Peripheries in transition: various interpretations of sustainability transformation and its justice in periphery strategies

Abstract

Sustainability transformation and questions about justice include many challenges for peripheries. In this theoretical review, we conceptually analyze the adaptation and positioning of peripheries in sustainability transformation, drawing on previous research. We investigate identified key challenges and the concrete forms of manifestation and backgrounds of challenges in contexts of peripheries. Further, we discuss how these challenges relate to perceived acceptability of policy measures which promote sustainability transformation and regions' preconditions for the realization of the goals.

We find that recognition of all groups involved in sustainability transformation is incomplete and ignores the diversity of peripheries and their inhabitants. This may create, and deepen, interregional and intraregional polarizations during transformations. Moreover, we claim that green transition might renew the structural power hierarchy and the roles between regions.

Sustainability transition and related power structures create distinct regional adaptation strategies. They can be based on 1) resistance to transition and underlining injustice and regional weaknesses, 2) wilful pursuit of criteria taken from elsewhere, 3) submission to externally given goals and criteria, despite regional realities, or 4) identification and active utilization of own particularities and new possibilities created by the transformation.