Rethinking material cultures of sustainability: Commodity consumption, cultural biographies and following the thing
Rethinking material cultures of sustainability: Commodity consumption, cultural biographies and following the thing
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重新思考可持续发展的物质文化：商品消费、文化传记和追随事物
DOI：
10.1111/tran.12206
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发表时间：
2017
影响因子：
3.3
通讯作者：
Evans D
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Evans D
本文通过扩展消费学术研究中涉及该问题的见解范围，提出了关于家庭可持续性的地理视角。目前，将消费与各种可持续实践的动态联系起来的研究占主导地位，导致对物质文化的特定和片面解读。我认为，对事物社会生活的地理方法可能会对物质性和家庭可持续性产生新的见解。具体来说，我认为“跟随事物”——通常关注商品链——可以有效地扩展到人们的家庭。这并不是为了承认网络中各点之间的联系，而是将其定位为一组理论和方法论资源，可用于探索事物在经历关键时刻（在本例中为家庭）时的移动和放置。为了说明这一点，我提供了来自两项英国家庭实证研究的材料。第一个是关于食物如何变成废物的人种学研究；二是对洗衣习惯的定量调查。人们关注事物的持续分类和评估如何塑造其轨迹并将其推向引起（不利）环境影响的方向。最后，我勾勒出未来研究的议程，考虑对家庭的关注如何能够产生更全面的事物传记，并阐述这一分析对消费学术和参与人文地理学以外的可持续性研究和政策的影响。
This paper advances geographical perspectives on household sustainability by extending the range of insights from consumption scholarship that are brought to bear on the issue. Research that links consumption to the dynamics of variously sustainable practices currently dominate, resulting in a particular and partial reading of material culture. I suggest that geographical approaches to the social life of things may yield new insights into materiality and household sustainability. Specifically, I argue that “following the thing” – which is typically focused on commodity chains – could usefully be extended into people's homes. This is not introduced as a way to acknowledge the connections between points in a network, rather, it is positioned as a set of theoretical and methodological resources that can be utilised to explore the movement and placing of things as they move through a critical juncture – in this case the household. To illustrate, I present material drawn from two empirical studies of households in the UK. The first is an ethnographically‐informed study of how food becomes waste; the second is a quantitative survey of laundry habits. Attention is paid to the ways in which the ongoing categorisation and valuation of things shape their trajectories and move them in directions that give rise to (adverse) environmental impacts. To conclude I sketch out an agenda for future studies, consider how a focus on households can yield more comprehensive biographies of things, and address the implications of this analysis both for consumption scholarship and for engagement with sustainability research and policy beyond human geography.