Abstract
Literatures on sustainability transition and transformation increasingly emphasise the role of spatiality and local agency. This paper argues that relational thinking has much more to offer this debate than presently acknowledged, particularly in revealing the geographical interconnections between dispersed nodes of action and innovation. We use relationality to show the interconnections at work in exchanging and negotiating sustainability interventions between cities and across scales. Using the mass transit planning process in Addis Ababa as a point of entry, we trace how the city’s transformation is negotiated at the intersection of local agency, the Ethiopian national political setting and international networks. A host of actors from different scales come together as transformation is assembled by aligning extensive local experience with elements mobilised from elsewhere. This relational mobilisation perspective arguably infuses hope into the debate, because it opens new ways of identifying seemingly insignificant actions and actors elsewhere and recognising them as potential drivers of change.
Highlights
The need for rapid and deep societal transformation to respond to climate change has spurred a vibrant academic debate on conditions, contexts and pathways for EPD: Society and Space 39(2)transformation
This paper contributes to the ongoing efforts to conceptualise and analyse the work involved in engendering deliberate sustainability transformations
Our distinct contribution in this debate has been to develop a perspective on transformation as relational mobilisation
Summary
The need for rapid and deep societal transformation to respond to climate change has spurred a vibrant academic debate on conditions, contexts and pathways for EPD: Society and Space 39(2)transformation. Recent scholarship traces the emergence of new climate governance arrangements that build on voluntary climate action through loosely co-ordinated public, private and civic initiatives (Biermann et al, 2017; Castan Broto and Bulkeley, 2013; Marvin et al, 2018). These efforts have exposed a rich undergrowth of local agency that was previously concealed in national and multilateral accounts of climate governance. This literature has less to say about the relational dynamics of how transformations are mobilised across space. The key questions are essentially spatial: Where does innovation take place? How is change mobilised to other places or scales, and by whom? How do particular interventions interact with local contexts, and how are they materialised through longer-term change?
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
