TY - JOUR

T1 - Building a Coalition with Depoliticized Sustainability Discourse

T2 - The Case of a Transdisciplinary Transition Management Arena in Peru

AU - Noboa, Eduardo

AU - Upham, Paul John

AU - Heinrichs, Harald

N1 - The transdisciplinary transition management arena was co-funded by: the charitable foundation Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES-ILDIS), World Wild Fund (WWF), the Future Latin American Foundation (FFLA) and Leuphana University Lüneburg (Germany) Copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal.

PY - 2019/1/31

Y1 - 2019/1/31

N2 - Transition management uses the depoliticized, rational discourse of systems terms, social learning and societal reflexivity. Transdisciplinary sustainability science research similarly uses the politically neutral terms of supporting the coproduction and integration of different types of knowledge. Yet both are clearly normative, resting on notions of participatory democracy and adopting environmental and social sustainability as explicit norms. Here we present the case of a transdisciplinary transition management arena in Peru, convened to develop a vision of a lower carbon, more decentralized and resilient national energy system. We show how the characteristics of the arena can help to foster the necessary conditions for empowerment and how these in turn both support – and are supported by - the ability of participants from different backgrounds generate shared problem statements, visions and strategies, building towards a coalition for change. While it remains to be seen how politically influential such arenas can be in the medium and long term, we show that depoliticized, rational sustainability discourse nonetheless has a political role to play in helping to legitimize informal institutional efforts towards energy policy change.

AB - Transition management uses the depoliticized, rational discourse of systems terms, social learning and societal reflexivity. Transdisciplinary sustainability science research similarly uses the politically neutral terms of supporting the coproduction and integration of different types of knowledge. Yet both are clearly normative, resting on notions of participatory democracy and adopting environmental and social sustainability as explicit norms. Here we present the case of a transdisciplinary transition management arena in Peru, convened to develop a vision of a lower carbon, more decentralized and resilient national energy system. We show how the characteristics of the arena can help to foster the necessary conditions for empowerment and how these in turn both support – and are supported by - the ability of participants from different backgrounds generate shared problem statements, visions and strategies, building towards a coalition for change. While it remains to be seen how politically influential such arenas can be in the medium and long term, we show that depoliticized, rational sustainability discourse nonetheless has a political role to play in helping to legitimize informal institutional efforts towards energy policy change.

KW - Transdisciplinary studies

KW - peru

KW - transdisciplinary transition arena

KW - energy democracy visions

KW - empowerment

KW - Energy research

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/70f9a1d4-61e6-36ec-aa1f-652e036d0885/

U2 - 10.5539/jsd.v12n1p84

DO - 10.5539/jsd.v12n1p84

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 12

SP - 84

EP - 107

JO - Journal of Sustainable Development

JF - Journal of Sustainable Development

SN - 1913-9063

IS - 1

ER -