Connecting resourcefulness and social innovation: exploring conditions and processes in community gardens in the Netherlands

ABSTRACT

Resourcefulness, a community’s capacity to engage with their local resource base, is essential in contributing to resilience, the potential to adapt to external challenges and shocks. Resourcefulness and social innovation have some overlapping qualities, however, the academic connection between the two concepts is yet to be explored. Social innovations include new practices, ideas, and initiatives that meet societal needs and contribute to social change and empowerment. Through in-depth interviews and participant observation, this study researches conditions and processes of resourcefulness in facilitating social innovation in rural, peri-urban, and urban community gardens in the North of the Netherlands. Comparing differing contexts, five main enablers for altering social relations and community empowerment have been identified: (1) clear goals and motivations; (2) diversity in garden resources; (3) experimental knowledge processes; (4) strong internal support and recognition; and (5) place-based practices. Above all, this research stresses the importance of defining resourcefulness as a process and foregrounding the place-based contextual nature of innovative collective food system practices.     

Sustainability in Practice

Sweden has led the way in Europe in environmental protection, ecologically based technological innovation and social democracy. As new economic and ethnographic realities impact upon it, it faces challenges to its policies and practices long familiar elsewhere in Europe. We report on a study for the Swedish Research Councils in which we examined the national framework and political strategy for sustainable development, and how the strategy is being implemented in Sweden's three major cities and two case-study municipalities. History and tradition, cultural homogeneity and a strong and shared sense between sectors of 'the public good', emerged as very important. Until recently, these have obviated the need for formal links between the environmental, social and economic agendas. They now appear inadequately developed at all levels of governance. Tensions in policy are being played out at the level of the municipality, to which power is highly devolved, and Local Agenda 21, interpreted as project rather than process, seems unequal to the task of integration. We suggest what lessons may be drawn from the Swedish experience if issues of power and trust, leadership and participatory vs representative democracy are to be resolved.     

Nuclear waste facilities on Tribal Land: The Yami's struggles for environmental justice

Abstract

This paper examines environmental justice in the context of nuclear waste controversies on Orchid Island, Taiwan. The Yami's anti-nuclear waste movement is a manifestation of problems of distributional inequity, lack of recognition, and limited participation of the tribespeople in decision making. These are interwoven in political and social processes. In addition, the disputes over the nuclear waste problem between the Yami and Taiwanese groups also show the historical and socioeconomic complexity of environmental justice. This study argues that a democratic and participatory procedure is likely to bring recognition or help the situation of lack of recognition improve, which could facilitate more just distribution. Building partnerships and networking within a variety of indigenous environmental organizations as well as other Taiwanese environmental organizations could help to transform the Orchid Island community and the Taiwanese society in the direction of environmental justice.     

Stretching “smart”: advancing health and well-being through the smart city agenda

ABSTRACT

Contemporary smart cities have largely mirrored the sustainable development agenda by embracing an ecological modernisation approach to urban development. There is a strong focus on stimulating economic activity and environmental protection with little emphasis on social equity and the human experience. The health and well-being agenda has potential to shift the focus of smart cities to centre on social aims. Through the systematic and widespread application of technologies such as wearable health monitors, the creation of open data platforms for health parameters, and the development of virtual communication between patients and health professionals, the smart city can serve as a means to improve the lives of urban residents. In this article, we present a case study of smart health in Kashiwanoha Smart City in Japan. We explore how the pursuit of greater health and well-being has stretched smart city activities beyond technological innovation to directly impact resident lifestyles and become more socially relevant. Smart health strategies examined include a combination of experiments in monitoring and visualisation, education through information provision, and enticement for behavioural change. Findings suggest that smart cities have great potential to be designed and executed to tackle social problems and realise more sustainable, equitable and liveable cities.     

The deep city: cultural heritage as a resource for sustainable local transformation

ABSTRACT

The sustainable city of the future is typically envisioned as smart, creative and disruptive, assuming that urban and local sustainability is achieved through new technology and innovation. However, considering that the built environments of our cities and surroundings are highly durable, there is also a need to focus on how resources brought from the past – histories, artefacts and places – may be used for promoting urban sustainability. We label this a “deep city” perspective on urban and local transformation. By looking at Røros, a World Heritage Site in central Norway with a dense and historic wooden urban centre, we investigate how its heritage protection facilitates the maintenance of a compact urban centre. We hold that a shared sense of place – the deepness– may serve as a resource against unsustainable sprawl and mall-oriented development.     

Planning story lines in smart grid road maps (2010–2014): three types of maps for coordinated time travel

The roll-out of smart grids poses planning challenges that are typical for sustainable innovation in mature infrastructures. Most notably, planners encounter a high degree of complexity caused by multiple interacting scalar and temporal layers; they encounter vested interests and they have to mobilize a large amount of resources. Rip [(2012). The context of innovation journeys. Creativity and Innovation Management, 21(2), 158–170. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8691.2012.00640.x] has proposed that a mediating ‘layer’ of anticipatory coordination devices, such as road maps, enables innovations to enter complex regimes without losing their novelty. In light of current delays in the European roll-out of smart meters, we have conducted a mixed-methods study of the vocabulary and planning story lines used in 13 different smart grid road maps. Based on a correspondence analysis of documents and terms used in the documents, three distinct types of road maps were found. A subsequent close reading of three road maps that each represents one of the types shows how they approach the modernization of electricity infrastructure in distinct ways: a reliance on the market to tackle complexity was observed in UK-type road maps, a strong focus on a due standardization processes was found in the US-type and a technology-centred perspective dominated the China-type documents.     

Using the Language of NIMBY: A topic for research,not an activity for researchers

During the 1990s the social scientific literature on local opposition to proposed developments has moved from a focus on individual motives to a concern with the social causes and significance of such protest. However, the language of NIMBYism is still widely used by researchers. Drawing on data from a case study of local responses to a proposed new road the central role that the language of NIMBY plays within siting disputes is illustrated, and it is concluded that academics interested in understanding the dynamics and process of local development disputes might usefully study participants' use of NIMBY, but should distance themselves from the activity of attributing NIMBYism to certain parties. In addition those concerned with managing, mediating or resolving local disputes should also steer clear of the language of NIMBY and engage with the diversity and complexity of local concerns and interests.     

THE MYTH OF THE INDOOR CITY

Shopping malls have become major features in the urban landscape, yet have received little attention from environmental psychologists. Malls have become more than just a particular type of retail outlet, but places providing a complex array of commercial, community and leisure facilities. They have sought not only to complement urban provision, but to replace it. Malls have become the ‘indoor city'—a new type of place, generating particular repertoires of perceptions, evaluations and behaviours. This paper reviews the predominantly behaviourist approaches that have characterized the analysis of consumer spatial and shopping behaviour and suggests that a transactionalist approach might be more valuable. An empirical study, undertaken in Guildford, U.K., demonstrates that users of the mall do not principally evaluate malls in terms of their retail performance but as social places and spaces satisfying many psychological needs and preferences. They should not be regarded simply as an extension of the high street but rather as different sorts of places. The paper concludes with an extended discussion of the consequences of mall development for the city and urban life, arguing that the indoor city is a myth.     

"I'm Learning … How You Go about Stirring Things Up—in a Consultative Manner": Social capital and action competence in two community catchment groups

The contributions of local community action groups to environmental care and restoration is usually justified and evaluated in terms of improvements to environmental quality. This article explores social benefits in the form of increases in social capital and action competence that also flow from their actions, benefits that may not only help restore degraded but also contribute to the stock of good will and skill in the community that may even prevent or minimise future environmental problems. This article documents the emergence of action competence and social capital in two community catchment groups in South-East Queensland. The findings suggest that social capital is enhanced through processes of community participation in the catchment consultation processes. The article concludes that the relationship between social capital and action competence is complementary, with social capital and action competence being mutually enhanced by the social learning that accrues from the process of community participation.     

The role of agency in sustainable local community development

Abstract

In this paper we question the importance of social capital as a primary indicator of a community's ability to engage in sustainable development as social capital can have both hindering and facilitating effects. We suggest that actor agency allows an individual or group to increase access to other critical forms of capital to overcome barriers and solve problems. We present ‘bonding’ social capital consisting of strong network ties as a negative in excess quantity as it can lead to the enforcement of social norms that hinder innovative change, and ‘bridging’ social capital consisting of weak network ties as a benefit that allows actors to bring about critical social changes. Communities achieve agency through a dynamic mix of bonding and bridging ties. We close with suggestions for fostering community agency and flag the need for further research in this area.     

An exploration of place as a process: The case of Jackson Hole, WY

A variety of theoretical positions and frameworks have been advanced to account for how places become “places”—in other words, how places become meaningful. Most existing frameworks share the idea that a place is a complex concept, given life by people attaching meaning to a physical setting in a variety of ways. This paper explores how places evolve as ever-shifting points of meaning that mark changes in people's lives in response to a variety of influences. Data collected from in-depth personal interviews in and around Jackson, Wyoming, are used to explore the conceptualization of place as a process, rather than a static entity. Three key themes or dimensions that were frequently described by interviewees are examined: (1) life stage/course, (2) searching for a feeling, and (3) commitment to a place. Not only did some respondents describe what made places important to them (the components, such as social ties, or favorite activities), they also described how these attributes worked together to create and maintain place meanings over the course of their lives. During the interviews, it was noted that these dimensions and processes were expressed explicitly as well as implicitly.     

Delivering social sustainability in the inner-city: the transformation of South-West Montreal,Quebec (Canada)

ABSTRACT

This paper analyses how social sustainability is implemented in private-led regeneration processes and which understanding of the “social” foregrounds the implementation of sustainability in Montreal. The case studies are two new residential projects led by the private sector participating in the transformation of the Southwest Borough in Montreal. The analysis is based on six components used to evaluate the operationalisation of social sustainability for new residential projects as well on the analysis of opportunities to negotiate the “social” in the implementation of sustainability. The two case studies, Griffintown and the Bassins-du-Nouveau Havre projects are examples of brownfield regeneration in a former industrial area along the Lachine Canal known as the South West Borough. We have used semi-structured interviews with the stakeholders as the main source for data collection, a review of press articles and an analysis of the principal planning documents related to each project. If the second example is more convincing in regards to the operationalisation of social sustainability, there is a lack of incentives for developers to integrate social sustainability principles in their development in the Montreal context. Planning instruments should impose more constraints on developers and municipalities should have more financial resources to negotiate with developers what the “social” should be.     

Barriers and enablers of local adaptive measures: a case study of Bengaluru’s informal settlement dwellers

ABSTRACT

Cities, with their increasing populations, are host to a range of issues including non-climatic factors due to the prevailing development paradigm, discriminatory urbanisation patterns, and weak governance structures. Climate change poses an additional challenge and exacerbates existing vulnerabilities affecting cities and its people, especially the urban poor. This paper highlights the barriers and enablers to climate change-related adaptation experienced in some of Bengaluru’s informal settlements. The barriers described in the paper include economic, social, governance and information related issues that impede local actions and increase vulnerabilities. Enabling factors such as improving social and human capital, gaining formal recognition and most importantly support from agencies (e.g. local government, civil societies, and community leaders), help overcome some of the barriers or challenges. Hence, local level adaptation measures mainstreamed with local developmental agendas help address some of the structural causes of vulnerability. Contextual policies and interventions can facilitate successful local level adaptation measures.     

The rise of the eco-preneur and the messy world of environmental innovation

Abstract

Media and academic debates about the environment have increasingly made reference to the so-called ‘eco-preneur’ (‘green entrepreneur’ or ‘environmental entrepreneur’). These discussions encourage us to see the potential of such figures to act as drivers of environmental innovation. Their combination of entrepreneurial zeal and green motivations is seen as providing them with the ability to transcend the usual tensions between business and the environment. In academic circles a new literature is beginning to emerge around this perspective, ‘eco-preneurship’. In this paper we investigate the usefulness of eco-preneurship for understanding environmental innovation. In particular we ask where this literature, supported by popular images in the media, fixes our gaze when we think about environmental innovation in society. And, crucially, what might we be missing by concentrating our attention on these eco-preneurs? The paper concludes by suggesting that environmental innovation is better understood as an inherently messy and complex institutional process, which cannot be reduced to the psychology of entrepreneurial personalities.     

Contrasting Approaches to Community-based Research and a Case Study of Community Sustainability in Toronto,Canada

Community-based research (CBR) describes a range of research approaches that link community members and external researchers in investigations that promote progressive social change as well as deeper understanding of specific issues important to communities. Increasingly, CBR is being carried out through community-university partnerships in which the research course-work of undergraduate and graduate students is integrated with the research needs of community organisations, providing much-needed intellectual resources to community groups while giving students invaluable experience in applying their academic skills. This article contributes to the understanding and practice of community-based research by situating a number of specific research approaches within a broad framework of CBR and by describing in detail one CBR initiative in Toronto, Canada.     

Urban community gardening,social capital,and "integration" – a mixed method exploration of urban "integration-gardening" in Copenhagen,Denmark

ABSTRACT

This study examines a community garden in Copenhagen, Denmark, "The Urban Integration Gardens" that endeavours to strengthen social integration in the local multicultural neighbourhood. The "community" in the gardens is explored, with a focus on how they foster social capital, particularly opportunities for "bridging" social capital. A mixed-methods approach is used, by employing a qualitative analysis of gardeners’ perceptions of "community", diversity and inclusivity, through the lens of "cognitive" social capital, and the meanings the gardeners assign to their experiences, and how they understand their involvement in the gardens. We also examine "structural" dimensions of social capital, involving quantitative data from a questionnaire and data from Statistics Denmark, comparing data concerning socio-demographic backgrounds from gardeners and residents in the local neighbourhood and Copenhagen. Major findings include that the garden generates both bonding and bridging "cognitive" social capital, and the gardeners consistently agreed that the garden has a strong community, and is permeated by diversity and inclusivity. Nonetheless, data from Denmark’s Statistics Office reveal that the garden does not "represent" the diversity in the neighbourhood regarding the distribution of members with a Western/non-Western background, as well as social class. This suggests that endeavours to involve co-citizens with non-Western backgrounds and gardeners with lower social status are restrained by potential structural barriers, which limits the "width" of bridging social capital in the garden.     

Bicycle-sharing systems in an alternative/diverse economy perspective: a sympathetic critique

ABSTRACT

This contribution puts bicycle-sharing systems (BSSs) as a rather recent, environmentally friendly form of urban mobility in the context of broader societal changes. More specifically, we discuss to what extent BSS and their various modes of organisation can be regarded as an “alternative” consumption practice, explicitly designed to deliver more social just outcomes, taking the diverse economy framework of Gibson-Graham as a key tool of analysis. Our examination unfolds a range of limitations of BSSs for (strong) sustainable development, but also a number of obvious and less obvious prospects and opportunities.     

Multinational oil companies in Nigeria and corporate social responsibility in the HIV/AIDS response in host communities

ABSTRACT

We assess the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) of multinational oil companies (MOCs) on HIV/AIDS prevalence in Nigeria’s oil-producing communities. One thousand, two hundred households were sampled across the rural communities of Niger Delta. Using logit model, the main result indicates that General Memorandum of Understandings (GMoUs) have not significantly impacted on factors behind the spread of HIV/AIDs in rural communities. This implies that the impact of the disease on MOCs business, employees and their families, contractors, business partners and the oil communities have not inclined downward. The findings suggest that CSR offers an opportunity for MOCs to help address HIV/AID prevalence through a business case for stakeholders’ health in the region. It calls for MOCs to improve GMoUs health intervention on sensitisation campaigns, funding testing and counselling centres, subsidising anti-retroviral drugs, prevention of mother-to-child transmission, rehabilitation of orphaned and vulnerable children and other cares for people living with AIDS.     

Social Capital and Fisheries Management: The Case of Chilika Lake in India

This article shows how social capital impacts fisheries management at the local level in Chilika Lake, located in the state of Orissa in India. In Chilika, the different fishing groups established norms and “rules of the game” including, but not limited to, spatial limits that determine who can fish and in what areas, temporal restrictions about when and for how long people may fish, gear constraints about what harvesting gear may be used by each group, and physical controls on size and other characteristics of fish that may be harvested. A survey of the members of fishing groups has shown that the bonding social capital is strong within the Chilika fishing groups. Bonding and bridging social capital keeps the fishers together in times of resource scarcity, checks violations of community rules and sanctions, and strengthens the community fisheries management. In contrast, linking social capital in Chilika appears to be weak, as is evident from the lack of trust in external agencies, seeking the help of formal institutions for legal support, and increasing conflicts. Trust and cooperation among fishers is crucial in helping to build the social capital. A social capital perspective on fisheries governance suggests that there should be a rethinking of priorities and funding mechanisms, from “top-down” fisheries management towards “co-management” with a focus on engendering rights and responsibilities for fishers and their communities.     

The promise of smart grids

ABSTRACT

It is the promise of smart grids – their anticipated role in meeting economic, social, environmental policy objectives – that is driving action on smart grids worldwide, while the reality is rather more messy. This paper is about the implementation of smart grids in Australia, and examines the degree to which environmental and social promises have materialised (or not) within two large energy smart grid initiatives undertaken in the period 2009–2014: the federal government-sponsored Smart Grid Smart City Program and the State of Victoria’s Advanced Metering Infrastructure Program. The analysis draws on a governmentality approach to examine how the promise of smart grids has not for the most part been delivered, concentrating in particular on how new digital technologies have not “behaved” in the way originally planned. Within a governmentality framework, it is generally assumed that technologies work to support government programmes, to accomplish governance. But growing evidence points to smart grid technologies undermining the promise of smart grids. Such a finding stands at odds with the assumption in governmentality about technologies doing work in consort with rationalities of government.