The concept of transformation in relation to climate and other global change is increasingly receiving attention. The concept provides important opportunities to help examine how rapid and fundamental change to address contemporary global challenges can be facilitated. This paper contributes to discussions about transformation by providing a social science, arts and humanities perspective to open up discussion and set out a research agenda about what it means to transform and the dimensions, limitations and possibilities for transformation. Key focal areas include: (1) change theories, (2) knowing whether transformation has occurred or is occurring; (3) knowledge production and use; (4), governance; (5) how dimensions of social justice inform transformation; (6) the limits of human nature; (7) the role of the utopian impulse; (8) working with the present to create new futures; and (9) human consciousness. In addition to presenting a set of research questions around these themes the paper highlights that much deeper engagement with complex social processes is required; that there are vast opportunities for social science, humanities and the arts to engage more directly with the climate challenge; that there is a need for a massive upscaling of efforts to understand and shape desired forms of change; and that, in addition to helping answer important questions about how to facilitate change, a key role of the social sciences, humanities and the arts in addressing climate change is to critique current societal patterns and to open up new thinking. Through such critique and by being more explicit about what is meant by transformation, greater opportunities will be provided for opening up a dialogue about change, possible futures and about what it means to reshape the way in which people live.

Although there has been increasing interest in rural enterprises, relatively little has been written on enterprise and entrepreneurship on islands where problems tend to be different, additional and exaggerated. Economic and cultural development agencies intervene to support such remote and isolated communities but the significance of the dominant metropolitan paradigm in the peripheralization of those establishing and running businesses on islands needs critiqued. This article contrasts experiences but highlights similarities, rather than differences, of rural small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries and comparative Northern European locations. The key role of social capital, cultural values and norms is analysed and comment presented on small island experiences. Arguments are made for policies to be proofed for locational differences and for further research to understand the opportunities offered by islands and coastal communities in a world where the particularities of place and space are increasingly valued, and aspects of remoteness can be rearticulated to good effect.

Cold case squads have garnered much attention; however, they have yet to undergo significant empirical scrutiny. In the present study, the authors interviewed investigators and reviewed 189 solved and unsolved cold cases in Washington, D.C., to determine whether there are factors that can predict cold case solvability. In the interviews, new information from witnesses or information from new witnesses was cited as the most prevalent reason for case clearance. The case reviews determined that there were factors in each of the following domains that predicted whether cases would be solved during cold case investigations: Crime Context, Initial Investigation Results, Basis for Opening Cold Case, and Cold Case Investigator Actions. The results suggest that it is possible to prioritize cold case work based on the likelihood of investigations leading to clearances.

Aspects of ‘localness’ are used to both define and promote Scotland’s rural people and places. By way of illustration, the social construction and consumption of Scotland’s highlands and islands as underpinned by a negotiated relationship between what is considered ‘local’ and ‘not local,’ is provided. One particular focus is on how incomer and local identities are constructed and mediated by development agencies and academic analysis. It is suggested that the rural incomer is represented as a contradiction of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ with respect to rural development processes. This paradox of incomer identity and representation is examined. Discourses of what and who is local within the current socio‐political climate of devolution for Scotland, and increasingly confident claims for national independence, are crucial factors in the contextualization of incomer/local constructions and rural development processes. The promotion of Scotland as a nation which celebrates local articulations is explored, and some possible implications for rural communities and sustained socio‐cultural development initiatives are considered.

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