The Intersecting Worlds of Sustainability and Cyberspace: Old or/and New Boundaries

Abstract. The world is replete with boundaries at all scales, personal, community, disciplinary, national and global. Some of these are open and permeable; others are closed and difficult to cross. The fields, concepts and models associated with studying global sustainability call for an examination of both old boundaries and new boundaries, especially those that intersect different disciplines, scales and technologies. In this presentation I want to focus on new transdisciplinary boundaries that are essential for us to study sustainability at local and global levels and also cyberspace worlds where there is much fluidity, speed, networking that relate to issues of identity and territoriality. I discuss both what is similar to "old" or "traditional boundary thinking" and what is "new." I conclude by suggesting some challenges facing transitional boundary research and policy.