Unraveling Transition Pathways (1): Conceptually Clarifying the Construct of Events

This paper aims to conceptualize the construction of events in light of transition pathways. The field of transition studies has generated an expanding body of knowledge on transition pathways. Transition pathways are shaped around a sequence of patterns of underlying processes. Sequences of events are the core elements of a pattern and explain a particular societal change. However, understanding what exactly an event is, its meaning, and its role in how transition pathways unfold still remains ambiguous in the transition literature. In transitions, understanding the process of structuration (including sensemaking) is foundational. We draw on the theory of historical processes that helps grasp the meaning of an event and the theory of mechanism-based explanations that shows the layered structure of explanations from micro to macro level. Based on these insights, the two concepts of “sensemaking” and “interrelating” are linked to the construction of the “event.” They explain the processes of structuration of social interactions from the individual to the collective level. We conceptualize an event as constituted from temporally sequenced, converging processes of interactions from the individual to the collective level in a particular time and space.