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in Potsdam, Germany. The
project is called A Mindset for the Anthropocene (AMA). It aims both at establishing a community of spiritually interested stakeholders within the field of sustainability while conducting specific research projects that help underpin the relevance and legitimacy of qualities like mindfulness and compassion for achieving sustainability. Research projects are integrated into stakeholder mapping projects, so that they connect stakeholders who are not typically engaged with contemplative science (including policymakers, NGOs, think-tanks, and activists), but who stand to benefit from the development of contemplative research within their respective disciplines and target areas of concern. In addition to communicating the project’s basic platform, I will outline its future plans to develop “A Contemplative Commons,” conceived as a collaborative commons for doing contemplative research in social science disciplines, including sociology, economics, political science, environmental studies, and media studies.