Research

Research interests

I conduct research on socioecological change in modern societies. I am interested in the social-, cultural- and political-ecological (i) conditions, (ii) mechanisms, and (iii) consequences of sustainability transformations. Specifically, I am primarily interested in grassroots and community-led transformations towards social and economic models that, not depending on perpetual economic growth, aim to sustain human wellbeing and the ecological basis of life. My research has a geographical focus on Europe and Latin America (especially Colombia). Thematically, I am interested in food systems and the climate crisis.

My past and present research agenda revolves around the following research lines:

• imaginaries and discourses of post-growth/post-capitalist societies (e.g., Feola and Jaworska, 2019; Büscher et al., 2021; Feola et al., 2023; Guerrero Lara et al., 2023): which novel imaginaries and discourses inform ongoing attempts to realize alternatives to unsustainable and unjust capitalist, growth-oriented development? To what extent do these imaginaries and discourses resonate with memories of the past? What social and political possibilities do these imaginaries and discourses open and what do they obscure?

• the prefiguration of post-growth/post-capitalist societies (e.g., Feola and Nunes, 2014; Feola and Butt, 2017; Feola, 2019; Poças et al., 2021; van Oers et al., 2023): which are the most transformative ‘realizations of the future in the present’ led by grassroots initiatives and social movements, especially around agri-food systems' (un)sustainability and climate change? What just and sustainable social logics and arrangements are experimented and realized in prefigurative grassroots initiatives, and how are they institutionalized in practice? What are the conditions and mechanisms enabling prefiguration, and how transformative is this form of political action? How do such prefigurative grassroots initiatives diffuse in space, thereby adapting to different contexts?

• the impacts of grassroots initiatives and social movements struggling for transformation, especially for post-growth/post-capitalist societies (e.g., Nicolosi et al., in press; Henfrey et al., 2023; Spanier-Guerrero Lara and Feola, 2024): what are the cultural and political impacts of different grassroots political strategies across contexts? How should ‘impact’ be (re-)conceptualized to capture the transformative consequences of non-conventional political strategies, also in areas characterised by limited statehood and/or criminal governance? What are the conditions for social movement coalitions, as well as multi-stakeholder platforms, to be formed, sustained and for them to result in increased impact?

• the politics and governance of sustainability and/or post-growth/post-capitalist transformation (e.g., Oliver et al., 2018; Feola et al., 2019; van Oers et al., 2021; Frank et al., 2024; Patterson et al., 2024): how do different societal actors engage in political work to promote, or hinder, sustainability transformation? In particular, what are the political dynamics characterizing the deliberate and just destabilization and phase-out of unsustainable socio-technical and socio-ecological arrangements? How can inevitable social conflict be dealt with in sustainability transformation? How does sustainability transformation intersect historical and contemporary social, political, cultural, economic, environmental dynamics? How can the contradictory, uneven and contested relations between the environment and development, be governed, especially in rural areas and food systems, and in contexts characterized by limited statehood and/or criminal governance? 

• advancing sustainability transition/transformation theories (e.g., Feola, 2015; Feola 2020; Feola et al., 2021; Smessaert and Feola, 2023): how can theorizations of sustainability transitions and transformation, especially of post-capitalist and post-growth transformation be further developed? In this, how can critical social theory enrich mainstream theorizations? What conceptualizations of State-civil society relations are most fruitful to understand and inform attempts to transformation towards sustainable societies? How can empirical work in specific systems (i.e., food systems), geographies (i.e., the Global South), and neglected socio-political contexts (i.e., non-ideal situations of weak and criminal State institutions) challenge and enrich current theorizations of sustainability transformation?