Overview

This open access book seeks to understand why we consume as we do, how consumption changes, and why we keep consuming more and more, despite the visible damage we are doing to the planet. The chapters cover both the stubbornness of unsustainable consumption patterns in affluent societies and the drivers of rapidly increasing consumption in emerging economies. They focus on consumption patterns with the largest environmental footprints, including energy, housing, and mobility and engage in sophisticated ways with the theoretical frontiers of the field of consumption research, in particular on the ‘practice turn’ that has come to dominate the field in recent decades. This book maps out what we know about consumption, questions what we take for granted, and points us in new directions for better understanding—and changing—unsustainable consumption patterns.

Full Product Details

Author:   Arve Hansen ,  Kenneth Bo Nielsen
Publisher:   Springer International Publishing AG
Imprint:   Palgrave Macmillan
Edition:   1st ed. 2023
Weight:   0.683kg
ISBN:  

9783031110689

ISBN 10:   3031110684
Pages:   387
Publication Date:   02 January 2023
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

Part I: Introduction  Foreword: Remembering Hal Wilhite Rick Wilk   1. Consumption, sustainability and everyday life Arve Hansen and Kenneth Bo Nielsen   2. Capitalism, consumption, and the transformation of everyday life: The political economy of social practices Arve Hansen       Part II: Energy, technology and everyday consumption   3. Household Energy Practices in Low-energy Buildings: A qualitative Study of Klosterenga Ecological Housing Cooperative Karina Standal, Harold Wilhite, and Solvår Wågø   4. Solar water heating: informing decarbonization policy by listening to the users Mithra Moezzi, Harold Wilhite, Loren Lutzenhiser, and Françoise Bartiaux   5. Sufficiency in China’s energy provision. A service understanding of sustainable consumption and production Marius Korsnes   6. Practices, provision and protest: Power outages in rural Norwegian households Ulrikke Wethal     Part III Consuming mobility   7. The rise and fall of the ‘people's car’: middle-class aspirations, status and mobile symbolism in ‘New India’ Kenneth Bo Nielsen and Harold Wilhite     8. Practical aeromobilities: making sense of environmentalist air-travel Johannes Volden and Arve Hansen             Part IV: Wellbeing and sustainable consumption   9. Everyday life and how it changes: studying ‘sustainable wellbeing’ with students during a pandemic Marlyne Sahakian   10. Towards sustainable transport practices in a coastal community in Norway. Insights from human needs and social practice approaches Mònica Guillén-Royo, Amsale Temesgen, Bjørn Vidar Vangelsten   11. Value Mapping: Practical Tools for Wellbeing and Sustainable Consumption Chris Butters and Ove Jakobsen       Part V: Making consumption more sustainable   12. Can economics help to understand, and change, consumption behaviour? Desmond McNeill 13. Towards sustainable consumption: reflections on the concepts of social loading, excess, and idle capacity Dale Southerton and Alan Warde   Afterword:  Capitalism, climate, consumption and Corona Thomas Hylland Eriksen

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Author Information

Arve Hansen is a researcher at Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo, Norway, where he leads the centre’s research group on consumption and energy and the Norwegian Network for Asian Studies. His research focuses on sustainable consumption in Norway and Southeast Asia, with particular focus on the relationship between everyday practices and economic systems. Kenneth Bo Nielsen is Associate Professor at the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo, Norway, and leader of the Norwegian Network for Asian Studies. His research is focused on political economy, land politics, dispossession, and social movements, with a particular emphasis on India where he has worked for two decades.   

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