Surrealism’s disdain for Western civilization has increasingly come to encompass its mistreatment of animals and the environment. The surrealist critique of the exploitation and domination of other species and the planet frequently recognizes the way in which these are bound up with repression along the lines of both gender and epistemology. This chapter examines how two novels by women surrealists from different generations thematize the nexus of environmental destruction, animal exploitation, and the triumphal march of scientistic rationalism. The British-born, naturalized Mexican artist and writer Leonora Carrington’s The Hearing Trumpet (1974) and the American artist and writer Rikki Ducornet’s Phosphor in Dreamland (1995) are caustic, humorous, and wildly adventurous interrogations of ecological catastrophes and conjurations of new modes of being that may be able to counteract them. This chapter reads The Hearing Trumpet and Phosphor in Dreamland in relation to a broader surrealist critique of environmental destruction and exploitation, and as at one and the same time eulogies of extinction and tributes to the magical potential of transformation.

African American women writers of the 1980s were arguably the beneficiaries of cultural and political phenomena that held sway during the 1970s and 1980s. One of the major tenets and accomplishments of the Black Arts Movement and the Black Aesthetic of the 1960s was the validation of Black voices that came from within Black communities, drew upon the culture of Black communities -- especially the use of music and the vernacular -- and posited the validity, reality, and truth of that culture. Black women writers of the 1980s provide a logical progression from those communal assertions of value and freedom to extending the possibilities for such expression. This chapter considers the contributions of writers such as Nikki Giovanni, Alice Walker, Audre Lorde, Rita Dove, Octavia Butler, Gloria Nayor, Sherley Anne Williams, and Toni Morrison as writers who extend and liberate creative and cultural possibilities initiated in earlier decades.

Crucially, the Prison Shakespeare field of research has become an exciting hub for discussion about a presumed intrinsic virtuosity of Shakespeare plays against the background of what might best be termed as “new character criticism” in Shakespeare studies as well as a battlefield between the supporters and the opponents of prisons as effective in achieving their stated objective of keeping society safe. This discussion has profoundly influenced and continues to influence the different trends of thought about the quality of the “transformation” Shakespeare carries out in prison. Can Shakespeare’s theatre be regarded as a salvific one when most of the characters in his plays are villains? The chapter focuses on Italian director and actor Armando Punzo’s pioneeristic practice of theatre in prison and his interpretation of “transformation” in an extra-moral sense.

Transforming our food systems will require changing our innovation systems, in which organisations on agricultural research and innovation can play a crucial role. Key success factors for change can be organised into three dimensions: designing and managing transformative innovations, culture and structures of innovation organisations, and their engagement with the wider innovation ecosystem. Failures are crucial elements of innovation processes. Rapidly testing, sharing, building on, and learning from successful, and failed, innovations are key. This connects to the paradigm ‘Open Innovation 2.0’, which is widely applied in the private sector but not yet applied and evaluated for research and innovation organisations in the public sector or tertiary education. Four key principles emerge, namely big-picture action-oriented thinking, entrepreneurial organisational culture, close attention to partnerships and contexts, and diverse investment portfolios, with different levels of risk. These also imply—and require—the upstream transformation of funding and incentive systems.

Transforming global food systems to meet sustainability and justice outcomes under climate change requires engaging with complex multi-level governance while appreciating specific local contexts. As such, climate change and food security are ‘messy’ policy issues; policies need to be effectively shaped and fit for purpose across different scales, geographic areas, and sectors. Policy implementation necessitates coordination across multiple perspectives towards a common goal, and an anticipatory governance approach can enable this. Working against the status quo is not easy but can be achieved through truly engaged and inclusive stakeholder processes. Redistribution of power entails employing a gendered, socially inclusive lens in the development of food system transformation policies. Establishing an enabling policy environment for transforming food systems requires diverse approaches and multiple perspectives. The appropriate facilitation and coordination of multi-stakeholder engagements is key to clear communication between participants and to support learning.

Organisational empowerment is a critical pathway to support the sustainable transformation of food systems, mediated through different types of organisations. Collective action can be an effective strategy to include marginalised groups who may otherwise be excluded from agricultural development, extension, financing, or other aspects of climate-resilient food security. Key empowerment actions by farmer and producer organisations include building capacity, supporting greater access to inputs and information, facilitating the formation of agricultural enterprises, connecting to policy and markets, and encouraging youth membership and leadership. A focus on livelihoods, production, and poverty reduction can be a basis for increased agency and influence in decision-making. Women’s collective action is a platform to access information, technology, and a share of finances, which can lead to agency and leadership in local decision-making. For youth organisations, it is important to mobilise finance, provide support to post-production activities, support rural youth networks and recognise the role of young women in food systems.

Development finance actors and the private sector will need to work cohesively to reduce the funding gap, reorient current financing, and increase capital resources for food-system transformation. Utilising innovative financing instruments and mechanisms, such as blended finance structures, to create attractive investment opportunities can catalyse food-system transformation through both public and private sector capital. Building the capacity of financial intermediaries to accurately assess risk and deploy appropriate risk-mitigation mechanisms can improve risk perception and lower the transaction cost for deploying capital. Robust, science-based metrics, cost-effective data collection, and monitoring systems are critical to mobilising capital and safeguarding sustainable finance against ‘greenwashing’, engaging in behaviour or activities that make people believe a company is doing more to protect the environment than it really is.

Transformation is required in complex food systems to bring about global food security for a well-nourished world population while meeting climate-related challenges. The key is to identify the best levers to achieve change. To this end, food-system transformation has four major interlocking elements: (1) rerouting systems and livelihoods into new trajectories; (2) addressing climate impacts, thereby reducing risks; (3) tackling new environmental issues, for example by reimagining diets and value chains, to lessen emissions; and (4) realigning the ’enablers of change’, such as policies, regulation, finance, and innovation. Eleven specific, concrete actions are proposed to attain these four objectives, with explanations of the goal of each action, the mechanisms to accomplish it, targeted geographic areas, and key stakeholders. Achieving food-system transformation will require annual investments of US$850 billion from now until 2050, with private-sector finance helping to fill current gaps.

Research is a fundamental catalyst for change in our food systems, playing a key role in diagnosing problems, setting empirical targets and pathways, and developing and scaling solutions on the ground. Unlocking the transformative functions of research will require radical changes in the research agenda and the way knowledge is produced and disseminated. Research must be context-sensitive, inclusive, built on long-term strategic engagements, responsive and adaptive to emerging needs, and packaged in accessible formats. In some cases, participatory, action-oriented research with a systems approach can be combined with reductionist, technology-driven approaches to support the behavioural changes required for systems transformation. Additional efforts can unlock and incentivise the transformative attributes of research, including relevant theories of change, strategic partnerships, nested scales approaches, and a creative leadership style.

Partnerships are crucial for fostering change in society, particularly in the solving of complex problems such as climate change. They are particularly important for researchers interested in societal change, given that research in the strictest sense is only about knowledge generation. Given partnerships are crucial for outcome-focused research, the selection of diverse strategic partners is key and must be guided by theories of change. Complementary visions are important but do not always need to be tightly structured. From farmers and producer groups to international agencies, multi-level partnerships help promote action at different levels. Collaborative arrangements are important but can be informal and flexible; many successful longer-term partnerships are deep and trustful at their core, often with informal relationships.

There have been several calls for transformation in food systems to address the challenges of climate change, hunger, continuing population pressure, and to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Although complicated, working across scales and actors is critical for food-system transformation, alongside understanding the entry points. As agricultural research for development (AR4D) is ultimately about farming practices and farmer livelihoods, a focus on the local scale is essential, as in most cases, farms and districts are where the most action is required. Through effective cross-scale work, lessons from local levels can shape the thinking of regional and national governments, as well as the private sector. Involving multiple and ideally nested scales, designing sets of solutions, and developing actionable, fundable, and implementable solutions is likely to provide rich food-system outcomes. Partners need to provide the tools, signals, and resources so that local people, communities, and policy planners are empowered to drive transformation.

Multiple social, systemic, and structural factors threaten our current food systems. Climate change is pushing us to transform these systems, not only to mitigate its impact but also to ensure food and nutrition security and pursue other ecological, social, political, and economic benefits. Research and innovation have a unique value proposition in the context of food-system transformation. By creating, reorienting, and phasing out aspects of our current research systems, we can realise their potential. We can phase out research institutions, mental models, and incentives that are siloed and that promote top-down silver-bullet thinking. Agricultural research for development can also be reorientated to food system research wherein performance is measured based on benefits to users and the ability to scale rapidly. We can also create spaces and matching incentives to catalyse action, imagine shared futures among stakeholders, and support intergenerational allyship and learning.

This chapter explores mining as a social process of continuous change into the future. Following new environmental legislation, environmental remediation and re-wilding are becoming practices of restoring landscapes altered by extraction. These are also political, social, and cultural processes involving multiple actors making choices. Remediation and re-wilding, still in an exploratory stage in the Arctic, demonstrate the entangled nature of sustainability. In order for extraction to become “sustainable” it is essential that governance has a focus on what is left when peak extraction is passed. If that is done in a hasty and irresponsible manner it will take a long time to heal “landscape scars” and other wounds that extraction has brought. The chapter focuses on the environmental remediation of two former mining sites – the Nautanen mine in Norrbotten in Sweden and the Lunckefjell mine and Sveagruvan on Svalbard – with very different contexts. At Lunckefjell, the wider framework was to safeguard Norwegian sovereignty on Svalbard. At Nautanen, remediation was limited to an attempt to make a profit from mining waste and eventually failed because of a conflict over responsibility.

Yearnings for political change – dormant for decades, suppressed by coercion and perceptions of unattainability – can suddenly appear realizable with the emergence of new stimuli and facilitating conditions. For a Fourth Wave of Democratization, which ended Communist rule in Europe, the Gorbachev-led fundamental change of the Soviet political system and of Soviet foreign policy was the crucial facilitator. There was a circular flow of influence, which began but did not end in Moscow, in which a liberalization that evolved into democratization in the Soviet Union acted as a stimulus to pressure from below in East-Central Europe. But the attainment of decommunization and national independence in those countries emboldened the most disaffected nations within the Soviet multinational state. The transformation of the Soviet political system was consciously sought by Gorbachev, but the fragility of the state in conditions of political pluralism became evident. The USSR was not in crisis in 1985 but fundamental reform led to crisis by 1990–91. Gorbachev’s embrace of political pluralism plus Yeltsin’s paradoxical demand for Russian independence from the Union led to the Soviet breakup. Even apparently consolidated political orders, America’s included, are potentially fragile, as Trump’s attempted subversion of US democracy, with Republican Congressional backing, has underlined.

Climate activists across generations and borders demonstrate in the streets, while people also take climate actions via everyday professional efforts at work. In this dispersal of climate actions, the pursuit of personal politics is merging with civic, state and corporate commitment to the point where we are witnessing a rebirth of togetherness and alternative ways of collective organising, from employee activism, activist entrepreneurship, to insider activism, shareholder activism and prosumer activism. By empirically investigating this diffuse configuration of the environmental movement with focus on renewable energy technology, the commercial footing of climate activism is uncovered. The book ethnographically illustrates how activism goes into business, and how business goes into activism, to further trace how an ‘epistemic community’ emerges through co-creation of lay knowledge, not only about renewables, but political action itself. No longer tied to a specific geographical spot, organisation, group or even shared political identity, many politicians and business leaders applaud this affluent climate ‘action’, in their efforts to reach beyond mere climate ‘adaptation’ and speed up the energy transition. Conclusively, climate activism is no longer a civic phenomenon defined by struggles, pursued by the activist as we knew it, but testament of feral proximity and horizontal organising.