Publication Details

Category Text Publication
Reference Category Journals
DOI 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2014.11.018
Title (Primary) Towards a thick understanding of sustainability transitions — Linking transition management, capabilities and social practices
Author Rauschmayer, F.; Bauler, T.; Schäpke, N.
Source Titel Ecological Economics
Year 2015
Department UPOL
Volume 109
Page From 211
Page To 221
Language englisch
Keywords Transition management; Capability approach; Practice theory; Transdisciplinarity; Sustainability transitions
UFZ wide themes RU6;
Abstract

Scientific activities which are targeted to engage and enact on societal problems – and governance of sustainability transition itself is one such activity – are necessarily prescriptive endeavours, have to recognize the fundamental normativity of sustainable development, need to be based on a thick description of the issues to change, and should embrace the multi-dimensional importance that individuals take in societal change. Societally relevant research on and for sustainability transitions therefore has to produce systems, target, as well as transformative knowledge. The challenges of sustainability transitions require furthermore that the individual and the societal levels have to be linked as to relate individual agency and structural change within the different knowledge types.

Taking transition management as a rather obvious starting point to enrich the concept of sustainability transitions, the paper elaborates that its conceptual basis is too thin to address the first two types of knowledge. In its current elaborations, transition management does furthermore not cover individual agency as potential driver of transitions. We therefore suggest complementing transition management approaches with the more descriptive practice theory and the more normative and individualistic capability approach. We suggest a heuristic combination that places individuals back into the study of sustainability transitions.

Persistent UFZ Identifier https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=20939&ufzPublicationIdentifier=15711
Rauschmayer, F., Bauler, T., Schäpke, N. (2015):
Towards a thick understanding of sustainability transitions — Linking transition management, capabilities and social practices
Ecol. Econ. 109 , 211 - 221 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2014.11.018