most academic accounts of Transition focus on), as well as the valleys that lie at their feet and bridge them together. For there, too, lives Transition.
The chapters that follow begin from where I begun: by reading about Transition in books that were published by people that were closely associated with its beginnings. Through those books, an incipient moving can be noticed. What Transition is ‘about’, in other words, shifts as you move from the first manual – The Transition Handbook11 – to the latest entry in the emerging activist literature on the topic, namely The Power of Just Doing Stuff.12 A purely textual account of what Transition is ‘about’ (ch. 2) already shows that this notion has been shifting over time. As we witness this shift, we start to notice ‘something’, a dynamism that perhaps wasn’t there if we came to this book with the idea that Transition is a social movement campaigning about something we can know a priori. Choosing to approach Transition analytically might be the equivalent of comparing static photograms; of breaking motion down into discrete phases. As we begin to notice that any definition of Transition is like one of these photograms, perhaps our interest can become attached to the phenomenon of moving that seems to shine through the comparison, the seeing-in-relation, of the photograms themselves.
It is to this dynamism that I turn in Part I of the book. There, ch. 3 begins from where Transition groups are often set in motion: gardens, and the craft of tending to growing spaces in permaculture as a source of practical-moral orientations for relating in the world. In ch. 4 I move on to consider the experience of Inner Transition (or Transition ‘Heart and Soul’) groups, and endeavour to go deep in the ‘related difference’ that these insinuate in the unfolding of Transition as a whole. In ch. 5 I introduce one of the most iconic projects that Transition owes its fame to, namely Transition currencies. Here as well I look at how the move into the development of local currencies spells out the significance of Transition in relation to a number of different domains: from consumer cultures to financial activism. In ch. 6 I then touch upon the latest expression of the Transition family (although one, many would argue, that had been there all along, without a dedicated label), namely the REconomy project. With REconomy comes also a new set of questions, as Transition begins to specify itself as a culture of social enterprising.
These sections, I hope, will further strengthen the sense that Transition is better understood as a phenomenon with no centre, which is articulated in increasing detail by the process of flourishing into (and through) a number of different – yet kindred – fields of experience, such as growing food, experimenting with new possibilities for relating to others (and nonhuman othernesses) in a mindful and attentive way, using a currency and starting an enterprise. It is on this insight that I then build on in Part II. Where I go deeper into an exploration of the dynamic process through which Transition unfolds as a form of life (as moving, rather than accomplished ‘movement’).
In the first chapter of Part II (ch. 7), I look at the practice of experimentation through tentative steps and projects. Experiments can become occasions where the whole of the phenomenon can be spotted in one individual part, disclosing its internal relatedness as well as its openness to further specification. In this sense, they are akin to those passages in a text that make one resonate with the style of the work as a whole, as it somehow seems to come alive in that particular paragraph. This quality, of aliveness and of enabling a glimpse into the whole, of modelling the whole through the parts, is what gives rise to what one interviewee referred to as ‘exemplars’.
In ch. 8, I then go on to focus on the dynamics whereby in-groups and out-groups sometimes emerge, when the cultural repertoire of Transition comes up against its limits in the face of unaccounted experiential encounters. The detail of how these divides – which typically come up as challenges – are processed in the moving of Transition is very interesting and it illustrates one more distinctive trait of this evolving phenomenon. Namely: the ongoing attempt to enable inclusivity, to keep the threshold low for enfolding in its moving further experiential possibilities.
In the last chapter of Part II (ch. 9), this aspect of inclusivity in the face of possible exclusions is explored further. Specifically, the last section is my most structured attempt at describing the moving of Transition as giving rise to a distinctive form of cultural politics, by allowing the unfolding of difference and the ensuing emergence of new forms of social relating, which give birth to a new landscape of moral and micro-political possibilities for personal and collective action.
My moving in Totnes
The chapters that follow are based on more than a purely textual study of Transition materials. From August to December 2013 I was, in fact, living in Totnes, which is where the first Transition initiative was ‘unleashed’. In many ways, therefore, this book is my attempt to make sense of that time, and of the unexpected realisations it has offered. Given that this particular experience marks the position from which I approached the writing of this book, it is important that I provide a few more details, so as to set any learning I will be sharing in context.
During my time in Totnes, I was based at Schumacher College, an educational establishment set on the Dartington estate. It might appear unusual that I ought to set the base for my explorations in the life of Transition in Totnes from an institution that is based several miles out of Totnes itself. There is, however, a special connection between Schumacher and Transition.
Schumacher College is part of a wider estate, Dartington, which was purchased in the early twentieth century by Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst. A wealthy couple, they subsequently went on to establish a number of institutions that were to have a significant impact on the cultural life of Totnes. One of these was the – now defunct – Dartington School of Arts. As it came up in several of the interviews I undertook, the presence of a school of arts has caused a slow but constant settlement of ‘cultural creatives’ since the early twentieth century,13 which – according to some – has played a crucial role in facilitating the development of Transition, by creating a background of activities, ranging from arts and crafts to bodywork to progressive spiritualities, that put Totnes on the map for individuals looking to live in greater alignment with ‘green’ values.14
In 1991, the Dartington Hall Trust that manages the estate went on to create an educational establishment under the name of Schumacher College. This came out of a suggestion advanced by prominent local environmentalist Satish Kumar,15 to create an experimental centre where a holistic approach to education could be adopted. This meant establishing a residential community, so that intellectual exchange could be balanced by practical activities: a model reminiscent of the Indian ashram tradition.16 The college, named after E.F. Schumacher – the author of Small is Beautiful17 – was meant to be a hub for the exploration of ‘new paradigm’ thinking.
This is shorthand for approaches that share a holistic, ecological and participatory outlook to the understanding and appreciation of life, typically in contrast to other ways of knowing that are characterised by oppositional categories, such as the Cartesian mind/body divide, and similar divisions between humanity and ‘nature’, between individual and society or between analysis and synthesis. The thinking that Schumacher College aimed to promote, and still promotes to this day, tries to address this rift. Of course, what ‘new paradigm’ thinking amounts to is an evolving notion, and any annotations have to be taken with a hint of caution. In my experience of it at the College, however, there seem to be a few pillars. These are the ecological ethics advocated by Arne Naess, which rely on the possibility of ‘deep experience’ as a source for the commitment to honour living ecosystems (thereby collapsing the descriptive/normative division in ethics).18 Deep Ecology also dovetails with ecopsychology, a form of inquiry that aims to broaden the concept of psyche to recognise its dwelling in the body, as well as in all the ecological systems through which the body is supported.19 There is also a philosophical prong centred on Goethean science, an approach to the observation of organic life that engages the world outside of an analytical mindset, in order to appreciate how life holds together in dynamic wholes, so that everything exists the way it is by a necessity stemming from the achievement of fittingness and harmony in the bodying forth of a whole.20 Other important contributions
