Meta-Organizing sustainability Transitions in territories: a place-based approach – METAORGTRANS

Bridging transition studies, meta-organization theory and place-making theory, MetaOrgTrans’ novelty will be to analyze meta-organizing of transition as a territorially embedded process relying on place-based, organized devices for collective action among a variety of stakeholders. Operationalizing our research will involve a mixed-method approach taking inspiration from different disciplines (e.g. management, economics, geography). We will combine a qualitative, multi-situated approach for case studies, with a quantitative approach (Agent Based modeling). This innovative, pluridisciplinary methodological approach will allow to derive original findings and will also permit cross-fertilization for team members.

The project brings together an international and complementary team in management, economics, geography, political science and sociology. This project will provide a fresh and original look at transition governance in territories via the concept of place-based meta-organization. The originality and contribution of this approach is that 1) it allows accounting for the variability and richness of local histories and places, 2) it enables to understand how to engage stakeholders in the right way in governance of transition and 3) it conceptualizes the decided, organized dimension of transition intermediaries, therefore granting territorial actors a significant power.

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Solving grand challenges like climate change implies systemic, multi-level social transformations and rely increasingly on transition intermediaries, which can take the form of meta-organizations, organizations of organizations. Economic geography has noted that this approach neglects the specificities of places on sustainability transitions and intermediary organizations. To date, little work has closely examined place-based meta-organizations, which intermediate sustainability transitions in territories. The specificies and voices of territories, whether very local like the mining territory of Gardanne, regional like Catalunya and Provence, or transnational like the Arctic, are generally ignored. This might lead to neglect both territories and these organized intermediary actors as sources of resistance to change or as powerful transformative agents that can engage local stakeholders in the right way.
The central objective of our project is to problematize meta-organizations as transition intermediaries that are embedded and contextualized in their territories, that accompany transition pathways in territories and that may, under certain conditions, provoke broader regime and socio-technical system changes. Our project makes three key assumptions. First, connecting place-making theory and meta-organization theory, we assume that spatial and temporal characteristics of a territory will affect place-based meta-organizations’ formation and structure. Then, connecting meta-organization theory and transition studies, we make the second hypothesis that place-based meta-organizations act as transition intermediaries that contribute to govern the socio-ecological transition pathways in territories. Finally, connecting place-making theory and system transition, we make the third hypothesis that place-based meta-organizations re-embed transitions in territories and intermediate multi-scalar transitions, thus contributing to system changes. We will investigate these questions through three scientific axes that will generally contribute to our better understanding of the processes of meta-organizing sustainability transitions in territories: 1) unpacking the conditions for the emergence of place-based meta-organizations, 2) their functions as transition intermediaries in territories, 3) their inter-localization process, i.e. the multi-scalar conditions for their transformative power in broader system changes.
Bridging transition studies, meta-organization theory and place-making theory, MetaOrgTrans’ novelty will be to analyze meta-organizing of transition as a territorially embedded process relying on place-based, organized devices for collective action among a variety of stakeholders. Operationalizing our research will involve a mixed-method approach taking inspiration from different disciplines (e.g. management, economics, geography). We will combine a qualitative, multi-situated approach based on chronosystemic timelines for four case studies, with a quantitative approach (Agent Based modeling). This innovative, pluridisciplinary methodological approach will allow to derive original findings and will also permit cross-fertilization for team members.
The project will bring together an international and complementary team in management, economics, geography, political science and sociology. This project will provide a fresh and original look at transition governance in territories via the concept of place-based meta-organization. The originality and contribution of this approach is that 1) it allows accounting for the variability and richness of local histories and places, 2) it enables to understand how to engage stakeholders in the right way in governance of transition and 3) it conceptualizes the decided, organized dimension of transition intermediaries, therefore granting territorial actors a significant power.