Rise of the rhizome: Conceptualizing how coastal communities enact change via transition mechanisms

Coastal communities are experiencing profound social, economic, and environmental change that challenges their capacities to adapt and determine their own futures. In this paper, we conceptualize how such communities navigate change by reconciling their specific transitions within, yet distinct from, the wider sustainability transitions scholarship. The ever-expanding literature addressing transition emphasizes the what and why of change, yet often overlooks how change is enacted, experienced and negotiated—particularly in place-based contexts such as coastal communities . We address this gap by conceptualizing and operationalizing ‘transition mechanisms,’ understood as processes, institutional structures, and/or social networks of diverse local actors that are created and adopted to cope with change, alter its course, or foster an intentional, ‘positive’ outcome during times of flux and uncertainty. Building on select theories, we identify three categories of transition mechanisms: substituting, recrafting, and disrupting, and define and operationalize them. Through our operationalization we encounter and grapple with inherent ambiguity and address dilemmas regarding: (1) presumed intentionality in the term, transformation, (2) subjectivity within categorization and (3) how differentiated power affects these practices and their selection. Finally, we draw on Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the rhizome to capture the non-linear, interconnected, and multi-layered nature of change processes in coastal communities. This metaphor helps conceptualize transition mechanisms as overlapping networks of signs and meanings, power, and contexts rather than sequential pathways. Thus, the paper speaks to the critique of sustainability transitions as apolitical and asocial by conceptualizing transition beyond technologically driven change and reorienting it toward the lived, relational, and power-sensitive dynamics shaping coastal futures.