A critical view on the role of scale and instrumental imaginaries within community sustainability transitions research

Abstract

AbstractResearch has recently focused on various under‐the‐radar sustainability‐oriented community initiatives to understand and support bottom‐up dynamics of social‐ecological change. While community initiatives vary widely, research on them tends towards an instrumental perspective: a will‐to‐upscale. While exploring possibilities for expanding (some of) the practices and impacts of sustainability‐oriented projects and organizations, we argue for a more cautious approach to instrumentalising community initiatives. We develop our argument around four recurring issues we identify in the literature: (1) conceptual imprecisions; (2) privileging of novelties; (3) politics of urgency; and (4) outwards orientation. In response to these critiques, and leaning on geographical theories of scale, we outline our caution. At its core, this approach is a ‘literacy of scaling’ where scaling functions as a tactic subordinate to the community.