This is a CTP of initiative: Transition Norwich (UK)
This CTP relates to the development of Transition Circles: a new model of organizing Transition in Norwich.
Transition Circles was intended as a mechanism for participants to practically engage in the transition. The core ide underlying this development was that small groups of local transitioners would meet and support each other in making practical changes in their day-to-day lives in order to reduce their carbon footprints.
Transition Circles were designed to operate alongside the existing structure of Transition Norwich (e.g. the theme related groups) and complement the existing structure rather than replace it. There was a feeling that individuals needed to do more themselves.
The interviewee had attended the London Transition conference (held in mid-September 2012) and there was a participant (David Strahan) who was very animated about climate change and telling a story that was at the “doom and disaster” end of the spectrum of views about climate change - claiming that there was only two to three years to turn things around. This led the interviewee to believe that Transition Norwich needed to be doing more and move faster. This meant trying to reduce individual’s carbon footprints by half or two thirds.
Transition Circles was consistent with a dominant part of the Transition story which suggests that technological advancements will not solve the environmental crisis but, instead, that significant reductions in levels of consumption are necessitated. Hence, the interviewee thought that this strategy was an appropriate way forward for Transition Norwich. Transition Circles was developed as a viral consciousness changing programme – based around small groups of people working together. The idea was that the groups would provide a space where the participants could support each other whilst creating a different kind of consciousness and a culture where “less is good” and consuming less is admirable. This could create a different narrative by which people could live their lives. It was, in the words of the interviewee “Ambitious but desperate.”
Transition Norwich provided a cohort of people who were open to reducing their consumption. The idea was that there would be 10 people in one group and then, after a period of time (e.g. six months), each person would start engaging in an altogether new group. It is through this gradual development and diffusion of local transition cells that the ideas and practices of transition activism would spread and expand.
Some other people within Transition Norwich had similar ideas. Another Transitioner had been trained in the Carbon Conversations approach which is another model of community based engagement. Herself and the interviewee became facilitators and this complemented the Transition Circles idea.
A paper on the urgency of the problem was written and formed the basis of a public meeting that was held in the Baptist Church in Duke Street, Norwich (16 June 2009). It was planned as a second unleashing of Transition Norwich, hence the TN 2.0 name. Around 50 people attended, mostly those who moderately committed to Transition and probably involved in one of the theme groups. The meeting discussed the urgency of the problem and Transition Circles emerged as a possible solution.
Three local Transition Circle groups were initially set up: two in Norwich and the Strangers group for people who lived outside Norwich. A hub group, TN2.0, was also created. There was a hope that if they started with such sub-groups, then they would become even more localised as the process expanded and new groups formed.
Another input to the thinking was knowledge of an evangelical Buddhist group called SGI which originated in Japan. It had grown from a process of cells splitting smaller as more people came on board – which in part inspired the imagined model of diffusion.
It is hard to link this CTP to a set of events.
The London Transition conference was significant in creating the sense of urgency that something needed to happen.
The lack of other things happening in Transition at that time perhaps created the sense that there was a need for a relaunch and new momentum.
It is hard to know exactly what events followed the creation of the Transition Circles. They had meetings and the Earlham Road one is still meeting today. However, the model did not ‘bud’ and spread in the way that was envisaged and intended.
A collective blog was established, This low carbon life where people wrote about their experiences of trying to live a low carbon life. This was in part inspired by the Transition Circles process.
The contestation that occurred was within the participants of the Circles themselves when people were challenged by their personal carbon consumption.
Some participants were upset when they said they couldn’t fly any more. They weren’t actually told “you can’t fly” but they were told “you can fly if you like, but you will be destroying the world”. The interviewee remembers people getting tearful about the implications of that. E.g. not being able to visit friends or relatives.
Hence, the Transition Circles were, in part, an exercise in generating collective guilt about the environmental impact of the participants. This didn’t create conflict at the meetings but it created conflict in their hearts. The consequence was that people can end up withdrawing from the process. Hence, the contestation is resolved by individual’s stopping beating themselves up any more.
It felt promising at the time. It was encouraging that 50 people turned up at the TN 2.0 meeting and brought great enthusiasm with them and willingness to make “something” happen.
They struggled to find what “the something” was, but they agreed that it was something to do with the Transition Circles. The interviewee felt optimistic at the time. That the meeting had been a success and that as the groups had started to form, something good could come of it.
With hindsight, the circles helped reinforce social fabric and keep Transition going. That is mostly what Transition was – relations and mutuality. It is possible that it would have faded away faster if it had not had these groups going.
A number of lessons come from this particular CTP.
The first was not to work from a place of panic – that was a life lesson. Transition Circles was underpinned by a sense of impending doom which was not ultimately helpful.
The Transition Circles epitomize something that was positive about TN: its social fabric. People coming to do something together and creating new friendships and bonds of good will.
The Transition Circles, and the wider experience of Transition Norwich, suggest Transition as a whole hasn’t really worked, primarily because it is trying to invent a less efficient way of doing things. As the interviewee indicatively asserts, its is: “A less easy, less amenable, less straightforward, less productive, way of doing things. So you are doomed to failure before you start”.
Part of the aim of the Transition Circles was to get people to make these significant cuts in their own carbon / ecological footprints. But, ultimately, very few people were willing to do this. It is the same ‘efficiency’ problem but from the perspective of an individual: they don’t want to sacrifice comfort for the sake of external ideas and that is what Transition Circles was trying to get them to do. Furthermore, beyond an initial group of people who were already inclined to act in that way, they couldn’t encourage other people to do it. The flip side is that because people don’t want to make those sacrifices, the Transition projects aren’t going to work. It’s the same problem seen from both ends of the telescope.
One of the founding assertions of Transition - and the one that the interviewee has come to doubt personally – is that the only way we will avert climate change and economic collapse is a kind of green austerity (reducing consumption and energy, etc.). He doesn’t believe that any more and doesn’t believe that people are willing to do it - as demonstrated by the experience of Transition Circles.
Stay informed. Subscribe for project updates by e-mail.
