Den mångtydiga hållbarheten, En diskursanalytisk studie av innebörderna i begreppet social hållbarhet i Malmö

Sammanfattning: A sustainable development was defined by the Brundtlandscommission for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development as "... a development that meets present needs without compromising future generations to meet their own needs". The definition includes a broad consideration of economic, environmental and social aspects. The definition thus creates a good example of the vagueness and complexity of the term social sustainability. This definition is very broad and vague and therefore possible to interpret in many ways. The study analyzes the struggle over its meaning, by focusing on language and its use in specific contexts. This study is based on two different analytical approaches, where both approaches have the language or rather the language use as a starting point in their analysis and where they should complement each other in ways that can also be seen as two different levels of analysis. A conceptual historical analysis is as an entry for the study, which means treating the concept of sustainable development more generally. Although, the discourse analysis develops into an additional level of analysis: which is a discourse analysis of the term social sustainability in Malmo. The purpose is thus to obtain the definition of social sustainability in Malmö’s urban planning. The findings show that the social sustainability in Malmö’s urban planning seems rarely to be giving any clear definition. The concept is filled with a wide area, in the form of various aspects including: health, social inequality, segregation, etc. Seen from the discourse analytical perspective, the definition of social sustainability is constructed from its context, which are those aspects considered being important in order to address the community planning.