Growing grassroots innovations: exploring the role of community-based initiatives in governing sustainable energy transitions
Growing grassroots innovations: exploring the role of community-based initiatives in governing sustainable energy transitions
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DOI：
10.1068/c10222
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发表时间：
2012-01-01
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影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Haxeltine, Alex
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Seyfang, Gill;Haxeltine, Alex
可持续发展面临的挑战（尤其是气候变化和石油峰值问题）要求供应的社会技术系统进行全系统的变革。近期出现了围绕可持续性协同进化创新的学术文献，试图理解此类社会技术变革的动态和方向，这些变革被称为“可持续性转型”。该文献此前侧重于基于市场的技术创新。在此，我们将其应用于基于公民社会的社会创新这一新背景，并研究英国基于社区的倡议在向低碳可持续经济转型中的作用。我们展示了对英国“过渡城镇”运动（一种“草根创新”）研究的新实证研究成果，并评估了其发展和影响更广泛的社会社会技术系统的尝试。通过将战略利基管理理论应用于这一公民社会背景，我们为这一运动突破其利基提供了有理论依据的实用建议：促进与资源丰富的体制行为体更深入的接触；通过提供切实的行动和参与机会，更现实地管理期望；并采用基于社区、以行动为导向的社会变革模式（而非行为改变的认知理论）。此外，我们的研究指出了理论可进一步完善的领域，以便更好地解释草根创新的发展和更广泛的影响——即通过更充分地认识内部利基过程的重要性、理解身份和群体形成的重要作用，以及解决社会实践在草根创新中如何改变的问题。
The challenges of sustainable development (and climate change and peak oil, in particular) demand system-wide transformations in sociotechnical systems of provision. An academic literature around coevolutionary innovation for sustainability has recently emerged as an attempt to understand the dynamics and directions of such sociotechnical transformations, which are termed 'sustainability transitions'. This literature has previously focused on market-based technological innovations. Here we apply it to a new context of civil-society-based social innovation and examine the role of community-based initiatives in a transition to a low-carbon sustainable economy in the UK. We present new empirical research from a study of the UK's Transition Towns movement (a 'grassroots innovation') and assess its attempts to grow and influence wider societal sociotechnical systems. By applying strategic niche management theory to this civil society context, we deliver theoretically informed practical recommendations for this movement to diffuse beyond its niche: to foster deeper engagement with resourceful regime actors; to manage expectations more realistically by delivering tangible opportunities for action and participation; and to embrace a community-based, action-oriented model of social change (in preference to a cognitive theory of behaviour change). Furthermore, our study indicates areas where theory can be refined to better explain the growth and broader impacts of grassroots innovations-namely, through a fuller appreciation of the importance of internal niche processes, by understanding the important role of identity and group formation, and by resolving how social practices change in grassroots innovations.