Table 2.
Emerging concepts of societal transformation in response to global environmental change
| Concept | Short description | Key references | Scholarly tradition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deliberate transformation (DT) | “Transformation can be defined as physical and/or qualitative changes in form, structure or meaning-making. It can also be understood as a psycho-social process involving the unleashing of human potential to commit, care, and effect change for a better life” (O’Brien 2012, p. 4) | O’Brien (2012) | Various |
| (Progressive) transformation (PT) | “For adaptation to be transformative and progressive it must provide scope for the revision and reform or replacement of existing social contracts and the meaning of security and modes of development, as well as defending social gains already won. [Transformation tackles] the causes of vulnerability at their roots” (Pelling 2011, p. 171) | Pelling (2011) | Human security |
| Regime shift (RS) | Active transformation is the “deliberate initiation of a phased introduction of one or more new state variables (a new way of making a living) at lower scales, while maintaining the resilience of the system at higher scales as transformational change proceeds.” Forced transformation is an “An imposed transformation of a social–ecological system that is not introduced deliberately by the actors” (Folke et al. 2010, p. 20) | Walker et al. (2004) | Resilience |
| Folke et al. (2010) | |||
| Societal transition (SoT)* | “Transitions are co-evolution processes that require multiple changes in socio-technical systems and configurations.” […] They are “multi-actor processes, […] radical shifts from one system or configuration to another. The term ‘radical’ refers to the scope of change. […] Transitions are long-term processes” and “macroscopic” (Grin and Schot 2010, p. 9) | Grin and Schot (2010) | Transition theory |
| Social practice (SP) | Transformation is a reconfiguration of practices: the elements (i.e., materials, meanings, and competencies) that define practices, practices themselves, and practice complexes | Shove et al. (2012) | Social practices |
| Transformational adaptation 1 (TA1) | “There are at least three classes of adaptations that we describe as transformational: those that are adopted at a much larger scale or intensity, those that are truly new to a particular region or resource system, and those that transform places and shift locations” (Kates et al. 2012, p. 7156). | Kates et al. (2012) | – |
| Transformational adaptation 2 (TA2) | “[Transformation is] a discrete process that fundamentally (but not necessarily irreversibly) results in change in the biophysical, social, or economic components of a system from one form, function or location (state) to another, thereby enhancing the capacity for desired values to be achieved given perceived or real changes in the present or future environment” (Park et al. 2012, p. 119) | Park et al. (2012) | Builds on resilience and transition theory |
| Socioecological transition (SeT) | “A socioecological transition […] is a transition from a socioecological regime to another. […] A socioecological regime is a specific fundamental pattern of interaction between (human) society and natural systems” (Fischer-Kowalski and Haberl 2007, p. 8). A socioecological regime is associated to a social metabolic profile, i.e., the throughput of energy and material in the system | Fischer-Kowalski and Haberl (2007) | Social metabolism |
* In the transition theory literature, the terms transition and transformation are not always distinguished (Grin and Schot 2010; Leggewie and Messner 2012), although the former is largely preferred. Only recently, De Haan and Rotmans have proposed that transformation is a particular type of transition process (De Haan and Rotmans 2011)