Project description
A closer look at social transformation and sustainability
Modern capitalist societies harm the natural environment, but societies constantly evolve. Social transformation can change societies towards sustainability. The EU-funded UNMAKING project will research whether, when and how radical grassroots innovations unmake environmentally disruptive institutions that are deeply ingrained in capitalist societies. It will compare Italian and German radical grassroots innovations in agriculture to identify and categorise mechanisms of unmaking. The aim is to explain whether and how unmaking creates space for alternatives from the individual to the social-ecological level. The project will also develop a theory of unmaking in societal transformation towards sustainability. Overall, the project will push the boundaries of our understanding of transformation and sustainability.
Objective
Modern capitalist societies engage destructively with the natural environment. Societal transformation to sustainability is urged, but it implies a degree of disruption of modern, capitalist ways of being and doing. Radical grassroots innovations – those that posit a profound cultural, economic, and political transformation of dominant institutions and practices - hold the potential to lead such transformation, but may be constrained by their marginal, local, small-scale character.
This programme aims to understand to what extent, under what conditions, and through what processes radical grassroots innovations unmake modern, capitalist institutions and practices. This research will compare Italian and German radical grassroots innovations in agriculture to: (1) identify and categorize mechanisms of unmaking that are involved in radical grassroots innovations; (2) explain whether and how unmaking creates space for alternatives from the individual to the social-ecological level; (3) understand how mechanisms of unmaking at different levels interplay; (4) explain why unmaking may result in different outcomes in different context; (5) develop a theory of unmaking in societal transformation to sustainability.This research is ground breaking as it (1) approaches societal transformation from the perspective of unmaking of dominant institutions, rather than of the introduction of innovations, (2) mobilizes theories that have so far not been considered, and innovatively integrates theories and levels of analysis, (3) originally employs mixed methods that capture trajectories of change, and enable to generalize causal mechanisms in complex social-ecological systems. This programme will push the boundaries of our understanding of transformation to sustainability. It will generate scientific knowledge that will be relevant across the social sciences, offer a theoretical lens –unmaking-, and test a process-tracing methodological approach to stimulate interdisciplinary research.
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Funding Scheme
ERC-STG - Starting GrantHost institution
3584 CS Utrecht
Netherlands