To reclaim a sense of hope for the future, German activists in the late twentieth century engaged ordinary citizens in innovative projects that resisted alienation and disenfranchisement. By most accounts, the twentieth century was not kind to utopian thought. The violence of two world wars, Cold War anxieties, and a widespread sense of crisis after the 1973 global oil shock appeared to doom dreams of a better world. The eventual victory of capitalism and, seemingly, liberal democracy relieved some fears but exchanged them for complacency and cynicism. Not, however, in West Germany. Jennifer Allen showcases grassroots activism of the 1980s and 1990s that envisioned a radically different society based on community-centered politics—a society in which the democratization of culture and power ameliorated alienation and resisted the impotence of end-of-history narratives. Berlin’s History Workshop liberated research from university confines by providing opportunities for ordinary people to write and debate the story of the nation. The Green Party made the politics of direct democracy central to its program. Artists changed the way people viewed and acted in public spaces by installing objects in unexpected environments, including the Stolpersteine: paving stones, embedded in residential sidewalks, bearing the names of Nazi victims. These activists went beyond just trafficking in ideas. They forged new infrastructures, spaces, and behaviors that gave everyday people real agency in their communities. Undergirding this activism was the environmentalist concept of sustainability, which demanded that any alternative to existing society be both enduring and adaptable. A rigorous but inspiring tale of hope in action, Sustainable Utopias makes the case that it is still worth believing in human creativity and the labor of citizenship.

Environmentalism has relentlessly warned about the dire consequences of abusing and exploiting the planet's natural resources, imagining future wastelands of ecological depletion and social chaos. But it has also generated rich new ideas about how humans might live better with nature. Green Utopias explores these ideas of environmental hope in the post-war period, from the environmental crisis to the end of nature. Using a broad definition of Utopia as it exists in Western policy, theory and literature, Lisa Garforth explains how its developing entanglement with popular culture and mainstream politics has shaped successive green future visions and initiatives. In the face of apocalyptic, despairing or indifferent responses to contemporary ecological dilemmas, utopias and the utopian method seem more necessary than ever. This distinctive reading of green political thought and culture will appeal across the social sciences and humanities to all interested in why green utopias continue to matter in the cultivation of ecological values and the emergence of new forms of human and non-human well-being.

Advances in Ecopolitics includes a range of publications which each discuss a significant element in the environmental theory which now represent an important aspect of sustainable living. This series has now got a new title: Advances in Sustainability and Environmental Justice. Editorial Objectives This series provides a series of insights into real alternatives to the current economic malaise, with an examination of key themes such as transition towns, sustainable utopias, co-operative farming, sustainability and activism, ecofeminism, green protectionism, intentional communities, environmental justice, environmental movements, green philosophies, politics and green economics. Topicality The series provides a series of environmental alternatives which require our fullest consideration in light of the ongoing economic downturn which has accompanied the latest incarnation of unsustainable practices. It provides a forum for debate about a positive set of sustainable alternatives which set out an understanding that 'another world is possible'. Key Benefits This book series is essential reading for all academics, researchers and practioners who are involved in the areas of environmentalism, and it: Acts as a forum for debate and enables the publication of papers which establish understanding of environmentalism and sustainability Provides a unique opportunity for the exchange of peer reviewed knowledge on the widest extent of environmental and ecological issues Allows for the establishment of working networks of environmental academics from across the globe Key Audiences This series particularly encourages academics, researchers and practitioners from Europe, North America, and from developing nations to share their experience, knowledge and practices with an international audience. Contributors from across the globe that focus on issues and research which will affect and inform ecopolitical studies are welcome to submit work for consideration in the series. Coverage The series encourages well-written articles with the focus on interdisciplinary, international and comparative standpoints on contemporary management issues. Coverage includes, but is not restricted to: Ecological politics Sustainable development Environmental philosophy Green party politics Environmental economics Environmental movements Ecofeminism Sustainable living practices

This groundbreaking handbook leads the way in accelerating the transition to a sustainable circular economy by introducing the concept of a catalyst as a positive and enhancing driving force for sustainability. Catalysts create and maintain favourable conditions for complex systemic sustainability transition changes, and a discussion and understanding of catalysts is required to move from a linear economy to a sustainable and circular economy. With contributions from leading experts from around the globe, this volume presents theoretical insights, contextualised case studies, and participatory methodologies, which identify different catalysts, including technology, innovation, business models, management and organisation, regulation, sustainability policy, product design, and culture. The authors then show how these catalysts accelerate sustainability transitions. As a unique value to the reader, the book brings together public policy and private business perspectives to address the circular economy as a systemic change. Its theoretical and practical perspectives are coupled with real-world case studies from Finland, Italy, China, India, Nigeria, and others to provide tangible insights on catalysing the circular economy across organisational, hierarchical, and disciplinary boundaries. With its broad interdisciplinary and geographically diverse scope, this handbook will be a valuable tool for researchers, academics, and policy-makers in the fields of circular economy, sustainability transitions, environmental studies, business, and the social sciences more broadly.

Food is a contentious and emotive issue, subject to critiques from multiple perspectives. Alternative food movements – including the different articulations of local, food miles, seasonality, food justice, food knowledge and food sovereignty – consistently invoke themes around autonomy, sufficiency, cooperation, mutual aid, freedom, and responsibility. In this stimulating and provocative book the authors link these issues to utopias and intentional communities. Using a food utopias framework presented in the introduction, they examine food stories in three interrelated and complementary ways: utopias as critique of existing systems; utopias as engagement with experimentation of the novel, the forgotten, and the hopeful in the future of the food system; and utopias as process that recognizes the time and difficulty inherent in changing the status quo. The chapters address theoretical aspects of food utopias and also present case studies from a range of contexts and regions, including Argentina, Italy, Switzerland and USA. These focus on key issues in contemporary food studies including equity, locality, the sacred, citizenship, community and food sovereignty. Food utopias offers ways forward to imagine a creative and convivial food system.

The book provides an assessment of whether sustainability is realizable in the current societal framework. What are the challenges and the barriers - and what are the levers necessary to meet and overcome them? Through a revision of the essence of sustainability the book provides an opportunity to understand the deeper level of the radical change that sustainability represents, and the resistance that is preventing its realization. To build the argument the sustainable development model is compared with current development theories as well as alternative solutions based on utopian models of the past. The book assesses the results that can be achieved within the current systemic framework, based on case stories. It outlines the limitations to sustainability, pointing out and defining the multiple, cross-sectoral and systemic barriers that hinder the transition. Finally, the book offers perspectives on achieving a sustainable future, encompassing the impacts from recent events including the pandemic as well as the multiple mitigation and transition initiatives undertaken globally. Brian Goodwin's QuoteLike the caterpillar that wraps itself up in its silken swaddling bands prior to its metamorphosis into a butterfly, we have wrapped ourselves in a tangled skin from which we can emerge only by going through a similarly dramatic transformation./div

Offers a series of insights into real alternatives to the economic malaise, with an examination of key themes such as transition towns, traditional villages, new green financial concepts, the sustainable utopia, sustainability and activism, ecofeminism, green protectionism, intentional communities and a green philosophy of money.

This book contains the knowledge an interaction designer should know about pervasive design for sustainability. Relevant design research is discussed and framed in a story and value based participatory approach. Sustainability is the most important design goal. This is the first message. A second message is that information technologies, and in particular pervasive computing are invaluable keys in the quest for sustainability. Thirdly there is a lack of knowledge on sustainability issues in the interaction design community. In this book a unique meta-level framework structures an extensive discussion of design for sustainability. The framework is based on a principle of justice that is complemented by circumstances for sustainability chosen from the perspective of interaction design. We suggest and present the following circumstances: limited shared resources, socio-technical components and structures, technology development, vision and reflection, cognitive and behavioural support, joint ventures and political action. Topics discussed within the circumstances include experience design, ethics, Latours’s modes of existence, design fiction, computer games, futures studies, theories for reflection and behavioural change, personal informatics, and practice theory. The convolute concludes with a number of case studies where interaction design research is summarized and studied from the perspective of sustainability. We start out with thoughts on sustainable consumption, sustainable character, and the sustainable family that gets a section each. Adding to them are annotated case studies from research on design fiction, game and performance, value based design, practice theory, multi-level perspective design and design for a sustainable society. The book is a polyphonic convolute which means that there will be some overlap in the reports from the different discourses. Development in the areas related to interaction design can be sensed by identifying the surfacing themes. In total the e-book consists of the equivalence of 530 pages excluding references and index. Håkan Gulliksson is a lecturer on Interaction technology and Sustainable design at Umeå University for more than ten years.

Recoge: 1.Impressions from Istambul - 2.Sustainable cities for Europe - 3.Keynote - 4.Fragments of a urban discourse in Europe: utopias and eutopias - 5.Building sustainable futures in small and medium-sized cities in Europe - 6.Sustainability, sustanaible development and the search from the european sustainable - 7.Visions and actions from Freiburg.