Mechanisms of Cultural Change and the Transition to Sustainability

Market Power Extended: From Foucault to Meadows

“…Following the example of organic farming that has been sketched above, the developed framework can be used to analyze how the dynamics between market power and sustainability play out in a transformation process that aims at overhauling our current system towards increased sustainability. Such an analysis would also need to reflect on the existing body of transition theory and transition management [107][108][109][110][111].…”

A peacock’s tale: runaway agricultural evolution and the development of pre-pottery Neolithic communities in the southern Levant

“…Evolutionary biologist Ronald Fisher (1930:136-137) first outlined the runaway model to account for the evolution of exaggerated male characteristics in some species, including the tails of peacocks and birds of paradise (see Figure 3.1). Fisher's theoretical work was verified in the early 1980s with the formulation of a quantitative genetic model of runaway sexual selection (Lande 1981 Runaway models have since been employed by anthropologists and archaeologists to explain various aspects of human evolution and behaviour (Bettinger et al 1996;Nesse 2007;Penn 2003:283;Rendell et al 2011;Ross et al 2013). Runaway processes can account for the evolution of characteristics that, although initially adaptive, grow enormously over time and, in so doing, erode the fitness of investors.…”