Julia Wittmayer

Action, research and participation: roles of researchers in sustainability transitions

In sustainability science, the tension between more descriptive–analytical and more process-oriented approaches is receiving increasing attention. The latter entails a number of roles for researchers, which have largely been neglected in the literature. Based on the rich tradition of action research and on a specific process-oriented approach to sustainability transitions (transition management), we establish an in-depth understanding of the activities and roles of researchers. This is done by specifying ideal-type roles that researchers take when dealing with key issues in creating and maintaining space for societal learning—a core activity in process-oriented approaches. These roles are change agent, knowledge broker, reflective scientist, self-reflexive scientist and process facilitator. To better understand these ideal-type roles, we use them as a heuristic to explore a case of transition management in Rotterdam. In the analysis, we discuss the implications of this set of ideal-type roles for the self-reflexivity of researchers, role conflicts and potentials, and for the changing role of the researcher and of science in general.

Shifting Power Relations in Sustainability Transitions: A Multi-actor Perspective

Abstract This paper contributes to understanding transition politics by conceptualizing (shifting) power relations between actors in sustainability transitions. The authors introduce a Multi-actor Perspective as a heuristic framework for specifying (shifting) power relations between different categories of actors at different levels of aggregation. First, an overview is provided of how power and empowerment have been treated in transition research, and remaining questions are identified on who exercises power and who is empowered by and with whom. It is argued that theoretical frameworks and empirical analyses in transition studies lack precision when it comes to distinguishing between different types and levels of actors. In response, a Multi-actor Perspective (MaP) is developed, which distinguishes among four sectors (state, market, community, third sector), and between actors at different levels of aggregation: (1) sectors, (2) organizational actors, and (3) individual actors. The paper moves on to specify how the MaP contributes to understanding transition politics specifically in conceptualizing shifting power relations. Throughout the paper, empirical illustrations are used regarding public debates on welfare state reform, civil society and ‘Big Society’, as well as more specific empirical examples of community energy initiatives.

Making sense of sustainability transitions locally: how action research contributes to addressing societal challenges

Today’s society is facing a broad array of societal challenges, such as an unstable economic system, climate change and lasting poverty. There are no straightforward solutions, rather these challenges ask for fundamental societal changes, that is, sustainability transitions. Faced with the question of how these challenges can be understood and dealt with, we argue for action research as a promising approach. Focusing on their localized manifestations, we ask whether and how action research can support understanding and addressing societal challenges and making sustainability meaningful locally. We tackle this question on the basis of two case studies in local communities based on principles of transition management. Our main finding is that societal challenges, sustainability and sustainability transitions acquire meaning through practice and interactions in the local context. Action research can offer a space in which alternative ideas (e.g., knowledge, future visions), practices (e.g., practical experiments, transformative action) and social relations (e.g., new actors) can emerge to further a sustainability transition.

Governing sustainability: a dialogue between Local Agenda 21 and transition management

Since the 1990s, the local level of governance has become increasingly important in addressing the challenge of sustainable development. In this article, we compare two approaches that seek to address sustainability locally, namely Local Agenda 21 and transition management. Discussing both approaches along six dimensions (history, aim, kind of change, governance understanding, process methodologies, and actors), we formulate general insights into the governance of sustainability in cities, towns, and neighbourhoods. This dialogue illustrates two related modes of thinking about sustainability governance. We touch upon the importance of an integrated perspective on sustainability transitions through which sustainability is made meaningful locally in collaborative processes. We suggest that the explicit orientation towards radical change is a precondition for governing sustainability in a way that addresses the root causes of societal challenges. Governing sustainability should address the tensions between aiming for radical change and working with status quo-oriented actors and governing settings. We conclude that governing sustainability should be about finding creative ways for opening spaces for participation, change, and experimentation, that is, for creating alternative ideas, practices, and social relations. These spaces for innovation encourage a reflexive stance on ways of working and ones own roles and attitudes, thereby preparing a fertile terrain for actors to engage in change from different perspectives.

Conserving Conflict? Transfrontier Conservation, Development Discourses and Local Conflict Between South Africa and Lesotho

This paper describes and analyses how discourses of conservation and development as well as migrant labour practices can be understood as transnational dynamics that both cement and complicate transnational relations. It also looks into how these dynamics articulate with, shape and are being shaped by ‘the local’. Focusing on the north-eastern boundary of Lesotho in the area of the ‘Maloti-Drakensberg transfrontier conservation and development project’, we show how conflictual situations put the ethnographic spotlight on the ways in which ‘local people’ in Lesotho deal with dual forces of localisation and transnationalisation. We argue that they accommodate, even appropriate, these dual pressures by adopting an increasingly flexible stance in terms of identity, alliances, livelihood options and discourses.

Symposium introduction: usable knowledge in practice. What action research has to offer to critical policy studies

Critical policy analysts aim to serve policy actors in dealing with the intricate problems they face by facilitating productive communication, critical learning and sustainable change. Action research is a valuable approach for living up to this ambition. As it is rarely used in the field of critical policy analysis, this symposium further explores what action research has to offer. In this introduction, we draw out the main principles, practices and dilemmas of action research, provide an overview of the four contributions to the symposium and set out an agenda for future action research. We argue that action research is a useful approach for generating reflexivity, learning and change among the actors implicated in the problem at hand and its wider context, as well as for grasping the meaning of ‘knowledge’ and ‘research’ within current science-practice relations. At the same time, it is challenging because, in practice, it means facing the diverse, contested meanings of usable knowledge in both of these settings. Hence, we encourage future action research to further come to terms with the actual possibilities and constraints of the transformative ambitions of CPS.

Insights and Lessons for the Governance of Urban Sustainability Transitions

This chapter synthesises insights and lessons from the experiences with the operational and heuristic application of the transition management framework in five European and Asian cities: Aberdeen, Ghent, Higashiomi, Kitakyushu, and Montreuil. Zooming in on one of the transition governance principles, this chapter analyses how far the transition management activities outlined in the five empirical chapters of this book have contributed to creating space for change to building up alternative regimes and challenging the status quo. This analysis allows drawing lessons for transition governance principles and for operational process transition management designs.

Game-changers and transformative social innovation

This editorial introduces the special feature on the role of game-changers, broadly conceptualized as macro-trends that change the “rules of the game,” in processes of transformative social innovation. First, the key concepts are introduced together with the academic workshop that brought together 25 scholars, from across a wide range of disciplines, to discuss the role of game-changers in transformative social innovation, resulting in the 9 contributions in this special feature. Second, the differing conceptualizations of the role of game-changers in transformative social innovation across the set of articles are discussed. Third, an overview is provided of the different empirical examples of game-changers and transformative social innovations addressed; examples were drawn from different geographical contexts across Europe, North America, South America, Africa, and Asia. Fourth, the differing epistemological approaches used to explain social change are noted, and lessons for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research on social change discussed. Finally, a synthesis is provided of the main insights and contributions to the literature.

Transition Management: Guiding Principles and Applications

This chapter describes a way of influencing sustainability transitions, namely transition management, and its strengths and limitations as a framework for strategic environmental planning in cities. This includes a description of the guiding principles of transition management, their translation into a governance framework and the operationalization thereof into process guidelines. For each phase of the process, rationale and methods as well as outcomes are outlined.

A German Experience: The Challenges of Mediating ‘Ideal-Type’ Transition Management in Ludwigsburg

When the city of Ludwigsburg in Germany experimented with the transition management approach, it had already formulated ambitious sustainability strategies and programmes, institutionalised sustainability in a cross-sectional city department and established a variety of participatory processes to collect citizen input for strategic planning. In this chapter, we reflect on the transition management process in Ludwigsburg and its results against the backdrop of how ‘ideal-type’ transition management got mediated in a context with well-developed sustainability strategies and participatory planning processes. The case of transition management in Ludwigsburg reveals several issues that relate to a questioning of the distinctiveness of transition management as co-creation process, its ‘added value’ and its fit with existing policies and planning processes. The process outcomes might be an indication of challenges in that regard: the results were treated as ‘input’ to the city government’s plans, were not able to inspire ‘transformative’ thinking, did not result in concrete actions and, finally, roles and relationships of the city government vis-a-vis the citizens were largely re-confirmed. Nevertheless, the results do include new ideas about the future of Ludwigsburg, build on a systemic perspective and the experience with the new methodology triggered the involved policy officers to reflect on the city government’s current inflexible and narrow approaches to participation in city planning.