Prefiguring (un)just transitions? Niches, experiments and everyday practices in Rotterdam

This paper frames everyday participatory practices in urban neighborhoods as prefiguring alternative futures at the scale of everyday life. Narratives around energy transitions and sustainable futures tend to be dominated by market-driven 'smart cities' and 'green technologies' on one hand, and top-down managerial governance from local authorities on the other, which ultimately seeks as far as possible to maintain 'business as usual'. This raises question around the justness of transitions, in terms of just ends, just means and just decision-making. Against this, everyday practices in self-organized spaces offer genuinely transformative potential by providing space for participants to 'act otherwise' in the present, expressing and manifesting their needs and desires around how to live together in the future. This paper discusses the energy transition in Rotterdam firstly through the 'official' top-down process and secondly from the perspective of a bottom-up community initiative, asking what potential futures this facilitates, stimulates and makes viable, and where justice factors into the process. Finally, it explores how do these direct, embodied experiments interface with, influence or clash with governance, policy and decision-making around urban transitions, questioning whether a just transition can be facilitated within the frameworks created by an unjust system.