Year: 2023
Type: article
Abstract: The Transformations Community (TC) is a dynamic collective of sustainability action researchers and systems change practitioners dedicated to fostering equitable, sustainable, and regenerative futures. Since 2013, the TC has organized biennial conferences, with the most recent being a July 2023 five-day hybrid event in Sydney, Australia; Prague, Czechia; Portland, Maine; and online, with over 400 speakers and 700 attendees from over forty countries. This article delves into the insights and recommendations of a curated group, termed "sensemakers," who convened in Prague after the biennial conference in 2023. Their role was to engage in a deep reflective process, synthesizing their experience at the conference and charting ideas for desired future trajectories of the community. They identified core guiding principles labeled the "four Ts": Temperance, Transdisciplinarity, Translocalism, and Transformative Learning. These principles capture the TC's ethos, emphasizing the blend of academic rigor with real-world applicability and the interplay between individual agency, collaborative action, reflexivity, and alignment across sectors and places. Sensemaker discussions spotlighted four core areas of potential engagement for the community: decentralized and networked conferences, dynamic digital platforms for resource sharing and community building, collaborative workspaces for extended projects, and strategic partnerships with related transformation-oriented initiatives. Furthermore, the sensemakers acknowledged the need to pursue immediate actions such as organizing future conferences and developing long-term governance strategies that nurture the community's growth in alignment with the four Ts. By identifying where the TC stands and possible paths forward, sensemakers initiated a broader process of reflection and wayfinding that will continue within the TC over the next year.
Source: Social Innovations Journal
Language: English
Subfield: Global and Planetary Change
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
Funder: Arizona State University
OpenAlex ID: W7126942892