Social-ecological Transformation Research Articles

Degrowth in the Semi-Periphery: Ecology and Class in Central and Eastern Europe

The aim of this extended review essay is to discuss the potential relevance of degrowth-aligned social-ecological transformation for the specific context of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). We frame this discussion around three recent books which we consider especially useful for this debate: The Future is Degrowth by Schmelzer et al. (2022, in Czech 2023) for an up-to-date and comprehensive overview of the concept of degrowth; Marx in the Anthropocene by Saito (2023) for an ecologically grounded debate on anticapitalist strategies stemming from writings of late Marx; and The Political Economy of Middle Class Politics and the Global Crisis in Eastern Europe by Gagyi (2021) that empirically analyses the specific position of the CEE semiperiphery and its implications for a radical social-ecological transformation. We introduce and interlink the main ideas of these books and discuss their implications for the degrowth movement in the CEE context. We argue that to deeply transform our socio-metabolic relation with nature, it is crucial to cultivate and expand spaces of reproductive autonomy, and link them to struggles of labour and social movements. We conclude by emphasising the role of internationalism from below.

Integration of Acceptability Analyses into an Adaptive Landscape Co-Design and Management Approach—The Acceptability and Landscape Design Cycle (ALDC)

Acceptability analyses of place-based innovations provide crucial in-depth knowledge (e.g., perceptions and values on landscapes) for the social–ecological transformation of landscapes. However, previous acceptability analyses often neglected complex and ongoing processes. We argue that, for the design of a sustainability-oriented transformation and to address spatial and temporal dynamics in landscapes, an operational heuristic is needed; one that integrates acceptability analyses into an adaptive landscape co-design and management approach. Therefore, this conceptual–empirical paper introduces the concept of the ‘acceptability and landscape design cycle’ (ALDC), which is based on findings from various transdisciplinary innovation processes in the Spreewald region (Germany). It is composed of four iterative phases: (1) defining the preconditions for acceptability analysis, (2) conducting the acceptability analysis, (3) integrating the results into the landscape development strategy, and (4) re-designing and refining it. We illustrate the application of these phases using a case study of the cultural landscape in Spreewald. The paper provides practical implementation guidelines of the ALDC and contributes to a better understanding of the dynamics of acceptability decisions regarding the transformation processes of landscapes. Furthermore, it can advance the understanding of how co-evolution of socio-ecological systems occurs.

Art, science, and life: where arts-based research and social-ecological transformation can meet

Arts-based research offers an innovative approach to today’s social-ecological challenges. Many authors ascertain the transformative power of arts-based research lies in its ability to generate holistic and collaborative encounters which facilitate change. To advance critical discussions around arts-based research, the following article opens up pockets of success as well as the limitations and failures of the My Mabopane photovoice project. This project intended to support urban transformation in the City of Tshwane, South Africa, by asking participants to photograph and reflect upon a nearby green space afflicted with various social and environmental challenges. Results suggest alternative ways of knowing, which contribute to transformative learning, can link arts-based research to social-ecological transformation. However, despite this promising pathway, analyses also reveal realizing social-ecological transformation with arts-based research is no walk in the park. Rather problematic assumptions around knowledge and knowledge production, emerging in tensions between art and science, often trump the emancipatory intentions of photovoice. And broader structural challenges, that arts-based research situates itself in and against, pose a strong barrier for social-ecological transformation. In response to these barriers, this article argues for a collaborative arts-based research practice centering community realities on multiple scales via a merging of art, science, and life.

Rereading the Wages for Housework Campaign: Feminist Degrowth Reflections on Social Reproduction, Commons, and a Care Income

Abstract This paper explores how debates on wages for housework in the 1970s contribute to current discourses on redefining, redistributing, and revaluing care. More specifically, this paper asks: How does a rereading of the international Wages for Housework (WfH) campaign contribute to feminist degrowth debates on commoning care and a care income? In trying to answer this question, I revisit original literature and interpretations of WfH and show that, as a Marxist feminist political perspective, the aim of the campaign ventured beyond the monetization of care. Subsequently, I elaborate on the now divergent ideas of Selma James and Silvia Federici, two of the campaign's main founders, of how to re-actualize the transformative aim of the campaign. Their two proposals, namely, a care income and reproductive commons, are introduced, brought into conversation with each other, and critically discussed against the background of Nancy Fraser's distinction between affirmative and transformative strategies of transformation. Exploring the fertile tension between a care income and commoning care, I draw preliminary conclusions on what feminist degrowth can learn from WfH regarding a social-ecological transformation to a more socially just and ecologically sound economic system.

Price-making in provisioning systems and social-ecological transformation? The cases of the electric vehicle metals copper, cobalt, and lithium

Research and debates around mineral extraction in the context of social-ecological transformation have to date dedicated limited attention to price-making. Drawing on the provisioning systems approach, this article assesses price-making in mineral provisioning as contested processes. We argue that price-making is not an objective or solely technical process taking place on abstract markets but rather it is, first, reflective of power struggles over specific rules and devices between different actors, embedded in social relations, network practices, and institutions and, second, linked to the materialities of commodities and the territorial and organizational forms of their provisioning. Empirically, we analyze the “electric vehicle metals” copper, cobalt, and lithium for which derivative markets are intensifying their role as price-determination institutions linked particularly to the interest of financial actors in getting price exposure. The article criticizes current shifts to benchmark- and derivative markets-based price-determination. This approach focuses on short-term demand and supply considerations without considering local producer-region production specificities, broader economic impacts, and environmental and social costs and risks. Moreover, it fails to address the long-term insecurities related to resource depletion. With financial actors dominating price-determination on derivative markets, prices deviate even from such a narrow fundamental demand and supply perspective, increasing volatility and short-termism. Alternative price-making mechanisms are needed, together with other policies for social-ecological transformation which requires political regulation embedded in democratic decision-making. Methodologically, the article is based on production, trade, and financial data and semi-structured interviews with representatives of price-determination institutions, metal-provisioning systems, and producer countries.

Framing social–ecological transformation as a geographical concept

AbstractGlobal challenges call for timely social–ecological transformation. There is a substantial amount of literature on social–ecological transformation, increasingly replacing and going beyond ‘sustainability’. However, the concept itself is used very inconsistently. This paper aims at identifying and systematizing the strains of argumentation that encompass the social–ecological transformation. Adding German‐speaking literature to the Anglophone debate, we systematize as we follow the concept's genesis to its varieties of use within context‐based (spatial, temporal, and societal) disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary debates. Building on the various strands of contemporary use, this paper aims at contouring the epistemologies of the concept. Lastly, we illustrate the roles of geographical research approaches and the assigned methodology. We argue that the strands tend to drift apart and cannot be seen nor used as a singular uniform approach. We identify the key dimensions of how scholars use social–ecological transformation, unearthing underlying epistemologies. To conclude, we delineate key elements that geographical research on social–ecological transformation must address, laying the foundation for further scholarly debate.

Reconnecting with the social-political and ecological-economic reality

This article critically reflects on the research portfolio by the ecological economist Clive Spash who has helped pinpoint specific and systemic blindspots in a political-economic system that prioritises myopic development trajectories divorced from ecological reality. Drawing on his published work and collaborations it seeks to make sense of the slow, or absent, progress in averting global warming and ecological destruction. Three strands of key concern and influence are identified and discussed with reference to their orientation and explicit expression regarding Ontology, Epistemology and Axiology. Some complementary points about indeterminacy and holism are presented to further strengthen the arguments for a transition towards a social-ecological economic system that puts values and principles back into focus. While Clive Spash's work has made a strong case within the economic community and appealing to ecology professionals, the value-myopia or value-vacuum has to be tackled across all disciplines, politics and society for a meaningful and urgently required transformation in decision making. Hence, the article finishes with some suggestions for the (higher) education system, and highlights the importance of simplicity and sufficiency, as well as strong sustainability-driven citizen and community action as necessary catalysts of change in this social-ecological transformation.

Exploring economic dimensions of social ecological crises: A reply to special issue papers

In this paper I consider various shifts in my research and understanding stimulated by seeking how to combat social ecological crises connected to modern economies. The discussion and critical reflections are structured around five papers that were submitted to Environmental Values in an open call to address my work. A common aspect is the move away from neoclassical environmental economics, and its reductionist monetary valuation, to a more realist theory and multiple methods. This relates to my work on environmental ethics, plural values, stated preference validity and deliberative monetary valuation. Expanding beyond the narrow confines of mainstream orthodoxy has involved exploring a range of other disciplines (e.g. applied philosophy, social psychology, human geography, political science, social anthropology, history of thought and philosophy of science) and learning from this literature to rethink economics and develop social ecological economics. A broad range of subjects are covered here, including: personal responsibility, social practice, psychology of the individual, participatory processes, value (intrinsic, instrumental and relational), Nature–society relationships and interdependencies, critical realism and the conduct of unifying interdisciplinary science. I end with a series of comments concerning the failings of orthodox economics and the conduct of scientific research for social ecological transformation.

World-making technology entangled with coloniality, race and gender: Ecomodernist and degrowth perspectives

Impelled by the intertwined expansion of capitalist institutions and fossil-fueled industry, human activity has made devastating impacts on ecosystems and earth systems. The colonial, class, racial, and gender systems that coevolved with these historical processes have long been critiqued for engineering exploitation and inequality. Yet the technologies with which these systems interact are widely portrayed as neutral and nonpartisan. This paper interrogates the purported independence of technology on two fronts. First, it uses a political ecology lens to illuminate some ways in which the generation and application of technology have been historically entangled with colonial, racial, and gender systems. Second, it considers how those entanglements have been variously obscured, acknowledged, depoliticized, and/or politicized in two realms of thought and practice: ecomodernism and degrowth. Conclusions call for bringing creative innovation of ecomodernism together with degrowth commitment to just social–ecological transformation.

Thinking about social-ecological transformation through the structure of Paul’s messianic life

Thinking about social-ecological transformation through the structure of Paul’s messianic life

Mentalities, classes and the four lines of conflict in the social-ecological transformation

AbstractIn this article, we argue that current societal struggles about whether and how eco-social policy and politics should be implemented to tackle the interlinked challenges of climate change and inequality are an expression of the main societal conflict of our times: the social-ecological transformation conflict. We identify four lines of conflict in the social-ecological transformation and explore how they are related to classes and mentalities. In the theoretical part, we conceptualize classes in social space and mentalities through a Bourdieusian relational approach. We also discuss the location of the four lines of conflict in social space. In the empirical part, we analyze survey data from Germany. Firstly, we find eight mentalities among respondents reflecting their views on various eco-social topics. Secondly, we construct the social space with socio-economic variables for the economic and cultural capital of the respondents. Thirdly, we plot the mentalities in the social space. The results show that the cultural middle class is in favor of eco-social policy, while the upper class and the economic middle class prefer green growth and ecological modernization. The lower-class fractions are skeptical of any transformation because they distrust institutions and cannot bear the transformation costs.

Barriers and interventions for healthy and climate-friendly living for vulnerable groups

Abstract Background The climate crisis constitutes the largest threat to public health in the 21st century. Against this background co -beneficial measures for climate mitigation and health promotion can offer the opportunity for necessary transformative change, especially in terms of active mobility, sustainable food systems and spatial planning. Vulnerable groups are in particular affected by health burdens and limited in their scope of action regarding climate-friendly and healthy practices, making the identification of barriers and necessary structural changes especially important for vulnerable groups. Methods Within the framework of a narrative literature review, a policy analysis, and a complementary co-production workshop with representatives of vulnerable groups have been conducted. To identify essential measures amongst the core themes mobility, food system and spatial planning, the analysis included actual barriers and necessary structural changes for more health equity and climate mitigation. Results Based on our analytical framework different measures, especially requirements in terms of infrastructure, for all three fields of action (mobility, food system, and spatial planning) are needed. At the policy level, insufficient integration of public health aspects in other policy areas is evident, in particular due to a closed silo structure of different public authorities. Conclusions To shape transformative changes toward healthy and climate-friendly living, at policy level, long-term goal-oriented thinking that goes beyond legislative and funding periods is needed in order to be able to implement structural changes. Likewise, there is a need for fiscal policy measures in the sense of a socially just and ecological transformation. Also investments in physical infrastructure (e.g. bicycle parking, low-priced offers of healthy and sustainable restaurants) are essential for a social-ecological transformation. Key messages • Healthy and climate-friendly environments for vulnerable groups are in the need for the needed transformation. • Using co-benefits between health promotion and climate mitigation measures.

Understanding the bioeconomy through its instruments: standardizing sustainability, neoliberalizing bioeconomies?

Sustainability standards have been one of the hopefuls for decades when it comes to ensuring the sustainability of biomass for the bioeconomy, especially in the wake of their evolvement from voluntary, non-governmental to hybrid, public–private governance instruments in recent years. In addition to doubts regarding their legitimacy and effectiveness, however, they have also been associated with a neoliberalization of nature that integrates natural resources into a free market logic. Drawing on a conceptual framework that builds on political ecology and the political sociology of policy instruments, this paper challenges this notion. To this end, it examines sustainability standards in three countries/regions particularly prominent for the bioeconomy—the EU, Brazil, and Indonesia—to illustrate how these can be differentiated in terms of their neoliberal orientation, and what can be inferred from this for the orientation and state of the respective bioeconomies. The results show that the introduction of sustainability standards is not necessarily accompanied by a neoliberalization of nature. Rather, it is shown that the standards and their specific designs—and thus also their intrinsic understanding of sustainability as integration—are primarily intended to serve the material interests of the state and the respective industrial factions, for which neoliberal configurations are sometimes seen as rather obstructive, sometimes as rather useful. The sustainability standards, and thus the bioeconomies for which they stand, therefore, rather serve as instruments to stay on the path of modernization and industrial development already taken or envisaged, or, put differently, as strategies to avoid social–ecological transformation.

Pluriversity, Epistemic Selectivity and Social Ecological Transformation: The Example of Latin American Universities

Pluriversity, Epistemic Selectivity and Social Ecological Transformation: The Example of Latin American Universities

The transformative potential of Seed Commons: Applying the social-ecological transformation framework to agri-food systems

In this paper, we argue that small initiatives can contribute to larger transformations if they challenge and unmake incumbent unsustainable paradigms, and we demonstrate how the application of the social-ecological transformation framework helps to operationalize the analysis of paradigm shifts across different levels of transformation. Empirically, we assess the contribution of Seed Commons initiatives to agri-food systems transformations, taking the case of the organic breeding association Kultursaat e.V. At the macro level, the analysis reveals that the paradigms of ‘materialistic culture and growth’, ‘control and autonomy of humans over nature’ and ‘expert knowledge and specialization’ are deeply embedded in the dominant agri-food system. Kultursaat challenges them by promoting alternative narratives such as agroecology, food sovereignty, farmers' rights and resilience. At the micro and meso level, we apply a set of evaluation principles that reveal the transformative character and partial transformative impact of Seed Commons. Applying the framework to agri-food systems can bring an enhanced theoretical understanding of dynamics of change into the agri-food transformation discourse, link small-scale initiatives to wider processes of transformation, and provide a systematic research approach to enhance comparability across case studies. The framework is well suited to bring together even evolving transformation literatures.

The dilemma of “sustainable welfare” and the problem of the future in capacitating social policy

This article discusses a dilemma of welfare states in the ecological transition. While the principle of “sustainability” is increasingly accepted, there are very different concrete declinations of it. I identify two broad interpretations of sustainability and corresponding paths of social change. The dominant approach, promoted by governments, businesses, and international organizations focuses on inclusive green growth. It aims to decouple economic growth from environmental degradation and seeks to make the transition to a green economy as socially inclusive as possible. In this context, “enabling” social policies mainly focus on employment promotion. The second approach, mostly embraced by heterodox academics and social movements, involves a deeper social-ecological transformation which attempts to lower the priority of economic growth and employment. Accordingly, the role of capacitating welfare states is to enable all individuals to flourish in a post-productivist society. I argue that while the second approach is normatively superior to the first one, it is also more difficult to realize, generating a dilemma for future-oriented politics.

Showcasing the multifaceted aspects of agricultural transformation: The example of mountain oases in Oman.

In the Anthropocene the consequences of land-use transformation on ecosystem services are of growing concern, particularly in fragile areas of mountain agriculture that often represent high nature-value farmland. This study uses a decadal repeated survey approach to analyse the effects of modernisation on oasis systems in the Jabal Al Akhdar region of northern Oman. This rugged mountain region at the north-eastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula experiences a growing influx of regional and international tourists since the opening of a modern highway 15 years ago. In 2007, at the onset of transformation processes, a survey was conducted with all households (HH) located in three major settlements along the 1000-m-altitude gradient of the Wadi Muaydin watershed. The survey was repeated in 2018, including all remaining HH of the three settlements. This longitudinal approach allowed studying the consequences of social-ecological transformation processes on crop and livestock husbandry, agricultural labour use, product marketing, and perception of the region's future by its local residents. Though the village inhabitants are aging and declining in numbers, they still adhere to agriculture, largely because of tradition and identity. Fallowing and abandoning farmland increased over the investigated time span but was paralleled by increased application of agrochemicals and animal manure on fields, purchase of roughage and concentrate feeds for small ruminants, concentration on cash crop and meat production for sale, and increased employment of migrant workers. These indicators of modernisation of oasis agriculture are accompanied by predominantly pessimistic views on future prospects of oasis farming. Commonly perceived problems are shortage of irrigation water and profound societal change. Against these challenges, value chain generation and direct marketing opportunities for local agricultural produce are seen as prerequisites to keep the high nature-value farmland of these mountain oases alive.

The bioeconomy and its untenable growth promises: reality checks from research

This paper starts out from the observation that recent official bioeconomy strategies and policy concepts are markedly more moderate in their promises of economic growth compared to the high-flying expectations of a ‘biotech revolution’ promoted around the turn of the millennium. We argue that this stepwise process of moderation is partly due to a series of ‘reality checks’ to which various strands of research on the bioeconomy have (willingly or unwillingly) subjected these promises, forcing governments to move away from visions exposed as unrealistic and to adopt more humble ones. We identify four such ‘reality checks’, originating from research on (a) bioeconomy discourses and knowledges, (b) contestation and power dynamics among actors and competing interests in bioeconomy politics and policymaking, as well as on (c) the economic and (d) biophysical dimensions of existing bio-based economies. In conclusion, we argue that bioeconomy research should adopt a broader perspective that considers transitions toward bio-based processes and resources as but one element in a comprehensive social–ecological transformation of current modes of production and living, and that understanding the dynamics of societal conflict around that transformation is crucial for assessing the social possibility of bioeconomy visions.

Autonomous Innovations in Rural Communities in Developing Countries III-Leverage Points of Innovations and Enablers of Social-Ecological Transformation

To address the complex and difficult challenges that are occurring in complex social-ecological systems, a transformation toward sustainable futures is required. Understanding the characteristics and functions of leverage points (LPs), which bring about significant changes in complex systems, will greatly contribute to the various practices toward achieving sustainable futures. We conducted a detailed analysis of 15 cases of autonomous innovations emerging among vulnerable sectors in six countries to contribute to understanding the mechanisms of transformation of social-ecological systems by identifying the characteristics and functions of LPs. We found that three types of LPs with different characteristics play their roles in a multi-layered and interrelated manner in the emergence processes of autonomous innovations. These LPs contributed to the improvement of various aspects of well-being and facilitated the transformation of the social-ecological systems by enhancing the five previously proposed enabler categories. The multi-layered and interrelated functioning of LPs promotes the enhancement of various aspects of human well-being and strengthens the enabler categories. These were found to be important mechanisms for the transformation of social-ecological systems. Based on these results, we derive nine guiding principles for the conditions and mechanisms of transformation. These results indicate that a deeper study of autonomous innovation through an LP lens could make a significant contribution to solving or mitigating the wicked problems faced by humanity.

Deglobalisierung, Rekonfiguration oder Business as Usual? COVID-19 und die Grenzen der Rückverlagerung globalisierter Produktion

ZusammenfassungDie wirtschaftlichen Erschütterungen infolge der COVID-19-Pandemie scheinen die Notwendigkeit einer geografischen Restrukturierung und Rückverlagerung der Produktion zu bestärken, führten sie doch die Verwundbarkeit der globalisierten Produktionsstrukturen vor Augen. Der Beitrag geht den Auswirkungen von COVID-19 auf die Geografie globaler Produktionsnetzwerke nach. In Abgrenzung zu unterkomplexen Perspektiven auf die Globalisierung wird deren multiskalarer und politisch gestalteter Charakter hervorgehoben. Basierend auf diesen theoretischen Überlegungen und Fallstudien zur Automobil‑, Elektronik- und Bekleidungsindustrie wird gefolgert, dass die COVID-19-Pandemie nicht als Auslöser für einen allgemeinen Rückbau der globalen Fertigung interpretiert werden kann, wohl aber bereits länger anhaltende Verschiebungen hin zu multipolaren Produktions- und Konsumstrukturen verstärkt. Zwar hat das Thema der Resilienz globaler Produktionsnetzwerke eine größere Aufmerksamkeit in der strategischen Planung von Unternehmen und der Industriepolitik von Staaten erhalten. Eine verstärkte Lokalisierung und Regionalisierung von Produktionsnetzwerken ist jedoch nur eine Strategie von mehreren und wurde bis jetzt kaum implementiert. Anhaltende Störungen der Lieferketten, steigende Transportkosten und vor allem geo- und umweltpolitisch motivierte Politiken könnten aber durchaus zu einem stärkeren Re- oder Nearshoring führen. Politische Bestrebungen in diese Richtung werden jedoch limitiert durch gewachsene weltwirtschaftliche Entwicklungspfade und die mit ihnen verbundenen Kräfteverhältnisse. Im Ausblick betont der Beitrag die Notwendigkeit einer umfassenden politisch motivierten Restrukturierung globaler Produktionsnetzwerke im Kontext der dringend gebotenen sozial-ökologischen Transformation.