Resourcefulness, a community’s capacity to engage with their local resource base, is essential in contributing to resilience, the potential to adapt to external challenges and shocks. Resourcefulness and social innovation have some overlapping qualities, however, the academic connection between the two concepts is yet to be explored. Social innovations include new practices, ideas, and initiatives that meet societal needs and contribute to social change and empowerment. Through in-depth interviews and participant observation, this study researches conditions and processes of resourcefulness in facilitating social innovation in rural, peri-urban, and urban community gardens in the North of the Netherlands. Comparing differing contexts, five main enablers for altering social relations and community empowerment have been identified: (1) clear goals and motivations; (2) diversity in garden resources; (3) experimental knowledge processes; (4) strong internal support and recognition; and (5) place-based practices. Above all, this research stresses the importance of defining resourcefulness as a process and foregrounding the place-based contextual nature of innovative collective food system practices.

This article uses foodscapes as a lens to explore the potential of ecovillages’ food practices towards enhancing sustainable food systems. Ecovillages are collective projects where members attempt to integrate sustainability principles into daily community life. In these communities, food acts, not only as an element of social life, but also as a venue through which to interact with mainstream food systems and society. Yet, how food practices at ecovillages contribute to sustainable food systems remains vague. This article proposes foodscapes, as a lens, for exploring the sustainability potential of place-based food practices in ecovillages, while also directing attention to how these practices intersect with networks at broader social and spatial scales. It asks, how can we better understand and draw from sustainable food practices, when considering these as both, place-based and relational? And what is the potential and the role of ecovillage communities to contribute to broader sustainable food system change? Drawing on ethnographic and food mapping methods, the article explores selected food practices at three ecovillage communities in the United States. Using social practice theory for “zooming in” on place-based practices and “zooming out” to examine relational networks, we investigate how these communities create internally sustainable food systems, while externally bridging themselves with broader urban and rural communities. Through viewing ecovillage food practices as place-based and relational, we develop a broader and spatially-focused understanding of food system sustainability.

Ecovillages are collective projects that attempt to integrate sustainability principles into daily community life, while also striving to be demonstration projects for mainstream society. As spaces of experimentation, they can provide valuable insights into sustainability transformations. Through shared values and interpersonal connections, ecovillages possess collective identities, which provide a platform for enacting their ideals. However, many ecovillage residents question how to best enhance their role as models, resource centers, and pieces of a greater movement toward sustainability transformations, while simultaneously preserving their unique community and identity. In relation to the above, this paper addresses the questions: What can collective identity in ecovillage communities teach us about the objective and subjective dimensions of sustainability transformations? Furthermore, how can the perspective of collective identity highlight challenges for ecovillages for initiating sustainability transformations? Sustainability transformations encompass objective (behaviors) and subjective (values) dimensions; however, the interactions between these spheres deserve more scholarly attention. Using ethnographic data and in-depth interviews from three ecovillages in the United States, this paper reveals the value in collective identity for underscoring belonging and interpersonal relationships in sustainability transformations. Furthermore, the collective identity perspective exposes paradoxes and frictions between ecovillages and the societal structures and systems they are embedded within.

The Free Café is a citizen-driven collective in the city of Groningen, the Netherlands that serves a free meal biweekly, using food that would otherwise be thrown away. While principally attempting to create a space where financial pressures and social status are lifted, the group also works to raise awareness about the environmental and societal impacts of food. Using Gibson-Graham’s community economies (CE) lens to analyse the Free Café, this paper aims to understand how urban citizen collectives are organised and governed, to better facilitate local action in food initiatives. Through participant observation and in-depth interviews, this research focuses on the daily practices, interactions, organisation and challenges surrounding the Free Café, to draw lessons about urban collective action and CE. Though findings indicate internal conflicts and contradictions, through sharing its vision and opportunities, the café is found to be valuable to food-waste awareness-raising and experimentation towards sustainable post-capitalist societies.

Background Social networks are an important, although overlooked, component of community-based health promotion. Advances in social network research have highlighted different social network intervention (SNI) strategies to improve community-based health promotion. The aim of this project is to collaborate with community and policy stakeholders to explore how to best apply these SNI strategies to improve the resilience, health and well-being of adults in Amsterdam, and more broadly in the Netherlands. Methods and analysis To this end, we will collaboratively develop an intervention planning tool called the ‘Health in All Networks Simulator (HANS)’. This tool will be capable of virtually testing different SNI strategies and forecasting their possible impact on resilience, health and well-being. Taking a mixed-methods approach consisting of a combination of interviews, group model building workshops and agent-based modelling with members of two communities in Amsterdam and policy stakeholders, we will foster a shared learning process while ensuring ownership and relevance of HANS to ongoing community-based health promotion practice. Ethics and dissemination The research project has been approved by the research ethics committee of Wageningen University (approval numbers: 2024-039; 2024-226). HANS will be shared directly with stakeholders. The results will be made available to the public via open-access publications and conferences.