Overview

With growing awareness of environmental deterioration, atmospheric pollution and resource depletion, the last several decades have brought increased attention and scrutiny to global consumption levels. However, there are significant and well documented limitations associated with current efforts to encourage more sustainable consumption patterns, ranging from informational and time constraints to the highly individualizing effect of market-based participation. This volume, featuring essays solicited from experts engaged in sustainable consumption research from around the world, presents empirical and theoretical illustrations of the various means through which politics and power influence (un)sustainable consumption practices, policies and perspectives. With chapters on compelling topics including collective action, behaviour-change and the transition movement, the authors discuss why current efforts have largely failed to meet environmental targets and explore promising directions for research, policy and practice. Featuring contributions that will help the reader open up politics and power in ways that are accessible and productive and bridge the gaps with current approaches to sustainable consumption, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of sustainable consumption and the politics of sustainability.

Full Product Details

Author:   Cindy Isenhour ,  Mari Martiskainen ,  Lucie Middlemiss (University of Leeds, UK)
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
Weight:   0.453kg
ISBN:  

9781138056206

ISBN 10:   1138056200
Pages:   208
Publication Date:   20 March 2019
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Undergraduate
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

List of Figures List of Tables Author Biographies Introduction Power, Politics and Unsustainable Consumption Lucie Middlemiss, Cindy Isenhour, Mari Martiskainen Section I: On Political Economy and Sustainable Consumption A Consuming Globalism: On Power and the Post-Paris Agreement Politics of Climate and Consumption Cindy Isenhour Practice Does Not Make Perfect: Sustainable Consumption, Practice Theory and the Question of Power Dennis Soron Sources of Power for Sustainable Consumption: Where to Look Doris Fuchs, Sylvia Lorek, Antonietta Di Giulio, Rico Defila Section II: On Governmentality and the Notion of the Subject in Sustainable Consumption Pro-environmental Behaviour Change and Governmentality: Counter-Conduct and the Making up of Environmental Individuals Tom Hargreaves Freedom, Autonomy and Sustainable Behaviours: The Politics of Designing Consumer Choice Tobias Gumbert The ‘Double Dividend’ Discourse in Sustainable Consumption: A Critical Commentary Lucie Middlemiss, David Wingate and Anna Wesselink Section III: On the Politics of Identity and Difference in Sustainable Consumption Housing as a Function of Consumption and Production in the United Kingdom Mari Martiskainen Power and Politics in the (Work-Life) Balance: A Mixed Methods Evaluation of the Risks and Rewards of Downshifting Jacob Hammond & Emily Huddart Kennedy Who Participates in Community-Based Sustainable Consumption Projects and Why Does It Matter? A Constructively Critical Approach Manisha Anantharaman, Emily Huddart Kennedy, Lucie Middlemiss and Sarah Bradbury Index

Reviews

This timely, accessible, and thought-provoking collection brings together leading scholars to deftly explore the systems and norms keeping us on pathways to social and ecological disintegration. It is a vital reminder that there are no easy wins when it comes to changing production and consumption patterns, with the authors facing key challenges head-on. An essential read for policy makers, change agents, business leaders, and researchers alike. -- Kersty Hobson, University of Cardiff, UK The authors of this book do not flinch from asking the hardest questions about the causes of climate change, the defining crisis of our time. They move the discussion of consumption and sustainability forward in new and important directions and challenge a lot of the accepted wisdom. Essential reading for anyone searching for ways to promote a more sustainable kind of consumer culture. -- Richard Wilk, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Indiana University, and Director of the Open Anthropology Institute, USA This is a bold and engaging book that tells it like it is: research, policy and practice in sustainable consumption have failed to take power, politics and social difference seriously. And in answer to this claim is offered a set of theoretically and empirically rich chapters by leading experts from around the world that critically interrogate a wide range of intersecting themes at multiple levels. It is exactly the kind of collection needed to shake up this emerging interdisciplinary field. -- Sherilyn MacGregor, Sustainable Consumption Institute and Politics Department, The University of Manchester, UK This book studies the trajectories of increasing household debt in the contexts of the USA, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, and Norway. The author examines remedies to prevent and alleviate the over-indebtedness epidemic, creating a conceptual framework with which to analyse the causes and consequences of debt. Hiilamo calls for and outlines social policies to tackle the current borrowing crisis that endangers and prevents the full participation in society of individuals with excessive debts. - L. A. Reisch and F. C. Doebbe, Book Notes Economics and Social Sciences , Journal of Consumer Policy

This timely, accessible, and thought-provoking collection brings together leading scholars to deftly explore the systems and norms keeping us on pathways to social and ecological disintegration. It is a vital reminder that there are no easy wins when it comes to changing production and consumption patterns, with the authors facing key challenges head-on. An essential read for policy makers, change agents, business leaders, and researchers alike. -- Kersty Hobson, University of Cardiff, UK

Author Information

Cindy Isenhour is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology and in the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine, USA. Mari Martiskainen is a Research Fellow at Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU), University of Sussex, UK Lucie Middlemiss is Associate Professor in Sustainability, and Co-director of the Sustainability Research Institute, in the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds, UK.

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