Power in place: Exploring the transformative potential in region-oriented sustainability programs

Developing solutions to sustainability challenges is not a “one size fits all” approach. Different regions may have different social and material characteristics, leading to sustainability challenges manifesting differently in each region and requiring different solutions that are appropriate. Increasingly, recognition of this complexity leads to the emergence of what is termed in this thesis region-oriented sustainability programs. Region-oriented sustainability programs are in this thesis understood as a form of government by experiment, for their focus on supporting local and regional initiatives as a way to contribute to sustainability transformations. They face the challenging task of being sensitive to regional dynamics, while at the same time instigating powerful and purposive interventions to ensure structural change. This thesis aims to understand what sensitivity to local dynamics exactly entails and how it can be fostered in region-oriented sustainability programs, by studying how such programs play out in practice. The research in this thesis takes on a transdisciplinary and action-oriented approach and studies the workings of region-oriented sustainability programs from various angles: the interaction between regional and national actors in a region-oriented sustainability program, a regional initiative seeking support from the national government and the emergence of reflexive research practices at the science-policy interface in region-oriented sustainability programs. Drawing on geography theory, this thesis proposes a relational approach to place as to highlight the ways in which regional dynamics shape regional sustainability priorities and affects policy programs, thereby potentially affecting the course of sustainability transitions. These findings shed light on the transformative potential that rests in a region as local actors are seen to develop initiatives with ambitious ideas for sustainable change. It also illuminates the ways in which transformation is contested by local actors when a government sets out a direction that local actors feel does not recognize what is important to them. This thesis showed region-oriented sustainability programs are important in supporting regional initiatives, but that a program’s own experimental nature impedes policy actors in these programs in structurally embedding change. This thesis also considers its own innovative transdisciplinary research methods and tools for its potential to contribute to structural change, thereby contributing to the literature on reflexive and transdisciplinary research for sustainability challenges as well as providing tools for the practice of transdisciplinary researchers. To conclude, this thesis reflects on whether regional initiatives should be understood as a means for transformation or whether they can be regarded as a form of transformative power in themselves.