Towards a holistic understanding of sustainability action : a life history approach
Abstract
Sustainability challenges threaten society and the environment with both formal and
grassroots initiatives to encourage sustainability action achieving limited success.
Contemporary policy approaches to sustainability have focused on individual
responsibility, promoting knowledge-deficit models of behaviour change that fail to take
into account the context in which people live. This thesis employed a life history
approach to holistically examine the relationships between experience, connection and
sustainability action. The roles of experience and transformation in changing
participants’ connection to self, other people and the more-than-human natural world
were investigated. A framework was developed from psychology and sociology
literatures to holistically elucidate the context in which sustainability action takes place.
Thirty-three participants were recruited from educational and environmental sectors
across Scotland and England. Life history interview data were thematically analysed with
emphasis placed on delineating experiences that participants described as formative, as
well as identifying temporal trends both within individual lives and across the dataset.
Experience was instrumental in the creation and reformation of the different
ways of knowing required for both connection and action. Extended periods of time
spent with people or nature were associated with holistic descriptions of connection.
However, the role of infrastructure in supporting sustainability action should not be
underestimated. The life history method illuminated the interplay between temporal
changes at personal and societal levels. These findings promote the current research
agenda into examining sustainability action within the broader context of the life course.
Although connection is instrumental in imbuing experience with the meaning necessary
to sustain action over a prolonged period, the wider context in which action takes place
can supress this effect. If policy is to be conducive to sustainability, it should focus on
creating and sustaining environments in which connection to the self, other people and
the more-than-human natural world are enabled and nurtured.
Type
Thesis, PhD Doctor of Philosophy
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
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