Nature-based solutions (NBS) are becoming a widely recognized approach to urban sustainability. M... more Nature-based solutions (NBS) are becoming a widely recognized approach to urban sustainability. Most of the literature and policy handbooks on the topic emphasize the importance of participation in some form but interpretations and levels of commitment vary. While the mainstream discourse often presents NBS as a set of win-win solutions for urban sustainability, there is a tendency to romanticize both nature and participatory planning processes in the institutional language and practices of NBS. In this paper, we review critical perspectives on the mainstream NBS discourse. Then we bring scholarship concerning the relationship between cities, nature and social change into conversation with scholarship on commoning, to outline an approach for rethinking the democratic and transformative potential of NBS. In this approach, we argue for moving beyond the instrumentalization of nature inherent to mainstream NBS, and locate, within diverse strands of theory, perspectives that contribute ...
This article examines the potential adverse effects of sustainable transport transitions on justi... more This article examines the potential adverse effects of sustainable transport transitions on justice. It is important for policy debates to consider how pro-environment policies may adversely impact social justice. We apply a broad conception of justice as comprising redistribution, representation and recognition to the transport transition in Bergen, Norway, with ambitious climate mitigation policies to be met primarily by reshaping transport. Through primary data collection and critical literature review, we identify several potential injustice effects of green transport transitions. These particularly relate to the redistributive effects of selective allocation of benefits and to less tangible processes of representation and recognition.
How a country responds to a rupture such as the COVID-19 pandemic can be revelatory of its govern... more How a country responds to a rupture such as the COVID-19 pandemic can be revelatory of its governance. Governance entails not only the exercise but also the constitution of authority. The pandemic response thus presents a real-world disruption to verify or problematize some truisms about national governance and produce novel comparisons and insights. We present a comparative analysis across four established democratic nation-states. First, we identify concerns of relevance for national pandemic responses and map them to state characteristics. Next, we conduct thematic analyses of recent ruptures in India, the United States, Sweden and Norway, to form a baseline of truisms about governance responses to frontier moments such as this pandemic, and hypothesize their relative propensities across the concerns. We then compile comparative data on emergent pandemic responses during the first 90 days of respective, temporally proximate outbreaks. This combination enables us to link response ...
In their article on 'sociotechnical matters', Hess and Sovacool (2020) draw on extant STS scholar... more In their article on 'sociotechnical matters', Hess and Sovacool (2020) draw on extant STS scholarship to unpack 'the black box' of sociotechnical contributions to social science studies of energy. Notably absent in their synthesis is explicit attention to temporality and to the impact of temporal dimensions on the politics of material change. We argue that temporality is a key analytical entry point to unpack how energy infrastructure changes. Using the case of transitions to low-carbon mobility in urban transport in Bergen, Norway, we highlight how attention to temporality enables us to not only understand and explain, but also engage with and influence, changes in sociotechnical matters. Empirically, we deconstruct the ongoing development of car-free zones in Bergen's suburban spaces, and show how the temporal organisation of events is a key constraint in the project. Car-free zone planning occurs within a continuously evolving context, with trade-offs between requisite time to build sufficient knowledge, fast-approaching project deadlines, and the timing of parallel synergistic processes. An analytical appreciation of the significance of time in setting and swaying the politics of material change is, we argue, instrumental to both unpacking the black box of sociotechnical matters and to informing and impacting change.
Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 2021
Micro-mobility market-making represents an under-studied but important aspect of urban transport ... more Micro-mobility market-making represents an under-studied but important aspect of urban transport sustainability transitions. Micro-mobility roll-out combines several critical elements: decarbonisation, digitalisation and public space interventions. We theorise the emergence of a micro-mobility market, drawing on innovation studies, micro-politics scholarship and commoning mobility literature, and critically discuss the relationship between innovation and regulation in this emerging market. We examine e-scooter roll-out in Bergen, Norway, using a structured analysis that interrogates knowledge, authority and power. Our empirical analysis employs expert interviews and focus group discussions with key transport sector stakeholders, including policymakers, practitioners and urban residents. We discuss insights in terms of implications for how micro-mobility markets are made and in turn make urban transport sustainability transitions. We argue that while micro-mobility can enable just low-carbon mobility transitions, market forces drive outcomes that may undermine urban sustainability agendas. We identify scope for dynamic regulation to engender low-carbon mobility in wider public interest. 1. Introduction: regulating smart micro-mobility Decarbonising transport is a challenging piece of the puzzle for sustainability transitions (Tsoi et al., 2021; Canzler and Knie, 2016). The urban scale is a key battleground for decarbonisation (Voytenko et al., 2016; Bouteligier, 2015). Urban transitions foreground multiple conflicts such as competition over space, and constitute contexts where accelerated politics of transition are most likely to play out, as social movements and policy lobbying by interest groups tend to take place in and around cities (Sheller, 2011). These aspects make the urban scale an apt one to study market-making in sustainability transitions (Moradi and Vagnoni, 2018). We understand transitions after Sheller (2011) as twin transitions to sustainability and mobility justice, i.e., as entailing both ecological low-carbon shifts and social shifts to equitable transport systems. Urban authorities often have significant regulatory influence over local and regional transport. While national regulations set overarching frameworks, municipalities typically have responsibility for implementing the regulations, conducting land use planning, coordinating public transport and providing infrastructure. Urban transport policies have increasingly taken decarbonisation on board, as municipalities preempt or respond to ambitious national government commitments to decarbonisation and aim to take the lead themselves through trans-national networks such as C40 Cities and the Covenant of Mayors (Van der Heijden, 2019). Consequently, changes in the transport sector are also more susceptible to politicisation amongst local publics with competing
Nature-based solutions (NBS) are becoming a widely recognized approach to urban sustainability. M... more Nature-based solutions (NBS) are becoming a widely recognized approach to urban sustainability. Most of the literature and policy handbooks on the topic emphasize the importance of participation in some form but interpretations and levels of commitment vary. While the mainstream discourse often presents NBS as a set of win-win solutions for urban sustainability, there is a tendency to romanticize both nature and participatory planning processes in the institutional language and practices of NBS. In this paper, we review critical perspectives on the mainstream NBS discourse. Then we bring scholarship concerning the relationship between cities, nature and social change into conversation with scholarship on commoning, to outline an approach for rethinking the democratic and transformative potential of NBS. In this approach, we argue for moving beyond the instrumentalization of nature inherent to mainstream NBS, and locate, within diverse strands of theory, perspectives that contribute ...
This article examines the potential adverse effects of sustainable transport transitions on justi... more This article examines the potential adverse effects of sustainable transport transitions on justice. It is important for policy debates to consider how pro-environment policies may adversely impact social justice. We apply a broad conception of justice as comprising redistribution, representation and recognition to the transport transition in Bergen, Norway, with ambitious climate mitigation policies to be met primarily by reshaping transport. Through primary data collection and critical literature review, we identify several potential injustice effects of green transport transitions. These particularly relate to the redistributive effects of selective allocation of benefits and to less tangible processes of representation and recognition.
How a country responds to a rupture such as the COVID-19 pandemic can be revelatory of its govern... more How a country responds to a rupture such as the COVID-19 pandemic can be revelatory of its governance. Governance entails not only the exercise but also the constitution of authority. The pandemic response thus presents a real-world disruption to verify or problematize some truisms about national governance and produce novel comparisons and insights. We present a comparative analysis across four established democratic nation-states. First, we identify concerns of relevance for national pandemic responses and map them to state characteristics. Next, we conduct thematic analyses of recent ruptures in India, the United States, Sweden and Norway, to form a baseline of truisms about governance responses to frontier moments such as this pandemic, and hypothesize their relative propensities across the concerns. We then compile comparative data on emergent pandemic responses during the first 90 days of respective, temporally proximate outbreaks. This combination enables us to link response ...
In their article on 'sociotechnical matters', Hess and Sovacool (2020) draw on extant STS scholar... more In their article on 'sociotechnical matters', Hess and Sovacool (2020) draw on extant STS scholarship to unpack 'the black box' of sociotechnical contributions to social science studies of energy. Notably absent in their synthesis is explicit attention to temporality and to the impact of temporal dimensions on the politics of material change. We argue that temporality is a key analytical entry point to unpack how energy infrastructure changes. Using the case of transitions to low-carbon mobility in urban transport in Bergen, Norway, we highlight how attention to temporality enables us to not only understand and explain, but also engage with and influence, changes in sociotechnical matters. Empirically, we deconstruct the ongoing development of car-free zones in Bergen's suburban spaces, and show how the temporal organisation of events is a key constraint in the project. Car-free zone planning occurs within a continuously evolving context, with trade-offs between requisite time to build sufficient knowledge, fast-approaching project deadlines, and the timing of parallel synergistic processes. An analytical appreciation of the significance of time in setting and swaying the politics of material change is, we argue, instrumental to both unpacking the black box of sociotechnical matters and to informing and impacting change.
Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 2021
Micro-mobility market-making represents an under-studied but important aspect of urban transport ... more Micro-mobility market-making represents an under-studied but important aspect of urban transport sustainability transitions. Micro-mobility roll-out combines several critical elements: decarbonisation, digitalisation and public space interventions. We theorise the emergence of a micro-mobility market, drawing on innovation studies, micro-politics scholarship and commoning mobility literature, and critically discuss the relationship between innovation and regulation in this emerging market. We examine e-scooter roll-out in Bergen, Norway, using a structured analysis that interrogates knowledge, authority and power. Our empirical analysis employs expert interviews and focus group discussions with key transport sector stakeholders, including policymakers, practitioners and urban residents. We discuss insights in terms of implications for how micro-mobility markets are made and in turn make urban transport sustainability transitions. We argue that while micro-mobility can enable just low-carbon mobility transitions, market forces drive outcomes that may undermine urban sustainability agendas. We identify scope for dynamic regulation to engender low-carbon mobility in wider public interest. 1. Introduction: regulating smart micro-mobility Decarbonising transport is a challenging piece of the puzzle for sustainability transitions (Tsoi et al., 2021; Canzler and Knie, 2016). The urban scale is a key battleground for decarbonisation (Voytenko et al., 2016; Bouteligier, 2015). Urban transitions foreground multiple conflicts such as competition over space, and constitute contexts where accelerated politics of transition are most likely to play out, as social movements and policy lobbying by interest groups tend to take place in and around cities (Sheller, 2011). These aspects make the urban scale an apt one to study market-making in sustainability transitions (Moradi and Vagnoni, 2018). We understand transitions after Sheller (2011) as twin transitions to sustainability and mobility justice, i.e., as entailing both ecological low-carbon shifts and social shifts to equitable transport systems. Urban authorities often have significant regulatory influence over local and regional transport. While national regulations set overarching frameworks, municipalities typically have responsibility for implementing the regulations, conducting land use planning, coordinating public transport and providing infrastructure. Urban transport policies have increasingly taken decarbonisation on board, as municipalities preempt or respond to ambitious national government commitments to decarbonisation and aim to take the lead themselves through trans-national networks such as C40 Cities and the Covenant of Mayors (Van der Heijden, 2019). Consequently, changes in the transport sector are also more susceptible to politicisation amongst local publics with competing
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