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Community as tool for low carbon transitions: Involvement and containment, policy and action

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  • Gerald Taylor Aiken

Abstract

This paper introduces the Heideggerian terms Zuhanden and Vorhanden to studies of community low carbon transitions. It sets apart Zuhandenheit community as involvement: the doing, enacting and belonging aspects of community movements and activism. Vorhandenheit community contrastingly is observed: community as an object at arm's length, to be studied, tasked or used. The article builds on authors, particularly Malpas, who have utilised these concepts in spatial theory by adopting their associated spatialisation of involvement and containment. After introducing this theoretical understanding, the article addresses the case of a Transition initiative in receipt of government funding, where both Vorhanden and Zuhanden subjectivities can be found. Through focusing on this specific Transition project, we can more clearly grasp both the tensions emerging from state-funded community and the limits to, and possibilities for, appreciating community action phenomenologically.

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  • Gerald Taylor Aiken, 2019. "Community as tool for low carbon transitions: Involvement and containment, policy and action," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 37(4), pages 732-749, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:37:y:2019:i:4:p:732-749
    DOI: 10.1177/2399654418791579
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Gerald Taylor Aiken & Lucie Middlemiss & Susannah Sallu & Richard Hauxwell‐Baldwin, 2017. "Researching climate change and community in neoliberal contexts: an emerging critical approach," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 8(4), July.
    2. Middlemiss, Lucie & Parrish, Bradley D., 2010. "Building capacity for low-carbon communities: The role of grassroots initiatives," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(12), pages 7559-7566, December.
    3. Heiskanen, Eva & Johnson, Mikael & Robinson, Simon & Vadovics, Edina & Saastamoinen, Mika, 2010. "Low-carbon communities as a context for individual behavioural change," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(12), pages 7586-7595, December.
    4. Gavin Brown & Peter Kraftl & Jenny Pickerill & Caroline Upton, 2012. "Holding the Future Together: Towards a Theorisation of the Spaces and Times of Transition," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 44(7), pages 1607-1623, July.
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    Cited by:

    1. Bregje van Veelen, 2020. "Caught in the middle? Creating and contesting intermediary spaces in low-carbon transitions," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 38(1), pages 116-133, February.
    2. Pel, Bonno & Haxeltine, Alex & Avelino, Flor & Dumitru, Adina & Kemp, René & Bauler, Tom & Kunze, Iris & Dorland, Jens & Wittmayer, Julia & Jørgensen, Michael Søgaard, 2020. "Towards a theory of transformative social innovation: A relational framework and 12 propositions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(8).
    3. Wittmayer, Julia M. & Avelino, Flor & Pel, Bonno & Campos, Inês, 2021. "Contributing to sustainable and just energy systems? The mainstreaming of renewable energy prosumerism within and across institutional logics," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    4. Julia Maria Wittmayer & Tessa de Geus & Bonno Pel & F. Avelino & Sabine Hielscher & Thomas Hoppe & Marie Susan Mühlemeier & Agata Stasik & Sem Oxenaar & Karoline K.S. Rogge & Vivian Visser & Esther Ma, 2020. "Beyond instrumentalism: Broadening the understanding of social innovation in socio-technical energy systems," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/312323, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.

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