Text

theses

My dissertation looks at the conditions under which people voluntarily reduce their consumption of goods, energy, and water. My research draws on 45 in-depth semi-structured interviews and participant observation with three groups who restrict their consumption in various ways: (1) voluntary simplifiers, members of a loosely organized social movement centered on addressing environmental harms by buying less and reducing waste; (2) religious environmentalists, individuals embedded in religious communities who consider environmental concerns a religious calling; and (3) green home owners, individuals who remodel or build their homes in such a way as to use resources efficiently, and reduce unfavorable impacts to the environment. I employ a comparative approach in order to describe the diverse experiences of reducing consumption and to generate new theory by analyzing the similarities and differences between groups. My work explains the gradual process of transitioning to a green lifestyle, the way green technology is integrated into everyday life, the strategy and tactics employed by informants to recruit people to change their lifestyles, the relationship between lifestyle change and other forms of political participation, and the way social connections and gift giving make reducing consumption more difficult. I adopt a pragmatist perspective to understand lifestyle change as a deliberate process undertaken in response to a problem left under-addressed by current policies and practices. Green practices are not isolated decisions or actions, but components in an ongoing project. As a result, green lifestyles are often experienced as both a work-in-progress and a provisionally coherent life narrative. I also use a mutual shaping (of technology and society) perspective to go beyond a focus on production and design, and highlight instead the importance of technology use and the way social practices enable the green-ing of technology. I find that contrary to theoretical claims about the individualization of responsibility, lifestyle change is a companion strategy that does not create a tradeoff with other forms of collective action or support for government regulation. Instead, green lifestyles address climate change both directly through household changes (to a small degree) and indirectly by supporting environmental activism.

ETD_5366

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Janet Ann Lorenzen

doi:10.7282/T3D798QC

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.