McGill University
M.Sc. candidate
Supervisor: Elena Bennett
Karina Bennessaiah, University of Guelph
Start: 2022-09-01
End: 2024-08-01
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Project

Exploring the institutionalization of place-based sustainability transformations: a case study of urban agriculture in a Montreal city borough
Around the world, cities and their residents are experimenting with alternative and innovative ways of living in the world that promote social and ecological sustainability. Research exploring the role of sustainability innovations in catalyzing place-based transformative change has focussed on their emergence in the early stages of change. Less is known about what comes next, including the institutionalization of innovations, and how this process shapes pathways of change. Institutionalization embeds potentially transformative innovations into society’s systems and structures through the work of diverse actors employing strategies and mobilizing resources to realize their goals. Outcomes of institutionalization are difficult to predict; while it may improve the likelihood of generating long-lasting impacts, it risks hindering transformative change by stifling the more radical elements of sustainability innovations as they are re-molded in the process of being institutionalized. We conducted a case study in a borough of Montreal, Canada, investigating the institutionalization of urban agriculture via a local government-enacted policy to deepen empirical knowledge about how diverse actors’ strategies and resources interact to institutionalize place-based transformative change. Our qualitative study comprised 40 semi-structured in-depth interviews with grassroots actors, governmental actors, and intermediary actors (facilitators). We identified actor-strategy-resource interactions that supported the emergence and resilience of sustainability innovations, for example by removing regulatory barriers to experimentation, connecting ideas to resources, and building the capacity of grassroots actors to navigate bureaucracy and secure additional resources. We also found that the benefits of entrenching sustainability innovations in a policy come with costs, such as slowing the overall pace of change, increasing dependency on institutional support, and excluding certain people and ideas from change processes.