| 1. |
- Hebinck, Aniek, et al.
(författare)
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Imagining transformative futures : participatory foresight for food systems change
- 2018
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 23:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Transformations inherently involve systems change and because of the political nature of change, are subject to contestation. A potentially effective strategy to further transformative change that builds on interdisciplinary, multiactor, and multiscalepractices and values is the use of foresight. Foresight covers a wide range of methods to systematically investigate the future. Foresight exercises offer collaborative spaces and have the potential to conceptualize and even initiate transformative change. But there is no clear understanding of the possibilities and limitations of foresight in this regard. This explorative paper builds on foresight and sociology and interrogates the role of foresight in transformative change, building on four cases. These cases are embedded in different contexts and characterized by different organizational approaches and constellations of actors. Nevertheless, they share the common goal of transformative food systems change. By reflecting on the processes that play a role in foresight workshops, we analyze what created conditions for transformative change in these four empirical cases. We have operationalized these conditions by distinguishing layers in the structuring processes that influence the impact of the foresight process. Based on this analysis, we conclude that there are three roles, ranging from modest to more ambitious, that foresight can play in transformative change: preconceptualization of change; offering an avenue for the creation of new actor networks; and creation of concrete strategies with a high chance of implementation. Furthermore, contributing to future design of foresight processes for transformative change, we offer some crucial points to consider before designing foresight processes. These include the role of leading change makers (including researchers), the risk of co-option by more regime-driven actors, and the ability to attract stakeholders to participate.
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| 2. |
- Bustamante, Mercedes, et al.
(författare)
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Ten new insights in climate science 2023
- 2023
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Ingår i: Global Sustainability. - : CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS. - 2059-4798. ; 7
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Non-technical summary We identify a set of essential recent advances in climate change research with high policy relevance, across natural and social sciences: (1) looming inevitability and implications of overshooting the 1.5 degrees C warming limit, (2) urgent need for a rapid and managed fossil fuel phase-out, (3) challenges for scaling carbon dioxide removal, (4) uncertainties regarding the future contribution of natural carbon sinks, (5) intertwinedness of the crises of biodiversity loss and climate change, (6) compound events, (7) mountain glacier loss, (8) human immobility in the face of climate risks, (9) adaptation justice, and (10) just transitions in food systems.Technical summary The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Reports provides the scientific foundation for international climate negotiations and constitutes an unmatched resource for researchers. However, the assessment cycles take multiple years. As a contribution to cross- and interdisciplinary understanding of climate change across diverse research communities, we have streamlined an annual process to identify and synthesize significant research advances. We collected input from experts on various fields using an online questionnaire and prioritized a set of 10 key research insights with high policy relevance. This year, we focus on: (1) the looming overshoot of the 1.5 degrees C warming limit, (2) the urgency of fossil fuel phase-out, (3) challenges to scale-up carbon dioxide removal, (4) uncertainties regarding future natural carbon sinks, (5) the need for joint governance of biodiversity loss and climate change, (6) advances in understanding compound events, (7) accelerated mountain glacier loss, (8) human immobility amidst climate risks, (9) adaptation justice, and (10) just transitions in food systems. We present a succinct account of these insights, reflect on their policy implications, and offer an integrated set of policy-relevant messages. This science synthesis and science communication effort is also the basis for a policy report contributing to elevate climate science every year in time for the United Nations Climate Change Conference.Social media summary We highlight recent and policy-relevant advances in climate change research - with input from more than 200 experts.
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| 3. |
- Galli, Francesca, et al.
(författare)
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Addressing food poverty in systems : governance of food assistance in three European countries
- 2018
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Ingår i: Food Security. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1876-4517 .- 1876-4525. ; 10:6, s. 1353-1370
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Emergency food poverty relief is one of the possible entry points to understanding food poverty in affluent societies, whereas the visibility of food poverty relief initiatives has evolved, together with large-scale food recovery organizations and networks aiming at reducing and valorising surplus in food systems. There is a substantial diversity of actors and resources involved, resulting in differently shaped initiatives and programs. It can be described as a continuum encompassing third sector initiatives, large and small businesses, and institutional intervention programs: by bringing together institutions, companies, organisations and civil society, public-private food assistance addresses food poverty in a way that is not viable by any of these actors alone and by adopting context specific governance arrangements. This paper contributes to this debate with the analysis of governance relations in food assistance initiatives across different European countries (Italy, The Netherlands and Ireland). By approaching food assistance from a systems perspective, we further the understanding of these initiatives and their modes of governance. The case studies offer a mapping of food assistance by identifying functions and outcomes, actors and resources involved, and the links the initiatives have to those elements, thus highlighting where collaborative food poverty reduction takes place that goes beyond traditional boundaries. Food assistance initiatives are a civil initiated response shaped by and complementing the social welfare and food systems in which they are embedded. The interpretation of food assistance functions leads to challenging the boundaries of food assistance and potentially triggering innovative approaches to improving food and nutrition security. Discussions show that while they have managed to find innovative and collaborative governance solutions to address the very immediate issues rather effectively, they do not negate the need for food system transformation to address the ultimate reasons for food poverty.
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| 4. |
- Hebinck, Aniek, et al.
(författare)
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Capturing change in European food assistance practices : a transformative social innovation perspective
- 2018
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Ingår i: Local Environment. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1354-9839 .- 1469-6711. ; 23:4, s. 398-413
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The food system's decreasing ability to deliver food security has led to the emergence of food assistance initiatives. Food assistance is highly contested; as some argue, it is a failure of the state, while others regard food assistance to be an extension of the welfare state. Either way, research suggests that actors within food assistance are rethinking their role in the food system. In this paper, we study three food assistance initiatives, in the Netherlands, Italy and Ireland, that perform new food assistance practices while embedded in specific institutional contexts, and analyse their potential to transform the food system, drawing on Transformative Social Innovation theory. Building on transition and social innovation theory, this recently developed theory distinguishes different levels within systems, named shades of change, that are associated with societal transformation. By exploring these shades of change in the analysis, we describe aspects of the initiatives' novel practices, and in relation to the initiative and institutional relations their motivations and expectations. We compare the three cases and discuss how food assistance practices relate to and change (or do not change) the food system. In particular, we elaborate on how these three food assistance initiatives contribute in various ways to local food and welfare system innovation. In doing so, we offer a novel perspective on food assistance initiatives. We argue that they show dynamics that have the potential for more substantial transformation towards food security over time, by building momentum through small wins.
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| 5. |
- Hebinck, Aniek, et al.
(författare)
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Processes of Participation in the Development of Urban Food Strategies : A Comparative Assessment of Exeter and Eindhoven
- 2017
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Ingår i: Sustainability. - : MDPI AG. - 2071-1050. ; 9:6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Urban food strategies are increasingly being used as means to address a multitude of challenges presented by food system failings. The use of participatory approaches has become common practice in the field of urban food systems planning. These approaches are believed to democratize, legitimize and increase effectiveness of addressing challenges. Despite these promises, they have also been viewed as problematic for being unbalanced and lacking accountability. This paper sets out to compare the creation and use of new participatory spaces in two initiatives in two European cities in their on-going attempts to formulate urban food strategies through multi-actor processes. This is explored through operationalisation of two key concepts essential to participatory approaches: participation and accountability. As such, the paper addresses how participatory processes for urban food strategies can be conceptualised when policy making involves the interplay of actors, knowledges and spaces. We conclude that within the two cases, ample attention is given to get a cross-section of the types of participants involved, while accountability is an aspect still under-represented. Based on the two cases, we argue that incorporation of accountability in particular will be instrumental in the development and implementation of more mature urban food strategies. However, it is essential for participatory processes to not completely break from more traditional policy processes, at risk of limiting progress in strategy development and deployment.
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| 6. |
- Hebinck, Aniek, 1989-
(författare)
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Shaping sustainable food systems : Local participation in addressing global challenges
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The current unsustainable trajectory of food systems puts the social and ecological processes and functions on which human flourishing depends at risk. This last decade has seen, on one hand, continued insistence on transformative action and on the other, uncertainty and instability with respect to traditional, established institutions, such as the state. As a response, new configurations of actors are aiming to participate in food system governance. New governance arrangements that increasingly lean on civic actors are considered as windows of opportunity, but their possible pitfalls have received less attention. This thesis seeks to understand and explain how the participation of new actors in the food system contributes to transformative change towards sustainable food systems. In order to achieve this, this thesis develops and applies a novel interdisciplinary approach, which combines: a food systems perspective, theories concerning food system governance, transformation, participation and the creation of transformative futures.The four papers each investigate essential elements for transformative change towards sustainable food systems. Each paper represents different empirical cases, but the papers’ theories build on each other. Paper I starts by setting out a transdisciplinary understanding of food systems in terms of structure and dynamics beyond existing frameworks, built on co-design through a science-policy dialogue. It unpacks the idea of sustainable food systems across four elements: nutrition and diet, economic impacts, environmental impacts, and social equity. Paper II explores food systems change, through the case of food banks in Europe; civil initiatives that address food poverty by handing out surplus food parcels. By comparing initiatives from the Netherlands, Italy and Ireland, their transformative impact on food systems is reviewed. Paper III goes on to interrogate the role of participation in change processes. It does this through an assessment of the extent to which participation is properly executed in policy processes that aim to democratise and ‘open-up’ the making of an Urban Food Strategy. It does so by comparing the case of Eindhoven, the Netherlands and Exeter, United Kingdom. Finally, paper IV is focused on how imagined futures affect participatory change processes. It focuses on the use of future-oriented participatory methods, foresight, and their implications for transformative change. The paper contributes to the field of foresight by formulating several levels of ambition for transformative change associated with foresight processes, and a number of different roles for the researcher to take in processes of change. The papers establish a new understanding of food systems, followed by insights into food systems change, the role of participation in change processes, and how imagined futures affect this participation. Together, they demonstrate the benefits of buildingon food system knowledges from, from different spheres – i.e. public, private and civil as well as across different scientific research disciplines. The thesis concludes that a concrete, actionable understanding of how participatory processes focused on present and future food systems, contribute to transformative change in food systems.
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| 7. |
- Pereira, Laura, et al.
(författare)
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Transformative spaces in the making : key lessons from nine cases in the Global South
- 2020
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Ingår i: Sustainability Science. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1862-4065 .- 1862-4057. ; 15:1, s. 161-178
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Creating a just and sustainable planet will require not only small changes, but also systemic transformations in how humans relate to the planet and to each other, i.e., social-ecological transformations. We suggest there is a need for collaborative environments where experimentation with new configurations of social-ecological systems can occur, and we refer to these as transformative spaces. In this paper, we seek a better understanding of how to design and enable the creation of transformative spaces in a development context. We analyse nine case studies from a previous special issue on Designing Transformative Spaces that aimed to collect examples of cutting-edge action-oriented research on transformations from the Global South. The analysis showed five design phases as being essential: Problem Definition Phase; Operationalisation Phase; Tactical Phase; Outcome Phase; and Reflection Phase. From this synthesis, we distilled five key messages that should be considered when designing research, including: (a) there are ethical dilemmas associated with creating a transformative space in a system; (b) it is important to assess the readiness of the system for change before engaging in it; (c) there is a need to balance between 'safe' and 'safe-enough' spaces for transformation; (d) convening a transformative space requires an assemblage of diverse methodological frameworks and tools; and (e) transformative spaces can act as a starting point for institutionalising transformative change. Many researchers are now engaging in transdisciplinary transformations research, and are finding themselves at the knowledge-action interface contributing to transformative space-making. We hope that by analysing experiences from across different geographies we can contribute towards better understanding of how to navigate the processes needed for the urgent global transformations that are being called for to create a more equitable and sustainable planet Earth.
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| 8. |
- Zurek, Monika, et al.
(författare)
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Assessing Sustainable Food and Nutrition Security of the EU Food System-An Integrated Approach
- 2018
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Ingår i: Sustainability. - : MDPI AG. - 2071-1050. ; 10:11
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Steering the EU food system towards a sustainability transformation requires a vast and actionable knowledge base available to a range of public and private actors. Few have captured this complexity by assessing food systems from a multi-dimensional and multi-level perspective, which would include (1) nutrition and diet, environmental and economic outcomes together with social equity dimensions and (2) system interactions across country, EU and global scales. This paper addresses this gap in food systems research and science communication by providing an integrated analytical approach and new ways to communicate this complexity outside science. Based on a transdisciplinary science approach with continuous stakeholder input, the EU Horizon2020 project 'Metrics, Models and Foresight for European SUStainable Food And Nutrition Security' (SUSFANS) developed a five-step process: Creating a participatory space; designing a conceptual framework of the EU food system; developing food system performance metrics; designing a modelling toolbox and developing a visualization tool. The Sustainable Food and Nutrition-Visualizer, designed to communicate complex policy change-impacts and trade-off questions, enables an informed debate about trade-offs associated with options for change among food system actors as well as in the policy making arena. The discussion highlights points for further research related to indicator development, reach of assessment models, participatory processes and obstacles in science communication.
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