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CSERGE Working Papers: EDM - Environmental Decision Making, University of East Anglia >
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http://hdl.handle.net/10419/48802
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| Title: | | Growing grassroots innovations: Exploring the role of community-based social movements for sustainable energy transitions  |
| Authors: | | Seyfang, Gill Haxeltine, Alex |
| Issue Date: | | 2010 |
| Series/Report no.: | | CSERGE working paper EDM 10-08 |
| Abstract: | | The challenges of sustainable development (and climate change and peak oil in particular) demand system-wide transformations in socio-technical systems of provision. An academic literature around co-evolutionary innovation for sustainability has recently emerged to attempt to understand the dynamics and directions of such socio-technical transformations and social change, which are termed 'sustainability transitions'. This literature has previously focused on market-based technological innovations. Here we apply it to a new context of social movements and social innovation, and examine the role of civil society-based social movements in a transition to a low-carbon sustainable economy in the UK. We present new empirical research from a study of the UK´s Transition Movement (a 'grassroots innovation') and assess its attempts to grow and diffuse beyond the niche. Applying strategic niche management theory to this civil society context delivers theoretically-informed practical recommendations for this social movement to diffuse beyond its niche: to foster deeper engagement with resourceful regime actors; to manage expectations more realistically by delivering tangible opportunities for action and participation; and to embrace a community-based, action-oriented model of social learning (in preference to a cognitive theory of behaviour change). Furthermore, our study indicates areas where theory can be refined to better explain the experience of grassroots innovations and social movements, namely through a fuller appreciation of internal niche processes, and integration with theories of social movements and social practices. |
| Subjects: | | sustainable consumption energy social movements sustainability transitions social innovation socio-technical systems |
| Document Type: | | Working Paper |
| Appears in Collections: | | CSERGE Working Papers: EDM - Environmental Decision Making, University of East Anglia
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