Hi, I'm Ariane!
As a behavioral scientist with a Master's degree in Global Health, I take an integral approach to sustainability science. With my research on inner sustainability at Leuphana university, I aim to inform personal, cultural, and systems transformation toward integral sustainability. Like this, sustainability remains not merely a technocratic goal, but becomes a lived reality - embodied and enacted from the inside-out.
How is sustainability experienced?
Is there such a thing as inner sustainability?
What constitutes inner sustainability?
Does inner sustainability translate to outer sustainability?
Which conditions enable inner sustainability?
Can inner sustainability be cultivated?
Journey,
motivation,
vision
When I’m not in the office or hiding from my supervisors (just kidding), you’ll find me exploring inner sustainability in my personal life too. For me, integral sustainability goes beyond academic inquiry. The hunch that there's an inner dimension to sustainability “out there” is deeply rooted in my personal experience.
Since uncovering the subtle (and not-so-subtle) forms of psychological and somatic extraction in my own life, I've increasingly begun to question how systemic logics of natural, human, and personal resource exploitation are interconnected, internalised and normalised. While researching sustainability hasn't made me entirely immune to unsustainability (shocking, I know),
shifting toward greater inner sustainability has nevertheless transformed my world(view) and the way I engage with it: my sense of place and purpose, as well as my impact on the world. In the face of a sustainability-related polycrisis, this lived experience motivates me to transform not only the structural conditions that reproduce unsustainability, but the patterns through which we enact extraction - within and outside ourselves. The aim?
Forming part of the Regenerative Societies research group within the Embracing Transformations Program at Leuphana University, my vision is a world of societies that enable mutual flourishing in support of the good life - however that looks in specific contexts. For this purpose, I aim to contribute to systems, culture, and personal transformation by (1) informing policy toward integral sustainability, (2) making relevant information publicly available, and (3) facilitating enabling spaces for personal transformation (think yoga, mindfulness, coaching etc.). Like this, I hope to contribute to sustainability transformations across micro, meso and macro levels.
Enough about me: What is your understanding of and experience with inner sustainability?