Narrative Of Transition Research Articles

Continuity in the face of change: Identifying three strategies for constructing stable masculinity in liminality.

We examined how men tell stories of masculinity, continuity, and change in the liminal context of moving between hometown and university. In nine in-depth semi-structured interviews with male students at an Irish university, participants were asked to describe their experiences moving between the places of home and university. We examined the functions of men's stories using a narrative approach to discourse analysis. We identified three strategies that university men use to construct and position the self in a narrative of transition: continuity through stability, continuity through resistance, and continuity through growth. We conclude that participants use all three strategies to construct 'authentic' masculinity. Therefore, a primary discursive goal in these men's talk about life transitions was to construct a stable and authentic masculine identity. Our findings foreground men's use of masculinity to maintain a coherent identity in response to liminal contexts. We highlight the importance of examining identity performance across liminal contexts and among other more disadvantaged groups to analyse different self and identity construction in stories of change. Findings are discussed in relation to stability and continuity as important discursive accomplishment for masculinity and other identities in liminality.

Gender and social class in study choice: narratives of youth transitions in Spain

ABSTRACTSocial inequality regarding gender and social class is a topic of long-term interest in social research. However, the intersections between the two variables in the reproduction of inequalities in the field of education require further investigation. The longitudinal research project ‘Social Inequality in Higher Education’ aims to shed light on these processes in Spain. In this article, we focus on the intersection of social class and gender in the transition from school-to-university, specifically on study choice. We show several gender differences, e.g. a male tendency to avoid displaying insecurity that may hamper their access to support, in particular in the intersection with lower social class. Thanks to our mixed-methods approach, combining focus groups and personal interviews from a longitudinal perspective, we are able to compare these methods regarding the gender and class differences they produce.

Hot off the press! A comparative media analysis of energy storage framing in Canadian newspapers

Energy storage (ES) is a keystone technology for advancing low-carbon energy transitions, yet energy system change continues to be influenced by socio-political acceptance of emerging innovations such as storage. An initial Canadian contribution to the social-scientific study of ES, we conduct a comparative media analysis of news coverage on storage technologies in the provinces of Alberta and Ontario. Applying the Socio-Political Evaluation of Energy Deployment (SPEED) framework, we analyse representations of ES risks and benefits in 143 articles drawn from top-circulating Canadian newspapers between 2007–2017. We then evaluate frame and narrative trends describing ES in these provinces. In doing so, we identify: (1) a generally optimistic national perspective on ES, despite regional variance in risk and benefit framing; (2) greater attention paid to high-profile, smaller-scale ES technologies; (3) a prominence of sustainability and transition narratives around ES; and (4) a positive temporal shift in ES discourse, reflecting changing regional energy priorities and Canada’s increasing commitment to clean energy development. Our findings provide insight on interprovincial differences in social perception on ES and identify possible drivers for these variations to help inform future ES research, deployment and policy strategies in Canada and other evolving national energy markets.

Choir Boy: Trans Vocal Performance and the De-Pathologization of Transition.

This paper will examine Choir Boy (2005), a trans coming-of-age novel by Charlie Anders, to disrupt historically rooted medical narratives of gender transition. Through a disability studies lens, this paper locates vocal performance as a means of speaking back to gatekeeping practices held in place by medical authorities since the inception of transsexuality as a classificatory category. Offering imaginative alternatives to "wrong body" diagnostics, this analysis places cultural texts in conversation with disability theory to reframe the trans self as a singing body that cannot be reduced to normalizing biomedical practices. Choir Boy frames vocal performance as a mode of gender expression and as a survival strategy against violence. The trans counter-narratives offered by Anders resist the medicalization of trans bodies and the classification of some bodies as not "trans enough" to qualify for transition. Choir Boy locates vocal performance and not binary gender identification as impetus for transition, thereby advocating for trans self-determination over medical access.

Just transition? Strategic framing and the challenges facing coal dependent communities

Policies designed to hasten the closure of high-emissions coal-fired power stations routinely include reference to the need for a ‘just’ transition in affected communities. But the detail of what a just transition might entail is rarely specified. This article examines how policy interventions in Australia in 2012–2013, as part of the Gillard government’s Clean Energy Future package, approached the problem of a just transition in the case of Victoria’s coal dependent Latrobe Valley. It describes how policymakers framed the issue as transition, adopted a regional scaling, and expanded the territorial arena of policy action. A stakeholder-based multilevel governance committee shrouded this top-down decision-making from public scrutiny. These moves made it possible to conjure a narrative of benign transition governed by market processes. The paper explains how these strategic framings sidelined local interests, misrepresented the issues, exacerbated local disempowerment, and enabled the redirection of re-distributional funding to communities that were not directly affected by the impending closure of coal-fired power stations. The perceived injustice of this process exposes the limitations of climate policy-related strategic issue, scale and place framing.

Shared Yet Contested: Energy Democracy Counter-Narratives

Conventional ways of communicating about the transition to renewable energy in North America presuppose that energy systems can be changed while sustaining existing social, political and economic relations. Energy democracy counters such ostensibly apolitical narratives by emphasizing the socially transformative potential of this transition. Yet energy democracy, as both organizing principle and social movement, is itself increasingly recognized as flexible and contested. This research seeks to better discern and understand the practices and implications of energy democracy and its variants through synthesis and qualitative analysis of transition counter-narratives drawn from public communications of energy democracy initiatives actively working in northeastern North America. Transition narratives are examined through four constituent elements: collective-action frames that define problems, solutions and motivations for sociotechnical change; discourses that describe values and norms of members of the communities of interest; sociotechnical imaginaries that describe and prescribe futures to be attained; and stories that connect past, present and future and identify specific agents and adversaries to change. The research finds a set of diverse organizations across the region taking up and giving shape to the concept and goals of energy democracy, revealing a convergence among these initiatives around commitments to a socially transformational shift to collectively-controlled renewable energy systems. A comparison of transition narratives suggests distinct and potentially competing approaches to energy democracy, or multiple energy democracies, described as local and regional communities, public partnerships, and social movements. These energy democracies express differences regarding social groups to be connected and empowered, theories of change and stability, form and specificity of institutional change, resistance to negative as well as promotion of positive agendas, and ability to work across scales. These differences can and perhaps must activate a productive tension among multiple energy democracies working for and within a democratized renewable energy future for this region. The paper broadly contributes to research on sustainability transitions by examining and comparing transition narratives at trans-national and sub-national levels, proposing a descriptive and analytical typology of transition counter-narratives, and initiating a data set for future research on regional social-ecological-technical systems to strengthen initiative-based practice and learning.

Do policy makers tell good stories? Towards a multi-layered framework for mapping and analysing policy narratives embracing futures

Faced with major global problems, public policies increasingly embrace narratives of systemic transition towards desired future. This article introduces a conceptual and analytical framework designed to reconstruct and analyse historical and prospective policy discourses on emerging societal challenges. The proposed Policy Narrative Framework Analysis (POLiFRAME) is novel in integrating frame analysis with the notion of theory of change connecting historical and prospective dimensions of policy narratives. The framework adds an emphasis on the selection and interpretation of empirical evidence to support policy narratives. Application of the framework is illustrated with a case study on frames and reframing of EU resource efficiency policy.

Aligning integrated assessment modelling with socio-technical transition insights: An application to low-carbon energy scenario analysis in Europe

In this study, we present and apply an interdisciplinary approach that systematically draws qualitative insights from socio-technical transition studies to develop new quantitative scenarios for integrated assessment modelling. We identify the transition narrative as an analytical bridge between socio-technical transition studies and integrated assessment modelling. Conceptual interaction is realised through the development of two contrasting transition narratives on the role of actors in meeting the European Unions' 80% greenhouse gas emission reduction objective for 2050. The first transition narrative outlines how large-scale innovation trajectories are driven by incumbent actors, whereas the second transition narrative assumes more ‘alternative’ strategies by new entrants with strong opposition to large-scale technologies. We use the multi-level perspective to draw out plausible storylines on actor positioning and momentum of change for several technological and social niche-innovations in both transition narratives. These storylines are then translated into quantitative scenarios for integrated assessment modelling. Although both developed transition pathways align with the European Union's low-carbon objective for 2050, we find that each pathway depicts a substantial departure from systems that are known to date. Future research could focus on further systematic (joint) development of operational links between the two analytical approaches, as well as work on improved representation of demand-oriented solutions in techno-economic modelling.

The afterlives of solar power: Waste and repair off the grid in Kenya

One neglected socio-cultural and political dimension to the rapid diffusion of solar power in Sub-Saharan Africa is the question of what happens when things fall apart. Investors in the small-scale renewable energy sector are increasingly concerned with the status of broken or non-functioning products and there is an emerging consensus around the need for centralised recycling systems as the solution to future flows of ‘solar waste’.But what does the afterlife of off-grid solar products look like from below? Grounded in anthropology, geography and economic sociology, this paper tracks the impact of off grid solar products through contexts of breakdown, repair, and disposal. Combining stakeholder interviews, a longitudinal survey of product failure rates in Kenya and ethnographic research at a repair workshop in the town of Bomet, we challenge narratives of energy transitions that fail to address the environmental consequences of mass consumption and present an alternative approach to solar waste embedded in cultures and economies of repair.

Bottom-Up Energy Transition Narratives: Linking the Global with the Local? A Comparison of Three German Renewable Co-Ops

Bottom-up transition narratives help to enable the implementation of energy transitions. Yet, scholarship shows that little light has been shed on how bottom-up transition narratives change during the course of transition. By proposing a framework that envisions bottom-up transition narratives, we analyze narratives on three German bottom-up renewable energy initiatives to address this gap. Relying on semi-structured interviews with innovators and adopters, we show that, during the establishment phase, the analyzed narratives take non-place-bound factors like climate change as a point of contention. At the same time, narratives underscore place-bound factors as, for instance, civil society’s knowledge and participation as means for an alternative, non-rent-seeking energy system. During the adoption phase, the analyzed narratives travel easily. This represents a paradox because bottom-up energy transition narratives move beyond their local, place-bound origin in order to be reproduced in different spatial settings. By so doing, bottom-up energy transition narratives diverge from their original message. By falling short on the promotion of citizen’s participation, they begin to promote sociotechnical systems that differ little from the sociotechnical systems from competing, rent-seeking energy industries during the innovation adoption pathway. Our comparative approach outlines how bottom-up energy transition narratives adapt to this trade-off during innovation adoption events. We discuss what this means for bottom-up energy transitions and conclude that bottom-up energy transition narratives are faced with a fixity–travel dilemma during the adoption phase.

Cutting Camp with Killing: ‘Bad’ Feelings, Refusing Respectability, and Homeopathic Camp

This essay argues that Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives (dir. Israel Luna, 2010, hereafter TOTWK) uses homeopathic trans camp to re-mediate the phobic traumas that trans people face. TOTWK reworks its exploitation cinema aesthetic roots, turning traumas committed against trans people and the ‘bad’ feelings they espouse into homeopathic methods of healing trans bodies, both cinematic and material, through the practice of introjection. Building on philosophies of homeopathy and theories of body camp TOTWK explicates new modes of working through trauma that do not conform to individualistic social norms or to LGBT respectability politics, decentering medicalized, pathologized narratives of transition and trans embodiment.

Deep entanglements: History, space and (energy) struggle in the German Energiewende

This paper contributes to recent debates in energy geography, especially to energy transition research and literature, by developing a critical and empirically grounded understanding of energy transitions as expressions of contentious socio-spatial politics, past and present. The paper argues that historical struggles and contentious political practices around energy, so called energy struggles, continue to inform the ongoing and dynamic socio-spatial politics of energy transitions today and often manifest themselves in transition narratives. This analysis is supported by qualitative empirical materials derived from recent fieldwork in Berlin, Germany, which was conducted within the broader left-green movement for a socio-ecological and democratic German Energiewende. A historicisation of contentious politics and energy struggles facilitates an empirically robust framing of energy transition projects as dynamic, multi-actor, and more than eco-technical processes. The paper’s contribution to energy geographies is threefold; firstly, utilising an empirically robust and historically sensitive analysis of the German Energiewende, the paper explores the deep entanglements of history, space and struggle in energy transitions. Secondly, the paper emphasises the need to understand energy transitions as constituted by energy struggles and contentious politics, past and present. Thirdly, the paper examines emergent spaces of energy democracy as part of the Energiewende and explores recent energy democracy demands as a spatial politics of energy transitions.

Narratives of biorefinery innovation for the bioeconomy: Conflict, consensus or confusion?

Transition narratives are stories promoting particular pathways for development, promoting specific actions, strategies, and interventions to enable certain outcomes in socio-technical transitions. Narratives centered around biorefineries take a significant role in the growing bioeconomy discourse, yet they express remarkably different visions for the transition. The paper uses Q methodology to identify and analyse transition narratives related to biorefinery innovation, their domains of conflict and consensus, and implications for alternative pathways of development. The analysis shows that the narratives are divided on three aspects: the significance of different kinds of products, the importance of generating new or applying current knowledge, and the need for a comprehensive agenda of state interventions to support a transition towards a bioeconomy. Pathways to very different bioeconomies are indeed open, but policy should remain attentive to the existing conflicts and not presume consensus among actors who claim to support innovation for a bioeconomy.

The diverse nature of living apart together relationships: an Italy–France comparison

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the nature of living apart together (LAT) relationships by focusing on two contrasting family settings: France and Italy. First, we corroborate the view that being “single” in residential terms does not mean being “without a partner” in relationship terms. To assume otherwise would be an erroneous characterisation of more than one quarter of the individuals in both countries. Second, our findings cannot be reconciled with any notion of a simple, uniform, and uni-directional view of LAT relationships. In Italy, LAT relationships are popular in the early phases of the life course, when young adults must often face difficult economic situations as well as social pressure to marry. In France, LAT relationships are more the result of a conscious choice, especially in later phases of the life course. We discuss these results in light of the second demographic transition narrative.

‘How will i know when i’m ready?’ re-imagining FE/HE ‘transitions’ as collaborative identity work

Drawing on the findings of a Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) funded, multi-institutional, regional project, Transitions West Midlands, this paper works with Further Education (FE) students’ transition narratives as they look forward to, and back from the move from FE to HE and explores the role of the local, contextual factors that impact on the student transition experience. We mobilise Reay et al’s notion of ‘institutional habitus’ to draw attention to the discourses about transition at play within the institutional context and explore how these function to pattern and frame students’ world figuring and concept making, about what ‘transition’ might be like. We notice the dominance of a nebulous but fixed/stable concept of skill acquisition, understood as ‘HE readiness’ that drives particular approaches to student identity work characterised by self-recognitions of deficit, not being ‘ready’ or ‘good enough’ to transition. Readiness, we contend, works paradoxically to background and under-value the assets, for example the resilience associated with managing competing demands and navigating complexity, that students might bring to ‘transition events’. We trace the reproduction of this mis-recognition in students’ reports of their interactions with teachers, which play out, in turn, equally limiting narratives of FE teacher identity. By way of response we suggest that re-imagining ‘transition’ as essentially social, a process of becoming, rather than skills acquisition might re-position students and their teachers as more active, agentic protagonists in the narratives they make, and make available, about what transition can and might mean. In this sense, working reflexively together to understand transition as identity work might enable students and teachers to recover, recognise and put to work the rich assortment of assets and resources that students bring to the process of FE/HE transition.

Contentious politics in the European (post-socialist)(semi-)periphery: Mapping rebellion and social protests in southeast and eastern Europe

This essay takes a critical and reflective look at two recently published books on contentious politics in the Balkans and Eastern Europe: Social Movements in the Balkans (ed. by F. Bieber and D. Brentin, Routledge 2018) and Ideology and Social Protests in Eastern Europe (V. Stoyanova, Routledge 2018). Focusing on regions somewhat neglected in scholarly analyses of the recent global upsurge of protests, these books aim to fill the gap by highlighting some contextual and regional specificities: a position of economic and geo-political (semi)periphery, weak or unconsolidated democratic institutions, post-socialist and transitional environments, societal (ethnic) divisions, etc. By critically assessing both contributions, in a manner that looks for their complementarity, this essay: examines the characteristics of popular mobilizations and grievances in Southeast and Eastern Europe; questions dominant narratives of political and economic transition and EU integration; re-evaluates socialist heritage and post-socialist political trajectories; discusses the (im) possibilities of articulating political alternatives to representative democracy and free market economy; and addresses the burden of conflicting memories and attitudes towards the region?s socialist past (and, in case of post-Yugoslav states, ethnic conflicts from the 1990s).

Femininities and masculinities in highly skilled migration: Peruvian graduates’ narratives of employment transitions and binational marriages in Switzerland

Biographic research about migrant’s gender identities grasps tendencies of normativity change chronologically and transnationally. Transition to employment stories of Peruvian graduates from Swiss universities evoke continuities and changes in femininities and masculinities from Peru to Switzerland. Binational marriages that mediate employment transition after graduation play an ambivalent role in the attainment of jobs commensurate to skills. Career, partner, and care are key elements of transgressing and reinforcing non/hegemonic masculinities and un/desirable femininities from super scientist women to failing male breadwinners. Feminization of highly skilled migration from Peru is linked to urban middle classes where femininities are increasingly based on career advancement. However, these professional-oriented femininities might be neutralized in favour of care-oriented femininities from family models in Switzerland. While Peruvian female graduates constructed an ideal of care/career integration predominantly, male counterparts emphasized the risk of career success at the expense of partnership.

Network Connections and Neighbourhood Perception: Using Social Media Postings to Capture Attitudes among Twitter Users in Estonia

Abstract The residential landscape of a city is key to its economic, social, and cultural functioning. Following the collapse of communist rule in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in the late 1980s and early 1990s, urban residential dynamics and household mobility have been critical to urban change under new economies and political systems. This article explores neighbourhood perception, which is a link in the chain to better explanation of socio-spatial processes (and their interruption by the socialist system). We use a novel data set – opinions expressed on one of social media (Twitter), and a novel empirical method – neural network analysis, to explore people’s current attitudes and perceptions about the neighbourhoods and districts in Tartu, Estonia. The findings suggest that Twitter comments about urban neighbourhoods display attitudinal and perceptual commentary, which is subdued compared to other subjects. The socialist goal of homogeneity in neighbourhoods is not reflected in present day perspectives about urban neighbourhoods, 25 years after the disintegration of the USSR. Ambivalence about neighbourhoods persists, but this ambivalence may be in flux. Older, formerly neglected neighbourhoods, the subject of positive perception on social media, are currently experiencing increased investment, and the observed trends in our data support a narrative of neighbourhood transition.

Storifying Samsø’s Renewable Energy Transition

ABSTRACTThrough a joint community effort Denmark’s Renewable Energy Island Samsø became self-sufficient with renewable energy over a period of 10 years from 1997 to 2007. Today, the story about Samsø’s successful energy transition has become a global export and a widely known model of community building, public participation and shared ownership in renewable energy technologies and transition processes. What has allowed the Samsø narrative to travel so widely has been the effective ‘transition story’ created about the islanders’ efforts. This transition story, however, has become fixed with the years and has assumed an ideal-typical character. Meanwhile, the challenges and costs inherent in the complicated socio-material process of transition are underestimated and largely forgotten. While such transition stories are indeed inspiring, the ideal-typical narrative may stand in the way of the development of further local energy transitions, as challenging elements of the process are downplayed to strengthen the narrative power of the story. Ethnographic stories about Samsø complicate the island’s transition narrative and add nuance to the Samsø story, highlighting its discrepancies and problematizing the effects of such well-crafted transition narratives. This tendency toward the ‘storification’ of transition processes is not restricted to Samsø; it is employed as a tactics by environmental organizations operating globally.

Por uma historiografia literária sentimental: formação e modernidade em Antonio Candido

Este artigo pretende realizar uma análise da historiografia literária de Antonio Candido, expressa em Formação da literatura brasileira (1959). Compreender a arquitetura textual de Candido como uma narrativa de passagem, na qual são selecionados os momentos decisivos da literatura brasileira, indica uma permanente tensão entre tradição e modernidade e o caráter incompleto de nossa formação literária. Assim, de maneira a abarcar a relação entre tradição e modernidade, fundadora de uma literatura nacional, propomos uma chave de leitura schilleriana. Desse modo, talvez seja possível, a partir da passagem de uma literatura de traço ingênuo para uma de caráter sentimental, identificar o sentido da teoria da formação da literatura brasileira expressa por Candido