The Transition movement is a movement wherein communities openly acknowledge global issues like peak oil and climate change and choose to respond by building their resilience and lowering their carbon footprint, often by radically localising their economy. These communities are called Transition Towns, or Transition neighbourhoods if they are part of a larger city, and they are simply just groups of interested people -- government involvement is not necessary, but accepted.
The idea is that a response to the threat of peak oil and climate change is so urgent that communities can and need to act themselves and not wait for national or international government. From the Transition Network website:
What we are convinced of is this:
• if we wait for the governments, it'll be too little, too lateThe sorts of actions this movement encourages are wide and varied, but the overall goals as I mentioned are to build resilience and decrease dependence on fossil fuels. Narrowly, resilience is the property of community that enables it to continue as it, and the environment around it, changes. So, for instance, in light of peak oil concerns, a resilient community is one that can withstand dramatic changes in oil prices (where "withstand" could mean: continue to feed itself, continue to be civil toward one another, etc.) In light of climate change concerns, a resilient community might be one that could withstand changes in rain fall, summer temperatures, or sea level.
• if we act as individuals, it'll be too little
• but if we act as communities, it might just be enough, just in time.
Examples of projects that Transition initiatives take on range from simply meeting up every so often to get to know one another, to urban farming and gardening, to skill sharing and stuff sharing (e.g. tools, car, work), to organising local renewable energy, and so on. The push is on the process: to just get started working together, now, and to head in the direction of localising the economy and community. The Transition Network website has a wonderful discussion of "patterns" (yes, exactly like design patterns) that, I think, helps to illustrate how the movement hopes to move in that direction.
(To find out more about the movement, check out the Transition Network website I've linked to above, wikipedia of course, and the book considered to be the bible of the movement: The Transition Handbook. Update: If you're in Toronto, check out the Transition Toronto hub.)
What I most love about this movement is how intensely positive it is. It acknowledges the big issues but it doesn't dwell on them. Instead, it empowers people to start tackling the issues themselves where possible. Because the movement encourages all "sizes" of actions, and doing so in community rather than alone, I think it's much more likely to succeed in engaging people. And, even without the threat of climate change or peak oil, I think the community building the movement supports is very worthy of doing.
There is one big concern I have with the movement: In all of the writings I've seen so far (which, admittedly, isn't a lot) there lacks a critical analysis of social justice issues. Who is part of the movement? Who is left out? What are the implicit norms and values in the Transition community? What sorts of social inequalities will be replicated without considering all of this? And so on. None of these questions are raised, and no guidance is given on how to navigate them.
6 comments:
Very interesting!!!
I'd be curious how large a community has to be to make a real difference in our interdependent world...
@plagal -- glad to hear it! Seems too anti-establishment for your tastes though. :-P
@carolyn -- What I do see in this movement is people getting excited and getting engaged and taking constructive action. And that's cool. I also have heard it quoted that the number of transition initatives is doubling every 6 months, for what that's worth.
But yeah, how does one quantify "real difference" or how that comes about? No idea. Does "real difference" mean difference to a Transition community itself or also to the rest of the world? I'm sure some groups would be really good at raising their own resilience, but maybe less so at making a difference outside of their community. I imagine the size of community is only one factor then: how visible they are, what sorts of projects they work on, how inclusive they are, how well they tell their story about what they're up to,... would all play in to how much of a difference they have outside of themselves, no?
There exists a plethora of information about building participatory, cross-cultural movements, none of which is referenced in the Transition Town movements. Are they content being exclusive to those who share the same language, cultural norms, and paradigms? They don't feel pressure to be inclusive and to confront difference because these movements are seen as preemptive rather than reactionary, when the sense of immediacy is stronger.
iaMai: They don't feel pressure to be inclusive and to confront difference because these movements are seen as preemptive rather than reactionary
Interesting point. What sorts of factors play into how people/groups feel pressure to be inclusive and to confront difference a movement (preemptive or otherwise)?
The one framework I have for thinking about this questions is the theory of planned behaviour which suggests the following factors: attitudes about inclusivity; social/community norms around inclusivity; and sense of control about how effectively building out a participatory, cross-cultural movement.
My impression so far (which isn't based on much other than a few transition meetings, the handbook, and our class) is that if transition initiatives do not, in fact, feel the pressure to be inclusive it is because they aren't aware inclusivity is even an issue to be concerned about because it isn't an issue talked about in any of the Transition literature (that i've seen).
Staggenborg and Tarrow have interesting, and I think mostly apt, theories on what motivates people to join movements or become activists. Most salient, in my recollection, are
1) past participation in activism
2) being invited by friends to join a cause
3) a sense of immediacy (through personal experience)
There are, of course, other reasons to join, push-pull factors, and hindrances (e.g. threat of harm)
4) it's a form of socializing along similar interests
People may join the Transition movement for any set of reasons, some of which might include factors listed above, but I see much of it aligning with 1 or 4. If that's so, then there isn't an impetus to socialize with people one normally doesn't associate with. Thus, it's crucial to see the Transition movement is about more than a social group but is also heavily political.
To not think about inclusiveness because 'it isn't an issue talked about in any of [the handbooks]' highlights the narrow, de-politicized vision of the Transition movement. (Narrow and de-politicized because any examination of environmental change must consider the uneven impacts of global change on people.) Furthermore, it shows the parochial element of this movement -- that it doesn't consider how local action impacts local micro-politics and regional, global, and multi-scalar processes.
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