ICS Working Paper Nº1/2018

ICS W O R K I N G P A P E R S 2018 12 Parallels can be drawn to the alternative framing diagram (cf. Figure 1) insofar as (a) equals the subjective dimension, (b) the intersubjective, (c) the inter-objective space. The add-on, (d), sets-up a contextual framework reflecting how CBIs are influenced by external historical developments and socio-material contexts. In hindsight, (c) relations with institutional change echoes our argument by calling for greater politicization and active engagement with the status-quo. It emphasises that a coherent commitment to discourse formation around the need for specific changes to existing institutions, network formation, and finally reflexive advocacy, lobbying, and protesting in response to ongoing changes in circumstances, are determinant for setting the stage to challenge dominant institutions and institutional logics. In turn, this requires balancing the opposed forces of independence from versus accommodation in existing systems (e.g. social credit cooperatives have to find their place in the existing banking institutions framework, while balancing their values to transform the very same), as well as ‘institutional bricolage’, that is, using existing institutions and resources in novel ways, or even creating new ones (e.g. local currency or community-supported agriculture) (Haxeltine et al., 2017). In sum, the key issue is that CBIs need to engage with the existent institutional landscape and become politicized change actors in order to contribute positively to a wider societal transition. In this section, we reviewed how transition literature analyses and frames the role of niche level actors towards societal transformation. We argued the potential of CBIs agency in forwarding a societal change agenda towards sustainability as sense-making actors able to trigger and upscale the underlying value change needed for such transitions. Finally, we carved out that CBIs’ relation with their external socio- material context is determinant for their degree of influence. Throughout Europe, research and literature have started to inquire into existing CBI landscapes. In Portugal, this is still an underexplored topic that section (2) begins to unpack.