The geography of sustainability transitions: Contours of an emerging theme

doi:10.1016/j.eist.2015.07.004

Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions

Volume 17, December 2015, Pages 63-72

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2015.07.004 Get rights and content

Highlights

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The paper introduces the special issue on the geography of sustainability transitions.
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It provides an introduction to a recently growing body of literature.
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Identifies shared lines of a geography of transitions agenda and shows how each paper contributes to this.

Abstract

Transition research has recently been criticized to lack of geographically sensitive concepts to address sustainability transitions and environmental innovation processes. This has generated a number of suggestions how space, place and scale can be better incorporated into transitions studies. Moreover, it has led to a quickly growing number of empirical studies that explicitly deal with geographical aspects of transition processes. This special issue takes stock of these recent developments by assembling a set of eight exemplary papers that illustrate the added value of an explicitly geographical perspective on sustainability transitions. The contributions include a conceptual paper, a literature review and six empirical papers that offer representative examples of recent work. Taken together, these contributions testify to the vitality of the emerging research on the geography of sustainability transitions. This introduction to the special issue provides an overview of the special issue and offers suggestions for future research.

Section snippets

Introduction: The need for spatially sensitive conceptualizations of transitions research

Transitions to more sustainable technologies, consumption and production receive increasing attention in research, and public discourses. We see a proliferation of sustainability oriented policy programs in many countries, cities and regions. In the 1990s and early 2000s these initiatives were mostly limited to a few OECD countries, where particular constituencies, such as green parties, put sustainable development on the policy agenda. As a consequence, most of the transitions research so far

Core conceptual dimensions of the geography of transitions agenda

Before presenting the specific contributions in some detail, we would like to reiterate the core challenges that an engagement with geographical aspects of transitions entail. Building on earlier work by Truffer and Coenen (2012), we see three main dimensions which a geography of transitions should address: socio-spatial embedding, multi-scalarity and issues of power.

Socio-spatial embedding relates to the conditions of specific places, regions, cities, which may be more or less amenable for the

Contributions to the special issue

The papers in this special issue may be clustered into four groups. Table 1 provides an overview: In the first group (i) are two papers that approach and develop the geography of transitions agenda in conceptual terms and are based on extensive literature reviews. Murphy provides a mapping of productive trading zones between urban-economic geography and transitions studies, highlighting how richer conceptualizations of socio-spatial context and place, and the politics of place making, can

Summary and suggestions for further research

All the papers in this selection argue, in some manner, that socio-spatial embedding and multi-scalar interconnections take place at the same time during transition processes and that these often mutually reinforce each other. More specifically, the papers highlight the role that socio-spatial contexts plays in the co-evolution or aligning of TIS, niches, and socio-technical regimes, the necessity for a relational view on transitions, the value-added of multi-scalar accounts of transitions, the

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View full text

The geography of sustainability transitions: Contours of an emerging theme

Highlights

Abstract

Section snippets

Introduction: The need for spatially sensitive conceptualizations of transitions research

Core conceptual dimensions of the geography of transitions agenda

Contributions to the special issue

Summary and suggestions for further research

Environ. Innovation and Soc. Transitions

Energy Policy

Technol. Forecasting Social Change

Res. Policy

Res. Policy.

Energy Policy

Environ. Innovation Soc. Trans.

Res. Policy

Res. Policy

Res. Policy

Environ. Innovation Soc. Trans.

Environ. Innovation Soc. Trans

Power in transition. An interdisciplinary framework to study power in relation to structural change

Eur. J. Social Theor.

The geography of transitions. Addressing the hidden spatial dimension of socio-technical transformations

Res. Policy

Places and spaces of sustainability transitions: geographical contributions to an emerging research and policy field’. Introduction to the special issue sustainalbility transitions and the role for geography

Eur. Plann. Stud.

Transitioning the food system: a strategic practice management approach for cities

Environ. Innovation Soc. Trans.

Cleantech and an analysis of the platform nature of life sciences: further reflections upon platform policies

Eur. Plann. Stud.