Studies of transformative change have been making headway in understanding the complexity of societal transformation processes. Yet, we lack understanding of how people’s lived experiences of transformations both shape and are shaped by meaning-making processes. In addressing this gap, we make two assumptions: Firstly, change processes comprise interactions between social actors that shape the way they are made sense of and experienced by the people involved in such interactions. Secondly, such change processes involve transformative experiences, which can bring to light previously taken-for-granted dimensions of lived experience. To address this research gap, we describe two complementary tools for analysing transformations: dialogical sense-making and critical phenomenology. These approaches share a focus on the experiential and sense-making dimensions, yet ask distinctly different kinds of questions and use different methods. Dialogical sense-making explores how people create meanings around transformations through various social interactions. Critical phenomenology analyses subjectivity, lived experience and structures that make possible and help shape experience. When brought into dialogue with each other, they allow for richer analyses of how the sense or meaning of transformations is constituted in experience.

Policy coherence is crucial in the 2030 Agenda's transformative ambitions and heralded as of paramount importance to ensure the successful implementation of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and climate policy targets. Despite political efforts to achieve policy coherence, apparent trade-offs and goal conflicts have emerged – even in a proclaimed ‘front-runner’ country like Sweden. This paper examines the role of ideas in proposing and legitimising policy options and achieving policy coherence in the light of the Swedish recovery debate in 2020 following the COVID-19 pandemic. Ideas of a green economic recovery put forward in the public debate are examined through thematic text and frame analysis. We show that ideas of a green transition, boosted by economic recovery spending, draw on a synergistic frame in combining social, environmental, and economic policy options, carrying a potential for coherency. However, the absence of a discussion on power, as in who stands to gain what under which circumstances, coupled with an inherent understanding of a temporal hierarchy of policy priorities does not only impact the ability to design coherent policies but may have considerable impacts on the prospects of achieving sustainability transformations.

Inclusion of indigenous knowledge and voices is paramount if societal transformations relative to climate change are to be fully and appropriately considered. However, much of the research in this area still uses Western-based research methodologies rather than methodologies driven by the local Indigenous communities. Therefore, it is highly likely that large numbers of affected communities remain excluded from global discussions and decisions around climate change solutions and policy. This article presents talanoa, a qualitative culturally centred research methodology used in many Pacific Island countries. As non-Indigenous researchers, we present our exploration of Indigenous research methods and talanoa experiences in a framework that confirms the importance of relationships when conducting research with Indigenous communities. We also propose that talanoa is a crucial component for qualitative research as it can help facilitate knowledge exchange and understanding among Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.

This paper explores the potentials and limitations of transdisciplinary research on sustainability issues characterized by extensive uncertainty and complexity. Transdisciplinary approaches that support the co-creation of knowledge in collaboration between science and society are advocated in research that aims to explore pathways for societal transformations towards sustainability. However, there is limited research on how co-creation research plays out in practice and what are its implications, in particular with regards to how data collection and analysis can be developed to increase the quality and reliability of the research, and to the roles that researchers themselves play in shaping the research. This paper makes two contributions: First, it offers insight into the design and implementation of co-creation endeavors based on scholarly literature as well as experiences from a research program that seeks to support foresight capacity for sustainable development under geopolitical uncertainties. Second, the paper elaborates methodological support for co-creation research by highlighting the potential of co-dissemination for transdisciplinarity and arguing for a systematic approach to reflection and self-reflexivity. Specifically, the paper reflects on experiences from the ongoing Mistra Geopolitics research program, which explores the intersections between geopolitics and sustainable development, and where co-creation has been at the core since the start of the program. We explore three stages in transdisciplinary research: (i) co-design of the research agenda, (ii) co-production of knowledge, and (iii) co-dissemination. Specifically, we examine the role of non-academic partners, the role of knowledge brokers and facilitation, and the need for flexibility, adaptability and reflexivity throughout the process.

Transformation studies lean towards the more practical aspects of change processes and are not yet dealing adequately with their personal and political dimensions. They are arguably constrained in doing so in their current stances, either fixated on systems and how to control them or on individualistic values and behaviours. In this study we show the range of actually-occurring societal transformations that people face can be usefully approached through a combination of dialogical sense-making and critical phenomenology. While distinct, these approaches share a concern with experience and meaning-making, concerns which are often neglected when societal transformation becomes abstracted and alienated from people’s lives. The two approaches reveal how societal transformational change is situated, shared, embodied and laden with diverse meanings. Dialogical sense-making expands the theorisation of the experiential, personal and political dimensions of transformation and shows how the practical dimension of change is always personal and political. Critical phenomenology addresses how the experience of transformation help shape subjectivity, as a lived relation to the world, and sheds light on taken-forgranted, lived norms about bodies and transformative change. Drawing together the three spheres of transformation – the practical, personal, and political - allows a fuller grasp of the complexity in which new worlds may emerge. Through a discussion of insights from these approaches, we develop a language and framework to understand how people interact with change processes. This development allows new questions about transformative change, based on a reframing of transformations that brings them closer to people’s lives. Together these approaches broaden and deepen social-science and humanities contributions to transformation studies and sustainability science. 

Background. Serious games are gaining increasing prominence in environmental communication research, but their potential to form an integrated part of participatory research approaches is still strikingly understudied. This is particularly the case for applications of interactive digital formats in research on environmental challenges of high complexity, such as climate adaptation, which is a specifically suitable case as it involves complex interaction between climate systems and society, but where the response also involves trade-offs with potentially negative – maladaptive – outcomes.

Intervention. This article presents the Maladaptation Game, which was designed to facilitate dialogue about potential negative outcomes of agricultural climate adaptation.

Methods. We conducted test sessions with agricultural stakeholders in Finland and Sweden, and analysed quantitative and qualitative, audio-recorded and transcribed, material for opportunities and challenges related to dialogues, engagement, interactivity and experienced relevance.

Results. The qualitative analysis of recorded dialogues shows that the Maladaptation Game has potential to support dialogue by challenging players to negotiate between options with negative outcomes. The gameplay itself presents opportunities in terms of creating engagement with options that provoke disagreement and debates between players, as well as interactivity, that players reflected upon as quick and easy, while challenges were related to the experienced relevance, in particular the options provided in the game, and its general framing.

Conclusions. The results indicate a need for complementary approaches to this type of game but also suggest the importance of moderation when the game design is aimed at creating dialogue around a complex environmental challenge such as agricultural climate adaptation.