| 1. |
- Aagaard Hagemann, Frederik
(author)
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From place to emplacement: the scalar politics of sustainability
- 2020
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In: Local Environment. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1354-9839 .- 1469-6711. ; 25, s. 447-462
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Sustainability has emerged as a central concept for discussing the current state of the human-environment system and planning for its future. To delve into the depths of sustainability means to talk about ecology, economy, and equity as fundamentally interconnected. However, each continues to be colonised by normative epistemologies of ecological sciences, neoclassical economics, and development, suggesting that with enough science and development, a more equitable sustainability is achievable. In our analysis, place emerges as an alternative epistemology through which to analyze sustainability. Place exists at multiple spatial and temporal scales, understood through direct observation of boundaries, processes and patterns, phenomenologically through individual experience, and as a complex hybrid: always emerging through interactions among individuals and institutions. Despite the ubiquity of place in the socio-ecological literature, the complexity of place in relation to sustainability is under-theorised, and in as much as sustainability happens or does not happen in real places rather than in policies and models, a place-based sustainability framework is necessary to move forward. To address this gap, we developed the emplacement framework, consisting of four domains: displacement, misplacement, replacement, and emplacement. Each domain is dynamic, constructing place as praxis, and reframing sustainability as a site of collective inquiry and choices. Our goal is to facilitate the active and on-going practices of place-based research and engagement among scholars, activists, and other community members by providing a structure for transdisciplinary dialogue and the application of transdisciplinary research to enable better decision-making.
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| 2. |
- Asplund, Therese, 1979-, et al.
(author)
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Project coordinators views on climate adaptation costs and benefits - justice implications
- 2020
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In: Local Environment. - : ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD. - 1354-9839 .- 1469-6711. ; 25:2, s. 114-129
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- As local climate adaptation activity increases, so does the number of questions about costs, benefits, financing and the role that economic considerations play in adaptation-related decision-making and policy. Through five cases, covering a range of climate risks and types of adaptation measures, this paper critically examines Swedish project coordinators perceptions of costs and benefits in already-implemented climate adaptation measures. Our study finds that project coordinators make use of different system boundaries - on temporal, geographical and administrative scales - in their cost/benefit evaluations, making the practice of determining adaptation costs arbitrary and hard to compare. We further demonstrate that the project coordinators interpret costs and benefits in a manner that downplays the intangible environmental and social costs and benefits arising from the adaptation measures, despite their own experience of how such measures negatively impact upon social value. The exclusion of social and environmental costs and benefits has severe implications for justice, as it can bias decisions against people and ecosystems that are affected negatively. Based on the findings, we propose three tentative social justice dilemmas in local climate adaptation planning and implementation: 1. Cost and benefit distribution across scales; 2. The identification and valuation of non-market effects; and 3. The equitable allocation of costs and benefits.
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| 3. |
- Bohman, Anna, 1975-, et al.
(author)
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More than one story: remaking community and place in Sweden’s transition to a fossil free society
- 2024
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In: Local Environment. - : Taylor & Francis. - 1354-9839 .- 1469-6711.
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this article, we study how Sweden’s transition to a fossil free society is interpreted and experienced by communities whose livelihoods and cultural identities are entangled with carbon-intensive industries. The study draws upon interviews with citizen groups in the coastal city of Lysekil, located next to Scandinavia’s largest oil refinery. Our analysis speaks to a growing scholarly literature on just transitions where we argue that a better understanding of place attachment as an active and operating force in local transition processes, can provide important information for just transition policy design. Based on our research on place attachment in Lysekil, we suggest that inclusivity in just transitions, implies acknowledging and addressing more than material aspects of loss, involving loss of direction, loss of identities and loss of imagined futures. Moreover, we argue that the vision of an inclusive transition requires a more nuanced approach to the concept of “community” which recognises different stories, voices, and perspectives and challenges taken for granted assumptions about local people's priorities in debates on just transitions. Finally, based on our experiences from Lysekil we contend that inclusivity requires communicative spaces where citizens can meet to listen, speak, and discuss future pathways towards a fossil free society. The visions of just and inclusive transitions, we argue, can only be realised if driven by a place-based dialogue on future pathways and if agendas for a fossil free transformation are locally anchored.
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| 4. |
- Bradley, Karin, 1975-, et al.
(author)
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Community repair in the circular economy : Fixing more than stuff
- 2022
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In: Local Environment. - : Taylor & Francis. - 1354-9839 .- 1469-6711. ; , s. 1-17
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In the circular economy discourse it is stressed that products ought to be repairable and that repair work is assumed to be growing. However, repair can be organised and performed in different ways – by corporate entities, independent repairers, laypersons and communities. Some corporations are integrating repair and maintenance into their offering, while simultaneously restricting consumers to open, repair or modify their products. In opposition to such developments, there is a movement for “right to repair”, which works for consumers’ legal rights to repair and modify products, pushing for the free availability of spare parts and manuals. Recent years have also seen a growth of repair cafés and other forms of DIY community repair spaces. This paper explores the discourses of DIY community repair through two Swedish case studies – an NGO-led nationwide repair campaign and a local government initiative of open DIY repair spaces. Our case studies show how DIY community repair works towards enabling all, particularly marginalised groups, to participate and live well in a low-impact future. In contrast to the mainstream circular economy discourse, the purpose of community repair is not only about repairing broken stuff and reducing waste, but about building social relations and practicing non-consumerist forms of citizenship. By elucidating these different perspectives on repair – who is to perform it, with what skills and for what purposes – we highlight how the transition to future, more circular economies, can be enacted and steered in ways that allow for different roles and powers for citizen-consumers.
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| 5. |
- Bäckman, Malin, et al.
(author)
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Tracing sustainability meanings in Rosendal: interrogating an unjust urban sustainability discourse and introducing alternative perspectives
- 2024
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In: Local Environment. - 1354-9839 .- 1469-6711. ; 29, s. 415-432
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Sustainability is a much debated concept, often criticised as ill-defined. While some argue it is time to leave sustainability behind, others defend the concept's potential to initiate change. In this article we depart from the potential of sustainability, while being aware that the term is often appropriated by discourses reproducing status quo and keeping existing injustices in place. We do so by studying the urban sustainability discourse reproducing certain types of sustainabilities in Rosendal, a developing urban district in Uppsala, Sweden. Guided by the "What's the problem represented to be" approach we analyse written and visual material, produced by Uppsala municipality and developers. Through the policy analysis we identify four intertwined meanings of sustainability: Everyone is included, It's all about aesthetics, Closeness to nature and Sustainability is easy. Together, these meanings shape the Sustainability in Rosendal discourse, which we argue does little to overcome existing injustices. We point towards the silences involved in the discourse and hold that the failure to question the growth-dependent economic system within which Rosendal is being developed, results in insignificant changes as opposed to just transformation. By building upon the notion of just sustainabilities, we outline a set of alternative perspectives, departing from coupling a pluralist understanding of justice with a feminist ethics of care, to open up for more emancipatory and transformative urban sustainability discourses.
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| 6. |
- Chertkovskaya, Ekaterina, et al.
(author)
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The end of the line : Envisioning degrowth and ecosocial justice in the resistance to the trolleybus dismantlement in Moscow
- 2022
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In: Local Environment. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1354-9839 .- 1469-6711. ; 27:4, s. 440-458
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The city of Moscow has been going through a transformation of its surface transport network during the past decade as part of a broader policy of urban beautification. Despite a renewed interest in public transport, this policy has led to the dismantling of the trolleybus system. This was met with resistance from various groups. Bringing together scholarly discussions on urban growth coalitions and on degrowth, we repoliticise urban mobility policies and put the entangled issues of ecological sustainability and social justice at the centre of the analysis. To do this, we outline a degrowth vision of urban mobility and introduce the concept of ecosocial justice, through which the case is analysed. Our results show that the trolleybus dismantlement increases biophysical throughput, compromises Moscow’s ecology of culture, and is rooted in injustices, not least because Moscow authorities have ignored the many objections and alternative proposals put forward by residents. However, opposition groups paid limited attention to procedural injustices and to the configuration of Moscow’s political economy. This was a limitation of the campaign, but suggests possibilities for repoliticising urban mobility policies at other sites of resistance.
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| 7. |
- Eckerberg, Katarina, 1953-, et al.
(author)
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Devolving power from the state : local initiatives for nature protection and recreation in Sweden
- 2020
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In: Local Environment. - : Routledge. - 1354-9839 .- 1469-6711. ; 25:6, s. 433-446
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Quests for devolving more power to local actors for nature protection stem from both international and national policies. Also, there is a growing recognition of the need for local governments to promote green infrastructure for citizens to recreate and learn about their environment. Starting in 2004, the Swedish government has allocated special funding towards these goals through the Local Nature Conservation Programme (LONA). Virtually all Swedish municipalities have received such funding in pursuit of facilitating wide access to nature and promoting recreational activities, including the protection of nature areas, creating pathways, information devices, and promoting these areas among new societal groups to enjoy. This study presents the results of ten years of experience with LONA. A survey with respondents from 191 municipalities and 20 county administrations, together with 20 key informant interviews, show that the programme has been a success in several respects. Not only have most municipalities created a wealth of new ways to engage local organisations and citizens in nature conservation and recreation, but they have also broadened the ways they think about how nature is important to their constituencies. Due to innovative ways to count voluntary work as local matching of funding, smaller and less resourceful municipalities have also become engaged. Still, the local needs for further initiatives are deemed considerable. State support coupled with knowledge sharing is important to show policy priority to such bottom-up initiatives.
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| 8. |
- Hector, Philip, et al.
(author)
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Experimenting with sustainability education : the case of a student-driven campus initiative in Finland
- 2022
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In: Local Environment. - : Routledge. - 1354-9839 .- 1469-6711.
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Experiments are deemed not only useful, but necessary in sustainability transformation to enhance local decision-making. This is especially apparent in Finland where national government programmes and city administrations promote sustainability experimentation and bottom-up initiatives in the interest of equitable participation. At the same time, universities are expected to respond to societal calls for major infrastructural transformations, while neoliberal principles shift responsibility from authorities to individual citizens. This paper examines the case of a student-driven sustainable campus initiative called “Test Site” in a university committed formally to sustainability education. The students questioned whether sustainability should be taught in air-conditioned classrooms, what topics were socially just and worth pursuing, and rather sought material engagement, creative exploration and autonomy. Invested faculty members were dependent on demonstrations and proof of impact, or at least convincing visuals, to sustain the initiative. The outcome of experimenting most valued by the students however was the material-based social learning on how to self-organise. The meaning of such “minor” experiments thus becomes muddled, involving local, situated power dynamics among university management, faculty and students and what is regarded as useful space and activity for learning. The case illustrates how an experimental site partly removed from university constraints rendered explorations of self-organising participants as valuable yet depended on visible proofs to justify this very exploration as worthwhile. Even within a neoliberal and highly hierarchical governance structure, some participants are able to make small gains to pursue socially just solutions.
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| 9. |
- Hellberg, Sofie, 1979
(author)
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What constitutes the social in (social) sustainability? Community, society and equity in South African water governance
- 2023
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In: Local Environment : the International Journal of Justice and Sustainability. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1354-9839 .- 1469-6711. ; 28:4
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This article explores the question of what constitutes the “social” in (social) sustainability. It applies a governmentality perspective and focuses especially on how social sustainability is understood in relation to the concepts of society and community. Furthermore, it investigates what social sustainability means, or could mean, in the specific context of water governance in South Africa – one of the most unequal countries in the world. This case study is based on original fieldwork in the country, conducted between 2017 and 2018. The theoretical exploration, together with the empirical study, demonstrate that there are two interrelated tensions between understandings of social sustainability, between approaches that place society/social cohesion in focus and those that emphasise community and between approaches that focus on basic needs and those that emphasise equal access. At stake here, between these different understandings, is the role of equity and to what extent social sustainability takes into account the situation of individuals and groups in relation to one another. Ultimately, the article raises the question of the (South African) elephant in the room: to what extent can large inequities between individuals and groups be accepted in a society considered to be (socially) sustainable?
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| 10. |
- Hesse, Arielle, et al.
(author)
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The data treadmill : water governance and the politics of pollution in rural Ireland
- 2023
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In: Local Environment. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1354-9839 .- 1469-6711. ; 28:5, s. 602-618
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper draws on fieldwork in rural Ireland to argue that environmental data can reinforce knowledge systems that shield structural problems and blunt efforts to rethink the role of community engagement in environmental governance. It offers a cautionary reading of how data has been instrumentalised by the EU and Irish State by showing how data diffuses responsibility and depoliticises environmental activism in cycles of funding and data collection. Since the 2000 Water Framework Directive, water governance in the European Union has increasingly relied upon extensive scientific, evidence-based decision-making and community and stakeholder involvement. We explore how these changes shape efforts to document and remediate water pollution. We expand upon Shapiro et al.’s (2018)’s “data treadmill” to understand how data rescales responsibility for pollution and its effects. The “data treadmill” gives name to cycles of data and funding that propel logics and strategies of environmental governance. We show how the data treadmill operates by perpetuating a narrative that effective action requires more precise data and evidence and solves questions of responsibility through bespoke approaches to environmental pollution. The data treadmill constrains communities through prevailing logics that surround data and environmental governance: communities become tied into European funding programmes that require, on one hand, the expertise of various professionals and consultants, on the other, place-based knowledge and social relationships to deliver innovative responses to structural problems. We offer a critical analysis of current institutional and policy in the EU and Ireland to highlight perils and contradictions of data-centric environmental governance as practiced.
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