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Moving towards a sustainable way of living requires a change not only in social behavior patterns, but also in research practices. We have to get rid of dominant research approaches, which put too much emphasis on individuals' freedom of choice and neglect the shaping force of daily practices.
Studying Sustainable Change: From ABC to Practice GAIA 24/2(2015): 102- 107
Abstract
The Attitude-Behaviour-Choice(ABC)paradigm emphasizing the importance of individuals' freedom of choice represents a dominant way of understanding the world and how the world is created that is routinely practised within all parts of society, including in social research on environmental change. In effect, alternative views that presumably have a greater potential to change society in a more sustainable direction are being suppressed. To move society in a more sustainable direction, the influence of the ABC paradigm on current research has to be identified, dissolved, and replaced by alternative approaches. The analysis is primarily based on social practice theories as formulated by Elisabeth Shove and colleagues, as well as on methodological experiences and observations made in a 2011 study of barriers to sustainable change in Europe.
Keywords
ABC paradigm, green policy failures, practice theory, research design, sustainability
In the articleBeyond theABC:ClimateChangePolicyandTheories of Social Change Elisabeth Shove (2010) presented a highly valuable and thought-provoking theory on why green policy fails. From her point of view, current attempts to change the development in a more sustainable direction have failed because they form and are formed by what she calls "the ABC paradigm". Within this dominating concept of thought, social change is assumed to depend upon values and attitudes (the A) which are believed to drive thekindsofbehaviour(theB)that individualschoose(theC)toadopt. The model has generally been generated and sustained by psychologists and economists; it involves ideas of rational choice, resonates with widely shared, common sense ideas about media and individual agency, and emphasizes causal factors: external drivers promoting and barriers hindering change.
Roughly speaking, the ABC paradigm underpins two classic political strategies for promoting sustainable change: one is to persuade people of the importance of climate change and thereby to increase their green commitment; the second is to remove barriers obstructing the smooth translation into action (Shove et al. 2012). Thus, although the combination of A, B, and C generates a very...