Assessing diversity and inclusivity within the Transition movement: an urban case study

ABSTRACT

The Transition movement has experienced remarkable growth in its first decade, yet there remains considerable doubt about its ability to appeal to a diverse audience. To date, few studies have explicitly examined diversity of participation in the movement. Addressing this gap in the literature, a case study is presented of Transition Town Tooting (TTT). Results from a mixed methods approach comprising semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and a quantitative survey indicate that the demographic profiles of TTT participants do not represent the diversity of the Tooting population. This disparity is exacerbated by TTT’s ‘passive’ approach to inclusivity within the core group. Reflecting upon the implications for Transition’s goal of local resilience, it is suggested that, particularly within dense urban communities, initiatives may have more potential for engaging diverse voices through a local ‘brokering’ role between various subcommunities.

KEYWORDS:

• Transition movement
• diversity
• inclusivity
• participation
• urban sustainability
• community

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Although we also collected quantitative data on the gender and age of TTT participants through the online survey, the qualitative data collection was guided by the issues that were raised during interviews and, here, there was very little discussion of age or gender. Therefore, whilst we recognise that gender roles and relations are relevant to inclusivity and diversity within the Transition movement – and are in need of research – we have chosen to focus on the five listed aspects, as these were the factors that our interviewees perceived as most relevant to the issue of diversity within TTT and that we were able to explore to a sufficient level of detail.