Lewis, NicolasJones, RyanDowell, Angus2021-06-112021-06-112020https://hdl.handle.net/2292/55295Full Text is available to authenticated members of The University of Auckland only.This thesis is a study of seven regenerative economy initiatives in New Zealand. These are initiatives that promise to do economy differently for planetary well-being by orienting economic activity to become more socially and environmentally attune. The research has two primary concerns; examining how these initiatives are being developed and assessing the potential of regenerative economies as a bases for sustainability transitions in New Zealand. Using theories of economisation and an ‘assemblage as methodology’ approach to extend debates on sustainability transitions, the research investigates key documents to examine the range and extent of activity in constructing these initiatives across different contexts. Insights are drawn about the contemporary management of economy-environment relations and the ways these are being economised. The initiatives studied are largely project based – experiments in economy making supported by an infrastructure of funding proposals, objectives, multiple stakeholders and a commercialisation agenda. They are designed to bring a regenerative economy into being. Each case is characterised by different key elements in its assemblage, each of which has different implications for either proliferating or constraining regenerative economy. The thesis employs the economisation and market-making literature to highlight exactly how regenerative economies are being made in economic activity. It draws out what is often missing from dominant approaches to the study of economy; namely, diverse forms of human and non-human agency and their sources of transformation. The thesis demonstrates that building regenerative economies is far from straightforward. It argues that an enormous and hidden amount of work is necessary to make regenerative initiatives investable and to bring a regenerative economy into being. This work is never finished and must be on-going to deal with those human and non-human elements that are difficult to contain within a regenerative economy framework.Restricted Item. Full Text is available to authenticated members of The University of Auckland only.Items in ResearchSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htmhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/nz/Thesis2021-06-10Copyright: the authorQ112951853