Naming, “resisting” and “making”: understanding community experiences of (just) transition in regional Australia
Creators: name: Gerrard, Elianor
Publisher: name: University of Tasmania
Year: 2024

description: Regions that produce coal fired power lie at the epicentre of the energy transition. As the energy system decarbonises and coal fired power stations are replaced with dispersed and decentralised renewable energy, communities that are economically reliant on the coal industry are confronted with significant upheaval. This upheaval is felt across social, economic, environmental, cultural, and political contexts. It is driven, primarily, by a lack of coordination, policy and legislation, and furthered by the sense of powerlessness communities feel about their role in the process. <br>While the term ‘just transition’ (loosely understood as justice and fairness in transition) is gaining traction as a useful framework for navigating these challenges, there are limited examples of its successful implementation. Research regarding what it might take to create a ‘just’ transition is much needed. <br>In policy and academic discourse, just transition centres on worker and labour movement perspectives or climate and environmental justice views. Both stances fail to contend with the messy complexity of community, replete with its antagonisms and cohesions. Furthermore, current understanding of the community-wide experience of just transition and how community, as its own distinct group and layer of social organising, participates in the process of change is limited. <br>The central aims of this thesis are to understand just (or unjust) transitions in their lived community context and to generate transformative practice knowledge through analysing the experiences of two Australian communities. In doing this, I bring the emerging just transitions discourse into conversation with the practice-oriented field of community development. Grounded in qualitative methods, the thesis examines two communities’ experiences of a (just) transition. To draw out the conflicts, contrasts and resonances between current theory, policy and rhetoric and the lived community reality, I use the analytical framework of naming, ‘resisting and making’ (Swilling, 2020).<br>Community members’ experiences reveal that there are key distinctions between transition and just transition, both as abstractions and lived processes. In navigating these distinctions, many questions arise around justice for whom, and the pace, scale and scope of change a just transition could deliver. Furthermore, my findings show that regional communities with coal industries are socially diverse, yet shaped by power dynamics from above, below and within. Place context, regional identity and ingrained narratives of coal providing economic security surface as tensions in the transition process. And while there is an undeniable sense that transition has been forced on the communities, there is also strong evidence of community actors actively engaged in activities that contribute to a local just transition. <br>There is much to learn from community members on the frontline of change. Their experiences illustrate what is needed to ensure that just transitions are responsive to the local context, involve community voices and are truly just. Drawing on these experiences, I offer a set of practical principles to guide a just transition praxis that is community and place based.