【2022 Early Career Researchers in Sustainability Science ❶】Proposing a place- and justice-sensitive approach to study grassroots innovations for sustainability 從地方和環境正義視角探索草根創新的永續意涵

Studies on grassroots innovations for sustainability, such as community energy and community-supported agriculture has led the civic turn in sustainability transitions studies since mid-2000s. However, grassroots innovations scholarship has been criticized for overemphasizing privileged environments and conditions for experimentation and for downplaying site-specific motivations and aspirations that exceed the scope of socio-technical transitions. To address these gaps, this research draws insights from political ecology and environmental justice literature to investigate the often-overlooked role of place-based concerns and struggles—especially in less privileged environments for experimentation—in the development of grassroots innovations and in advancing the understanding of ‘sustainability’. It reconceptualizes grassroots niches as ‘hybrid spaces’ involving both socio-spatial differentiation and socio-technical reconfigurations associated with capitalist industrialization. It then proposes a place-centered enabling approach to investigate how grassroots actors perceive, design, and mobilize for grassroots innovations in relation to their place visions with three analytical foci: the development history of the host community, its place-framing, and its place-making politics. Drawing on the lessons from a community energy project in a marginalized rural community in Taiwan, I argue that the meanings and values of grassroots innovations in disadvantaged places should be understood from a geo-historically informed, grounded perspective to facilitate a just transformation to sustainability in socio-technical, socio-spatial, and structural terms.

自 2000年代中期以來，「草根創新」概念 (grassroots innovations，意指由下而上發起的永續社會實驗，如社區電廠和社區支持型農業) 引領了永續轉型研究中的公民面向研究。然而，既有的草根創新研究多採用「社會-科技系統」的研究途徑 (socio-technical systemic approach)，探討如何透過複製和擴張草根創新的規模來促進社會-科技系統轉型 (如能源轉型) ，以及尋找有利進行社會實驗的優異環境和條件，從而容易輕忽社會-科技系統之外的地方脈絡、發展需求和地方政治運作，以及條件欠佳之弱勢地區的轉型需求和潛力。本研究嘗試結合政治生態學和環境正義研究的觀點來補足這些缺口，探尋在地需求和抗爭在發展草根創新和理解「永續」意涵上所扮演的角色。首先，本研究將草根利基 (grassroots niches，亦即草根創新發生之空間) 從傳統定義中「被保護的空間」重新界定為「混雜的空間」(hybrid spaces)，同時鑲嵌在工業資本主義發展過程下的社會空間分化和社會科技系統的轉型之中。接著，提出以地方為中心、強調草根行動者主體性的研究途徑，將草根創新與其它以地方為本的集體行動視為形塑地方的活動 (place-making actions) ，從三個層面進行分析：所屬社區的發展歷史 (development history)、地方論述構框 (place framing) 和社區內外的地方型塑政治 (place-making politics)。最後，本研究透過台灣一個偏鄉公民電廠的實證分析，主張應從歷史地理脈絡和在地觀點來理解相對弱勢地區的草根創新意涵和價值，開啟空間、系統與結構三重面向上兼顧正義原則的永續轉型之對話和可能性。

講    者 Speaker: Dr. Huei-Ling Lai (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Research Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan)
主    持 Host: Dr. Wan-Yu Shih 石婉瑜副教授 (銘傳大學都市規劃與防災學系)
               
日    期 Date: 4th March 2022 (Friday)
時    間 Time: 11:00 am - 12:00 noon (GMT+8)
地    點 Venue: Virtual 線上 (Link will be sent after registration 報名後另外通知視訊連結)
語    言 Language: English 英文

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講者資訊 Speaker's Info:
http://www.hss.ntu.edu.tw/model.aspx?no=621