Towards “just” energy transitions in unequal societies: an actor-centric analysis of South Africa's evolving electricity sector

The rapid and intensifying impacts of the changing climate and subsequent need to alleviate these have resulted in the synonymous pathway towards a global energy transition. Through enhanced national climate action plans, countries worldwide are formulating development pathways that are aligned to a carbon-neutral and net-zero emissions global economy. The recent IPCC Sixth Assessment report confirmed, once again, the urgency to reduce emissions to prevent catastrophic climate impacts. While nations have submitted their enhanced climate action plans, developing countries like South Africa battle with severe developmental challenges. The imperative to respond to climate change alongside addressing entrenched development challenges such as high unemployment, inequality, and poverty make it essential for the country's energy transition to be just. Frameworks theorising technological transitions predominantly originate from the global north. Thus, to avoid adopting frameworks from their place of origin and replicating them in different contexts, this study merges Geel's multi-level perspective (MLP) framework with the energy justice framework to have a better understanding of the composition of actors and discourse shaping South Africa's just energy transition debate. The study achieves this by operationalizing a range of qualitative discursive approaches, namely content and media frame analysis. Over an 11-year study period, online newspaper articles are used as a unit of analysis to develop actor categories, these are accompanied by frames (in the form of statements said by the identified actors). With the assumption of there being no agency at the landscape level of the MLP, landscape developments placing pressure on the regime identified from the analysis include the climate change phenomenon, pressure from the international community, and declining global demand for coal. At the regime level, actors engaging in activities reinforcing the status quo such as Eskom and members of business fell within the incumbent (core) actor category whereas actors who were identified as outsiders (i.e., those that openly criticize the regime by highlighting problems associated with it) mainly consisted of civil society groups. Within each actor category, actors use discourse that either stabilizes or destabilizes the regime. At the niche level, the financial intermediary role played by development finance institutions (DFI's) emerged as key to creating protective spaces for the adoption of renewable energy technologies throughout the study period. Finally, because of the varying levels of power and interactions between actors across the multiple levels of the country's energy transition, issues of fairness in decision-making (procedural justice), representation (recognitional justice) and share in costs and benefits of the regime and transition emerge (distributive justice)

Comparison of user groups' perspectives of barriers and facilitators to implementing electronic health records: a systematic review

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Electronic health record (EHR) implementation is currently underway in Canada, as in many other countries. These ambitious projects involve many stakeholders with unique perceptions of the implementation process. EHR users have an important role to play as they must integrate the EHR system into their work environments and use it in their everyday activities. Users hold valuable, first-hand knowledge of what can limit or contribute to the success of EHR implementation projects. A comprehensive synthesis of EHR users' perceptions is key to successful future implementation. This systematic literature review was aimed to synthesize current knowledge of the barriers and facilitators influencing shared EHR implementation among its various users.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Covering a period from 1999 to 2009, a literature search was conducted on nine electronic databases. Studies were included if they reported on users' perceived barriers and facilitators to shared EHR implementation, in healthcare settings comparable to Canada. Studies in all languages with an empirical study design were included. Quality and relevance of the studies were assessed. Four EHR user groups were targeted: physicians, other health care professionals, managers, and patients/public. Content analysis was performed independently by two authors using a validated extraction grid with pre-established categorization of barriers and facilitators for each group of EHR users.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of a total of 5,695 potentially relevant publications identified, 117 full text publications were obtained after screening titles and abstracts. After review of the full articles, 60 publications, corresponding to 52 studies, met the inclusion criteria. The most frequent adoption factors common to all user groups were design and technical concerns, ease of use, interoperability, privacy and security, costs, productivity, familiarity and ability with EHR, motivation to use EHR, patient and health professional interaction, and lack of time and workload. Each user group also identified factors specific to their professional and individual priorities.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This systematic review presents innovative research on the barriers and facilitators to EHR implementation. While important similarities between user groups are highlighted, differences between them demonstrate that each user group also has a unique perspective of the implementation process that should be taken into account.</p

Workers as actors at the micro-level of sustainability transitions : A systematic literature review

Work and workers have been neglected topics in sustainability transitions research. Our sys-tematic literature review of 28 academic papers on the subject reveals five ways in which workers are affected or otherwise linked to transitions, indicating the relevance of further empirical studies on the role played by different groups of workers. First, environmental policies and other macro-level changes have indirect consequences for workers. Second, new sustainable work practices emerge or face insurmountable obstacles depending on meso- and micro-level change dynamics. Third, workers may adopt mediating positions and act as intermediaries in transitions. Fourth, novel educational programmes evolve to equip workers with new skills, and fifth, tran-sitions may lead to the creation of new jobs in the labour market. Co-evolutionary change dy-namics of sustainability transitions affect workers in both formal and informal forms of employment, and these questions in accelerating transitions require further attention.Peer reviewe

Designing for e-Social Action An Application Taxonomy

In this paper, we present a taxonomy for understanding designs and designing of Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) in the field of ‘Social Action’. We use the term ‘Social Action’ to refer to activities of individuals and organisations in civil society, which are oriented towards social (rather than primarily economic) goals. We then apply the term e-Social Action to refer to the application of ICT in these activities. This definition incorporates a wide range of initiatives, varying from: trade-unions logging safety inspections on ships, Age Concern York organising volunteers to place on-line supermarket orders on behalf of housebound elderly people; the International Red Cross using logistics software to deliver emergency aid; and Martus.org providing technology to enable victims of human-rights abuse to report their experience whilst protecting their anonymity and thus avoiding reprisals. To study designing in this broad space, it is necessary to understand key dimensions of the settings where designing takes place. The aim of this paper is to examine how information and communication technologies in social action can be understood, classified and distinguished, to allow for more refined explorations of designing in this space. Keywords: e-SocialAction, Taxonomy, design and society</p

Towards Ethical and Sustainable Technology-Supported Ageing at Home in Finland - KATI Programme

Publisher Copyright: Copyright © 2021 for this paper by its authors.The population of Finland is ageing with greater demand for health and social care; homecare workers are over-burdened with keeping up with this change whilst ageing themselves. Technology is seen as one of the most promising solutions to tackling these challenges. In the national KATI programme, six regional projects will implement technology solutions and adopt new technology-based practices in a coordinated manner to support the ageing of older people at home as well as the homecare professionals and services. In this article, we give an overview of the variety of technology solutions being implemented and the first ethical questions that have been raised by the projects in the early phase. Thereafter, we highlight three different theoretical approaches that support the ethical and sustainable technology implementation advanced by the programme. The approaches 1) emphasize the holistic perspective on the health of the older person and the method of discourse ethics to seek for consensus about the technology solutions, 2) learn from safety research and the change theory for better ethical design of AI systems, and 3) analyse the technology implementations and the programme from a systemic perspective within the framework of socio-technological transition.Peer reviewe

Unmet goals of tracking: within-track heterogeneity of students' expectations for

Educational systems are often characterized by some form(s) of ability grouping, like tracking. Although substantial variation in the implementation of these practices exists, it is always the aim to improve teaching efficiency by creating homogeneous groups of students in terms of capabilities and performances as well as expected pathways. If students’ expected pathways (university, graduate school, or working) are in line with the goals of tracking, one might presume that these expectations are rather homogeneous within tracks and heterogeneous between tracks. In Flanders (the northern region of Belgium), the educational system consists of four tracks. Many students start out in the most prestigious, academic track. If they fail to gain the necessary credentials, they move to the less esteemed technical and vocational tracks. Therefore, the educational system has been called a 'cascade system'. We presume that this cascade system creates homogeneous expectations in the academic track, though heterogeneous expectations in the technical and vocational tracks. We use data from the International Study of City Youth (ISCY), gathered during the 2013-2014 school year from 2354 pupils of the tenth grade across 30 secondary schools in the city of Ghent, Flanders. Preliminary results suggest that the technical and vocational tracks show more heterogeneity in student’s expectations than the academic track. If tracking does not fulfill the desired goals in some tracks, tracking practices should be questioned as tracking occurs along social and ethnic lines, causing social inequality

Gender Statactivism and NGOs: Development and Use of Gender Sensitive-Data for Mobilizations and Women’s Rights

Historically, NGOs and civil society organizations have engaged actively in the development of new forms of gender categorizations, gender-sensitive data and gender analysis, mainly within a human rights framework. But, what is the actual space for NGOs to promote mobilization on women’s rights and, more specifically, how do NGOs develop and use gender-sensitive data for social mobilizations? Mainly based on the study of 5 worldwide NGOs and 3 networks of human rights experts, operating at different levels, the paper investigates the different ways these organizations intervene in gender issues, focusing on how they strategically produce and use categorizations and data. An initial typology is presented by analyzing «gender statactivism» of NGOs. Four phases of mobilization are identified: (a) knowledge and framing processes, (b) policy analysis, policy design and policy implementation, (c) action (campaigning and advocacy) and (d) monitoring and evaluation. The paper concludes by discussing potentiality, controversies and issues related to gender statactivism by NGOs, and stresses implications for the debate on the Post-2015 Development agenda and the potentiality for integrating «gender statactivism» into a framework of particularly transnational intersectionalit