The role of crises in transformative change towards sustainability

Path-breaking transformative change is needed in human-environment relations to move towards more sustainable development trajectories at local, national and global scales. Crises may trigger transformative change and learning in the short and in the long term. However, in particular, a short-term response to crises may also be reactive, strengthening established unsustainable practices and further perpetuating vulnerability and inequality rather than supporting transformative change towards a more sustainable path. To understand the nature and response to a crisis in the context of sustainability transformations, this paper elaborates on the following aspects of a crisis: What are the characteristics of a crisis? What and who shapes the narrative(s) of a crisis? What and who shapes the nature of the response to a crisis? Do responses to crises trigger higher levels of learning? Conceptual synthesis is complemented with an exploratory comparative analysis of the Cape Town water crisis and of the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa. To this end the paper analyzes the interplay between mobilizing individual, collective and relational agency and navigating and transforming power relations to challenge and profit from already weakened unsustainable structures. This approach proves to be promising to understand the role of crises in catalysing and supporting transformative learning to eventually replace unsustainable structures.

Automated summary

Transformative change is essential for sustainable development at all levels. Crises have the potential to trigger change, but short-term responses to crises may reinforce unsustainable practices. This paper examines the nature of crises, the narratives shaping them, and the responses they elicit. By analyzing case studies of water crisis in Cape Town and the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa, the paper highlights the importance of individual and collective agency, as well as transformative power relations, in challenging and replacing unsustainable structures.