About

David Manuel-Navarrete is an Associate Professor at the School of Sustainability with additional affiliations as an Affiliated Faculty at the Center for Behavior, Institutions and the Environment (CBIE) and the Center for Biodiversity Outcomes. He applies an existential perspective to study deliberate transformations in social-ecological and technological systems, such as cities and coastal communities, including the subjective dimension of these transformations. His research aims to enhance societies’ capacity to deliver structural changes that reduce inequality and sustain the planet's web of life. As a sustainability scholar, he focuses on promoting climate change adaptation and tourism sustainability. His recent work explores adaptation, resilience, and transformation of water infrastructures in Mexico City, as well as the promotion of indigenous languages to advance sustainability in the Amazon. Manuel-Navarrete has worked as a consultant for the United Nations and has conducted sustainability research and assessments across Argentina, Brazil, Central America, and Mexico. He teaches courses on international development, sustainability, and sustainability science. He also coordinates the SpiRitS lab, which investigates the role of rituals in transforming inner worlds and fostering spiritual connections to the Earth.

Selected publications

• Why context matters: understanding transdisciplinary research through the lens of nine context factors

  Innovation The European Journal of Social Science Research · 2025-07-12 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  Transdisciplinary research (TDR) integrates academic and non-academic expertise to co-produce actionable knowledge that contributes to societal impact in addressing sustainability challenges. While context is widely acknowledged as important, the role and definition of context factors shaping TDR remain underexplored. This study develops an integrative understanding of context by synthesising theoretical literature and analysing 17 semi-structured interviews from international TDR case studies. We identify nine key context factors across three categories: outer factors (outside projects), inner factors (within projects), and temporal/ spatial dimensions (project boundaries). These context factors influence collaborative research processes in different ways across projects, requiring ongoing reflexivity and adaptation. Positionality awareness and ethics are central in shaping power dynamics, stakeholder engagement, and knowledge-co-production, highlighting the need for context-sensitive approaches. To support this in a structured way, we present a framework linking context with research design, process, methods and outcomes. Additionally, we provide a set of reflective questions for researchers and practitioners to identify, assess, and respond to contextual influences that shape stainability transformations. By advancing a more systematic understanding of context, this study contributes to building reflexive and inclusive approaches to transdisciplinary collaboration.

  PublisherDOI

• Inclusive transdisciplinarity: embracing diverse ways of being and knowing through inner work

  Ecology and Society · 2025-01-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Transdisciplinary research (TDR) aims to co-produce knowledge to address the complex challenges of unsustainability. Despite progress in articulating principles for successful co-production, Indigenous researchers have pointed out ongoing power imbalances. These disparities, partly stemming from unacknowledged ontological-epistemological inequalities, often perpetuate hidden hierarchies between researchers and participants. At the core of these power imbalances is the dominance in academia of certain ways of knowing (e.g., categorical, experimental, noun-based, substantialist) over others (e.g., relational, experiential, verb-based, idealist). This bias is formalized and reinforced by academic institutions and cultures, passed down and internalized through education and professionalization. Inclusive TDR needs to break this self-reinforcing cycle, but this requires making inner room for multiple perspectives on reality and existence. To explore how inner work may foster ontological pluralism and inclusive TDR, we held a workshop drawing lessons from three case studies of TDR from Malaysia, Botswana, and Ecuador. Participants’ experiences were synthesized into a reflexive cycle of five inner shifts toward inclusive TDR. These shifts enhance the ability of researchers to engage with different ontologies beyond scientific materialism, and recognize their embeddedness in various kinds of relationships, extending their relational awareness to other beings, human and non-human, living and non-living. The proposed reflexive cycle seeks to cultivate capacities for co-production in TDR that are grounded in horizontally inclusive research practices that allow for more contextually relevant and impactful solutions to complex real-world problems.

  PublisherDOI

• When perception is reality: examining perceived accessibility of recreational public spaces through social space production

  World Leisure Journal · 2024-06-13 · 7 citations

  articleSenior author

  Social space production theorizes space as a socially constructed phenomenon, comprising of the expectations of society, technical design decisions, and the physical features that result. This theorization of space is especially relevant to recreational public spaces (e.g. parks, playgrounds, community centres) in low-income settings. This is because, the power linkages between technical decisions and neo-capitalist influence, have in some instances, translated to physical features for recreation that do not meet societal expectations or ideals on use. However, recognized opportunities of use (i.e. perceived accessibility) are yet to be examined through the physical, technical, and social facets that collectively guide considerations, as theorized in social space production. Our study hence adopts social space production as a lens to examine perceived accessibility to public recreational spaces in low-income residential contexts. Participatory mapping interviews with resident leads in a low-income residential context in the United States, revealed three thematic considerations. The themes were namely: physical ease of use, planning and design experiences, and social interactions with and within space. Our findings demonstrate that multifaceted considerations, which are pertinent to physical, technical, and social aspects of social space production, are informative to perceived accessibility.

  PublisherDOI

• How do BPoC design professionals pursue environmental justice considerations when planning and designing recreational spaces?

  Community Development · 2024-07-30

  article

  Recreational spaces like parks and playgrounds play a vital role in community development. They serve as avenues for important experiences like physical activity, social interaction, and shared cultural expressions. However, BPoC (Black Person, and Person of Color) communities face disparate unjust environmental barriers to utilizing such spaces. Yet not much is known about how BPoC professionals in dedicated professional associations, could address such barriers through the pursuit of environmental justice when planning and designing recreational spaces. This study aims to address this lacuna in research. Findings from in-depth interviews demonstrate that in the design and planning of spaces for recreation, BPoC design professionals drew on their lived experiences from community history and personal encounters to: (1) foster opportunities for participation in design and planning processes (procedural justice), (2) address location-related concerns pertaining to systemic strains in resource allocation (distributive justice), and (3) integrate features that support socio-cultural relationships (interactional justice).

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• Embodying relationality through immersive sustainability solutions with Indigenous communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon

  Sustainability Science · 2024-06-26 · 8 citations

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• Ayahuasca ceremonies, relationality, and inner-outer transformations to sustainability. Evidence from Takiwasi Center in Peru

  Ecosystems and People · 2024-04-18 · 7 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The use of psychedelic substances is increasingly associated with nature-relatedness.We explore whether entheogenic uses of ayahuasca in settings co-produced between Indigenous and Western knowledges may also foster relationality and sustainability transformations across ontology, praxis, and epistemology.A survey with 74 English-speaking individuals who attended Amazonian healing ceremonies at the Takiwasi Center in Peru, along with 11 semi-structured interviews and a discussion circle revealed unexpected personal shifts towards relationality.Beyond the expected increase in nature-relatedness, participants also reported boundary dissolution and changes in their perceptions of self, leading them to experience nature and non-human beings as having spiritual or human-like agency.The blurring of perceived boundaries between themselves and nature also challenged the materialist ontologies in which they had been educated and socialized.In terms of both epistemologies and praxis, co-produced ayahuasca ceremonies enhanced relational thinking and embodiment of relationality.Inner-outer transformations ensued from the post-ceremonial integration of the 'plant's teachings' into participants' daily lives.We discuss our findings' contributions to the emerging field of inner transformations and the relational turn in sustainability.Potential sustainability benefits of scaling plant-based ceremonies need to be measured against their impacts on the Amazon rainforest and its biocultures.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Alienation

  2024-01-01

  book-chapter
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• Making Informal Water Distribution Work: Collective Agency and Self-Organization in Informal Areas of Xochimilco, Mexico City

  International Journal of the Commons · 2023-01-01 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access

  Global environmental change can disproportionately impact vulnerable populations in informal settlements already struggling with diminished access to resources, conditions of poverty, and other inequalities. Simultaneously, climate variability is projected to increase global water scarcity and make “formal access” to water (i.e., through gray infrastructure sponsored by a centralized government) not only politically unlikely but also physically unfeasible. Cities will need alternative ways of delivering water to informal settlements that are reliable, sufficient, affordable, environmentally efficient, and fair. Using data from two informal settlements in the Xochimilco Municipality (Mexico City), we explore current informal arrangements for water access and delivery, and what roles are played by governments, water truck drivers, and residents. We found that self-organization through collective agency and community leadership were key for effective water delivery through private or public water trucks (<em>pipas</em>). One community showed stable leadership and strong collective agency, resulting in more “efficient” public water delivery and low levels of consumption of water from private sellers. In the other community, collective agency was hindered by lack of clear leadership and self-organization, causing residents to resort to individual action (i.e., buying more private water) rather than collectively organizing to gain sufficient public access to water. Our findings suggest that collective agency enables a positive feedback loop between water truck drivers and residents which allows efficient distribution with minimum public investment from the municipality. We argue that the explicit acknowledgement of the role of collective agency and its adequate compensation to create new agreements would create opportunities for more sustainable alternatives of water delivery in communities trapped in informal regimes of water distribution.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Alienation and Tourism

  2023-01-01

  book-chapter
  PublisherDOI

• Enabling collective agency for sustainability transformations through reframing in the Xochimilco social–ecological system

  Sustainability Science · 2022-10-19 · 25 citations

  article
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