Co-productive agility and four collaborative pathways to sustainability transformations

Chambers, Josephine M.; Wyborn, Carina; Klenk, Nicole L.; Ryan, Melanie; Serban, Anca; Bennett, Nathan J.; Brennan, Ruth; Charli-Joseph, Lakshmi; Fernández-Giménez, María E.; Galvin, Kathleen A.; Goldstein, Bruce E.; Haller, Tobias; Hill, Rosemary; Munera, Claudia; Nel, Jeanne L.; Österblom, Henrik; Reid, Robin S.; Riechers, Maraja; Spierenburg, Marja; Tengö, Maria; ... (2022). Co-productive agility and four collaborative pathways to sustainability transformations. Global environmental change, 72, p. 102422. Elsevier 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102422

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Co-production, the collaborative weaving of research and practice by diverse societal actors, is argued to play an important role in sustainability transformations. Yet, there is still poor understanding of how to navigate the tensions that emerge in these processes. Through analyzing 32 initiatives worldwide that co-produced knowledge and action to foster sustainable social-ecological relations, we conceptualize ‘co-productive agility’ as an emergent feature vital for turning tensions into transformations. Co-productive agility refers to the willingness and ability of diverse actors to iteratively engage in reflexive dialogues to grow shared ideas and actions that would not have been possible from the outset. It relies on embedding knowledge production within processes of change to constantly recognize, reposition, and navigate tensions and opportunities. Co-productive agility opens up mul- tiple pathways to transformation through: (1) elevating marginalized agendas in ways that maintain their integrity and broaden struggles for justice; (2) questioning dominant agendas by engaging with power in ways that challenge assumptions, (3) navigating conflicting agendas to actively transform interlinked paradigms, practices, and structures; (4) exploring diverse agendas to foster learning and mutual respect for a plurality of perspectives. We explore six process considerations that vary by these four pathways and provide a framework to enable agility in sustainability transformations. We argue that research and practice spend too much time closing down debate over different agendas for change – thereby avoiding, suppressing, or polarizing tensions, and call for more efforts to facilitate better interactions among different agendas.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

08 Faculty of Science > Institute of Geography
10 Strategic Research Centers > Centre for Development and Environment (CDE)
08 Faculty of Science > Institute of Geography > Human Geography > Unit Political urbanism and sutainable spatial development
06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of Art and Cultural Studies > Institute of Social Anthropology
08 Faculty of Science > Institute of Geography > Human Geography
11 Centers of Competence > Center for Regional Economic Development (CRED)

UniBE Contributor:

Haller, Tobias, Gerber, Jean-David, Zähringer, Julie Gwendolin

Subjects:

900 History > 910 Geography & travel
300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology
500 Science > 550 Earth sciences & geology

ISSN:

0959-3780

Publisher:

Elsevier

Language:

English

Submitter:

Louis Karl Zwyssig

Date Deposited:

17 Mar 2022 07:27

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 16:11

Publisher DOI:

10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102422

Uncontrolled Keywords:

Co-production Transformative processes Social-ecological relations Tensions Power relations Impact

BORIS DOI:

10.48350/166173

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/166173

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