Transformative Change for

Biodiversity & Equity Project

CONCEPTS TO UNDERSTAND & RESEARCH
TRANSFORMATIVE CHANGE FOR BIODIVERSITY &
EQUITY
Valerie Nelson, NRI, University of Greenwich V.J.Nelson@greenwich.ac.uk

Verina Ingram, Wageningen University & Research verina.ingram@wur.nl

Thirza Hermans, Wageningen University & Research thirze.hermans@wur.nl

Marina Benitez Kanter , Wageningen University & Research ,marina.benitezkanter@wur.nl

Albertine Vandenbussche, Wageningen University & Research albertine.vandenbussche@wur.nl

Jeremy Haggar, NRI, University of Greenwich J.P.Haggar@greenwich.ac.uk

Presentation at SCORAI-ERSCP-WUR conference ‘Transforming consumption-production systems toward just and sustainable futures’
7 July 2023
 Caribe, Colombia

Mau-Mara, Kenya

Magdalena, Colombia

Dja, Cameroon
Dja, Cameroon
Scale: 1:5400000

Mt Kenya, Kenya
Dja, Cameroon
2
Deep, systemic
changes necessary
with alternative
transformation
pathways
 Environmental drivers
Social
drivers & disturbances FOOD SYSTEMS & disturbances
Demographic, values, norms, behaviour, Tipping points, landuse
economic, technological, institutions change, pollution, alien &
telecoupled links
exotic specie, climate changs

VALUE CHAIN GOVERNANCE

Consumers

Manufacturers

Finance, investors &

investment flows
Wholesalers

Traders

Harvesters &
Social Farmers Ecological
systems systems
Human well being Biodiversity
Households/Groups Ecological processes
Institutions Ecosystems
Values

LANDSCAPE - FOOD
TERRITORY GOVERNANCE

EQUITY
(DISTRIBUTION & INCLUSION)
BIODIVERSITY
Food systems transformations
Systems thinking goes beyond value chains
and landscapes
But
• encourages techno-scientific
interpretations of food and nutrition
sustainability, resilience and inclusivity
• divides food systems into ‘blocks and
linkages’ (von Braun et al, 2021)
• limited attention to plural food meanings
and politics e.g. movements
• obscures other understandings and forms
of knowledge relating to food and the
power inequalities involved, hence
depoliticizing
• Transformative change theory focuses on
making novel socioecological relations,
rather than “”unmaking” deconstructing
existing unsustainable ones (Feola, 2019),
or generating new visions, pathways and
actions.
CIAT
5
Relational perspective food systems transformations
Relational + food territories
perspectives
• Offers alternative, nuanced
understandings of places and
distant, blurred and entangled,
trans-scale linkages, infused with
power and plural meanings and
values (May et al. (2022)
• Challenges dominant scientific and
colonial-modernity perspectives
(systems, categories and hierarchies
(West et al 2022, Walsh et al 2021).’ to re- Food territories: relational and transcalar concept, connected through
work and re-think conventional geography, culture, history, and governance’ (May et al 2022)
research practices and modernist
assumptions’
• Envisions ‘collective inquiry to
address public concerns

Foggin et al. 2021

Telecoupled systems
Landscapes directly or indirectly shaped by
value chains and development trends in
distant places, influencing flows, costs and
benefits of products, ecosystem goods
and services and values which are often
spatially distant across the globe
(Hull and Liu, 2018, Persson & Mertz 2019).

Recognizes power in systems, landscapes /

territories and value chains- importance of
governance

Recognizes how transitions in one place

affect/drive agricultural intensification and
environmental deterioration in another,
leading to new inequalities and
interdependencies (Llopiz et al., 2019)

Implications for using a social learning

(Martin-Lopez 2019)

Telecoupling offers a phenomenon, a conceptual framework and

methodological approaches
Telecoupling
Literature on telecoupling (Hermans et al 2023) shows various ways
of operationalizing and framing telecoupling:
• Structural approach (embedded in land use sciences)
• Actor based and governance approaches
• Flows between landscapes and systems
• Landscapes
Need mixed methods, interdisciplinary approach to address
underlying conceptual meanings of telecoupling – esp. governance
and spatial aspects, different knowledges and to learn across
methodologies
Conceptual angle affects how perceive telecoupled systems and :
• identifying/ measuring flows
• impacts on SE food systems or power governance focus on
wellbeing, equity and environmental justice
huge toolbox of methodologies at our disposal! Albeit qualitative
methods less developed, and multi method qual, quant + spatial
even less so.... 8
Transdisciplinary research

Science A Disciplinary research within academia

Science A Science B Interdisciplinary (multidisciplinary) research

within academia

Transdisciplinary research transcends, beyond,

Science A Science B over or across academia and involves other
knowledge and stakeholders, a process
Stakeholders
Co-produced knowledge

Co-producing processes with multiple stakeholders

Stakeholder always requires decisions which influence power
engagement relations and political structures

Power
inequalities
New theoretical
perspectives
Practical
methodologies
Solving societal
problems
Plural values perspective
Plural forms of knowledge needed to
resolve complex sustainability challenges

• Recognises plural pathways to change

• Plurality perspective enables questioning
concentrations of power and wealth from
different perspectives
• Requires new methods and processes
• Generate situated knowledge useful to
stakeholders
• Reflexive explicitly explore ethical and political
tensions in methods & concepts
• Embrace discomfort & explore tensions to
unsettle disciplinary boundaries to deliver
transdisciplinary insights
Leverage points
Dynamic systems literature offers entry points
on where and how to change complex systems
BUT
• Reductionist
• Oversimplify complex systems
• Non-linear, emergent and unpredictable
change processes,
• Challenging to isolate & target specific
leverage points
• Little empirical evidence
• Attention for social, cultural and political
dimensions of change

Reconnecting people to nature

Restructuring institutions
Transdisciplinary approach to give space to
plural forms of knowledge and ways of being.
Rethinking how knowledge created & used in pursuit of
Mixed methods research explicit about the
ethical and political tensions between different sustainability
research methods and forms of knowledge
(West et al 2019)
Davelaar 2021, Abson et al (2017) 12
CONCEPTS TO UNDERSTAND & RESEARCH TRANSFORMATIVE
CHANGE FOR BIODIVERSITY & EQUITY
• Transformations will not be achieved through constructing
technological, social, or cultural solutions.
• Better understand whether and how existing institutions,
forms of knowledge, practices & power structures can be
deconstructed and how new pluralist approaches can be
generated
• TCforBE thus chooses to focus on telecoupled food
systems/territories and places; using a conceptual
framework on transformative change which embraces
plurality and relationality, challenging orthodoxies in
techno-scientific-market perspectives and actor
configurations in relation to food, land, conservation, and
economic transformations.
• Use transdisciplinary processes to engage and connect
actors and build scenarios.
• Sees learning and research as way of catalysing change by
introducing new thinking and actions that give space for
plural convivial values, and promote processes which
amplify how to live well together in a biodiverse world