The geography of configurations that work: An inquiry into sustainability transitions and industry formation in the water sector

Abstract

Large infrastructural sectors like energy, transport, agriculture, water and wastewater or housing are increasingly under pressure to become more sustainable in face of climate change related natural hazards and accelerated social inequalities. Resilient urban water infrastructures of the future might require thae transition towards a novel socio-technical configuration: moving away from large-scale centralized treatment facilities towards more small-scale, decentralized and modular technologies developed and run by new actors, and governed by novel rules and regulations. Innovations for this transition are likely to emerge both within global networks, among the various global networks of technology experts, working in NGOs, multinational companies or investment banks, and among local operators of today’s urban water infrastructures and their users. Drawing on Sustainability Transitions and Evolutionary Economic Geography literature, the purpose of this thesis is twofold. First, it seeks to explore how established socio-technical configurations are transformed in the water sector. Second, it investigates how geography and scalar-relational processes condition these re-configuration processes in specific places. To operationalize this dual perspective on both socio-technical configurations and the geography, in which they emerge or not, a novel methodological approach is proposed that combines discourse and social network analysis as well as expert interviews: socio-technical configuration analysis (STCA). The thesis demonstrates the applicability of STCA for studying socio-technical change across space and time and discusses wider implications for the fields of sustainability transitions and economic geography more broadly.