The half-time report
An update on what we've done, and what's still to come on Just Scapes...
We're more than halfway through
We are now two years into Just Scapes. Our teams across Czechia, France and the UK have been running participatory research activities in each of our three case-study sites and we have recently begun larger-scale surveys to understand connections between individual outlooks on justice and their support for sustainability interventions. This work is building mutual understanding of what just transformations might mean in each landscape – both within our team and beyond it.
Our on-the-ground research has taken many forms so far
After some Covid-induced delays, our on-site research kicked off in late 2021. We began with semi-structured interviews mapping the main justice issues in each site. In Scotland, the interviews also led to a collaboration with Janet Fisher at the University of Edinburgh.
We followed this up with the first round of our ‘Transformation Labs’ in Spring 2022. The workshops used forms of systems mapping to analyse the main problems and the underlying causes.
We then organised creative writing workshops in each site, tapping into people’s affective relationships with land and landscapes.
But there's still more to come
There are plenty more strands to Just Scapes that are still in progress. As we said before, it's too early to report results from our first round of survey work in Czechia, but preliminary analysis suggests some extremely interesting divergence from existing theory.
We’ll also be running a second round of ‘Transformation Labs’ in each country in late 2022/early 2023, and co-authoring manifestos for just landscape transformation with stakeholders in each site. The survey will be extended to the UK and France and will give is important insight into attitudes towards different pathways to sustainable transformation.
And we're conducting national and EU-level policy analysis, to help us help our local participants to engage with policymakers and to promote their ‘manifestos’ for just transformation.
And we're beginning to feel we're making an impact
While the analysis and writing up of our findings is ongoing, we have noted some positive outcomes from our on-site activities so far. Our workshops have already created connections, fostered social learning, and begun to generate mutual understanding between often very different local stakeholders.
We hope to build on this – into the second round of T-Labs and beyond. Keep an eye here on our website and check our Twitter for updates.
