A radical holistic edge-fusion learning space with a collection of really useful collaborative tools for making social-ecological just change.
A radical holistic edge-fusion learning space with a collection of really useful collaborative tools for making social-ecological just change.
Workshops
HEdge Space
A Holistic Do-it-Together Tool kit.
Praxis tools to support people bring about just change, together
Workshops
What's the Alternative?
A Makers Greenwashing Hack
A Transformative Just Transition and the SDG's
Duration: 2 hour Workshops, 2 day workshops
Method:
Small-scale making workshops using a fusion of the Arts and crafts movement, Pop Ed and SEA
Purpose:
​
This workshop is designed to explore a transformative just transition using an SDG cluster starting with SDG 12.
A transformative just transition addressed structural systems change rather than placing responsibility on people (Aka the consumer according to capitalism) to shop responsibly.
​
​
Problem Posing Questions around 'What we make, and why'?
What we make and why?
Who benefits, who suffers?
What else is possible, what's the alternative?
What would you make together to support life to flourish?
Praxis Workshop Structure:
Using problem posing questions around 'What we make, and why'? to explore alternatives to destructive
large-scale linear industrial production practices.
​
-
Participants meet and greet and check-in.
-
Individual reflection on the first three problem posing questions through playful and critical engagement with making tools: What we make and why? and 'who benefits, who suffers? 'What else is possible, what's the alternative?'
-
People share back insights from activity to the group
-
Tea
-
Group discusses the key themes found in the reflections shared earlier.
-
Individual reflection on the question What would you make together to support life to flourish?
-
Share-back and form breakout discussion groups based on potential action themes.
-
Individual workshop evaluation and share back. Benefits (usefulness), challenge's of the process. Next steps.
​
This could be a 2 hour workshop or could be expanded into a 2 day workshop or a much longer project.
​
While this workshop was originally designed around a spinning wheel, any craft or making methods, or tools, could be used to explore the problems of capitalist's based and linear large scale production and consumption. Using the problem posing questions about 'making' in small-scale making workshops can bring people on a journey to imagining and generating alternatives to large-scale production and consumption models
Strategic coalition building, allyship and winning funding requires people to be able to describe and frame their practices in the language of multiple fields of knowledge and frameworks.
​
These holistic small-scale making praxis workshops can be firmly orientated to an emancipatory transformative social-environmental change agenda whilst also engaging with the SDGs
Just transition is a concept prone to being greenwashed, that is if we 'green' the stuff we make and create a 'green' economy that everything will be Sorted. There will be no pollution and everyone will have a job. We just need to move people working in jobs linked to fossil fuels into the new green economy and we just need to get other people to buy green products. While a green economy is important, so too is unpacking what that means and how different people interpret it. A basic greening of the economy does not fundamentally change the neoliberal capitalist economic structures which generate social inequality by exploiting the labor of low paid workers. The idea of a Transformative Just Transition however proposes a more socio-economic rights approach to transition to a green economy. This includes exploring co-operative based economic system and community wealth building. Read more about this below in the boxed extracts from the 'Fair Clare' Just Transition Report.
​
SDG 12 responsible production and consumption can be interpreted in many ways. Who is responsible for changing our industrial production practices? And what do we really need produced? Is it really up to people (aka the consumer according to capitalism) to support the market by buying green? And is buying green an option for everybody? Can everybody afford to buy green if they want to?
Local people in Clare who participated in the Fair Clare report on Just Transition voiced concerns with regard to the costs of moving society to a green economy and the focus placed on individual people to shoulder the responsibility for climate change. See quotes from the report below.
Just Transition: Exploring the term. (Read our new ‘Fair Clare’ Report here | Clare PPN)
​
Just transition originated within the US trade union movement and focused primarily on workers’ rights and the necessity to support those whose livelihoods would be impacted by the shift away from a fossil fuel-based economy (Eisenberg, 2019).
​
Over time, the term has evolved to embrace a broader ‘societal transition’ perspective (Sweeney and Treat, 2018) encompasses a wider range of societal considerations and emphasises the need for justice for all groups affected by the transition, with a particular focus on the most vulnerable populations (Eisenberg, 2019; Velicu and Barca, 2020).
​
is understood as a vision for transforming society itself, aiming to create a fairer economy and a more equitable society by tackling inequality and injustice, with a commitment to leave no one behind (Climate Justice Alliance, 2018; McCabe, 2020; Klein, 2022; Just Transition Alliance, 2022; Scottish Government, no date).
​
Studies that call for a more transformative approach to Just Transition emphasise the need to consider questions relating to the ownership of assets, as well as who has control over decision-making processes (Clarke and Lipsig-Mummé, 2020). The transformative potential of a Just Transition can be considered to make possible new types of economies that shift existing power dynamics towards democratic ownership and control over resources (Mercier et al., 2020). Practical expressions of this shift away from a market-based approach can include community owned renewable energy infrastructure, worker-owned cooperatives, and public ownership over the assets of the transition (Mercier et al., 2020; McCabe,
​
In rural counties like Clare, there are opportunities to respond to the transformational scale of change required by expanding democratic ownership and control over such activities as food growing and production, energy generation, nature restoration, tourism, care work and waste management.
(No mention of indigenous craft – me)
TASC Publications | TASC - Think-tank for Action on Social Change
​
​
2.5. Planks and principles of a Just Transition (Fair Clare Report, Róisín Greaney and Kieran Harrahill)
The principles underpinning different interpretations of a Just Transition vary across countries, publications and policies. Taking a broader understanding of the term Just Transition, this research applies specific areas of consensus found in key Just Transition publications (McCabe, 2020; Mercier, 2020; Mercier et al., 2020; Moore, Cherry et al., 2022) in the Irish context to guide its exploration of what should constitute a Just Transition in practice.
They are summarised here as follows:
i. A Just Transition should be viewed as a long-term process rather than as a series of one-off projects;
​
ii. Groups that are likely to experience disadvantage or poverty-exacerbating effects of the transition must be supported to shape both the processes and the outcomes of the transition;
iii. A place-based approach is integral to the success of a transition;
iv. Just Transition plans should focus on local and regional development rather than having a sole focus on impacted workers;
v. Public investment will play a key role in achieving a Just Transition;
vi. Decent work and quality jobs remain a crucial outcome of a truly Just Transition.
​
​
McCabe (2020) and Mercier et al., (2020), in alignment with understandings of a Just Transition within the climate justice movement (Climate Justice Alliance, 2018) underline additional planks that could unlock the transformative potential of achieving climate justice and a Just Transition. They are summarised and incorporated into this work as follows
​
vii. Prioritising the realisation of human rights in Just Transition approaches is essential for driving transformative change and achieving better results in terms of emissions reductions. This perspective is echoed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Lee and Romero, 2023, p.31).
viii. For a transition to be just, underlying inequalities should be tackled during the process of decarbonisation, to fully harness the transformative potential of the transition.
ix. Enabling public, social and community ownership of the assets of transition presents practical ways in which communities can be meaningfully engaged in and benefit from climate action, as well as supporting the shift from an extractive economy to one that is regenerative.
Resources
Mini-generator - Toys from Trash (arvindguptatoys.com)
A Wind Turbine Recipe Book | Hugh Piggott's blog (scoraigwind.co.uk)
THE 17 GOALS | Sustainable Development (un.org)
Alternative Economics (freire.org)
Participatory Budgeting (freire.org)
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace (freire.org)
Community Wealth-Building (freire.org)
Thinking Critically (freire.org)