Rural livelihood transitions: towards an integration of the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach and the Multi-Level Perspective

Abstract

In response to evolving challenges, rural livelihoods have to diversify to include new on- and off-farm activities of households. However, sustainable livelihood concepts have so far not sufficiently accommodated transition dynamics. Mostly, rural livelihoods and sustainability transitions are addressed separately in the scientific literature. This review explores opportunities to integrate the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA) and the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) on transitions. We provide an overview of the SLA and MLP and summarize earlier applications of transition concepts on rural livelihoods in the literature. We then focus on the conceptual linkages between SLA and MLP, in particular regarding livelihood diversification strategies. Our review shows that the conceptual overlaps of SLA and MLP allow for a meaningful combination of both approaches to harness their respective strengths. Vulnerabilities from the SLA perspective (e.g. shocks, trends, changes) are considered at the landscape level in MLP. Policies, institutions, processes are part of the so-called regime in the MLP heuristic. The livelihood diversification in SLA, e.g. the development of new on- and off-farm activities, can be described as niches in MLP. Some empirical work on agricultural transitions from the MLP perspective has adopted a territorial approach to take into consideration the pluri-activity of farms and the interactions between different subsystems (food, energy and tourism). This resonates well with the idea of livelihood diversification as a strategy in SLA. We conclude that integrating SLA and MLP will help to better understand livelihood diversification processes and we provide a preliminary proposal for a livelihood transition framework.