Reaping what we sow: Centering values in food systems transformations research
2025
doi:10.1007/s13280-024-02086-5The Careoperative
On journeys of sustainability, rooted in care.
We are mid-career social scientists collectively navigating sustainability transformations. The careoperative started out of a 2019 Postdoctoral Academy for Transformational Leadership, funded by the Robert Bosch Stiftung in Germany. We decided to stay together to collectively reimagine our ways of being sustainability researchers and practitioners.
We orient around four values: care, reflexivity, inclusivity, and collectivity. As current challenges demand more from sustainability science than current institutions are designed to give, our aspirations guide how we show up for ourselves, each other, our partners in practice, our teams, and our organizations.
Recent Work
We publish collectively under the pseudonym of Dr. Care — as part of a choice to elevate recognition of collective contributions.