Claudia Hemp
Human activity is driving biodiversity loss and diminishing ecosystems’ capacity to provide nature’s contributions to people (NCP), impacting quality of life. Addressing these challenges in the Anthropocene requires transformational changes to foster sustainability and justice. The research of initiatives and projects seeking to foster sustainability transformations has gained traction during the last decades, and multiple approaches have emerged to study sustainability transformations, including frameworks like Seeds of Good Anthropocenes, valus, rules, and knowledge (vrk) framework, and Leverage Points, gaining prominence. Deep leverage points—focused on values, rules, and knowledge—are critical for transformative change but are often overlooked in empirical research. Greater attention to these deeper interventions is essential to addressing sustainability and justice challenges effectively.
Objectives
The main objective of SP3 is to assess how the decision-making contexts of sustainability initiatives and projects (hereafter also merely “Seeds”) lead to a greater transformative potential towards sustainable and just futures. Specifically, we will conduct in-depth interviews with representatives of the Seeds in the Kilimanjaro SES to identify and characterize clusters of Seeds based on their decision-making context, considering their values, rules, and knowledge (WP1). Additionally, the interviews will allow us to investigate their past transformative changes and their future potential to contribute to just and sustainable outcomes (WP2). Finally, we will survey the representatives to conduct a social network analysis and, in doing so, explore the extent to which the position of the Seeds in the social networks is relevant to leverage (WP3).
Outcomes
For WP1, we plan to develop an Atlas of Transformation by spatially mapping the Seeds. We aim to fill several knowledge gaps in sustainability transformation research, such as the role of different types of values for transformation and the unexpected consequences, contestations, trade-offs, and power tensions when fostering sustainability transformations. Moreover, the interviews will provide insights to characterize the clusters of Seeds based on their decision-making contexts and social-ecological contexts.
For WP2, we will gain an in-depth understanding of the mechanisms through which interventions developed by the Seeds contribute to system transformation. Beyond the analysis of individual Seeds, we will examine the interactions between shallow and deep leverage points that pave the way for fundamental transformations and unravel the difference in the transformative potential of the Seeds belonging to different clusters. Our approach to analyzing Seeds, including the vrk underpinning their decision-making, main outcomes, leverage points, and amplification strategies, will constitute a novel and systematic methodology for assessing the transformative potential of interventions.
For WP3, we will provide insights into whether a particular decision-making context significantly influences the centrality of the Seeds in the different networks. Finally, our work will yield new insights into how, through their networks, Seeds can jointly intervene and leverage fundamental transformative change in and beyond the system they are embedded in.
Team members
Prof. Dr. Berta Martín-López (Principal Investigator)
Dr. Susann Adloff (Co-Principal Investigator)
Dr. Victoria Junquera (Co-Principal Investigator)
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Jennifer Kasanda Sesabo (Tanzanian Co-Principal Investigator)
Dr. Mathew Bukhi Mabele (Tanzanian Co-Principal Investigator)
Dr. Milena Gross (PostDoc)
John Sanya Julius (PhD student, Phase 1)
Fatma Alharthy (PhD student)
Lucía Pérez Volkow (PhD student)
(for more information see People page)