Social Learning and Transdisciplinary Co-Production: A Social Practice Approach

Abstract

To address the challenge of achieving social learning in support of transformative change to sustainability, this paper develops an analytical framework that applies a social practice theory (SPT) lens to illuminate the constituent elements and dynamics of social learning in the context of transdisciplinary coproduction for sustainability transitions. Adopting an SPT approach affords a means of interpreting concrete practices at the local scale and exploring the potential for scaling them up. This framework is then applied to a real-world case at the urban neighbourhood scale in order to illustrate how social learning unfolded in a grassroots transdisciplinary coproduction process focused on climate action. We find that a social practice perspective illuminates the material and nonmaterial dimensions of the relationship between social learning and transdisciplinary coproduction. In decoupling these properties from individual human agency, the SPT perspective affords a means of tracing their emergence among social actors, generating a deeper understanding of how social learning arises and effects change, and sustainability can be reinforced.