Connecting political subjectivities for sustainable practice interventions- The case of 30 years of transition in Beckerich, Luxemburg

The project at a glance

Start date:

02 Jan 2015
Duration in months:

36
Funding:

Uni
Principal Investigator(s):

Christian SCHULZ

About

In the past 30 years, the Luxemburgish commune Beckerich and the canton Reiden have put forward a range of sustainability interventions, highly progressive in the national context. In the 80’s and 90’s, focus lay on design of new modes of participation and community learning resulting in a decision for a low-carbon transition. In recent years, the transformative local spirit can be seen to ‘spill over’ into the canton, and other fields of community action such as: development of a regional currency, a trans-border river-governance project, and a community supported agriculture (CSA) project in. Meanwhile, substantial reduction of domestic energy and water consumption indicate a change in everyday practices. This research project aims at understanding the individual motivations and forms of cooperation in which the above-mentioned initiatives emerge. It conceptualizes the local development as interconnected social practices evolving within the process of social learning. A Q-study, on both the level of selected sustainability interventions and the community-level, identifies typified local political subjectivities. These build the backdrop for characterization of the general understandings holding the initiatives together and a discussion of the overall teleological structure of the local development.