If we take food production and consumption as arbitrary example, the energy necessary to fulfill our nutritious needs is outweighed by far by the energy which is used in order to provide variation, convenience and aesthetic experiences. The coffee harvested far away to help me through a boring meeting, the beer enjoyed together with friends (where water would serve my organism much better), the convenience of driving a car instead of waiting for the bus, the warm bath on a cold winter day, and thousand other similarly 'unnecessary' pleasures of our daily lives: they make our way of life so energy intensive. We could do without them, but as research indicates, which finds a surprisingly weak connection between sustainable attitudes and sustainable practices (e.g. Holden 2005), changing a 'way of life' is not always an easy thing to do. This insight that the most fundamental practices in industrialised societies (eating, transporting, housing, etc) neither are sustainable nor easily changed is usually explained in two ways: First, there is the insistence on the individual's responsibility, which always results in moral imperatives: “Do the right thing! Choose the less harmful alternative! Do not give in to your unsustainable desires!” “But wait!”, others say, “individuals cannot do a thing, because the technologies and politics have to be changed first!” Social scientists recognise this alternative as the structure-agency problem: What drives the world? Is it the individual's actions or is the individual driven by (social, political, cultural, economic, psychological etc) structures?
The research project2), which is presented here, seeks to explore the ample space between these two extremes. It does so by visiting locales and situations where aesthetics and sustainable production, distribution and consumption meet or miss each other.
In December 2005 over 70 experts from 17 countries met in Berlin at the 2nd European conference under the Marrakech-Process on Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP). One of the four working groups under the heading “Energy savings in households - a utopia” concluded that:
”[…] huge energy savings in the household could be achieved by way of applying the existing stock of energy efficient technologies. The main concern should therefore be on appropriate dissemination of information targeting the household, as knowledge of energy efficient consumption is poor, and technology for efficient energy use is often poorly employed.” (Adelphi-Consult 2006, 6)
Similarly, Tukker et al. (2006) point to an 'implementation gap', to be filled by relevant research that “systematically integrates initiatives to promote improvements in quality of life, to distinguish long-term structural consumption trends, and to identify the social mechanisms and cultural aspects of consumer behavior and household decision making” (p. 10). Thus, it seems that sustainable consumption is at hand. To reach this goal is mainly a matter of persuading consumers to do the right moves. We agree that more information is called for, but we are less certain that the challenges can be located mainly in the process of consumption. This paper argues for the need for research that reopens basic issues about the relationship between design and consumption, above all to investigate the role of aesthetics and the relationship between the concern for sustainability and the strive for beauty in modern products. In his latest book, aptly titled “Emotional design”, design guru Donald Norman emphasizes how products need to be attractive, pleasurable, and fun (Norman 2004). Similar observations are made by for example Jordan (2000) and McCarthy & Wright (2004). The latter authors particularly emphasize that people's encounters with technology are deeply emotional and characterized by aesthetic experience, in line with the observation of consumption studies about the pleasurable aspects of shopping (e.g. McCracken 1988b). Of course, there is in principle no reason why consumption may not be both sustainable and aesthetically rewarding. However, in practice, this combination may prove difficult. In her dissertation about how architects manage energy conservation issues in the design of buildings, Marianne Ryghaug (2003) found that the dominant view is to prioritize aesthetics over environmental concerns. In fact, many of her informants worry that environmental concerns may lead to bad or ugly design. Thus, to advance our understanding of the challenges of sustainable consumption, we believe it is vital to explore the relationship between aesthetics and sustainability in design and consumption. Shaping policies towards a more sustainable consumption is in the Norwegian context, as in other OECD countries, seen as a key to sustainable development (Lafferty 1994, Norges forskningsråd, Området for miljø og utvikling 2003, Geyer-Allély et al. 2002). Without an improved understanding of priorities of design and consumption, it is difficult to provide more effective policy advice.
If the only merit of a 'green' product is that it is considered preferable from an environmental or moral point of view, many consumers are not convinced that they should search for that product and maybe even pay a higher price for it (de Boer 2003: 260). Rather, the design and the marketing of products should address all attributes considered relevant by consumers, such as functional and aesthetic features, together with distinctive environmental and moral advantages. This strategy may even imply that the product's environmental and moral advantage is presented as self-evident rather than as its main selling-point (de Boer 2003: 260).
This is only one example of how aesthetics, design, and sustainability can be related strategically to each other. We will investigate these relations by focusing on how aesthetics is managed by designers, consumers, and the myriad of intermediaries in between. A main thesis is that we currently may observe an increased “aesthetication” of design and consumption that pose a barrier to a more sustainable consumption, partly by diverting design focus away from sustainability, partly by accelerating consumption. To change this pattern, we need to understand the logic of “aesthetication” and its attractions. We cannot expect 'green' consumption patterns to emerge on the basis sidestepping aesthetics, but it is vitally important to learn more about how sustainability may be made more joyous and beautiful.
There are many important dimensions of sustainability of products. We have chosen to focus particularly on energy issues as a measure of sustainability. First of all, energy use is intimately linked to the probably most pressing environmental problem of all, the increased emission of greenhouse gases. Second, since energy saving and labelling has been discussed broadly, it should be a well-known concern to designers and consumers. Third, energy efficiency is an intrinsic and invisible quality of products. It shares this trait with many other dimensions of sustainability. Thus, findings about the relationship between energy concerns and aesthetics should be relevant also to a host of other issues of sustainability of consumption.
Observers nowadays agree that the understanding of successful implementation of more environmentally friendly technology in end-users' everyday life, has to be aware of variables from a broad variety of domains: additionally to psychological and economic factors, there are cognitive issues like knowledge and cognitive capacity (Parnell & Popovic Larsen 2005), local discourses negotiating the meaning of environmental friendliness (Hajer 1995), situational factors (access), and social variables (demography). Taking the multi-dimensionality of the problem seriously, concepts are needed which go far beyond A-I-D-A (Awareness-Information-Decision-Action, see Barr 2003, 228) and PTEM (physical-technical-economic models, see Lutzenhiser 1993, 248).
In the research project which is described here, a more progressive model of technology transfer (Siegler 2006) is adapted. Here, we can rely on solid theoretical and empirical evidence from STS (science and technology studies) and cultural studies, which are both multidisciplinary fields in themselves. More specifically, consumption studies and research on design, adoption and appropriation of technologies in everyday life provide tools and findings to better understand how new things and systems become part of daily practices - or not.
As for consumption studies Douglas and Isherwood's (1996 [1979]) 'anthropology of consumption' provides one of the canonical entries. They argue against approaches, which reduce consumption to the rational fulfillment of individual needs (to be fed, clothed, sheltered…) on the one hand and irrational display of status ('conspicuous consumption') on the other (Douglas & Isherwood 1996 [1979], vii). Against this they set an understanding of consumption as “an integral part of the social need to relate to other people” (Douglas & Isherwood 1996 [1979], 4). This and similar contributions (for surveys see Lee 2000; Lury 1996; Slater 1997), has inspired a host of research, which asks for the meaning of goods in daily practices and its routines.
In addition, the vast literature on symbolic aspects of the domestic sphere informs us about the social meaning of the domestic and its historic development (for a comprehensive annotated bibliography see Perkins et al. 2002). Aesthetics has always played an important role in this domain, particularly if it is understood, in opposition to Kant's conception as the sphere of disinterest, as being deeply ingrained in the complex arrangements of daily routines which touch upon almost every domain of modern societies (Melchionne 1998). Studying the domestic as 'home territory' (Morley 2000) we enter a sphere where material reproduction (and increasingly also production) and moral economies meet (Silverstone & Hirsch 1992). In moral economies, a term coined by Edward P. Thompson (1971; 1991), normative exchanges take place. Particularly for the middle classes the production of the home is a never ending project of collective identity construction which is closely related to questions of aesthetic feelings, idiosyncrasies, appropriate manners, taste and status (Bourdieu 1984; Elias 1994; Frykman 1987; Korsmeyer 2001). Within this multidisciplinary body of research, particularly the whole body of literature on domestic groups, households (Netting et al. 1984), is relevant when conditions and circumstances of the (non-)appropriation of environmentally friendly technologies among end-users are to be explained. Research has shown that especially the gendering of the domestic (Giles 1993; Johnson 1996; Madigan & Munro 1996; Young 2000) plays an important role as well as social class.
Studies from STS have taken another inroad, starting with studies of scientists' and engineers' innovative activities (Hughes 1988; Knorr-Cetina 1981; Latour & Woolgar 1986; Lynch 1985). During the 1990s European scholars turned to everyday life and its relation to technologies and found that technologies are creatively appropriated and molded to fit into daily routines (Lie & Sørensen 1996; Silverstone, Hirsch & Morley 1990; Berker et al. 2005). The concept of domestication signifies an approach to social studies of technology that emphasises the role of users in developing the use practices, symbolic meanings and cognitive strategies that are necessary to make a new technology attractive and usable. Both consumption studies and the study of domestication of technologies extend simplistic notions of technology use by reminding us that consumers/users are an active post in the creation of sustainable practices. Social shaping of aesthetics and actor-network theory, the next group of theories we base our research on, take this one step further. They introduce the notion that materiality (e.g. 'green' technologies) and ideas (e.g. 'sustainability') are relationally shaped and should therefore be studied as associations of human and non-human actors (Latour 2005). Actor-network theory argues that following the traces of this “becoming” of entities we will be able to open up for new understandings of how the triangle between designers, users, and objects works. As a research strategy, actor-network theory clarifies in a concrete manner emergent social practices as well as social possibilities and challenges.
Sustainability has many meanings and can refer to virtually everything. Based on what was said so far, we choose to focus on energy consumption and production, based on the common sense approach that energy consumption, distribution and production, which has less impact on non-renewable resources (in terms of depletion and pollution) is more sustainable.
We expect that energy use in households is characterised by a specific configuration of things, designers and users, in which the definition of an aesthetically valuable home is connected to ever increasing levels of energy consumption (Aune 1998, 2004, Shove 2003). What we set out to do is to carefully dissect how this exactly works. We want to address the role of aesthetics in design as well as the users' aesthetic experiences of technology. The strategic research site is the Norwegian household, which is Norway's main arena of consumption. Here, we will study the relationship between concerns for aesthetics in design and consumption, having energy use/energy efficiency as the measure of sustainability.
More specifically, a set of research questions arises:
To investigate the relations between design, aesthetic choices, and sustainable production and consumption we want to study different designer settings and households. A critical issue is the choice of arenas where to observe “aesthetication”. We have proposed to analyse households and the house as a primary strategic arena of domestication of energy efficiency concerns in relation to aesthetic choices. Investigating the household forms a basis from which to investigate two industries or design settings that are currently very visible in consumer trends: (1) The pleasure boat industry and (2) second homes3). The main reason for choosing these industries, is apart from the fact that they have become centers of consumer attention for a larger part of the population, that the energy use involved in production and consumption are a threat to the ambition of giving priority to more sustainable modes of consumption.
We will use a three-fold methodical approach. Firstly, we will do longitudinal studies of selected popular magazines which are directed towards end-users. We believe popular magazines to be valuable sources of information of how “aesthetication” is expressed, visually as well as verbally. They can be considered privileged arenas in shaping and sensing consumer trends and consumer behavior. This approach has a long tradition in consumption studies (Wernick 1991) and has also been applied in analyses of the domestic sphere before (Dovey 1992; Jones 1997). Here, however, we will focus on how sustainability aspects of aesthetic norms (see above) are presented (or not presented) and how this changes over time.
Secondly, we will conduct focus group interviews of relevant actor groups. Interviewing focus groups is obviously more efficient than interviewing individuals, but they also nicely produce and capture dynamics of meaning and understanding. Grouping and mixing consumers or designers together makes it possible to monitor how a plurality of perspectives is contested.
Thirdly, the group interviews will partly be conducted in the frame of following the planning and realization of projects serving as the in-depth study of how aesthetic preferences are realized.
An endeavour which has the goal to describe and analyze aesthetic choices and daily practices, lends itself to qualitative approaches. Case studies, which combine observations and household inventories with semi-structured or open in-depth interviews of preferably all household members, have a long-standing tradition within social science and cultural anthropology. Particularly the pragmatic use of grounded theory has proved to provide a useful framework for this kind of research (Glaser & Strauss 1967; McCracken 1988; Strauss & Corbin 1998).
The main empirical work consists of four work packages:
Taken together, these empirical explorations should allow us to make a unique contribution to the understanding of the uneasy relationship between sustainability, consumption and production.
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