In 2023, we conducted a case study of the climate transition process in Malmö, Sweden. Just transition (cf. Paris Agreement) and climate justice underscored as constructs current disparities among neighbourhoods in Malmö, in terms of climate change consequences as well as of consumption-based greenhouse gas emissions.

Interviews, document analysis, observations and interactive workshops were used with a transdisciplinary explorative approach. To address phenomena and processes that transgress conventional social and nature-oriented divides, we adopted an ecosocial lens, which brought to the fore measures that integrate environmental solutions while also responding to human needs and social values. In our examination of cases, we identified ecosocial innovations and explored their transformative potentials. 

Our findings highlight the importance of place, or “topos” (in Latin). Places that provide residents and households with social encounters, knowledge sharing, services and practical functions (i.e. sharing of resources such as repairing skills, borrowing opportunities, community gardening, etc.) support changes in everyday practices and values involving relations, well-being, and use and distribution of resources. Each such place is a heterotopia, with Foucault a utopia that is real, in that it differs from and critically reflects other sites in which we live and positions that we occupy. 

Ecosocial heterotopias seem to have the potential to fundamentally support transitions at the individual and household level. Interpreting “human well-being” in a literal sense as being well situated – in a place as well as within ecological limits – we conclude that ecosocial heterotopias would constitute powerful tools for just transition in urban settings.