Transformative labor: The hidden (and not-so-hidden) work of transformations to sustainability

The urgent need for transformations to sustainability has been widely established, but the seeming lack of swift and comprehensive progress have led to well-founded doubts about meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement, the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and other related global agreements. Often vacuous and potentially misleading pointers to partial progress are not reassuring, while defeatist statements on blanket failure conceal important breakthroughs and advances. This paper resists the unhelpful extremes of this dichotomy and takes a closer look at the work done by activists, researchers and other supporters to mobilize for and foster transformative efforts even if they are often not easily visible. Based on an integrative synthesis of three international, multi-case research projects on transformations to sustainability, it introduces the concept of transformative labor – the work, inner and outer, that has the power to affect transformative change. Often hidden and largely underappreciated, transformative labor helps break through existing systems, and puts creativity, courage, persistence and other physical, social, cognitive and emotional qualities and skills along with physical and financial resources toward achieving system-transcending change. Seven overlapping and interacting categories of transformative labor are described: (1) Detecting & Naming Conditions (Symptoms); (2) Creating Transformative Spaces; (3) Fostering Agency & Empowerment; (4) Enacting Steps to Change Conditions; (5) Visioning & Moving toward Desired Outcomes (Purpose, Horizons); (6) Caring, Tending & Learning; and (7) Scaling Out, Up and Deep. Transformative labor is performed by advocates, researchers and other allies and is always political because it intends to advance a profound change in the status quo. The paper concludes with proposed future research directions to test and advance this novel concept.