Project leaders: Prof Dr Thomas Alkemeyer, Prof Dr Stephanie Birkner, Prof Dr Thomas Etzemüller, Prof Dr Thorsten Raabe (spokesperson), Prof Dr Karsten Müller.

In the recent sustainability discourse, communities are seen as key pioneers of a sustainable society. At the same time, sustainability initiatives are increasingly being run by groups of people who explicitly design themselves as communities. So far, research has only insufficiently addressed these developments: Either it unquestioningly assumes that these communities have the capacity to act and are effective, or it problematises them one-sidedly as a negative counter-model to a society of enlightened, responsible subjects. A differentiated, theoretically guided and empirically based examination of the emergence and impact of sustainability-orientated communities is therefore urgently needed.

The joint project "Transformation through Community" (TransGem) is pursuing precisely this goal: on the one hand, it aims to reconstruct the attractiveness of communities for politics, science and practice using the example of current sustainability initiatives. On the other hand, it explores their transformative potential and their socio-political consequences in order to gain knowledge for reflection and orientation for both the (political) handling of and action in communities in dialogue with the practice partners. Specifically, the project consortium is focussing on the following questions: How do communities form as collective subjects of sustainable development with the participation of things, artefacts and technologies? What intended and unintended effects do these communities have internally and externally? How should they be assessed with regard to the sustainability-orientated transformation of society?

The selected empirical cases - Escheroder "gASTWERKe", Dorfgemeinschaft Oberndorf and Solidarische Landwirtschaft Oldendorf e.V. - will be analysed using approaches from discourse analysis, praxeology and psychology. This triangulation makes it possible to focus on the designs and everyday practices of sustainable communities as well as the participants' individual approach to collective demands and expectations. In an extension of current social science research on communities, affects and emotions will also be taken into account together with concrete practices and their meanings as a powerful 'cement' of collective subjectivation. The joint project is thus characterised by a unique theoretical and methodological approach: The three cases are each analysed in parallel from five subject-specific perspectives. During the project progression, the research results will be continuously exchanged with each other and with the practice partners. This will not only achieve a transdisciplinary integration of disciplinary knowledge, but also a mutual exchange of information and challenges from different perspectives and types of knowledge.

The joint project promises to shed light on the conditions under which communities become collective subjects, the extent to which they develop transformative power and the social and political consequences associated with this. It thus enables a reflective approach to the processes of collective subjectivation in sustainability-related scientific, social and political practice.