Material Geographies Of Household Sustainability

Charting new research directions, this book constructs a series of imperatives for linking culturally informed research around household sustainability with policy and planning. The household, or 'home', is a critical scale for understanding activities that connect individual behaviours and societal attitudes. The focus on the household in this collection provides a window into the sheer diversity of homemaking and maintenance activities that entail resource use. These practices have affective or emotive dimensions as well as habitual aspects. Diversity, innovation and change at the household scale is often missed in policy approaches which assume that simplistic economic motivations drive demand and this can in turn be 'managed' through regulation or market pricing. The research challenge extends beyond describing existing unsustainable economies driving resource intensive behaviour to consider realistic options for transformations in cultural practices, material relationships and, ultimately, the political economies they sit within. Without change in these systems, government initiatives to promote ecological modernisation run the risk of simply green-washing the very economies of consumption that currently drive unsustainable practices. Social and cultural change at the household level is critical to promoting sustainability at a range of wider scales.

Charting new research directions, this book constructs a series of imperatives for linking culturally informed research around household sustainability with policy and planning. The household, or 'home', is a critical scale for understanding activities that connect individual behaviours and societal attitudes. The focus on the household in this collection provides a window into the sheer diversity of homemaking and maintenance activities that entail resource use. These practices have affective or emotive dimensions as well as habitual aspects. Diversity, innovation and change at the household scale is often missed in policy approaches which assume that simplistic economic motivations drive demand and this can in turn be 'managed' through regulation or market pricing. The research challenge extends beyond describing existing unsustainable economies driving resource intensive behaviour to consider realistic options for transformations in cultural practices, material relationships and, ultimately, the political economies they sit within. Without change in these systems, government initiatives to promote ecological modernisation run the risk of simply green-washing the very economies of consumption that currently drive unsustainable practices. Social and cultural change at the household level is critical to promoting sustainability at a range of wider scales.

ÔThe question Chris Gibson and his colleagues answer in this book is simple: ÒWhy is it not easy being green?Ó In 20 concise, focused and accessible chapters Ð from birthing to dying, from toilets to Christmas Ð they unveil the ambiguities, instabilities and paradoxes of affluent household living in the 21st century. In so doing, they temper the easy rhetoric of sustainable lifestyles with some authentic realities drawn from the affluent world. Earth system science is showing us the deep complexity of our material planet. This book brilliantly reflects back to us the complex materiality of our cultural lives.Õ Ð Mike Hulme, University of East Anglia, UK Contrary to the common rhetoric that being green is ÔeasyÕ, household sustainability is rife with contradiction and uncertainty. Households attempting to respond to the challenge to become more sustainable in everyday life face dilemmas on a daily basis when trying to make sustainable decisions. Various aspects of life such as cars, computers, food, phones and even birth and death, may all provoke uncertainty regarding the most sustainable course of action. Drawing on international scientific and cultural research, as well as innovative ethnographies, this timely book probes these wide-ranging sustainability dilemmas, assessing the avenues open to households trying to improve their sustainability. The authors engage critically, and constructively, with the proposition that households are a key scale of action on climate change. They confront dilemmas of practice and circumstance, and cultural norms of lifestyle and consumerism that are linked to troublesome environmental problems Ð and question whether they can be easily unsettled. The work also illuminates the informal and often unheralded work by households Ð frequently the poorest Ð in reducing their environmental burden. This important book is critical to understanding both the barriers to household sustainability and the ÔunsungÕ sustainability work carried out by householders. Containing a unique combination of science and cultural research, this fascinating book will appeal to researchers and students of environmental science, environmental studies, sustainability studies, climate change adaptation, geography, sociology, cultural studies, science and technology studies, as well as energy studies and housing research. Policy-makers in various levels of government working through sustainability problems, environmental educators, social planners and sustainability officers working for governments, will also find much to interest them in this unique book.

Multigenerational living – where more than one generation of related adults cohabit in the same dwelling – is recognized as a common arrangement amongst many Asian, Middle Eastern and Southern European cultures, but this arrangement is becoming increasingly familiar in many Western societies. Much Western research on multigenerational households has highlighted young adults' delayed first home leaving, the result of difficult economic prospects and the prolonged adolescence of generation Y. This book shows that the causes and results of this phenomenon are more complex. The book sheds fresh light on a range of structural and social drivers that have led multigenerational families to cohabit and the ways in which families negotiate the dynamic interactions amongst these drivers in their everyday lives. It critically examines factors such as demographics, the environment, culture and family considerations of identity, health, care and well-being, revealing how such factors reflect (and are reflected by) a retracting welfare state and changing understandings of families in an increasingly mobile world. Based on a series of qualitative and quantitative research projects conducted in Australia, the book provides an interdisciplinary examination of intergenerational cohabitation that explores a variety of concerns and experiences. It will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in housing, demographics and the sociology of the family.

**Named a 2014 Choice Outstanding Academic Title** Combining coverage of key themes and debates from a variety of historical and theoretical perspectives, this authoritative reference volume offers the most up-to-date and substantive analysis of cultural geography currently available. A significantly revised new edition covering a number of new topics such as biotechnology, rural, food, media and tech, borders and tourism, whilst also reflecting developments in established subjects including animal geographies Edited and written by the leading authorities in this fast-developing discipline, and features a host of new contributors to the second edition Traces the historical evolution of cultural geography through to the very latest research Provides an international perspective, reflecting the advancing academic traditions of non-Western institutions, especially in Asia Features a thematic structure, with sections exploring topics such as identities, nature and culture, and flows and mobility

The ‘new sharing economy’ is a growing phenomenon across the Global North. It claims to transform relationships of production and consumption in a way that can improve our lives, reduce environmental impacts, and reduce the cost of living. Amidst various economic, environmental, and other crises, this message has strong resonance. Yet, it is not without controversy, and there have been heated debates over negative dimensions for workers and consumers alike. This book stretches far beyond the sharing economy as it is popularly defined, and explores the complex intersections of ‘sharing’ and ‘the economy’, and how a better understanding of these relationships might help us address the multiple crises that confront contemporary societies. The contributors to this book explore a wide diversity of sharing systems and practices from various empirical case studies, ranging from hospitality to seed-swapping, and from indigenous land rights to alcohol consumption. In each chapter, a different crisis or vulnerability frames and shapes the study, allowing contributors to unpick the ways in which crisis and sharing relate to each other in real life. The book is divided into three thematic sections. Following an extended introduction to the themes and ideas of the book by the editors, the first section foregrounds the shaping of sharing practices by already existing or anticipated crises. The second section focuses on the lived relations between sharing and economic practice. In the third section, authors conclude the book by exploring the possibilities and challenges for creating alternative economic forms grounded in practices of sharing. This edited volume makes a major, original contribution towards academic understandings of sharing economies in the context of crises. It is suitable for both students and academics who are interested in political economy, economic geography and consumption.

Over the last two decades new and significant demographic, economic, social and environmental changes and challenges have shaped the production and consumption of housing in Australia and the policy settings that attempt to guide these processes. These changes and challenges, as outlined in this book, are many and varied. While these issues are new they raise timeless questions around affordability, access, density, quantity, type and location of housing needed in Australian towns and cities. The studies presented in this text also provide a unique insight into a range of housing production, consumption and policy issues that, while based in Australia, have implications that go beyond this national context. For instance how do suburban-based societies adjust to the realities of aging populations, anthropogenic climate change and the significant implications such change has for housing? How has policy been translated and assembled in specific national contexts? Similarly, what are the significantly different policy settings the production and consumption of housing in a post-Global Financial Crisis period require? Framed in this way this book accounts for and responds to some of the key housing issues of the 21st century.

The Greening of Everyday Life develops a distinctive new way of talking about environmental concerns in post-industrial society. It brings together several conceptual frameworks with a diversity of case studies and practical examples of efforts to orient everyday material practices toward greater sustainability. The volume builds upon internal criticisms of dominant strands of contemporary environmentalism in post-industrial societies, and develops a new approach which emerges from a number of disciplines, but is unified by a normative concern for the material objects and practices familiar to members of societies in their everyday lives. In exploring alternatives, the chapter authors utilize conceptual frameworks rooted in environmental justice, new materialism, and social practice theory and apply it to the everyday; attention to urban biodiversity, infrastructure for storm water run-off, green home remodelling, household toxicity, community gardens and farmers markets, bicycling and automobility, alternative technologies, and more. With contributions from leading international and emerging scholars, this volume critically explores specific strategies and actions taken to generate homes, communities, and livelihoods that might be scaled-up to promote more sustainable societies.