Narrative and Sustainability.

Mary Robinson spoke recently in Bristol on the subject of Climate Justice. One of the points she made was that the motivation to take action on environmental issues is likely to come through narrative rather than from a logical appeal to facts. 

Narrative in relation to sustainability has been examined from many angles. The narratives of individual households with commitments to sustainable living, and their relation to transition movements and to technological narratives are examined in the following paper.

Transitions on the home front: A story of sustainable living beyond ecoefficiency

Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 31, September 2017, Pages 240-248

Pernilla Hagberta, Karin Bradley (2017) Open Access

The authors state that a “prevailing discourse in sustainable housing tends to focus on building performance, along with compelling stories of “green” lifestyles and attractive urban housing concepts, while avoiding storylines that suggest more profound changes in society and everyday life.” They argue that “in order to address the resource-intensity of contemporary ways of living, we need to engage with perspectives of transition that go beyond technical eco-efficient solutions”, and go on to explore narratives “based in empirical insights from home visits and in-depth interviews with people seeking less impactful and more self-sufficient ways of living”. 

Seven Swedish households provide the focus of the study. These “home front transitioners” provide a story “that questions mainstream assumptions of a pre-defined green lifestyle, and contributes to a more diversified perspective on sustainable living.”Households were selected on the basis of “some kind of low-impact practices that challenge dominant residential norms and representations of lifestyles in Sweden” such as “voluntarily reduction in consumption or living standard; implementation of resource management or ecobuilding strategies; or self-sufficient food and/or energy production.” 

The interviewees were mainly “quite similar in terms of socio-economic status and could be considered lower to average Swedish middle class.” They shared “a common criticism of the (in)ability of societal institutions to act on pressing global and local challenges, and the perceived vulnerability of current systems.” A flavour of the interviews can be given here: “While pragmatic aspects of self-sufficiency are raised throughout the interviews, a prevalent motivation also seems to be part of a more emotional narrative. In building up an understanding of where food and other resources used in daily life comes from, many interviewees say they particularly want their children to learn about what they eat and the work that goes into it.” 

The narrative themes which emerged from the interviews are the following:

Seeking independence from large-scale systems

Autonomy & self-managing

Re-establishing a connection with nature

Re-localizing forms of food production & reintegrating local resource loops

Downshifting from the formal economy

Conviviality & reskilling

Voluntary simplicity&“frugality” (making do with what you have)

Building local resilience

Village-like clustering & collaboration

These are discussed in relation to movements such as “transition, re-localization, degrowth, downshifting, and do-it-yourself culture that ... deal with the reorganization of society and everyday life towards resilient, environmentally just, post-carbon futures.”

The study is seen as contributing to “a growing body of research that aims to broaden the discourse on domestic resource use, and tells the story of how transitions are situated in and through the home – beyond the dwelling unit or efficient building as an isolated technical solution, but also beyond a distinct eco-village or co-housing typology.”