Everyday household practice in alternative residential dwellings: the non-environmental motivations for environmental behavior

Document Type

Book Chapter

Publication Date

2016

Abstract

This interdisciplinary book brings together several conceptual frameworks with a diversity of case studies and examples of efforts to orient everyday material practices toward greater sustainability. It builds upon a variety of influential internal criticisms of dominant strands of contemporary environmentalism in postindustrial societies. These criticisms characterize environmentalism as too reliant upon technocratic policy, its constituency as too white, male, and middle class, its rhetoric and framing as too depressing, its concerns as expressed too abstractly, its solutions too focused on individual consumer choices and the individualization of responsibility. In exploring alternatives, chapter authors utilize conceptual frameworks rooted in environmental justice, new materialism, and social practice theory. The cases and practices include attention to urban biodiversity, infrastructure for stormwater runoff, green home remodeling, household toxicity, community gardens and farmers’ markets, bicycling and automobility, alternative technologies, and more. Chapter authors include both internationally prominent and emerging scholars from anthropology, communication, cultural studies, history, law, philosophy, political science and political theory, public health, sociology, and urban studies.

Publisher's Statement

Publisher's version of record: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198758662.003.0017

Publication Title

The greening of everyday life: challenging practices, imagining possibilities

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