Periodic Reporting for period 1 - RESHORE (Participatory Pathways for Reshoring European Manufacturing)
Reporting period: 2022-02-01 to 2024-01-31
While ecological crises have long underlined the need to move beyond economic ‘business-as-usual’, the Covid-19 crisis intensified such concerns. In particular, the pursuit of just-in-time (JIT) production, fossil fuel-based mobility, and extensive offshoring – all underpinning a growth-based economy – resulted in vulnerabilities which became very evident when the global economy came to a halt. The world faced its second major economic crisis in little over a decade, and policy-relevant research which illustrates pathways towards a more humane economy with lower resource throughput is crucial.
RESHORE is a theoretically and methodologically innovative research project that examines the role played by grassroots actors in a key economic sector: manufacturing. The project aims to investigate the potential for localised and community-based manufacturing across EU Member States and, through empirical case studies of such initiatives, identify the geographical influences on equitable reshoring transitions. Inspired by work on community economies and degrowth, it explores novel concepts and uses of ‘strategic autonomy’, ‘localisation’ and ‘Alternative Production Networks (APNs)’ in Europe.
RESHORE is a theoretically and methodologically innovative research project that examines the role played by grassroots actors in a key economic sector: manufacturing. The project aims to investigate the potential for localised and community-based manufacturing across EU Member States and, through empirical case studies of such initiatives, identify the geographical influences on equitable reshoring transitions. Inspired by work on community economies and degrowth, it explores novel concepts and uses of ‘strategic autonomy’, ‘localisation’ and ‘Alternative Production Networks (APNs)’ in Europe.
In order to undertake a study of such a nuanced and complex phenomenon, the work performed contained a range of qualitative social science methods and activities. This includes extensive literature reviews, interviews with key participants in community initiatives, field visits and factory tours of experimental sites of reshoring, participatory workshops with networks who are trying to make local manufacturing and sustainability visible in their communities, and Q-Method experiments with participants. This research activity was supplemented by a diverse range of outreach, including blogs and mailing list updates, social media activity, non-peer reviewed published scholarly interventions, and a number of published or 'in progress' peer-reviewed articles in world-leading journals.
RESHORE delivers nuanced and cutting-edge understandings of a novel social phenomenon, including discussion of forms of economic activity framed through cosmo-localism, degrowth, the foundational economy, strategic autonomy and other concepts. Amidst ecological crisis, and with increasing discussion and focus falling on post-growth economics and politics, the project helps us to understand localism and local production from a post-growth perspective in new ways.
One already-published result is a typology of contemporary economic localisms, published in the journal Local Economy. Furthermore, with one case study focusing on the Czech Republic, the project also brings novel perspectives around the relevance of degrowth in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), and how concepts which derive from the West in relation to local community-based manufacturing (such as the Maker Movement, Fab Labs, craftivism etc.) sit in this context. This will be seen in a number of forthcoming academic and non-academic publications.
The results of the project exceed written and published outputs, including new social connections and creative initiatives produced through connections made during participatory workshops and exchanges taking place under the auspices of the project.
One already-published result is a typology of contemporary economic localisms, published in the journal Local Economy. Furthermore, with one case study focusing on the Czech Republic, the project also brings novel perspectives around the relevance of degrowth in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), and how concepts which derive from the West in relation to local community-based manufacturing (such as the Maker Movement, Fab Labs, craftivism etc.) sit in this context. This will be seen in a number of forthcoming academic and non-academic publications.
The results of the project exceed written and published outputs, including new social connections and creative initiatives produced through connections made during participatory workshops and exchanges taking place under the auspices of the project.