Abstract
If we accept the admonishments directed at existing theory and research in the previous chapter —for not understanding the role of social and material contexts in shaping environmentally significant behaviours—where might we look for an alternative? There are numerous sociological approaches that try to explain how the social has a role greater than the sum of its parts, that is more than an additional ‘factor’ or ‘driver’ of individual behaviour, but instead an intimate part of how we experience the world and our own selves, what we do, how we change and stay the same (Leyshon 2014). In this chapter, the focus is on one perspective in particular, or more accurately a number of loosely affiliated perspectives that share some characteristic features. The perspectives in question are organized around the concept of a ‘social practice’, so it will be referred to from here onwards as the ‘social practice approach’ or ‘social practice theory’ interchangeably.
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Notes
- 1.
Research groups include the Sustainable Practices Research Group (SPRG), 2010–14 and the Dynamics of Energy, Mobility and Demand (DEMAND) Centre (2013–18). SPRG was a collaboration between various universities and funded by the ESRC as well as the Scottish Government and DEFRA. ‘The broad aim of the project is to enhance the social scientific understanding of how habits in areas of everyday consumption form and reproduce’. More information is available at http://www.sprg.ac.uk. The DEMAND Centre is another collaborate project, also funded by the ESRC (as well as Transport For London and the International Energy Agency). It ‘takes a distinctive approach to end use energy demand, recognizing that energy is not used for its own sake but as part of accomplishing social practices at home, at work and in moving around’. More information is available at http://www.demand.ac.uk
- 2.
It is beyond the scope of this chapter to convey the intricacies of the diverse social practice literature that has sprung up to better understand ‘sustainable behaviour change’. The intention is to capture some of the distinctive common features that tend to be shared by the various retellings of a social practice approach. My emphasis is on features I consider relevant and useful in approaching sustainability, so nuances will inevitably be missed. Neither is there space here to dwell on the theoretical antecedents and foundations of a social practice approach or a supposed ‘practice turn’ (Schatzki et al. 2001; Shove and Walker 2014, p. 46). Social practice advocates state influences including Giddens, Bourdieu, Schatzki and Reckwitz amongst others. However, the focus here is on the contemporary take up and application of social practice approaches to the sustainability agenda, so there will be little discussion of those theoretical origins, unless they bear a direct relevance to the point in hand.
- 3.
In a ‘short-circuiting’ of problems around how meaning relates to subjectivity and agency, the authors ‘treat meaning as an element of practice, not something that stands outside or that figures as a motivating or driving force’ (p. 23).
- 4.
- 5.
In the detail of the many examples given across the social practice literature, there is ambiguity about what counts as elements of practices, practices in their own right, and practices as part of larger bundles and complexes – is long-distance flight an element of other practices (conference attendance, tourism), a practice in its own right made up of various elements (navigating airports, access to finances) or a practice that is part of a complex (globalized family life)? It is of course possible that what is a practice in one situation can be an element in another, but the extent of this cross-referencing can make the conceptual categorization so elastic that it can at times feel redundant.
- 6.
Capstick et al. (2014, p. 3) also cite Bailey et al. in claiming that ‘meat and dairy products alone represent a great share of [carbon] emissions than those deriving from all worldwide road transportation, trains, shipping and air travel’.
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Adams, M. (2016). Searching for a New Normal: Social Practices and Sustainability. In: Ecological Crisis, Sustainability and the Psychosocial Subject. Studies in the Psychosocial. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-35160-9_4
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