Abstract
This thesis explores the emerging strategies of the Transition movement in the UK to create a low carbon future. Whilst the mobilising strategies identified reflect and expand on existing social movement theory (framing, collective identity and mobilising structures), the action and change strategies identified have not received the same attention. This is because social movement studies tend to focus on why social movements emerge, rather than on their role in promoting or resisting change. Drawing on engaged ethnographic research, this study begins to fill this gap by analysing how Transition is attempting to deal with the ‘twin threats’ of peak oil and climate change. The essence of Transition’s approach is the catalysing of low carbon community action. This has been facilitated by the intentional circulation and reinvention of ideas drawn from within and beyond the Transition movement, leading to the evolution of a number of tactical repertoires of activities, including for local food, energy and transport. As a green niche movement, Transition has thus provided space for practical experimentation, even social innovation, at the grassroots. With its focus on consumption and production, Transition challenges both academic assumptions about lifestyle movements, and the assumptions of policy-makers and practitioners interested in the role of community action in promoting sustainability. This is most evident in the movement’s promotion and development of local social enterprises, a change strategy largely invisible in environmental policy and social movement theory. As such, Transition strategy is not simply about prefiguring the future, but reconfiguring the present: its systems, lifestyles and livelihoods. Transition is best understood, therefore, as an economic, cultural and political social movement, imbued not only in life and cultural politics, but a new form of sub-politics that aspires to transform current ways of living.