Re-imagining Sustainability: environmental protection, social well-being and decent work in place-based just transitions

Project Description

This proposal aims to establish the role of place-based communities in supporting and enacting a just transition to decarbonisation in Ireland. Using an interdisciplinary approach of geographical and anthropological theory and methods, this research explores how grassroots initiatives on just transition can achieve transformative sustainable development. Essentially, this research explores how a just transition to decarbonisation is to be understood within social, spatial and cultural parameters, and as part of longstanding interdependencies between local communities, ecosystems and exchange. The research will examine these issues through ethnographic fieldwork consisting of a set of case studies focusing on different kinds of place-based initiatives, some emerging from the grassroots and some state-led. The research will take place in three locations in order to exemplify different contexts, such as rural, peri-urban/commuter belt, and urban, and diverse just transition challenges in farming, forestry and transport sectors. Within these place-based case studies a multiple-methods approach will be used to map the local landscape of climate challenges, decarbonisation and current actions, against government policy rhetoric. This will include an analysis of research, policy and media coverage of climate change and decarbonisation; interviews with stakeholders from public, private and civil society; participant observation, interviews, life histories and focus group discussions with communities; and action-based workshops with members of the community to co-design just transition strategy for the local area. The goal of the research is to support the implementation of a spatially-sensitive, sustainable and just transition to a decarbonised future for Ireland.