Narratives and power in transformation

In environmental arenas, the concept of transformation has come to the fore in recent years, primarily in relation to meeting future conservation goals. Here, transformation is defined as a radical shift in social, political, economic, and ecological system arrangements. Concurrently, transformations scholarship is thriving across disciplines such as environmental social science, science and technology studies (STS) and others. Scholarship has primarily looked at the stories' communities tell themselves about a post-transformation future, and there is little research examining how different communities understand and enact transformation, including who and what that involves. Further, attending to power relations is critical to creating systemic change and ensuring previous power relations are not reinforced or remade. These shifts in power are imperative for transformation. However, disparate studies have attempted to examine power relations within transformative processes and there are calls from numerous scholars for further investigation.

To this end, I propose to 1) identify what narratives of transformation exist and 2) ask to what extent power relations are reinforced and/or remade during transformations? I will bound my project by identifying three case studies: rooted in an environmental domain and undertaking (in their own description) 'transformative' work. The three case studies will involve different activities in relation to science and society and will differ in the scale at which they focus: local, national and international, allowing for a comparative approach. This project will combine the critical lens of power relations from political ecology with the lens of co-production from STS to assess narratives of, and power relations within, transformation. (Co-production contends that science shapes society, and society shapes science.)