CONCEPTS TO UNDERSTAND & RESEARCH TRANSFORMATIVE CHANGE FOR BIODIVERSITY & EQUITY Transformative Change for Biodiversity & Equity Project 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 Transformative Change for Biodiversity & Equity Project Presentation at SCORAI-ERSCP-WUR conference ‘Transforming consumption-production systems toward just and sustainable futures’ 7 July 2023

1. 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
TransformativeChangefor
Biodiversity & Equity Project
Presentation at SCORAI-ERSCP-WUR conference ‘Transforming consumption-production systems toward just and sustainable futures’
7 July 2023

2. 2
Dja, Cameroon
Dja, Cameroon
Scale: 1:5400000
Dja, Cameroon
Mt Kenya, Kenya
Mau-Mara, Kenya
Magdalena, Colombia
Caribe, Colombia

3. Deep, systemic
changes necessary
with alternative
transformation
pathways

4. Environmental drivers
& disturbances
Tipping points, landuse
change, pollution, alien &
exotic specie, climate changs
Social
drivers & disturbances
Demographic, values, norms, behaviour,
economic, technological, institutions
Social
systems
Human well being
Households/Groups
Institutions
Values
Ecological
systems
Biodiversity
Ecological processes
Ecosystems
EQUITY
(DISTRIBUTION & INCLUSION)
BIODIVERSITY
LANDSCAPE - FOOD
TERRITORY GOVERNANCE
VALUE
CHAIN
GOVERNANCE
Consumers
Manufacturers
Wholesalers
Traders
Harvesters &
Farmers
Finance,
investors
&
investment
flows
telecoupled links
FOOD SYSTEMS

5. 5
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.
Food systems transformations
CIAT

6. 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-
work and re-think conventional
research practices and modernist
assumptions’
• Envisions ‘collective inquiry to
address public concerns
Relational perspective food systems transformations
Food territories: relational and transcalar concept, connected through
geography, culture, history, and governance’ (May et al 2022)
Foggin et al. 2021

7. 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
Telecoupled systems

8. 8
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....
Telecoupling

9. Disciplinary research within academia
Interdisciplinary (multidisciplinary) research
within academia
Transdisciplinary research transcends, beyond,
over or across academia and involves other
knowledge and stakeholders, a process
Transdisciplinary research
Science A
Science A
Science A
Science B
Science B
Stakeholders

10. New theoretical
perspectives
Practical
methodologies
Solving societal
problems
Power
inequalities
Stakeholder
engagement
Co-produced knowledge
Co-producing processes with multiple stakeholders
always requires decisions which influence power
relations and political structures

11. 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

12. 12
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
Transdisciplinary approach to give space to
plural forms of knowledge and ways of being.
Mixed methods research explicit about the
ethical and political tensions between different
research methods and forms of knowledge
(West et al 2019)
Leverage points
Davelaar 2021, Abson et al (2017)
Reconnecting people to nature
Rethinking how knowledge created & used in pursuit of
sustainability
Restructuring institutions

13. • 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
CONCEPTS TO UNDERSTAND & RESEARCH TRANSFORMATIVE
CHANGE FOR BIODIVERSITY & EQUITY