15.00 – 16.00 CET
This event has already taken place. Materials are included below.
Presenter: Dr. Giuseppe Feola (Utrecht University)
Discussant: Prof. Tim Schwanen (University of Oxford)
Webinar Materials
Abstract
Sustainability transitions researchers have relatively recently recognized the added value of an explicitly geographical perspective on sustainability transitions (e.g., Truffer et al., 2015; Binz et al., 2020). But (how) does a geographical perspective help us better understand grassroots innovations, specifically? And what theoretical baggage should inform a geographical analysis of grassroots innovations? This talk discusses two geographical research foci on grassroots innovations: diffusion and place-making. Both foci can help answer important questions about the role and potential of grassroots innovations in sustainability transitions. However, a focus on place-making is particularly important: it shifts attention from ‘solutions’ to performances, and from ‘regimes’ to holistic understandings of space and place, and is thus particularly suited to answer the urgent calls for a critical turn in sustainability transitions research (Feola, 2020; Hopkins et al., 2020). Yet, to fully grasp bottom-up processes of place-making in sustainability transitions, and to position them in relation to larger processes of capitalist development and de-colonization, we need to build on critical human geography scholarship, which has so far only marginally informed grassroots innovations research, and to possibly let go of the notion of grassroots innovations altogether.
Related articles
Feola, G., Butt, A., 2017. The diffusion of grassroots innovations for sustainability in Italy and Great Britain: an exploratory spatial data analysis. The Geographical Journal 183, 16–33. DOI: 10.1111/geoj.12153.
Koretskaya, O., Feola, G., 2020. A framework for recognizing diversity beyond capitalism in agri-food systems. Journal of Rural Studies 20, 302-313. DOI: 10.1016/j.jrurstud.2020.10.002
Speaker Biographies
Giuseppe Feola is Associate Professor of Social Change for Sustainability in the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Giuseppe’s research critically examines ongoing processes of bottom-up societal transformation towards forms of society and economy which aim at the wellbeing of all and sustain the ecological basis of life. His research is currently funded by an ERC Starting Grant and a Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research Vidi Grant, and focuses specifically on processes of ‘unmaking’ of capitalism in agri-food grassroots initiatives (https://unmaking.sites.uu.nl/).
Tim Schwanen is Director of the Transport Studies Unit, Professor of Transport Studies and Geography in the School of Geography and the Environment, and Fellow at St Anne’s College at Oxford University. Tim’s research concentrates on the geographies of the everyday mobilities of people, goods and information.
Geography of sustainability transitions 