Colonial modernity and sustainability transitions: A conceptualisation in six dimensions

• Published in: Environmental innovation and societal transitions 2023-09, Vol.48, p.100733, Article 100733
• Main Authors: Arora, Saurabh, Stirling, Andy
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Colonialism; Coloniality of power; Decoloniality; Decolonisation; Sustainability transformations
• ISSN: 2210-4224; 2210-4232
• DOI: 10.1016/j.eist.2023.100733

•Crucial to foreground in sustainability transitions, are the workings of a deeply entrenched formation of power – in coloniality.•Coloniality intersects with patriarchal structures to constitute ‘globalising’ developments like capitalism and modernity.•Incumbent regimes and innovation processes in transitions are permeated by colonial modernity.•Multiple dimensions of coloniality are proposed, from assumptions of comprehensive ‘superiority’ to extension of controlling imaginations and expansion of toxic extraction.•Egalitarian and just sustainability transitions require decolonial transformations, also in academic scholarship. Through European colonialisms spanning five centuries, coloniality – as intersectional stratification and violence directed against ‘other worlds’ – has been central to the making of modern societies worldwide. However, these colonial modernities are very rarely addressed within studies on sustainability transitions. This dearth of attention means that transitions scholars risk failing to challenge the reproduction of colonially accumulated power and privilege in innovation and niche development processes. Building on theoretical insights from postcolonial and decolonial studies, alongside multiple other strands of critical social theory, we conceptualise six dimensions of colonial modernities. These are: assumptions of comprehensive ‘superiority’; appropriation of cultural privileges; assertions of military supremacy; enforcement of gendered domination; extension of controlling imaginations; and expansion of toxic extraction. Interrogating colonial modernities in such ways can help unsettle – and perhaps remedy – intersectional injustices, while also contributing to political struggles for a convivial pluriverse as ‘a world in which many worlds flourish together in difference’.