IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/wirecc/v7y2016i2p251-265.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Transformational responses to climate change: beyond a systems perspective of social change in mitigation and adaptation

Author

Listed:
  • Ross Gillard
  • Andrew Gouldson
  • Jouni Paavola
  • James Van Alstine

Abstract

There is a growing imperative for responses to climate change to go beyond incremental adjustments, aiming instead for society‐wide transformation. In this context, sociotechnical (ST) transitions and social–ecological (SE) resilience are two prominent normative agendas. Reviewing these literatures reveals how both share a complex‐systems epistemology with inherent limitations, often producing managerial governance recommendations and foregrounding material over social drivers of change. Further interdisciplinary dialogue with social theory is essential if these frameworks are to become more theoretically robust and capable of informing effective, let alone transformational, climate change governance. To illustrate this potential, ideas from Deleuze and Guattari's political writing as well as other approaches that utilize the notion social fields (as opposed to sociosystems) are combined to more fully theorize the origins and enactment of social change. First, the logic of systems is replaced with the contingency of assemblages to reveal how pluralism, not elitism, can produce more ambitious and politicized visions of the future. In particular, this view encourages us to see social and ecological tensions as opportunities for thinking and acting differently rather than as mere technical problems to be solved. Secondly, the setting of social fields is introduced to situate and explain the power of ideas and the role of agency in times of uncertainty. The potential of such insights is already visible in some strands of climate change mitigation and adaptation research, but more needs to be done to advance this field and to bring it into dialogue with the mainstream systems based literature. WIREs Clim Change 2016, 7:251–265. doi: 10.1002/wcc.384 This article is categorized under: Climate and Development > Social Justice and the Politics of Development Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge > Climate Science and Decision Making

Suggested Citation

  • Ross Gillard & Andrew Gouldson & Jouni Paavola & James Van Alstine, 2016. "Transformational responses to climate change: beyond a systems perspective of social change in mitigation and adaptation," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 7(2), pages 251-265, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:wirecc:v:7:y:2016:i:2:p:251-265
    DOI: 10.1002/wcc.384
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.384
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/wcc.384?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Angga Pradesha & Sherman Robinson & Mark W. Rosegrant & Nicostrato Perez & Timothy S. Thomas, 2022. "Exploring transformational adaptation strategy through agricultural policy reform in the Philippines," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 14(6), pages 1435-1447, December.
    2. Ciska Ulug & Lummina Horlings & Elen-Maarja Trell, 2021. "Collective Identity Supporting Sustainability Transformations in Ecovillage Communities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-18, July.
    3. Panahi, Roozbeh & Ng, Adolf K.Y. & Pang, Jiayi, 2020. "Climate change adaptation in the port industry: A complex of lingering research gaps and uncertainties," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 10-29.
    4. Guogang Wang & Shengnan Huang & Yongxiang Zhang & Sicheng Zhao & Chengji Han, 2022. "How Has Climate Change Driven the Evolution of Rice Distribution in China?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(23), pages 1-17, December.
    5. Maurice Skelton, 2020. "How cognitive links and decision-making capacity shape sectoral experts’ recognition of climate knowledge for adaptation," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 162(3), pages 1535-1553, October.
    6. Xinwei Guo & Bin Yu & Meiyan Yan & Hui Guo & Junhu Ren & Hanxia Zhang & Zonggang Zhang, 2022. "Endogenous Development Models and Paths Selection of Rural Revitalization from the Perspective of Ecological Environment Advantages: A Case Study of Nanshi Village, China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(19), pages 1-24, September.
    7. Cheng Wang & Tao Lv & Rongjiang Cai & Jianfeng Xu & Liya Wang, 2022. "Bibliometric Analysis of Multi-Level Perspective on Sustainability Transition Research," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-31, March.
    8. Yuge Ma & Thomas F. Thornton & Diana Mangalagiu & Jing Lan & Dina Hestad & Elena Apostoli Cappello & Sander Leeuw, 2020. "Co-creation, co-evolution and co-governance: understanding green businesses and urban transformations," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 160(4), pages 621-636, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:wirecc:v:7:y:2016:i:2:p:251-265. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)1757-7799 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.