The position of place in governing global problems: a mechanistic account of place-as-context, and analysis of transitions towards spatially explicit approaches to climate science and policy

Place is a central concept within the sustainability sciences, yet it remains somewhat undertheorised, and its relationship to generalisation and scale is unclear. Here, we develop a mechanistic account of place as the fundamental context in which social and environmental mechanisms operate. It is premised on the view that the social and environmental sciences are typically concerned with causal processes and their interaction with context, rather than with a search for laws. We deploy our mechanistic account to critique the neglect of place that characterised the early stages of climate governance, ranging from the highly idealised general circulation and integrated assessment models used to analyze climate change, to the global institutions and technologies designed to manage it. We implicate this neglect of place in the limited progress in tackling climate change in both public and policy spheres, before tracing out recent shifts towards more spatially explicit approaches to climate change science and policy-making. These shifts reflect a move towards an ontology which acknowledges that even where causal drivers are in a sense global in nature (e.g. atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases), their impacts are often mediated through variables that are spatially clustered at multiple scales, moderated by contextual features of the local environment, and interact with the presence of other (localised) stressors in synergistic rather than additive ways. We conclude that a relentless focus on place, heterogeneity, and context can maximise (rather than limit) the policy relevance of climate change science and help to ensure the development of policy interventions that are robust and effective

Place as a boundary device for the sustainability sciences: concepts of place, their value in characterising sustainability problems, and their role in fostering integrative research and action

Sustainability science is difficult to conceptualise, plan and conduct, given the broad range of epistemological commitments, methodological practices, and approaches to problem-framing taken by its constituent disciplines. This special issue is based on the idea of place as a boundary device for the sustainability sciences, in the belief that it can foster integrative work, guide theoretical reflection, encourage methodological innovation, and inform empirical research. Here we reflect on place concepts, before developing a series of arguments on the relationship of place to sustainability science. We first emphasise that place is not solely an interpretivist or post-positivist perspective on sustainability, as it is also congenial to mechanistic or positivist ontologies. Secondly, we argue that place does not entail a retreat from theory into particularism or thick description; it is coherent with attempts to provide explanations. Thirdly, we claim that it does not imply a sedentary, parochial approach to sustainability science that neglects interactions across scale or location. Fourthly, we caution that public spheres for tackling environmental issues can act to close-down deliberation and marginalise informal knowledge, if institutions retain norms that emphasise abstract, placeless evidence. We highlight how these ideas have been cashed out in the collected papers in this special issue, in domains ranging from biofuels governance, to estuary management, to marine governance, to ecosystem stewardship, to community-led low energy transitions, and to climate change more broadly. We end by suggesting that a place-based approach to sustainability science entails a relentless focus on context. It takes the spatially patterned, heterogeneous, fluid, networked, and contextually modified form of socio-environmental processes as central points of investigation, rather than as mere modifiers of more general mechanisms

Homes as machines: Exploring expert and public imaginaries of low carbon housing futures in the United Kingdom

Low carbon housing policies embody visions of the future that shape and constrain current choices between different technological pathways. These socio-technical imaginaries include expectations around new ways of living and interacting with technology, with implications for everyday lives. This paper investigates existing expert visions of low carbon housing, and explores these futures with members of the public; utilising empirical data from policy documents, expert interviews and public focus groups. Two competing expert visions of low carbon housing were identified: Passivhaus and Smart Homes. Whilst portrayed as divergent futures, both visions aimed to ‘design out’ the role of occupants, achieving emissions reductions through changes to the built environment and maintaining current lifestyles; a position that was reinforced by an imagined public that was unable or unwilling to accept the need for lifestyle change. This construction of the public did not consider the complex personal and cultural dimensions that influenced public acceptability of future housing: specifically surrounding themes of comfort, control and security that arose within the focus groups. The tensions arising between expert and public imaginaries highlight the difficulties that may surround any transition towards a low carbon future and demonstrate the need to work with, rather than around, the public

Multi-objective consideration of earthquake resilience in the built environment: The case of Wenchuan earthquake

The 2008 Wenchuan earthquake is one of the largest and deadliest events of the last century, both in terms of victims and seismically-triggered geo-environmental hazards. The combined effects resulting from the seismic activity of 2008 led to major damages in several domains of the local society, including the built environment and the social component, highlighting the extensive gap related to resilience measures aimed at both prevention and recovery in case of a disruption. Thus, it is imperative for the development of a multi-objective and comprehensive formulation for resilience combining holistically all the diverse facets of a local community. To this regard, this paper presents a wide-spectrum analysis and preliminary findings, being structured in working threads specifically addressed in the context of an ongoing project (REACH). The focus is on the built environment damage analysis following the field work which took place in December 2016 in the Wenchuan territory, involving 3D laser scanning activity of 7 high-risk areas and the related audit and preliminary structural analysis of the damage. As a result, a set of external and internal factors have been identified as possible key causes of the surveyed damages. Of these, external factors mainly relate to environmental and hazardous properties, whereas internal indicators involve structural features as well as building regulation