Messianic Moments in Communicating Sustainability

Using an ethnographic story to theorize and generalize beyond a case, the article describes and discusses the emergence of “messianic moments” within scientific professional interaction at a training course session on climate change impacts and sustainability. Using the concepts of knowledge asymmetries and renewability, the article argues how messianic moments allow for the temporary co-existence of the models and predictions of science, as well as the politics and culture of lived experience. Heterogeneous, paradoxical and non-coherent forms of knowing, which emerge and are recognized in messianic moments, are seen to secure the renewability and replenishment of the sustainability concept. The encouraging of messianic moments to emerge in scientific professional interaction is suggested to contribute to a

sustainable

professional communication of sustainability.