An interdisciplinary perspective on scaling in transitions
- Author(s)
- Paula Maria Bögel, Karoline Augenstein, Meike Levin-Keitel, Paul Upham
- Abstract
The question of how sustainable innovations and how niche experimentation lead to systemic changes are a core motivation of sustainability transitions research. As an inherently interdisciplinary field, although this question is addressed from different academic perspectives, the dominant understanding of relevant scaling processes is grounded in concepts of growth, diffusion and expansion. This article contributes to the discussion of more nuanced understandings of scaling, acknowledging the value of ontological levels for analytic purposes, but also drawing on knowledge from socio-psychological and spatial perspectives. Alternative understandings of spatial and agency-related scaling approaches are discussed and compared. An integrative socio-spatial framework is developed, providing a mid-range framework capable of supporting analysis of transitions that connects different disciplinary perspectives within a level-based ontology.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Geography and Regional Research
- External organisation(s)
- Karlsruher Institut für Technologie, Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Technische Universität Dortmund, University of Sussex Business School
- Journal
- Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions
- Volume
- 42
- Pages
- 170-183
- No. of pages
- 14
- ISSN
- 2210-4224
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2021.12.009
- Publication date
- 03-2022
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 507012 Spatial structure
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment, Environmental Science (miscellaneous), Social Sciences (miscellaneous)
- Sustainable Development Goals
- SDG 7 - Affordable and Clean Energy
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/9bfca1e0-368e-4a25-b0f6-5105e0f4a7d9