The urgent need for transformations to sustainability has been widely established, but the seeming lack of swift and comprehensive progress have led to well-founded doubts about meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement, the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and other related global agreements. Often vacuous and potentially misleading pointers to partial progress are not reassuring, while defeatist statements on blanket failure conceal important breakthroughs and advances. This paper resists the unhelpful extremes of this dichotomy and takes a closer look at the work done by activists, researchers and other supporters to mobilize for and foster transformative efforts even if they are often not easily visible. Based on an integrative synthesis of three international, multi-case research projects on transformations to sustainability, it introduces the concept of – the work, inner and outer, that has the power to affect transformative change. Often hidden and largely underappreciated, transformative labor helps break through existing systems, and puts creativity, courage, persistence and other physical, social, cognitive and emotional qualities and skills along with physical and financial resources toward achieving system-transcending change. Seven overlapping and interacting categories of transformative labor are described: (1) Detecting & Naming Conditions (Symptoms); (2) Creating Transformative Spaces; (3) Fostering Agency & Empowerment; (4) Enacting Steps to Change Conditions; (5) Visioning & Moving toward Desired Outcomes (Purpose, Horizons); (6) Caring, Tending & Learning; and (7) Scaling Out, Up and Deep. Transformative labor is performed by advocates, researchers and other allies and is always political because it intends to advance a profound change in the status quo. The paper concludes with proposed future research directions to test and advance this novel concept.

中文翻译：

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变革性劳动力：可持续转型的隐藏（和不那么隐藏）工作


向可持续转型的迫切需要已被广泛认可，但似乎缺乏迅速和全面的进展，导致人们对实现《巴黎协定》、2030年可持续发展目标和其他相关全球协议的目标产生了有根据的怀疑。通常，空洞且可能误导性的部分进展并不令人放心，而关于全面失败的失败主义言论则掩盖了重要的突破和进步。本文抵制这种二分法无益的极端，并仔细研究了活动家、研究人员和其他支持者为动员和促进变革努力所做的工作，即使这些努力往往不易被察觉。基于三个关于可持续发展转型的国际多案例研究项目的综合综合，它引入了具有影响变革力量的内部和外部工作的概念。变革性劳动往往是隐蔽的且在很大程度上未被充分认识，它有助于突破现有体系，并利用创造力、勇气、毅力和其他身体、社会、认知和情感品质和技能，以及物质和财政资源来实现超越体系的变革。描述了七个重叠和相互作用的变革性劳动类别：（1）检测和命名条件（症状）； (2) 创造变革性空间； (3) 促进代理和赋权； (4) 制定改变条件的步骤； (5) 愿景并朝着期望的结果迈进（目的、视野）； (6) 关怀、照顾和学习； (7) 横向扩展、向上扩展和深度扩展。 变革性劳动由倡导者、研究人员和其他盟友进行，并且始终是政治性的，因为它旨在推动现状的深刻改变。本文最后提出了测试和推进这一新概念的未来研究方向。