Global societies are facing a vast amount of environmental and social problems based on resource deprivation and climate change. Many systemic forces, mechanisms and organizations struggle to deal with these problems in very specific ways with the heritage of ideas such as growth, progress and development in a broader discursive context to drive them. The term sustainability has become a key concept of theoretical discussions and practical applications in the modern ideological landscape.The way that sustainability is used it is embedded to a very specific individual and societal imaginary connected to capitalism and the neoliberal paradigm.
This research's purpose is to locate and scrutinize the dominant way (hegemonic) that the term sustainability is used theoretically (discourse analysis) and practically by different actorsstakeholders, in the 21st century, in a specific case study in the European context (GreeceSkouries). Moreover, the most important part is the critical analysis of the qualitative data I collected and analyzed as well as the critique on these approaches and data through Castoriadis project of autonomy. My attempt is to open a new dimension in the way sustainability can be perceived and achieved and to point out the essentiality of autonomy (Democracy) in order for this to happen.