295
Problematizing the Individual: From Environmental Consumers to Environmental Citizens
Problematizing the Individual: From Environmental Consumers to Environmental Citizens
Abstract Submissions Closed
Friday, 26 February 2021: 09:00-10:30
Location:
RC24 Environment and Society (host committee)
Language: English
Session Type: Oral
Individual consumers are often the point of reference for, and target of, environmental improvement efforts. While there are good sociological as well as political reasons to focus on individuals as agents of change, doing so introduces a slippery slope towards the individualization of responsibility for environmental decline, while also reducing the agency of people to their material consumption. Many environmental sociologists, however, have problematized this conceptual narrative on several levels, highlighting everything from the political economic context of the production of environmental harms, to the cultural-material context of everyday practices. In this section we will seek to identify the complementarities and parallels across these research domains with a variety of theoretical and empirical approaches to problematize the role of the individual in environmental degradation and improvement.
Session Organizer: