Microsociological Perspectives For Environmental Sociology

Microsociological Perspectives for
Environmental Sociology
Environmental sociology tends to be dominated by macrosociological theories,

to the point that microsociological perspectives have been neglected and
ignored. This collection of original work is the first book dedicated to
demonstrating the utility of microsociological perspectives for investigating
environmental issues. From symbolic interactionism to actor-network theory,
from dramaturgy to conversation analysis, from practice theory to animism, a
variety of microsociological perspectives are not only drawn upon but creatively
applied and developed, making this collection not only a contribution to
environmental sociology, but to microsociological theory as well. The authors
address such topics as the treatment of waste, human–animal relations, science
and industry partnerships, environmental social movements, identities, and
lifestyles, ecotourism, the framing of land, water, and natural resources, and
even human conceptions of outer space.
Bringing together diverse scholars, perspectives, and topics, Microsociological
Perspectives for Environmental Sociology opens the field up to new approaches and
initiates much needed dialogue between environmental sociologists and
microsociologists. It will appeal not only to sociologists, but to environmental
scholars across the social sciences interested in enriching their theoretical
repertoire in studying the social aspects of the environment.
Bradley H. Brewster is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Graceland

University, USA.
Antony J. Puddephatt is Associate Professor of Sociology at Lakehead

University, Canada and co-editor of Ethnographies Revisited: Constructing Theory
in the Field.
Interactionist Currents
Series editors:
Dennis Waskul, Minnesota State University, USA
Simon Gottschalk, University of Nevada Las Vegas, USA
Interactionist Currents publishes contemporary interactionist works of exceptional

quality to advance the state of symbolic interactionism. Rather than revisiting
classical symbolic interactionist or pragmatist theory, however, this series
extends the boundaries of interactionism by examining new empirical topics in
subject areas that interactionists have not sufficiently examined; systematizing,
organizing, and reflecting on the state of interactionist knowledge in subfields
both central and novel within interactionist research; connecting interactionism
with contemporary intellectual movements; and illustrating the contemporary
relevance of interactionism in ways that are interesting, original, and enjoyable
to read.
Recognizing an honored and widely appreciated theoretical tradition,
reflecting on its limitations, and opening new opportunities for the articulation
of related perspectives and research agendas, this series presents work from
across the social sciences that makes explicit use of interactionist ideas and
concepts, interactionist research, and interactionist theory – both classical and
contemporary.
For a full list of titles in this series, please visit https://www.routledge.com/

Interactionist-Currents/book-series/ASHSER1366
Microsociological Perspectives for Environmental Sociology

Edited by Bradley H. Brewster and Antony J. Puddephatt
Gendered Bodies and Leisure

The Practice and Performance of American Belly Dance
Rachel Kraus
Challenging Myths of Masculinity

Michael Atkinson and Lee F. Monaghan
Microsociological
Perspectives for
Environmental Sociology
Edited by
Bradley H. Brewster and
Antony J. Puddephatt
First published 2017
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2017 selection and editorial matter, Bradley H. Brewster and
Antony J. Puddephatt; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Bradley H. Brewster and Antony J. Puddephatt to be identified as
the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual
chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without
intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-4724-6258-9 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-59519-1 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Saxon Graphics Ltd, Derby
To my Aunt Elaine Kieffer (1932–2016)
Bradley H. Brewster
Contents
List of illustrations ix
Preface xi
Notes on contributors xiii
Introduction: awakening micro-theoretical perspectives in

environmental sociology 1
BRADLEY H. BREWSTER AND ANTONY J. PUDDEPHATT
1 Micro-interactions of cosmic proportions:

mediating human–cosmos relationships in the planetarium 17
MEGAN S. ALBAUGH BONHAM
2 “This is not Sea World”: spectacle and insight in nature

tourism 32
PETER R. GRAHAME
3 How to climb Mount Fuji (at your earliest convenience):

a non-representational approach 48
PHILLIP VANNINI
4 Negotiating identity, valuing place: enacting “earthcare” and

social justice at Finca La Bella, Costa Rica 61
STELLA M. ČAPEK
5 Green lifestyles and micropolitics: pragmatist action theory and

the connection between lifestyle change and collective action 81
JANET A. LORENZEN
viii Contents
6 Mead, interactionism, and the improbability of ecological selves:
toward a meta-environmental microsociological theory 98
STEPHEN ZAVESTOSKI AND ANDREW J. WEIGERT
7 Present tense: everyday animism and the politics of possession 117

MICHAEL M. BELL
8 Wild selves: a symbolic interactionist perspective on species,

minds, and nature 128
LESLIE IRVINE
9 Dog shit happens: human–canine interactions and the

immediacy of excremental presence 143
MATTHIAS GROSS AND ANA HORTA
10 Sorting the trash: competing constructions and instructions for

handling household waste 161
SUSAN MACHUM
11 The utility of phenomenology in understanding and addressing

human-caused environmental problems 178
JERRY WILLIAMS
12 The social psychology of compromised negotiations:

constructing asymmetrical boundary objects between science
and industry 192
BENJAMIN KELLY
13 Escaping the iron cage of environmental rationalizations:

microsocial decision-making in environmental conflicts 206
FILIP ALEXANDRESCU AND BERND BALDUS
Index 224
Illustrations
Figures
4.1 Ann Kriebel singing with the community, San Luis, 1983 69
6.1 Social world–biophysical world interaction 99
9.1 A flag warning of the presence of poop, apparently put there
by people annoyed by the latter 146
9.2 Old sign installed by the municipality of Lisbon asking dog
owners to “Keep the sidewalks clean” 150
9.3 New sign erected by the municipal authority of Lisbon 150
9.4 A red bag with white hearts used for (a) wrapping poop and
(b) displaying it near a set of steps (Lisbon, Portugal) 152
9.5 Dog poop wrapped up in a plastic bag and displayed next to
a tree 155
13.1 Voices from Roşia Montană expressing uncertainty 218
Tables
9.1 Main forms of non-knowledge as strategies for “cooling the
shit out” 153
10.1 Collection and pick-up system for household waste in
southern New Brunswick, Canada 167
10.2 Deconstructing household waste sorting instructions 169
Preface
When first getting acquainted with environmental sociology fifteen years ago,
the first thing I fell in love with about it was the type of big philosophical
questions it raised, such as: What is the relationship between society and nature?
But almost immediately I had a question of my own: Where is micro-level
theory in environmental sociology? In my environmental sociology class, we
were reading quite a bit about Marx, treadmill of production, ecological
modernization, Weber, risk society, and so forth, but Mead, Goffman, and
microsociological theory in general seemed noticeably absent by comparison.
Microsociological theory had achieved a significant and respected place in the
larger parent discipline of sociology, yet that achievement didn’t seem to be
passed on from the parent to the child.
So while my philosophical side was enamored, my micro-theoretical side
was left cold. I immediately began bringing my micro-theoretical sensibilities
and interests to environmental sociology. Soon, I was collaborating with
Michael Bell on a manuscript adapting the frame analysis perspective of famed
microsociologist Erving Goffman for an environmental sociology of everyday
life. I also began seeking out what relatively few works of environmental
microsociological theory that were out there and, many years later, contacting
many of those scholars to initiate dialogue and generate a loose scholarly
network amongst ourselves. Identifying, consolidating, and drawing attention
to this neglected and scattered tradition of scholarship and developing
microsociological perspectives for environmental sociology became my
dissertation project and my professional project more generally. In 2012, I had
the pleasure of meeting Antony Puddephatt at a conference on George Herbert
Mead at the University of Chicago, a meeting which led to our collaborating
on a chapter exploring the socio-environmental dimensions of Mead’s thought.
Soon afterwards, I shared the idea for this volume with Antony, and so began
this project.
The present volume is the first of its kind, bringing together scholars who
work in this often neglected and scattered tradition of scholarship. Hopefully,
the volume makes it so that this line of creative theoretical work finally gets the
attention it deserves, both for the benefit of those working in this tradition and
for the benefit of the larger field of environmental sociology. It represents the
xii Preface
consolidation and affirmation of a previously unrecognized tradition of
scholarship in environmental sociology, demonstrates a creative new blooming
and diversification of environmental microsociological theory, and suggests
numerous possibilities for the future of such scholarship.
Antony and I feel privileged to include some exemplary pioneers of this
tradition, as well as new, emerging scholars, who, in their own creative ways,
continue to develop and expand this tradition in exciting ways. We thank all
of them for their dedication to this project. We would also like to thank Phillip
Vannini for suggesting this book for inclusion in the Routledge Interactionist
Currents series. We appreciate the work of Dennis D. Waskul and Simon
Gottschalk, the series editors, for their helpful, supportive, and timely editorial
comments throughout the process and an early anonymous reviewer for
drawing our attention to the ecological-symbolic perspective. We are also
grateful to the commissioning editor, Neil Jordan, for his help and support. It
has been a pleasure to have worked with each of you.

Bradley Harris Brewster, March 25, 2016
Contributors
Filip Alexandrescu has received his MA from the University of Western

Ontario (2002) and his PhD from the University of Toronto (2012), with
both theses weaving together topics and approaches from environmental
sociology and sociological theory. Since 2012 he has worked in
interdisciplinary and international research contexts at the Helmholtz Centre
for Environmental Research in Leipzig and the Ca’ Foscari University of
Venice. The latter has been his host for a Marie Curie (IEF)-funded research
project on sustainability and social network analysis. He has published in the
History of the Human Sciences, Organization and Environment and
Interdisciplinary Science Reviews.
Bernd Baldus is Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto. His main
research interests are sociological theory and social inequality. In both areas
his work has focused on understanding the interplay of chance, human
agency, and unanticipated consequences in social processes, and on
developing theoretical alternatives to the deterministic, developmental, and
rational/functional choice perspectives which have dominated sociological
theories. These interests are reflected in his most recent publication, titled
Origins of Social Inequality in Human Societies (Routledge, 2016).
Michael M. Bell is Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Community
and Environmental Sociology and Director of the Center for Integrated
Agricultural Systems at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is author
or editor of nine books, three of which have won national awards. His most
recent books are An Invitation to Qualitative Fieldwork (Routledge, 2015),
co-authored with Jason Orne, and An Invitation to Environmental Sociology
(Sage, 2016), co-authored with Loka Ashwood. Mike is also a prolific
composer of grassroots and classical music, and performs on mandolin with
the award-winning “class-grass” band Graminy. For more on his work and
passions, see his website: www.michael-bell.net
Megan S. Albaugh Bonham is a PhD student at Northwestern University.
Her sociological interests include the environment, culture, and science.
Megan’s dissertation research draws on these three subfields as she examines
xiv Contributors
the dark sky movement and the evolution of arguments for preserving the
night sky’s darkness.
Bradley H. Brewster is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Graceland
University in Lamoni, Iowa. He graduated in 2011 with his PhD in
environment and resources with minors in sociology and philosophy from
University of Wisconsin‑Madison. His dissertation explored the potential of
classical microsociological thought for a number of domains in or pertinent
to environmental studies, particularly environmental sociology. He has
published on the same theme, exploring, with co-author Michael Bell,
Erving Goffman’s frame analysis for “an environmental sociology of
everyday life” and, with co-author Antony J. Puddephatt, revisiting the
work of George Herbert Mead to highlight the socio-environmental
dimensions of Mead’s thinking.
Stella M. Čapek, Professor of Sociology at Hendrix College, holds a BA from
Boston University and an MA and PhD in sociology from the University of
Texas at Austin. Among her publications are articles on environmental
justice, tenants’ rights and housing issues, social justice movements,
sustainable urban design, ecological identity, and health and environment.
She co-authored Community Versus Commodity: Tenants and the American
City and Come Lovely and Soothing Death: The Right To Die Movement in the
United States. She has taught travel seminars in Costa Rica and in the US
Southwest, and enjoys publishing creative nonfiction essays.
Peter R. Grahame is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Pennsylvania State
University, Schuylkill. He received his PhD in educational theory, with a
focus in social theory, from the University of Toronto. His primary research
areas are qualitative methodology and the sociology of culture. He has
conducted extensive fieldwork on the cultures of nature, including
comparative ethnographic studies of ecotourism in Massachusetts and
Trinidad, West Indies. He has published articles on institutional ethnography,
qualitative methods, and the challenges of doing fieldwork on nature
tourism in the Caribbean context. His current research focuses on tourism,
cosmopolitanism, and the aesthetic dimension in sociological analysis.
Matthias Gross is Professor of Environmental Sociology at the Helmholtz
Centre for Environmental Research‑UFZ in Leipzig and the University of
Jena, Germany. His recent research focuses on renewable energy systems,
ignorance and innovation, the sociology of science and engineering, real-
world experiments, and the changing role of civil society in environmental
policy. His most recent monographs in English are Ignorance and Surprise:
Science, Society, and Ecological Design (MIT Press, 2010) and Renewable Energies
(Routledge, 2015, with Rüdiger Mautz). Together with Linsey McGoey he
is editor of the Routledge International Handbook of Ignorance Studies (2015).
Contributors xv
Ana Horta is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Instituto de Ciências
Sociais, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal. She has conducted research on
media representations of energy issues, climate change and other
environmental problems, children’s food practices, and social memory.
Currently her research is focused on social practices and representations
related to energy, and household energy consumption related to the use of
information and communication technologies in everyday life.
Leslie Irvine is Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado at
Boulder. Her research has examined animal selfhood, animal sheltering,
gender in veterinary medicine, animals in popular culture, animal abuse, and
animal welfare in disasters. Her books include My Dog Always Eats First:
Homeless People and their Animals (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2013), Filling
the Ark: Animal Welfare in Disasters (Temple University Press, 2009) and If
You Tame Me: Understanding our Connection with Animals (Temple University
Press, 2004). Her articles have appeared in Society & Animals, Anthrozoös,
Gender & Society, Social Problems, The Sociological Quarterly, Qualitative
Sociology, and Symbolic Interaction.
Benjamin Kelly is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Nipissing University,
Canada. His theoretical and ethnographic research interests include social
psychological explorations of power, constraint and adaptation within
occupations, organizations and everyday life, and the social construction of
expert knowledge, risk, deviance, and social problems.
Janet A. Lorenzen is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at
Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. She has taught classes on social
problems, sustainability and environmental justice, sociological theory, and
qualitative methods. Her research interests include the micro- and meso-
level foundations of macro-level social change; including lifestyle change,
environmental group strategies, lobbying, and the politics of climate change.
Her current research project is on local climate governance. She has
published articles in Environmental Politics, Sociological Forum, Sociology
Compass, Human Ecology Review, and Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate
Change.
Susan Machum has a PhD in sociology from the University of Edinburgh
and holds a Canada Research Chair in Rural Social Justice at St. Thomas
University in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. Her research explores
the relationship between rural and urban communities, food systems,
women’s contributions to agriculture, sustainability, and environmental
issues. She uses a participatory action research model to engage communities
and activists in theoretically informed social change agendas. Prior to
beginning her academic career she worked for environmental non-profit
organizations—first as a communications officer and later as the Executive
Director of the Conservation Council of New Brunswick.
xvi Contributors
Antony J. Puddephatt is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology
at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. He has studied
the ideas of George Herbert Mead as they relate to science, meaning, social
action, language, and mind, and has argued for their relevance to fields such
as technology studies, social work, and environmental sociology. He is also
interested in symbolic interactionism, qualitative research, science and
technology studies, and sociology in Canada. He is now working on a
research project that explores open-access scholarly publishing in the social
sciences and humanities in Canada.
Phillip Vannini is Professor in the School of Communication and Culture at
Royal Roads University, and Canada Research Chair in Public Ethnography.
He is author/editor of thirteen books, including his most recent ethnography
Off the Grid. His research focuses on subjects such as mobilities, assemblages,
and the social aspects of human embodiment. Vannini’s research interests
broadly include film-making, material culture, technology and culture,
sensory studies and cultural geographies. His latest and ongoing fieldwork
looks at the meanings of wildness worldwide.
Jerry Williams is Professor of Sociology at Stephen F. Austin State University
in Nacogdoches, Texas. He holds a PhD in sociology from Kansas State
University. His research focuses upon phenomenology and the human
relationship to the environment. His publications include sociological
articles, philosophical essays, a monograph, edited books, and poetry. He is
a member of the Society for Phenomenology and Human Sciences, the
American Sociological Association, and the Midwest Sociological Society.
Andrew J. Weigert is Professor of Sociology, University of Notre Dame. He
is author or co-author of over 80 articles and ten books, most recently
Pragmatic Meditations on Learning Community Pedagogy. Current interests
include pragmatic social psychological aspects of realizing narratives, fused
identities, ecological visions, and moral action.
Stephen Zavestoski is Professor of Environmental Studies at the University
of San Francisco. He received his PhD with a focus on environmental
sociology from Washington State University. Professor Zavestoski’s research
areas include environmental sociology, social movements, sociology of
health and illness, and urban sustainability. He has published widely—from
ecological identity and the role of the Internet in environmental policy
making to toxics activism. He is the co-editor recently of Contested Illnesses:
Citizens, Science, and Health Social Movements (UC Press, 2012) and Incomplete
Streets: Processes, Practices and Possibilities (Routledge, 2014).
Introduction
Awakening micro-theoretical
perspectives in environmental sociology
Bradley H. Brewster and Antony J. Puddephatt
Environmental sociologists have spent a good deal of worthwhile effort

rethinking the classical macrosociological theories of Emile Durkheim (Catton,
1998; Jarvikoski, 1996), Karl Marx (Dickens, 1997; Foster, 1999), and Max
Weber (Foster and Holleman, 2012; Murphy, 1994; West, 1985) for developing
environmental sociological theory. These and other more macro-oriented
theories, such as the treadmill of production, ecological modernization, and
risk society, often receive significant coverage and prominent representation in
environmental sociology textbooks, readers, and handbooks (Brewster, 2011).
While microsociological theories are valued in sociology, they have been
treated fairly dismissively in environmental sociology (Dunlap, 2002: 17;
Dunlap and Catton, 1983: 117–118; Freudenburg and Gramling, 1989: 441).
This volume is the first of its kind to represent a diversity of microsociological
perspectives for environmental sociology, as we hope to redress this theoretical
imbalance in the field.
Environmental sociology’s neglect of micro-level theory is, to adapt a well-
known phrase of Raymond Murphy (1995), environmental sociology as if the
micro did not matter. The value and validity of microsociological perspectives
within environmental sociology are no less important than those within
sociology at large. In neglecting micro-level theory, a whole strata of socio-
environmental reality is being under-theorized. Too often, ethnographers and
qualitative researchers of environmental issues who utilize micro-level
methodologies ironically turn to macro-level theory to narrate their cases, not
realizing the potential theoretical utility of microsociology to help illuminate
some of the issues they are investigating.
Why, one might ask, has microsociological theory been so neglected in
environmental sociology? Part of the reason may be due to a general pattern
of progression in intellectual fields, as they intersect with public issues. Indeed,
when new social scientific fields come into existence, their members often
seem impelled to legitimate themselves as “scientific” and “objective” and
one way they tend to try to project this is by objectifying their subject matter
with perspectives and approaches that are highly detached and remote
(Bourdieu, 2004). While there may be voices that advocate more humanistic
2 Bradley H. Brewster and Antony J. Puddephatt
perspectives early on, it tends to be only later, after the legitimacy of their field
is less of an issue.
We see this general pattern with sociology. Emile Durkheim was eager to
establish sociology as scientific by his “social facts” methodology. Max Weber
can be seen as countering this with his methodology of verstehen (empathetic
understanding). It was only later that we saw a chorus of voices argue for
closer, more ethnographic, intimate and personal, qualitative, humanistic,
microsociological, and everyday research styles. This was seen, for example,
with forms of sociology born out of the Chicago School that took a more
reformist, engaged, and microsociological approach. Symbolic interactionism
struggled for some years before it received full recognition as a legitimate and
integral part of sociology and not something lesser than more mainstream
macrosociological and positivist paradigms (Mullins, 1973; Prus, 1996;
Puddephatt, 2009).
A somewhat similar process is observed when new problems are clearly
identified and taken up in currents of thought and social movements. The early
phases of such currents and movements seem to have a clear and large target
and they respond proportionately with large-scale ideas and policies to address
these large-scale issues. We can think of the rise of the environmental sciences
and the environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Early on, they were
tackling very obvious, urgent, and large-scale problems. Rivers were on fire.
Air, water, and land were visibly polluted. Once these attention-getting
environmental problems were addressed (for example, no more rivers on fire,
Clean Air and Water Act passed, CFCs controlled, DDT banned, Earth Day
established, and so forth), scientific and activist attention moved on to smaller-
scale, more localized, nuanced, and contestable, as well as less obvious and
immediate ecological problems.
We can see a similar process within feminism, where first- and second-wave
feminism were addressing big, obvious injustices, often with sweeping legal
remedies, but third-wave feminism is much more nuanced, addressing problems
that are more subtle. The same process might be characteristic of social
movements combating racial injustice. At first, massive and obvious injustices
during the civil rights movement were met by large-scale and highly visible
efforts and policies. Nowadays the concern is with much subtler forms of
racism, such as aversive racism, two-faced racism, laissez-faire racism, colorblind
racism, and implicit racism.
Members of the emergent social science known as environmental sociology
were concerned about their field’s legitimacy and were also allied to the
environmental movement itself (Catton and Dunlap, 1980). They were
responding in their own way to the big, pressing environmental concerns that
gave birth to the modern environmental movement and hence were primed
for developing macro-scale theories. They were witnesses of the 1970s gas
crisis, President Carter’s Crisis of Confidence speech, the 1969 Santa Barbara
oil spill, as well as Earth Day and the passage of the Clean Water and Clean Air
Acts. These were big, in-your-face problems met by impressively big and
Introduction 3
successful responses. Faced with such large-scale problems, environmental
sociology in its early years was largely macro, fitting the general patterns of
both a new social science and a new cause, being something of the confluence
of both. Thus, as Freudenburg (2005: 90) observed, “the ‘core’ of the work
that came to be known as ‘environmental sociology’ during the 1970s and
1980s included a broad or macrosociological perspective.”
Even today, it appears as if environmental sociology is still largely dominated
and defined by macrosociological theory. Indeed, judging by almost any
measure—its textbooks, its readers, its handbooks and its syllabi—environmental
microsociological theoretical developments have barely been noticed, while, in
those same resources, substantial discussions are devoted to classical
macrosociological theories and their environmental renditions (Brewster,
2011). One environmental sociology textbook was entirely structured in terms
of the three main classical macrosociological theorists—Durkheim, Weber, and
Marx—with no reference to classical microsociological theorists (Humphrey,
Lewis, and Buttel 2002). Moreover, in historical accounts of environmental
sociology by founding environmental sociologists, microsociological theories
and theorists are treated dismissively for allegedly neglecting nature and the
biophysical world (Dunlap and Catton, 1983: 117; Dunlap, 2002: 17;
Freudenburg and Gramling, 1989: 441; Murphy, 1995). Attention to important
microsociological theorists, like George Herbert Mead or Erving Goffman, or
microsociological perspectives, like symbolic interactionism, seem a
comparatively rare occurrence. Where it does occur, it is largely overlooked.
Where it is not overlooked, the attention is largely passing and negative
(Brewster, 2011). As such, studying “environmental sociological theory”
would effectively seem to be studying environmental macrosociological theory.
By the early 1990s, while many environmental problems still existed, few
seemed to have the same immediacy. Those that did were less obvious and
seemed more contestable. In short, the situation had changed, much like it had
for gender and racial equality previously mentioned. It was then that very
different voices in and at the doorstep of environmental sociology could begin
to be heard, and they were singing a different tune. Comparatively speaking,
they appeared more theoretically nuanced, adopted different scales of analysis,
utilized more humanistic approaches, and were less hung-up on former
standards of “objectivity” and “legitimacy.” They represented a theoretical
diversifying of environmental sociology. The social constructionists, as perhaps
the most recognized group as well as those who challenged traditional thinking
in the field at that time, were among these new voices (Buttel, 1996). But there
were others, some of whom paved the way for environmental microsociological
theory to emerge.
Environmental microsociological theory has been in development since at
least the early 1990s with the publication of George W. Stickel’s (1990)
“The Land as a Social Being: Ethical Implications from Societal Expectations.”
Stickel used George Herbert Mead to discuss how “land is seen as a social
being, in the same way that an individual sees another person” (1990: 33). This
short article largely passed under environmental sociology’s radar. Andrew J.
Weigert (1991a, 1991b, 1997a, 1997b, 2008, 2010) pursued a Meadian
approach to environmental thinking in a more sustained way. Additionally,
Weigert (1994) drew on the dramaturgical sensibilities of Erving Goffman
(1959) in understanding the conventional lawn as a major American status
institution for displaying one’s moral worth (for example, being a good
neighbor) through environmentally destructive industrialized lawn care.
Michael Mayerfeld Bell (1994) also made early use of Mead and tried to
create a place for a Mead-derived theory in environmental sociology. This was
most obvious in his 1998 environmental sociology textbook, now in its fifth
edition (2016), though, ironically, Bell eliminated the references to Mead in
later editions. Like Weigert, Bell (1997) also made use of Goffman for
environmental purposes, though, unlike Weigert, Bell turned to Goffman’s
(1967) interaction ritual theory, using it to shed light on how environments are
“peopled” with meaning. More recently, Brewster and Bell (2010) adapted
Goffman’s frame analysis for an “environmental sociology of everyday life,” an
approach which has been further developed by Stella M. Čapek (2012).
Goffman’s work continues to be a source that a variety of scholars draw on in
innovative, environmentally relevant ways, sometimes well beyond the
microsociological level (Broto et al., 2010; Cho and Roberts, 2010; White and
Hanson, 2002).
Other microsociologists, mostly from the Mead-inspired school of symbolic
interactionism, also turned their attention to socio-environmental phenomena,
doing work on the natural environment and self/identity (Bruni and Shultz,
2010; Čapek, 2006; Gottschalk, 2001; Jerolmack and Tavory, 2014; Statham,
1995; Schultz, 2000, 2001; Schultz et al., 2004; Stets and Biga, 2003; Zavestoski,
2003), nature and emotion (Fine and Sandstrom, 2005), human–animal
interaction (Alger and Alger, 1997; Furst, 2007; Irvine, 2003, 2013; Sanders,
2007), nature-related activity (Fine, 1997; Fine and Holyfield, 1996), and the
meanings of environmental issues (Leap, 2015). We should also acknowledge a
symbolic interactionist literature going back even further and continuing today,
which takes an interest in the world of material objects (Cohen, 1989;
McCarthy, 1984; Owens, 2007; Puddephatt, 2005).
Other microsociological schools of thought have also given attention to the
environment. For example, Paula Castro (2003, 2006; Castro and Lima, 2001)
has brought Serge Moscovici’s theoretical work on social representations to
bear on environmental thought and concern, which has influenced other
scholars (Brondi et al., 2012; Buijs et al., 2011; Caillaud, Kalampalikis, and
Flick, 2012; Lynam et al., 2012). Going back much further, there is an entire
literature applying the framing perspective to environmental movements and
issues. For example, the early 1990s saw the development of the ecological-
symbolic perspective (Kroll-Smith and Couch, 1991), which draws heavily on
this tradition. These are important developments for environmental sociology,
as well as environmental microsociological theory. At the same time, these
approaches are important in that they are not merely microsociological, but
Introduction 5
instead are also fruitful for the development of macrosociological theory and
analysis.
For instance, while Goffman’s Frame Analysis (1974) is cited as the key
source of inspiration for the framing perspective in social movement theory
(Johnston, 1995: 217), it often treats frames as intentionally assembled “frame
packages” involving institutional or collective actors as producers and consumers
of calculated, packaged messages “both for media consumption and as a stage
in consensus mobilization” (1995: 217–218). Thus, the theoretical gravity of
the framing perspective in social movement theory often appears elsewhere
than with the distinctly micro-focus of Goffman’s interaction order. Indeed,
this was one reason why Brewster and Bell (2010) revisited Goffman’s Frame
Analysis, namely, to develop a more Goffmanesque—that is, interactional and
micro-level—environmental sociology of everyday life. As they put it,
We employ the adjective ‘Goffmanesque,’ common in the literature on

Goffman, to distinguish our specifically Goffman-centric frame analytic
from other uses of the trope of ‘frames’ that draw little on Goffman, such
as the frame perspective in social movement theory with its focus on
ideology, mass media, and collective power struggles, which we would
argue bears little resemblance to Goffman’s commitment to the episodic
character and routine features of everyday social life.
(Brewster and Bell, 2010: 46)
Hence, while the ecological-symbolic perspective began from the roots of

microsociological theory, their focus, emerging partly out of the community
disaster literature, is more of a contribution at the meso or community level, as
well as theorizing natural–social relations more generally. Perhaps something of
the same might be said for social representations theory. While these perspectives
start from the micro-realm, their contributions are inclusive of but far broader
than this, having implications for meso and macro levels of analysis as well.
This is another important message we hope to get across in this volume.
Microsociological perspectives are not doomed to having relevance only within
small, local scales, but can be highly useful in addressing broad, macro-level
systems and societal issues. Many of the chapters in our book show just that. By
starting with a micro-frame, the authors find their way into discussions of the
cosmos, international cultural variations, generational trends, large-scale social
movements, institutional systems, and global environmental problems.
This is a rather crucial point. This volume is not pitting micro against
macro nor does it aim to reinforce the traditional micro-macro dualism.1
While Randall Collins (1981) taught us that macrosociological patterns are
always built on micro-foundations, Gary Alan Fine (1991) later pointed out
that microsociological actors are equally dependent on macro-concepts in
forming their thoughts and actions in everyday life. It seems that from both
directions, any absolute split between the “micro” and the “macro” realm is
untenable, both theoretically and practically. As such, it is a myth that traditions
like symbolic interaction ought to be relegated to only having significance at
the micro level (Prus, 1996). While microsociological perspectives like this
often start from the terrain of meanings and actions, these often incorporate
macro considerations, and, depending on who the actors are, or how
wide-spread their meanings travel, can have drastic implications for the
(re)structuring of the macro order. Indeed, what is considered micro
sociological theory has often been highly beneficial for conceptualizing and
understanding the macrosociological level as well. As pointed out above, the
field of environmental sociology had developed one-sidedly as a result of a
problematic dualist preference for macro theory at the expense of the micro.
This volume simply addresses this imbalance by transcending this false dualism,
as its authors look for creative possibilities within the micro–macro continuum,
made possible by new and interesting microsociological perspectives that are
used to chart their course.
As such, this volume aims to showcase and further encourage the micro-
theoretical tradition in environmental sociology, bringing together both
veteran and novice scholars to this emerging paradigm. What are the benefits
of such a move? Not only will the introduction of more microsociological
approaches help rebalance the current macro-heavy field, but it will also
improve the chances of improving macro theories themselves through a
creative cross-pollination of ideas. Further, environmental sociology and
traditional microsociology traditions could also communicate and enrich each
other for their mutual benefit. This might result in a more complete and
accurate representation of the ideas of various micro theorists, considering
them now from an environmental, and not just an exclusively social, perspective.
Further, many settings, places, and activities that might be of interest to
microsociological researchers have a real mix of social and natural phenomena.
For example, in researching families, pets might be significant members. In
leisure research, people are coordinating their actions with others, but also with
rockfaces, landscapes, waterscapes, weather, equipment, and nonhuman life
forms. Such relations and interactions are rarely taken into account in
microsociology’s traditional conceptualizations. Thus, environmental micro
sociological theory not only has the potential to enrich and expand a number
of important streams of thought in environmental sociology, but also traditional
microsociological theory as well.
This book aims to start this project by providing a platform for environmental
microsociological theory and to appreciate these perspectives in all of their
diversity. Indeed, this volume includes ideas from symbolic interactionism,
pragmatism, phenomenology, dramaturgy, interaction ritual theory, practice-
theory, non-representational theory, conversation analysis, social worlds/arenas
theory, animism, and social evolutionism. These theories are applied creatively
to a variety of environmental issues, such as the treatment of waste, human–
animal relations, environmental social movements, science and industry
partnerships, environmental identities and lifestyles, ecotourism, conceptions
of land and objects, and nature work. This is a significant step toward redressing
Introduction 7
the existing theoretical imbalance toward macrosociological thought in
environmental sociology and, it is hoped, will prove fruitful for opening the
field to new vistas of theoretical possibilities and fostering dialogue between
environmental sociologists and microsociologists.
This volume contains original chapters contributed by the key scholars in
this once small and scattered, but now blossoming area of scholarship. The
result is an array of rich and original topics on a wide range of environmental
issues, all of which highlight the unique advantages of a microsociological
approach. Further, the chapters are diverse in terms of their theoretical,
ontological, epistemological, and methodological approaches. Their important
commonality, however, is that they all contribute to the further development
and diversity of microsociological perspectives for environmental sociology. In
the remainder of this introduction, we briefly introduce these rich and diverse
chapters, and invite the reader to join us on this journey, and engage with these
new and important sets of dialogues.
Introduction to the chapters

Immanuel Kant wrote, “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing
admiration and awe, the oftener and more steadily we reflect on them, the
starry heavens above and the moral law within.” In the opening chapter,
Megan Albaugh Bonham explores how this cosmic awe is realized socially in
her ethnographic study of employee–visitor interactions at the Adler
Planetarium. Specifically, she asks how Adler employees expand and enrich
visitors’ relationships to the cosmos by making the farthest reaches of space feel
more close and salient, thus fostering a unique kind of nature experience for
the attendees. Bonham discovers three ways Adler employees achieve this: by
facilitating sensory experiences, translating scales of measurement, and
constructing feelings of awe. Thus, a microsociological perspective, rather than
being incompatible with large-scale environmental phenomena, provides a
valuable means of understanding encounters with the most macro scale of all—
the cosmic.
Much has been written on the social construction of nature, but Bonham’s
chapter, along with the following chapter by Peter R. Grahame on whale-
watching tours, both focus on the interactional role of onsite guides in particular
locales for constructing particular kinds of nature experiences or encounters.
Both Bonham and Grahame focus on not only that nature is socially constructed,
but local instances of how our experiences of nature are constructed situationally.
Peter R. Grahame’s chapter is perhaps unprecedented in environmental
sociology for utilizing the perspective and conventions of conversation analysis,
which permit a more fine-grained analysis for understanding the expert-
facilitated coproduction of a nature experience or encounter. Avoiding the
common critical approach to ecotourism as an inauthentic nature spectacle,
which risks ignoring the actual complexity of ecotourist practices, Grahame’s
conversation analytic approach instead takes those practices as objects for close,
methodical study. Rather than debunking them, which is all too easy, he
wishes to describe them in some of their ordinary workings in order to better
understand them. Interestingly, both Bonham and Grahame explore in their
data the fact that because such nature encounters or experiences are
interactionally mediated, negotiated, and coproduced, this also makes failure in
pulling off the production of such an experience a real possibility, against
which, as Grahame shows, experienced whale-watching guides hedge in
various ways.
Phillip Vannini demonstrates the power of “non-” or “more-than-”
representational theory by juxtaposing his climb up Japan’s Mount Fuji with a
previous adventure in the West Coast Trail in British Columbia, Canada.
Vannini argues that constructionist approaches, which tend to focus too much
on symbolic meanings and textual renditions of events lose out on much of the
reality of human social experiences, particularly in regards to the environment.
Focusing on the “atmosphere” of Mount Fuji, and the affective resonances of
people toward other travelers, as well as a variety of things, commodities, and
the mountain itself, show the importance of background in the constitution of
our collective experiences. To convey this atmosphere to the reader, Vannini
makes use of a short five-minute video clip, which helps us to understand
aspects of the experience that text alone cannot. In the end, the background
atmosphere of Mount Fuji was, somewhat strikingly, found not to be one of
primarily spiritual peace or natural awe, but much more prominently,
convenience. Specifically, it was a style of convenience that fits well with the
pacing and emotional fabric of modern Japanese society.
From her case study of the Finca La Bella project in San Luis, in north
central Costa Rica, near the world renowned Monteverde Cloud Forest
Preserve in Costa Rica, Stella Čapek draws on the “sociology of emotion”
literature for understanding emotional sustainability. Specifically, she explores
how the emotion of hope is sustained and thereby becomes a potential
“renewable energy” for socio-environmental change. In this, she draws on
Randall Collins’ interaction ritual chains theory, which is centrally concerned
with how “emotional energy” is built-up or depleted through our micro-level
interactions. Čapek shows how important Ann Kriebel was as a charismatic
leader to spur on environmental activism at the community level, and the
importance of synergy between the leader’s personality and the surrounding
community culture. With Bonham and Grahame focusing on the mediated
production of awe, Vannini on affective atmospheres, and Čapek on hope, we
believe these affirm an important area of study for environmental sociologists,
namely, an environmental sociology of emotion.
Janet Lorenzen continues the micro-focused activism and movement focus
of Čapek in her qualitative research on three green lifestyle movements:
voluntary simplifiers, religious environmentalists, and green home owners.
Drawing on pragmatist action theory, she argues that lifestyles solve problems.
The conventional sociological wisdom has it that lifestyle changes are
individualistic solutions to social problems and allow people to feel content that
Introduction 9
they are doing something for the cause instead of connecting with more political
and collective efforts. Lorenzen finds such reasoning spurious in her data. She
shows how micro-level green lifestyle changes do not detract from macro-level
collective efforts, but rather, they positively support them. Nor do green
lifestyle changes supplant political actions, so much as relocalize them. She also
notes how her research participants reported viewing their green lifestyle
changes as a necessary but not sufficient effort on their part. Thus, Lorenzen
calms worries about micro-level green lifestyle changes (and, consequently,
their micro-level analysis) being in competition with macro-level environmental
action (and, thus, macro-level analysis).
Stephen Zavestoski and Andrew Weigert also draw upon pragmatist action
theory, but for very different purposes. In their chapter, they critique the very
possibility of a sustained “ecological identity” and its potential for transformative
social change. Instead, and drawing on the social pragmatism of George Herbert
Mead, they note that people are likely to respond much more centrally to
immediate problems in their own local social systems as it relates to their
lifestyles, more than they do the natural environment as a reflection of an
environmental identity. In line with a pragmatist notion of habit, actors are
much more likely to change patterns of behavior if they meet blockages to
previously workable actions. Thus, as avenues for traditional behaviors become
blocked, creative innovations are likely to happen. They use data on the
millennial generation as a case study to illustrate their new “meta-environmental”
theory of action.
In his engaging chapter, Michael Bell explains that no matter how rational
one is, we all routinely animate our environment in everyday life. Indeed, the
familiar regard people routinely show toward people, places, and things can
only be explained by such “everyday animism.” Perhaps one of the problems
with our disenchanted modern world is not that we are too materialistic, but
that we aren’t materialistic enough. We need to make matter “matter” more.
That doesn’t mean we need to reanimate our modern world so much as be more
mindful of how we routinely animate objects, and how this phenomenon
pervades and shapes all our interactions with our world. As such, Bell’s chapter
not only provides an occasion for deeper personal and political reflection about
one’s own actions and interactions with the physical world, and how this may
affect others, but also provides important insights into environmental
microsociological theorizing about the nonhuman generally.
Leslie Irvine utilizes but also challenges the assumptions of symbolic
interactionist theory to consider the compelling question of how selfhood
might be conceptualized in wild animals. In her past work, Irvine (2004)
challenged the notion that domesticated animals such as dogs and cats are
devoid of personhood, by moving beyond Mead’s idea that selves require
language to exist. Instead, Irvine considered four major elements of the “core
self,” none of which necessitate language. These core components, which
include agency, coherence, affectivity, and self-history, provide a more
inclusive notion of selfhood, which places nonhuman animals well inside the
circle of our intimate social relations. In this chapter, Irvine boldly asks how
this same model of selfhood might be applied not only to domesticated animals,
but also the full range of animal species we may encounter in nature. Irvine
considers deep questions about what can be inferred about selfhood in wild
animals through a range of examples, reframing their ontological status within
our social and environmental relations.
Next, Matthias Gross and Ana Horta playfully consider the issue of how
legal regulations requiring the cleaning of dog poop in public spaces have
generated a range of different responses from both dog owners and non-dog
owners alike. Gross and Horta merge Goffman’s theories of strategic interaction
with modern practice theory to investigate how dog walkers utilize impression
management to appear dutiful and responsible about cleanup to potential
audiences. However, some dog owners long for the unregulated days of dog
poop, and find creative ways to resist these new sets of collective expectations.
The creative manipulation of “non-knowledge” of poop is used as a strategic
resource to escape responsibility, while vulgar displays are seen as rebellious
resistance. Yet this story is much more important than just the artful
management of poop. The authors argue convincingly that “poop matters,”
not only for an explication of how non-knowledge is utilized in the everyday,
but also how it might extend to other more pressing environmental contexts
and levels of analysis.
We tend to take trash for granted: We take it out. We sort our recyclables.
So what? Yet, Susan Machum shows us the complexity of our socially mediated
relationship to our trash. She does this, first, by examining, through a
phenomenological and social constructionist lens, the different ways three
adjoining regional waste facilities in southern New Brunswick, Canada, instruct
family households to sort their trash and thus how our trash gets defined.
Instructions for sorting waste in one location can send a particular discarded
item to a landfill while differing instructions in an adjacent location may send
the same product to be recycled or composted. Such differing “scripts” for
waste disposal can not only conflict with each other, but can also conflict with
our household practices. The second way Machum awakens us to our
relationship with our trash is by turning to Goffman to examine our routinized
waste disposal practices and their dramaturgical implications. For example, she
considers how our sanitation practices might change when they are visible to
others, such as neighbors, sanitation workers, and municipal solid waste law
enforcers. Taking the curbside or drop-off point as the front stage, these
audiences may make judgments not only about our waste disposal practices,
but also about what we throw out, with implications for our lifestyles and what
kind of people they think we are.
Jerry Williams makes an impressive case for the continued relevance of
phenomenology in the modern age of environmental sociology, where efforts
are often made to move beyond the limits of social constructionism and treat
nature as a real and direct causal force. Williams argues that no matter how
tempting it may be to adopt a realist position, there is no way for us to perceive
Introduction 11
nature directly or assess its status in an unmediated way. Instead, we always
experience nature through the lens of typified social frames inherited from pre-
existing cultural repertoires. Using the compelling example of the potential
relationship of earthquakes to oil-fracking in Texas, he shows how this
environmental phenomenon is interpreted in highly varied ways by different
cultural groups. Yet not all of these interpretations are equally valid; indeed, a
phenomenological position does not retreat into relativism, and is not averse to
science. Indeed, science is the best way to achieve knowledge of the natural
world, even if it too is always shaped through prior socialized frames of
meaning. The challenge for presenting scientific knowledge to the lay public,
then, is to understand the underlying cultural frames held implicitly by different
audiences. This way, the relevance of scientific findings can be presented in the
most effective and resonant way possible.
Benjamin Kelly critically examines the concept of boundary objects in his
study of how a group of university engineers attempt to collaborate with an
industry partner in order to research and improve infrastructure for the sake of
sustainability and environmental responsibility. Drawing on the theoretical
frame of “social worlds analysis,” Kelly explains the differing cultural logics and
expectations held by the two groups. The challenge, then, was for the engineers
to find common boundary objects (sustainability projects) that might bridge
the ideological differences between the two factions and enable cooperation.
Kelly tells the story of how this process involved two failed collaborations until
finally finding a project all parties could move forward with. However, the
final project ended up being stacked well in favor of the company, being
primarily a cost-saving measure and leaving little data for the sake of novel
environmental science. What makes this piece so important is Kelly’s injunction
that boundary objects are not, as often assumed in the literature, ideal fixes that
enable groups to cooperate on level ground. Instead, as sites of social exchange,
they often contain imbalances where powerful actors take advantage of more
dependent partners. This is important to recognize, not only for considering
new possibilities of academic–industry collaborations around environmental
projects, but also for a better, more critically attuned conception of boundary
objects as power-laden and asymmetrical.
Last but not least, in their case study of a protracted conflict over a stalled
gold mine project in Rosia Montana, Filip Alexandrescu and Bernd Baldus
show that accidents and unexpected events greatly influenced the course of the
conflict. Pointing to unpredictability, unintended consequences, accidents,
unexpected events, misunderstandings, uncertainty, error, and contingency,
they stress how different human social life can be from our tidy theories of how
it works. Yet, how can we make sense of the contingent, and build it into our
social science? In answer to this, they turn to Darwin for thinking about the
interaction of contingency and selectivity through agency. Like other organisms,
human actors explore new shifts in a situation to see what advantages these
might offer, information which can only be known in hindsight. To the extent
these experiments are successful, new habits will be built up. Alexandrescu and
Baldus show that participants in the conflict over the mine project revised their
views and actions in response to shifting conditions and new strategies
developed by their supporters and opponents.
All of these chapters are diverse in their approach, subject matter, and
theoretical orientation, yet they all share a vision that environmental sociology
can benefit greatly from incorporating microsociological perspectives.
Further, these chapters raise many new and provocative theoretical questions
and introduce new debates for environmental sociology but also traditional
microsociological theory. The authors in this volume do not merely apply
microsociological theories to subject matter that just happens to include
natural phenomena. Rather, they cast back towards the very microsociological
traditions they draw from, creatively innovating some of the core assumptions
and concepts to better address the issues that a more than human microsociology
requires. We invite the reader to explore these new concepts and ideas by
reading these rich examples of environmental microsociology, a tradition
which, we hope, shall find its rightful place as a quintessential part of the
wider field.
Note
1 We thank the series editors, Simon Gottschalk and Dennis Waskul, for encouraging
us to draw this out.
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Introduction 15
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1 Micro-interactions of
cosmic proportions
Mediating human–cosmos
relationships in the planetarium1
Megan S. Albaugh Bonham
In 1994, after an early morning earthquake awakened Los Angeles and knocked
out the electricity, authorities and the local astronomical observatory received
numerous phone inquiries regarding strange lights in the sky (Lin II, 2011).
These lights were hundreds of stars, and many Los Angeles residents were
seeing them for the first time. The Milky Way—our galactic home and a
celestial object that has inspired humans for millennia—was so unknown to
these residents that its presence felt strange and foreign. How might we rebuild
a relationship with an object that many humans no longer even recognize? In
this chapter I examine how planetariums foster a relationship between humans
and the cosmos—an object that can seem abstract because it is distant, vast,
largely intangible, and seemingly insignificant to our daily lives.
We possess a connection to the cosmos within our Earthly environment: the
night sky. For millennia, when humans went outdoors at night, they “came
face-to-face with the universe” (Bogard, 2013), seeing a couple thousand stars
in the night sky. As night became the next frontier (Melbin, 1978), and
significant human activity expanded into the nighttime hours, artificial light
brightened the night sky. Today, light at night negatively affects human health
(Schernhammer et al., 2001), animal and ecological health (Rich and Longcore,
2005), and the practice of astronomy (Riegel, 1973). It is no surprise then that
planetariums tend to be located in cities; they simulate the dark night sky that
urban environments no longer provide. Just as “nature is the zoo” in many
urban areas (Mitman, 1996: 117; emphasis original), so too planetariums have
become the night sky.
A growing number of institutions, including planetariums, “substitute for,
or compete with, outdoor nature” (Čapek 2010: 217). Yet environmental
scholars claim that facilitated and/or virtual nature experiences are insufficient
for the development of a human–nature relationship. For example, Pyle (2003:
209) wrote, “The shimmering pixels on a computer screen can never substitute
for the shimmering scales on a butterfly’s wing. Direct, personal contact with
other living things affects us in vital ways that vicarious experience can never
replace.” Similarly, Kellert (2002: 125) asserted, “Zoo and museum experiences
lack the intimacy, challenge, creativity, and active participation afforded by
more direct encounters with the natural world.” However, these and other
18 Megan S. Albaugh Bonham
environmental scholars have always written in reference to Earth-based nature
where direct, physical interaction is possible. When our conception of nature
is expanded to incorporate the cosmos, I argue that the simulated, indirect
experiences offered by the planetarium, combined with engaged visitor–
employee interactions, can be sufficient to foster relationships between humans
and the cosmos. Although experiences in museums, where visitors are inside a
building and still within the realm of society’s judgments and constraints, are
not typically framed as “out-in-nature” (Brewster and Bell, 2009), the
planetarium show itself can offer a brief escape into a simulated nature. With
high-definition graphics, and a little visitor imagination, enthusiastic show
operators can help visitors briefly to forget their physical location and consider
their connection to the cosmos.
To learn about this relationship-building process, I conducted ethnographic
observations of employee–visitor interaction and interviews with employees at
Adler Planetarium. The planetarium’s task is a difficult one: facilitating a
connection—at times even a sense of closeness or intimacy—with a cosmos
that is geographically distant from, and not very salient to, its visitors. To ensure
that visitors leave feeling a sense of connection to the cosmos, rather than
alienation from it, planetarium employees create sensory simulations with
distant places, translate unfamiliar scales of measurement, and evoke feelings of
awe in their visitors.
Mediating connections with nature

Nature was once understood as endless; it incorporated the cosmos—the
entirety of matter and space. However, as conceptions of nature and environment
were conflated in contemporary Western thought, nature was reduced to
Earth’s environment (Franklin, 2002). Environmental sociology emerged long
after this conflation and, although environmental sociologists have studied
topics ranging from consumer attitudes to state policies, the context has been
limited to Earth. Despite recent growth in astronomical tourism (Collison and
Poe, 2013) and the increasing humanization of the solar system for
communication, military, and commercial purposes (Dickens and Ormrod,
2007a), the cosmos has been excluded from our existing sociological conceptions
of nature. In this chapter I expand nature once again to incorporate the realm
beyond Earth.
Common macro-historical perspectives characterize human relationships
with nature in terms of distance, but a micro-level interactional approach can
allow us to recognize more nuance, including relationships grounded in
experiences of closeness and intimacy (Angelo, 2013). Angelo (2013: 353)
defined intimacy in human–nature interactions as “the forms of attachment
that grow from literally close, physical connections to objects,” a definition
that seems to exclude the possibility of intimacy with distant objects. I will
show how Adler Planetarium facilitates a (sometimes simulated) physical
connection to the cosmos, which bridges the geographical divide and allows
Micro-interactions of cosmic proportions 19
this distant object to feel emotionally closer. It might be impossible for a
planetarium to facilitate intimacy between visitors and the cosmos during the
timespan of one six-hour visit, but it is not unreasonable to assume that they
might broker a connection that develops into intimacy, for example, by making
the abstract idea of the cosmos—the entirety of the universe—more concrete.
As with our interactions with Earth-based nature (Fine, 1998), we experience
emotional responses to the larger cosmos (e.g. awe, wonder, fear), organize the
cosmos into cognitive categories (e.g. star, nebula, planet), and use the cosmos
in defining our own identity (e.g. feeling special or insignificant). However, in
contrast to nature on Earth, the cosmos’s distance from us limits our options for
direct, sensory interactions with it at the same time that its immense size
overwhelms our imaginations. Although we might choose not to be physically
close to a bear, a cactus, or falling rocks within nature on Earth, we do not
even have the option to be close to Saturn’s icy rings or the rocks of an
exoplanet.
Our personal relationships with nature are often mediated by others. For
example, family and friends often introduce children to nature through hiking,
fishing, and other nature-focused activities. In an ethnographic study of
mushroomers, Fine (1997: 69) described how “social actors individually and
collectively make sense of and express their relationship to the environment,
dealing with perceived threats to that environment,” a process he called
naturework. Grazian (2012) explored how the producers of nature within zoos
engage in nature making—a series of impression management strategies used to
navigate conflicting obligations of zoos in their production of naturalistic
exhibit spaces. However, the producers of nature in “edutainment”
organizations, such as zoos and planetariums, do not simply stage naturalistic
displays, but they also attempt to facilitate particular connections between their
visitors and the natural world. In other words, they also make our relationship
to nature—a process I call nature brokering.
The planetarium encounters particular challenges in nature brokering due to
the cosmos’s vast size and physical distance from us, but it attempts to overcome
these challenges through micro-level processes and interactions that foster
closeness and connection between visitors and the cosmos. Planetarium
employees use three mechanisms to help make the cosmos “real” to visitors:
they facilitate sensory experiences, translate unfamiliar scales of measurement,
and construct feelings of awe in their visitors. The usefulness of these
mechanisms may extend beyond the planetarium. For example, comparable
mechanisms could be employed to make large-scale environmental degradation
and climate change less abstract and more real to the public, a point I will
return to in the conclusion.
Methods and field site

I engaged in over 250 hours of ethnographic observation at Adler Planetarium
in Chicago, Illinois. Built in 1930, Adler was the first planetarium in the United
States. Today the building contains three theaters and multiple astronomy-
themed science and history exhibits. The Doane Observatory, the largest
publicly accessible telescope in Chicago, is located immediately behind the
planetarium.2 Adler hosts approximately 500,000 visitors annually and has
nearly 10,000 members. In addition to the typical museum staff of curators,
educators, and administrators, Adler also employs an academically and publicly
engaged team of astronomy and astrophysics researchers.
I focused my observations on daily, educational interactions between
visitors and employees, such as the Astronomy Conversations when
astronomers talk informally with small groups of visitors about their areas of
expertise. To gain deeper insights into employees’ goals and strategies, I
supplemented this participant observation with nine in-depth interviews
with planetarium employees and affiliates who regularly interact with visitors
in a teaching role.
Making the cosmos close

One Adler astronomer described our typical, Earth-based concerns as “What’s
the shopping list? What’s the list of things I need to do?” If that is our
perspective, the astronomer asked, “When do you get time to open yourself up
to the fact that, yeah, the Earth is magnificent? And the Earth is a part of this
much bigger story of the universe.” For many people that time is during their
visit to the planetarium. Through their role as nature brokers, Adler employees
facilitate sensory experiences with places that visitors will never physically visit,
introduce unfamiliar scales of measurement, and evoke visitors’ emotions in an
attempt to construct a sense of closeness and connection between visitors and
the rest of the cosmos.
Facilitating sensory experiences with distant objects

Sensory experiences are essential for developing a sense of closeness to a place.
While we might smell an ocean, feel raindrops, taste fruit, hear frogs, and see a
forest, many of our senses become inadequate for engagement with nature
beyond Earth. With the exception of sight (often aided by a telescope) and
indirect touch (e.g. the warmth of the Sun’s rays or the movement of lunar
tides), we do not typically have sensory experiences with extraterrestrial nature.
One of Adler’s primary nature-brokering tasks is to create opportunities for
visitors to have sensory experiences with distant places they will never physically
experience in the same way as Earth-based nature.
The first way Adler accomplishes this is by utilizing pieces to simulate a
distant whole. For example, while Adler visitors may not be able to visit Mars
or asteroids Vesta and Ceres, they can touch a piece of each place at Adler’s
“Touch the Solar System” kiosks. The planetarium uses the incongruity of the
experience with our daily lives to entice visitors to engage with the objects. Via
automated video, scientists enthusiastically repeat phrases such as, “Hey, this is
an actual piece of Mars! Check it out!” and “How many of your friends can say
they’ve touched Mars?” Additionally, the “Our Solar System” exhibit contains
a meteorite weighing just over two kilograms that fell in Olympia Fields,
Illinois, in 2003. Visitors are encouraged—by signage and employees—to
touch and smell the meteorite. The written description, which contains the
phrase “Fallen Asteroid Fragments in Chicago Suburbs” in large font, creates
an even greater sense of closeness. Unlike the samples of Vesta and Ceres,
which were found in Morocco and Mexico, this meteorite fell near the visitors’
current location. One astronomer described to me how this sensory experience
creates a greater bond by “enhanc[ing] that connection to the larger cosmos. It
takes people out of those everyday humdrum lives” and connects them with
something much larger than themselves.
Second, Adler employees use analogies of sensory experiences on Earth to
make complex and foreign cosmic phenomena seem more familiar (Arcand
and Watzke, 2014). In a discussion about nebulae, one astronomer said
It’s a cloud, and they look like cloud structures, but it’s not the wind in our
atmosphere that’s carving them. It’s a stellar wind. So you have the stars
forming them, carving these cloud shapes. There are different interactions
than what we see here on Earth, but there’s a familiarity with the way
those clouds work. We understand that there’s something pushing from
the left to the right or from the top to the bottom, and we do have an
understanding—a physical understanding—of it because we see that
phenomenon here. We go out on a windy day, and we are like “Oh!”,
blown away, right? So we have a really visual, physical experience of things
that are close, and the fact that some of those experiences help us understand
what is so far away is so huge.
In this way, although we cannot travel to space to feel a stellar wind, we can
imagine the experience based on our encounters with wind on Earth.
According to the astronomer quoted above, our Earth-based sensory
experiences give us “a vocabulary to start with and to understand” these
distant phenomena. However, for this vocabulary to be effective, visitors and
employees must share similar sensory experiences on which the vocabulary is
based (Fine, 1995).
Finally, Adler uses technology to facilitate sensory experiences. For example,
solar telescope viewing allows visitors to look at the Sun, a celestial object with
which we are all very familiar, but that we normally cannot view directly
without harming our eyes. I observed that visitors’ understanding of their solar
viewing experience often depended on the amount of interpretation that
museum staff provided. For example, after a family finished taking turns
looking through one of the telescopes, a volunteer told them that the dark
spots they saw were sunspots. The visitors look surprised, and one of them
replied, “Oh, I thought those were just on the image.” Although the telescopes
themselves make the Sun visually accessible, visitors may not understand what
they are seeing—sometimes even misunderstanding sunspots as merely dirt on
the telescope lens—without sufficient interpretation.
Visualizations also allow us to see aspects of the cosmos beyond what our
visual sense would normally allow. When interacting with visitors in the Space
Visualization Laboratory, many astronomers take time to clarify that
visualizations are different from regular films or animations. For example, one
astronomer described a visualization as a “simulation based on science and
physics. It’s a movie. But it’s not just art, but science too.” One of Adler’s
visualization experts described visualizations to me by emphasizing that:
It has to do with the representation of something that is not naturally

accessible through the human senses, especially the main one: vision …
These representations are not figurative. It’s not trying to evoke something
that is perceptually there. It’s something that’s not perceivable. Or not
approachable, if you wish. So in translating that to vision or [touch] or
sound, you sometimes have to change relationships to fit human perception.
For example, the creators of a visualization displaying a map of the entire

universe increased the size of each galaxy to one pixel so the galaxies could be
visible, even though they were no longer to scale. Additionally, a visualization
of the eventual collision between the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies
allows visitors to “see” the future. Through the use of visualizations, Adler
employees enable visitors to visually experience parts of the universe that they
otherwise could not see.
Technology even gave visitors the impression that virtual objects could be
touched. The three-dimensional screens within the Space Visualization
Laboratory and the dome theaters’ high-definition projection systems depict
the cosmos as physically present. This “immersive view” can evoke the
sensation of cognitive dissonance (Griffiths, 2013). Although visitors understood
they were inside a museum, I regularly watched children and adults physically
reach out in an attempt to touch the stars and planets they were viewing.
Closeness is a prerequisite for tactile engagement, and the planetarium’s
technology simulated this physical closeness.
Translating cosmic scales into common metrics

During an informal presentation about exoplanets, a visitor was shocked to
learn that planets exist outside our solar system. She exclaimed, “How little we
know! That is so amazing.” Then she remarked that the universe is so large we
cannot even measure it. The astronomer gently corrected her saying, “The
universe is measurable but almost inconceivable.” This example illustrates how
visitors struggle to comprehend the size and scale of the cosmos. Many of our
everyday scales for distance, such as the inch or the meter, lose their usefulness
in astronomy due to the immense size of the cosmos. In place of these everyday
scales, astronomy utilizes cosmic scales with much larger units of measurement
to more effectively comprehend and communicate the vast distances across
solar systems and galaxies. In Adler’s Space Visualization Laboratory, as well as
in the museum exhibits and shows, employees translate these unfamiliar scales
of measurement to increase visitors’ knowledge of, and connection with, the
cosmos.
One result of using cosmic scales is making faraway objects seem less distant.
For example, the light year takes a vast distance (approximately 5,900,000,000,000
miles) and transforms it into a new unit of measurement that allows for the use
of smaller numbers. During an informal conversation with visitors, an
astronomer described a celestial object as being “nearby—only about four light
years away.” The visitors did not flinch or question the assessment of closeness.
(We might imagine a much different response from visitors if the astronomer
had said, “nearby—only 23,600,000,000,000 miles away.”) Although the
distance of four light years was farther than most visitors could fully grasp, the
number four was comprehensible, and the concept of a year was familiar.
Whether the focus was a completely new scale of measurement, such as
the light year, or simply the use of much larger numbers than most people
encounter in their daily lives, visitors’ lack of familiarity with them resulted
in the need for translation. For example, after an astronomer informed a small
group of visitors that a particular star could go supernova “any day now,” she
clarified that “‘any day’ in astronomy could be tomorrow or thousands of
years from now.” Another astronomer has a habit of specifying how many
zeros are in large numbers in an attempt to help visitors comprehend the
massive proportions. In a discussion about the size of the universe, she said,
“You get a number that has about 17 zeros!” However, because the employees
were so accustomed to working with cosmic scales, there were also many
occasions when they forgot to translate for visitors. For example, I observed
astronomers telling visitors that a celestial object was “ten million light years
away” or “six billion miles long” without helping them comprehend those
large numbers.
Earth and Earth-based measurements were often used as translation devices
in exhibits and during interactions. For example, to assist visitors in gauging
cosmic distances, one exhibit sign reads, “Driving a car at 65 mph, it would
take 163 years to get from the Sun to Earth.” Similarly, Jupiter’s mass is listed
as “318 Earths.” When describing to visitors the appearance of Valles Marineris,
a canyon on the surface of Mars, one astronomer referred to it as “the Grand
Canyon of Mars.” Similarly, Destination: Solar System, a planetarium show,
describes Valles Marineris as “five miles deep, about five times deeper than the
Grand Canyon in the United States. And if Valles Marineris were in the United
States, it would stretch all the way from the East Coast to the West Coast!” By
using the Earth as a point of comparison, the museum attempts to make the
cosmos feel more familiar and less alien.
Although the employees’ goal in translating these cosmic scales is to make
the cosmos accessible, they must also be careful not to mislead visitors. After all,
four light years is a long distance, even if it is “nearby” in cosmic terms.
Highlighting science and interaction as mediators for addressing this challenge,
an astrophysicist said:
I think you need to break people’s idea that their intuitive and local view
is actually the thing that matters. Because I think that’s the biggest
problem—that people, rightly so, have evolved to be on this scale, this
kind of time frame. But it’s hard to persuade people that their intrinsic and
visceral and immediate understanding of the universe doesn’t apply at all
scales, and that their intuition is wrong in those scales, which is why we
need science … I think that’s the kind of thing you really need to encourage
people to do is to not fear this kind of challenge to their intuition.
This visitor fear is partly grounded in a lack of knowledge and familiarity

regarding the cosmos. Employees help to decrease visitors’ fears and any
accompanying intellectual paralysis by making the cosmos close and accessible.
Just as scientists create artificial objects to allow mostly invisible objects to be
studied and analyzed (Lynch, 1985), the planetarium uses scales and translation
devices to more effectively teach visitors about the cosmos. Once there is a
connection between a visitor and the cosmos, employees can introduce some
complexity to the visitor’s understanding. In this way, employees can construct
the cosmos as close and accessible, but also vast.
Mediating awe
Beyond the translation of cosmic scales, the planetarium introduces visitors to a
cosmic perspective that allows them to consider Earth’s place within the much
larger cosmos. This cosmic perspective is most effectively conveyed to visitors
during interactions with employees. For example, I observed a man and two
young boys browsing Adler’s solar system exhibit. The man had been walking
among the informational pieces, quickly skimming them without showing any
visible emotion, while the boys chased each other around his legs. An employee
approached them at the model of the Sun and pointed out how small the Earth
is in comparison, reading the exhibit text aloud, “This dot represents Earth at
the same scale as this image of the Sun. 333,000 Earths can fit inside the Sun.”
The employee then said, “It’s humbling, isn’t it?” The man paused, looked at
the exhibit, then looked back at the employee with wide eyes and nodded in
agreement. Additionally, during a live planetarium show, after the show operator
had introduced a three-dimensional map of the entire universe and discussed
where Earth fit in the greater cosmos, she closed by saying, “Hopefully you guys
feel pretty small right now. If so, I’ve done my job.”
Not only do employees seek to convey smallness and humility, but many
visitors spontaneously expressed these sentiments. I observed a conversation
between an Adler volunteer and two visitors as they looked at an image of
Earth taken from Mars where Earth is just a small dot in the night sky of Mars.
The male visitor said, “It’s very humbling to remind yourself that you’re just a
little thing.” The volunteer quickly affirmed the man’s observation and
proceeded to tell him about astrophysicist Carl Sagan’s writings where he
reached a similar conclusion. Chicago Tribune writer Christopher Johnson
(2014, para. 1) summarized the feeling of smallness in a recent review of the
planetarium. “Go to Adler Planetarium,” he wrote, “if you’re feeling big in
your britches, a little prideful about our species’ role in things. In Chicago’s
lakefront astronomy museum, there’s no escaping what a little grain of sand on
an enormous beach we are.” As employees and visitors situated the Earth—and
themselves—within the universe, they developed a relationship with the
cosmos. But in order to feel small, they also needed to possess a sense of the
massive size of the cosmos.
At Adler, employees purposefully attempt to evoke awe in planetarium
visitors. Keltner and Haidt (2003) have conceptualized awe as incorporating
two essential parts: perceived vastness and accommodation. They describe
vastness as “anything that is experienced as being much larger than the self, or
the self’s ordinary level of experience or frame of reference” (Keltner and
Haidt, 2003: 303). Given this definition, the entirety of the cosmos would
certainly qualify as vast, and visitor responses suggest that they receive and
interpret the cosmos as being vast. For example, while showing a three-
dimensional visualization of a map of the entire universe to several visitors, the
astronomer clarified that the points of light we were seeing represented entire
galaxies, rather than single stars. The visitor next to me widened her eyes and
whispered, “Oh, God.”
Keltner and Haidt (2003: 304) describe the accommodation component of
awe as “a challenge to or negation of mental structures when they fail to make
sense of an experience of something vast.” They emphasize that awe creates
the conditions where accommodation is needed, regardless of whether or not
that need is met. Adler demonstrates awareness that visitors will have
experiences at the planetarium requiring accommodation. For example, the
script for one planetarium show directs the show operator to introduce visitors
to the Hubble Extreme Deep Field—an image that shows 5,500 galaxies
located, in varying distances from us, within a speck of the night sky.
Immediately after telling visitors what they are viewing, the script instructs the
show operator to “PAUSE—let it sink in,” suggesting that this information
will take time to process.
One astronomer described the Space Visualization Laboratory to me as the
place where Adler helps visitors to visualize the cosmos. She said, “[Space] is so
big that it’s hard for people to wrap their head around. I can see them trying.
Then they learn things like that the universe is expanding and ask themselves,
‘Do I have to change how I live?’” Another astronomer told me about a private
event Adler had hosted for a group of Christian church leaders. Employees used
the technology in the Space Visualization Laboratory to give the visitors “a tour
of the cosmos.” Afterward, one of the leaders “sent a letter to the president of
the planetarium saying how grateful they were for having had this experience;
how their mind had been opened. They expressed the feeling that ‘I’ve got to
start thinking about God in a bigger sense. I’ve been putting God in a box. And
this has expanded the way I think about so many things.’” In this way we can
see that, at least for some visitors to Adler, the accommodation component of
awe is also satisfied. Not only do visitors learn about the vastness of the cosmos,
but they also struggle to make sense of it with their existing schemas and frames
of reference, realizing that comprehension will require adjustments.
Rather than intrinsic to an object or an experience of an object, in the
planetarium awe is socially negotiated. Many employees purposefully seek to
evoke awe in visitors and some even measure the quality of their work by the
degree of awe that visitors express. For example, I watched as an astronomer
told a small group of visitors that he was going to show them something that
“will blow your mind.” Using the Worldwide Telescope interface, he pulled up
a constellation on the large screen in front of them, pointed to one white dot
and asked, “What if I told you that there were a million stars at that point?” The
six visitors smiled but appeared dubious. As he zoomed in further and further,
and one dot became a countless number of dots, the visitor’s faces showed a
sense of surprise, and one visitor exclaimed, “Whoa!” The astronomer smiled
proudly in response. Similarly, during a presentation by another astronomer, a
visitor’s mouth dropped open when he learned just how far away a particular
star was from Earth. The astronomer pointed out the visitor’s response to the
rest of the group and said, “Yes! I love seeing responses like that!”
At Adler, this affective labor, which can be defined as “labour carried out by
one person that is intended to produce an affective or emotional experience in
another person” (Munro, 2014: 45), rarely continued beyond the point of
conjuring up feelings of awe. Although employees occasionally sympathized
with visitors who struggled to understand a concept, they rarely assisted visitors
with the accommodation process. The organizational structure of their
interactions simply did not allow for this. Interactions spanned one hour at
most, but the majority of interactions lasted only several minutes. In addition,
the public nature of the interaction and the lack of opportunity to follow up
with visitors resulted in situations where awe was evoked, but visitors were
largely left to navigate the accommodation process without employee assistance.
Because awe is negotiated through social interaction, it is open to the
possibility of failure. I observed multiple occasions when astronomers were
distracted by a technical glitch to such a degree that it negatively affected their
interactions with visitors (e.g. by causing them to turn their back toward the
visitors for several minutes, fully disrupting the conversation). Additionally, the
astronomers are charged with conveying scientific knowledge to small groups
of people who often possess varying levels of familiarity with science. Whenever
children are present, the employees nearly always cater to the child’s level of
comprehension, often at the expense of providing new information that might
evoke awe in the adults. Awe failures even occurred when visitors anticipated
feeling the emotion in the planetarium. For example, as a man and woman
exited one of the theaters, the man exclaimed in a frustrated tone, “Show me
something!” The woman responded, “I mean, I feel like I’m supposed to be
wowed.” In terms of Collins’ (2004) interaction ritual theory, we can
hypothesize that awe failures occur when little collective effervescence is
present. More specifically, failures occur when employees are unable to develop
a sense of group solidarity among the visitors, introduce shared symbols (e.g.
images of Earth from space), or ignite shared emotional energy.
Adler employees seek to create relationships of awe between their visitors
and the cosmos. Emotional experiences can make us feel close to the person or
object about which we are feeling emotional. When successfully evoked, the
emotional experience of awe can make visitors feel a sense of closeness and
connection to the cosmos.
Connecting Earth-based and extraterrestrial natures

As nature brokers Adler employees construct visitors’ relationships with the
cosmos. In an attempt to ensure that visitors leave feeling a sense of connection
to the cosmos, rather than alienated from its “almost inconceivable” scope,
planetarium employees create sensory experiences with distant places,
introduce visitors to cosmic scales of measurement, and evoke awe. When
environmental scholars assert that indirect and vicarious experiences are
insufficient for strong human–nature relationships, they downplay or ignore
what those experiences do offer us. Although today’s planetariums generally
expose visitors to simulations rather than to the actual night sky, they still
provoke inquiry into humanity’s deepest unanswered questions, such as why
we are here, how we got here, and what our lives mean (Marché, 2005). If,
as Pyle (2003: 206) wrote, “Small, humble habitats, especially in urban
settings, can be as important as big reserves in awakening biophilia” in people
today, then planetariums have the potential to be just as effective as a dark
night sky in arousing human–cosmos relationships. As nature brokers, Adler
employees mediate relationships of connection and closeness despite the
cosmos’s vast size and distance. The implications for this closeness extend to
our Earth-based nature. In this conclusion I will offer suggestions for further
research and highlight how the planetarium’s brokering of the cosmos is
relevant for environmental scholars.
Developing human–cosmos relationships includes positioning oneself and
one’s planet within the larger cosmos, and my observations suggest that how
we situate Earth within the universe, might affect our approaches to
sustainability. If we perceive Earth as merely one of millions of planets, many
of which are likely to possess life, we may not be compelled to act sustainably
with our Earth-based nature, feeling assured by our celestial options for
relocation and/or resource extraction if we consume all of Earth’s resources. As
an example of Dickens and Ormrod’s (2007b) “outer spatial fixes” for
capitalism, one of Adler’s planetarium shows describes asteroids as “tremendous
potential sources of metals, water, and other resources.” Moreover, I listened
to an astronomer explain to visitors the importance of returning to the moon
because we need to know if it offers us any physical resources.
In contrast, if we perceive Earth as unique and special as the only known
place in the universe to harbor life, we may feel more compelled to act
sustainably. As an astronomer told a group of high school students, “If life is
special, and we’re the only ones, we have some compulsion not to kill
ourselves off.” Additionally, during a recent TED Talk, Adler Astronomer
Lucianne Walkowicz expressed concerns about current goals for planetary
colonization:
The implications by some is that Mars will be there to save us from the
self-inflicted destruction of the only truly habitable planet we know of, the
Earth … It is hubris to believe that interplanetary colonization alone will
save us from ourselves. But planetary preservation and interplanetary
exploration can work together. If we truly believe in our ability to bend
the hostile environments of Mars for human habitation, then we should be
able to surmount the far easier task of preserving the Earth.
(Quoted in Lee, 2015: para. 7-8)
Future research could inspect this connection more closely, examining the
patterns and nuances between human–cosmos relationships and attitudes
toward sustainability.
Adler’s “Our Solar System” exhibit contains three-dimensional models of
our planets. Each model hangs from the ceiling so that visitors must look up
to see them, except for the model of Earth, which is placed at eye level and,
quite literally, on a pedestal that slowly rotates. Visitors often stand near Earth
for several minutes, watching it rotate and excitedly pointing out the various
places that they know (e.g. “Look! There’s Japan!”). Additionally, the model
of Earth is one of the locations that visitors most frequently use as a background
for group photographs. This might seem like peculiar behavior between
humans and an oversized globe, but, in the context of the planetarium, Earth
becomes more than a planet; it becomes our home. Representations of the
Earth, especially those from the perspective of space, “act as totems by conjuring
up awareness of, and feelings of attachment to, a particular social group”
(Jerolmack and Tavory, 2014: 67; italics original). Within the planetarium, we
feel a sense of belonging to humanity as a whole, instead of our usual, narrower
social categories. In this way, the planetarium also mediates our relationship
with Earth.
Large-scale environmental problems, such as climate change, challenge our
everyday perceptions of our place on Earth as science produces impersonal
abstractions and “facts,” often at the expense of meaningful human experiences
(Jasanoff, 2010). Just as the interactional mechanisms that I have highlighted in
the planetarium make the cosmos “real” and visceral and facilitate personal
connections, comparable mechanisms might be effectively employed to make
climate change and environmental degradation “real” and personal. Forging an
emotional connection is equally important as a foundation for Earth-based
environmental stewardship as it is for making the cosmos close. Similarly,
members of the public often struggle to grasp Earth-based scales of measurement
when they involve regional or global environmental problems, such as square
miles of deforested land, making effective translation necessary. In this way, the
planetarium has mechanisms to offer environmental scholars and activists.
Learning how to make the vast, inaccessible cosmos real can show us how to
make Earth real too.
By expanding nature to include environments beyond Earth, I have
challenged existing assumptions about human relationships with nature. In
particular, nature is not always accessible for us to physically interact with it—
whether the goal is to control, use, or protect it. Additionally, like climate
change (Jasanoff, 2010), incorporating the cosmos into our conception of
nature challenges our everyday perceptions of nature both spatially and
temporally. The cosmos encompasses everything from the beginning through
the end of time. As humans whose personal experiences entail several decades
on the same rocky planet, we must step outside the realm of our everyday
experience to comprehend these scales of times and place. Expanding nature to
include outer space makes nature less familiar and encourages us to question
our assumptions and beliefs. In short, the cosmos can help us critically examine
our relationships with Earth-based nature.
Notes
1 I am grateful to Carol Heimer, Gemma Mangione, Ari Tolman, Jane Pryma, Gary
Fine, and the editors of this volume for their helpful comments on previous drafts
of this chapter.
2 The Doane was closed for renovation for several months during my fieldwork;
therefore, the majority of my observations occurred inside the museum, and not in
the observatory.
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2 “This is not Sea World”
Spectacle and insight in nature
tourism
Peter R. Grahame
The greatest show at sea! See the great whales with New England’s best, most
experienced whale watch!
(Promotional leaflet)
We hope that what we leave you with is not just a good time but a better
understanding of these animals and where they fit into what is a pretty troubled
marine ecosystem.
(Naturalist)
These two quotes illustrate a central tension in contemporary nature tourism.

On the one hand, touristic experiences center on attractions—special objects
and places that draw visitors. Advertisements promise fun, thrills, adventure,
and an unforgettable experience. The first quotation implies that a whale watch
can even be compared with a circus show. On the other hand, nature tourism,
when coupled with an environmental sensibility, promises more than a
sensational experience and calls for developing insight about settings in which
sights are encountered. In this regard, tourists may be encouraged (as in the
second quotation) to move beyond fascination with enormous animals to a
deeper awareness of their environmental situation.1
The touristic display of nature for educational purposes raises several issues
(Beach and Weinrich, 1989; Davis, 1997). First, there is the belief that the
merely spectacular is an inadequate form of experience that undermines a more
authentic relation with nature. Second, there is the suspicion that claims
regarding educational benefits may be used to justify nature-based
entertainments, making them more respectable. Third, there is the question of
what kind of education is actually possible in those situations in which the
public is exposed to natural attractions. In Spectacular Nature, Davis proposes
that Sea World’s claim to provide educational benefits is used to counter
criticisms of its reliance on performing animals for its key attractions. She argues
that the educational content of the Shamu show (Sea World’s premier
attraction) amounts to little more than a recitation of low-level scientific facts
about orcas and demonstration of animal training techniques. Davis concludes
that the circus performance format of the killer whale show undermines more
“This is not Sea World” 33
serious educational possibilities. In contrast, in the whale watch industry there
is wide support for the view that whale watching provides a more authentic
and educational encounter with marine creatures than is possible with captive
animals. In the present study I do not claim to show whether whale watching
is either “more educational” or “merely spectacular.” Instead, I propose that by
looking at the everyday work actually done by whale-watch naturalists, we can
see how managing the relation between spectacle and insight is a key dimension
of whale-watching activities.
Tourism and the construction of attractions

Nature tourism, as sightseeing directed toward natural phenomena, is as old as
tourism itself, but since the 1990s it has received a new impetus in connection
with growing interest in environmental issues. The term “ecotourism” is
sometimes used to refer to ecology-oriented viewing of wildlife and their
habitats, but it is also used to indicate a broader concern with sustainability and
culturally appropriate tourism (Gould and Lewis, 2014; Whelan, 1991). In this
wider sense, not all ecotourism has nature as its primary focus, whereas the
present study is concerned with nature tourism as such. While taking a variety
of concrete forms—whale watching in New England, rainforest hiking in
Costa Rica, or photo safaris to Antarctica—nature tourism generally involves
providing tourists with experiences that bring them into close contact with
some part of the natural world.
MacCannell’s The Tourist (1989) opens up possibilities for specifying the
organization of nature tourism more precisely. He proposes that creating a
tourist site involves constructing a relation between an attraction, a marker, and
a tourist. This scheme provides an analytical point of departure. As MacCannell
shows, anything can become an object of touristic experience; indeed the gamut
of tourist sites reproduces the structure of the surrounding society. Thus sewers,
churches, breweries, swamps, shopping malls, and the like can all become tourist
attractions. The touristic quality is not in the object itself, but in the relation that
is constructed between it and the tourist. The marker—which can be any kind
of signifier—is an essential ingredient of this relation, shaping how tourist and
attraction are brought together. For example, as tourists enter the catchment
area of whale-watch operations, they encounter a variety of signifiers
(promotional leaflets, tourist guides, billboards, signs on ticket offices, nature
shops, models, posters, T-shirts, etc.) that mark whales as tourist attractions. In
whale-watch tours, live narration performed by the naturalist2 on board furnishes
additional signifiers before, during, and after encounters with whales, producing
a definition that competes with other markers.
Treating whales as attractions already marked in various ways, naturalists
use their live commentary to claim a special authenticity for whale watching
and put spectacle in a different light. In particular, naturalists often propose a
contrast between the whale-watch experience and other forms of contact
with whales. As one narrator put it, “in a lot of ways every whale watch is an
34 Peter R. Grahame
adventure. This is not Sea World. What you see out here this afternoon will
be wild animals and natural behaviors.” Naturalness helps to establish a claim
of authenticity, but there must also be something worth seeing. The question
of spectacle becomes more complex when nature tourism moves beyond
wildlife viewing to incorporate a concern with developing ecological insight.
For example, it has been proposed that cetacea (whales, dolphins, and
porpoises) “often provide the ‘hook’ for getting people to care about the
whole environment” (Hoyt, 1984). One naturalist commented to me that
“spectacular megafauna” are the big attraction in whale watching, although
for him the point is to get people to develop a better understanding of the
relation of species conservation and habitat preservation. Since no object is in
itself “environmental,” the artful use of markers to establish an environmental
context for tourists’ experiences becomes essential. Whale-watch naturalists
with whom I talked expressed concern about how the public’s preoccupation
with spectacle undercuts the deeper purpose of their work. In what follows,
I look at how whale watching involves an organization of experience in
which the day’s work calls for practical handling of the relation between
whale watching’s routine features and its more spectacular possibilities. While
promotional images of breaching whales (whales leaping out of the water)
abound in popular media, such sightings are relatively rare in the whale-
watch situation. The more usual sights involve glimpses of small parts of the
whale—its nostrils, its dorsal fin, or its flukes. An abiding issue for whale-
watch operations, then, is how to manage the relationship between the
heavily promoted spectacular views and the less dazzling glimpses of whales
that are the central phenomena of most trips. This task falls on the trip
narrator—the naturalist. As tourists board the whale-watch boat, live
narration over the public address system becomes the primary source of
markers that shape the relation of tourist and attraction. As it unfolds, the
narrator’s talk helps to establish a public sense of what is routine about the
whale-watch experience, as well as what (if anything) is unusual. If there are
problems associated with spectacle, then we might expect this to show up in
the details of live narration.
Methods
The theoretical–methodological orientation guiding this study has some broad
affinities with the constructionist approach to environmental sociology
advocated by Hannigan (2014). In his view, environmental struggles are best
understood in terms of claims-making activities through which social actors
construct images of environmental problems. In other respects, however, my
approach is closer to the kind of fieldwork on the social construction of nature
undertaken by Fine (2003) in his study of the mushroom-hunting subculture.
Using an ethnographic approach, he provides a richly detailed account of doing
mushrooming. The present study seeks to open up “the social construction of
nature” in a different way by focusing on talk-in-interaction (Psathas, 1994).
Below, I examine some ways in which spectacle and insight were managed
during a whale-watch trip that featured both ordinary and spectacular events.
Although this report focuses on a single case, its background lies in five
seasons of fieldwork on whale-watching activities in the coastal waters of
Massachusetts. During that time, I took part in more than two dozen whale-
watch trips and engaged in numerous conversations, both aboard ship and
onshore, with participants in the whale-watch industry including scientists,
crew, research center support staff, ticket office staff, and passengers. While
many whale-watch operations refer to expert narration in their promotions,
my particular interest was in studying operations that featured narration done
by scientists and research staff affiliated with independent nonprofit research
organizations. Within that arrangement, the commercial operation benefits
by being able to promote the scientists’ narration as an attraction, while the
research center benefits by gaining daily access to sites essential to their
research programs. I visited three hybrid commercial/nonprofit operations
repeatedly over the five-year period, and made single visits to other hybrid
operations, as well as to a strictly commercial and a strictly nonprofit whale-
watch operation.
The public narration on each trip was audiotaped3 and portions were
selected for detailed transcription using field notes and rough transcriptions
of trip segments as a guide. In collecting and transcribing trip narration, I
have followed the general strategy of conversation analysis (Sacks, Schegloff,
and Jefferson, 1974; Psathas, 1994). Since crucial features of the whale-watch
trip are closely bound up with the public forms of talk produced by the
narrator, there is much to be gained from close attention to the ordering of
experience that this talk accomplishes. In this respect, conversation analysis
(CA) can take us beyond the impressionistic renderings of subjective meanings
offered in more traditional ethnographic studies. However, while CA studies
are usually concerned with the management of turn-taking in speech
exchanges, my concern is chiefly with what happens within the extended
monologue format of real-time public narration. My use of talk as data can
be considered as a case of “applied conversation analysis” (Psathas, 1994)
since my principal aim is to shed light on matters related to the management
of a practical activity (whale watching), rather than to expand our knowledge
of the basic structures of speech exchange. In a previous paper, I used a
comparative strategy to identify core elements of whale-watch narration that
recur in different trips and in different viewing situations (Grahame, 1993).
The present paper follows a different strategy, focusing on a single case in
order to show how tensions between spectacle and insight play out in real
time. Any whale-watch trip, even one with only meagre sightings, displays
basic features of whale-watch narration, as I will show below. However, the
trip I report on is a “deviant” case in that it features an “excess” of spectacular
sights. The particular value of this case lies in the ways that this excess violates
expectations, making normal and extraordinary features of the activity stand
out more clearly.
36 Peter R. Grahame
Routine sightings and the organization of watching
The first part of whale-watch narration consists of an orientation talk given
either on the dock or as the boat gets underway. Coverage includes staff
introductions, safety instructions, and preliminary remarks about whales and
their habitat. Various scientific facts are recited, including the nature of coastal
marine ecosystems, elements of the food chain, classification of types of whales,
the life cycle of humpback whales, and environmental threats to whales and
their habitat. Humpback whales are given close attention since they are usually
the primary focus of these tours.4 If the whale-watch operation involves the
participation of a research center (as with the case I consider here), some of
their work may be described. In the passage transcribed below, the narrator
concludes the orientation segment with some pointed remarks about whale
watching. This passage touches on three recurrent themes: (1) whales are wild
animals, (2) their behavior is unpredictable, and (3) opportunities to view them
are special.
Extract 1
01 Which leads me to my final point about whales, and that is uh that I do ask everyone to
02 remember we are going out to experience wild animals on their turf, on their terms, and I
03 say th the word experience because whale watch doesn’t quite capture uh what we’re going
04 to be doing this afternoon. You can watch whales just about any night of the week. Turn on
05 PBS or the Discovery Channel, you can watch whales. This is different, and you’ll see what
06 I mean once we’re offshore with the animals. It is uh quite different. We are the guests in
07 their home, um whale safaris is kind of a cute, catchy little phrase but it really is quite
08 literally what we’re what we’re doing here this afternoon, um going on safari. We can’t
09 always predict where they’re going to be, uh once we do find them we can’t always predict
10 what their behavior will be, nor would we in any way try to influence that behavior. We just
11 uh need to remember that we have a very special situation here on the coast of New
12 England and certainly on the coast of Cape Ann in that we can come out on a four hour trip
13 and spend some time with some of earth’s uh certainly most captivating and rarest creatures
14 and uh feel very grateful for whatever time uh they will grace us with here this afternoon.
15 So please bear that in mind as we head offshore.
Underlining = speaker’s emphasis

Comma = very brief pause rather than grammatical function
In Extract 1, “wild animals,” “on their turf,” and “on their terms” call attention
to whale watching’s character as an event that unfolds under natural conditions.
The narrator gives “experience” a special meaning by distinguishing it from
mere watching. “Safari” and “guests in their home” further define the activity
anticipated. All of these remarks attest to whale watching’s character as an
activity done under field conditions in the places where whales live, rather than
in a controlled, artificial setting. There is an implied contrast with venues like
Sea World, sometimes mentioned explicitly by narrators. Uncertainty is also
stressed: she advises that neither the whales’ location nor their behavior can be
predicted, and rejects any attempt to influence their behavior. This underscores
the fact that under field conditions, sights cannot be delivered at will. Finally,
several of her expressions point to the special character of the activity. The
exceptional character of experience in the field is contrasted with something
more ordinary: “You can watch whales just about any night of the week”—on
television. The “special situation” provided by the New England location is
pointed out. “Captivating” and “rarest” also distinguish seeing whales from
more ordinary experiences. The notions that whales grant viewing opportunities
(“grace us”) and that watchers owe them appreciation (“feel very grateful”)
further underscore the extraordinary quality of experience in the field.
Extract 1, which concludes the orientation portion of the narration, can be
viewed as a set of instructions for achieving the requisite stance toward sighting
experiences. Whatever in fact happens, passengers should grasp what they see
as wild, unpredictable, and special.
Extracts 2–7 are drawn from the portion of the trip during which sightings
were made, and are presented in an order that follows the chronology of the
whale-watch trip. Extract 2 displays some key concerns of routine sighting
production.
Extract 2
01 There’s that humpback, and another sounding dive. This time he did lift his flukes,
02 unfortunately we weren’t in a position to see them.
03 (4)
04 The captain does try to maneuver the boat so that everybody on both rails, both port and
05 starboard, uh gets the maximum opportunity, equal opportunity indeed, to uh view these
06 animals.
(4) = 4 second pause
In Extract 2, the naturalist resumes her narration after a sustained pause during
which the whale was on a dive and out of view. At line 01, she just has time to
announce the presence of the whale before she reports that it has again gone on
a “sounding” (deep) dive. She mentions an important sight often associated
with diving in humpback whales, namely the lifting of the flukes (tail fins).
Flukes are significant here for two reasons. First, the tail is a favorite sight, and
its attractiveness is often treated as self-evident by both passengers and naturalists.
Advertisements for whale-watch operations frequently feature photographs of
whale flukes positioned vertically and viewed straight on as they would be seen
from an ideal viewing position. Similar images of flukes are widely reproduced
in the form of postcards, signs, pamphlets, buttons, posters, jewelry, and
souvenir replicas. These popular images establish flukes as one of the signature
images of the humpback whale in its natural setting, creating an expectation
38 Peter R. Grahame
that trip sightings will include such views. Pointing out the flukes thus delivers
on a tacit promise. It is also significant that flukes can be pointed out. When
humpbacks prepare to go on a deep dive, they arch their back, often (but not
always) lifting their flukes out of the water as the diving arc is completed.
While this tail-lifting segment of the dive is brief, it usually unfolds at a pace
that permits watchers to get a good look and take a picture. Even novice trip-
goers quickly learn to aim their cameras in time to get a “tail shot.” The
likelihood of tail-lifting during a sounding dive, and the time taken to complete
this motion, create an opportunity for the naturalist to guide watchers’ viewing
activities. In this respect, fluke displays are one of the key manageable sights of
the whale-watch trip. This contrasts with highly unpredictable and very rapid
behaviors, such as the breach (the other signature image of the humpback
whale), discussed in the following section.
The second reason that flukes are significant is that they are one focal point
of a distinctive research activity, photographic identification of whales. Since
the underside of each pair of flukes is unique, photo documentation and
cataloguing of fluke patterns makes possible the identification of individual
whales in situ. This in turn makes possible research that tracks the behavior,
relationships, and life histories of individual whales—a different order of data
than traditional population studies. Thus, when the narrator says, “unfortunately
we weren’t in a position to see them,” this is an interesting remark, because she
had already reported seeing the whale lift its flukes (Extract 2, line 01). It is not
that she didn’t see the flukes at all (nor that no one else could), but rather that
she was in the wrong position to see the underside of them, which might have
permitted her to make an identification. Note that the meaning of “we” here
(line 02) is ambiguous. There is a difference between the public we of narrator
and passengers watching together and the restricted we of those able to perform
identifications (the naturalist, and sometimes crew members and assistants).5
“We weren’t in a position to see” is hearable as the public “we” of watching
together, but it makes sense in a different way if we hear it as aligned with the
restricted “we” of qualified staff, since the thing not seen was the research-
relevant identifying pattern on the flukes.
The second part of Extract 2 (lines 04–06) focuses on passengers’
opportunities for viewing. Here, the narrator affirms the captain’s concern to
maximize viewing opportunities and to distribute them equally. This
underscores the circumstance that whale watching is not done from a singular,
jointly occupied viewpoint, but rather involves a shifting configuration of
individual viewpoints that passengers accomplish as they move around the
vessel seeking views. The narrator thus treats boat movement as an accountable
matter, explaining that the captain moves the boat in response to limitations of
particular viewpoints as the sighting episode unfolds. In sum, Extract 2 exhibits
some of the abiding concerns of routine sighting episodes: timely announcement
of sights, attention to sights that are expected and manageable, consideration
for the quality and equity of viewing opportunities, and capture of research-
relevant information.
Good looks and spectacular sights
Extract 3 calls attention to the “look” as a unit of experience. Sighting episodes
are not instants in time but rather unfolding processes. Beginnings typically
involve an announcement that a whale is being seen, for example by calling
attention to a “spout” (visible exhalation of a whale). Endings are sometimes
occasioned by the departure of the whale (e.g. “swimming off”), although the
captain’s decision to move to another area may be more typical. But what
constitutes the crucial middle portion of a sighting episode? In terms of how
participants account for their activity, I propose that the core of the sighting
episode consists of obtaining “looks.” A successful episode is one that continues
until a “good look” is obtained. After that occurs, the episode can be broken
off in favor of a search for additional whales, unless even better looks follow in
short order. This look structure is evident in the following:
Extract 3
01 Okay we’re seeing a very very long sounding dive from this humpback. But it’s ooh fairly
02 determined to try and get a good look at him here.
03 (19)
04 W=we’re going to try and do is get uh at least one look at this (.) humpback whale? and uh
05 (just le=)I.D. it and then we’re going to go off and follow up a report of fin whales (.) in
06 the area, ts=uh humpback is not being at all cooperative with us this afternoon, but once
07 again, it’s uh all up to him, he calls the shots. We can only wait on him and what he
08 chooses to do.
Equals sign (=) = latching (no interval or pause)

(.) = untimed micro-pause
? = rising intonation
Here the narrator accounts for additional time spent in the same location in terms
of an intention to get “a good look” (line 02) and “at least one look” at the whale
(line 04), but what can this mean? The whale has already been seen (“There’s
that humpback” and “he did lift his flukes,” lines 01–02, Extract 2), so a “look”
evidently entails more than a casual glimpse. As she puts it, the whale is “not
being at all cooperative.” This must be taken in a figurative sense, since there is
no issue here of a literal failure of the whale to follow instructions (although such
cooperation is very much at issue in captive animal shows). The problem is that
the whale’s activities thus far have not yielded a sighting that amounts to much,
and in particular it has not offered a view that would make identification possible.
So, what is a good look? Considered together, Extracts 2 and 3 suggest that a
look can be good in three ways. First, it can be one that is intrinsically satisfying
to passengers, such as a close view of tail-lifting. Second, it can be one that
permits the narrator to perform an identification, a result useful to researchers.
Third, it can be one in which an environmentally relevant feature is plainly
visible to passengers, providing the narrator with an occasion to provide further
40 Peter R. Grahame
insight (for example, pointing out how the whale’s white pectoral fins look green
in algae-rich coastal waters). Presumably the best looks combine these features:
satisfying for passengers to look at, permitting expert identification, and offering
chances for science-related narration. The issue in Extract 3 becomes how long
they will stay with an animal that has already been glimpsed several times without
furnishing views that are good in any of these ways.
Extract 4 opens with the reappearance of the whale, followed by a tentative
identification of the individual, and then a confirmation. The sequence then
shifts abruptly from a routine sighting to an extraordinary event.
Extract 4
01 WW: Hi. Hi out there.
02 N: Whale still on the surface right here at ten o’clock? Judging from the dorsal it has
03 a very small pointed dorsal fin. Does look like a humpback uh that we have seen
04 (.) quite frequently for the past several weeks in fact, a male called Zeppelin (.)
05 named after a blimp shaped pattern on her tail=Watch for the flukes?
06 WWK: Woooh!
07 WWKs: Woooh! Eeee!
08 N: Indeed that is Zeppelin=
09 WWK: =Saw it.
10 WWK: Look. Look. Look.
11 WWK: (Call Mom, call Mom)
12 WWK: She’s right there. See, she’s right there, Robby she’s right here.
13 (3)
14 WW: On the other side?
15 (1)
16 WWK: Look.
17 (1)
18 WWK: You see?
19 WWK: Wha-
20 (2)
21 WWK: Wo:::w!
22 WWK: Look.
23 (3)
24 WWs: OOOO OO↓OOOOH!
25 N: Oh! Oh! Oh my go:::hhhd!
26 WW: Did you see that?
27 WW: Gross!
28 WW: Holy shit.
29 WWK: (Now)
30 WWK: I saw it! I saw it! (Scuse me.)
31 N: Patience sometimes pays off, my GOODNESS, (.) a spinning head breach from
32 Ze=OH AGAIN, OH, GO, back at seven o’clock.
33 (6)
34 WWK: Oh it’s goin’ back this side.
35 (8)
36 WW: If people say, did you see a whale? you say yes.
37 N: Two spinning head breaches, from Zeppelin. Zeppelin aga=I was just in process of
38 saying is not named after its proclivity for uh (.) aerial acrobatics which we just
39 wit- AGAIN, off at three o’clock, but rather for a blimp-like pattern on his tail. (6)
40 This is one of the many high surface behaviors we often see from humpback
41 whales, (.) a spinning head breach. National Geographic has called this=AGAIN!
42 Zeppelin’s cover- covering some territory while he’s doing this as well, he’s really
43 uh, (.) moving right along here. (3) ’Gain National Geographic calls the breaching
44 humpback whale perhaps the most spectacular sight in the animal kingdom, and
45 boy we got to see it up close, real up close. AGAIN!
N = narrator; WW = whale watcher; WWs = whale watchers; WWK = whale watcher kid;
WWKs = whale watcher kids; [ = beginning of overlapped speech; words in capitals = loud passages;
::: = sound stretch; ↓ = falling intonation; words in parenthesis ( ) = uncertain transcription
At the opening of Extract 4, we find a normal viewing sequence underway. At

lines 06–07, the opportunity to view the whale’s tail clearly generates some
excitement among the passengers (Woooh! Eeee!). Yet this moment is treated
as ordinary by the narrator. “Watch for the flukes” suggests a predictable,
routine event, and the confirmation of identity comes across as an expected
outcome rather than a surprise. The repeated use of “Look” (at lines 10, 16, and
22) signals developments arousing passenger interest but not requiring the
narrator’s comment. The events beginning with the collective outburst at line
24 are altogether different. At this point, a large number of whale watchers
witness the whale leap out of the water (or “breach”) and join spontaneously in
a collective gasp of amazement (transcribed as “OOOOOO↓OOOOH! ”6).
The narrator becomes caught up in the moment (line 25) and joins the chorus
of exclamations before attempting to produce a description of the event. At line
31, the comment “Patience sometimes pays off” has both a retrospective and
prospective sense. Looking back on the prior sequence, it reformulates the long
wait on this whale as worthwhile after all, but looking ahead it also suggests a
point of completion in viewing activity that might provide an opening for some
comments on what has been seen. However, this transition turns out to be
problematic. Beginning with line 31, we can see the narrator attempting to
produce a commentary that shifts between the sighting event in itself and more
general remarks on its meaning and significance. The exclamation “my
GOODNESS” prefaces her naming of the specific behavior, “spinning head
breach.” But before she can repeat the whale’s name, another breach occurs.
The brevity of this behavior is hinted by her response, “OH AGAIN, OH, GO,
back at seven o’clock.” The breach transpires so quickly (“OH AGAIN”) that
“seven o’clock” cannot function here as an instruction for where to look, but
rather works as a report of where the event happened. At line 37, the naturalist
resumes her comments on this whale and its behavior. She returns to her
42 Peter R. Grahame
commentary in the whale’s name, which seemed completed at lines 04–05. “I
was just in the process of saying” (lines 37–38) suggests that she had been
planning to say more. Now she uses the event just witnessed—“aerial
acrobatics”—to emphasize that Zeppelin’s name is based on its distinctive fluke
pattern, not behavior. She then indicates a more general context with “This is
one of the many high surface behaviors we often see from humpback whales”
(lines 40–41). Note that “many” and “often” tend to place the event just
witnessed in the realm of the typical, in the sense of facts well known to
researchers (again, the “we” here refers most plausibly to researchers and others
who spend substantial time in the field). However, the typical facts known to
researchers have an uneasy coexistence with the excitement of the moment.
Combining popular authority with her own testimony (at lines 43–45), she
abruptly shifts away from the notion that this behavior is ordinary or typical:
“National Geographic calls the breaching humpback whale perhaps the most
spectacular sight in the animal kingdom, and boy we got to see it up close, real
up close.” Invoking National Geographic is perhaps not so different from referring
to The Discovery Channel (Extract 1, line 05), but here she is able to tie the
appraisal “most spectacular sight” with her own comments on events witnessed
“real up close.” The immediacy of the here and now spectacle is dramatized by
her self-interruptions in response to the breaches (“AGAIN” at lines 32, 39, 41,
and 45).7 We have here a striking interplay between routine and spectacular
phenomena. Presumably the “good look” sought had already been obtained at
lines 02–08 (“Watch for the flukes? … Indeed that is Zeppelin”); what follows
opens up the structure of the look and creates new tasks for the narrator.
The management of spectacle

With the onset of the breaching behavior, the overall shape of the sighting
episode becomes problematic. It is no longer a question of waiting until a “good
look” is obtained, since a look that was satisfying and permitted identification had
already been obtained at lines 02–08. In Extract 4, spectacle has for the moment
replaced the “good look” as the focus of attention. With the onset of these
dramatic events, the by now familiar rhythms of watching and narration are
disrupted. The problem for this sighting sequence becomes: What next? How
will it go on, and how will it end? This issue is evident in Extract 5:
Note that the narrator keeps the definition of the situation open: is this a
deep dive (sounding) or a dive leading to another breach (windup)? If it is a
sounding dive, the whale will be below the surface long enough to permit
Extract 5
01 There goes Zeppelin down on what can either be a sounding dive, or a windup dive. It’s
02 hard to tell. When these whales get really very active like this as you can see, he went from
03 uh being=OH BEAUTIFUL! He’s going to keep it up, he is going to keep it up.
substantial uninterrupted commentary. However, as she begins remarks that
are framed in terms of what whales typically do when active, Zeppelin breaches
again and she responds with “OH BEAUTIFUL”—an evaluation of something
just seen (rather than advice about where to look). With “He’s going to keep
it up, he is going to keep it up” she places the breaches thus far within an open-
ended, continuing series.
In Extract 6, we find the narrator resuming her account of Zeppelin, the
individual. With the interruptions occasioned by the repeated breaching
activity, she had not been able to manage a continuous stretch of exposition.
Now she is able to complete her account of Zeppelin’s development and reach
a natural stopping place. She then offers an interesting aside.
Extract 6
01 Zeppelin was born in 1989 to the whale we know as Milky Way, an we believe she’s a
02 female, and of course four years old. She is small still (.) by humpback standards, not quite
03 fully grown. Humpbacks get up to around fifty feet in length, these would be the mature
04 females. As in all baleen whales, humpback females tend to grow a little bit longer and a
05 little bit larger than the males. But ah Zeppelin is still a juvenile, maybe thirty, thirty-two
06 thirty-three feet long. (3) Well if we don’t see (.) another thing this afternoon, I don’t want
07 to hear any complaints, heh heh thaht was pretty spectacular.
h = audible exhalation (in “thaht”)
Not seeing “another thing this afternoon” is a distinct possibility at this point,
since the breaching can stop at any time. With “I don’t want to hear any
complaints” she implies that the trip has already delivered all that could be
hoped for. Hearers can assume that “pretty spectacular” refers to the series of
breaches, and not to the tail-lifting seen from the wrong position or to the
flukes display that permitted the identification. Further, “pretty spectacular”
offers passengers an assessment of what they have seen that is not built into
comments such as “This is one of the many high surface behaviors we often see
from humpback whales.” At a point that is potentially the end of the series, she
stresses the spectacular, rather than typical, character of what was seen. This
leaves the way open for the possibility that the rest of the trip might be merely
ordinary or even worse than usual.
In Extract 7, she continues to put the afternoon’s experience into perspective:
Extract 7
01 Believe me, this does not happen on every trip. Just ask the people who were out this
02 morning eh heh tsk. It’s really a special treat when you have uh, thirty tons of airborne
03 humpback whale only about fifty feet from your boat, s’uh (.) (ya=know) most people, the
04 sighting of a lifetime.
44 Peter R. Grahame
In this passage, she makes the distinction between routine and exceptional
experiences more explicit. At line 01, “this does not happen on every trip”
asserts that seeing breaching is something out of the ordinary, a thing not
usually seen. At lines 03–04, “the sighting of a lifetime” is offered as the relevant
appraisal of this experience for “most people.” This proposal has an interesting
equivocation built into it. For whale-watch staff making many dozens or
hundreds of trips, this would not be “the sighting of a lifetime” but more
appropriately “one of the many high surface behaviors we often see.” “Most
people” then, refers to the standpoint of passengers, whose time on the water
is typically brief. The thrust of Extracts 6 and 7 is to re-establish normal whale
watching—consisting of those features that are routine for trips of this kind—as
the proper frame for evaluating the events just witnessed. The term “spectacular”
(Extract 6, line 07) is reserved for sights that are not only very satisfying in
themselves but also seen as extraordinary when interpreted against the
background of what usually happens on such a trip.
Conclusion: Making whales visible

Seeing whales is the core of the whale-watch experience. Tour operators
guarantee sightings and provide naturalist-led live commentary. In effect, the
task of the naturalist is to make whales visible: to make sure they are seen and
that trip-goers get suitable views, but also to define what is being seen—to
make whales visible as a certain kind of phenomenon. While it would be
possible to provide a thick description of whale-watching activities based on
participant observation, working with audio recordings makes it possible to
study the close ordering of sighting episodes in greater detail. The episodes
analyzed in this chapter reveal both generic features and variations in the
activity of making whales visible. They demonstrate that narrative work
involves a preference for producing an orderly story that integrates routine
and probable events in the water with a more or less standard stock of
knowledge that includes attention to a range of ecological and environmental
matters, such as whale species and their adaptations, the life cycle and annual
migrations of whales, characteristics of the coastal ecosystems that serve as
whale habitats, the food chain, environmental risks and dangers, pollution,
and so on.
Narration helps to make whales the focal point of travel into a marine
environment that includes other charismatic species such as seals, sharks,
dolphins, sea turtles, and sunfish, as well as a variety of pelagic avian species
(shearwaters, gannets, petrels, etc.). Passengers who have seen representations
of whales (photos, paintings, sculptures, models, realistic toys, and the like)
may be surprised to discover that the whale’s whole body is hardly ever seen
on such trips. Therefore, seeing the whole whale cannot be a realistic goal of
sightings. Instead, the narrator directs attention to parts of the whale that
become visible momentarily at the water’s surface, including blow holes,
pectoral fins, dorsal fins, flukes, mouths, etc. In effect, watchers are challenged
to imagine the appearance of the whole whale based on such glimpses. On
some trips, the only parts seen may be dorsal fins and flukes. Consequently,
the standard narration is built around a succesion of such routine sights. The
naturalist’s work typically involves three different types of narration.
First, pointing involves directing trip-goers’ gaze to events in the water.8 The
hands of the clock or the sides of the boat are typically used to direct watchers’
gaze to a particular location in the water. Second, commenting involves defining
and evaluating what is being seen, for example a “sounding dive” or a “good
look.” Since a wide range of behaviors and sights may occur, commenting adds
meanings that in important ways go beyond just registering the appearance of
an object in the water. Note that both pointing and commenting are situation
specific: they are organized around what is being seen in the water. Third,
connecting involves drawing out relationships between what is being seen in the
water now and other matters—seasonal migrations, food sources, habitat
characteristics, conservation policies, pollution issues, population changes over
time, etc.
Connecting talk links what is being experienced locally and currently with
wider environmental concerns. In a crucial sense, cultivating environmental
insight depends on making these wider connections. In doing narration,
naturalists typically look for places where they can work some of these
connections into their talk. Ironically, the most spectacular sights are also
disruptive, and can make this kind of narrative work difficult or unmanageable.
The spectacular aspect of whale watching creates another, less noticeable
problem by reinforcing the notion that environments worth caring about are
special places apart from the mundane scenes of daily life. In this regard, the
heightened visibility of whales stands in contrast with the relative invisibility of
environmental matters closer to home (the early leaf loss of heat-stressed maple
trees, the disappearance of milkweed from the landscape, and the like). Insofar
as nature tourism focuses on spectacular species and special places, it supports
the separation of environmental matters from scenes of daily life—the parking
lot to which trip goers return, the shops selling whale paraphernalia, and the
road home to the places where most of us spend most of our time.
Notes
1 I would like to thank Brad Brewster, Tony Hak, James Heap, Doug Macbeth, Kate
Moore, Frank Nutch, Tony Puddephatt, Dorothy E. Smith, Brian Torode, and
Paul F. Wilkinson for their comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of this paper.
I would also like to thank Elora R. M. Grahame for many helpful discussions about
wildlife watching.
2 Live narration is a standard feature of whale-watch tours. The narrator may
introduce himself or herself as a “guide” or “scientist,” but “naturalist” is the most
common designation.
3 Permission to record was granted by the narrator. It is an interesting feature of
whale-watch trips that media play a prominent role. The use of cameras and other
recording devices is common. At least one operation also features a commercial
videographer who records the trip and arranges sales of the resulting videos to
46 Peter R. Grahame
passengers. It would be possible to do the kind of analysis I do here using either
amateur or commercial video recordings, although continuous recording (vs. start
and stop) is preferable. I used a small, hand-held audio recorder. Since loudspeakers
were located at different sites around the boat, I was able to both record and
participate actively in whale-watching activities, which typically involved moving
from one side of the boat to the other to follow the action.
4 Humpbacks are relatively slow moving and display a variety of conspicuous
behaviors that make them favorites with the whale-watching public.
5 Frank Nutch called my attention to the fact that the whale-watch narrator uses
“we” in different senses. I have found this a very useful point to explore, since it
references different organizations of experience that are drawn into the same activity
framework.
6 In order to make the transcript plainer, I have followed conventions of popular
orthography in rendering the long, collective gasp of amazement as
“OOOOOO↓OOOOH!” An alternative notation possibility is “OOH:::↓::::::!,”
in which the multiple colons indicate a stretching of “ooh!,” while capitalization
signifies loudness. (In both cases, the downward arrow signifies falling intonation.)
Since many common sound representations lack a standard orthography, it seems
more advisable to follow the popular convention here. I have done the same with
“Woooh!” and “Eeee!” (Extract 4, lines 06–07). In all of these cases, the repetition
of letters signifies a sound of longer duration. I would like to thank James Heap,
George Psathas, and Doug Macbeth for their very helpful suggestions regarding this
issue.
7 Another indication of the immediate and emergent character of the sighting
narration lies in the fact that in the narrator’s account Zeppelin’s gender changes
several times during the sighting sequence.
8 Some nature tours studied in the course of my fieldwork involved only pointing,
for example pointing out individual birds and providing their species names.
References
Beach, Douglas W., and Mason T. Weinrich. 1989. “Watching the Whales: Is an
Educational Adventure for Humans Turning Out to Be Another Threat for
Endangered Species?” Oceanus 32: 84–88.
Davis, Susan G. 1997. Spectacular Nature: Corporate Culture and the Sea World Experience.
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Fine, Gary A. 2003. Morel Tales: The Culture of Mushrooming. Urbana, IL: University of
Illinois Press.
Gould, Kenneth A., and Tammy L. Lewis. 2014. “The Paradoxes of Sustainable
Development: Focus on Ecotourism.” In Twenty Lessons in Environmental Sociology.
2nd ed., edited by Kenneth A. Gould and Tammy L. Lewis, 330–351. New York,
NY: Oxford University Press.
Grahame, Peter R. 1993. “Narration, Sightings, and Science in Whale Watching: A
Study in the Social Organization of Nature Experiences.” Unpublished manuscript.
Hannigan, John. 2014. Environmental Sociology. 3rd ed. London: Routledge.
Hoyt, Erich. 1984. The Whale Watcher’s Handbook. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
MacCannell, Dean. 1989. The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class. New York,
NY: Schocken.
Psathas, George. 1994. Conversation Analysis: The Study of Talk-in-Interaction. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Sacks, Harvey, Emanuel A. Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson. 1974. “A Simplest Systematics
for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation.” Language 50: 696–735.
Whelan, Tensie. 1991. “Ecotourism and Its Role in Sustainable Development.” In
Nature Tourism, Managing for the Environment, ed. Tensie Whelan, 3–22. Washington,
DC: Island Press.
3 How to climb Mount Fuji
(at your earliest convenience)
A non-representational approach
Phillip Vannini
I am no climber. Though I deeply respect and sometimes even admire the

brave souls who put their lives on the line for the sake of mountaineering glory
and obsessive goal-achievement, I have always enjoyed my mountains better
from the comfortable distance of a beer-serving hut conveniently located half-
way up a slope. This probably has a lot to do with my background. I grew up
near the Italian Dolomites and every summer my parents, friends, and I would
hike and enjoy Alpine trails almost daily. Our trips were always a perfect
combination of onus and pleasure. We would never willingly endure risk,
sacrifice, or serious challenges. We made sure to stay close to our cozy cottage
on days when the skies were cloudy, and even on the sunniest stretches of
weather we would carefully plan our outings in order to be back home by
dark, just in time for supper. While our walks might have been long at times,
our backpacks would always be filled with delicious picnic treats and our
canteens would be replenished with good-tasting spring water at every clean
creek we crossed. And we nearly always made sure to stop for ice cream on the
way home.
One year ago at the age of 40, for reasons I still cannot fully comprehend,
three friends and I decided to trek the famed West Coast Trail: a 75km-long
wilderness trail spanning a rugged section of Vancouver Island’s famed
southwest coast. As customary for the trek we packed all of our camping gear
and food supplies for six days, equipped ourselves with all the necessary safety
accessories, did a lot of background research and prepared to deal with the
weather. Though as a child I would have had a difficult time evoking my
experience in words, both my youthful Alpine hikes and my middle-aged
West Coast adventure could unsurprisingly be qualified as exhilaratingly serene,
peaceful, and sublime in the traditional Romantic sense (see Olafsdottir, 2011).
Reinvigorated by the simple pleasures of hiking and by a fully renewed sense
of mountaineering self-efficacy, only one month after my Vancouver Island
trek I set my sights for the summit of Mount Fuji. An easy-to-reach trailhead
just a couple of hours away from Yokohama—where I happened to find myself
for the 2014 International Sociological Association Conference—Mount Fuji
promised little in terms of glory but lots of potential good memories as well as
an invaluable theoretical lesson in terms of atmosphere: the subject of this
How to climb Mount Fuji (at your earliest convenience) 49
writing. In what follows I will explain what environmental atmospheres are
and reflect on the value of non-representational theory to describe and
understand them.
Non-representational theory and research at a glance

In order to better understand the three central foci of this essay, the concept of
atmosphere, the notion of convenience, and the practice of hiking I want to
turn to non-representational theory. Non-representational theory (or “more-
than-representational” theory; see Lorimer, 2005) is one of the day’s most
influential theoretical perspectives. Non-representational theory is a mosaic of
interpretive concepts borrowed from fields as different as performance studies,
material culture studies, science and technology studies, contemporary
continental philosophy, political ecology, cultural geographies, ecological
anthropology, biological philosophy, cultural studies, the sociology of the body
and emotions, and the sociology and anthropology of the senses—only to
name a few. As Lorimer (2005: 83) concisely puts it, “non-representational
theory is an umbrella term for diverse work that seeks to better cope with our
self-evidently more-than-human, more-than-textual, multisensual worlds.”
Theoretically, non-representational theory stands as a synthesizing effort to
amalgamate diverse but interrelated theoretical perspectives such as actor-
network theory, biological philosophy, neomaterialism, process philosophy,
speculative realism, social ecology, performance theory, post-structuralist
feminism, critical theory, post-phenomenology, and pragmatism. Due to its
eclectic character it is quite difficult to summarize non-representational theory’s
ideas succinctly. Thrift’s (2008) work is helpful in this regard. Thrift outlines
seven core principles, or ideal qualities, of non-representational theory. I do
not have space to discuss them all in depth, so I will only present four: those
that most closely pertain to the subject matter of this essay and book.
According to Thrift, non-representational theory’s first tenet is to “capture
the ‘onflow’ … of everyday life” (2008: 5). Life, like a single climb, is
movement. Movements of all kinds, like hiking and climbing, are profoundly
social activities which are both perceptive of the world and generative and
transformative of it (Ingold, 2011). Life is a becoming unfolding in time and
space, which is moved by the “desire to do more than simply squeeze meaning
from the world” (Thrift, 2008: 5). Non-representational theory rejects the
cognitive tendencies of radical empiricism, representational identity politics,
and the constructionist and postmodern obsession with deconstructing textual
meaning (Lorimer, 2005).
Second, non-representational theory concerns itself with action—
no matter how simple and ordinary, like sleeping in a tent for example.
Non-representational theorists are suspicious of all attempts to attach meaning
to inert things and to uncover symbolic meaning where other, more practical
forms of meaning or even no meaning at all exist. As Lorimer (2005: 84)
puts it:
50 Phillip Vannini
The focus falls on how life takes shape and gains expression in shared
experiences, everyday routines, fleeting encounters, embodied movements,
precognitive triggers, practical skills, affective intensities, enduring urges,
unexceptional interactions and sensuous dispositions. Attention to these
kinds of expression, it is contended, offers an escape from the established
academic habit of striving to uncover meanings and values that apparently
await our discovery, interpretation, judgement and ultimate representation.
Third, non-representational theory is built on the principle of relational

materialism. Material objects—like mountain huts—are no mere props for
human performance but parts and parcel of hybrid assemblages endowed with
diffused personhood and relational agency. In this sense, material objects, or
things, are to be given the same importance and attention that is given to their
human companions. Things “circulate, mix with one another, solidify and
dissolve in the formation of more or less enduring things,” writes Ingold (2011:
16). Things are not just symbolic objects; things are what they do. It is through
their qualities, movements, and force that they exert their life.
And fourth, non-representational theory stresses the importance of bodies.
Bodies are important because of their affective capacities. Affects are “properties,
competencies, modalities, energies, attunements, arrangements and intensities
of differing texture, temporality, velocity and spatiality, that act on bodies, are
produced through bodies and transmitted by bodies” (Lorimer, 2008: 552).
Non-representational theory’s attention to affect and its derivatives—moods,
passions, emotions, intensities, and feelings (Anderson, 2006)—transcends the
human, focusing on relations amidst inanimate objects, living non-human
matter, place, ephemeral phenomena, events, technologies and much more
(McCormack, 2006).
Non-representational theory’s tenets are meant to sensitize social scientists
to the fact that “they are there to hear the world and make sure that it can speak
back, just as much as they are there to produce wild ideas,” “to render the
world problematic by elaborating questions,” and to open research and
theorizing to “more action, more imagination, more light, more fun, even”
(Thrift, 2008: 18–20). But, to begin with, what exactly do non-
representationalists do? In my opinion, non-representational research is better
equipped to tackle—among a few others—the following subjects.
Firstly, non-representational research concentrates on events. Events are
happenings, unfoldings, and occurrences with a clear temporal structure, just
like a climb. Events bring forth drama and conflict, uncertainties and ways of
thinking, subjectivities, differences, and repetitions (Dewsbury, 2000). Events
are indeterminate, excessive, and irretrievable (Dewsbury, 2000) affairs whose
unfolding allows us to grasp the structures of change and the dynamics of
stability (Massumi, 2002). Accidents, predicaments, advents, transactions,
adventures, appearances, turns, calamities, proceedings, celebrations, mishaps,
phenomena, ceremonies, coincidences, crises, emergencies, episodes, junctures,
milestones, becomings, miracles, occasions, chances, triumphs and many more
events all equally reveal “the contingency of orders to morph into an explicit
concern with the new, and with the chances of invention and creativity”
(Anderson and Harrison, 2010: 19).
Secondly, non-representational research focuses on the study of relations.
Non-representational researchers believe that life arises from the entanglement
of actors—human and non-human animals, organic matter, and material
objects—with one another. Inspired by actor-network theory (e.g. Law and
Hassard, 1999), knowledge on assemblages (DeLanda, 2006) and meshworks
(Ingold, 2011), non-representational researchers study not units in controlled
isolation but rather the vital processes through which relations take place. A
relational view of the lifeworld zeros in on ecological crossroads “where many
different things gather, not just deliberative humans, but a diverse range of
actors and forces, some of which we know about, some not, and some of
which may be just on the edge of awareness” (Anderson and Harrison, 2010:
10). A climb occurring alongside other people and things is an example of a
relation.
Thirdly, non-representational research focuses on doings. The non-
representational attention to practices—from the most mundane and routine
such as walking to the most ritualized—stands in sharp contrast to other
perspectives’ preoccupation with socio-structural macro forces or individuals’
“internal” states of mind like thoughts, ideas, motivations, drives, values,
beliefs, traits, and attitudes. Non-representational researchers examine thought
exclusively in action, concentrating on un-reflexive, semi-reflexive,
un-introspective, pre-objective, and habitual actions and interactions—like
camping out, or sojourning in a mountain hut.
Fourthly, non-representational research analyzes affective resonances. Affect is
a pull and a push, an intensity of feeling, a sensation, a passion, an atmosphere,
an urge, a mood, a drive. Affect is embodied but not coterminous with the
body. Non-representational researchers find much wanting in the constructivist
techniques of “reading” the human body and its endless representations in
various media as if it were a text. Moreover, non-representational students of
affect prefer to study the unsaid and the barely sayable (see McCormack, 2002;
Stewart, 2007). Thus, non-representational researchers examine affect as a
capacity; the body’s capacity to be moved and be affected, and the body’s
capacity to move and affect other people and other things.
Lastly, non-representational researchers are keen on examining backgrounds.
Backgrounds are the sites that fall outside of common awareness, the
atmospheres we take for granted, and the places in which habitual dispositions
regularly unfold. Anderson and Harrison (2010: 8) explain that a background is
the backdrop “against which particular things show up and take on significance:
a mobile but more or less stable ensemble of practices, involvements, relations,
capacities, tendencies, and affordances.” Backgrounds are the trails our
wayfinding weaves (Ingold, 2011), the knowledge our doings enact, the
gatherings, the homes, the towns, and the spaces where ordinary affects pervade
our bodies (Stewart, 2007). Backgrounds are made up and “open to intervention,
52 Phillip Vannini
manipulation, and innovation” as well as “colonisation, domination, control,
cultivation, and intervention” (Anderson and Harrison, 2010: 10–11).
An atmosphere of convenience
At 3,776m (12,388 feet) Mount Fuji is Japan’s tallest mountain. It’s also its most
venerated. Fujisan, as it is respectfully called in Japanese, has inspired countless
generations of poets, painters, and common Japanese folk with its mist-
shrouded, iconic volcanic shape mightily overlooking some of Japan’s most
populated cities, including Tokyo. But while popular pictorial depictions and
poetic words punctually celebrate Mount Fuji as a majestic oasis of sublime
serenity, modern-day Mount Fuji is more of a tourist mecca for time-challenged
weekend hikers. Every year during July and August—the short season when
the four trails to the top are officially open—approximately no fewer than
200,000 people attempt the ascent. Broken down in average numbers this
means that about 22,000 people will be on Mount Fuji’s slope every summer
week, with most of those people concentrated during weekends, and especially
holiday weekends. Un-reflexively, I planned my climbing event precisely for
one of those dates.
One month earlier, reaching the West Coast trailhead had meant having to
wait for a bloke called Mike to give me and my three friends a ride across the
Gordon River on his dinghy boat. Things were different in Tokyo. Once I
selected which one of the dozen Keio Express daily buses leaving Shinjuku
station best suited my busy conference week schedule, all I had to do was step
inside a Lawson’s convenience store (Japan’s answer to 7–11) and grab some
cookies and a bottle of Pocari Sweat (Japan’s Gatorade); handy refreshments for
the two-and-a-half-hour bus ride to Kawaguchiko’s Subaru Line fifth station.
Mount Fuji’s summit can be reached via four trails, one on the northern
slope, one on the southern, one on the western, and one on the eastern. Each
trail is divided into “stations,” with the first station located at the very bottom
of the mountain, and the ninth station being the closest to the summit. A
station is an assemblage of different facilities. Fifth stations are by far the largest,
as they are the places from whence most people depart. Typically found at the
end of a paved road, fifths stations like the one at Kawaguchiko are home to
bus terminals, parking lots, restaurants, cafeterias, and coffee shops, as well as
convenience stores, souvenir and outdoor apparel stores, as well as
accommodation and other tourist facilities. Lower and upper stations, normally
only reached by foot, are miniature versions of fifth stations. The smallest may
include as little as a single mountain hut, which also serves as a small convenience
store, bathroom stop, and cafeteria.
The weather can be unpredictable on Mount Fuji. Having done my due
diligence I stepped off my bus at the Kawaguchiko Subaru Fifth Station
prepared in full rain gear and ankle-high climbing boots—warm, comfortable,
and ready to head out in the torrential downpour. I need not have worried so
much about proper packing, as remarkably well-stocked rental services
conveniently equipped weekend hikers with everything they could wish for:
from boots and walking sticks to backpacks and oxygen bottles. My wondering
gaze lingered especially on the latter, not without a great deal of curiosity.
Nonetheless, un-assisted (by either supplementary oxygen or last-minute rental
gear) I paid my modest park entry fee, kindly refused the gratuitous offer of a
map, and set off at 1:50pm.
No self-respecting hiker starts out at two o’clock in the afternoon, I know
(without a map to boot), but like I said I had done my due diligence. I knew
very well that it normally takes about six to eight hours to summit Mount Fuji
from the 2,305m altitude of the Kawaguchiko Fifth Station. And I knew that—
just like when I was a little kid—I could rest assured I would conveniently stop
by supper time, at the eight station, and get some shut-eye there too. I also
knew that by turning in early and waking up around 1:00am I could summit
by sunrise—a ritual absolutely de rigueur for me and my 10,000 nameless
companions. And of course I had planned my rations accordingly too: a Mars
bar at the sixth station, some more cold Pocari Sweat at the seventh station, and
whatever else I needed could be purchased at the eight station after dinner. My
biggest worry in all this, really, was to get decent-enough-quality footage to
accompany this chapter. Shot with a Fuji Film and a GoPro Hero 3 the video
can be seen at: https://vimeo.com/101804153. As my limited word allowance
here does not let me engage in much ethnographic description, I encourage
you to watch the five-minute montage for a sense of what I cannot fully
describe here.
And that is my sense of the mountain’s atmosphere. We can think of an
atmosphere as the feel of a place, its affective “vibe,” or character. More
precisely an atmosphere is a place’s transpersonal affective intensity (Anderson,
2009; Bissell, 2010; McCormack, 2008; Stewart, 2011). Atmospheres “emanate
from the ensemble of elements” that make up a place—elements that are
constantly being transformed and “taken up and reworked in lived experience”
(Anderson, 2009: 79). Two forces in particular contribute to the formation of
an atmosphere. First are the bodily practices of those who dwell within a place,
even temporarily. Atmospheres “arise within the current of their [dwellers’]
involved activity, in the specific relational contexts of their practical engagement
with their surroundings” (see Ingold, 2000: 186). And second are the
assemblages of material objects present in an environment, objects that become
entangled in complex meshworks with people and other objects (Ingold,
2011). Atmospheres are fleeting, nuanced, and somewhat ineffable—always
escaping a clear grasp (McCormack, 2008). Nonetheless atmospheres are also
quite palpable in ways that often transcend words (McCormack, 2008).
An easy way to portray the atmosphere on Mount Fuji that weekend might
be to contrast it with what I had experienced earlier in the spring on the West
Coast Trail. Over six days of walking my friends and I had encountered about
60 different individuals; roughly an average of a dozen a day or in other words
an average of less than one person per every kilometer. While the camaraderie
and companionship within our group was strong, the atmosphere of the place
54 Phillip Vannini
was characterized by a distinct sense of peace, stillness, quiet, and solitude. In
comparison, the atmosphere on Mount Fuji was frantic, busy, loud, and
chaotically urban-like—albeit, in a typically Japanese fashion, also very orderly
and organized. In other words, whereas on the West Coast Trail my friends
and I had always felt the need to be mindful, in control, and cautiously reflexive
about our navigational choices, on Mount Fuji I felt largely irresponsible of my
own movement, as if the crowded trail were a conduit I simply had to flow
within. It was as if there was almost no “wayfinding” to be done on the
mountain.
Wayfinding is a type of improvised, learn-as-you-go, exploratory movement
that depends upon the attunement of a traveller’s movements in response to
her surroundings (Ingold, 2000: 242). Wayfinding is not just about finding
your way, of course, but more broadly about drawing upon past experience,
ongoing mindfulness, and local knowledge in order to tackle challenges along
the way. The idea of wayfinding prompts us to pay attention to the sensuous
dimensions of an atmosphere. In her fieldwork among mountaineers in
Scotland, Lund (2005), for example, reflected on the ways in which walking
and climbing as kinetic and tactile practices directly contributed to the
formation of a landscape. A mountaineer getting to know the landscape, Lund
(2005) observed, is also a mountaineer learning to know oneself. Reflexive
awareness and knowledge of place are therefore an “ongoing sensual dialogue
between the surroundings and the self” (Lund, 2005: 29). While Lund’s
observations are easily extrapolated to my West Coast Trail experience, on
Mount Fuji my internal dialogue was almost mute.
Take my relation with the weather, for example. The heavy rain stopped
about one hour after I started to walk, though for another couple of hours
short-lived showers of warm mist made their way down from the sky. I
mention the wet weather because for most of the afternoon I vividly recall
preoccupying myself with making an obsessive mental census of the various
brands of backpack rain covers in front of my face. After all, that’s all I could
do. Stuck in an uninterrupted line-up while crawling up the mountain at a
snail’s pace, and unable to overtake anyone due to the width of the crowd and
the narrowness of the trail, observations of the Osprey eagle logo and competing
backpack cover brands made up most of my internal dialogue. Rather than
immersed in wayfinding I found myself people-watching, promenading along
the way on automatic pilot as if I was an urban flanêur. The differences between
a typically urban and mountain atmosphere had blurred, and while I am
perfectly aware that wayfinding can and does take place on city streets, too, I
am also convinced that the atmospheres of the two places and the types of
wayfinding they are marked by are normally quite different. Not so much on
Mount Fuji.
Stations six and station seven both unevenly sprawled across the steep
mountain slope in a terrace-like fashion, with closely clustered huts nearly
overhanging each other. I stopped at both stations for a few minutes, not so
much to rest from physical fatigue but to recuperate from the visual exhaustion
brought on by having to ensure that my stride wouldn’t cause me to trip on the
feet of the person ahead of me. Stopping for a few minutes was also a chance
to talk with people. I had to laugh when a California-born GI—together with
colleagues on a weekend off from their Okinawa base—remarked to me that
station seven felt just like Shinjuku Station. There was a lot of truth in that
exaggeration—which I later tried to depict in my video. When my conversation
with the sergeant was over, I stood up from my improvised seat on the
boardwalk floor, waited for a break in traffic to zip across to the convenience
store, and bought more Pocari Sweat. I paid a few Yen to use the washroom
(after waiting in line for ten minutes), and then joined again the hiking
line-up.
At six o’clock, as planned, I finally reached station eight, provided one of the
dozen staff with my credit card, and unloaded my backpack off my shoulders.
On the West Coast Trail turning in for the night had meant rolling out our
sleeping mats, setting up tent, lighting a fire, scrounging some food from our
constantly dwindling supplies, and finally crashing for the night in our sleeping
bags. My relation with place was different at Mount Fuji’s Subaru Line Eight
Station. Capable of accommodating 400 pax, the three-story wooden lodge
was no embodiment of luxury or comfort, but rather a quintessential
manifestation of convenience. A set dinner course (chicken curry, rice, green
tea) was provided in the small dining lounge in successive turns every twenty
minutes (with my shift punctually carried out for the scheduled 6:40–7:00 slot).
Additional drinks, alcoholic beverages, and snacks were not included in the set
price for food and lodging (roughly $100) but could be easily bought in the
lobby and store. Additional convenience items (toiletries, hiking supplies,
oxygen bottles) were also for sale—pricier than they would have been at
Shinjuku, but of similar quality. As for the bed, in order to maximize space
usage, the lodge staff had organized open sections of floor space into common
sleeping areas. A single body could occupy one seven-feet-long by four-feet-
wide tatami mat, and an extra one-half of a tatami mat could be used to lay
down one’s backpack. Check out time—and I must say I do not recall ever
seeing posted check-out time signs in West Coast Trail designated campsites—
was inflexibly set for 5:00am.
While others around me might have perceived a sense of adventure—after
all, a family’s picnic ground might very well be another family’s wilderness (see
Nash, 1982)—the atmosphere I detected was one of convenience. Convenience
is synonymous with lack of complications and a lifestyle made easy by countless
consumer products and commercial services (Shove, 2003; Warde, 1999). A
cursory analysis of the usage of the word in common parlance reveals that
convenience—as its use has evolved within consumer culture (Crowley, 2001;
Khamis, 2006)—is essentially an assemblage of values such as accessibility,
availability, affordability, speed, and ease. The convenience store with its many
convenience foods provides a good example. And so does the motel with its
drive-in functionality, inexpensive lodging, and predictable and transparent
service. Backcountry and mountain huts are also meant to be convenient. How
56 Phillip Vannini
convenient they are and the precise way in which their convenience is
assembled says a lot about the atmosphere of a place. Back on the West Coast
Trail lodging convenience had meant primitive campsites featuring a waterless
outhouse, a bear-proof latch-equipped wooden box to store food overnight,
and dry ground located higher than the highest possible tide level. Research
from New Zealand points to a similar Spartan quality of wilderness huts (Kearns
and Fagan, 2014).
The different meaning of convenience in Japanese culture, however, resulted
in a different lodging atmosphere entirely. Japanese consumer culture and
society are well known for their concern with convenience (Knight, 2010).
The thirst for convenience is arguably the outcome of a growing ethos of
“instant gratification” in Japan (Iwao, 1990: 45). Commenting on convenience
stores, Ishikawa and Nejo (2002) argue that convenience is crucial in Japan,
largely due to the time-saving value of efficient planning and one-stop shopping
for a busy population. Travel and leisure are, of course, not exempt from this.
Japanese people are known for their punctuality and high-speed mobility in a
variety of everyday life spheres ranging from public transportation to walking
speed (Levine, 2006). Japanese sightseeing tours—such as those that led the
great majority of Japanese hikers up Mount Fuji—are therefore highly
programmed and condensed events with little or no spare time for unscheduled
detours. It is no accident that the atmosphere on Mount Fuji felt busy, intensive,
and industrious as these are precisely the most typical affective characteristics of
the atmospheres of Japanese holidays (Horne, 1998; Knight, 2010). As Knight
(2010: 745) observes, “the Japanese group tour seems to approximate quite
closely to ‘McDonaldized tourism’” (see Ritzer, 1993).
During my leisure time I like to take it easy. Yet, given the traffic and the
weather reports (word had it that it would be partly sunny on the summit in the
very early morning) it made sense to get up and go after just a few ‘z’s. So, much
to my chagrin, I stepped outside the hut at an inhumane 1:05am, switched on
my headlamp, and rejoined the rocky trail. The trail up Mount Fuji—it must be
observed—isn’t the best thing for your feet. Since you are invariably walking on
lava, the trail’s best moments are the few stretches when the ground is compact
and free of lava dust, but for the most part walking is a tough battle with small
pebbles that sink under your feet and then odiously hop inside your boots with
every step (I did forget my gaiters), and larger uneven rocks that beg for your
ankles to just sprain once and for all. To compensate, park wardens have
designed a few areas where cement-like stairways make the unrelenting ascent
easier, especially around stations. Due to the disorienting lack of vegetation,
myriad yellow pointing arrows have been painted by the same staff on larger
boulders to make navigation easy. Though the easy thing, to be honest, is really
just to put your head down and stay in the queue. This strategy worked perfectly
well, even in the middle of the night, when people’s colorful headlamp lights
conveniently brightened the trail all the way to the summit.
Once past the ninth station the wind picked up and the temperature dropped
to near 0°C (32°F). About one hiker out of four at that point had started to
make use of gloves and hand-held oxygen bottles. If I hadn’t been accustomed
to the Fujian atmosphere of convenience by that point, I would have found the
practice of consuming supplementary oxygen below 6,000m quixotic, to say
the least. Yet, it made perfect sense on Mount Fuji: a fitting tool perfectly
coherent with the barbecue grills, hot pots, and the brightly neon-lit vending
machines and shops adorning the much-longed-for summit. On top of Japan at
4:15 in the morning I almost decided to fully take in the smorgasbord of
convenience myself and lined up for the pay-phone, but instead I opted to
think of home by nostalgically searching for some peace, quiet, and solitude on
the far end of the wide crater—a relatively short walk apparently out of the
reach of spent oxygen canister users. After that, it was time to head back to
the city—provided I had actually ever left it in the first place. Conveniently,
the traffic down the mountain was channeled into a dedicated trail which I
descended in three hours, and after re-arranging my return bus trip I was back
“home” in Tokyo, customarily, for supper time.
Conclusion: Doing research more-than-representationally

Throughout this chapter I have argued for the usefulness of non-representational
theory for our understanding of the atmosphere of Mount Fuji, as experienced
during that summer weekend “event.” Like all the other approaches discussed
in this book, non-representational theory is not a macro-theoretical perspective.
The non-representationalist does not study something like the atmosphere of
Mount Fuji by doing archival research from a distance or by criticizing the
alleged politico-economic collusion between nature-based tourism operators,
park administrators, and the state. Though those things may inform contextual
understanding too, as a dyed-in-the-wool ethnographer I view non-
representational theory’s focus on practices, affects, and assemblages as the
perfect excuse to go on the field and climb a mountain myself to see with my
own eyes, ears, and feet what’s going on. Yet, non-representational approaches
try to do more than just excavate meaning.
Most “micro” theoretical perspectives view the individual as a bequeather of
meaning and therefore focus their methodological approaches on deconstructing
how social agents go about attaching significance to the world. A repre
sentationalist approach, like a social constructionist one, for example, might
tackle the significance of climbing on Mount Fuji by interviewing hikers in an
attempt to understand how they attribute meaning to the mountain and the
practices unfolding therein. I purposefully did not do this. While I could have
also conducted formal interviews—a method I have used for other research
projects of mine inspired by more-than-representational theory—for this
particular project I wanted to dedicate my exclusive attention to the observation
of embodied practices. By doing so, I believe, I was able to focus on how
climbers relate to the mountain as a background of their activities.
Non-representational research is first and foremost relational research. As I
mentioned before, one of the most important research subjects of non-
58 Phillip Vannini
representational theory are backgrounds. These are notoriously difficult things
to be insightful about. Backgrounds are the most deeply taken-for-granted
filaments of our existence. They are the bricks and mortar that comprise the
structure of our ways of life. They are the shadows that follow us with every
step. We are not necessarily unaware of backgrounds but it takes an enormous
amount of critical imagination, heightened awareness, and insightful reflection
to become somewhat insightful about them. Interview questions, in my
experience, have never worked well at getting anything beyond cliché
observations about research subjects like atmospheric backgrounds.
Backgrounds, I find, are better examined by focusing on actions, on
performances, on practices. A good way to sensitize ourselves to the significance
of practices is to ask ourselves: How else could they unfold?; How else could
one act?; How else could things work? Throughout this essay, by constantly
referring to how things were different on the West Coast Trail, I have attempted
to make sense of the atmosphere on Mount Fuji.
Now, the focus of this book is on micro-theoretical perspectives, and it
might seem strange for a contributor to this book to urge caution against
methodological individualism. But caution is necessary and what I especially
wish to urge caution against is toward the mentalism and the textualism of
many micro-theoretical orientations. Take the study of convenience, for
example. From a non-representational perspective, convenience is not so much
a meaning we attach to something but rather a type of affect: an outcome of
the capacities of individuals to configure sensations and material objects to
work in a certain desired way. More precisely, convenience is best conceptualized
as an affective complex: a three-dimensional set of bodily capacities and
intensities of feeling. The first dimension is an “aesthetic sensibility” (Bissell,
2008: 1700): a judgment that comes to life through the sensing body.
Something, in other words, isn’t just convenient. Something becomes
convenient in regard to how it makes us feel when we use it. The second
dimension is an “objective capacity” (Bissell, 2008: 1700): the quality of an
object, such a mountain hut to provide comfort. Third, convenience is an
“anticipatory affective resonance” (Bissell, 2008: 1701): something that is not
always presently felt as the outcome of an immediate interaction with an object,
but also anticipated, planned, and acted toward. Convenience is, to put it in a
different way, something that calls us from afar and invites us to do things in a
certain way. Convenience is a type of affect, an openness or capacity of the
body to affect one’s environment and be affected by it. And if that is the case
then our research ought to focus “on the capabilities and capacities of individual
bodies” and objects (Bissell, 2008: 1702) and therefore on the manipulative,
transformative activities of assemblages. This means focusing on what people
do with things and what things do to people. It means observing, it means
participating. Asking questions may help too, but ultimately understanding a
background means inspecting, more than interrogating.
Environmental sociologists, I feel, would have a lot to gain by becoming
familiar with this perspective. Think for example of how the wilderness
movement began in North America. When people started to realize that the
convenience of cars, roads, lodges, and tourist facilities was stretching farther
and deeper into national parks—thus dramatically altering the ecology of a
region—activists and lawmakers began to create wilderness areas that were
inconvenient to reach and to stay within, which kept people away (Sutter,
2002). All of this meant regulating the assemblages of a wilderness area by
controlling the practices allowed therein in order to preserve a certain sense of
place, a certain affect, and a certain atmosphere. Convenience and comfort play
an equally important role in shaping consumption habits and relations with an
environment in many other important contexts. Of course, it is important to
realize that non-representational or more-than-representational theories are
not ideal for the study of every subject. As indicated above, the theory’s focus
on relations (like the rapport among hikers, and between hikers and a mountain),
on events (like my 20-hour climb), doings (the myriad things people do on the
face of a mountain), and backgrounds (like the atmosphere of a place) is what
made this particular theory efficient for me in this case. So it may or may not
work for you. You will just have to try.
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518–527.
4 Negotiating identity,
valuing place
Enacting “earthcare” and social
justice at Finca La Bella, Costa Rica
Stella M. Čapek
It’s hard to take a stand today, because nobody is standing still.

(Wildcat, 2013)
One who has grown up in San Luis can never feel at home anywhere else.
(Gilberth Lobo)1
How do ecological identity, place, and emotion come together in an

increasingly globalized world? There is no one answer to this question, but an
environmental microsociology approach offers useful insights into the
increasingly complex interweave of identity and place. To illustrate, I draw on
a case study of the Finca La Bella project in north-central Costa Rica. This
unusual piece of land is an ongoing experiment in socio-ecological change and
the product of a long-term transnational collaboration. While macro-level
sociological theories focus on the large-scale flows that shape global patterns of
social interaction (economic, demographic, political, and other), a micro-level
interactionist perspective illuminates how those patterns look and are negotiated
in the face-to-face spaces of everyday life. Here, I consider the usefulness of a
“sociology of emotions” framework for understanding how the emotion of
hope is sustained in small interactional spaces, becoming a “renewable energy”
resource for community change and ecological awareness (Collins, 1990;
Jasper, 2011; Summers-Effler, 2002). This has particular significance given the
intertwined nature of social and ecological sustainability. I also note the
emergent meanings of the project for key participants. More broadly, I consider
Anthony Giddens’ (1990) notion that modernization and globalization
increasingly disembed (uproot) us from local places, but that we are also
“re-embedded” in new ways as time and space are rearranged in our everyday
experience.
Finca La Bella (hereafter referred to as FLB) is located near San Luis, a small
town on the slopes of the Tilarán Mountains, just below the world-renowned
Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve (MCFP). Formed in the early 1990s, FLB
emerged through collaboration between local San Luiseños, the Quaker
community in Monteverde, and the US-based Friends Committee on Unity
62 Stella M. Čapek
with Nature (FCUN, currently known as Quaker Earthcare Witness, QEW).2
Bucking the trend toward luxury tourist developments, the approximately
122-acre territory preserves land for small farmers who were losing access to
their livelihoods through growing concentration of land ownership. Set up to
accommodate 24 families, it contains variegated small farm production,
reforestation projects, some ecotourism venues, and a “commons” that
preserves forested acreage.3 Combining social justice and sustainable ecological
practice, FLB’s founders staked out a physical and symbolic space that
simultaneously resists and participates in the swirling currents of globalization.
This chapter shows how the FLB vision benefited from a synergy between
a Quaker “emotion culture” (Taylor, 2013) that cultivated respect for dialogue
and “active listening” (including the presence of nature), and local San Luiseños’
cooperative traditions and know-how arising out of a history of previous social
change efforts. While there are other stakeholders, these groups—especially
FCUN—gave FLB its particular imprint. I emphasize key symbolic roles played
by a number of individuals, including Ann Kriebel, a young US Quaker
woman whose global search for identity, gift for community organizing, and
love of nature served as a catalyst for socio-environmental change. Although
she died before it could be realized, the land trust project was carried on in her
name (the Finca La Bella/Ann Kriebel Project). My discussion focuses on the
many layers of social interaction that led up to FLB’s creation, and concludes
with some comments on its present state. FLB represents the convergent
journeys—inner and outer, disembedded, re-embedded—of a variety of
individuals and social groups, all of whom were seeking a place to live a
sustainable life, and some of whom especially valued an ecological identity.4
My case study invites broader reflection on transnational “place making” and
its relationship to self and nature in the contemporary world.
Research methods
My qualitative study is based on interviews, participant observation in San Luis
and Monteverde, and a wide variety of other data. This includes newspaper
articles, newsletters, correspondence, legal documents, photographs, songbooks,
minutes of meetings, oral history collections, websites, and other miscellaneous
materials. My research began in 2007 when I came to the University of Georgia
campus at San Luis de Monteverde to teach a sociology class through Hendrix
College. Since FLB was located nearby, I met some of its participants and
became intrigued with the story, researching it first as a teaching example. My
students and I participated in ecotours to specific projects at FLB and some
students volunteered their labor. During subsequent visits in 2008, 2010, and
2015 I conducted on-site interviews in Costa Rica and phone interviews with
US Quakers involved with FLB through FCUN/QEW. My ongoing project
includes follow-up interviews and email updates when I am not in Costa Rica.
The current sample of 25 interviews includes FLB landholders as well as persons
who were historically—or are presently—involved in some capacity with FLB.5
Negotiating identity, valuing place 63
Why Quakers?
Monteverde was established by US Quakers in 1951. In 1949, four young
Quaker men in Fairhope, Alabama were sentenced to a year and a day in
federal prison for refusing to register for the draft after the US passed the 1948
Universal Military Training Act. Although paroled early for good behavior,
they decided, along with some other members of the Quaker community
(eleven families), to leave the United States to look for a place where they
could live their values (Jimenez, 2013). The search for good land in a stable
political environment eventually led them to the fertile valleys and mountaintops
of north-central Costa Rica. President José Figueres had recently abolished the
country’s army, stating that “Militarism is as grave a danger as Communism”
(Mendenhall, 2001: 13).The Quakers purchased approximately 3,400 acres in
the mountainous Guacimal River watershed, buying out any previous residents
as part of the agreement. They named their community “Monteverde” (Green
Mountain), and divided up the property, reserving a third of it as forest to
protect the watershed.6 They built houses and a cheese plant, a power plant, a
store, and other structures (Trostle, 2001: 9). The cheese factory created a
source of revenue for them and provided employment for local farmers,
stimulating dairy production in the San Luis Valley.
Many decades later, Quaker conservation practices helped to lay the
groundwork for what would become the Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve
(MCFP) in 1972.7 The MCFP became an internationally known travel
destination for scientists and others due to the variety of animal and plant
species preserved there. Increasing tourism created a paradox for the Monteverde
Quakers. They had come there to live a simple life, yet their settlement
contributed both to land preservation and the ensuing tourism-based
development that reduced available land for local farmers. Quakers later played
a crucial role in helping small farmers in San Luis to get access to land through
the FLB project.
Although only a few of the original Quaker families remain in Monteverde,
the Quaker presence and influence is still visible (Stocker, 2013) amid an
expanding community of “retired persons, artists, biologists, and farmers and
volunteers” (Trostle, 2001: 9). As one resident recently put it, “The Quaker
community had a very profound impact on the community because of their
philosophy of peace” (Schuessler, 2015). Their history of participation is
inscribed on the landscape and local institutions like the CoopeSanta Elena,
a cooperative formed by local people after Cecil Rockwell—one of the
original Monteverde Quakers—retired and sold his grocery store in 1971. It
was later expanded to a savings and loan, a hardware/feed store, coffee
production and processing, and a women’s craft cooperative (Guindon et al.,
2001; VanDusen, pers. comm.).8 Current FLB resident Gilberth Lobo recalls
that the Coope increased social interactions between Monteverde and San
Luis:
64 Stella M. Čapek
More and more Quakers became affiliated with the Coope and began to
hear more about what was going on in San Luis … Due to the new
relationship, the Quakers would come to social gatherings in San Luis. For
example there were square dances in a green field, where afterward the
grass was worn away by dancing … A Quaker woman married a San Luis
man, and young people would come to San Luis for social activities.
(Lobo, 2008)
These social networks brought Ann Kriebel to the San Luis Valley, and crucially
shaped the FLB story.
Why emotions?
Just as Finca La Bella is a physical space, it is a field of convergent meanings,
both individual and collective; it brings together emotions, identity, and place
in a global context (Low and Lawrence-Zúñiga, 2003). The dream of a piece
of land that could provide a livelihood for small farmers originated in the hearts
of San Luiseños as well as in the transnational search by Quakers (especially
FCUN) for viable lifestyles and projects that would promote social and
ecological justice. My case study explores how an ecological identity can be
linked to a creative sense of personhood in a global context, despite the
disruptions and uprootings of what Giddens (1990) calls “late modernity.” Key
social actors like Ann Kriebel not only forged a collective spirit of solidarity,
but also a meaningful personal identity in the context of global social change.
Social movements scholar James Jasper (1997: 136) observes that “less directly,
doing the right thing is a way of communicating, to ourselves as well as others,
what kind of people we are.” In essence, personal identity is “craft[ed] over
time, by making choices large and small.” A micro-level symbolic interactionist
approach (Mead, 1934; Cooley, 1902) is especially well suited for observing
this process. It also helps to explain successful outcomes in San Luis, as both
local and “re-embedded” knowledge helped reintegrate self and place in a new
(and emotionally resonant) context.
To understand how FLB became possible, I highlight the interactional
spaces that energized the emotion of hope and opened the door to socio-
ecological innovation. From a sociology of emotions perspective, hope is not
an individual emotion, but one that is interactively shaped by social context
(Barbalet, 2002; Denzin, 1983; 1984; Flam and King, 2005; Gordon, 1981;
Hochschild, 1983; Jasper, 2011; Stets and Turner, 2008). Norman Denzin
(1983: 407) proposes that the sociology of emotions “must begin with the
study of selves and others, joined and separated in episodes of co-present
interaction.” He notes that emotionality is a central feature of understanding
and interpretation, and is “interwoven through the acts that connect a subject
to others and to herself” (Denzin, 1984: 241). Likewise, it “lifts ordinary
people into and out of themselves in ways that they cannot ordinarily achieve”
(1984: 278).
This chapter draws only selectively from a larger sociology of emotions
literature, sidestepping some of the numerous debates in the field and focusing
on what most usefully sheds light on the FLB case (Becker, 1986). I turn
especially to social movement scholarship on the essential role of emotions in
building “cultures of solidarity” (Fantasia, 1988, cited in Taylor and Whittier,
1995). Although the struggle for land in San Luis lacks the imprint of the
dramatic confrontations associated with some social change movements—it
could be better conceived as a moving dialogue between key groups in the
community—as an organized effort for change, it lends itself to a social
movements interpretation. Taylor and Leitz (2010: 268) point out that
emotional bonds formed through ongoing interaction, and the ability to
construct “new emotional framings, labels, and identities” are crucial elements
in social change (Taylor and Rupp, 2002; Goodwin, Jasper, and Polletta, 2001;
Taylor, 2013). Moreover, emotions “are part of a flow of action and interaction,
not simply the prior motivations to engage or the outcomes that follow”
(Jasper, 2011: 297).
From a somewhat different direction, Randall Collins’ (1990) work on
“ritual interaction chains” usefully distinguishes between transient emotions and
sustained emotional energy; the latter, he claims, is nourished or depleted
depending on social position and social interaction, particularly micro-level
interactions that infuse participants with a sense of belonging, a common focus,
and emotional energy. Building on Collins’ theory, Erika Summers-Effler
explores how, for those in socially disadvantaged positions, “the emotional
energy scales [can be] be tipped so that participation in resistance is more
attractive than the rewards of submitting to the status quo” (2002: 55). She
suggests that as a new collective identity emerges, “feelings of anticipation and
hope, when supported by a regular interaction ritual, become a feedback loop
of high emotional energy” (2002: 54). Sometimes enhanced by charismatic
leaders, this durable energy provides “alternatives to the dominant culture for
forming community and making meaning for one’s life” (2002: 54). It also
fuels a more agentic and hopeful “imagined future self” (Wiley, 1994, cited in
Summers-Effler, 2002: 54).
While some might critique Summers-Effler and Collins for overemphasizing
“emotional contagion,” their work usefully spotlights the key role of emotions
in social change. From small signals of body language to more explicit verbal
messages, emotional communication and self-communication are essential to the
interpretive process that supports or inhibits change. Emotionality need not
cancel out rationality; indeed, its interweaving with cognitive reasoning is
particularly intriguing for social change researchers. Summers-Effler’s concept of
high emotional energy feedback loops directs our attention to the repeated small
face-to-face encounters that sustained hope for a better future in San Luis. Ann
Kriebel—building on her Quaker identity and her transnational social change
experience—was especially successful at co-creating such interactional spaces.
While not underplaying the impact of local San Luiseños, I give special
attention to the Quaker role in nurturing cultures of solidarity. Jasper (1997:
66 Stella M. Čapek
156) claims that social movements rest ultimately on the “sensibilities” of their
participants, that is, the capacity to respond emotionally. Although Quakers are
associated primarily with the image of silent worship, some scholars (Dutton,
2013; Plüss, 2007) emphasize the prominence of emotions. Without idealizing
or homogenizing variable Quaker practices, one can argue that they have in
common the relative absence of hierarchy, the act of careful listening to one’s
inner voice, respecting the voices of others, and the cultivation of an active and
receptive silence in which new emotions—such as compassion—can emerge.
Most Quakers embrace some version of the doctrine of “inner light,” the idea
that God can speak through anyone (although this is subject to and interpreted
through community dialogue). Truth, therefore, is discovered interactionally
(Cox, n.d.). The slow, percolating, spacious rhythm of communication at a
Quaker meeting protects against impulsiveness, and encourages deliberation
and inclusivity. While slow pace and avoidance of confrontation can have a
dysfunctional side (Howard, 1992), it tends to foster positive emotional
connection. Bearing witness, or “letting your life speak” by taking action
against injustice, is also valued (Palmer, 2000). I will show how Quaker
involvement generated resources (financial and emotional) that sustained hope
for change, and helped all of the stakeholders navigate the highly challenging
territory of transnational collaboration over an extended period of time. More
specifically, FCUN—the subcommunity of Quakers that made a case for
“earthcare” as an essential part of Quaker witness—raised the visibility of
socio-ecological justice while fostering a socially inclusive process.
Finally, this chapter incorporates episodes of intense emotional connection
with “nature” and place. Some environmental sociologists have explored
aspects of identity and nature (Brewster and Bell, 2010; Čapek, 2006; Fine,
1998, Weigert, 1997; Zavestoski, 2003, among others), and Weigert in
particular raises the possibility of “nature” as an agentic, dialogical partner.
However, with some exceptions, emotion is not usually the central feature of
these discussions.9 I purposely include “nature” in the San Luis Valley as a
presence with interactive potential and emotional significance.
The struggle for land

The San Luis Valley’s deeper ecological story begins with the volcanoes that
folded its landscape into a multitude of steep but fertile valleys, creating both
opportunities and obstacles for local community development. In the early
twentieth century, “grabbing rights” allowed settlers to relocate there when
land elsewhere became scarce, and subsequent laws encouraged “improvements”
like clearing land for agriculture, leading to extensive deforestation (Vivanco,
2006). Small-scale subsistence farming was typical in the San Luis Valley,
combined with foods gleaned from the forest.10 For most, it was a hard life. By
the 1980s, one man, Ramón Brenes, owned most of the land. Brenes was a
businessman and a coffee farmer with a variety of enterprises in the region.
Small farmers worked for him as seasonal laborers and tried to survive on very
meager resources for the rest of the year. Without land and alternative work
choices, they experienced widespread poverty.
Efforts were made to address the land shortage. The Associación de
Desarrollo Integral de San Luis (the San Luis Development Association, formed
in 1978) unsuccessfully sought federal assistance to acquire land for a cooperative
agricultural project (Lobo, 2008). They turned next to CoopeSanta Elena for
help negotiating a land purchase from Brenes. However, he was interested in
selling only large parcels: “In other words, the answer was no—we didn’t have
the money for that. Another bucket of cold water was poured on the project.
For a time, there was a lack of motivation” (Lobo, 2008). Gilberth Lobo recalls
that Ann Kriebel’s work with the community in the early 1980s was a catalyst
for change:
One of the young [Quaker] women played the guitar and sang about
protecting the mountains and the forests, and about conservation. Her
name was Ana Kriebel. She was involved in adult literacy programs.
Eugenio [Vargas] picked her up on horseback, and took her around to
teach people to read and write. More importantly, she realized that young
people and women weren’t involved in community development
decisions, and she tried to involve them more, to give them a positive
attitude … She realized that there was a problem of concentration of land,
and helped to motivate the neighbors.
(Lobo, 2008)
Collaborative social spaces: Ann Kriebel’s story

When Ann Kriebel arrived in Monteverde to teach at the community school,
she embodied a multi-generational Quaker family tradition. A graduate of
Earlham College, she volunteered in Mexico through the American Friends
Service Committee, and was influenced by Brazilian educator Paulo Freire’s
dialogical teaching style. Fluent in Spanish, with a gift for writing and
performing songs as well as community organizing, she was a natural bridge-
builder between “the North American Quakers and their Costa Rican
neighbors” (Balderston, n.d.: 5). Although she went back for a time to teach
Spanish-speaking adults in the US, she returned to Monteverde, preferring
“the sense of community … and a less commercial life; but especially, she
knew she wanted to have more contact with nature” (Balderston, n.d.: 5).
Seeking a social change project, Ann was introduced to Eugenio Vargas, the
great-grandson of Ramón Leitón, one of the earliest settlers in San Luis (Vargas,
2008a). Eugenio had attended the Monteverde Friends School, and was
influenced by his parents’ and grandfather’s community involvement, as well as
teachers at the Quaker school and priests from Latin America who promoted a
social justice message through Catholicism (Vargas, 2010). He introduced Ann
to local families and helped her discover their needs and interests (Vargas
2008b).This led to a fruitful collaboration (Guindon, 1996; Moss, 2015). Ann
68 Stella M. Čapek
successfully applied for a stipend from the Right Sharing of World Resources
Quaker organization, and she and Eugenio began an adult literacy project that
created new types of inclusive space—arguably a missing ingredient in earlier
social change efforts.
Besides teaching literacy, Ann encouraged people to tell stories of their lives,
which she and Eugenio collected and shared through a newsletter, Voces del
Valle (Voices of the Valley).11 It included descriptions, personal stories,
drawings, poems, and reflections on the hopes and challenges of living in San
Luis (Voces del Valle, 1983; Vargas, 2008b). The literacy project invited people
to see the value of their lives while sharing experience with others. Ann
commented that, “Wonderful and beautiful things are coming out as people
recount their lives and struggles. Some bring tears to my eyes. People seem
proud of their pasts and eager to tell their stories—and each one is so unique”
(Friends Committee on Unity with Nature [FCUN], n.d.: 10).
The literacy project led to other collaborations. Responding to requests,
Ann co-organized classes in women’s homes, including cooking and craft
classes. Building on the intimacy of face-to-face interactions, the classes
provided women with skills for selling their crafts. Other classes focused on
health care, including breast feeding and birth control. Ann remarked that, “It’s
the first time that the San Luis women have had something of their own. They
are basically invisible when it comes to committee meetings, etc., and never
have organized themselves in any way” (n. a., 1983). Socializing and learning
together led to shared conversations about the situation of families without
land and how to remedy the problem. These social networks opened up other
interactional spaces—sports, the revival of a local fiesta celebrating San Luis’s
history, multiple community service projects, music and performed skits,
and—a subject close to Ann’s heart—ecological education (FCUN, n.d.: 11;
n.a. 1983). From a sociological perspective, it is not difficult to see a feedback
loop of high emotional energy (Summers-Effler, 2002) emerging through
these small-group interactions. For example, as women (and others) gained
new skills and were able to share them interactively through regular small
group encounters, their “socially mirrored” selves (Cooley, 1902) reflected
back new possibilities, changing their view of themselves, their community
participation, and their future hopes. Situated in everyday encounters, these
processes percolated through the community.
Ann’s collaborative style greatly facilitated these interactions. Her Freirean
approach dovetailed with the Quaker practice of careful listening, dialogue,
and egalitarianism. She valued simplicity, defining it as “a richness of spirit, a
joy in living, the nurturing of creativity, sensitivity to the natural world, and
love for all its creatures,” and inseparable from social justice (FCUN, n.d.: 9).
Like other Quakers, she did not proselytize, but rather encountered people
“where they were.” San Luiseños respected her for being humilde, humble, a
cherished local value (Vargas, 1984; Palmer, 1983). They also saw her as an
instigator of fun. Writing and performing songs on her guitar and dulcimer, she
encouraged lively group participation. Her lyrics focused on ecology, social
Figure 4.1 Ann Kriebel singing with the community, San Luis, 1983
Courtesy of Katy VanDusen
justice, and life in San Luis, with inspiring and often humorous words about
arriving at solutions together—whether solving a math problem or building a
better future (Kriebel, 1983). With Eugenio and other collaborators (many of
them recruited from classes), she invented a wide variety of engaging activities
that nurtured enthusiasm and hope, creating a ripple effect in the community.
Land scarcity—tied to so many other problems—became the focus of Ann
and Eugenio’s efforts. Reviving the quest for an agricultural cooperative, they
organized visits to the oldest surviving land cooperative in Costa Rica (Land,
1984). San Luiseños gained the knowledge and confidence to successfully
petition Brenes for some land for a community vegetable garden. Eugenio
recalled that men, women, and children came on Saturdays to cultivate it, and
that the experience of working together began to change people’s imaginations
about what was possible, especially in a local culture where Ramón Brenes was
the main model (Vargas, 2008b). This illustrates how social innovation often
“takes place offstage, in apparently quiet periods, as ideas circulate and new
forms of living are tried” (Jasper, 1997: 65). As the community socialized one
Sunday after attending mass, two brothers, Juan and Ovidio Leitón, offered use
of their land on a farm they were unable to work (Lobo, 2008). Thus, the “El
Buen Amigo” [Good Friend] agricultural cooperative was born. A predecessor
to FLB, it lasted for approximately fifteen years, and involved between ten and
fifteen families, including Eugenio’s (Evans, 2008; Lobo, 2008; Vargas, 2008b).
Despite many positive accomplishments, it was privatized and dissolved around
the year 2000, and embodied some cautionary lessons that later influenced the
design of FLB (Lobo, 2010).
70 Stella M. Čapek
Ann Kriebel did not live to see these outcomes. In November 1983 she
wrote: “Winds of major change are blowing as we begin to explore possibilities
for agrarian reform in San Luis” (Land, 1984). Shortly after that, she became ill
after being bitten by a squirrel while trying to rescue it from a dog. Friends
took her to a hospital, but shockingly, she died within two weeks. She was
only 28 years old. The outpouring of sorrow and appreciation from the San
Luis and Monteverde Quaker communities revealed her significance to local
residents. At her funeral, her love for the valley and for San Luis, her spirituality,
her enlivening music, and her commitment to bettering people’s lives were
honored by many of her students and others (Palmer, 1983). One of her
obituaries read: “She was not from our country, nor of our same religion, but
her life caused us to feel that she was a sister, a daughter, a mother; our best
friend, our compañera” (Vargas, 1984). Many spoke up about the importance of
continuing her work.12
Ann was far from a celebrity in the sense emphasized by social movement
scholars (Gamson, 1994; Jasper, 1997). She had no interest in being viewed as
a saint or “put on a pedestal” (Guindon, 2008). Yet she was charismatic, and,
as noted earlier, fueled important “emotional energy feedback loops” during
her approximately one and a half years in San Luis. Her life continued to
connect people after she died..Her funeral brought her parents and other
Quaker acquaintances to San Luis, and a fund was created to support Buen
Amigo. As her story circulated through the international Quaker community,
the micro-level interactional spaces that eventually generated FLB became
increasingly transnational, and the dialogue more explicitly ecological.
Identity, place, and emotion: “Earthcare” in a

transnational context
Permitime una pregunta Permit me to ask a question
Bella tierra San Luiseña. Beautiful land of San Luis
Me la podes contestar bien bajito You may answer me quite softly
Porque estoy escuchando… Because I am listening…
(Ann Kriebel, Voces del Valle13)
The poem excerpt above, written by Ann Kriebel in the form of a conversation
with the San Luis Valley, suggests deliberate quiet listening and a strong
emotional connection to nature. In Ann’s writing, the earth is a tangible, living
presence. From a symbolic interactionist perspective, her dialogue with this
place was part of an evolving sense of self, pieced together from her Quaker
culture and experiences in different geographical locations. Giddens (1990)
claims that modernization and globalization tear us away from a deeply rooted
identity tied to a specific place. Is a meaningful ecological identity possible,
given such mobile, uprooted lives? Giddens also concedes that late modernity
can facilitate “re-embedding,” as knowledge gained elsewhere can be put to
use to enhance local spaces. Ann Kriebel’s story suggests a global traveler who
found a place that elicited a deep emotional connection and—even if
temporarily—offered meaningful self-realization through nature and social
interaction. Sociologist Paula Palmer—who worked in Costa Rica and
corresponded with Ann about participatory education—commented that “the
‘rightness’ of Ann in that landscape was pure joy to see.” She also observed that
“this process was self-discovery for us, too, and rich beyond our ability to
express it” (Palmer, 1983, 2009).
In 1991, another global traveler came to San Luis, and building on all that
came before, helped sow the definitive seed for FLB. A Quaker tour brought
FCUN members Bill and Alice Howenstine to Monteverde. Bill Howenstine
taught environmental studies and had worked with development programs in
Mexico, Peru, and the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Kentucky
(Howenstine, 2010). Like Ann Kriebel, his identity was shaped by Quaker
values, experience drawn from a variety of places, and an eagerness to
“re-embed” this knowledge in a local project. He and his wife had a long
tradition of “living on the land” and a commitment to socio-ecological
sustainability. Their visit to the San Luis Valley was a quietly powerful face-to-
face (and face-to-place) encounter. In a subsequent letter, he described the
“marvelous views of the valley below and the mountains around” as they heard
about the Buen Amigo cooperative. At the San Luis Community Center, they
listened to Eugenio, Gilberth, and others who spoke eloquently about
challenges of land scarcity in San Luis. They also heard the story of Ann Kriebel.
Howenstine recalled, “We were all deeply impressed with the obvious impact
that Ann Kriebel had had on San Luis … The story, the discussion, the friendly
community, and the very presence of the valley brought a number of things
into focus and led to this [FLB] vision” (Howenstine, 1991).
The visitors learned that conservationists wanted to expand the MCFP.
Aware that nature preserves often displace vulnerable human populations, and
that the Quaker presence in Monteverde had inadvertently driven up land
prices, Howenstine had an inspiration that quickly found strong support among
the tour group. He would propose to the Monteverde Friends Meeting that a
fund be established “in honor of Ann Kriebel, for land purchase and community
development in the San Luis Valley, to complement the acquisition of additional
land for the cloud forest reserve” (Howenstine, 1991). A convergence of
symbolic meanings favored FLB’s creation: Howenstine saw it as a “Monteverde
miniature” of global sustainability practices (FCUN, n.d.: 15); San Luiseños
saw it as a culmination of many years of previous education, organizing, and
community building addressing land scarcity (Vargas, 2008b); and FCUN
envisioned it as “a tribute to a young Quaker who believed in Simplicity” and
“a symbol of their testimony for an earth restored” (FCUN, n.d.: 15). There
was also some urgency, since foreign developers were interested in buying land
in San Luis, driving up its cost. After careful deliberation, the Monteverde
Friends Meeting and FCUN at its annual meeting endorsed the FLB proposal,
and energetic fundraising began. Reassured through follow-up visits and letters
72 Stella M. Čapek
that the Quaker and San Luis communities were in agreement, FCUN arranged
in 1993 to purchase land from the Brenes family through the CoopeSanta
Elena. The Finca La Bella/Ann Kriebel Project was born.
Negotiating the reality of FLB

Space constraints permit only a brief summary of the process—an intricate
story in itself—that has worked out FLB’s principles and practices. Besides farm
production, the FLB vision included community development through a
school and health clinic and the development of common areas such as
playgrounds and a community center. FLB was modeled on a land trust—
typically involving a nonprofit organization (the Coope, and later the
Monteverde Institute) to purchase and own land, while participants own what
they produce and build on the land, holding long-term leases. This significantly
reduces costs for participants and prevents land from being broken up and sold
by individuals. A representative committee was set up to oversee planning for
the project, and a selection process devised to choose parceleros (landholders)
(Evans, 2008; Jiménez, 2015).14 In 1995, the first ten families were selected:
There were no titles or deeds, so, unlike Buen Amigo, they couldn’t sell.
They had a 25 year lease, renewable to any member of the family. There
was the opportunity to live on and work the land. The forest areas were
the commons (patrimonia), a protected area for the whole. Each farmer had
to do his part to protect it. No use of dangerous chemicals was permitted,
only when absolutely necessary. There was no hunting, no burning. There
were many requirements. Every family signed with the Coope Santa
Elena, the “new original owner.” It owned all the land, so that it couldn’t
be broken up and sold.
(Lobo, 2008)
For many, receiving land in FLB was a life-changing experience. As Ersi Leitón
Cubero commented, “For me, for us, my life has totally changed” (Goldberg
and Payne, 2007). Having land made it easier to better the lives of one’s
children, a strongly held local value. Parcelero Gilberth Lobo commented that,
“Getting a parcel here was like winning the lottery.” He added, “If the
regulations were no longer required I would continue to follow the rules. It’s
a wise philosophy. I’m not a Quaker, but I believe that land is not
commercializable. I work it with much care. One can’t look for large benefits
right away” (Lobo, 2008).
Transnational interactional spaces remained significant. For example,
Gilberth and Eugenio traveled to the 1996 FCUN/QEW annual meeting to
meet face-to-face with the US Quakers and to report on FLB’s progress.
Howenstine recalls how, in a space set up to accommodate quiet listening,
dialogue, and translation, Gilberth spoke about the beauty of the land and how
much it meant to him to have a home there, using a plantain tree as a symbol:
His message was about the unity of the universe, an ecology lesson
wrapped in spirituality. Those of us who couldn’t understand his Spanish
could share his emotions, expressed in his face and in his voice … When
[a QEW member] raised her hand to respond in appreciation … the
words were in English, to be translated into Spanish, but again the depth
of meaning was conveyed by the expression of her face, her voice, and
the tears in many eyes. The sharing of these passionate messages bridged
our two cultures and honored the spirit of Ann Kriebel, which surely was
with us.
(Howenstine, 2005)
This strong emotional bond, cultivated with care over time and space, sustained
the FLB project through often complex negotiations.
Not surprisingly, challenges surfaced as “earthcare” was enacted in practice.
Although the land trust idea was generally respected, some parceleros found it
unrealistic (Salazar, 2010). Eugenio Vargas explained that, “With this history
we had, it is difficult to accept that one can’t sell his or her land” (Vargas,
2010). A land trust is a technical term for an economic arrangement, but it also
names an emotion, a feeling of confidence that makes that arrangement
possible. With no other examples of agricultural land trusts in Costa Rica, San
Luiseños had no experience with this legal structure, and despite efforts at
clear communication, it was not well understood by all (VanDusen, pers.
comm.). Individual acreage was small, and relationships with the non-profit
organization were sometimes strained. While many residents flourished, some
had to leave the project. Later participants were often more distanced from the
original socio-ecological goals, or had more financial resources to pay for
existing improvements, creating differences in the community (Lobo, 2015;
Vargas, 2015). Parceleros also discovered that under Costa Rican law, lack of a
clear title impeded financial assistance for building homes (Evans, 1997) and
access to road improvements (Salazar, 2010; VanDusen, 2010). FCUN urged
the CoopeSanta Elena and the FLB Commission “to seek expert legal help”
to create a solution that could “simultaneously provide protection for the
Finca, while strengthening the ability of the parceleros to build homes”
(Howenstine, 1997).
FCUN/QEW has remained actively involved for many years. Members
made numerous donations to support the project and repay the loan that the
Coope took on (Swennerfeldt, 2010). The organization also sponsored
follow-up trips for environmentally oriented Quakers as well as ongoing
cultural “intervisitation and networking” between San Luis, Monteverde, and
FCUN in Canada and the US (Howenstine, 1997). For three years FCUN also
paid expenses for parceleros to come to the US and Canada to observe different
models for sustainable agricultural practices, including marketing and
distribution (Swennerfeldt, 2010). FLB parcelero Oldemar Salazar affirmed the
usefulness of these experiences, which benefited his ecotourism project and
gave him knowledge to share with other Costa Rican farmers about best
74 Stella M. Čapek
practices (Salazar, 2010). FCUN also sponsored periodic Quaker “workcamps”
to help with whatever needed to be done at FLB. Volunteers, including
students, were hosted in local homes, contributing to a feeling of closeness
between visitors and residents. Nevertheless, not having a day-to-day local
involvement with FLB made it difficult for QEW “to discern an appropriate
way forward” (Os Cresson, pers, comm.). A land trust structure also presented
legal difficulties. For example, Costa Rican law allows individuals to gain title
to land after a certain number of years when they are not charged rent or
evicted. Recognizing the need for change, QEW’s Finca La Bella Committee
(2011) sent a letter to the parceleros stating that, “We … believe decisions about
the future of Finca La Bella are up to you” and “need not be limited by wishes
of the original donors.” QEW also offered to assist with legal costs related to
the land titles.
In a deeply symbolic moment, the Howenstines and others from QEW
visited San Luis and FLB with their children and grandchildren in 2013. They
had stayed in touch over the years and hosted some of the parceleros at their
Illinois farm. At a community dinner hosted by 60 FLB members, the group
looked back at what had been accomplished. The land, once eroded and
deforested, was populated by trees used for windbreaks, fruit cultivation, and
wildlife habitat, interspersed with homes, vegetable gardens, and small farm
plots. Many lives had been enhanced by the project. After much deliberation,
a representative commission of FLB stakeholders had negotiated an agreement
to pass the land title from the Monteverde Institute to the parceleros.15 They will
receive individual titles to their land, but conservation easements will remain
in place on designated portions of forested land owned by the parceleros’
nonprofit association. A QEW newsletter commented that although some
parts of the future were uncertain, “This is a wonderful outcome for a project
as complex as this one” (Cresson, 2013).16 When the land is transferred, social
relationships will likely remain, but the Monteverde Institute will relinquish its
oversight, and QEW and the Monteverde Friends Meeting will no longer have
a formal relationship with FLB (VanDusen, pers. comm.).
Some parceleros are deeply committed to the original socio-ecological vision,
and plan to maintain their residence and projects, passing the land down to
their children. A concern exists that some others will sell their land for “quick
money,” leaving them landless, and undermining community. Others feel
optimistic that most FLB land will stay “in the family” and that new residents
will buy into the ecological vision.17 It remains to be seen how FLB will stand
up to intense global economic pressure placed on land and lives in the San Luis
Valley, and how creative local responses may feed into socio-ecological
sustainability.
Conclusions
What does the FLB case study gain from a “sociology of emotions” and
environmental microsociology perspective? Unlike macro-level perspectives, a
micro-level approach allows us to highlight the key emotion of hope and to
trace how it emerges and is sustained both locally and globally in specific social
interactional spaces. In the case of FLB, it helps explain why efforts to acquire
land for small farmers in the San Luis Valley succeeded where previous
initiatives did not. Local and transnational “high emotional energy feedback
loops” were the seedbed for the hope and trust that allowed both San Luiseños
and Quakers to enter into the FLB experiment.
A micro-level perspective also reveals the significance of key social actors
who were not locals, but who used experience gathered in many places to
“re-embed” their knowledge locally. Their trajectory brings to mind Georg
Simmel’s (1950) classic concept of “the Stranger,” updated for the twenty-first
century—the person who comes to stay, but only temporarily, in the place but
not of it. Since identity, including ecological identity, is increasingly worked
out in a global context, environmental microsociology reveals how emotions
and identity connect to place in new ways. For example, key social actors
powerfully experience “nature”—its beauty, “presence,” and aliveness—in
particular places, strengthening a commitment to that place even if it is not
“one’s own.” These encounters invite further reflection on how “nature”
enters social spaces as a potential dialogic partner (Čapek, 2006; Weigert, 1997),
suggesting a link between the sociology of emotions and recent work that
more explicitly recognizes nature’s agency.
This chapter opens with two quotes, one emphasizing the difficulty of
“taking a stand” when everyone is in motion, the other invoking deep loyalty
to place. Their juxtaposition reveals some of the tensions of contemporary life
(Giddens, 1990). For example, ecologically interested young people are drawn
to a collage of global experiences, including popular practices like WOOFing
(World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms). Ann Kriebel herself
accumulated global experiences before coming to Monteverde. Such mobility
offers many advantages. However, while new global networks permit the
re-embedding of knowledge (and identity) in local places, it is clear that
without a consistent, emotionally resonant micro-level interaction process (one
that is well illustrated by the Quaker involvement in FLB), the “stranger” can
be perceived as arrogant and elitist, and out of touch with local realities. By
contrast, we see the positive impact of Quaker “emotion culture” on
transnational communication, giving shape to collaboration and respectful
inclusion through FCUN/QEW, and enacted face-to-face by Ann Kriebel.
We also see some of the challenges created by QEW’s lack of frequent on-site
contact with the project.
An environmental microsociology perspective need not ignore macro-level
global political-economic processes (for example, fluctuating prices of coffee or
land), many of which undercut local efforts. Rather, it “puts a face” on these
processes and identifies local spaces of creativity and resistance that otherwise
easily remain invisible. Communities of solidarity associated with environmental
social movements are increasingly transnational (Smith, 2008; Pellow, 2007),
connecting local sustainability experiments across time and space. Just so, Ann
76 Stella M. Čapek
Kriebel’s story circulated through local communities and eventually across
international borders, supplying a narrative with emotional power that enabled
social justice and “earthcare” to go hand in hand.
FLB was an effort to restore not only land, but the dignity that goes with
having a secure place in the world (Jasper, 1997). It is both a physical place and
an ongoing dialogue that reflexively shapes the future. For many parceleros, FLB
has provided the security that comes with a plot of land and a cooperative
structure. For social change activists partially untethered from localities by
“liquid modernity” (Bauman, 2000), it has offered a cause and a place to “put
one’s feet down,” integrating place, identity, and emotion. For Quakers, it has
supplied a meaningful project that brought together a wide array of interests
(Howenstine, 2015). As the debate over land titles reveals, FLB will continue
to evolve in the context of practical problem solving. So, too, will the
sociological perspectives that shed light on this simultaneously vulnerable and
tenacious socio-ecological experiment.
Notes
1 Quoted in a letter from the Monteverde Friends Meeting to FCUN (Guindon,
1996).
2 Quakers are also known as the “Religious Society of Friends,” or simply “Friends.”
Among FCUN’s goals are: “To be Guided by the Light within us to participate in
the healing of the Earth; To be a reflective and energetic forum within the Religious
Society of Friends to strengthen and deepen our spiritual unity with nature”
(FCUN, n.d.: 17).
3 The number of actual residents fluctuates due to some turnover, and as families
expand or contract.
4 By ecological identity here I mean a sense of self in which a caring relationship with
nature is salient, although an “ecological self” may take many forms (Čapek, 2006).
5 I wish to thank all of the interviewees who gave their time and were willing to
share their views of the complex FLB story. I am deeply grateful for their
participation and generosity. I also thank Logan Weygandt for helping to translate
a key interview in 2008 and Theodora Panayides for providing excellent translation
wherever needed in 2015.
6 Monte Verde, or Monteverde, can also refer to the broader region, but in this
chapter I use it to designate the town of Monteverde.
7 Not all early Quaker settlers’ practices were ecologically sustainable, but overall,
land around the watershed was well preserved.
8 The Coope existed until 2013. See McCandless and Emery (2007) on some of its
challenges.
9 For some exceptions, see Norgaard’s (2011) work on climate change denial, which
explores the role of emotions in “socially organized denial,” and Fine and
Sandstrom’s interactionist piece (2005) on “ideology, emotion, and nature.”
10 I am indebted for this information to Ilse Leitinger, who initiated an oral history
project documenting women’s lives in San Luis in 1988.
11 Voces del Valle has had an interesting “afterlife,” and was recently read with interest
by a younger generation of San Luiseños who had never seen it (Os Cresson, pers.
comm.).
12 Offering evidence about Ann’s energizing role in the community, Os Cresson
noted that, “Within days of her death five to ten people took on pieces of her life”;
for example, he himself assumed the adult literacy project (email message to author,
September 8, 2015).
13 The poem was printed in Voces del Valle (1983: 11) and posthumously published and
translated by Linda Coffin in Right Sharing News (XI, 2:1) (Land, 1984). Too long
to be reproduced here, it raised questions about land ownership and social justice.
Reputedly, when Ramón Brenes saw the poem, he realized that his situation was
becoming untenable, and divided his property among his children (Os Cresson,
pers. comm.).
14 The committee consisted of representatives from CoopeSanta Elena, the San Luis
Development Association, San Luis residents, and the Monteverde Friends Meeting.
15 This included the parceleros’ organization, the Monteverde Institute (which took
over the previous role of the CoopeSanta Elena when the Coope went bankrupt),
the San Luis Development Association, and the Monteverde Friends Meeting.
16 As of 2014, everything about the transfer of title was ready, but a minor legal
problem was uncovered regarding the land’s original registration, which necessitated
additional legal work (VanDusen, pers. comm.). As of the writing of this chapter,
the transfer is imminent.
17 Follow-up and new interviews in 2015 concerning the future of FLB included:
Benito Guindon, Patricia Jiménez, Gilberth Lobo, Martha Moss, Hugo Perez,
Lucas Ramirez, Oldemar Salazar, and Eugenio Vargas. Os Cresson provided
valuable insights by email.
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5 Green lifestyles and
micropolitics
Pragmatist action theory and the
connection between lifestyle
change and collective action
Janet A. Lorenzen
So, my approach is to assume that, you know, we’re kind of going to hell
in a hand basket, and the best thing that I can do is to just build the society
that I want inside this stinking, rotting corpse [laughter] of the one that’s
going to go away because it can’t sustain itself.
(Lane, voluntary simplifier)
Lane, a voluntary simplifier, has transitioned to a greener lifestyle and advocates

community-driven, grass-roots activism. She works primarily with local schools
and environmental groups focused on greening the town she lives in. In other
words, she works toward change in both her household and her community.
This combination of tactics for social change, shared by Lane and people like
her, is the focus of this chapter. Specifically, this chapter describes the different
relationships that exist between lifestyle change and political engagement.
To identify these patterns, I draw on 45 in-depth semi-structured interviews
and participant observation of three groups in the United States: (1) voluntary
simplifiers, members of a loosely organized social movement known for
addressing environmental harms by buying less and reducing waste; (2) religious
environmentalists, individuals embedded in religious communities who consider
environmental concerns a religious calling; and (3) green home owners, individuals
who remodel or build their homes in such a way as to use resources efficiently,
and reduce unfavorable impacts to the environment.
A lifestyle includes both our social practices and the stories we tell about
them—or our “narrative of self-identity” (Giddens, 1991: 81). All lifestyles
solve problems—organizing self-expression, reflecting our group affiliations,
and managing mundane routines that simplify our lives and support ontological
security. However, only some lifestyles are considered tactics in a broader
political project for social change. Lifestyles can be used to fulfill this tactical
function because while lifestyles are governed by habits, these habits are open
to occasional reflexive thought and change (Giddens, 1991).
In order to explain the connections between changing habits and community
involvement I draw on pragmatist action theory—which argues that habits
82 Janet A. Lorenzen
endure until individuals are faced with problem situations that current habits
fail to solve (Dewey, 1922). Problem situations disrupt habitual action and
create opportunities to re-think problems and set new paths. Recognizing a
problem also opens up opportunities to broaden the definition of a problem
beyond one’s lifestyle or household and identify further problems. I consider
pragmatist action theory to be a kind of practice theory interpreted through the
lens of symbolic interaction with explanatory strength in understanding how
habits change (rather than explaining social reproduction).
Today sustainable or green lifestyles include everyday practices (i.e. energy
efficiency) by which people try to address an interrelated set of environmental
problems, including climate change. More specifically, I define green lifestyles
as a subjective pattern of living, enabled by changes in circumstances and the
life course, which involves moments of intense deliberation over the uncertain
environmental impacts of everyday goods and practices, along with a guiding
life narrative that makes that process personally meaningful (Lorenzen, 2012).
Let me unpack that definition—green lifestyles are subjective patterns because
what is or is not considered green is uncertain and changes over time. People
also do some negotiating with themselves to fit past practices or favorite things
into their definition of a green lifestyle. In addition, interviewees in my case
study linked greening their habits to major life changes: having children, having
children leave home and go to college, having grandchildren, surviving breast
cancer, retirement, divorce, moving to a new place, or building a new home.
Deliberation was also a pattern that I found throughout my interviews—intense
deliberation over decision-making and establishing new habits was followed by
routinization of those patterns—while life narratives offered an over-arching
sense of continuity and purpose during these on-going changes.
For this chapter I move beyond the initial transition to a green lifestyle
(detailed in Lorenzen, 2012) to look at lifestyle trajectories over time and their
relationship to collective action and community transformation. I set aside the
debate over whether or not lifestyle practices are themselves a form of political
action (Haenfler, Johnson and Jones 2012) and, instead, investigate different
trajectories of environmental activism that involve some combination of both
lifestyle change and collective action. These findings go against some of the
critiques of lifestyle change, namely that people focused on their lifestyles tend
to withdraw from political participation (Maniates, 2002b; Szasz, 2007).
First, my research confirms that people who are in the process of cultivating a
sustainable lifestyle are often pulled into collective action through social networks
and a reputation for being “the green one.” Not only are environmentalists
recruiting those with a green lifestyle, but non-environmentalists are seeking out
experts who can explain sustainability to communities, businesses, and students.
Even those of my informants who attempted to focus exclusively on lifestyle and
household changes were drawn into collective action through these channels.
Second, I find that activists use lifestyle change to re-energize long-term
environmental and social movement participation. In this case lifestyle change
follows intensive participation within social movements, rather than preceding
Green lifestyles and micropolitics 83
it. And third, those who wish to see social change happening in the short term
tend to focus on micropolitics or making local and regional progress. Informants
still vote for national political candidates, they give money to national
environmental groups like the Sierra Club, and they send emails to their US
congressional representatives, but they reserve most of their resources and face-
to-face activism for the local level. Even those who are seriously disillusioned
with national politics are still involved with environmental groups and programs
in their communities. Transitioning to a more sustainable lifestyle does not
cause people to avoid politics or engender a feeling of safety to such an extent
as to make political action unnecessary. I describe this pattern in the data as a
kind of pragmatic regrouping of environmental efforts that focuses on the local,
rather than the exaggerated notion of avoiding politics or fetishizing the local.
Changing lifestyles is not a greedy tactic; instead it is often combined with
other tactics that involve collective action and social movement participation.
In the rest of this chapter, I will discuss in detail the lifestyle trajectories of
voluntary simplifiers, religious environmentalists, and green home owners and
how lifestyle change leads to, comes from, and re-localizes political participation.
To begin I will offer a brief background on the lifestyle literature and the
debate over sustainable lifestyles and political engagement. A description of the
methodology used in this project and the groups studied follows. Substantively,
I document three distinct life history paths that combine lifestyle change and
political participation. In the discussion, I use pragmatist action theory to
explain how habits change, how changing habits snowball and connect to the
micropolitics of community engagement, and how serial action accounts for
changing values. This chapter is primarily a reframing of our understanding of
the relationship between lifestyle change as a strategy for social change and
political participation.
Green lifestyles: Individualization or collective action

Movements that focus on or include changing lifestyles, identities, or ethics are
nothing new (Calhoun, 1993). Supporting a particular lifestyle has become a
form of political mobilization that typically advocates the legitimacy of new
cultural forms (Della Porta and Diani, 2006; Haenfler, Johnson, and Jones
2012). Many scholars agree that transitioning to a sustainable or green lifestyle
is processual (Evans and Abrahamse, 2009; Nye and Hargreaves, 2010;
Spaargaren and Van Vliet, 2000). Lifestyles change, in part, by drawing on old
goods and habits that are given new context and meaning (Schor, 2010). Local
knowledge and relationships, as well as deliberation over habits, are important
parts of that process (Evans and Abrahamse, 2009; Kennedy, 2011; Nye and
Hargreaves, 2010). From the literature on lifestyles, we also know that lifestyles
do not arise in a vacuum but must negotiate competing priorities like family
and work obligations (Chaney, 1996; Thompson, 1996). Similarly, Veal (1993)
reminds us that lifestyles are constrained by context—most often financial
limitations, health, and family commitments. In this way lifestyles are the
“practical metaphor” of the habitus (Bourdieu, 1984: 173). While Holt (1997)
observes that lifestyles can only be recognized and defined when compared to
other lifestyles, I would add that lifestyles need to be examined over time as the
practices and narratives that make up lifestyles are in flux (Lorenzen, 2012), and
the extent to which lifestyles are embedded in larger communities waxes and
wanes as priorities change over the life course.
Environmentally sustainable or green lifestyles have been characterized most
prominently as part of “inverted quarantines” (which draw people away from
environmental movements and traditional forms of activism) or, in contrast, as
“prefigurative communities” (which draw people into environmental
movements and traditional forms of activism). Inverted quarantines occur
when personal environmental protection is satisfied by consumer goods (i.e.
bottled water) as opposed to political action (Szasz, 2007). Whereas prefigurative
communities are “collectivities fashioning their lives according to oppositional
norms” (Cooper, 2001: 139), prefigurative communities attempt to generate
new and immediate paths of action, rather than campaigning for structural
change.
In terms of recruitment, prefigurative communities assist in aligning
individual interests with social movements (Passy and Giugni, 2000; Pichardo
Almanzar, Sullivan-Catlin and Deane, 1998). Individuals participating in
prefigurative communities (i.e. green lifestyles, eco-village residents, vegans)
are targeted for recruitment to more formal environmental movement groups.
Green lifestyles are considered part of a learning process that coordinates
personal interests with the environmental movement.
For those in the environmental movement, day-to-day lifestyle practices are
a particularly important site of participation (Pichardo Almanzar, Sullivan-
Catlin and Deane, 1998). Lichterman (1996: 164–165) finds a unified “culture
of commitment” among some environmentalists in which “egalitarian
organizations, personalized effort, ‘socially responsible’ work, and
unconventional private lives all cohered as a meaningful whole.” And in
Alexander and Ussher’s (2012) recent international study, 68 percent of
voluntary simplifiers said they felt they were part of a simple living moment
and 67 percent reported that they participated in a community organization in
addition to making household changes. Passy and Giugni (2000) go one step
further and argue that a “holistic view of one’s personal life” actually contributes
to sustained participation in environmental movements (Passy and Giugni,
2000: 117). In addition to the commitment to a particular identity, network
ties to other participants are a key component in predicting activism (McAdam
and Paulsen, 1993).
In contrast, the most popular argument from environmental sociology
characterizes lifestyle change as part of the individualization of social problems,
where solutions are defined by personal actions and market mechanisms rather
than government intervention (for a detailed review of this literature, see
Lorenzen 2014b). This results in an “inverted quarantine”—when personal
environmental protection is satisfied by consumer goods and people neglect
political action that would address environmental problems on a larger scale
(Szasz, 2007). For example, buying organic food may reduce one’s concern
over pesticide use in the industrial food supply. Maniates (2002b) also supports
this perspective, arguing that individualization “insulates people from the
empowering experiences and political lessons of collective struggle for social
change and reinforces corrosive myths about the difficulties of public life”
(Maniates, 2002b: 44). This is an important warning especially at a time when
environmental problems are often blamed on everyone equally and solutions
are simplified (i.e. recycling is “doing your part”). However, it overlooks the
lived reality of lifestyles as one tactic in a broader strategy and understates the
frustration experienced in attempting to influence policy making. In my
research on green lifestyles I find no evidence that people were satisfied with
household changes or were withdrawing from political participation as a result
of lifestyle change. Green lifestyles were considered personally necessary or
inevitable (i.e. “the right thing to do”; see Howell, 2013), but not sufficient for
addressing critical environmental problems.
Methods and data

In order to explore these connections between green lifestyles and political
activism I draw on a set of 45 in-depth semi-structured interviews and
participant observation with members of three groups (fifteen interviews per
group): voluntary simplifiers, religious environmentalists, and green home
owners. These groups were chosen in order to gather an array of perspectives
from religiously motivated to technologically focused. Voluntary simplifiers, in
particular, are highlighted in the literature as inwardly focused on personal
growth and reducing household waste—lacking broader political engagement
(Maniates, 2002a). This variation, and the inclusion of voluntary simplifiers,
makes this case study ideal for exploring the debate between prefigurative
communities and the inverted quarantine.
I use case study logic to sample for a range of people who are going green
and reducing their consumption. I identify subcategories (i.e. voluntary
simplifiers) within the broader category of environmentalists and conduct
interviews within those subcategories until a saturation (rather than
representation) point is reached in which answers are repetitive (Small, 2009).
Individuals are valued for their group affiliations, not their demographic
characteristics. I employ this comparative approach in order to describe the
diverse experiences of resisting consumption and to generate new theory by
analyzing the similarities and differences between groups. For a list of other
groups which I considered studying see Lorenzen (2012).
Informants were reached in several different ways. I identified several
voluntary simplifiers who had taken a class on simple living offered by a local
community group and snowballed out from there. Most of the religious
environmentalists that I spoke to were members of environmental committees
at their places of worship. Three religious environmentalists were initially
contacted through a non-denominational non-profit that promotes green
religion, alternative energy, and building efficiency. These initial informants
were asked to recommend others for interviews. I also recruited people who
attended a conference on green religion. Green home owners who participated
in a local tour of green homes were contacted and a green building business
forwarded an email from me to their customers.
Interviews focused on a kind of green life history: how individuals had
become involved with environmentalism, the changes they had made in their
everyday lives, the groups and organizations that they were associated with
(from minor contact like making a donation to attending a march in Washington
DC or starting a local environmental group), the goals/tactics of the groups
they were involved with, and where they see themselves in five years. Interviews
lasted approximately 60 minutes and in some cases home visits went as long as
three hours. Participants are from the north-eastern United States and research
was conducted between 2009 and 2011. The interviews were transcribed and
coded in Atlas.ti. The participant observation portion of the study took place
in classes, lectures, film discussions, professional tours of green homes, weekend
retreats, and a conference on green religion.
I should note that membership in groups was a particularly complex idea for
my informants. Several informants talked about how they were not “official”
members of environmental groups but had affiliations through making
donations, attending meetings, or making yearly presentations to the group.
Therefore, in this chapter I discuss environmental group affiliation rather than
membership. This negotiation of official/unofficial membership was clear in
interviews but would have confounded survey data on this topic.
Voluntary simplifiers in this study are reducing their consumption in order to
address climate change and other environmental harms. The literature on
voluntary simplicity explains that by reducing the clutter in their lives people
hope to strengthen family and communal bonds, cultivate a greater appreciation
of nature, become more independent, and experience meaningful personal
growth, all of which have been eroded by consumerism (Elgin, 1981; Grigsby,
2004; Huneke, 2005; Johnston and Burton, 2003; McDonald et al., 2006;
Sandlin and Walther, 2009).
Religious environmentalists come from diverse religious backgrounds and
believe that caring for the environment is part of their religious duty (Kearns,
1996, 2004; Smith and Pulver, 2009; Taylor, 2007). Addressing environmental
harms is part of a larger social justice and environmental stewardship project
(Haluza-Delay, 2014; Veldman, Szasz, and Haluza-Delay, 2014). For my
research I interviewed people who identified as: Episcopalian, Jewish, Muslim,
Quaker, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, Unitarian Universalist, and United
Church of Christ.
Green home owners remodel or build homes in such a way as to use resources
efficiently, and reduce adverse effects to health and the environment. Green
homes focus on the efficiency of energy, water, and building materials (Fischer,
2010). Some green homes in this study are in the process of being LEED
certified (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) by the US Green
Building Council (Abair, 2008; Groom, 2008). Many of the green home
owners I spoke with work in the building industry as architects or small business
owners.
Connections between green lifestyles and collective action

In the analysis of my data I find three qualitatively different relationships
between lifestyles and collective action. First, my research confirms that lifestyle
change pulls people into collective action through social network contacts.
Here I offer a slight twist on the prefigurative community thesis and find that
the demand for expert knowledge on sustainability is a significant factor in
pulling people into collective action. Second, I find that activists use lifestyle
change to help sustain long-term environmental and social movement
participation. And third, I find that some informants are focused on local and
regional micropolitics rather than national politics which seem intractable.
Informants feel that they can “make a difference” at the local level, whereas
they do not have the resources to make an impact at the national level. In the
following section I briefly explore each one in turn.
From lifestyle change to collective action

My research confirms that people who are in the process of cultivating a
sustainable lifestyle are often drawn into collective action through social
networks and a reputation for being “the green one.” Face-to-face social
networks contribute social support and help generate ideas for what actions can
most effectively protect the environment (Horton, 2006; Kennedy, 2011).
Network connections also offer people procedural and practical information
about how to reduce consumption that is context specific (Nye and Hargreaves,
2010). However, the process of recruitment from lifestyle change into collective
action involves more tension and uncertainty than the prefigurative community
thesis would suggest. This is not simply a story about environmentalists
recruiting people with a green lifestyle into community groups. Rather, it is
also driven by non-environmentalists seeking information about sustainability
and pulling reluctant experts into the spotlight.
There are two mechanisms at work that pull people into collective action.
First, environmentalists pull like-minded people into lifestyle change and
environmental movements (McAdam and Paulsen, 1993). Informants were
recruited by their roommates, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and people at
their place of worship. When doing their own recruiting my informants
sought out people who supported animal rights, had certain eating habits
(visiting a farmers’ market, eating organic, vegetarianism), felt close to nature
(hiking, biking, gardening), and voted for President Obama. As this mechanism
is well established in the social movements research I will not go into more
detail here.
Second, my research reveals that non-experts like community members and
government officials also pull people into an expert role in order to learn more
about sustainability. For example, a teacher may want a guest lecturer for their
class or a mayor may seek to appoint someone to an environmental commission.
Adrianna, an architect in the process of building her own LEED certified green
home and mother of three, explains that teachers started to notice the no-waste
lunches that her kids were eating at school (part of her lifestyle change) and was
consequently recruited to talk to students about sustainability in terms of both
personal practices and broader changes. Adrianna talks about her involvement:
I got involved in the green team of our school and helped put that together.
And we brought education to our kids. We have a grade school my kids
go to. There’s over 600 children. We got them started on a litter-less lunch
program, helping them understand how much garbage they create with
their little lunches.
Although Adrianna was reluctant at first to become involved, her level of

knowledge on sustainability was sought after by her daughter’s science teacher
and she is now a key member of the school’s green team.
An unintended consequence of having green home owners promote the
LEED for Homes program was to establish reputations that resulted in
participants being pulled into different kinds of collective action. Jacob is a
green home owner whose home renovation is in the process of being LEED
certified. The LEED program recommends contact with the community
through blogging and home tours. Jacob began with a focus on his home but
now has associations with the local government (as part of the city planning
commission), the local high school, and nearby college. Although he did not
intend to become involved with greening the city as a whole, when he was
recruited by the mayor he embraced his role as change-agent. Jacob explains:
You know, every time I would go over to the town council meetings, I
made a point of wearing green, and you know, that’s one of those subtle,
little things. But it’s a reminder, you know, oh, the green guy’s back …
You know, I would walk down the hall, and the police chief would walk
by and said, ‘Oh yeah. I haven’t ordered those hybrid vehicles yet,’ or ‘I’ve
ordered them, but they’re not here yet.’ You know, I wouldn’t even have
to ask him. You know, just by seeing me, he would know that it would
be good for him to mention something about what they’re doing green.
Jacob’s reputation for being green made him a target for recruitment by local
government officials. Now he consciously works to cultivate his reputation.
This was not a meeting of the minds as one might expect from a prefigurative
community, so much as filling a void in expert knowledge. The majority of
informants, even those who attempted to focus exclusively on changing their
lifestyles and homes, were eventually pulled into collective action. This finding
directly contradicts the notion that lifestyle change supports a withdrawal from
political participation.
Activism supported by lifestyle change

I also find that activists use lifestyle change to support long-term environmental
and social movement participation which can become discouraging over time.
In this case lifestyle change follows intensive participation with social
movements, rather than preceding it (Passy and Giugni, 2000). This is an
inversion of the prefigurative community thesis showing that collective action
and political involvement can precede household changes. For example, Carol,
a long-time peace activist, was recruited into an environmental group by her
neighbor. Carol’s recruitment follows the expected route of an environmentalist
pulling like-minded people into environmental movements. Carol explains:
You know, it was in the 80s, and all that was just happening. So, it was—It
was—I think it was a personal person talking to me, you know, like a one
on one, or three on two or whatever. Yeah, that. And it was in my
neighborhood, and they were starting up a little group, and it just, you
know, sounded like, yeah. I mean, there were terrible scares, you know,
around that time, in the 80s. There still are. And as I said, my kids were
little, and I wanted them to grow up, and now, I want my grandchildren
to grow up too, in a decent world.
Later Carol began to change her lifestyle and became a voluntary simplifier as
a way to “feel more involved” in environmentalism, rather than only attending
a meeting once a week. Similarly, Howell (2013) finds that “routes to
engagement” with “low-carbon lifestyles” began with participation in Amnesty
International, Friends of the Earth, or local community politics. Some of my
informants were discouraged by gridlock in Washington DC or drawn-out
lawsuits over protecting green spaces. Making concrete changes in everyday
life, and encouraging others to do so as well, offers them visible evidence that
change is occurring, although none of the informants that I spoke with had
given up on collective action or government regulation in favor of lifestyle
change.
Micropolitics
Finally, informants who professed to “avoid politics” were often involved with
environmental community groups, sustainability programs in local schools, and
(unofficially) local government environmental commissions. I do not consider
this avoiding politics; I label it instead micropolitics or politics focused on
changing one’s immediate community and region. For example, Iris, a
voluntary simplifier, participated in a week of workshops on social, cultural,
economic, and environmental sustainability offered by a local non-profit and
was certified as a sustainability educator. She talks to neighbors and community
groups, teachers and students. She focuses on changing her own lifestyle and
recommending lifestyle changes to others. This summer she organized a day-
camp for kids on the topic of sustainability. She considers this “avoiding
politics” for two reasons. First, she is not comfortable with contentious politics
or confrontation. And second, she considers avoiding politics strategic because
she wants to stay a neutral party that can appeal across political boundaries. She
was trained as a scientist and likes to keep the focus on the science of sustainability
rather than be distracted by the politics of it.
Aware of the public’s aversion to discussing volatile issues like climate
change, informants distance themselves from their in-group discourses (like
antimaterialism or conservation) and instead focus on changing practices. They
use several persuasive techniques that avoid a direct discussion of the
environment (Lorenzen, 2014a). In this case, informants have explicitly political
goals but hope to achieve them through community programs rather than
political rhetoric or lobbying.
In contrast, Lane, the voluntary simplifier who was quoted in the
introduction, advocates grass-roots change rather than working within formal
politics or through market mechanisms (or so-called “voting with your
dollars”). She explains:
I have [worked with the Environmental Commission]. I’ve actually done

a rain barrel training at the Environmental Center. Some of the
Environmental Commission people, I believe, are on the Sustainable
Township Committee. I’m actually not a member of Sustainable Township.
I’m always a non-member of things. The only thing I’m really a member
of is my own group, which is [the] Edible Gardens Project, which is
completely separate and grass roots and not really connected to anything,
although we were real involved in the high school—in the school garden
project … So, it’s not the individuals; it’s grass-roots efforts, it’s working
together to create something. Screw the corporations … we’ve got to get
a clue and really do whatever we can for our little land base and for each
other.
Lane volunteers with people who are officially on the local government’s
Environmental Commission, or are recognized members of the Sustainable
Township Committee (a community group that consults with the local
government). However, she does not view herself as a member of these
organizations. Instead she directs her energies into non-governmental
community groups like her Edible Gardens Project. She defines grass roots as
outside government involvement, although in practice these groups overlap in
membership and, at times, work together. Her goal is to “teach whoever will
listen … that there are other ways to live, and it may be a small pocket that
we’re living in that’s any good. But maybe that’s the best we can do.” Lane
believes that small-scale change is more likely to happen and that her green
town can serve as a model for other towns. Her social change projects also
encompass food and housing access, which she considers part of sustainability.
Those involved with lifestyle change are sometimes characterized as
disillusioned with national politics (Maniates, 2002a); however my research
shows that this does not reduce interest in activism at the regional or community
levels. A lack of comprehensive climate change legislation, enforcement
failures, and the weakness of market mechanisms fosters a pragmatic interest in
the local. Informants are not enchanted with the local; rather they have scaled
back to more welcoming opportunity structures and spaces that better match
their resources. Longevity in social movements is supported by efficacy—
a sense that one is making a difference—and concrete changes are more likely
to be visible at the local level.
Pragmatist action theory

Discussions about lifestyle change often use a teleological framework which
assumes that habits are oriented toward goals and interests, or values and norms.
Pragmatism offers an alternative non-teleological theory of social action
(Schneiderhan, 2011; Silver, 2011; Whitford, 2002). Pragmatist action theory
can also explain how changes in habits can be both comprehensive and
enduring—while sometimes expanding to include changes in the broader
community. The goal of this section is to reflect on and refine our understandings
of pragmatist processes of change. In the following section I examine three
issues: how problem situations begin with unsettled lives, how changes
snowball, and how serial action accounts for changing values.
I argue in favor of expanding the definition of a “problem situation” to take
into account challenges in the life course that foster unsettled lives. Transitional
moments tend to prompt a response beyond the fulfillment of social scripts,
allowing actors to consider interrelated problems and support on-going social
action. Through creative action new habits can be established, and in certain
situations changes in habits can snowball and produce additional changes
(Lorenzen, 2012). In addition, I argue that values are produced by the
snowballing process of social action. Values are co-created as part of the process
of problem solving rather than preceding it as a motivation.
How habits change: Unsettled lives and problem situations

Dewey argues that action is primarily based on habit with intermittent moments
of deliberation and change. Actors do not adopt goals, but rather follow
routines until a problem situation arises in which they must decide between the
means to address it. Dewey (1922) gives the example of a traveler confidently
following a path, until she meets an obstacle. The traveler stops, studies the
situation, considers past experiences, including the experiences of others, and
imagines future alternatives for action to plan her “anticipatory project”
(Dewey, 1922: 182).
Problem situations are variously defined, sometimes narrowly as in Dewey’s
example of the traveler, sometimes broadly, as in the case of Jane Addams
(Schneiderhan, 2011) and her experiences of disconnect (between welfare
services sponsored by the state and what the residents of Chicago’s slums
actually needed). In both cases, doubt is experienced not only in our minds and
emotions but in the world. Doubt and deliberation are part of the process of
action rather than a pre-existing condition or motivation for action. The
problem situations I encountered in my research were tied to concrete,
transitional moments in the life course. In contrast to Jane Addams, I find that
doubts in the world start out with “unsettled lives” (Swidler, 2001). For
example, interviewees in my case study linked greening their habits to having
children, having children leave home and go to college, having grandchildren,
surviving breast cancer, retirement, divorce, moving to a new place, or building
a new home. Lifestyle change was also prompted by frustration with the lack
of progress made by environmental groups that informants worked with.
Surprisingly, the problem situations encountered are not necessarily related to
the environment, but they serve to open up the space people need to reconsider
their way of life. Because these transitions demand a response beyond habitual
action, they enable informants to evaluate multiple problems both directly and
indirectly related to the situation, and are therefore more likely to support new
lines of action.
Problem situations do not end with personal concerns. Informants connected
lifestyle problems to problems in the broader world in several ways. One
religious environmentalist explained that “we literally can’t touch anything in
this daily life without it having a relationship to consumption”—down to the
energy it takes to produce our socks. Another informant argued that composting
food waste can offer “a way into” understanding the over-industrialization of
the food system. Lifestyles were implicated in the entire supply chain that
enabled them. My informants made no clear distinction between private and
public concerns—speaking of them primarily as a dialectic, recognizing that
problems within one’s lifestyle echo problems in the world. For example,
surviving breast cancer is related to regional environmental health concerns. In
addition, problem situations within communities also served to pull my
informants into expert roles within schools or local governments, opening up
new arenas of interrelated problems.
Transitional moments also enable participation in new consumption
landscapes or “consumption junctions,” i.e. “places and moments where and
when consumers meet producers or vice versa for exchanging (more sustainable)
products, information, and images” (Thongplew, Van Koppen, and Spaargaren,
2014: 98). For example, a health scare may lead to a search for trustworthy
non-toxic products or renovating a home may introduce actors to the evolving
and uncertain field of green building products and producers. These new
junctions open up additional problem situations and opportunities for
deliberation.
How changes snowball
Pragmatist theory rejects the idea of final ends and the dualism between ends
and means. In its place, the actor poses an “end-in-view” or a subjective and
flexible goal which can be amended through a process of deliberation/action.
When action is successful in addressing problems, a path for future action opens
up. Silver (2011) argues that successful action in response to a problem situation
does not mean that ends or ideals are achieved, but that actors have a better
understanding of the importance and definition of the situation. As a result
actors are more likely to feel called upon to act and, thus, perform additional
actions. Successful action both establishes new practices that recede into
habitual action and contributes to a platform or scaffolding for future changes.
For example, informants like Carol note that changing their habits made them
feel more engaged with environmentalism and gave them a sense of forward
momentum. Through this process, individuals can create new “habit sets”—
“repertoires for thinking and acting vis-à-vis a set of problems” (Gross, 2009:
371). In the case of green lifestyles, solutions are uncertain and actions must
often be revised. In attempting to define a situation and address one problem,
other problems (throughout the community or supply chain, for example)
become evident. Consequently, one change leads to another and actions
snowball. Lifestyle change (i.e. changing habit sets and the stories we tell about
them) is just this kind of piece-meal, serial problem solving.
How serial action accounts for changing values

Finally, I argue that values, instead of existing sui generis, are a construction of
the snowballing process of social action. Pragmatism rejects the idea that actors
have pre-fixed values that motivate action (Whitford, 2002). From a pragmatist
perspective values are an invocation of the criteria that should be used to guide
deliberations over a problem. However, this is not a solution to the problem of
what people should actually do. Rather, acting in a way we think is
environmentally responsible helps co-constitute sustainability as a principle or
standard by which future action is guided. Changing values occurs in concert
with action and not as a prerequisite for action. Eventually acting green, when
successful, feels like an authentic, passionate, and inevitable choice. Hence, the
moral weight that some scholars deem necessary for consistent and lasting
change can be accomplished without resorting to a structuralist understanding
of values or a teleological framework. Through the process of problem solving
values become embedded in repertoires of action for assessing and addressing
problems in the world.
Conclusion
In the analysis of my data I find three qualitatively different relationships
between lifestyles and collective action. First, my research confirms that lifestyle
change pulls people into collective action through social network contacts.
Here I offer a slight twist on the prefigurative community thesis and find that
the demand for expert knowledge on sustainability is a significant factor in
pulling people toward collective action. Second, I find that activists use lifestyle
change to support long-term, and at times discouraging, environmental and
social movement participation. And third, I find that informants focus on the
micropolitics of social change at the community level as an efficient way to use
their time and resources. This regrouping of environmental efforts focuses on
the local in order to side-step climate change skepticism at the national level.
Pragmatist action theory offers a clearer understanding of how problem
situations enable us to rethink our habits and construct new paths of action, but
it does not offer a simple recipe for supporting lifestyle change or increasing
political participation. However, a focus on habitual action does explain why
change is so difficult, and it also indicates when people are most likely to make
a change and rethink their practices. I recommend that policy makers take
advantage of transitional periods, in the same way they set new paths following
natural disasters. The timing of policy interventions should coincide with
changes in the life course, or problems in cities that may not directly relate to
the environment, to maximize the potential for change.
Contrary to the inverted quarantine thesis, transitioning to a more sustainable
lifestyle does not cause people to withdraw from political participation. Rather
than trade off with other forms of political action, green lifestyles support
political participation. This microsociological perspective has implications for
reassessing the scope of political action and the synergies enabled by
complementary social movement tactics.
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6 Mead, interactionism, and the
improbability of ecological
selves
Toward a meta-environmental
microsociological theory
Stephen Zavestoski and Andrew J. Weigert
Interactionism, with its emphasis on self and identity as the motivators of

human meaning-making activity, holds a central place in the history of
microsociological theory and yet has been largely dismissed by environmental
sociologists. Indeed, as Brewster points out, “two of the founders of
environmental sociology criticized the most innovative and thoroughgoing
biosocial thinkers in the sociological canon for a later tradition in sociology
[i.e., interactionism] that has largely ignored both the natural world and Mead’s
attention to it” (Brewster, 2011: 40). We draw on Mead’s concern with ethical
action to provide context for what we see as a necessary shift to a meta-
environmental microsociological theory. After elaborating on this previously
underdeveloped area of Mead’s work, we analyze two cultural “impulses”—
the practices of urban agriculture and bicycling for transportation—as
illustrations of contemporary efforts to forge identities with new meanings
through enactment of new cultural forms. Such efforts, we argue, can be seen
as moral actions resulting from the exercise of choices arising from the pragmatic
practice of discerning preferable futures and pursuing cooperative social action
to achieve them.
Mead, interactionism, and environmental

microsociological theory
As we engage in social interaction, according to Mead (1934), we learn from
other’s reactions to our behavior what responses to expect in future social
situations. The “generalized other” describes the set of anticipated responses
that individuals form, in turn allowing a dialogue to take place between the
“I,” the spontaneous part of the self, and the “me,” or reflective part of the self.
The self-concept is the product of this process.
First attempts at a Meadian environmental microsociology sought to extend
what had previously been understood as a strictly social phenomenon—the
Mead, interactionism, and the improbability of ecological selves 99
generalized other—to the environment so that processes of role-taking
incorporate anticipated responses from “environmental others” (Weigert, 1991,
1997). Weigert (1997) acknowledged the pragmatic challenge of role-taking the
earth given that role-taking requires an individual to come to see and feel about
her/himself the way others do. Yet, “by role taking the earth,” argued Weigert,
“we see self anew—as an interactor within the biosphere … [thus bringing] us
closer to the more adequate self George H. Mead urged as a citizen’s ideal over
sixty years ago (1934)” (Weigert, 1997: 133). The challenge arises from the fact
that human social actors seldom get direct, immediate, and interpretable feedback
from the environment. Figure 6.1 conveys the disconnect between human social
actors and the ecological processes occurring within their biophysical reality.
Social Life
Processes
Social World
Ecological
Processes
SOCIAL LIFE ECOLOGICAL

PROCESSES PROCESSES
Cultural beliefs Water and air purification
Material culture Drought and flood mitigation
Technology Decomposition and detoxification of wastes
Value systems Generation and renewal of fertile soil
Economic systems Pollination
Political systems Seed dispersal and translocation of nutrients
Social institutions Maintenance of biodiversity
Self-concept Protection from UV rays
Socialization Climate stability
Social control Moderation of extremes (e.g., temp., waves)
Social structure (Daily 1997)
Figure 6.1 Social world–biophysical world interaction

100 Stephen Zavestoski and Andrew J. Weigert
Microsocial interaction occurs simultaneously within a human-produced
social world and a given biophysical reality. Within our social world, human
social actors carry out various social life processes. In so doing, we sustain a
social reality where social order is more or less maintained and in which we
make sense of our world. As biological beings, the world which the social life
processes bring into existence occurs within a biophysical reality. While there
may be no inherent order to the biophysical reality, certain ecological processes
have produced over the last 40,000 years conditions conducive to the creation
and maintenance of meaningful social worlds through the social life processes
of homo sapiens. The undergirding ecological processes are what ecological
economists and other scholars define as ecosystem services (Costanza et al.,
1997; Daily, 1997; Daily et al., 2000; de Groot, Wilson, and Boumans, 2002).
Neither social life nor ecological processes occur within a closed loop. While
they may be responsive to internal feedback loops, Figure 6.1’s outer arrows
indicate that social life processes send signals to, or impact, ecological processes;
and, likewise, ecological processes send signals to, and impact, social life
processes. Given the geospatial and temporal lag of many human impacts on
ecological processes, we often fail to receive or interpret accurately the signals
coming to us from the ecological processes. Or, we may accurately receive and
interpret the signals, but aspects of the social world—such as cultural beliefs or
social institutions—prevent us from responding meaningfully.
Where humans fail to realize the impacts on the environment of actions
performed within the human social world, an amplifying feedback loop occurs
in which actions are deemed socially meaningful and so performed again and
again, while their deleterious ecological effects are overlooked. For example,
we overconsume resources because we value the material lifestyle and perceived
benefits that accompany their use. In turn, the degraded environment we
perceive lacks meaning with regard to our actions that caused the destruction
in the first place. Without a generalized environmental other, we not only fail
to anticipate the response of the environment but also may fail to find meaning
in the observed environmental response. A person digging a hole decides when
to stop digging by reacting to the feedback that the hole is getting deeper. By
contrast, as a person steps on the gas pedal of a car, she or he likely won’t
recognize the resulting CO2 unless it is made meaningful through social life
processes. Conventional perspectives inadequately interpret the full
environmental effects of human actions.
Early attempts to address this paradox focused on the need to “construct
symbolic meanings that adequately fit and grasp the ever-changing …
environment” (Weigert, 1997: 28) via expansion of the generalized other to
include a “generalized environmental other.” Such an expansion seems feasible
given that Mead described the generalized other as capable of including a broad
range of entities:
It is possible for inanimate objects … to form parts of the generalized …

other for any given human individual, in so far as he responds to such
objects socially or in a social fashion … Any object or set of objects,
whether animate or inanimate, human or animal, or merely physical—
toward which he … responds, socially, is an element in what for him is the
generalized other.
(Mead, 1934: 154n)
For Weigert (1991, 1997), interaction between symbol users, such as humans,
and non-symbol users, such as the natural environment, leads to the construction
of “environmental others” that can be aggregated into a generalized
environmental other. As with the generalized social other, which is the set of
anticipated responses we expect from hypothetical others in social situations, a
generalized environmental other is built out of the experience of interacting
with the environment and can be looked towards for possible responses to
anticipated future (inter)actions (with)/towards the environment.
Whereas Weigert’s work engaged with Mead’s theoretical usefulness to an
environmental microsociology, Zavestoski’s (2003) aim was to test empirically
the hypotheses suggested by Weigert’s generalized environmental other. In
particular, Zavestoski was interested in the possibility of an ecological self
arising out of the generalized environmental other. Hypothetically, a generalized
environmental other would allow a dialogue to take place between the “I” and
the “me” such that tension arises from a spontaneous “I” being countered by a
reflective “me” that looks to the generalized environmental other for an
anticipated response (i.e. an environmental impact) to a future action. An
internal dialogue taking into account the potential environmental impact of
one’s social action could be considered the manifestation of an ecological self.
Focusing on identities, a subcomponent of the self, Zavestoski demonstrated
that although such identities exist, they are difficult to maintain even among a
group of deep ecologists explicitly committed to broadening the sense of self to
include the environment. Zavestoski concluded that ecological identities seem
to emerge from direct experiences in nature that establish a connection for
individuals to a natural world that is exogenous to the social world, but that
sustaining ecological identities ultimately takes place within a social context.
These early Meadian interactionist analyses made a simplistic assumption: if a
theoretically sound case can be made for integration of the environment into
the self, then ecological selves, or ecological identities, must be essential to the
construction of future social worlds that place humans within the biophysical
reality in ways that sustain the ecosystem services upon which our existence
depends. While an ecological self can certainly motivate action consonant with
the goal of sustaining vital ecological processes, the problem is that, as organized,
the social world through which the self arises largely fails to nurture the
generalized environmental other necessary to form an ecological self. The
encultured self in today’s world does not relate to nature in a “natural” way.
Furthermore, our social world seldom allows for critical inquiry into the origins
of our enculturated selves. Interrogating the enculturated self, in other words, is
essential to making the absence of ecological identities functionally problematic.
Cultivating ecological selves for all members of society, at least in our current
context, is not a viable option. Yet this is exactly what is called for by advocates
of the ecological self like Thomashow (1995). This is a sociological equivalent
of the “nature as spiritual awakening” perspective that believes that if we could
just get everyone on top of Half Dome for a view of Yosemite Valley, we will
all become environmentalists. In the face of the improbability of universal
ecological selves, we now turn to Mead’s social psychology as moral discipline
to ground further possibilities.
Mead’s social psychology as a moral discipline

Early forays into the adaptation of Mead’s thinking to an environmental
microsociological theory were hewn exclusively from Mead’s monolithic
Mind, Self and Society (1934). We aim to revive a relevant dimension of Mead’s
theorizing–—his grounding of pragmatic social psychology as a moral discipline.
From his socio-natural, evolutionary, and, in a wide sense, democratic
perspective, Mead judged that a priori certitudes are inadequate for grounding
morality in an era of emerging social issues. As Joas explains, “Mead posited the
inherent sociality of human action which anchored the ‘democratic ideal’ for a
moral understanding of social dynamics” (Joas, 2015: xii). A priori principles
functioned in traditional, simpler, and more static historical periods as adequate
grounds for motivating and interpreting moral action. In a rapidly globalizing
world amid growing populations and emerging ecological issues, however, a
processual and cooperative basis for morality is required by new contexts and
challenges—a theme for an ethico-moral social psychology adumbrated in
Mead’s writings.
Phillip Selznick summarized Mead’s moral reasoning thus:
Mead discerned moral development in the capacity for rational participation

in rule-governed, organized social activity; in the growth of personal
autonomy, mitigating the overdetermined, oversocialized self; and in the
enlargement of the self as parochial perspectives are overcome and as
individuals adopt the standpoint of ever-larger communities and universal
values. The key to this process is the emergence of critical or reflective
morality.
(Selznick, 1992: 161)
In short, ethical actions arise within interactive and cognitive efforts to attain
shared descriptions and interpretive analyses to inform coordinated responses to
ever more encompassing common goals.
Other scholars support this understanding of the moral dimensions of
action. Cook, for example, summarizes the parallel between Mead’s
understanding of empirical science as ever reformable attempts to know and
adjust to the world that is there, and of morality as ever more inclusive actions
to meliorate the society in which we live. The scope of “we” involved in
moral action is crucial. It eventually includes all others affected by our
actions. Cook emphasizes that Mead’s perspective portrays a parallelism
between scientific and moral reasoning. A “successful scientific hypothesis
reunifies a problematic situation and yields a more inclusive understanding of
that situation. The successful moral hypothesis reconciles conflicting values in
a morally problematic situation and yields a more inclusive self” internalizing
an ever larger community (Cook, 1993: 122; see Baldwin, 1986/2002; Broyer,
1973). Mead’s pragmatism conjoins science and morality in a naturalistic
understanding of self and society.
Mead’s method of morality, much like his conceptualization of generalized
other, strives to incorporate anticipated responses of all others affected by self’s
or society’s actions, that is, to act conjointly in ways that rationally reflect and
enlarge each self’s relationship to preferred outcomes. Moral action is democratic
and communicative, even though it inescapably involves a mix of cooperative
and conflictual dynamics. The moral aspect emerges in outcomes that potentially
enhance the lives of all. Mead’s meliorism motivates a moral vision that informs
actions for a more inclusive society and more fulfilled self.
Moral issues pragmatically arise in situations in which routine action is
problematic or blocked; an actional consequence of an emergent
situation. Routine or “conventional” morality is unproblematic since it assumes
that received moral habits dictate and motivate right action. Problematic or
“critical” morality, however, is the focus of Mead’s attention (cf. Selznick,
1992: 161ff). A new morality arises when routine actions formed by the old
morality are blocked or no longer function for the good. Forming a new
morality demands an expansive self, one that understands how the moral aspect
of action derives from as complete an empirical description and scientific
interpretation of expected outcomes as they apply to inclusive consequences
for self and others. Emergent issues are the matrix for self’s development by
applying mind to action in the search for efficacious motives.
Our current ecological crisis is a crisis of social life processes failing to address
outcomes on ecological processes. Persons seek right action in ways that involve
the two normative poles of ethics and morality. We follow Appiah’s distinction:
“ethics refer to judgments about which lives are good or bad; morality concerns
how we should deal with one another” (Appiah, 2005: xiii). As Appiah asks,
“What is it for a life to go well? and What do we owe to other people?”
(Appiah, 2008: 37). This distinction highlights two constitutive relationships in
Meadian social psychology and reconnects us to his interactionist groundings:
the reflexive self (i.e. self as subject related to self as object); and the interactional
self (i.e. self as subject related to other as subject). Morality manifests in the
interaction between the reflexive and interactional selves.
Moral perspectives, then, focus on empirical phenomena and dynamics of a
self situated, defined, and appraised—the same dynamics that produce a person’s
empirically available identity. Appiah places “identity at the heart of human
life” in his understanding of ethics and self-development (Appiah, 2005: 26).
Underlying identity is the reflexive and existential phenomenon of social
self-as-defined-and-situated by self, others, and institutions in ever widening
arcs of inclusiveness without, however, losing local identities.
Appiah’s natural-social understanding interprets self as a dynamic process
whose flourishing includes a trajectory toward greater inclusiveness and
meaning from a smaller to a larger self; from a narrow local to an ever-expanding
cosmopolitan self; from a human exceptionalist tribal self to an ecologically
identified earthling self; in short, to an ever more generalized and inclusive
self. This perspective puts self at the center of pragmatic social psychology as
scientifically grounded moral inquiry while also problematizing the self’s
attempts at establishing authenticity, especially in late capitalist consumer
societies, a challenge to which we turn at the end of the next section.
Self-authenticity as master motive and pragmatic meaning

We approach self-authenticity as an aspect of self-motivation rather than an
aspect of self as object, thus bracketing appraisals by others and the outcomes of
social structure and institutional location. The labels “master motive” and
“pragmatic meaning” refer respectively to experiences of present self-
authenticity as warrants for a self-claim to an intrinsic identity, and to actions
of self-authenticity as warrant for a self-claim to a moral life.
For Mead authenticity and self are processual, emergent, reflexive, and
empirically available directly to self-experience and indirectly to others through
actions or symbols. Authenticity, like self, is a contested meaning which is not
increasingly discovered through physical sciences like objects in a world that is
there, but which is continually experienced and constructed in the interplay
among self, other, and institutions via cultural codes. Self is emergently and
interactionally social within which moral meanings emerge and involves an
inherent dynamic toward an inclusive and generalized self that extends the
symbolic horizons of relevant communities (Taylor, 1991: 31ff).
The inclusivity of community arises as a key moral issue in the idea of a
cosmopolitan community, that is, a social universe potentially shared by all
humans. With this realist turn, self-authenticity emerges as a call for personal
freedom intrinsically interwoven with responsibility for others. Currently,
self-authenticity is a signature moral motive for cultural carriers of a potential
global community.
Viktor Gecas (1994, 2000; see Weigert, 2009) presents a conceptual
framework for a theory of motivation based on self-motives, including a value
dimension. Positing operative self-knowledge (i.e. self-concept) as a cognitive
basis for a theory of motivation, Gecas emphasizes self-worth derived from
personal competence, or agency, as a complementary realist self-motive (cf.
Stets, 2013). Genuine self-esteem and authenticity arise from efficacious actions.
Gecas links self-authenticity to classical sources, especially Marx and
alienation, and looks at possible concomitants of authenticity-inauthenticity.
Each self-motive refers to core aspects of self-experience: esteem to feelings
and affect, agency to action and competence, and authenticity to meaning and
culture. In general, self tends to act to preserve or enhance desirable experiences
of positive self-feeling, competent self-agency, and authentic self-meaning (cf.
Stets, 2013).
“Authenticity,” for Gecas, “is a quintessentially modern problem” (Gecas,
1994: 139). In globalizing contexts characterized by pluralism, rapid change,
conflicts, movements of peoples, increasing cross-cultural contacts, enlarging
markets, environmental threats, and struggles for self-meaning, authenticity
emerges as a definitive challenge. Erikson (1995) interprets concern for
authenticity as indicating the problematic yet powerful commitment to plural
self-values in a context of rapid social change. Traditionally bounded selves
perceive or feel threats from “others” who are not like us. Tension builds
between two paths to self-authenticity: replicated reactions to strengthen self
within prior community boundaries and identities; or emergent reactions to
form a self that feels and thinks outside of received and closed boundaries.
Pluralistic self-understanding also functions as a motivating force. Such a
motivating force arises from a quest for self-authenticity as a cultural impulse.
Meaning, however, always emerges in the response, in potential futures, as we
go about routines of repeating habits, following norms, and fulfilling cultural
imperatives. Recall Cook’s parallelism between Mead’s understanding of
empirical science as ever reformable attempts to know the world that is there,
and of morality as ever more inclusive actions to meliorate the society in which
we live (Cook, 1993: 122). Just so, Mead’s method of morality strives to
incorporate the responses of all others affected by self’s or society’s actions to
act conjointly in ways that reflect each self’s relationship to outcomes. Moral
action is democratic and cooperative, even if conflictual, to enhance the lives
of all. This dynamic is a desired process both of social change and of self-
development. Mead’s meliorism motivates his moral vision of an authentic self.
The dialogue of self and society is the motivational source of meaningful
social action. Mead repeatedly addressed the moral ideal of acting in terms of a
“new,” “larger,” “whole,” “complete,” “generalized” self, rather than an old,
narrow, partial, or particular self (e.g. 1964: 147ff; 1934: 144, 155, 317, 386).
For example, he notes that the charitable individual shares in a “growing
consciousness that society is responsible for the ordering of its own processes
and structure so that what are common goods … should be accessible to
common enjoyment” (1964: 5, 497). He adds, “We vaguely call it ‘progress’.”
Mead’s emphasis on historical processes of increasingly inclusive social dynamics
adumbrates globalization, social utopianism, and cosmopolitanism in his
reasoning about “international mindedness,” “social reform,” and an “ideal
universal society” implicated in the evolutionary dynamics of self-motivation
and societal change.
Analysts develop cosmopolitanism as a fertile construct for generating a
social moral sense in an increasingly interdependent and interactive global
context. Appiah (2006) argues for a dialogical and rooted cosmopolitanism that
remains true to one’s local identity (wherever that is) and embraces a sense of
obligation toward and ability to understand others. He pragmatically states that
“we can live in harmony without agreeing on underlying values (except,
perhaps, the cosmopolitan value of living together)” (Appiah, 2006:
78). Believers who covet the same valued object struggle all the more violently
if they cannot find a more inclusive value to inform communication,
compromise, and a shared future.
In a sociological framework, Beck (2006) argues that cosmopolitanism both
reflects the crisis of contemporary global interdependencies and suggests
reflexive responses that offer hope. A system of independent sovereign nation-
states and traditional identities is inadequate for today’s pluralist and
contact-intense global contexts. Thus, selves are ambivalent and aware of the
need for new affective, cognitive, and interactional relationships. He lists five
emerging realizations underwriting an emerging self that combines old and
new: a world society in crisis; salience of differences and resulting conflict;
principles of empathy and perspective-taking; need for, but tendency to
reconfigure, boundaries; intermingling of peoples so that “cosmopolitanism
without provincialism is empty, provincialism without cosmopolitanism is
blind” (Beck, 2006: 7 [cited in Weigert, 2009]). A cosmopolitan self experiences
conflicting emotions from culturally induced ambivalences toward events,
others, and self. A cosmopolitan self is a tragic actor with a tragic flaw—
ambivalence seeking authenticity—made even more tragic in a consumer
society where authenticity is sought and conveyed primarily through material
goods consumed in the marketplace.
We contend, however, that consumer capitalism’s system of meanings
embedded in material goods motivating individuals to seek and display
authenticity through possessions is being challenged, even if in small ways, by
emerging practices that replace ownership with access, thus shifting the source
of authenticity from ownership to experience. This challenge points to
authenticity, rather than a mere motivator of a replicated self along with self-
esteem and self-efficacy, becoming a motivating moral meaning of a new
contemporary self. We next discuss the implications of such a shift for self’s
relationship to environment and, in turn, society’s long-term sustainability.
Self’s environment and society’s sustainability

Mead’s socio-naturalism posits self–environment relationships as fundamental
to a moral understanding of social psychology and society. Socio-naturally, the
“other” is any symbolically transformed entity with which self interacts. Mead
posited a “generalized” social other as an operative moral category. His socio-
naturalism, however, leads to a consideration of physical and non-human
others as morally relevant as well. Morally coupled with a generalized social
other is a “generalized environmental other” (Weigert, 1997: 27ff. and passim).
Self’s moral reach includes the earthly world that is there along with that earth’s
non-human inhabitants.
Pragmatically right action requires explicating cultural and epistemological
criteria to interpret accounts of environmental meanings as well as the faith
objects and moral dimensions used to transform such accounts into motives for
social reconstruction. A necessary step is to state core values, for example, a
growing knowledge about the need to sustain ecosystems supportive of human
life. Once an inclusive life-sustaining value is posited, actors need to apply
moral narratives to collective goals and personal interests in order to reason
together how to attain that axiomatic grounding value (Milbrath, 1989).
Mead’s three-fold historical periodization of social moralities from
“prehistoric man” to “tribal” societies and now to a “method by which
intelligent changes” are made, builds on his naturalistic, evolutionary, and
emergent understanding of social life (Miller, 1973: 229ff). He characterizes
contemporary morality as adjustments to a future-oriented, melioristic, and
interactional paradigm.
Morality addresses the issue of imagining and acting to form a preferable
future for all affected by the action. This ethical paradigm highlights emerging
shared futures. Mead emphasized that received moralities ontologized the past
and then the present as a priori guidelines to ethical action. In the contemporary
world, however, morality requires us to reason together based on the best
science and empirical sources relevant to all who will experience the futures
resulting from present actions. Thus we are led to consideration of perceptions
and actions within younger cohorts as they struggle to project and possibly
achieve a meaningful future.
Building on Mills’ call for a “sociological imagination,” Lederach (2005)
formulates a call for a “moral imagination” as a force for making peace in
contexts of protracted violence. He summarized this pragmatic perspective as
central to his “vocation” to apply his greatest energies to the world’s greatest
needs. Lederach builds on four cases of peace processes arising amid long-
standing violence and repression to sketch a common understanding of social
change dynamics: top-down institutionalized structures, bottom-up social
movements, and middle-class dynamics affecting both top and bottom
(Lederach, 2005: 79).
We read this as an instance of a pragmatic understanding of micro dynamics in
processes of social change within a compelling contemporary moral context such
as human–environment interaction from a Meadian perspective (cf. Brewster
and Puddephat, forthcoming). We attempt to formulate a bottom-up source of
possible social change by means of micro processes emerging in younger cohorts
or “generations.” It is plausible to search for sources of social change in
environmental structures and processes of individual and group interactions. One
means is similar to cohort analysis, which focuses on motives and actions deriving
from formative historical experiences and artifacts in the broadest sense, to
include hardware such as iPads and smartphones as well as different modes of
self-realization in a manufacturing age of possession contrasted with a web age of
sharing and rethinking in an emerging cosmopolitan world vying for causal
primacy with received meanings and patterns of action and relating.
We try to formulate and define selections of the emerging technologically
driven social interactions that define and elicit the formative experiences of
contemporary youth with relation to environmental issues. With no a priori
certainty, we nevertheless look at micro experiences, incipient shared thinking,
and new interactional meanings of environmental dimensions of action to
examine anecdotally the cultural impulses and moral actions giving rise to
possible futures.
Cultural impulses, moral actions and possible futures

Mead’s moral reasoning points to possible microsociological origins of social
change. Recall that, for Mead, moral issues arise when routine action becomes
problematic or blocked. Routine action is the assumed result of “right actions”
produced by moral habits. Such action is shaped by the social life processes that
reproduce the social world depicted in Figure 6.1. Social life processes, especially
cultural beliefs, also shape visions of anticipated and preferred futures. Moral
action, defined within the context of the social life processes, is by definition
action intended to produce desired futures. What happens when routine action
no longer produces desired futures; or, more profoundly, when the desired
futures produced by social life processes are deemed unobtainable or problematic?
A new morality arises when routine actions formed by the old morality are
blocked or no longer function to produce the desired future. In such
circumstances, new futures may be envisioned. New moralities, defining new
right actions, will emerge as social actors begin experimenting with bringing
envisioned futures into existence. In these blocked circumstances new
opportunities for the self to develop and expand arise as mind is applied to
action in the search for efficacious motives that can bring about the alternative
envisioned future.
Mead’s social psychology as moral discipline encourages us to look for two
possible phenomena that are likely to represent the micro-level origins of social
change: blockages of routine actions essential to carrying out social life processes,
and rejection of routine actions where such actions are perceived to be incapable
of producing the desired futures. In the remainder of the chapter we selectively,
rather than systematically, point to the possible presence of these phenomena
through analysis of what we describe as emerging cultural impulses. Consistent
with our concern with blockages of routine action, the term impulse intentionally
invokes Mead’s account of social acts that begin with impulses in response to
problematic situations (Mead, 1938). The cultural impulses we examine, though
occurring across the US population, are perhaps most concentrated in the
millennial generation. It is impossible to characterize homogeneously an entire
generation, especially one known for its diversity. But with Mead’s meliorist
mindset we single out some of the prominent characteristics and practices
associated with this generation towards a qualitative, and not causal or predictive,
exploration of possible futures in a time of great uncertainty.
Of all the facts and myths circulating about the US Millennial generation,
one thing is likely to be true: Millennials are the most discussed, surveyed,
blogged about, and fussed over generation in history. They are also at 92
million strong the largest living generation, having recently surpassed the
shrinking Boomer generation (77 million). With more than 43 percent non-
white adults, the highest share of any generation, Millennials are also defined
by their diversity. Perhaps their most significant defining characteristics have to
do with the historical and institutional contexts in which they came of age.
According to the Millennial Advisory Committee of the Andrew Goodman
Foundation in its “Social Change Manifesto”:
We are the most diverse generation in U.S. history and have come of age
when the pillars of this great nation have failed us. But despite the collapse
of financial institutions, the failing education system, the focus on short-
term profits and corporate greed, and environmental degradation, we are
emboldened by our hope and tech savvy–we possess innovative spirits to
make a better future for all.
(Millennial Advisory Committee, 2015)
In this single passage, Millennials’ own voices communicate precisely what

recent research on Millennials from institutions like the Pew Research Center
(2014), Goldman Sachs (2015), IBM (2015), and PricewaterhouseCoopers
(2011) say about them. They have grown up in an age of terrorism and wars,
during which the US experienced the greatest economic downturn since the
Great Depression, and yet Millennials are optimistic about their abilities to
forge a future better than the present. The Pew report tells us:
Millennials are the first in the modern era to have higher levels of student
loan debt, poverty and unemployment, and lower levels of wealth and
personal income than their two immediate predecessor generations had at
the same age … Despite their financial burdens, Millennials are the nation’s
most stubborn economic optimists. More than eight-in-ten say they either
currently have enough money to lead the lives they want (32%) or expect
to in the future (53%). No other cohort of adults is nearly as confident.
(Pew Research Center, 2014)
One reason for this optimism may be that they have tools to adapt. As one
journalist puts it, “millennials, the first people to come of age in the 21st
century, with its dizzying rate of technological change, have been forced to
invent new ways of navigating it” (Tanenhaus, 2014). As the first generation of
“digital natives,” Millennials are at once burdened by the proliferation of
technologies thrust into social life processes, but also liberated by the ability to
use these very technologies as tools for experimenting with forging alternative
futures. Nadia Owusu, Assistant Director of Strategic Communications and
Storytelling at Living Cities, an organization whose mission is to “harness the
collective power of philanthropy and financial institutions to improve the lives
of low-income people and the cities where they live,” explains the Millennial
orientation to technology:
The reality is that technology opens up possibilities for better understanding
challenges and opportunities, for sharing ideas and calls to action, and for
working together in new ways, transcending parochialism and the
traditional roles of individuals, institutions, and sectors. But, meaningful
and lasting change cannot … be advanced entirely through hashtags. It
cannot be co-created entirely on a Google Hangout … This is especially
important as we are all increasingly acknowledging that no individual or
institution can achieve our vision for a more peaceful, just, and sustainable
world on its own … Millennials, as the most diverse generation in US
history and the generation that came up in the internet age, are uniquely
positioned to drive these tools to work for public good.
(Owusu, 2015)
The tools to which Owusu refers are being used to build reimagined civic,
economic, and social institutions that replace the institutions Millennials
perceive to have failed them. As the previously cited Millennial Advisory
Committee’s “Social Change Manifesto” proclaims:
We reject the notion that the Millennial Generation is less community-

focused, politically engaged, and environmentally conscious than previous
generations … We commit ourselves to charting a new path forward. This
path must be informed by a renewed spirit of empathy and responsibility
for others present and future … While partisanship has reached an all-time
high in government and among the general public, we know that no
individual or institution can achieve our vision for a more peaceful, just
and sustainable world on its own. To achieve this, we must work together
and collaborate—across generations, geographies, philosophies, races, and
nationalities. Failure to do so will serve to maintain the systems that support
inequality, poverty, disenfranchisement, and environmental degradation.
The picture captured by the extensive surveying of Millennials by the Pew

Research Center and others, combined with the voices of an admittedly select
group of Millennials on the Andrew Goodman Foundation’s Millennial
Advisory Committee, hints at the presence of our two phenomena relevant to
pragmatic analysis: blockages of routine actions essential to carrying out social
life processes and rejection of routine actions where such actions are perceived
to be incapable of producing the desired future. The historical and structural
contexts of their coming of age have blocked Millennials from carrying out
certain scripts written into social life processes such as completing college
degrees, embarking on a stable work life, marrying, and buying a home.
Furthermore, the social life processes into which they were born generally
required access to at least modest economic resources for purchasing material
goods around which social meaning, status, and values revolve. Blocked from
engaging in such processes, the Pew report tells us Millennials are forging a
“distinctive path into adulthood” (i.e. rejecting routine actions that fail to
produce the promised or desired future) that includes living with their parents
through their 20s and marrying later. In 2010, 30 percent of Millennial
18–34-year-olds lived at home with their parents and only 23 percent of
18–31-year-olds in 2012 were married. Additionally, material goods are far less
important with 30 percent of surveyed Millennials indicating no intent to buy
a car in the near future and another 25 percent expressing indifference toward
automobile ownership (Goldman Sachs, 2015). The Goldman Sachs report
draws the following conclusion from these data: “The must-haves for previous
generations aren’t as important for Millennials. They’re putting off major
purchases—or avoiding them entirely … Instead, they’re turning to a new set
of services that provide access to products without the burdens of ownership.”
Another interpretation may be that they are rejecting material goods as sources
of authenticity.
Blocked circumstances produce the first stage of the social act: impulse.
Blocked circumstances also open up opportunities for the self to develop and
expand through application of mind to action in the search for efficacious
motives that can bring about the alternative envisioned future. As such, the
Millennial transition from the motivating force of self-esteem, sought through
manipulation of perceptions of self primarily via acquisition of material
possessions, to the motivating force of self-authenticity takes on great
significance. By examining two cultural impulses, which we define as
emerging routines of action intended to address a specific human or social
need in alternative ways to the dominant cultural norm, we hope to illustrate
deeper elements of the Millennial cohort that point to the possibility of a
wider cultural shift to a sustainable socio-ecological relationship. To wit, if
the shift is to be driven by Millennials, it will most certainly not be a shift
motivated by traditional concerns for the environment. Only about a third of
Millennials (32 percent), according to the Pew report, say the word
“environmentalist” describes them very well (as compared to 39 percent of
Gen Xers in 1999, the date at which they were roughly the same age as
today’s Millennials).
Growth since the start of the millennium in the practices of urban agriculture
and bicycling for transportation practically illustrate contemporary efforts to
forge new identities with new meanings through enactment of new cultural
forms. Both practices originated as cultural impulses in the sense of our
definition. While both are embraced by many different generations, these
Millennials engage in these practices at higher rates. For example, with respect
to declines in the use of automobiles, McDonald finds that,
lifestyle-related demographic shifts between Millennials and Generation X

(those born in the late 1960s to the late 1970s) account for 10% to 25% of
the observed decrease in automobility, while Millennial-specific factors
such as differing attitudes to mobility account for 35% to 50% of the
observed decrease in auto use.
(McDonald, 2015: 1–2)
According to McDonald, another 40 percent can be attributed to declines in
auto usage across all demographic groups during the late 2000s. These findings
provide counter evidence to the lifespan arguments claiming that Millennial
characteristics are not unique to the generation but rather to a period in the
lifespan that all generations pass through. Another unique characteristic of
Millennials, separating them from previous generations at the same point in
their lifespans, is their preference to reside in cities. We are not unique in our
optimism that these cultural impulses might be reflecting deeper social change.
Both urban agriculture and bicycling as transportation emerge out of the
urban context. In both practices, early manifestations showed signs of being
reactions against the failed institutions of the industrial food and mobility
systems, urban planning, and municipal governments. On the urban agriculture
front, we see guerrilla gardeners spray medians, curb strips and other urban
dead spaces with “seed bombs”; community-minded individuals occupy vacant
lots with vegetable beds; impassioned food activists launch farm stands and
farmers’ markets; all of which inspire innovations such as rooftop farms, mobile
gardens, and vertical farming. More importantly, these practices are leading to
transformations of institutions and systems. For example, years of advocacy in
Los Angeles by community groups like L.A. Green Rounds recently resulted
in a code change that now allows Angelenos to plant fruits and vegetables in
city-owned curb strips. Such policies are not simply about food. As one
commenter on an article about the new policy explained, “Edible parkways are
not strictly about fresh food access. They are also about beautification,
connection and communion” (Sugarman, 2013), all of which are identified by
studies of Millennials as key generational values (Goldman Sachs, 2015; Pew
Research Center, 2014). Rebecca Solnit elegantly captures the transformative
nature of the urban agriculture movement when she writes that “[w]e are in an
era when gardens are front and center for hopes and dreams of a better world”
and even captures the value propositions embedded in gardening:
[I]magine the whole world as a garden, in which case you might want to
weed out corporations, compost old divides, and plant hope, subversion,
and fierce commitments among the heirloom tomatoes and the chard. The
main questions will always be: What are your principal crops? And who do
they feed?
(Solnit, 2012)
Across the US, urban policies ranging from health and building codes to
parking and land use laws are being transformed by urban agriculturalists
engaged in practices from backyard animal husbandry to home-based
preparation of commercial foodstuffs. Turow (2015) optimistically attributes to
Millennials the capacity to transform the modern food system.
Similarly, on the transportation front, we see guerrilla bike lane painting to
address the failure of transportation planners to design safe streets for bicyclists;
“bike parties” supplanting the contentious and political Critical Mass rides that
arose in the 1990s; on-street parking for cars converted to “bicycle corrals” that
hold up to twenty bicycles in the space previously reserved for a single car; and
car-free streets events like Park(ing) Day1 and Sunday Streets in San Francisco
and CicLAvia in L.A. Morhayim contends that “[t]hese events have not only
been effective in promoting bicycle culture, but they have also resulted in a
reimagining of the potential for public engagement in the quality of urban
streets” (Morhayim, 2015: 227). In short, structures of civic engagement, as
well as civic codes themselves, are being transformed. Such transformations are,
at least in part, addressing the Millennial Advisory Council’s call “to correct
and reimagine failed systems through new civic structures.”
The practices of urban agriculture and bicycling as transportation represent
emergent routines of action intended to address a specific human or social need
in alternative ways to the dominant cultural norm. Neither reflects strategies of
the old social life processes—such as working within institutions or seeking
culturally identified goals as means to producing future desired outcomes. In
both cases, Millennials as well as urban dwellers across a wide range of race,
class, and generational categories are envisioning the future of their cities and,
frustrated with the inability of standard social life processes to produce the
desired future, experimenting with alternatives. While these cultural impulses
resonate with members of all generations, they are particularly salient to
Millennials because they have come of age at the convergence of economic,
technological, and moral trends initiated by previous generations. To the
extent that their experiments are inclusive, meliorative, and aimed at the public
good, they can be seen in Meadian terms as moral actions rooted in a master
motive of self-authenticity resulting from the exercise of choices arising from
empirical methods for discerning preferable futures and pursuing cooperative
social action to achieve them.
Environmental microsociological theory and social change

The preceding discussion should be seen as a hermeneutic exercise using
Millennials to understand the potential relevance of Mead’s social psychology
as moral discipline to the challenge of transitioning society to a sustainable
socioecological relationship. Millennials cannot and should not be universalized.
Nor do we intend to suggest that the cultural impulses of urban agriculture and
bicycling for transportation are exclusive to Millennials. Rather, as a generation
constrained by a set of historical and structural factors not of their choosing, yet
uniquely optimistic and hopeful about the future, Millennials provide a unique
opportunity to explore possible microsociological factors of social change as
they intersect with the macro-level forces of the economy, workplace, and
urban environments. Doing so suggests that, narrowly understood, current
environmental microsociological theory might lead us to shine our theoretical
light on the wrong phenomena. Ecological selves, ecological identities, and
other attempts at conceptualizing human–environment interaction with the
goal of understanding how to motivate “right” action have limited usefulness.
Our anecdotal analysis of Millennials points to the potential for social change
resulting from responses to blockages of routine actions essential to carrying
out social life processes and from rejection of routine actions where such
actions are perceived ineffective in the pursuit of new futures. This avenue of
investigation would benefit from efforts to link to meso-level analyses of
institutions and organizations and macro-level analyses of structural change.
There is a second contribution we hope to make to environmental sociology
more generally. Environmental sociology never succeeded in the wholesale
transformation of the mainstream discipline that it sought (Catton and Dunlap,
1978, 1980). Nurturing environmental microsociological theory as a
counterbalance to the dominant macro-level theorizing defining the field is
not likely to change this fact. But by applying Mead’s social psychology as
moral discipline to the broader challenge of initiating or driving the social
change necessary to bring humans into a sustainable relationship with earth’s
ecological processes, we believe that much of the rest of the discipline can be
made more relevant to environmental sociology. Focusing on social life
processes, by definition of central concern to all sociologists, opens new avenues
for thinking through possible paths to sustainable socioecological relationships
other than nurturing ecological selves or restoring a lost connection between
humans and the natural world. Humans are more motivated to engage in and
maintain social life processes that provide continuity and meaning in our social
realities than to engage in and maintain social and moral relations with the
natural world. Environmental microsociological theory must confront this
blunt reality by developing a meta-environmental microsociology—a
theoretical project rooted in the discipline’s rich tradition and then applied to
environmental challenges as social dilemmas. A meta-environmental
microsociology would examine bottom-up sources of social change through
social psychology as a moral discipline intended to bring forth desired futures
by experimenting with new approaches to social life processes. In doing so,
environmental sociology might transcend its niche status and make itself
inherently relevant not only to the discipline but to anyone interested in
bringing into existence a future that is more inclusive, equitable, just, humane,
and sustainable.
Note
1 Park(ing) Day, launched by a San Francisco art and design studio in 2005, is now
an annual “open-source global event where citizens, artists and activists collaborate
to temporarily transform metered parking spaces into ‘PARK(ing)’ spaces:
temporary public places.”
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7 Present tense
Everyday animism and the politics
of possession
Michael M. Bell
Hey, I’m a rational guy. I mean, I own a computer and use it pretty much
every day, often for hours at a time. I’ve got a Prius sitting in the driveway,
although it’s a bit buried in an early spring snow as I write these lines on March
23, 2015. That’s quite a machine, with all its hybrid tech. My wife and I
bought it because it generally gets above 50 miles per gallon. We’re concerned
about climate change, you see. And, yes, that is a rational concern—even
though we did have snow on March 23, 2015, and even though February 2015
was the coldest in 79 years (so the news media said) in Madison, Wisconsin,
where I live.
This snowfall was completely contrary to what Jimmy the Groundhog
predicted to the mayor of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, an exurban town just outside
of Madison. Punxsutawney Phil in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania is the better
known meteorologist groundhog. But we have our marmot oracle here in
Wisconsin, and we’re proud of it, thank you very much. On Groundhog Day
in 2015, our Jimmy didn’t see his shadow, meaning that there should be an
early spring. Punxsutawney Phil apparently did see his shadow, meaning a late
spring—which turned out to be a more accurate forecast. So perhaps
Punxsutawney Phil is deservedly better known. Jimmy also bit the Mayor of
Sun Prairie on the ear in 2015. So maybe the usual did-he-see-his-shadow
thing couldn’t be trusted—or so the papers said.
No matter. I know my concern for climate change is rational because I just
checked the world temperature data from GISS—the Goddard Institute for
Space Studies, one of the two main sources on the progress of global warming.
Although it was cold in Madison in 2015, worldwide it was the second warmest
February on record. Worldwide, the three-month period from December,
2014 through February, 2015 was the second warmest such period on record.1
At least at that point. (Quite probably by the time you, gentle reader, encounter
these lines, it will have been surpassed.) And I trust GISS, backed up as it is by
scientists and satellites and precise on-the-ground weather instruments and all
manner of computerized calculation and communication technology.
So, yes, I’m a rational guy, at least in the sense that I am committed to
rational inquiry and its fruits. Oh, and, another thing. I’m a college professor,
with several degrees in the natural sciences (although, admittedly, two of them
118 Michael M. Bell
are joint with sociology). I even have half a dozen publications in natural
science journals.
Nonetheless, I believe in ghosts.
Indeed, I act on that belief every day. My goal in this chapter is to demonstrate
that we all do. We all do because not only are we all rational in various ways.
We all do because, like me, we are also all political.
Nothing could be more characteristic of our experience of the environment.
Our world is full of ghosts, spirits, specters, apparitions, minds, consciousnesses,
and other presences we sense animating our material surround. You find them
in places. You find them in things. You find them in beings. Sometimes you
find them in all of these at once. These are not just presences of the dead. They
are also central to our attribution of aliveness to a place, thing, or being.
Presences are present in the present, in the here and now, but as well they have
histories that extend from the there and then into the here and now, showing
a continuity and unity of consequence that declares “I live.” Indeed, the very
etymology of the word presence makes this declaration, for it comes from the
Latin prefix for “pre” added to the Latin for “to be.” A presence is something
that is, a recognizable unity, but one that also extends from before: a pre-being.
And a presence is also a being that we extend into the future, a continuity that
seems likely to continue. A presence has a past and a future.
Making such attributions is utterly ordinary. We do it all the time—what I
suggest calling everyday animism, a literally vital aspect of our micro-
environmental experience of places, things, and beings. The attribution of
presence may be scary for academics to inspect, measure, and discuss with the
pincers of our normally disenchanted understanding of science. But it is entirely
normal to the daily affairs of social and ecological interaction and, as I will
argue, to our assessment of the justice and politics of those relations.
Consider the possibility that you knock on the door of my home or my office
to pay a cordial visit, perhaps to discuss the possibilities of an animate micro-
environmental sociology. “Sure,” I say. “Let’s meet. Lovely that you’re
interested. Come on in.” For I have seen you there just outside the doorway,
and I have decided that (among other qualities) you are animate. I decide that
you have a presence of something that means you are not an android (even
though you may have one in your pocket). I sense a spirit there, a living,
breathing spirit, air passing in and out. Indeed, the word spirit comes from the
Latin for air, just as the word animate comes from the Latin for breath. (Be
forewarned: I like etymology.)
And I hope you sense animate-ness in me, as I invite you in. I have that
hope because, if you do have that sense of an animate presence in me—and
here is the main analytic point I am trying to establish in this chapter—you
are thereby granting me political standing, just as I am simultaneously granting
it to you. You treat me differently than you evidently treat the seat that, at
my invitation, you sit down on. You do not sit on me. And I inwardly thank
you for that courtesy. If you did sit on me, I’d get pretty pissed off. And I
Present tense 119
think most understandings of politics would justify me in that outrage. I’m
justified in holding my person as being a bit sacred, as are you your person.
And you hope that I will treat you with the same courtesy: that I won’t sit
on you, dump my mail and empty tea cup on your lap, and knock you to the
floor and walk on you as I move over to, and then settle down on, my own
chair. This everyday acknowledgment, if consistently granted, goes beyond
hope and leads to trust—implicit and taken-for-granted trust—that my
granting of political standing to you, and your granting it to me, will become
(if I may put it this way) a political sitting at the table of sociality. It goes
beyond hope to trust because it is totally ordinary to grant such standing (and
sitting).
You and I also make such attributions in another totally ordinary way. You
and I recognize that the objects and places around us are possessed. You look
around my living room. Your eye lingers on the line-up of interesting things
on the mantelpiece. You get up and take down the strange looking rock at the
end, making sure to catch my eye first to get my silent assent. Or you ask “May
I?” “Sure,” I say. No big deal. Except it is. We need to go through this little
ritual of permission not just because these objects on the mantel are possessions,
my possessions. They are possessions because they have possessions. Some
lingering sense of my presence coheres to them, a mine-ness that would persist
even if I were not physically in the room.
For perhaps your encounter with my rock went this way. “Want a cup of
tea?” I ask when you come in. “Sure,” you say. And I go out of the room. You
look around this space so strange to you, and your eye fastens onto the rock.
You’d love to have a closer look. But I’m not there, and you didn’t form this
interest in the rock until I left and you had a moment to cast your gaze about.
So you wait until I return before asking me if you can handle the rock. Or
perhaps you get up from your chair to have a closer look. But you don’t touch
it. You don’t touch it because that rock has political standing too. It has political
standing because it is possessed by a presence, the presence of me. It belongs to
me and I belong to it. You don’t touch it because you are polite, and therefore
constantly reckon carefully with my possessions, and thus my possession. You
treat the rock as a social object, granting it a political sitting as well.
Nor do you use the moment of my absence to grab the rock and run out the
door. We barely know each other, of course. There’s a good chance I wouldn’t
be able to track you down. Your bike is right out there in front. You quite
likely could make a clean get-away. But you don’t. Not out of an avoidance of
politics, though. It would be as political an act to claim the stone for yourself
as to continue to grant that it is mine.
Sometimes people have walked all over others, or committed other indecent
and horrible acts, as we know. Sometimes people have stolen from others.
Indeed, they do it all the time. “Property is theft,” said Proudhon. Perhaps he
might have also phrased the point as “possession is theft.” But it takes special
moral acts of desecration, of making un-sacred, of exorcism, of un-sitting and
un-standing, to carry out such politics.
120 Michael M. Bell
Such matters are often very unclear, however. We generally do not all share
the same attributions of presence. Desecration for one may be consecration for
another. But it’s not just a simple matter of whether something is sacred or
profane. Although presence is not necessarily zero-sum, it often is, meaning
that the sacred is the profane, the one making the other. And both are political,
full of conflict and confusion, struggles for clarity and definition, connection
and disconnection, inclusion and exclusion. Thus the title of my chapter.
Presence is tense.
Let’s take a closer look at the rock now. “See those ridges?” I say. “And have
a look from behind. See? Those look like shoulders. And now look at the front
again. Looks like a belly there.” And then you see it. This rock is really an old
and much eroded statue.
“Wow,” you say. “Where did you get it?”
It’s a long story, but I explain as best I can (with a few tasty tangents, most
likely) about how I got it years ago in Costa Rica from a Bri-Bri man named
Frederico, who had found it in a stream high in the Talamanca Mountains
where I was then working as a geologist, and how I traded a knife for it. The
Bri-Bri are one of Costa Rica’s few remaining indigenous groups. The statue
probably had been made a thousand years earlier by one of this man’s forebears,
and had been placed in the grave of a chief or other notable until the stream
shifted and washed out the grave.
Or so I learned when I later brought the statue to the Costa Rican national
museum to ask if they wanted it. No, the state archeologist I spoke with had
told me, for it was far too eroded. The museum has dozens and dozens of
statutes like it in much better condition. At the time, I was moderately mindful
of the issues of imperially claiming a country’s patrimony or contributing to the
shadowy international trade in antiquities. (I was only nineteen then, working
in Costa Rica during a kind of unofficial semester abroad.) That’s part of why
I brought it to the museum, thinking I should leave it with them. I hadn’t
considered that they might not want it.
I asked what I should do with the statue, if they didn’t want it. I couldn’t
very well return it to Frederico, the Bri-Bri man, and ask him to put it back
where he found it. Frederico lived a two-day walk from the nearest road. And
if I gave the statue to someone else in Costa Rica, it might soon become part
of the international antiquities trade.
The archeologist considered the matter. “I suppose you could find a stretch
of rainforest someplace and just toss it into the bushes. But then if someone
found it later, it would confuse us archeologists completely! Hmmm. Are you
planning on taking any rocks home?”
I was then a geologist. Of course.
“I suppose, given that you already traded for it, you should just take it home,
then. Pack it in with your other rocks, and hope that the customs agents don’t
catch it. It pretty much just looks like a piece of basalt anyway. Keep it as a memento
of your time in our great country,” he said, or words to that effect. And so I did.
Present tense 121
But I still feel funny about it. Yes, I traded for it. Yes, the archeologist said
it was, well, sort of OK, even if not strictly legal. Yes, it remains a great
memento. It holds something for me, something deep, even now. Yet
something still stirs in that deepness, unsettled.
You see, I acquired the statue through an unfamiliar approach to trade. My
colleagues and I had hired Frederico—he used a Spanish name when interacting
with the outside world—as a guide after we met him one day in the rainforest,
reckoning that he knew the area way better than we did. He lived with us for
almost a week. Then one evening at the campfire, Frederico just gave me the
statue outright, asking nothing in return. I was thrilled and bewildered. What
a gift! But not exactly. My other Costa Rica colleagues explained to me that
Frederico expected me to give him an equal gift in kind. Money? No. Which
was good, because I had almost none along in the jungle. (No stores out there.)
But I didn’t really have anything else either, except what I needed to cope with
living two days walk from the nearest road in a high rainforest, where we had
been dropped in by helicopter to do geologic mapping.
But wait. There was that extra pocket knife I’d packed, in case I lost my
main one. It was rather fancy, too, with a carved bone handle, and several
blades. I asked my other colleagues if that seemed appropriate. They said,
“¡Perfecto!” So the next evening at the campfire, which was to be our last with
him, I gave Frederico the knife.
I remember him looking it over carefully, trying out each blade. Then
Frederico nodded, and gave a big smile. It was an appropriate gift in kind, and
I hope it did not just match the value of the rock to him but exceeded it. The
rock was sure worth way more to me than the inconvenience of not having a
second knife, should I lose my other one.
But I still worry that it wasn’t equal—that Frederico got a gift worth less to
him than what I got. So I can’t get him out of the rock. The exorcism of trade
didn’t fully work. He still has political standing in it—not to mention that it
was carved by his ancestors, and not mine, even if he appeared not to value that
connection all that much.
These tensions in the micro-environmental sociology of presence apply not

only to our experience of people and things but potentially also to our
experience of places. It all comes home to me most strongly in a place where I
love to go and row, to glide and think, to feel my muscles working with the
sinews of context: the Thousand Islands section of the St. Lawrence River, one
of the world’s most beautiful reaches of water, in my view.
The Thousand Islands are a place of wonder, I think Bill Cronon (1995)
might say. They are also a place possessed, full of spirits who belong to it—and
thus full of politics. The Iroquois understood this well. For them, this stretch
of the St. Lawrence was Manitouanna, the “Garden of the Great Spirit.” It
belonged to the Great Spirit, and therefore belonged to them, for they belonged
to the Great Spirit. For me too there are spirits here, both great and many.
These spirits give me a sense of ownership, a sense that is not, I must immediately
122 Michael M. Bell
confess, entirely just and without conflict, but no less deeply felt for that—and
maybe more deeply.
A little family history will help explain why. Most people only know of the
Thousand Islands from the name of a goopy, rather down-market, salad
dressing. Thousand Islands dressing (or, as it is usually called, in one of the false
economies of our time, “Thousand Island” dressing in the singular) is indeed
historically associated with the Thousand Islands, although the popular dressing
was probably invented by a chef at the Astoria Hotel in New York, and not in
the Thousand Islands (Stiles, Altiok, and Bell, 2011). There is another Thousand
Islands dressing, based on olive oil and orange juice instead of ketchup and
mayonnaise, which actually does come from the Thousand Islands. What we
usually call Thousand Island dressing today used to be called “Astoria dressing,”
as older cookbooks like the eleventh edition of Fanny Farmer show (Farmer,
1965: 288–289). What I’ve heard locally is that the chef who invented Astoria
dressing thought Thousand Island was a better name and bought the rights to
it from the chef that invented the original Thousand Island dressing. This little
curiosity of history hardly matters, except to someone like me who identifies
with the spirits that reside in the region, and is irked that this awful industrial
food product which actually isn’t from the region is what most people know
about it.
But the spirits I sense here are far deeper and more specific than a dressing
name, and cannot be plastered onto a bottle and sold around the world. For my
mother’s ancestors were among the first European settlers in the Thousand
Islands, and were the very first on Grenadier Island, one of the largest of the
islands at some five miles long, and now a part of Canada’s Thousand Islands
National Park.2 The oldest stone in the graveyard on Grenadier is my seven-
greats grandfather, Samuel Fish, with his wife Jemima, my seven-greats
grandmother, right beside him. The island once was home to a community of
over a hundred, with a school, a hotel, a post office, and a shop, as well as a
dozen farms. That is all gone now, although the old school house still stands.
Only one family lives on the island year-round now. Everyone else comes in
the summer.
We are among those summer people. The great indulgence in my life is that
I co-own a family cottage on Grenadier, and another on Tar Island, which is
directly opposite Grenadier. Five branches of my cousins also have summer
cottages on Tar, and another cousin lives on Tar year-round, the only year-
round family on that island. I’ve been up to Tar or Grenadier every summer of
my life, my mother’s been there every summer of her life, and her mother was
there every summer of her life. Before that, we were farmers, and there every
summer, fall, winter, and spring. In other words, all about the place I sense
possession: the ghosts of people long dead, the ghosts of people still alive, even
ghosts of me—over there on that rock, five years old with my first fish. Over
there, diving off another rock with my first girlfriend. Or just over there,
sinking the sailboat with my wife, in plain view of the entire family, during her
first visit to the islands. I attribute spirits all over this place, and through them
Present tense 123
a sense of rightful belonging, ownership, and attachment. There are possessions
here, so many possessions, and through these possessions these islands possess
me and I possess them.
Allow me this declaration: These feelings of possession are beautiful and—to
again use a deliberately animate metaphor—vital. In this age of transcendence
through global science and global religions and global economies, there remains
much about our lives which is rooted in the particular and the magic of its
localized spirits. My history of connection to the Thousand Islands is not
typical, I know. But we all have experiences of places that seem haunted by a
sense of spirit and spirits. The expression “my old haunts” is not just a casually
appropriate metaphor. Think of the little chill you get passing by your old high
school. Think of the tug in the heart when, perhaps, you go by the home
where your family lived when you were young. Or, less happily, think of the
terror of memory you may get passing by a place where something unpleasant
happened to you or to a friend or kin, or to some public or historic figure.
These experiences of spirits are all different for each of us, at least a bit. Indeed,
we will at times do considerable violence to each other, even kill each other,
over our sense of these differences. And yet, that experience of difference is a
point these diverse experiences have in common, and much of why they
matter.
I have elsewhere called experiences like what I feel in the Thousand Islands the
ghosts of place, by which I mean the experience in places of the sense of the
presence of those who are not physically there (Bell, 1997; see also Bell and
Ashwood, 2016; Stiles, Altiok, and Bell, 2011). There is a holiness to this
experience, a very sociological holiness. As I noted earlier, it is the most
everyday act of social interaction to grant a sense of presence to people who
actually are physically there, people that we encounter as we go through the
day, a kind of sacredness of political standing. Like the sociologist Erving
Goffman once noted (1967 [1956]), we treat the individual as a kind of shrine,
as having a certain holiness that requires us to approach each other with
appropriate dignity and ritual, and to be especially cautious and careful about
these rituals of dignity the closer we get. Goffman’s point is well taken, but we
can also turn it around. Goffman argued that we treat the individual like a
shrine because we see the individual as having a holiness. But why do we treat
shrines as holy? Because we grant in the shrine the sense of presence we
experience in an individual. We treat individuals like shrines because we treat
shrines like individuals. We feel a presence there, a presence in the physical that
is not physically there—memories and projections of individuals and social
relations that this special place conjures up for us. There is something there,
there, just as there is in the aliveness of the person. In other words, to experience
the ghosts of place is to experience place socially.
And, of course, the same can apply to objects as well. They can have ghosts
too. I’m thinking here most immediately of my own wedding ring, because it
is, well, immediately at hand, just here as I type. Or I might mention the
124 Michael M. Bell
sweater I am wearing today, hand-crafted by my wife and fitted by her to my
own particular bodily proportions. It fits me as I fit it, and as she and I fit each
other. These are hot objects for me, warm with presence. Mere copies wouldn’t
be the same, just as an android version of you would not be the same to me. I
treat these objects with extra care, just as I treat a living being with extra care.
The ring and the sweater are kinds of portable shrines, shrines to relationships.
To treat them socially, as I do, is to treat them relationally. To sense presence
is to sense relations, the animate relations of our micro-environment.
But our relations are comprised of both our affiliations and our disaffiliations.
And here’s where we get political. I feel a sense of belonging and attachment
to the Thousand Islands and to this ring and sweater, a deep feeling of
ownership. There is a comforting sense of rootedness in the particular that
comes over me thereby. But that belonging and attachment goes two ways: I
belong to the place and the object, and the place and the object belongs to me, and not
to those whose ghosts I do not sense in that place or object. Possession is
possession. And I hope you do not contradict me.
But you might. This sense of possession of presence is not necessarily a
happy thing. There are definite exclusions in possession by possession—
as well as forgetfulness. What, again, of the native peoples who would no
doubt argue that theirs is the deeper claim to possession by and of the
Thousand Islands? What about what the Bri-Bri might say about that statue
on my mantelpiece?
Or what about the miners who moiled for the gold in my ring, possibly
while working over two miles below the ground in South Africa, for that is
where the deepest mines are? Why do I not think of them more than my wife
when I contemplate my wedding ring? Is it not mixing our labor with the
world that gives us rightful possession, as John Locke once argued?3 If so, it is
the South African miners who own my ring, not me.
Indeed, the word possession is not an altogether happy word. It comes from
combining the Latin for having power and for sit, potis and sedere, meaning the
seating of a potency or a power in something. The Romans, who knew a thing
or two about such actions, often used the word as a way to express domination,
taking control, seizing, and even gaining sexual possession. This does not seem
like Caspar the Friendly Ghost.
Yet possession is not altogether unhappy either. Domination within some
reasonable bounds—within, say the bounds of my own domos, my own home
or dominion—seems like something you should grant me, as I grant the same
in kind for you. Some measure of control and power seems a reasonable
demand that we ask others to allow us, as we allow it to them. Are the bounds
and demands always reasonable, though? And who is to say what is reasonable
and what is not? To experience possession, then, is often to experience a deep
ambivalence.
But not always. By way of conclusion, I would like to distinguish in broad

brush between two general forms of everyday animism, what we might call
Present tense 125
bourgeois animism and pagan animism. Generally, I think, our first instinct is to
associate paganism with animism. It’s an interesting word, paganism. (Here
comes a little bit more etymology.) It comes from the Latin paganus, meaning
“country person,” and it has long been associated with the more kin-oriented
ways of rural people, especially those in less economically developed countries
and regions. But with development comes more urban ways, the ways of
people whose status and life rhythms follow the lines of class more than those
of kin. Bourgeois comes from a common Romance language root meaning
“town.” Most directly, it comes from the Middle French bourg, meaning
“fortified town,” which in turn derived from the classical Latin burgus,
meaning castle or fort—resonating, perhaps, with a certain defensive
boundedness about holding so much wealth in such concentration. “Aha,
accumulation!” says the Marxist scholar. For sure. But in using the phrase
“bourgeois animism” I don’t mean a narrowly Marxist reading indicating the
bourgeoisie versus the workers. I mean class-based life in general, so long
associated with town life but now increasingly found everywhere.4
The pagan sensibility is not now lost to those of us who do live in societies
dominated by class, as I hope my examples have already shown. A more group-
oriented sense of presence, tied with kinship, rooted in the immanent and
particular, and often bounded in quite diffuse, messy, and contradictory ways,
remains common, to different degrees in different contexts. It’s an ambivalent
presence. But also, and perhaps increasingly, we attribute to things a more
individualistic, transcendent, absolute, and unquestionable form of presence:
possession as individual ownership of commodities. Marx, Weber, and others
have argued that commodities today don’t have presence; they are disenchanted,
like our science. I would say, rather, that commodities are re-enchanted; they
are indeed still very much possessed, but by a very different sense of spirit: the
transcendent individual and moneyed spirit of class life.
Money, it seems to me, does not end our animation of commodities. Rather,
the transfer of money is a transfer of spirit, an exorcism and a re-enchantment.
What was the presence of the South African miners is now the ring I own, and
that I own absolutely, everywhere and for always unless I decide to sell it.
Because I paid for it. There I am in the shop. As I pay for it, the ring is
immediately re-enchanted via the great rite of bourgeois life: the exchange of
money for thing. It’s mine. I possess it, and it possesses my me-ness. Try to take
it from me and I’ll call the cops. I bet they’ll come too.
But in this and many other cases of contemporary life, our things also have
a more pagan spirit of messy and collective boundaries, particular but shifting.
In fact, I lied a bit in the paragraph up above in order to make a point. I didn’t
pay for my ring by myself. My wife and I bought our rings together out of our
joint checking account, which had already been established at that point. Later,
in the wedding ceremony, she gave me my ring and I gave her hers. She’s in
my ring too. If I were to die, I suspect most people would agree that, justly, my
ring should go to her to decide what to do with it. She has standing in my ring,
and my ring gives her standing likewise.
126 Michael M. Bell
Plus there are way more people present in that ring than just the two of us.
Although we perhaps crowd many of those others out a bit, our kids are there
too—as are as well our wider circles of family and friends, maybe most especially
those who were present on May 1, 1983, to witness our exchanging of the
rings: present to become presences into the present.
Such a spirit of pagan, collective tempering of merely bourgeois presence I
think is also behind the appeal of initiatives like fair trade and local food. What
ideas like “food with a farmer’s face,” “farm to fork,” “farm to table,” and
“farm to school” campaigns do is fight back against bourgeois exorcism and
re-enchantment. The presence of the farmer and the worker and the place
where the food was grown remain with the good after it has been paid for. It
is still their food. They have standing in it. They have a continuing relation to
it, and the eater who senses their presence can relate to their presence through
the food, bringing their presence deep within, right into the eater’s own living
body, an edible politics of the animate.
But the uses of the pagan are not limited to campaigns for justice. I fear the
politics of presence cannot be neatly divided into bourgeois bad and pagan
good. For one thing, corporations have figured out that they too can make
some use of the power of pagan animism. Consider how McDonald’s ran a big
farm-to-table campaign a couple of years ago, as did Hunt’s. Now Chipotle is
trying it. A logo gives a company presence in the commodity beyond the sale
as well. There is an Apple logo on my computer, which is (in part) an effort to
cultivate my kinship to Apple, giving Apple standing in my life. And we are
encouraged to identify personally with corporate heroes like Steve Jobs, who
also has a presence and a standing in my computer. In these ways, corporations
try to get us to buy into connection and not only disconnection, possession and
not only dispossession.
So too I can see some positive uses of bourgeois animism. Do I have to have
a fair trade stamp on my ring to conjure the presence of the gold miners of
South Africa, and thereby ensure that they have improved standing in the
circumstances and relations of their life? Maybe one vision of a just world is
where I really can take it for granted that those who made the commodities I
own, and the places where the materials came from, were treated fairly and
sustainably—meaning I don’t have to think about them. Because given that I
do indeed lead a substantially, but not entirely, bourgeois life, the potential
presences of others—other people and other places—in my life are many,
many more than I can cope with in a knowledgeable way.
But I also know I cannot at this time take this justice for granted in
bourgeois animism. We probably do need a fair trade gold campaign.5 Like
so many others, those miners do need more standing in our politics, and
bourgeois animism isn’t going to get them there right now. Nor can we, I
think, necessarily presume justice in pagan animism. Much blood has been
spilled on its behalf as well, and it can combine with bourgeois animism with
terrible effect, as in the harnessing of nationalism in the creation of the
nation-state.
Present tense 127
I am not arguing that animism is justice. I am arguing that it asks to be. And
I am arguing that animism is real, whether bourgeois or pagan—real in the
sense that it has real consequences, as the pragmatist William Thomas put it.
Indeed, that is the only thing that is ever real: consequences. These many spirits
of our lives—these many forms of the everyday animism of our social and
environmental interactions with beings, things, and places—may not be matter,
but they do matter. Why? For these two reasons at least: They are created by
politics, and they create politics.
An animate micro-environmental sociology is thus a political micro-
environmental sociology.
Notes
1 I consulted http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts.txt on September
19, 2015.
2 The park was recently renamed; it used to be called St. Lawrence Islands National
Park, and was renamed in part because of local popular complaint over the park not
using the name most locals used for the area.
3 See Locke (2004 [1690]: 17), and his labor theory of property: “Though the earth and
all inferior creatures be common to all men, yet every man has a ‘property’ in his own
‘person.’ This nobody has any right to but himself. The ‘labour’ of his body and the
‘work’ of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever, then, he removes out
of the state of that Nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with
it, and joined it to something of his own, and thereby makes it his property.”
4 For more—much more—on the analytic distinction between bourgeois and pagan,
and its relationship to the old Marxist distinction between bourgeois and proletariat,
see Bell (2017, forthcoming).
5 And there is a small one. I encourage interested readers to click on fairgold.org
References
Bell, Michael M. 2017, forthcoming. An Ancient Triangle: Nature, Faith, and Community.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Bell, Michael M. and Loka Ashwood. 2016. An Invitation to Environmental Sociology. 5th
edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press (Sage). Previous English editions in
1998, 2004, 2009, and 2012. Chinese edition published in 2010 by Peking University
Press.
Bell, Michael M. 1997. “The Ghosts of Place.” Theory and Society 26: 813–836.
Cronon, William. 1995. “The Trouble with Wilderness, or, Getting Back to the
Wrong Nature.” In Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature, ed. William
Cronon, 69–90. New York, NY: W.W. Norton.
Farmer, Fanny M. 1965. The Fannie Farmer Cookbook. Revised by Wilma Lord Perkins.
11th edn. Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Company.
Goffman, Erving. 1967 [1956]. “The Nature of Deference and Demeanor.” In
Interaction Ritual, 47–95. Chicago, IL: Aldine.
Locke, John. 2004 [1690]. The Second Treatise of Government. Introduction by Joseph
Carring. New York, NY: Barnes and Noble Publishing.
Stiles, Kaelyn, Ozlem Altiok, and Michael M. Bell. 2011. “The Ghosts of Taste: Food and
the Cultural Politics of Authenticity.” Agriculture and Human Values 28(2): 225–236.
8 Wild selves
A symbolic interactionist
perspective on species, minds, and
nature
Leslie Irvine
Animals play significant roles in the origins and existence of what we know as
“society.” The domestication of animals initiated agriculture (Anderson, 2006).
The products of their bodies constitute the basis of our economy in the form
of meat, eggs, dairy products, leather, cosmetics, soap, toiletries, and
medications—items so ingrained in daily life that most people scarcely think of
their sources. Animals appear in our rituals, religions, stories, myths, and
legends. Our language contains countless animal references, including
“ponytail,” “buck teeth,” “lame duck,” and “chicken” (Bryant, 1979). Animals
figure heavily in many social problems, including epidemic diseases such as
influenza (Diamond, 1999), illegal activities such as dog fighting (Kalof and
Taylor, 2007), and natural disasters, which can result in large numbers of
abandoned pets and stranded livestock (Irvine, 2009). As pets, animals provide
unique relationships. A majority of North American households includes dogs
and cats, and birds, and nearly half consider these animals family members
(AVMA, 2012). Over the past two decades, sociologists have gradually begun
to include animals in their analyses. York and Mancus have argued that,
we cannot properly understand sociocultural evolution, the emergence of

civilizations, or other aspects of social history without recognizing the
importance of animals to societies, the distinctive features of various species
of animals, and the distribution and translocation of animal species across
the globe.
(2013: 79; see also Irvine, 2012; Wilkie, 2015)
Environmental sociology has largely neglected the ecological importance of

animals (Munro, 2004; Tovey, 2003). The field began with a focus on how
“humans influence the environment as well as the ways in which environmental
conditions (often modified by human action) influence human affairs” (Dunlap,
2002: 161, emphasis added). Despite its anthropocentrism, the recognition of
humans as embedded in the environment represents a significant conceptual
advance over notions that we exist apart from ecological influence and
constraints, a perspective known as the “human exemptionalist paradigm”
(Catton and Dunlap, 1978). In response, some scholars have recognized that
Wild selves 129
animals, too, influence the environment and live with its influences. Moreover,
many environmental changes result from the human use of animals. For
example, environmental degradation associated with industrial animal
agriculture has far-reaching consequences. Recognizing this, some
environmental sociologists now include domesticated species in their research,
extending Marxist theory to portray agricultural animals as “workers operating
in the shadows, an ultra-flexible under proletariat, exploitable and destructible
at will” (Porcher and Schmitt, 2012: 42; see also Benton, 1993; Dickens, 1992,
1996; Edwards and Driscoll, 2009; Gunderson, 2013; Porcher, 2011; Stuart,
Schewe, and Gunderson, 2013). Some scholars, and activists, too, have gone
further, challenging the human/animal binary through deep ecology,
ecofeminism, and “total liberation” (see Pellow, 2014; Pellow and Brehm,
2015). These perspectives not only acknowledge a continuity between humans
and other animals, they also explore what it might mean if research incorporated
animals as social actors, rather than objects (Noske, 1989).
Non-domesticated species of animals, those we consider “wild,” remain
largely invisible in a construction of “nature” consisting only of land and natural
resources (Tovey, 2003). Wild animals exist either as extras in a backdrop of
“‘natural,’ if fragile and easily degraded, habitats” or as “natural resources”
(Tovey, 2003: 201; see also Noske, 2004). Exceptions to this include studies of
the social construction of particular species (Scarce, 1998, 2000) and human–
wildlife conflicts (Herda-Rapp and Goedeke, 2005). Even here, however, wild
animals exist as representations of their species, and as passive objects acted
upon by humans.
In this chapter, I offer a way to incorporate both wildlife and a
microsociological perspective into environmental sociology. I do this by
extending a sense of self to wild animals using a model developed for companion
animals. I propose that portraying animals as agentic beings, rather than objects,
can enable environmental sociology to expand its nascent acknowledgment of
human–animal continuity. I argue that doing so can open up new avenues for
what we think of when we think of “society” and for understanding what it
means to live in a more-than-human world.
What we know about animal selfhood

The sociological research on selfhood among animals has thus far focused on
dogs and cats. Our close relationships with these familiar animals provide a
logical position from which to observe their subjectivity. But what about the
species that do not typically have close relationships with human beings? Do
animals we consider “wild” have a sense of self? How would we recognize it?
It makes sense to begin with a more basic question: can we say that non-
human animals have selves? This question begs the further questions of how to
define the self and what it means to “have” one, both matters of considerable
debate even when it comes to human beings. A singular definition of the self
is problematic because the term refers to a range of behavioral, cognitive, and
130 Leslie Irvine
emotional manifestations. It can refer to the self-concept, or to self-esteem, the
soul, the “inner child” of pop psychology, or a host of other ideas (see Zussman,
2005). Some might even argue that selfhood is an illusion or a fiction. A “sense”
of self might simply be an epiphenomenon, or side effect, of how our brains
function (Hood, 2012).
As I use the term here, selfhood differs from sentience, which refers to the
capacity to feel. It also differs from basic consciousness, which refers to the state
of being awake and awareness of one’s surroundings. Scholars no longer
question whether animals can feel pain and suffer (despite Hannigan’s (2014)
claims to the contrary), but debate still surrounds the topic of animal
consciousness (see Allen and Bekoff, 2007). The question of what higher levels
of consciousness, including self-consciousness, may exist among animals, continues
to animate philosophers, cognitive neuroscientists, ethologists, and psychologists,
not to mention sociologists (Alger and Alger, 2003; Brandt, 2004; Irvine,
2004a, 2004b, 2007; Sanders, 1991, 1999, 2003).
The best-known research on self-awareness among animals involves the
mirror self-recognition test. In the 1970s, psychologist Gordon Gallup placed
chimpanzees in rooms with full-length mirrors (1970; Gallup, Anderson, and
Shallito, 2002). The chimps initially took their reflections to be opponents,
but they soon began using the mirror to engage in self-directed behaviors,
such as grooming and making faces. This suggested that they recognized the
image in the mirror as “me,” something normal human children do at around
eighteen months of age. Gallup then placed a spot of non-toxic red dye on
the chimps’ brow ridges, in places visible only in a mirror, and recorded how
they reacted when seeing their reflections. The chimps touched the spots and
then examined their fingers, indicating that they recognized that the mark
they saw was actually on them and not on the “other” chimp in the mirror.
Subsequent research reconfirmed mirror self-recognition in chimpanzees and
documented it among bonobos (Hyatt and Hopkins, 1994), orangutans
(Suarez and Gallup, 1981), bottlenose dolphins (Reiss and Marino, 2001),
killer whales (Delfour and Marten, 2001), and Asian elephants (Plotnick, De
Waal, and Reiss, 2006). Although the mirror self-recognition test has flaws—
it equates self-recognition with self-awareness (Mitchell, 1993), and it
privileges vision over other senses that are highly developed in some species,
such as scent in dogs (Bekoff, 2001)—it nevertheless fueled interest in study
of the self among animals.
In sociology, George Herbert Mead’s assertion that the self involves seeing
oneself as an object provides the starting point for research (1962 [1934]). The
self-as-object means, for example, that not only are you aware that you are
reading at this moment, but you can be aware that you are aware of reading.
You can see yourself reading, and you can imagine yourself doing whatever
you plan to do once you stop reading, too. Both your image of the self—the
object—and the subject that sees the object are shaped and influenced by
everyday experiences in ordinary social life. Language allows us to learn and
communicate using a shared system of symbols, including the symbols for self,
Wild selves 131
such as our names and the names of other people. Mead argued that we rely on
language to “take the role of the other.” This capacity allows us to adapt our
behavior and interact with others in complex social environments.
At this point, the definition of the self requires revision. In addition to the
image (or images) of ourselves (as an object) that appear in consciousness, we
now add the capacity to evaluate and adapt our behavior based on interactions
with others. Mead claimed that the “lower animals,” as he referred to them,
could not see themselves as objects. Any sense of an inner life that we see in
animals is merely projection on our part. We may “act as if they had the sort of
inner world that we have,” Mead claimed, but “as we get insight into their
conditions we see there is no place for this sort of importation of the social process
into the conduct of the individual” (Mead, 1962 [1934]: 182–183). For Mead,
language constituted a barrier between humans and non-humans. He
acknowledged that animals could interact, but considered their interactions
primitive, instinctual communication, such as when a dog growls at another who
tries to take his bone or a cat hisses at a rival. Animal communication could have
only one meaning. Using the example of a dogfight, Mead explained, “We
have here a conversation of gestures. They are not, however, gestures in the
sense that they are significant. We do not assume that the dog says to himself,
‘If the animal comes from this direction he is going to spring at my throat and
I will turn in such a way’” (Mead, 1962 [1934]: 43). In this perspective, the
behavior of animals lacks the evaluation and adaptation that characterizes human
interaction. Without the capacity to use language, Mead said, animals lack minds.
Their actions are not self-consciousness, and therefore not meaningful.
Consequently, anyone seeking to study animal selfhood from a sociological
perspective encounters the limits of language.
Selfhood beyond language

Since Mead’s time, mounting evidence suggests that language is not a uniquely
human capacity. Washoe, the first chimpanzee to learn sign language, had a
working vocabulary of 140 ASL gestures and twice as many two-sign
combinations. Koko, the lowland gorilla, can use over 1,000 signs and recognize
about 2,000 spoken words. But language involves more than words, and many
animals can go beyond merely using signs. Koko can communicate about
objects not present, reflect on the past, and use meta-language, or comment on
the use of the language itself. Likewise, Alex, an African Grey parrot, famously
demonstrated abilities beyond naming objects. Alex often violated the rules of
his language drills, suggesting that he understood both the rules and the abstract
idea of distorting them. Moreover, even if humans alone used language,
designating it as the sole vehicle of meaningful behavior overlooks the
importance of other forms of communication. We do not rely solely on
language for information about selfhood. Consider how much posture, a sigh,
a raised eyebrow, a wink, or a shrug can convey about what a person thinks or
feels (Goffman, 1959). The focus on language downplays how subtle aspects of
132 Leslie Irvine
interaction contribute to selfhood. A body of research explores this by
examining how people attribute minds and selves to those who have no
capacity for speech. Studies of family interactions involving the mentally
disabled (Pollner and McDonald-Wikler, 1985; Bogdan and Taylor, 1989),
and Alzheimer’s patients (Gubrium, 1986) show how “others literally ‘do’ the
minds and selves” of those who cannot speak (Holstein and Gubrium, 2000:
152). Family members and caregivers see selfhood in interaction, even without
language. Similarly, we cannot ask animals about their inner lives, but we can
gather clues about this from other behaviors.
I began to investigate this while studying how people decided which dogs and
cats to adopt from an animal shelter (Irvine, 2004a, 2004b). In interviews, people
consistently mentioned the importance of feeling a “connection” with an animal.
As I asked, “‘connection’ with what?” they described characteristics of an inner
life. From a sociological perspective informed by Mead, I would have had to
dismiss this. I heard about the “connection” so often, however, that I took it
seriously and sought other ways to understand how we sense animal subjectivity.
I eventually found studies of another group that cannot use language: human
infants. This body of research proposes that a set of basic self-experiences manifest
themselves in infancy, before the acquisition of language (Brazelton, 1984; Stern,
1985; Myers, 1998). Because other mammals share the same structures of the
brain, nervous system, musculature, and memory, it makes sense that they have
the same self-experiences. Whereas human development moves toward language
acquisition, which adds to these basic experiences, the experiences themselves
exist in preverbal stages. The four self-experiences consist of:
1 Agency, the sense that actions and movements originate with the self, and
not with other.
2 Coherence, the sense of the self as a bounded entity that is the locus of
agency.
3 Affectivity, or patterned qualities of feelings.
4 Self-history, a sense of continuity, even while changing.
Human beings experience these four aspects of self through interaction with
others, beginning at birth. Combined, they compose what developmental
psychologists consider a “core” self, one of several senses of the self (Stern,
1985). Here, I provide evidence of the aspects of core self in wildlife.
Agency
The term “agency” refers to self-willed action. It implies subjectivity because
an agentic being, by definition, has desires, wishes, and intentions, along with
a sense of having those things. Agency also implies having control over one’s
own actions (i.e. I can sit when I decide to, and if you push me into a chair,
that is not agency) and awareness of the felt consequences of those actions. For
example, my intention to sit brings the felt consequence of sitting. Fortunately,
Wild selves 133
the connection occurs mostly outside of consciousness; assessing every action
in these terms would make life tedious indeed.
Among human beings, several indicators of a sense of agency appear in the
first months of life (Stern, 1985). Examples include reaching for objects and
hand-to-mouth skills. Around four months of age, infants begin to use visual
information to shape the fingers to accommodate objects of particular sizes.
Because agency does not depend on verbal ability, it is feasible among other
species. In companion animals, good examples come from dog training, even at
the beginner’s level. As Sanders (1999) explains, trainers teach dogs to exercise
self-control—and they use precisely this term. Self-control implies that the dog has
a sense that he or she can initiate action; to control one’s self one must first have a
sense of will or volition.
Among wildlife, behaviors indicative of agency appear when animals “actively
make choices in their social encounters” (Bekoff and Pierce, 2009: 145). Animals
who live in permanent social groups provide ample evidence of this capability. As
in human groups, competition and conflict often occur, and aggression can have
considerable costs. Popular wisdom about wild animals portrays their lives as full
of violent confrontations. However, research reveals behaviors at work other
than an instinctual drive to kill. For instance, spotted hyenas, who compete
fiercely and frequently over food but rely on the groups for long-term survival
and reproduction, commonly engage in friendly “reunions” after fights (Wahaj,
Guse, and Holekamp, 2001). These reconciliation behaviors consist of distinct
vocalizations, licking, body rubbing, and initiating play. Reconciliation not only
repairs damaged relationships between individuals, it also reduces tensions within
the group, ensuring the social cohesion necessary to survive in the wild.
Additional evidence of agency appears in social play, or play with other animals.
The success of the attempt to play will depend on how well the initiating animal
communicates his or her intention. Because play can involve behaviors similar to
fighting or mating—mounting, biting, or body-slamming have one meaning in
the context of play and different meanings in other contexts—an animal intending
to play must signal that intention so that the other responds accordingly. Research
documents the use of “play signals” to communicate the desire to play as well as
the intentional state of the sender (Bekoff, 1975, 1977, 1995; Bekoff and Allen,
1998). As Bekoff (1995: 426) explains, play signals say not only “I want to play,”
but also, “despite what I am going to do or just did—I still want to play”. The
most familiar of these signals is the dog’s “play bow,” with the elbows on the
ground and the rear end high in the air. The dog’s wild relatives, wolves and
coyotes, also use play bows (Bekoff, 1995).
Coherence
Agency indicates a sense of self versus other through the “ownership” of intentions
or choices, and coherence provides the boundaries of the self. Coherence refers
to that capacity to identify self and other as entities unto themselves, and thus, it
gives agency somewhere to “live.” The infancy research indicates that experiences
134 Leslie Irvine
suggesting a coherent self-entity appear as early as two or three months of age
(Stern, 1985: 82). Infants this age experience coherence of form in recognizing
the faces of their primary caregivers. Around the same time, they demonstrate the
perceptual ability to experience unity of locus in expecting that a voice should
come from the same direction as a face. Because indicators of coherence do not
rely on language, they appear in non-human animals, too.
People who live or work with companion animals find that animals recognize
them and can distinguish them from others. Wild animals, too, can recognize
distinct others. Many species distinguish among predators and use “referential
communication,” or distinct vocalizations that incorporate descriptive
information to alert other members of their families, colonies, or flocks to the
size, proximity, and category of a predator. For example, acoustic analysis shows
that prairie dogs produce qualitatively and quantitatively different alarm calls in
response to the presence of hawks, coyotes, humans, and domestic dogs (Placer
and Slobodchikoff, 2000). Prairie dogs can also distinguish among adult humans
of similar size by the color of their shirts (Slobodchikoff et al., 1991). Black-
capped chickadees encode information about the relative size of different predator
species, such as owls and hawks, into their calls (Templeton, Greene, and Davis
2005). Studies reveal similar abilities among squirrels (Greene and Meagher,
1998), meerkats (Manser, 2001), and marmots (Blumstein and Armitage, 1997).
Female elephants can make subtle distinctions between human voices and
adapt their behavior based on the level of threat posed by the associated human
groups (McComb et al., 2014). Moreover, they can distinguish human voices by
ethnicity, sex, and age. For example, in the Amboselli National Park, Maasai
herders often conflict with elephants while grazing or watering their cattle, and
sometimes the Maasai kill elephants in retaliation. Another group, the agricultural
Kamba, have fewer conflicts with elephants. When researchers played Maasai and
Kamba voices repeating a short phrase, elephants responded to the Maasai voices
by investigative smelling, retreating, or defensively bunching together. Moreover,
their behavioral responses depended on sex and age. The voices of Maasai women
and boys, who pose little threat to elephants, were significantly less likely than
male voices to produce such responses.
Affectivity
Another dimension of the core self is the capacity for emotions, which not only
indicate pleasure and displeasure, but also connect the previous two self-
experiences. If agency refers to experiences of self as the initiator of actions, and
coherence locates those actions within an embodied entity, then affectivity
refers not only to the ability to experience emotions but also to associate
emotions with the other aspects of self. Affectivity assigns “ownership” to an
action and its associated internal state. For instance, in face-to-face play
involving mother and child, the child smiles or makes a face and the mother
reacts with laughter or mock surprise. The child, experiencing pleasure at the
mother’s response, repeats the gesture to elicit the same emotional experience.
Wild selves 135
Although the mother is involved in the activities, the feeling “belongs” to the
child. The research on infant development has identified signs of this capacity
between three and six months of age (Rochat, 1995).
It is now widely accepted that animals experience emotions (Bekoff, 2000).
Dogs and cats experience surprise, contentment, fear, frustration, boredom,
and joy, just to start the list (Morris, Doe, and Godsell, 2008). They form close
bonds, suggesting affection and perhaps even love. Other animals, too,
experience emotions, and research on a wide range of species has grown
steadily in recent decades. For example, orphaned elephants grieve and
experience post-traumatic stress (Bradshaw et al., 2005; Poole, 1998) and
ravens fall in love (Heinrich, 1999). Evidence suggests that animals can also
associate feelings with distinct experiences and understand that they are the
source of the feelings, thus suggesting the constellation of agency, coherence,
and affectivity of a core self. For example, in 2012, a popular video showed a
crow sledding on a jar lid. The bird slid down a rooftop on the lid, dragged it
back to the top, and went down a second time before the close of the one-
minute video. This exemplifies the solitary activity known as object play. Most
birds and mammals engage in it (Bekoff and Byers, 1998), as do some reptiles,
such as turtles (Burghardt 1998), and even octopuses (Mather and Anderson,
1999). Although we cannot say how the bird labeled the experience, he—or
she—clearly enjoyed it. Judging by the effort taken to repeat it, he—or she—
knew that he or she was the source of the experience.
Self-history
A sense of continuity, made possible by memory, completes the constellation
of core self-experiences. Memory preserves the meaning of events, objects,
and others, and their associated emotions. Memory begins to operate very
early in life. Among infants, motor memory enables them to learn to sit up
and to suck a thumb, and perceptual and affective memory allows them to
recognize familiar faces or toys and smile on doing so. The memory required
for self-history is preverbal, and several aspects of it appear in animals. Anyone
who has ever taken a dog or cat to the veterinarian knows that animals
remember places. Skeptics might say that the animal “just smells fear,”
dismissing the reaction as instinctual. However, even if it were “only” instinct,
consistently registering a particular emotion in a setting nevertheless implies a
sense of continuity.
Among wild animals, particularly strong evidence of memory appears in
elephants. Female elephants not only recognize the audible and infrasonic calls
of a substantial number of others—up to 100 individuals, in one study—they
can distinguish the calls of members of as many as fourteen different family
units from the calls of non-members (McComb et al., 2000). They can even
recognize an individual’s calls after not encountering her for up to two years.
In addition to auditory memory, elephants also have memory based on smell,
taste, vision, and touch, which allows them to “recognize and track individuals
136 Leslie Irvine
over long periods of time through changes of age, status, and condition”
(Payne, 2003: 58).
Non-mammalian species also demonstrate the capacity for memory. Many
species of birds store food through “caching” and recall the locations of a large
number of caches dispersed spatially and chronologically (Sherry and Duff,
1996). Honeybees and ants rely on a form of memory to remember routes to
and from familiar food sources, but also to find their way back to the nest from
alternative feeding places (Collett et al., 2006). They remember visual landmarks
that guide their paths. To be sure, we do not yet understand how well this
compares to the cognitive, image-based capacity for memory familiar to
humans. Nevertheless, the research uses language of choice and evaluation,
suggesting agency by reporting that “ants and bees are not constrained to a
single route leading to a single goal, but may select one goal out of several that
they know, and take the particular route that leads to their chosen destination”
(Collett et al., 2006: 123).
Putting the self together

Recognizing distinct others, alerting others to predators, and storing food
suggest that animals plan for the future, albeit with an immediate time horizon
rather than the long view we humans can take. If a future exists for animals, this
implies that they can see themselves as objects. They can envision a particular
sequence of action, such as an impending attack on the group by a predator.
They can take what Mead (1962 [1934]) referred to as “the attitudes of others”
into account and respond accordingly, by alerting members of the colony or
herd of the danger, running or flying away, or hiding. In other words, some
species of animals have some ability to take the role of Mead’s “generalized
other.” They can see themselves as objects within a social context and adjust
their behavior. In the interactionist framework, this constitutes the foundation
of selfhood. When I studied the self among companion animals, I could
document the four self-experiences in the same animal. I argued that these four
experiences combined to form an organizing, subjective presence, which
became evident through the frequent interactions people had with their
companion animals. Here, however, because I have drawn on secondary
research, I cannot make the same claim. I have offered examples of agency
among hyenas, coherence among prairie dogs, affectivity among crows, and
memory in elephants. I have no examples of how all four capacities coalesce in
one animal. Yet, in the absence of such evidence, it would be premature to say
that it does not occur.
Thinking about the self in terms of the capacities outlined here expands the
experience beyond the ability to use spoken language. Doing so does not
equate humans and non-human animals. It leaves room to acknowledge that
our experiences differ from those of other animals, particularly mammals, in
degree rather than kind. Building out from the core experiences, we humans
develop a sense of self that allows us to accomplish interactions that animals
Wild selves 137
cannot undertake—and vice versa. Non-human animals develop the capacities
that matter for their social lives. It would be as unfair to measure human
experience by a dog’s or an elephant’s capacities as it would be to measure
their experience in human terms. Yet, that is precisely what we have done in
using language or the ability to recognize oneself in a mirror as the criteria for
a self. Language acquisition and mirror self-recognition signal selfhood among
some animals; the model I offer levels the playing field by extending selfhood
to all conscious beings. Additional research using this model could explore
how and why the four aspects of self vary among animals. For example,
envisioning a continuum within each of the aspects of self, elephants
demonstrate well-established agency, coherence, affectivity, and memory. In
contrast, the honeybee or the ant, who rely on sophisticated memories, may
have little need for the other three experiences of self. Research applying the
model of self in this way would have implications beyond merely placing
animals along four continua. In drawing this chapter to a close, I suggest some
of the possibilities.
Wild selves and environmental sociology

Environmental sociologists have acknowledged that humans experience the
same environmental conditions that affect other species. Recognizing animal
selfhood further challenges the illusory boundary between nature and culture.
One can ignore animals’ inner lives only by dismissing entire bodies of research
that document human–animal continuity in the form of animal cognition,
communication skills, and emotions. The similarities between human and
non-human animals do not end at physical bodies; they extend to minds and
emotional lives. The similarities mean that, “if well-being is important to
humans, it cannot but be important to animals also” (Noske, 2004: 1). This, in
turn, means that, for the animals we consider “wild,” the environment matters
in ways beyond its ability to function as a “natural resource” for human beings.
A more-than-human environmental sociology would make animals visible
by recognizing the central roles that animals play in the social constructions of
nature, culture, and the environment, and the ways that human and non-
human lives intertwine. But this would not require acknowledging animal
subjectivity. Scholars who do so would go on to take animals seriously as
ecological agents. They would find ways to refer to animals without using
essentialist terms, such as “species,” that blur important distinctions. By
inquiring into animals’ lifeworlds, this new wave of scholars would gain
theoretical and empirical insight into human and animal coexistence and its
influence on the environment.
Recognizing selfhood among wild animals does not romanticize their lives.
It need not slide into anthropomorphism, equating selfhood with Disney-
esque attributes and characteristics. Recognizing selfhood does not mean that
we should prevent wild animals from killing prey, nor does it eliminate the
“otherness” that makes them non-human. Bringing wild animals into
138 Leslie Irvine
environmental sociology as individuals can spark new ways of thinking about,
and living in, the “natural” world.
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9 Dog shit happens
Human–canine interactions and
the immediacy of excremental
presence
Matthias Gross and Ana Horta
When it comes to a human’s best friend it seems Western societies turn a blind
eye to practices that fail to meet their usually high standards of everyday
hygiene. This chapter will explore practices related to canine excrement and
the micro-interactionist strategies deployed by dog owners and non-owners to
cope with it. We present here the results of our own observations of the
habitual behavior of dog-walkers at various times of the day in various settings,
mainly in Germany and Portugal—the authors’ respective countries of
residence—but also report on similar observations made in Poland, France,
Belgium, Britain, and Japan. Our account is also based on our own experiences
of dog walking and engaging in the removal of excrement. We draw additionally
on a number of informal conversations with dog owners and non-owners on
such topics, including the techniques used to deal with excrement, as well as
reports and discussions published online. In thus exploring the ways dog waste
is removed, we try and solve the riddle of why, in some cases, even when
action has been taken to clean it up, plastic bags filled with dog droppings have
been thrown onto the ground in certain carefully selected spots or even hung
up in trees or displayed on fence posts or railings. The chapter will present
inquiries into micro-forms of interactional behavior and dog walking and
pooping practices. Some of these strategies will be accounted for as qualitatively
new forms of what Erving Goffman (1971) once referred to as civil inattention.
Thus, we explore the logic of civil inattention by focusing on what might be
called “poop on display.”
Certain types of inattention in the Goffmanian tradition can be understood
as a set of strategies of self-distancing that are required in modern society to
“survive” as a social being (cf. Hirschauer, 2005; Kim, 2012; Ocejo and
Tonnelat, 2014; Scott, 2010). There is a key difference to this in our field of
study, however: the aim of being inattentive in human–dog poop interactions
is not merely to establish a respectful distance to someone nearby but to conceal
the fact that one end of the chain of interaction (the non-human part) has done
something often considered embarrassing by humans that, in some cases, calls
for attention to be strategically steered to something else. This variant of the
Goffmanian tactic of civil inattention can also be seen to be important for other
areas of environmental sociology and related fields, since in many areas of social
144 Matthias Gross and Ana Horta
life people claim that they do something (buy organic food, adhere to an
ecologically aware lifestyle, etc.) but actually frequently relapse into ingrained
patterns or habits. Furthermore, in many cases ecologically aware behavior is
treated as a politically correct way of acting and yet in some cases is secretly and
strategically undermined (e.g. by buying cheap food as a means of protest).
Thus, we use the special case of inattentively pooping in public to also point to
typologically similar micro-sociological processes of civil inattention important
for (environmental) sociology more generally.
This case also provides an opportunity to observe how creative strategies
emerge in everyday life. We focus particularly on non-knowledge used as a
resource by dog walkers to manage the impressions they convey to others and
thus to cope with the fact that their dog has pooped. Based on recent
developments in the sociology of ignorance (Gross, 2010, 2016), we argue that
dog walkers can either actively simulate ignorance or else inattentively not
acknowledge what is happening when their dogs poop. These two forms of
not knowing are not always easy to differentiate since they can overlap or are
connected closely in a temporal sequence. They nevertheless can be seen as
crucial moments in the micro-sociological analysis of successful civil inattention.
Furthermore, we attempt to combine Goffman’s notions of strategic
interaction and civil inattention with contemporary strands of practice theory
(Reckwitz, 2002; Horta et al., 2014; Shove and Walker, 2014; Strengers and
Maller, 2015). This is not a trivial matter. Although both theoretical approaches
shed light on inconspicuous occurrences in everyday life, the former is focused
on social interaction whereas the latter considers practices as the unit of analysis.
In our view, however, these two approaches can complement each other by
going beyond a stance centered on individuals and instead adopting a framework
in which individual agency is entangled in both material and social factors and
contexts. We thus attempt to transform Goffman’s early metaphor of “cooling
the mark out” (Goffman, 1952) into a “bundle” of practices (Reckwitz, 2002;
Shove, Pantzar, and Watson, 2012) or a set of activities that we call “cooling
the shit out.” This is intended to refer to the activities surrounding the dog
defecating in a public space and the related coping strategies used by the dog
owner to keep the potential anger and adverse reactions of passersby “within
manageable and sensible proportions” (Goffman, 1952: 452).
Goffman’s argument is that if someone is conned in public by a group of
people organizing a trick it is not only the person’s money that is gone: it can
also harm the person’s self-image of being a witty strategist—after all, the
person would not have participated in the game if he or she had not expected
to win. It is at this point where cooling out strategies need to come in. Consider
an example: a person applies for a job in a drama school and receives a rejection
letter. Then the person’s friends tell her that acting is a risky business and that
only very few people make it (mainly those who are able to pull strings) and
that even if they do, in many cases they will only barely earn a living. Thus,
being rejected turns out to be a positive thing for the “mark.” Goffman points
to several ways of cooling out to save the person’s face, most notably highlighting
Dog shit happens 145
what is valuable to them by sugar-coating the bad news so that, in the best
possible scenario, it can even be portrayed as a positive thing. Whereas Goffman
introduced his metaphor as a device to describe a person’s (the “mark’s”)
strategies of adaptation to failure (which, taken straightforwardly, would in our
case have led to strategies of “cooling the anti-dog poopers out”), we extend
the notion to the material side of the operation, that is, treating poop as an
indication of a possible “mark” (in the sense of social stigma) attaching to the
dog owner. The subsequent display of poop we treat as being part of a cooling
out strategy deployed by the dog owner in order to “keep face.” As we will
discuss below, the sugar-coating issue can be found (albeit in a completely
different way) in the practice of wrapping poop in a colored and sometimes
even perfumed bag in order to display the exhibit. However, while it may
deflect people’s anger away from the respective dog owner, this act of displaying
the “shit” may greatly increase their anger at dog owners in general.
In theoretical terms, then, we take Goffman as a point of departure but
complement his approach by addressing crucial issues surrounding the practice of
pooping in public from a practice theory point of view. For all their diversity, the
practices we present can be interpreted in terms of “the art of consolation”
(Goffman, 1952), that is, a way of making it easier for the public to accept the less
savory aspects of having excrement on sidewalks and green areas. Taking the
practices around canine defecation as the central object of our inquiry, we suggest
that the relations between dogs and dog owners’ know-how about walking a dog
as well as the meanings attached to dogs, excrement, and humans in public all
become part of an “assemblage” between these interconnected elements. We
look at how various elements (things, meanings, and competences) are connected
and conclude that these practices involving dog owners, onlookers, and canine
companions can be understood as emerging practices (cf. Shove, Pantzar, and
Watson, 2012), or what Tora Holmberg (2013) has called a “trans-species crowd”
in order to illustrate the collective movement of people and dogs.
On cooling the shit out: Human–canine practices and the

normalcy of excrement
Dogs increasingly play a significant role in everyday life. Over the last two
decades social science research on human–canine interaction has led to a boom
in individual case studies so that the field of human–animal studies nowadays
can in large part be viewed as human–pet dog studies. However, although dog
feces are occasionally discussed in terms of being a source of groundwater
pollution and, more specifically, a carrier of various diseases (cf. Wells, 2006),1
the question of responsible and irresponsible dog owners’ strategies is rarely
mentioned in academic studies.2 This is despite the fact that it is a constant
topic of debate in local media, internet blogs, newspapers, and citizens groups
that seek to defend themselves against the scourge of dog poop (see Figure 9.1
as an example of communicating with “irresponsible” dog owners in Germany).
However, the way poop is actually disposed of “on the ground,” as it were,
Figure 9.1 A flag warning of the presence of poop, apparently put there by people
annoyed by the latter. It reads: “Caution Landmine! Left here by an
irresponsible dog owner and their barking shitter.”
and the way this is often kept separate from the overall issue of dog ownership
has received little scholarly attention to date (cf. Gross, 2015).
In this section we briefly introduce some aspects of our conceptual
framework, most notably the connections between Goffman, practice theory,
and the sociology of ignorance. We then use certain parts of this framework to
illustrate some of the dynamics inherent in contemporary practices involving
relations between humans, dogs, and poop. This will be used to point to an
important phenomenon that Goffman (1971) helped to explain, namely, how
actors maintain an acceptable self-image—though we extend this to include
the presence of their dog’s poop. In doing so, we highlight the actors’ capacity
to develop strategies that lead to strategic interactions (Goffman, 1969). As
Goffman saw it, while in the presence of others individuals try to manage the
impressions they convey by deliberately displaying certain signs. He used the
notion of “control move” to refer to the intentional efforts made by people
who feel they are being observed “to produce expressions” that they believe
will improve their situation. Even more so: “Aware that his actions, expressions,
and words will provide information to the observer, the subject incorporates
into the initial phases of this activity a consideration of the informing aspects of
its later phases, so that the definition of the situation he eventually provides for
the observer hopefully will be one he feels from the beginning would be
profitable to evoke” (Goffman, 1969: 12). These performances are molded “to
fit into the understanding and expectations of the society” in which they are
presented so that, accordingly, when performing a routine in front of others,
individuals tend to incorporate the “accredited values” of the community
(Goffman, 1959: 35).
However, Goffman’s emphasis on this idealization of performance suggests
that his account is based on the notion of a normative consensus; this, however,
fails to account for those contexts where the values and expectations of a
community are going through processes of social change, as appears to be the
case with social norms and understandings relating to dog poop. In our view,
practice theory may prove very helpful in complementing this framework
because, in its terms, the social “does not appear as a product of compliance
[with] mutual normative expectations” (Reckwitz, 2002: 246) but is rather
embedded in practices that change as combinations of meanings, competences,
and materials are enacted, reproduced, and reconfigured. Thus, in line with
some recent strands of practice theory (cf. Shove, Pantzar, and Watson, 2012),
Goffman’s classical reflections can be extended to include a focus on the
interplay between structural elements and non-social entities (things, material
“resistances” and affordances, etc.) as well as collective ideas. Practices are thus
based on the different relations that lead to certain associations. These also
include accidental ones or encounters that occur in passing. In any case,
practices are reconfigured as the relations between these elements co-evolve.
Shove, Pantzar, and Watson (2012) propose a threefold distinction between
the core elements that make up practices, namely, meanings (including
symbolic meanings and norms), materials (including toys, physical entities,
infrastructures, and “stuff”), and competences (techniques and embodied skills
for undertaking or not undertaking certain tasks). For Shove, Pantzar, and
Watson, “practices emerge, persist and disappear when connections between
elements of these three types are made, sustained or broken” (2012: 14–15;
emphasis in original). To return to the matter at hand, the practices involved
in walking one’s dog so that it can do its business include the competence of
knowing when and how to hold a dog on a leash, where to let the dog run,
pee, and poop, how to make the dog go in a different direction, and how to
cope with poop. The actual performance of these practices will depend on the
variable (and perhaps unexpected) relations between these competences, the
surrounding material elements—the availability of bags and bins, the presence
of witnesses, the destabilizing body of the dog—and the meanings attributed to
the situation—a natural event, a form of pollution that needs to be cleaned up
afterwards, or an opportunity to show off.
In any practice, whether things go smoothly or there is an interruption or
“break,” as Shove, Pantzar, and Watson put it, actors have to deal with the
unknown. In our understanding, social practices are also a means of framing
the acknowledgment of ignorance and of coping successfully with inevitable
non-knowledge and surprise in everyday settings (cf. Gross, 2010). We thus
consider practices as resources or frameworks in the way Goffman also refers to
“guided doings” (cf. Goffman, 1974) that actors adopt or actively intend not to
adopt according to their strategies of self-representation. This understanding
also departs from the view in which ignorance is seen as necessarily detrimental;
instead, it analyzes how non-knowledge can even serve as a productive strategic
resource (cf. McGoey, 2012). Ignorance as non-knowledge refers to the
acknowledgement that some things are unknown but are not specified enough
to enable action.3 In our case, we most often observe a strategic regulation
between, on the one hand, active or “positive” non-knowledge, where the
unknown is specified enough to be used for further planning and activity and,
on the other hand, passive or “negative” non-knowledge where the unknown
is perhaps specified but is rendered unimportant or even forgotten to be acted
upon at this point in time (cf. Gross, 2010, 2016; see also Table 9.1). Thus
understood, non-knowledge should not generally be understood as ignorance,
unawareness, or as the mere absence of knowledge but rather as a specific kind
of expertise about what is not known. Central to the strategy used by dog
owners of walking their dogs, letting them poop and cleaning up after them,
only to drop the bag later on, is that they apparently make use of ignorance and
non-knowledge. One can speculate that this is based on a process of weighing
up its strategic outcome when deciding whether or not to clean up the dog’s
droppings. In the following we will elaborate further on the relationship
between dogs and their owners using certain aspects of the conceptual
approaches introduced above. Particular attention will be paid to the practices
involved in permitting a dog to poop wherever it wants.
Conflicting notions of excremental presence in public

Some of the factors around poop scooping have been changing during the last
decade or so. For this reason we look at both legislation and objects in order to
examine how their interplay with meanings and competences seems to be
contributing to the reconfiguration of practices relating to dog poop. Given the
growing canine population and concomitant fouling of public spaces, and
following a trend towards enhancing waste management in order to protect both
the environment and human health, a number of jurisdictions in Europe, North
and South America, Australia, and Asia have adopted laws requiring dog owners
to clean up after their pets have done their business. These pieces of legislation
expect dog owners to immediately scoop up the excrement of their best friends
using a bag, a shovel, or a gloved hand. Very often the poop is wrapped in bags,
some of which are special bags produced for the purpose. Although dog waste
bags are available in some places for free (e.g. at the entrance to a park, especially
in cities), most of the time dog owners must ensure they themselves have a poop
bag with them every time they take their canine companions outside. They are
required to discard these bags in appropriate bins, and those that do not comply
with these regulations risk being fined.4
However, these pieces of legislation tend to be recent and have to struggle
with ingrained social conventions—on the one hand, dog owners’ disgust over
picking up excrement and, on the other hand, the widespread idea of dog feces
being natural, which may result in considering poop “as something that in
some sense ‘belongs’ to the place where it has been delivered” (Gross, 2015:
41). Enforcing the obligation to pick up poop requires that dog walkers develop
specific competences (such as the skill of cleaning up poop of variable
consistency without soiling themselves and knowing where to discard it) and
the existence and use of specific objects (for handling the feces). In some places
local authorities have provided special bins designed for the collection of dog
waste. However, due to budget limitations there are often no public litter bins
in less central locations and those that exist are often overflowing. Bins might
also have been removed from some public spaces to prevent rubbish being
dumped around them. If there are not many bins available in places where
individuals’ responsibility for the maintenance of public spaces is not strongly
instilled, dog walkers seem to feel less obligated to comply with the legislation.
This gap between norms and material conditions seems to facilitate the
enactment of various types of performance (some of which are described in the
following).
The need of dog owners to use some object to scoop their dog’s poop has
been taken as an opportunity to commercialize plastic bags and other
implements. Recently, many different colorful and fashionable objects (poop
bags, bag dispensers, leash attachments) have become available in pet shops,
supermarkets, and other stores, providing dog owners with a new means of
displaying their various tactics regarding poop collection. This may suggest that
the meaning of scooping poop is changing: something that used to be considered
disgusting may be turning into something cool and trendy.
These changing and conflicting norms and understandings relating to the
presence of dogs in public spaces can be illustrated by two pictures taken in
Lisbon, Portugal. Figure 9.2 shows an old sign set into a sidewalk on which the
municipal authority appeals for sidewalks to be kept clean by dog owners
leading their dogs to the gutter to do their business. A few decades back, dog
walkers did not need specific objects (except a leash), but needed to develop
the skill to lead the dog. Figure 9.3 then shows how current laws on dog
control can be publicly “negotiated.” This sign, placed by the municipal
authority in a green area, reminds passers-by of three rules: it is forbidden for
any dog to be off their leash; it is forbidden for dangerous dogs and potentially
dangerous breeds of dog to be off their leash and without a muzzle; and the
removal of canine feces is mandatory. Dog owners are now no longer required
to be as skillful in leading the dog (as it should be on a leash at all times) but
need to carry with them specific objects to scoop the poop. The fact that the
first two statements on the sign have been covered over with spray paint shows
that, although for some people certain dog control ordinances are not acceptable
or legitimate (in this case those that deprive dogs of the liberty to stroll off their
leash), the removal of excrement is appreciated. However, the amount and
frequency of dog poop in public spaces make it evident that many dog owners
ignore such ordinances.
Figure 9.2 Old sign installed by the municipality of Lisbon asking dog owners to “Keep
the sidewalks clean.”
Figure 9.3 New sign erected by the municipal authority of Lisbon. The reminders of
the obligation to keep dogs on a leash have been spray painted out, but not
the information regarding poop removal.
In the context of changing conventions we suggest that dog owners are
developing diverse ways of coping with the issue: some always pick up the
poop, whatever the circumstances, while others do it only in the presence of
someone and discard the wrapped poop wherever they want when nobody is
watching. Tactics of strategic non-knowledge may also be adopted. Although
we may detect certain patterns of discarding wrapped poop, we assume that all
these actions can be considered as different performances of or variations on the
same practice—cooling out. Because the sight of poop in public spaces may be
seen to represent a lack or a failure, dog walkers may need to define the situation
as inevitable. Consequently, those that do not pick up poop may develop
certain types of performance such as pretending they have not seen it. In the
next section we present some emerging practices that have developed out of
social and animal interactions.
Cooling out on both sides: Scooping and non-scooping

dog owners
As we have seen, discarding wrapped poop can be regarded as a cooling out
process: managing their use of the poop bag in a particular way may be how
the dog owner is able to maintain their routine while simultaneously
cooling down their audience. Consider a truly “micro” example. In one of
our observations a red bag decorated with hearts was lying on the sidewalk
(see Figure 9.4). The bag was open and the poop could be seen inside. The
next morning, two women were standing near the bag. In the course of
asking their opinion about this, it was surprising to discover that they did not
even realize they were standing beside a bag of poop. One of them (woman
A) said she thought it was a bag of chestnuts (roasted, perhaps). The other
one (woman B) did not seem to be interested at all. Then woman A said she
has a dog and she always picks up its poop, wraps it up, and disposes of it in
a bin. She moved her hands as if to show how she does it. Upon being asked
why they thought this form of disposal had been chosen, they had no
explanation to offer. They agreed it could not be forgetfulness, but neither
could they work out why someone would do that. Around ten meters to the
right there was a waste bin, and woman A noted that there was another bin
on the left side of the street as well. The fact that the bag was open was also
a mystery.5
The common element here is some type of tolerance of or indifference to
poop that can still be found in many places. The two women were standing
near a bag of poop—expressive poop, not just a little bit of poop—and they
had not noticed it. This civil inattention to poop is suggestive of a kind of
passive non-knowledge and invites the interpretation that other forms of
pollution in urban areas (litter, etc.) may similarly go unacknowledged. In
some cases it may simply be forgetfulness. This is quite remarkable, given that
hygiene in everyday modern life is generally accorded an important status. And
yet when it comes to dog feces, people do seem to develop a blind eye.
Figure 9.4 A red bag with white hearts used for (a) wrapping poop and (b) displaying it
near a set of steps (Lisbon, Portugal).
Thus, not cleaning up one’s own dog’s poop or even noticing other people’s
dog poop can be assumed to be a strategic type of non-knowledge, as mentioned
above. Patrick Jackson also reports this phenomenon in a public dog park in
northern California, where dog owners appeared less attentive to excrement
removal at less busy times. Some “actively looked away when their dog was
making a mess” (Jackson, 2012: 267). In our terminology we can split this into
two possibilities. First, as soon as owners thought it was possible the dog was
about to poop, they strategically turned away so they would not have to find
out and thus avoid dealing with the consequences or possible guilt. Sometimes
owners try really hard not to know whether or not the dog pooped to avoid
having to worry about cleaning it up. In a certain way, dog owners actively try
to make or do nothing in certain situations. However, the second possibility
can be seen in dog owners that are tolerant or rather indifferent to unscooped
poop, and so they forget they should pick it up and “wait” (passively) to be
made aware of it by other people (e.g. via “a critical gaze”). They do not really
care about poop, instead they only react when other humans watch them. By
then their passive non-knowledge turns into knowledge and they clean up the
mess. Whereas one group actively ignores the defecation act by turning away
from it in order to protect themselves, others only acknowledge that they
should do something when they feel pressure for doing so. In a similar way we
have often experienced scenarios like the following: on one occasion we
encountered two dog-owning acquaintances; suddenly, their best friend started
pooping. The owner of the dog sensed beforehand what was coming so
immediately turned her face in the opposite direction, so as to not actually see
the dog doing its business. At the same time she covered her eyes with her
other hand (the dogs were on a leash). Since it was early in the morning this
gesture might be interpreted as an expression of being sleepy. This in turn
could be seen as a way of “cooling the shit out” in the sense indicated when
we introduced the metaphor above, namely, by strategically not seeing the
poop while at the same time performing the act of “not seeing” to (in this case)
the observing sociologist (cf. Table 9.1). One widespread performance strategy
we have also observed among dog owners in almost all the countries we visited
is to start talking earnestly into a phone as soon as their dog starts pooping (cf.
Gross, 2015: 42). Thus, active and passive non-knowledge are often closely
linked to each other, they are coupled in a relational way so that actively
constructing non-knowledge (e.g. by looking away and talking on a cell phone)
can lead to indifference (actually forgetting about where the dog may have
defecated).
The strategic element entails the desire to avoid having to deal with the issue
seriously. Thus, dog owners letting their dogs poop in public without cleaning
up after them can be theorized as a practice of cooling out by strategically
looking away, i.e. using active non-knowledge as a strategy for cooling out
(Goffman, 1952). Specifically, this strategy is designed to ensure that the dog
owner is recognized by passers-by as being “innocent” of not picking up their
dog’s poop due to not having seen it (active or “positive” non-knowledge
made to look as if it is nescience, i.e. completely unknown).6
When a dog owner uses a bag to dispose of their dog’s poop, they often
seem to take care to ensure that somebody else is watching. As we have
observed many times, right before the dog owner reaches for the poop with
the bag, they take a look over their shoulder, perhaps to make sure that they
are being observed while performing the role of the “good” dog owner (cf.
Table 9.1). Conversely, if the poop is not cleaned up after the dog has done its
business, the owner will sometimes pretend that they have not seen the dog
Table 9.1 Main forms of non-knowledge as strategies for “cooling the shit out.”
Main forms of cooling the shit out Examples of possible tactics
Active Actively looking away, so as Talking on a cell phone, or
non-knowledge not to see the dog pooping. turning in the opposite direction
when the dog is about to start
pooping.
Passive Forgetfulness or indifference Care about dog poop only when
non-knowledge to poop by conveniently someone is watching, and later
putting it out of mind. “forget” and leave it. Or, letting
the dog off of the leash, without
worrying about probable
pooping.
pooping—for example, by using a mobile device or searching for something in
their handbag. This could be read as a kind of civil inattention in the sense
introduced by Goffman (1971). In other words, the dog’s business is done as if
one part (the dog owner) is unaware of it.
Poop on display
The temporal chain from walking the dog, to pooping, to wrapping the poop
(or not) and to walking back home is composed of a crucial set of interactions
that can be described using a Goffmanian notion of cooling out combined with
recent notions of practices, that is, of sets or “bundles” of activities. These
activities include, for instance, scooping poop but then leaving it on the ground
or even displaying it on a fence or in a gap in a wall or in a similarly highly
visible place. In our view, the process of wrapping poop and then presenting
(or indeed displaying) it wrapped appears to be a key part of this practice: our
assumption is that it is a means of enacting civil liberties—that of the dog (to
poop where it wants) and that of the owner (to clean up, but also to drop the
bag where he or she wants). This appears to be important since, on the one
hand, some people regard dog poop as something natural; on the other hand,
though, it also seems that these conventions are changing because hardly
anybody likes having poop deposited in public places, and in a growing number
of places there are laws that oblige dog walkers to pick up their dog’s feces (cf.
Westgarth et al., 2010).
Another practice that has become more common over the last ten years or
so is that of dog owners scooping up dog poop from a lawn in a plastic bag and
then discarding it (Figure 9.5). Such bags are then to be found not only in trash
bins but very often right next to them (even if the bin is not overflowing) and
sometimes simply thrown onto the ground in some random spot. In more
extreme cases, it is possible in many parks to spot plastic bags filled with poop
hanging from small trees, on the branches of bushes, or from fences (for further
discussion of this phenomenon, see Gross, 2015).
It seems that it is important to dog owners to be seen to be doing what is
expected of them, and yet at the same time it seems that they are rejecting this
social expectation and expressing their scorn towards those who demand it of
them by parodying the act. The offence is then caused later on when the poop
cannot easily be attributed to a particular dog, thereby potentially inciting the
antipathy of non-dog owners towards all dog owners. The competence (Shove,
Pantzar, and Watson, 2012) involved here, then, is that of skillfully keeping the
poop away from other people’s sight and smell, only to allow it to reappear
later on. Thus the poop lying on the pavement, in the bush, or on top of a
fence nicely wrapped up in a colorful plastic bag can be understood as a form
of collective communication to the dog-less outside world. Dogs may not be
able to wait until no one is watching, so the owners have to enter into a
clean-up “ritual.” Subsequently the wrapped poop is placed in an even more
strategically visible spot.
Figure 9.5 Dog poop wrapped up in a plastic bag and displayed next to a tree.
Furthermore, once the poop is bagged and put on display, the owners have
then created a memorial that can be seen as a way of extending the duration of
the practice of dogs pooping in public, namely, by extending the period of
“freshness” and visibility of the poop longer than would be the case if it were
simply allowed to rot on the grass or near the curb.
Concluding remarks and a (slightly speculative) outlook

With the rapid increase in dog ownership in urban areas and the rise of an
accompanying discourse about increasing amounts of dog poop in parks after
people have taken their dogs for a walk, many dog owners we observed
appeared to be at pains to cool out non-dog owners by showing that they were
responsible people. Up until the late 1990s, poop scooping was not perceived
as a fundamental civic duty, and indeed in many places it is still not regarded as
such today. In the places where it has become an unwritten rule or a civic duty,
the competence involved now also includes using (usually) a plastic bag to
wrap up the waste without the poop touching one’s fingers.
If our observations above are correct, then this skill also includes doing this
as often as possible when many people are watching in order to cool the shit
out via the performance of “successful poop bagging.” This includes the
performance of inattention and forms of gradual denial on the one hand and
strategies of secret depositing and displaying of poop on the other. Extrapolating
from the cases highlighted in this chapter, we are led to ask why poop matters
in a more general way; we do so in order to show how Goffmanian tactics of
civil inattention are important for environmental sociology and how they can
be used fruitfully in the wider context of different fields of micro-sociology
(and perhaps even beyond).
First, a general change in society can be observed as regards attitudes
towards pets in private homes. Pets, especially canines, increasingly serve as
family members or even as a child substitute (cf. Herst, 2014, among many
others). Because of the strength of the connection between dogs and their
owners, it seems unacceptable, for instance, to try to “educate” other people’s
dogs (perhaps even more so, say, than other people’s children). To set
boundaries or put the dog in its place (“don’t poop here”) is perceived in
many cases as animosity towards the dog’s owner. The dog—whether on a
leash or not—almost seems to be an extension of the owner, and since the
poop coming out of the dog is understood as part of this realm this points to
a difference in relationship between dogs and non-dogs in comparison to
adults and children. Poop coming out of the dog thus seems to be more
personally related to the dog owner. Put most succinctly, the dog’s poop is
also the owner’s poop.
Second, our observations of inattentive pooping can be connected to a
general change in the way other animals live with humans in their homes and
thus suggest that strategies of not knowing may play a crucial role in this.
Whereas in more rural societies and more generally in times past contacts
between humans and animal poop went on in a rather unmediated way, in
Western societies during the last one hundred years they have rarely occurred
at all in urban areas (save for horses and donkeys until the early twentieth
century). Today the experience has changed rapidly due to the increasing
number of animals kept as pets. Herein lies a potentially significant contribution
that sociology in general can make toward our understanding of animals in
society (cf. Peggs, 2012).
Third, we suggest that strategic non-knowledge can be used as a theoretical
device to frame the dog owners’ enactment of an illusion of the unexceptional
(cf. Prus and Sharper, 1977). This illusion is created to suggest that nothing out
of the ordinary is happening and, in doing so, to fool the “mark” (Goffman,
1952). In our case this means shocking unsuspecting passers-by or other
“responsible” dog owners who happen to encounter carefully wrapped poop
on display. In this sense, our study can also be regarded as a contribution to the
study of practices in everyday life (cf. de Certeau, 1984), as such providing new
knowledge about how people re-appropriate previously lost cultural skills in
everyday situations and develop creative resistance towards restrictions (having
to scoop poop) by strategically and perhaps even experimentally distributing
knowledge and non-knowledge.
Finally, our cases have illustrated strategic regulations between active non-
knowledge, where the unknown is used as an asset by the dog owner, and
more passive forms of not knowing (such as “waiting to be looked at by
passers-by”) having become a strategy of choice. This includes laziness as much
as the use of electronic devices such as cell phones, iPods, earphones and other
devices to help support more subtle forms of strategically not knowing. After
all, most dog owners we observed took their cell phone with them while
walking their dog.
In light of the above, we assume that playful strategies for displaying feces
can be interpreted as a typical means of communicating unpleasant issues to
(quite often) anonymous passers-by. Analyzing different forms of strategically
distributing the known and the unknown in practices of a “Goffmanian” stage
setting and civil inattention can be useful in many other areas of environmental
sociology, the study of everyday life, cultural sociology, and related fields. In
this way, studying canine-related interactions and clarifying the immediacy of
excremental presence is merely to be understood as a magnification of the
everyday normalcy of practices of creating, hiding, and maintaining conditions
of non-knowledge.
Notes
1 Studies from the 1970s and 1980s focus mainly on dogs as a safety as well as a health
hazard (cf. Beck, 1974; Sampson, 1984).
2 For exceptions see Webley and Siviter (2000), Arhant and Troxler (2009), Derges
et al. (2012) and Gross (2015). More general debates can be found in monographs
by Haraway (2003) and Sanders (1999). Since the 2000s we find specific subjects
such as the anthropomorphization of dogs (Greenebaum, 2004), dogs as facilitators
in social interactions (Guéguen and Ciccotti, 2008), as weapon and status symbol
(Maher and Pierpoint, 2011), experiences of living together with dogs (Marston,
Bennett, and Coleman, 2005; Franklin, 2006; Tipper, 2011), models of animal
selfhood and dogs as life-changers (Irvine, 2013), owning dangerous breeds of dogs
(Twining, Arluke, and Patronek, 2000), dog training (Greenebaum, 2010; Koski
and Backlund, 2015), legislative regulation of dogs (Miller and Howell, 2008;
Borthwick, 2009; McCarthy, 2016), and dogs in outdoor areas and urban parks
(Laurier et al., 2006; Ioja et al., 2011; Urbanik and Morgan, 2013; Gaunet, Pari-
Perrin, and Bernardin, 2014). For further literature, see also Gross (2015) and the
excellent collection of essays in Arluke and Sanders (2009).
3 Further debate and literature on the sociology of ignorance, nescience, and
unknown unknowns can be found in Gross and McGoey (2015), Gross (2010,
2016) and McGoey (2012).
4 For example, in the case of Lisbon the fines range from a minimum of EUR 48.50
to a maximum of EUR 727.50.
5 There may be a few possible explanations for this: perhaps some people think it is
enough to pick up the poop and put it anywhere. Perhaps some are afraid of getting
dirty while picking up poop—after all, if the poop is too soft it can be difficult to
tie a knot in the bag.
6 Whereas a general notion of non-knowledge can be defined as the possibility of
becoming knowledgeable about one’s own ignorance (Gross, 2010), nescience or
“unknown unknowns” can only be known in retrospect.
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Sustainability: Beyond Behaviour Change. London: Routledge.
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Between Children and Animals. Children’s Geographies 9(2): 145–165.
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Foul the Pavement? The Social Psychology of a Minor Rule Infraction. Journal of
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of the Leash. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 125(1–2): 38–46.
10 Sorting the trash
Competing constructions and
instructions for handling
household waste
Susan Machum
Globally waste is a growing social problem. As our rates of consumption

increase and populations urbanize, the need to handle and safely discard
unwanted, spoiled and hazardous materials is not just a personal trouble but also
a public safety issue. Hoornweg, Bhada-Tata, and Kennedy (2013: 616) report
that at the beginning of this century, the world’s urban population was creating
more than three million tonnes of solid waste per day. The United States
Environmental Protection Agency (2011: 1) informs us that in 2010 Americans
generated on average 4.43 pounds of waste per person, per day. The story is no
different in Canada where in 2010, over the course of a year, 25 million tons
of non-hazardous waste was trucked to landfills (Statistics Canada, 2013: 7).
This capacity to jettison a significant amount of resources, goods, and materials
from our homes on a daily, weekly, and annual basis is a direct result of
increasing consumption patterns.
Waste volumes are clearly reflective of consumption patterns; as Abagale,
Mensah, and Osei (2012) note, “the richer the citizens, the more waste is
generated.” Quite simply, “our trash, or municipal solid waste (MSW), is made
up of the things we commonly use and then throw away” (USEPA, 2011: 2).
Whenever we make purchases we are presumably buying something we
want—a new pair of shoes, a computer, a sofa, a loaf of bread, etc.—but often
we are also receiving something extra that we don’t necessarily want: the
packaging that holds our desired purchase. Unless we are planning a move, the
corrugated cardboard box, the wrapping paper, and the protective styrofoam
that enshrines our purchases are superfluous. Without a planned end use at
point of purchase this packaging will soon find its way into a waste stream—
either the recycling box or the garbage bin. While packaging may be discarded
rather quickly, in time, the wanted items it protected will also wend their way
into waste streams.
Municipal solid waste is often studied from a political economy perspective
that looks at how much garbage is generated and the overall costs of its disposal
(Abagale, Mensah, and Osei., 2012, Suthar and Singh, 2015). Cost-benefit
analyses investigate the economic and ecological trade-offs of streaming garbage
into landfills, disassembling hazardous waste, and collecting recyclables
(Gallardo et al., 2010). Related to this agenda, research has focused on how to
162 Susan Machum
improve participation in waste reduction, reuse, recycling, and reclaiming
programs (Bulkeley and Gregson, 2009; Dahlén et al., 2009). Many of these
studies use psychological frames to assess effective behavioral modification
schemes for transforming both the generation and treatment of trash (see
Abagale, Mensah, and Osei, 2012; Strengers, 2011). They evaluate the
effectiveness of reward versus punishment legislation for improving compliance
with MSW strategies. Yet within this literature there is little recognition of
trash, recycling, and compostable materials as evolving, socially constructed
phenomena that both shape everyday practices and rely on everyday practices
for their salience.
This chapter takes up this agenda by using microsociology to explore how
garbage is constructed—first as a social phenomenon with varying categories
and secondly as a series of guidelines intended to influence and direct mundane,
everyday actions. The first section uses phenomenology to deconstruct and
reflect on the emergence of waste as a heterogeneous concept. The second
section relies on Berger and Luckmann’s social construction of reality to
illustrate how the same kinds of waste materials are sorted—quite differently—
in three adjoining waste management regions in New Brunswick, Canada. The
final section of this chapter draws on Goffman’s dramaturgical metaphor to
consider how our everyday practices and ensuing relationships with our trash
are performances, with specific props and regions that mediate and inform our
construction and knowledge of solid waste and how to dispose of it.
The phenomenological lens: Generating and streaming waste

Phenomenology provides an important vantage point for assessing trash because
of its concern with day-to-day experiences and, like all sociology, its
preoccupation with “naming, distinguishing, separating, collecting, and
ordering” (Ferguson, 2006: 11). In particular phenomenologists seek to unravel
how we make meaning of unfolding events and the frameworks we use to
recognize, document, and categorize our everyday experiences in meaningful
ways. Phenomenologists who take an interest in household waste might,
therefore, ask: How do we recognize this item as worthy of keeping and this
other as one to discard? What categories of waste exist? What criteria are used
to evaluate and sort belongings? And how do our everyday practices contribute
to the emergence, maintenance, and evolution of these conceptual categories?
How do these criteria and practices change with time and location, and why?
Undertaking a phenomenological analysis of household waste thus calls on us
to consider the frameworks we use to sort and categorize it.
At the municipal and policy level there are multiple schemes for rudimentarily
sorting waste. One approach is to focus on the location where the waste is
generated: industrial waste versus household waste, kitchen waste versus
medical waste, yard waste versus white (i.e. household appliances) waste. A
second strategy is to focus on the physical characteristics of the waste: liquid
waste versus solid waste, gray water versus potable water, hazardous versus
Sorting the trash 163
nonhazardous waste, ewaste versus paper waste, compostable versus long-lived
waste. A third tactic is to conceptualize waste streams according to their final
destination: garbage destined for the landfill, versus recyclables sorted for
curbside or drop-off points, versus hazardous and ewaste bound for special
facilities, versus food and yard waste en route to composting locations. Each of
these approaches uses different criteria to create categories of waste that are in
turn directed into different waste streams with different expectations and
approaches for how to handle the ensuing waste.
While on a global scale, family households generate far less waste than
industrial sites (Statistics Canada, 2013), given our consumption practices if we
didn’t throw things out, we would be overrun with stuff. For example, Schor
(1999) found the rise in household debt was being paralleled by an increase in
the construction of houses with attached two car garages. The irony was that the
garages were essentially being turned into storage units because the overflow of
household items was leaving no room for family cars. Schor’s mantra for how
we accumulate stuff—“see-want-borrow-buy” (1999)—can easily be extended
to look at the post-consumption waste cycle by adding “use-sort-store-jettison.”
In this vein, Aslett (2000) was a forerunner in the self-help literature geared
towards advising consumers on strategies to reduce their volume of clutter and
belongings. As the owner of a household cleaning company he had witnessed
how attached people were to their belongings and the struggles to maintain
order when locked in a continuous cycle of consumption. Over the past two
decades, whole industries and professions have developed to help us pack, store,
assess, and discard unwanted items. The mass media has turned the struggles of
hoarders—those who don’t perceive any of their material possessions to be trash
or something to discard—into a source of entertainment.
The creation of waste is to some extent inevitable because everyday living
requires purchasing and using resources. But watching how debilitating the
hoarder’s incapacity to purge can be on their daily life is evidence that the job
of sorting, evaluating, and discarding is an essential dimension of household
maintenance. For most households there are four frames that are consciously
and unconsciously used to differentiate valuable belongings from waste items.
First, waste can emerge when an item reaches the end of its life—for example
dead batteries, rotted or expiring food, old newspapers, or a malfunctioning
refrigerator are items that have served their purpose; and we are inclined to
discard them. Second, we may want to discard surplus items—for example, if
we downsize our home we may have too much furniture or new furniture
purchases can create redundancy with items we already own. Third, once-
valuable household items may lose their use-value—for example, baby or
toddler’s clothes or crutches for a broken leg no longer serve a purpose when
children grow or the broken leg has healed. Finally we are apt to abandon
things we never wanted in the first place—such as packaging, giftwrap,
unwanted or inappropriate gifts.
Generally when we acquire something we need to figure out where—and
how long—it will belong in our physical space. Some things we buy knowing
164 Susan Machum
they won’t last long. For example, batteries, food, and newspapers have short
shelf lives. However we may want to discard surplus but still useful items—such
as excess furniture resulting from new purchases or a household move; or items
that no longer have a use-value—like outgrown baby or toddler’s clothes or
crutches that were needed when your leg was broken but now is healed. And
then there are things we never wanted in the first place—this would include
product packaging, giftwrap, unwanted or inappropriate gifts—which we don’t
want to keep and store for any length of time. But it is the useful life of items
that impacts how urgently we need to attend to their care—rotting food can be
a health hazard and should be dealt with quickly, whereas in the right conditions
old clothing and papers could collect dust for years without growing mold.
Thus the temporal dynamic of our waste practices are influenced by the physical
characteristics of the materials, and also by social factors: for example, the storage
facilities we have available to us, and the external opportunity structure for
discarding waste shape how we handle it. Furthermore, our accumulation of
potential waste is uneven; for example, during special events such as birthdays
and Christmas we can amass more stuff than usual, which Bulkeley and Gregson
(2009: 14–15) argue can cause “lumpiness” in the storage and care of waste.
Lumpiness is especially acute with a household move, a major home renovation,
or the dissolution of a household due to death (or divorce).
Figuring out what kind of waste we have, and what to do with it, is a mental
sorting process. First, we have to recognize our trash as something we don’t
want—this is an incredible challenge for hoarders who perceive all of their
belongings to be valuable and worthy of keeping, regardless of their physical
condition. Second, we have to decide how we will discard it—are the items we
want to jettison still in good condition? Could others use these items? Should
the materials be recycled? Should they be sent to the landfill? Every day of the
week we are engaged in such assessments. Things that are still in good condition
may be given a second life through charity shops, such as Good Will and
Salvation Army stores, or they may be given to family and friends, or sold at
consignment stores. In this instance, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
If items are placed into the MSW stream, they could be headed directly to the
landfill or they could be diverted into a series of diversion programs.
The whole notion of diversion programs began to emerge in the 1960s and
became widespread in the 1990s as our collective consciousness about
environmental issues, limits to growth, and the need for sustainability grew.
The sheer volume of waste being produced meant landfills were filling at an
unprecedented rate and policy makers realized neither the environment nor
municipal infrastructures could absorb the castoffs. As a consequence, garbage
became a complex, heterogeneous entity with multiple waste streams (Bulkeley
and Gregson, 2009). Typically in the global north, MSW is organized into
recyclables, food and yard waste, white waste, hazardous waste, construction
waste—and the rest.
What emerges from this conceptualizing and sorting scheme is both a new
way of understanding this phenomenon we call “waste” and a new way of
interacting with and treating items we no longer want to keep. These points
will be explored in more detail in the next two sections of the chapter.
Phenomenology helps us to ask how we conceptualize, label, and organize
our mental and physical world and it helps us question the form and content
of “waste” as a category in and of itself. Phenomenology calls on us to question
our categories of thought and the practices we engage in. In the twenty-first
century trash is no longer simply something we toss into a “black bag” and
discard. Unpacking this “black bag” (as opposed to the black box) and
contemplating how we sustain the social world through our actions—in this
case studying how we evaluate, clean, sort, and distribute castoffs into various
waste streams—is the work of phenomenologists (Ferguson, 2006).
Undertaking such studies allow us to grasp how our everyday practices build
and sustain our common sense, shared understanding of waste, and how to
handle it.
The social construction of trash: Three distinct waste systems

Berger and Luckmann’s The Social Construction of Reality (1967) contributed to
phenomenology through its powerful insights into how human activity and
routine actions contribute to and create the social world and our understandings
of it. They argued our everyday reality is socially constructed—that is, it
emerges and evolves thanks to what we do or don’t do. If we treat people
equally all will be equal; but if for example we pay men more than women for
performing the same job, gender inequality will emerge. In short, all forms of
social inequality emerge, and persist, as a consequence of acting in ways that
advantage one social group at the expense of another.
We learn these ways of “doing”—practices for “acceptably” treating others
differently—from pre-existing social institutions. Given social institutions
represent long-lasting, habituated ways of organizing human affairs, they create
the context of our socialization. A feedback loop means that these social
institutions both shape our perceptions of the world, and are in turn shaped by
us. Yet rather than see ourselves as the actors creating and changing the social
world, our tendency is to give social institutions life-like qualities, treating
them as though they are capable of acting independently of humans when they
cannot. This process of giving institutions (rather than the people inside them)
the capacity to act is often referred to by sociologists like Berger and Luckmann
(1967) as reification.
The reality is social institutions are outcomes of “doing,” which means we
have the potential to undo or change socially and ecologically destructive
practices by altering our behaviors. Recognizing that social structures are the
result of social actions is critical for engaging in social change. Yet reification
leads us to view the social world as something that is distinct and separate from
ourselves and hence difficult to change. Reification blinds us to the fact that we
have the power to significantly change our behavior and the established ways
of doing things. Undertaking structural change is, of course, immensely
166 Susan Machum
challenging—in large part because for every person who might want change
there is somebody else who wants to maintain the status quo.
People, power, and resources are constantly being mobilized for cross-
purposes. To understand how and why people engage in the actions they do,
researchers using a social constructionist perspective question how we come to
know what is expected in particular contexts. They are concerned with how
we perceive unfolding situations as well as the categories and labels we use to
make sense of our everyday world because it is these understandings that guide
our mundane, everyday practices. The point is that all social life is socially
constructed—including our trash. This section illustrates the point by examining
how three adjoining solid waste management programs expect households to
sort and prepare items for disposal in different ways.
Specifically the study focuses on three adjacent regional waste programs
located in New Brunswick on the east coast of Canada. With an area of 73,440
square kilometers and a total population of approximately 750,000 New
Brunswick has a relatively low population density. The province is divided into
12 regional service districts that are responsible for coordinating the day-to-day
operation of services for municipalities and rural community councils located
within their zones. Each regional service district has the capacity to deliver
services according to their own specifications but they must do so within the
parameters of provincial legislation. Similar arrangements exist elsewhere. For
example, in their study of waste management programs in Spain, Gallardo et al.
(2010) found four collection systems operated within 17 regions. Variations
emerge as a result of distinct collection schedules, methods of collection, and
expectations surrounding the preparation of unwanted materials.
Generally MSW programs selectively collect materials on the basis of three
criteria. The first consideration is the impact particular materials will have on
local ecosystems. Hazardous waste materials are identified and selected for
special treatment because they can harm water supplies, contaminate soils, and
hurt workers who are exposed to them without proper protection. Ewaste is
rife with chemicals that can pollute waterways if dumped untreated into landfill
sites. The second concern is whether or not there is a market for the recyclable
materials they collect. If MSW programs are going to go to the trouble of
having separate collection procedures for certain items and have households
voluntarily sort their waste—referred to as selective collection—they need to
ensure it’s cost-effective. Specially streaming items that will end up in the
landfill is not economically sensible. The third issue pertains to the volume and
rate of decomposition—yard waste, white waste, and compostable materials
can quickly fill landfill cells and they break down at vastly different rates. In an
effort to separate large volume items that decompose slowly from large volume
items that can quickly return to their molecular level, MSW programs create
different waste streams.
Despite geographic proximity and similar household compositions within
their regions, Fundy Regional Solid Waste, Fredericton Region Solid Waste, and
Southeast Regional Service each constructs and collects waste differently. All treat
hazardous waste separately—but yard waste, white waste, and construction
waste from renovations are not handled the same. For example, yard waste is
picked up as part of regular garbage days in Fundy and the Southeast but in the
Fredericton region there is an annual spring and fall clean up for yard waste that
may or may not be picked up on regular garbage day. Special days can be
organized to pick up hazardous waste or it can be dropped off during regular
working hours in the Fundy and Southeast region but only on Wednesday and
Saturday mornings in Fredericton. Fredericton has special yard waste days but
no large household items are picked up curbside, instead residents in this zone
need to take “white items” directly to the regional waste facility where a
tipping fee will be charged. Conversely, twice a year, the Fundy and Southeast
regions offer free, curbside pick-up of larger household items such as appliances,
furniture, tires, and large electronics.
Even from this rudimentary discussion of drop-off times it is clear waste
disposal has a temporal dimension. Southerton (2012: 344) and others studying
everyday practices observe, “practices come with their own temporal demands
that condition both the experience and the performance of those practices.” In
terms of waste disposal households are sorting and disposing of waste not just
on a weekly basis but also seasonally. In the first instance daily practices feed
into weekly actions and in the second, seasonal activities create annual waste
cycles. This temporal dimension of waste disposal structures household actions
related to the storage, preparation, and final purging of small to large, of
everyday to occasional to ‘special event’ items. To take advantage of curbside
pick-up, households may have to hold onto their waste longer than they would
like; this in itself can be problematic if you don’t have a lot of space or the
resources to transport it directly to the waste site.
But usually, as Table 10.1 captures, household waste is picked up at curbside
on a weekly or biweekly basis, however it can be dropped off at any of the
facilities during their normal hours of operation. From Table 10.1 we can see
that all “normal” types of household waste are picked up weekly in the
Table 10.1
Collection and pick-up system for household waste in southern New
Brunswick, Canada
Curbside pick-up Drop-off points
Weekly Bi-weekly Anytime On-site limited On-site during

scheduled hours normal hours of operation
Fundy region Mixed Organic Recycle Mixed Organic Hazard

Solid waste
!
Fredericton Mixed Recycle Recycle Recycle Recycle Hazard Mixed

regional
Solid waste !
Southeast Dry Wet Hazard Wet Dry

regional service
!
Source: Constructed from Fredericton Region Solid Waste Commission, 2015; Fundy Region Solid
Waste, 2015; Southeast Regional Service Commission, 2015
168 Susan Machum
Southeast region; Fredericton collects mixed garbage weekly, blue box items
one week and grey box items the next; meanwhile Fundy picks up mixed
garbage one week and compost items the next. These different MSW systems
embody not only distinct schedules, but also very different frameworks—and
language—for households to use when sorting the very same kinds of household
waste items.
Table 10.2 summarizes how weekly household waste is being divided into
compostable material, recyclable, and mixed garbage in the Fundy region; as
mixed, grey, and blue box matter in the Fredericton region and as green (wet)
and blue (dry) in the Southeast region. What is striking is that even though
consumers have access to very similar shopping experiences, are making similar
purchases, and are governed by similar socio-economic, cultural, and political
processes, each zone not only labels but constructs and instructs households to
sort and handle their waste in dramatically different, and in some places
contradictory, ways. For example, items that the Fundy region tells households
not to place in their compost cart, the Southeast region instructs their residents
to place in the cart! In fact, the Southeast region acknowledges that sanitary
pads, baby wipes, diapers, kitty litter, meat trays, wax paper, and cigarette butts
are all “weird” stuff to put in your compostable green bags; but that’s where
they want it to go. This designation emerges because when the Southeast
region first rolled out its program the green bag held “wet” materials and the
blue bag “dry” materials. Using this constructionist framework, diapers and
other non-compostable items such as styrofoam meat trays turn into “wet”
material rather than “dry” recyclable material. Again, the incredibly long list of
items that belong in the blue bag in the Southeast far surpasses the Fredericton
or Fundy regions’ recycling programs. Clearly not all of these items are
recyclable—yet placing all items in either a blue or green bag suggests nothing
ends up in the landfill, which is obviously not true. Within all of these schemes
garbage turns into a diverse, heterogeneous product that needs to be evaluated,
sorted, and processed according to the rules and regulations of that region. Of
note, all jurisdictions instruct households to wash and clean recyclables, but the
Southeast region goes further by expecting all “blue” items be washed and
cleaned. Clear bags and open recycling boxes further allow castoffs to be
monitored. And in the Southeast region where clear bags are required they
routinely tag and leave at curbside any materials not meeting established
standards.
Even though material waste may be remarkably similar from one region to
another, expectations of what to do with it are constructed quite differently
across regional facilities, precisely because they are able to create their own
sorting and handling schemes. Both Table 10.1 and Table 10.2 illustrate that
what happens to the waste and how it is treated is not inherent in the “garbage”
itself. The stream that it is to enter is socially constructed. For example, the
Q-tip is to be placed in mixed garbage in both Fredericton and Fundy, but into
organic waste in the Southeast. This illustrates what Berger and Luckmann
(1967) meant by the social construction of reality. What is critical here is to
Table 10.2 Deconstructing household waste sorting instructions
Fundy Region solid waste

All food waste (including bones, coffee grinds, dairy products)
Yard waste: brush, cedar clippings, grass clippings (not chemically treated), leaves, pine cones, plants, roots,
Dry Wet Organic Recycle sawdust and wood shavings, seeds, straw and hay, twigs and branches (2-inch diameter or less), weeds
Other material: feathers, hair (human and pet), ice-cream boxes, kitty litter (clay-based or from
compostable materials like corn, wheat, pine shavings, etc. Must wrap in compostable bag or newspaper),
paper food wrap and bags, paper plates, napkins and paper towels (when soiled with food waste); pet waste
(must be in compostable bag or wrapped in newspaper), pizza boxes (greasy or soiled), popcorn and
microwaveable bags, popsicle sticks, muffin liners and wine corks
DO NOT INCLUDE: ashes, baby diapers, cigarette butts, chemically sprayed grass, clothes and rags,
disposable coffee cups and fast food cups, dryer sheets and lint, glass, metal and plastic, medical waste, personal
hygiene products, rocks, bricks and gravel, milk cartons, paint, motor oil or gasoline, plastic bags, q-tips,
vacuum cleaner bags and contents, wax
At drop-off points only they accept corrugated cardboard; paper and boxboard; and plastic, metal
and milk containers
Wet Organic Recycle Paper and board box: newspapers, flyers, telephone books, hardcover books, computer paper, colored
paper, paperback books, posters, envelopes, cereal boxes, paper towel rolls, shoe boxes, Kleenex boxes,
cracker boxes. NO wax paper, wax cardboard, gift wrap or milk cartons
Plastics and metals: items with the recycling symbol 1, 2, or 5 — ice-cream tubs, yogurt containers, bleach
jugs, antifreeze containers, plastic milk jugs, ketchup bottles, pill bottles, grocery and shopping bags, dry
cleaner wrap, ‘shrink’ wrap, bread and frozen food bags, aluminum foil, tin cans, coat hangers, aluminum pie
plates, all cardboard milk, cream and buttermilk cartons. NO Styrofoam, chip bags
These items belong in the garbage: black or green garbage bags (do not collect or deposit recyclables in
garbage bag), Styrofoam, glass, plastic without a recycle number (toys and furniture), garden hoses, coffee
Mixed Recycle Recycle
cups and lids, Hazard
gift wrap, wrapping
Dry paper, ribbon Organic
Wet and bows, chip bagsRecycle
and chocolate bar wrappers, bottle caps
or lids less than 3 inches, paint cans or aerosol cans—along with anything else that doesn’t fit the specially
handled items listed! above or seasonal/special discards
(continued)
Table 10.2 continued
Fredericton Regional solid waste

The curbside grey box is where you place your paper products: newspapers, flyers, cardboard, boxboard,
phonebooks, paperback books, magazines, white and coloured paper. Make sure you remove all plastic liners
Mixed Recycle Recycle Hazard Dry
and flatten boxes but staples and Organic
Wetpaper clips Recycle
do not need to be removed
!
“GREY BOX”
The curbside blue box is for collecting plastic and metal recyclables: Refundable containers such as soda
bottles and juice boxes, metal food cans, plastic containers (types 1 to 7), plastic grocery bags, milk cartons
ixed Recycle Recycle Hazard Dry Wet Organic Recycle
!
“BLUE BOX”
Southeast Regional service
The blue bag is for recyclables, glass, and everything else:
Cloth: clothes, curtains, fabric, footwear, gloves, scarves, hats, leather, linens, sheets, nylons, pillows, rags,
cycle Hazard Dry Wet Organic Recycle
string, towels, yarn
! Glass: bottles, containers, cups, dishware, mirrors, pyrex, vases, jars (wrap broken glass in newspaper or in a
cardboard box and label)
“BLUE BAG” Metal: aluminum (cans, pie plates, foil etc.), bottles, containers, cups, cutlery, foil pouches and packets,
jewelry, paper clips, scouring pads, steel wool, staples, wire
Paper: books, reports, boxboard, boxes, bristol board, cardboard, cards, catalogues, cereal boxes, coffee cups,
drink trays, egg cartons, envelopes, file folders, flyers, index cards, magazines, newspaper, paper bags, pizza
boxes, plates and cups, posters, phone books, sticky notes, tissue paper.
Plastic: wrapping paper, bags (grocery and shopping), bottles, bubble packaging, combs, containers, cups,
jugs and jars, k-cups and single-use coffee packets, medicine bottles (empty), milk bags/jugs, packaging,
sheets/table cloths, straws, toys, transparencies, wrappers, saran/plastic wrap
Small electronics (all with batteries removed): blenders, food processors, calculators, cell phones, circuit
boards, clocks, coffee machines/grinders, electric shavers, ereaders, hair dryers, curling irons, straighteners,
ipods, mp3 players, ipads, keyboards, netbooks, pagers, remotes, telephones, toaster ovens, toasters, VCRs
and DVD players, video games, consoles, controllers, video recorders
Other: balloons, binders, board games, brushes, calculators, candles, candy wrappers, carbon paper, ceramics,
chalk, china, computer disks, cork, cosmetics, crayons, deodorant, drink boxes, elastic bands, electronic parts,
games, erasers, food packaging (empty/rinse), frozen juice containers, kettles, lids, covers, light bulbs (not
cfls), markers, meat trays, milk cartons, pencils/pens, picture frames, photos, potato chip bags, pottery,
disposable razors, rubber, rubber gloves, sandpaper, silica gel packs, small electronics, small appliances, sponge,
sports equipment, stickers, styrofoam (cups, plates, trays, etc.), toothpaste tubes, toothpicks, twist ties, utensils,
water filters, water softener salt, wrappers
Green is organic—all food and yard waste is collected (branches have to be 1-inch diameter or less, bundled
in 2’x2’x2’)
azard Dry Wet Organic Recycle
Other organic (to include): absorbent pads from meat trays, baby wipes, bandages and gauze, cigarette
butts, condoms, cotton balls, dental floss, diapers, dirt and dust, disposable cleaning cloths (swiffer, lysol),
! dryer lint and sheets, feathers, feminine hygiene products, hair, kitty litter, newspaper soiled with pet waste or
food, paper towels, tissues, napkins, parchment paper, pet training or “pee” pads, pet waste, q-tips, sawdust
and wood shavings, tobacco, vacuum bag, waxed paper
Source: Constructed from Fredericton Region Solid Waste Commission, 2015; Fundy Region Solid Waste, 2015; Southeast Regional Service Commission, 2015
172 Susan Machum
realize household residents are being asked to perceive and process their waste
differently based on the capacities and organizational structures of various
municipal processing centers, rather than any inherent physical characteristics.
Dramaturgy and routinized waste disposal practices

Goffman theorized that daily life was filled with a series of performances—
observable roles, scripted and unscripted conversations, and actions—that both
create and enable ongoing human interaction. As “actors” we are always aware
that our performance is being watched, so the audience itself is part of the
performance, and our goal is to leave a good impression of ourselves with those
co-present. Treviño (2003: 35–36) elaborates:
[Goffman] begins with the premise that when an individual enters the
presence of others, he will try to guide and control—through setting,
appearance, and manner—the impressions (usually an idealized version)
they form of him; at the same time, the others will seek to acquire
information about him in order to infer what they can expect of him and
he of them.
Every performance thus involves teams of actors who are working together to
achieve a particular outcome while at the same time maintaining their image.
It is Goffman’s perception of social life as a performance that leads to his
development of six key concepts for undertaking a dramaturgical analysis:
performances, teams and team work, front and back regions, discrepant roles,
unexpected or out-of-character communications, and impression management
(Jacobsen and Kristiansen, 2015: 71). And while Goffman’s theory of
dramaturgy emerges from a preoccupation with face-to-face interactions, as we
will see, his metaphor and its features are useful for unpacking our ongoing
relationships, day-to-day practices, and routines with trash disposal.
As noted in the previous section, MSW commissions expect households to
follow their waste disposal instructions. The expectation is that households
will voluntarily comply and “follow the recycling and waste disposal rules”
so that their performance conforms to newly emerging social norms. Bulkeley
and Gregson (2009: 936) argue a major effect of on-site sorting is that it
makes household waste visible in a way that dumping everything into a black,
unprocessed, bag did not. From a microsociology perspective, what is
particularly interesting about the performance of evaluating, cleaning, sorting,
storing, and eventually disbursing the household waste is that it forces citizens
to confront and interact with the remnants of their consumption far longer
and in a more sustained way than immediately dumping it into a garbage bag
did. The physical act of washing and cleaning tin cans and milk cartons
transforms our relationship with our trash: now we have to take care of it—
maybe only for a week or two—but we can’t simply discard it without
thought.
Goffman recognized that performances are seldom carried out alone, but
rather involve a cast or “team” of players. In terms of waste management,
family members are acting as a team at the household level. But there are also
a host of other cast members—neighbors who watch you carry the goods and
remnants in and out of your home; the sanitation workers who roll up to
your house on a weekly or biweekly basis, the MSW zones and staff who are
operating facilities, the policy makers and the law enforcers who observe and
ensure the orderly flow of waste. With the exception perhaps of the neighbors,
the importance of each link doing their job cannot be overstated: households
that hoard their debris become uninhabitable; cities where sanitary disposal
workers go on strike can witness havoc because the health hazards of
unprocessed waste can quickly become problematic, so municipalities
scramble for interim solutions and locations for households to dump their
debris.
In terms of everyday performances, Smith (2006: 42) reports that Goffman
does not see us learning scripts; instead we improvise according to the social
group or context. But in the case of sorting the trash, it is safe to argue that
MSW programs are trying to teach us a script—they want us to consistently do
the same thing week after week. Nevertheless the script varies—it is not
consistent from one jurisdiction to another. We need to adjust our behavior,
i.e. ad lib and adapt, to meet the social norms and standards of each waste
management system’s organizing principles. And while real events are not
rehearsed, the practice of sorting the trash over and over again, week after
week, does suggest a form of ongoing rehearsal. We could argue that daily
habits and practices are ongoing rehearsals.
Who performs this sorting work at the household level are family members
and/or roommates—while researchers tend to treat the household as a “waste
management team,” it may be more insightful to consider the roles of
individual actors. For example, Oates and McDonald (2006) found that the
typical gendered division of labor prevails in day-to-day household recycling
performance rituals. That is, women tend to do the invisible backstage cleaning
and sorting work while men tend to do the more visible carrying of bins to
and from the household to the curb or drop-off points. Moreover they report
“females are much more likely to be both recycling initiators and sustainers
than males” (Oates and McDonald, 2006: 426). Recognizing and teasing out
the dynamics of individual actor roles may lead to a better understanding of
household-level practices and more targeted and effective policies and
programs.
Goffman maintained all performers use a front and back stage to prepare
for and execute their performances. He argued the back stage is where you
prepare for the performance that will unfold on the front stage. In the case of
household waste disposal, the front stage is the curbside or the drop-off
point while the back stage emerges in different locations throughout the
family household. Kitchens and bathrooms are prime places for generating
daily waste; offices beget paper waste; bedroom closets will contain castaway
174 Susan Machum
clothes; and yards seasonal debris. Wherever the waste is generated it needs to
be collected and contained. For this job we rely on an increasingly vast array of
props—specialized garbage bags, receptacle bins, dumpsters, plastic recycling
bins, compost carts, and at times, rubber gloves—to carry out the performance.
These props are used in the back stage to prepare for the weekly front stage
performance of moving the trash to the curbside for pick-up. If your MSW
program expects you to drop off recycling or hazardous waste items, then
additional props, like a car or other mode of transportation, are needed to carry
out your front-stage performance. The nature of the props and the length of
time you need to maintain waste in the back region can have a huge impact on
your willingness and capacity to participate in the front-stage recycling
programs. For example, Bulkeley and Gregson (2009: 937) point out: “the
mess and smell of storing certain materials in households … and the more
potent moral judgments of (locally known) others [from witnessing wine and
beer bottles in the recycling bin]” may indeed hamper people’s willingness to
collect and sort recyclables from other garbage.
In fact, neighborhood moralists passing judgment on what is in your
recycling bin or see-through garbage bags may exemplify Goffman’s notion of
the “discrepant role” in the household waste context. Jacobsen and Kristiansen
(2015: 72) describe this position as one where people seek to “learn about the
secrets of the team” in order to undermine or threaten their “privileged” role.
Clear garbage bags lay bare to the world not only what we are throwing away
but also extensive clues to what we have consumed. Consumption activities
that we may once have been able to hide inside the confines of our own home
now make their way to the curbside. Personally I am glad that I do not live in
a jurisdiction that mandates the use of clear bags. I don’t want people to see my
dirty dishes, my dirty laundry, or my dirty, unkempt discards. Don’t get me
wrong. I do recycle and compost all my food waste but I still do not want
people to see what I am sending to the landfill—even if it is only one bag or
less for a family of four each week. I do not want my performance to be
scrutinized and judged. However that is exactly what jurisdictions with strict
rules, garbage bag limits, and fines for non-compliance are routinely doing. Of
course, the enforcers have their own performance guidelines to follow. But I
do not want my performance to communicate that I am not serious about
environmental issues—to do so would support Goffman’s concept of
“communication out of character,” by which he meant our expressions are
incompatible with the impression we are trying to make (Jacobsen and
Kristiansen, 2015: 72).
For me the impetus to compost and recycle—non-mandatory activities in
the Fredericton region where I live—emerged from growing awareness of
environmental issues, limits to growth, and the need for sustainability. I have
been well indoctrinated into the mantra reduce, reuse, recycle, and reclaim. Every
day inside the family household I wash and clean recyclables, gather up
newspapers, empty the compost bin, and place things into their proper storage
areas. Sometimes I see recyclables have been dumped into the trash, I pull them
out and redirect them into their proper stream—I do this because I want to
maintain my identity to myself, my family members, and other observers that I
am an active environmentalist. My actions are intended to manage the
impression others have of me. Successful impression management involves
discipline—in this case the ongoing practice of sorting and processing the trash
on a daily, weekly, biweekly, and seasonal basis. Impression management also
involves loyalty—loyal commitment to the overall environmental objective
and to the daily practices compliance requires.
Compliance is a major dynamic of waste management research, which
generally focuses on the advantages of carrots or incentive-based approaches as
opposed to sticks or punishment strategies for increasing participation rates (for
example see Abagale, Mensah, and Osei, 2012; Dahlén et al., 2009; Strenger,
2011). The ultimate goal of MSW programs is to have 100 percent compliance
but this can be challenging, even for strongly committed adherents. For
example, when I travel from one jurisdiction to another it is easy to erroneously
place items in the wrong bin—this is partly a consequence of the arbitrariness
of how waste is constructed in the first place. Goffman recognized that observers
could ignore performer’s slips and contradictions in order for the performer to
save face and not be embarrassed by indiscretions; in this case failure to fully
comply with MSW programs.
Perhaps this is why we can overlook the sheer volume of waste placed at
curbside by ourselves, and neighbors, who promote environmentalism. In
order to stay fresh and to maintain outward signs of personal success we are
encouraged by advertisers to buy, buy, and buy some more. At the same time,
to preserve resources and protect ecosystems for future generations,
environmental activists advise us to reduce our ecological footprint. In many
ways recycling programs help us think we can reconcile two discrepant roles:
we can continue to purchase items and save the planet by diverting our waste
away from the landfill and into recycling, composting, and re-distribution
programs. Diversion programs and our post-consumption recycling
performances are effective means for mediating feelings of guilt that may arise
from our resource-intensive lifestyles.
Goffman’s dramaturgical metaphor provides a framework for evaluating and
assessing our everyday household waste practices. Looking after our belongings
and their byproducts involve layers of actors and performances. Sorting the
trash is a performance that occurs in both front and back regions and encompasses
an increasing array of props—which ironically represent another form of
consumption. Our daily practices reflect, in large part, the impression we want
to leave with our family, friends, and neighbors about our commitment to
environmental sustainability in an era of high consumption. As Ewing (2001:
759) reports, recycling is an altruistic behavior, “the majority [of participants in
his study] strongly believed that using the blue box did help protect the
environment, curbside recycling was convenient and that household members
wanted them to recycle.”
176 Susan Machum
Conclusion
This chapter has illustrated that our relationship with our trash is socially
mediated—first at the stage of its creation and secondly at the stage of its disposal.
Through daily practices we regularly construct piles of trash inside our family
households and then abandon them at the curbside, drop-off points, and
donation centers. By diverting waste from the landfill we offset our consumptive
acts. The repetition of these activities represents a staged performance where we
are integrated into an ongoing rehearsal on how to present ourselves as
environmentally conscious consumers. It’s through the acceptance of local
municipalities’ waste streams and the everyday use of those constructions to sort
our trash that we build a shared model of what is worthy of saving, what should
be tossed, and exactly which waste stream items should end up in. How local
municipalities and their facilities frame and dispose of waste elicit a particular set
of expectations and behaviors for us in both the front and back stage.
How we treat our trash and the extent to which we participate in diversion
programs reflects the impression we want to provide to our family, friends, and
neighbors about our commitment to sustainability. It’s through these everyday
practices inside the family household, that we support or undermine MSW
initiatives. Microsociology reminds us that recycling and sorting the trash are
performances we may or may not do on a voluntarily basis. In undertaking
those performances we treat some garbage as more valuable than other garbage:
recyclables must be looked after carefully to ensure they meet quality control;
composting is an important strategy for reclaiming nutrients that would be
destroyed in landfills; donating items that have not been totally used up
promotes reduced resource extraction. When we do not actively sort our trash,
it remains a homogenous mess inside a black bag, rather than a complex entity
headed for different destinations. Recognizing this heterogeneity and how it is
formed is the major contribution that phenomenology, the social construction
of reality, and dramaturgy make to the study of waste management.
References
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OH: Marsh Creek Press.
Berger, P., and T. Luckmann. 1967. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the
Sociology of Knowledge. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
Bulkeley, H., and N. Gregson. 2009. Municipal Waste Policy and Household Waste
Generation: Why Crossing the Threshold Matters to the Furtherance of UK Waste
Policy. Environment and Planning A 41(4): 929–945.
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Region Solid Waste]. Available at: http://frswc.ca/operations/
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DC: USEPA.
11 The utility of phenomenology
in understanding and
addressing human-caused
environmental problems
Jerry Williams
Phenomenology is often mistakenly understood as an effort to understand the

subjective perspectives of social actors—to see the social world through the
eyes of others. As a result, environmental sociologists have rarely attempted to
apply phenomenological insights to objective, real-world environmental
problems such as global warning, species extinction, and energy depletion.
Here it is argued phenomenology can provide substantial insights into the way
in which environmental problems are collectively understood and the way
they might be solved. In what follows, I demonstrate sociologists concerned
with environmental problems can profit from phenomenological insights, in
particular those of the Austrian-born philosopher Alfred Schutz. The principal
contention raised here is that environmental sociology must begin with a
prescientific analysis of what Schutz called the everyday life-world. He states,
“the life-world is that province of reality which the wide-awake and normal
adult simply takes for granted in the attitude of commonsense” (Schutz and
Luckmann, 1973: 3–4). The life-world is, then, the day-to-day reality from
which we experience the wider world and its “problems.” Let us consider a
real-world problem as an example.
Since 2008 the small town of Azle, Texas has experienced 74 minor quakes.
By comparison from the period 1970–2002 Azle experienced only two (RT
News, 2013). While little damage has been done, many have wondered about
their cause. Perhaps without coincidence this area in Texas also corresponds to
frenetic oil and gas drilling using hydraulic fracturing technology, a process by
which high-pressure fluids are injected under the earth’s surface to break apart
oil- and gas-bearing bedrock. The rebirth of oil and gas exploration in south
Texas has without doubt increased economic activity in the state. Its
environmental consequences, however, are still being debated.
Does hydraulic fracturing cause earthquakes? The fact that similar earthquakes
have also been experienced in other areas of the country subject to hydraulic
fracturing makes this a distinct possibility. The coincidence is too great to be
ignored. One day careful science will likely implicate fracking. Given the
current debate, however, scientific evidence (now or in the future) is unlikely
to sway public opinion about this in Texas. Like all claims about environmental
problems, claims about earthquakes are not simply a matter of objective
The utility of phenomenology 179
evidence. Rather, in a broader sense, all assertions about reality are experienced
in the social and cultural terms that for people living in their everyday lives
constitute commonsense. Put another way, these earthquakes and resulting
debates are experienced by locals not as issues of scientific exploration,
interpretation, or debate but rather as part of the social and cultural fabric and
its everyday concerns. While these earthquakes are very much a natural
phenomenon explainable in theoretical and scientific terms, they are also
experienced by humans who are not scientists. Alfred Schutz discusses the
objects of human experience that include scientific claims when he states,
“even the thing perceived in everyday life is more than a simple sense
presentation. It is a thought object, a construct of a highly complicated nature”
(Schutz, 1962a: 3). Missing this fact, that our experiences of all phenomena are
“thought objects” enmeshed in a social context, will nearly always tend to
marginalize even the soundest scientific findings about the environment. It is
for this reason that we must investigate the way reality is constituted and
experienced by those who are not theorizers, scientists, or philosophers. This is
the appropriate domain of phenomenology.1
Phenomenology as articulated by Edmund Husserl is the philosophical
investigation of human experience, an attempt to reground science in subjective
realities of everyday life. Speaking of Husserl, Schutz (1962d:100) states:
It was his conviction that none of the so-called rigorous sciences, which
use mathematical language with such efficiency, can lead toward an
understanding of our experiences of the world—a world the existence of
which they uncritically presuppose, and which they pretend to measure by
yardsticks and pointers on the scale of their instruments. All empirical
sciences refer to the world as pre-given; but they and their instruments are
themselves elements of this world.
According to Husserl, any science must begin by casting doubt upon its own
“habitual thinking” and presuppositions. In the case of environmental
sociology, this is no less the case. If progress is to be made toward understanding
environmental problems, we must first understand how people living in their
everyday lives actually experience these problems.
In what follows, I attempt to ground a sociology of environmental problems
in the process by which humans experience the natural world. First, I address
common misconceptions about phenomenology that have tended to
marginalize phenomenology in conversations about the environment. Next, I
address key phenomenological concepts in order to understand their application
as to how we experience the natural world. I then examine how environmental
claims are understood in everyday life, and finally I propose a phenomenologically
informed model of the human experience of the natural world. It is hoped that
the results of this analysis will be useful for anyone wishing to empirically or
theoretically understand environmental problems, their public framing, and
their possible solutions.
180 Jerry Williams
Phenomenology and the sociology of the environment
Of phenomenologists, Alfred Schutz has had a broader impact upon sociology
than any other (Psathas, 2004). This is largely so because his analysis, The
Phenomenology of the Social World, was an effort to critique Weber’s interpretive
sociology using phenomenological analysis (Schutz, 1967).2 Connected to
Weber in this way and after immigrating to New York at the beginning of
World War II, Schutz’s work found a ready audience with American sociologists
(Schutz and Voeglin, 2011). Indeed, Schutz published a variety of essays in
journals such as The American Journal of Sociology (Schutz, 1964c) and Social
Research (Schutz, 1964d). His tenure at the New School for Social Research
also helped secure his influence among sociologists. Schutz’s legacy in sociology
is most keenly felt in the work of Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann (1966),
and the ethnomethodology of Harold Garfinkel (1967).3
With respect to environmental sociology, however, Schutzian
phenomenology has not had a significant influence. As will be discussed in the
following section, this is probably because of the common misconception that
phenomenology is an exercise restricted to subjective, small-scale analyses
of everyday interaction. While phenomenology is not a common part of
conversations in environmental sociology, it has, however, become a part of
the philosophical literature about the environment in what is called “eco-
phenomenology” (Harvey, 2009). These analyses suggest that phenomenology
can be useful in breaking down dualist thinking about the environment (e.g.
Marietta, 2003, regarding “humans and “nature”), in furthering “deep ecology”
(Llewelyn, 2003), in reframing environmental ethics (Casey, 2003), and in
better specifying the human relationship to nature (Williams, 2007). While
important, these inquiries do not help us articulate how phenomenology can
make contributions to environmental sociology. Before pursuing this idea, we
must first entertain two misconceptions that have worked together to
marginalize phenomenology in environmental sociology.
Misconceptions
Reality is not real

Environment-related phenomena like earthquakes in south Texas are indeed
“real.” They occur independent of human perception or understanding of
them. This is true of not only earthquakes but of the natural world in general.
Phenomenology is often labeled as radical relativism—as suggesting no
objective reality exists. For Schutz, reality was not simply a matter of illusion.
It is indeed “real.” However, the “realness” of the world, he believed, is never
known directly. Elaborating upon this, Schutz (1964a: 88) states, “I am afraid I
do not know what reality is, and my only comfort in this unpleasant situation
is that I share my ignorance with the greatest philosophers of all time.” Schutz’s
body of work points to an additional aspect of ontology important for our
purposes. In contrast to what we might call the realist4 perspective about
ontology, reality never simply makes its sense to us (Thomason, 1982).5 Rather,
reality is always interpreted by human knowers. The relationship between
ontological reality and the knower is the backbone of the division between
ontology and epistemology in Western philosophy.
As we have seen, the phenomenological tradition as articulated by Schutz,
seeks not to deny or to diminish the ontological reality of the world. Rather,
it seeks to examine this reality by first describing the process by which it is
constituted in consciousness, and second by bracketing or setting aside any
preconceptions of the experienced phenomenon so as to reveal its “realness.”
Phenomenology, then, is not an exercise in subjectivism or relativism. Countless
incidence of this fallacy can be found in the sociological literature. There we
find analyses that attempt to describe the “life-word” of this or that marginalized
subgroup or to examine the “lived experience” of some everyday social role or
phenomenon (Singh, 2014; Chamarette, 2015). While perhaps using
phenomenological methods, these analyses only serve to describe the subjective
views of social actors. About such radically subjective efforts, Schutz (1962b:
52) concludes:
a method which would require that the individual scientific observer

identify himself with the social agent observed in order to understand the
motives of the latter, or a method which would refer the selection of the
facts observed and their interpretation to the private and subjective image
in the mind of this particular observer, would merely lead to an
uncontrollable private and subjective image in the mind of this particular
student of human affairs, but never to a scientific theory.
Radically subjective analyses illuminate only one aspect of human experience—

the construction of reality held by a particular person or group at a particular
time. In this way they are in principle no different than any other qualitative or
subjectivist research project. In the end, they fail to be science and to provide
the theoretical models that transcend particular places and times.6
An anti-scientific perspective
A second common misconception about phenomenological investigations is
that they are anti-scientific or at the least antagonistic to science. Nothing
could be further from the truth. Phenomenology, as pointed out by Thomason
(1982), does have roots in the nineteenth-century backlash against positivist
science of which both the metaphysics of Henri Bergson (1913) and the
restatement of philosophy provided by American pragmatism should be
understood (Dewey, 1920). As formulated by Edmund Husserl (1969),
phenomenology is an effort to reground science in the bedrock of human
existence. It is not an effort to abandon science in favor of philosophical
inquiry.
182 Jerry Williams
Alfred Schutz’s pro-scientific sentiments are obvious throughout his writings.
Educated in economics and law, Schutz often praised economics as the most
developed of the social sciences, citing the discipline’s formulation of testable
scientific models as justification (Schutz, 1962a). Indeed, much of Schutz’s
writing was methodological in nature. That is, he hoped to provide a firm basis
for the scientific investigation and theoretical modeling of human affairs by
orienting these investigations toward the way in which people actually
experience their everyday lives. Returning for a moment to earthquakes in
south Texas, a sociological analysis of how they are understood by those who
experience them must begin with a pretheoretical (phenomenological) look
at the process by which problematic circumstances are actually experienced, at
how the prevailing social stock of knowledge shapes these experiences, and
at how social power shapes this knowledge even before earthquakes occur. It is
only then that a truly sociological investigation of these earthquakes as a social
problem can proceed. Schutz, then, was not against science, but rather stressed
that social scientific models must be rooted in the experience of everyday life.7
The natural world as object of experience

The natural world is the most important foundation for human experience.
Humans and their social systems are embedded in the natural world and are
therefore not exempt from its limits, rules, and influences (Buttel, Catton, and
Dunlap, 1978). Consciousness (thought) itself is no less natural (Williams,
2007). Human experience of this world, however, is always socially mediated
and socially constructed (Williams, 1998). There is no getting around the fact
that as real as the world is, our successfulness as a species can probably be
directly attributed to our ability to turn this “realness” into mental
representations. Recently anthropologists have speculated that our ability to
form mental concepts of the world using complex language may have been the
reason for the dramatic expansion of modern humans out of Africa starting
about 60,000 years ago (Tattersall, 2012; Sykes, 2002). To understand how we
actually experience the natural world we now address four phenomenological
concepts that will then allow us to understand how environmental claims are
understood in everyday life: duration, intentionality, systems of relevance, and
the synthesis of experience.
Duration
On the level of consciousness, the reality of the natural world has a dual
aspect. First, as was mentioned earlier, it is a reality independent of my
experience of it. In other words, it is “not in my head.” As William James put
it, “consciousness is always consciousness of something” (James, 1890).
Second, and at the same time, reality is indeed very much “in our heads.”
That is, the outer world is reflected in consciousness in what Bergson (1913)
called the duree or flow of lived experience (Schutz, 1964b: 26). The duration
is best characterized as an undifferentiated inner flux of sensory representations
of the outer world. Schutz (1967: 45) states “in ‘pure duration’ there is no
‘side-by-sideness’, no mutual externality of parts, and no divisibility, but only
a continuous flux, a stream of conscious states.” On the level of the duration
there are no discrete experiences. Rather, the outer world is simply reflected
inward by virtue of our senses. Experience requires reflection and the conscious
(intentional) selection of elements of the duration. As we will see, all of this is
a rather complicated process.
Intentionality and relevance

For us to have true experiences of the world, we must parse or lift out specific
elements of the duration. This is the process of intentionality. Given our
particular purposes at hand, we consciously select elements from the duration
leaving others to lapse from inattention. For example, at the present moment
I am writing. Given this particular purpose, I am intentionally aware of
elements from the flow of lived experience that correspond to the task at
hand—my computer screen, the keyboard, etc. I am not aware of elements of
the duration not relevant to my task at hand. For example, I have not been
aware, until just now, of the sound of the fan of the heating system in my
house nor of the clock on my wall that steadily ticks off the passing seconds.
Intentionality allows us to be active experiencers of reality and thus not
overwhelmed by the cacophonous multitude of potential experiences.
Intentionality, then, is a conscious state of “tuning in” to certain elements of
the duration while ignoring others.
To illustrate intentionality in respect to earthquakes in south Texas, I might
turn my attention toward these quakes as reflected in my duration for a variety
of possible reasons. For example, if I directly experienced the quake, it might
startle me or interrupt my daily routine. In this case, my attention would be
compelled by fear or my neurological hardwiring. On the other hand, if I did
not experience the quake, I might have a general interest in such things as
someone who is curious about the world. Still yet, I might be by training and
education a seismologist, thus I would have a theoretical and empirical interest
in earthquakes. These three starting points suggest that what I intentionally
select from the duration will depend upon my purpose at hand, which itself is
determined by my particular biography (seismologist, etc.). As a result, I come
to be aware of some aspects of the phenomenon “earthquake” and to disregard
others. In a very real sense, intentionality carves the same phenomenon into
three distinct realities. To put this a different way, our experience of reality is
predicated upon “systems of relevance.” Given our distinct purposes, reality is
for us layered into horizons that correspond to those purposes.
With respect to relevance, the natural world is always arranged in our
experience with ourselves as the center. That is, my interest in the natural
world relates to whatever projects I might undertake. These projects can be
geared directly toward accomplishing a task in the outer world—“I wish to
184 Jerry Williams
throw a rock into a pond,” or they can be ideal projects involving
conceptual representations of the natural world—“what is the relationship
between hydraulic fracturing and earthquakes?” Lastly, as just mentioned, my
projects can arise as explanatory projects brought about by an unexpected
event such as a sudden jolt from an earthquake—“What was that? … it was
an earthquake!”
As mentioned earlier, experience is always first and foremost an experience
of something. My experience “A” has a correlate in the universe of real things.
Experience “A,” however, never captures this realness in its entirety. For
example, earthquakes are experienced differently even by individuals from the
same cultural background. More importantly, earthquakes are experienced
differently by seismologists and by non-scientists. As commonsense as this
seems, its specification is quite complicated. The same phenomenon
“earthquake” is experienced differently because each perceiver has a different
purpose and biography. For most of us, formulating and carrying out our daily
plans, a sudden earthquake is a disruption of our daily routine. In the moments
following the quake we come to understand it as an “earthquake”—a natural
phenomenon about which we have little control. For the scientist an earthquake
is a sudden shifting of the earth’s mantle by tectonic forces working themselves
out in faults and fractures. These earthquakes can further be understood by
measuring their depth, epicenter, and scale. It is clear, then, that everyday
experience is never a simple restatement in consciousness of an external
phenomenon. Rather, what we experience must be understood as a selection
of the relevant attributes of the phenomenon in question, based upon our
purposes and our collected stock of prior experiences which are social in
nature.
This understanding of intentionality and relevance would seem to leave us
in somewhat of a relativistic position as to what counts as “real.” Relativism is
not an inevitable outcome however. This is so for two reasons. First, our
biographies, resulting purposes, and projects have common social foundations
across which the various experiences of a phenomenon can (if the effort is
made) be understood as the “same phenomenon.” That is, the socially
accumulated stock of knowledge available to all contains typifications of the
appropriate levels of inquiry for both scientist and lay person. Second, we
avoid relativism because our intentional experiences selected from
consciousness are nevertheless representations of something in the “real
world.” They are therefore connected by the continuity of the “realness” of
the thing itself. The intentional selection of facets of an experience object
certainly allow for dramatically different experiences of an object, but these
experiences will always be grouped around the very real features of the actual
phenomenon in everyday life. At least in the long run, this argues against
idiosyncratic experiences of natural phenomenon in favor of ones that are
organized by the larger bounds of culture, education, occupation, gender, age,
and so forth.
Experience as synthesis and sedimentation
The final phenomenological concept we must address in order to understand
the human experience of the natural world is the synthetic nature of experience.
Put simply, our current experience of the world has deep connections to our
prior experiences and in knowledge that has been passed down to us. Take, for
example, our first childhood experience of a “tree.” Obviously, this original
experience generally requires help from adults who can help us “make sense”
of this newly experienced phenomenon—“it is a tree.” Very quickly and in
subsequent experiences, we come to identify “typical” elements of a tree such
as bark, leaves, etc. Over time we experience other types of trees: small or
large; alive or dead; conifer or deciduous, etc. Through a process of synthesis
or adding to our prior conception, our typification of “tree” expands.
Throughout the remainder of our lives we encounter many trees. Most of
the trees with which we share the same space and time will only be potential not
actual experiences. That is, as we go about our everyday lives, we will simply
not notice most trees because they are not relevant to our particular tasks at
hand. Unless it corresponds to our purposes to experience a particular tree (we
are drawing it, or are cutting it down, for example), the trees we do notice are
experienced as shortcuts or typifications—“trees-as-understood-by-me.” In my
experience these typifications stand in the place of any particular or actual
experience of a specific tree. On a practical level this makes sense. To experience
every phenomenon in its particularity would be a cognitively exhausting task.
In fact, it would likely be impossible. In general, we experience only as much
particularity as is absolutely necessary for our present purposes.
To illustrate how typifications stand in the place of articular experiences, let
us consider how we learn to render drawings of the natural world. When
teaching drawing instructors often encourage students to draw what they see,
not what they think they see. For many of us this is a remarkably frustrating task.
No matter how hard we try, many (most) of us continue to draw features of the
object contained in our mental typifications (hands always have five fingers,
etc.), not the features of the actual object in sight. Our drawing of the particular
object is hindered by features of the already typified object. More generally, our
experience of the world, then, is highly typified and comes from a synthetic
blend of prior experiences. To make this clear, the importance of the synthetic
and typified nature of our experiences for this discussion is that our experience
of environmental problems like earthquakes in south Texas is generally not the
direct experience of a unique phenomenon, but rather it is the experience of a
phenomenon of “thus” or “so” type, a type that is socially derived.
To see the importance of synthesis let us now consider more directly
“earthquakes” as experienced in south Texas. Let us first understand that most
Texans have likely never experienced one. Nevertheless, they hold a typification
“earthquake” obtained from the media, science classrooms, and the like. As
William James (1890) puts it, Texans have “knowledge about” earthquakes,
not direct “knowledge of” actual earthquakes. This knowledge about
186 Jerry Williams
“earthquakes” also includes potential explanations for them. That is, earthquakes
might be thought of as “natural” or as caused by “God.” Because Texans have
so little experience with earthquakes and because most are not scientists, their
typifications do not commonly contain well-drawn-out elements related to
“faults” and “tectonic plates” or other scientific conceptions. On the other
hand, much more so than for most of America, the shared stock of knowledge
of Texans contains oil-industry-related typifications such as “fracking,” “salt
water injection,” “pipelines,” etc. This is so because these phenomena are
ubiquitous in many parts of Texas. Additionally, this social stock of knowledge
with which these typifications are derived also contains ideological elements
that frame oil and gas drilling as self-evidently “positive” and “necessary.”
When the typifications of “earthquakes” are combined with those for “oil and
gas drilling” the net result is the explanation of earthquakes by local people as
largely non-problematic. The synthetic nature of the experience of both
earthquakes and oil and gas drilling then allows us to see that in regard to
earthquakes in south Texas, much more is at stake than a contest of competing
scientific explanations. These earthquakes are experienced using patterns or
typifications that make their explanation in everyday life inherently not subject
to scientific interpretation or deconstruction.
Understanding environmental claims in everyday life

Often on the level of public debate, what we think we know about the
environment boils down to a series of competing claims—“global warming is
a human caused problem—global warming is a fraud.” For those who approach
this problem from a scientific perspective, the evidence supporting
anthropogenic global warming is overwhelming, leaving them to question the
reasonableness of those who disagree. However, as we have seen, much more
is at stake. At the center of this debate are fundamentally different experiences
of the world.
Parsing public debate about environmental problems as a debate between
those who “know” and those who either do not have enough information to
“know,” have been deceived by powerful interests, or who hold theologies
unsympathetic to human-caused global environmental changes misses an
important point. Science is a style of knowing that is distinct from the way reality
is experienced in everyday life. To put it in Schutzian terms, science and everyday
life are “finite provinces of meaning” with corresponding systems of relevance
(Schutz, 1962c). While science is a rational endeavor, everyday life—the “life-
world”—is characterized by taken-for-grantedness, habit, and a pragmatic motive
(Schutz, 1962c). In the life-world I am predominately interested in what works
and not why it works (Williams, 2003). This is not to say that scientific evidence
cannot be understood or evaluated in everyday life, but rather to say that the style
of consciousness found there is not a scientific or highly rational type.8
In everyday life scientific findings are not frequently evaluated on scientific
grounds (methodology, data quality, etc.), but rather much in the manner
other elements of stock of knowledge accrue—as “facts” passed down to us by
our culture and by those we trust as “knowing” such things. This is true of
even scientifically trained and educated people. For example, in respect to
earthquakes in south Texas, I personally know very little about the geological
science and research that might be used to make claims about their origin. As
a “well-informed citizen,” however, I have read news reports and summaries
of scientific reports from sources I deem reputable (Schutz, 1964d). In the end,
these inquiries on my part all fall short of a true scientific evaluation, because
even though I have scientific training its scope is obviously short of that
required to access the robustness of scientific claims about seismology.
Conclusion: Reframing environmental claims

The tendency to see debate about environmental problems as a rational dispute
about the facts is illustrative of precisely the impulse that underlies
phenomenological inquiry in a broader sense. Such debates are founded upon
taken-for-granted assumptions about how humans experience environmental
problems. It is the role of phenomenology to restate these presuppositions in
ways that make scientific inquiry more meaningful. In the foregoing we have
examined common misconceptions about phenomenology that have tended
to marginalize its application in environmental sociology. We have also
considered key phenomenological concepts about how the natural world is
experienced in everyday life and in turn how these concepts can help us
critique the ongoing debate about environmental problems like earthquakes
in south Texas. We conclude with four themes of the human experience of
environmental problems, an understanding of which might help to reshape
the environmental debate.
Intentionality and relevance

My biographical articulation and resulting purposes delineate the relevance of
environmental claims being made. As a result, I intentionally select elements of
the duration to experience and I ignore others. In a very real sense “oil men,”
scientists, and “ordinary people” experience quite different realities about
environmental problems. While these problems are indeed ontologically real,
their “realness” is subjectively experienced. If progress is to be made toward
the remediation of environmental problems this fact cannot be ignored.
Experiential synthesis
Most phenomena are experienced in preconceived types. These typifications
are formed and handed down to us through the process of socialization and are
also learned by us through our direct experiences. Importantly, scientific
knowledge provides additional dimensions to typifications not otherwise
available. As a result, scientific claims about environmental problems often find
188 Jerry Williams
the readiest audience with those who are scientifically educated. The
typifications of those less scientifically educated lack the experiential dimensions
that make the claim in question so commonsense to scientists. Progress toward
environmental solutions will require claims about environmental problems to
take account of the finite provinces of meaning represented by both science
and everyday life. This, then, lends support for the idea that scientific findings
about the environment must be “framed” by claim-makers in ways that
resonate with what the public “already knows” and with pre-existing cultural
themes (Nisbet and Mooney, 2007).
Correspondence
One implication of experiential synthesis as presented here is that claims about
environmental problems are experienced in terms of what is “already known”
(as preconceived types). Typifications used in the experiential process find their
most important source in the social stock of knowledge that is passed down to
us. Claims that run counter to “what I already know” face substantial challenges
because they stand outside of what I and others take for granted as “just the
way it is.” Importantly, correspondence to what “I already know” also serves
as a point of evaluation for the trustworthiness of the claim-maker. In general,
I tend to trust those claim-makers whose perspective best corresponds to what
I already know. If environmental claims are to be successful they must be tied
in some way to elements of the common social stock of knowledge and the
preconceived types that reside there.
Taken-for-grantedness
Our experience of the natural world and its problems occurs in the matrix of
the taken-for-granted life-world. Characterized by an attitude of
commonsense, the life-world presupposes the givenness of reality and
therefore is inherently resistant to change. That which is “known” serves the
point of evaluation for all claims to knowledge. Environmental claims that
are counter to the inertia of this taken-for-grandness will find substantial
resistance no matter how robust their claims might “objectively” be. If
environmental progress is to be made, the power of taken-for-grantedness
must be overcome not in a confrontational battle of ideas, but rather in an
extended and gentle reshaping of the stock of knowledge itself. Aside from
the certainty that mass media must be involved, how this reshaping can be
accomplished is an open-ended question.
Notes
1 The argument presented here supports recent arguments about the “framing” of
scientific findings to non-scientific audiences (Nisbet and Mooney, 2007). While
some have argued that scientific “facts” should not be framed in ways that resonate
with lay audiences, phenomenological inquiry suggests science and everyday life are
two distinct “provinces of meaning.” With this in mind, the framing of scientific
findings seems reasonable and necessary.
2 It should be noted that Schutz’s ideas were also deeply influenced by the ideas of
Henri Bergson and William James.
3 Both Luckmann and Berger were students of Schutz. Garfinkel was not a student
but did, however, carry on an extended correspondence with him.
4 An in-depth argument for epistemological realism can be found in John Searle’s
discussion of the “correspondence theory of truth” (Searle, 1997).
5 Thomason (1982: 1) discusses sense making in the following way: “expressions
about ‘making sense’ entail a curious ambiguity. We speak as though we make sense
of various events, actions, utterances, etc.; but also as though it were those events,
and so forth, which make their sense to us. We seem rather casually to treat the
making of sense as though it were the same thing either way.” The argument
presented here and also by Thomason argues strongly for the active not passive
process of sense making.
6 For Schutz, scientific model building was the most important result of social
theorizing and empiricism. The prescientific investigations of phenomenology
were for Schutz a prelude to the construction of these models.
7 Schutz’s orientation toward building scientific models can be understood as partially
stemming from his participation in the Vienna Circle of Austrian economics
organized by Ludwick von Mises. Also heavily influenced by Weber, Mises
examined the subjective foundations of economic behavior in what he called
praxeology.
8 It is important to point out that while science is ideally a rational pursuit, it
nevertheless is a human endeavor and often contains irrational elements.
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12 The social psychology of
compromised negotiations
Constructing asymmetrical
boundary objects between science
and industry
Benjamin Kelly
Sociologists tend to view social order as an amalgamation of individuals and

groups either competing for scarce resources (i.e. wealth, status, approval) or
building consensus around shared values, norms, and beliefs. Even scholars
who attempt to build their theoretical perspectives around the integration of
both conflict and cooperation (Blau, 1964; Bourdieu, 1977; Giddens, 1984;
Habermas, 1987 [1981]) have been accused of failing to give equal treatment
to each type of collective phenomena (Archer, 1990; Parker, 2000).
Furthermore, microsociology has not been immune to these paradigmatic
battles. It was heavily critiqued during the late twentieth century for refusing
to acknowledge inequality and conflict (Meltzer, Petras, and Reynolds, 1975;
Giddens, 1997; Gouldner, 1970; Haralambos, 1980). In response, a number of
social psychologists practicing within the microsociology tradition countered
that their approach to human interaction is fully capable of explicating power
in processual terms (Athens, 2007; Collins, 1981, 2000; Dennis and Martin,
2005; Fine, 1984; Hall, 1985, 1987; Maines, 1982, 1989; Musolf, 1992; Prus,
1999; Puddephatt, 2013; Strauss, 1993). Although these sociologists provided
ample evidence to support their claims, not all interpretive studies and their
conceptual frameworks adequately address issues of conflict, constraint, and
compromise. Research pockets remain within the microsociology paradigm
that continue to neglect the structural effects constituting social order. Studies
that incorporate the concept of boundary objects appear to be one such area.
Sociologists of science were the first to explore the complex intersection
and collaboration between distinct social worlds that manage to make up a
tentative working social order through the implementation of boundary
objects. Star and Griesemer (1989) developed the concept of a boundary
object while investigating negotiations between various social actors in the
development and maintenance of a museum. They used the concept to explain
how successful collaborations take root without stakeholders necessarily
agreeing on the meaning and purpose of museum specimens (i.e. curators,
scientists, amateur collectors, trappers, philanthropists, and administrators).
The social psychology of compromised negotiations 193
The University of Berkley viewed specimens and the museum as a status
marker, a signal to the more prestigious east coast universities that they too
were conducting state-of-the-art research. The trappers viewed the animals
they hunted for the museum as a way to earn a livelihood. The lead scientist
collected specimens to conduct research in the hopes of contributing to
evolutionary theory, while the philanthropist who funded the museum viewed
the collection as a means to promote the conservation of western American
flora and fauna. Although the specimens carried different meanings depending
on the social location and specific interests of those within each social world,
they still provided a focal point for collective action thus contributing to the
operational success of the museum.
Although the stakeholders in Star and Griesemer’s study achieved collective
action, the researchers paid little attention to how each wielded influence and
power to achieve specific organizational and professional goals. Surely, the
trappers faced greater constraints than the philanthropist, and some parties had
to compromise more than others. In carrying on the legacy of Star and
Griesemer, a majority of contemporary researchers who utilize the concept of
boundary objects continue to downplay issues of inequality, constraint, and
conflict while idealizing successful collective action (Cohen, 2012; Marie,
2008; Sundberg, 2007). Thus, study results imply that boundary objects provide
a functional, problem-solving apparatus but neglect power, and the varying
benefits it offers to different actors. Here I use the experiences of my
ethnographic participants to make a general theoretical argument regarding
microsociological understandings of the challenges that exist in studying the
role of power during the formation of boundary objects.
Bowker and Star (1999) observe that boundary objects are “plastic enough
to adapt to local needs and constraints of the several parties employing them,
yet robust enough to maintain a common identity across sites. They are weakly
structured in common use and become strongly structured in individual-site
use” (Bowker and Star, 1999: 296–297). My line of inquiry seeks to establish a
more nuanced understanding of these “constraints” by examining how
boundary objects emerged among a group of academic environmental scientists
and engineers calling themselves a “Learning Alliance” and a manufacturing
company I have termed Steel Inc. These two parties formed a temporary social
order characterized by asymmetrical power relations. A “common identity
across sites” is certainly an outcome of successful boundary object creation, but
not all members of the group have an equal say in defining situations and
constructing this common identity. And not all boundary object formation is
successful. Within the context of this study, “weakly structured in common
use” captures how the two groups seemingly spent little time talking about
what environmental sustainability meant to each other and how it fit into their
basic goals. Rather, the idea existed loosely as something they were both
interested in. The key to “cooperation without consensus” (Star, 1993) was
coming up with a project that each understood within the confines of their
own social worlds as a path to their respective ends. For the Learning Alliance,
194 Benjamin Kelly
the project affirmed the possibility of partnering with end-users in an effort to
solve pressing social problems. For Steel Inc., the project provided an
opportunity to reap business payoffs by paying attention to environmental
sustainability. These lines of action, however, were built on a shaky foundation
where power was not equally distributed during interaction.
This chapter seeks to demonstrate in microsociological terms how people
from two fundamentally different social worlds managed to collaborate despite
a number of failures and a series of frustrations and setbacks. My main
ethnographic focus concerns how one partner can dominate interactions and
force its definition of a situation on the other during negotiations resulting in
frustration but also compromise (e.g. Cast, 2003). I demonstrate this process
through the experiences of academic environmental engineers and scientists
struggling to bring about environmental change in the private sector. In many
ways interactions between the Learning Alliance and its business partners
resemble a clash of incommensurable social worlds resulting in clear winners
and losers. I suggest that ethnographic researchers who use boundary objects to
explain social order should pay more attention to power, to who controls the
definition of a given situation during negotiations, how coercion can produce
conflict and resentment, and finally how this form of compromised interaction
is managed as an intersubjective accomplishment. Following the experiences of
a disadvantaged group and how they adapt uncovers how power differentials
can still result in collaboration. I term the shared objects that emerge from these
compromised lines of action asymmetrical boundary objects.
Methodology
Rooted in the tradition of symbolic interaction, I premise my preferred
methodology on the idea that human behaviour is inherently social, negotiated,
and in constant flux. I focus on how individuals acquire perspectives within
their communities and orientate their interactions towards the social objects
that have meaning for them (Blumer, 1969). Participant observation provides
the methodological approach best suited to capturing the perspectives and lived
experiences of social actors. In order to understand the perspectives of social
actors, researchers must situate themselves within the social worlds of those
they seek to study. Participant observation demands that researchers commit
themselves to “social roles that fit into the worlds they are studying” (Adler and
Adler, 1987: 8). Attempting to experience what their participants experience,
feel what they feel, and behave in a fashion similar to theirs, gives researchers
insight into how those they study perceive the world around them. To be in
situ is to find out what is important to participants, and how they define and
manage situations that are both constraining and enabling through the course
of their everyday activities. The management and negotiation of these social
perspectives, and the consequences that follow the clash of multiple definitions
among and between groups, I believe, are most important for understanding
social phenomena at the microsociological level of interaction.
Accordingly, I aimed to immerse myself within the Learning Alliance.
During my study, the Learning Alliance consisted of an expanding membership
of environmental engineering professors, their graduate students, private
environmental consultants, industrial engineers, and private and public
representatives from corporate industry and government. My participant
observation had me “hanging out” with members of the Alliance one to two
days a week for one to five hours at a time at various locations where the group
met. Meetings occurred at Halo University1 at least once a month. Members of
the group would also meet with industry or Ministry of Environment officials.
Meetings of the core group typically involved discussions about flawed
conventional approaches to solving environmental problems within science
and engineering circles, and ideas about projects that could bring a broader
range of key players together to do things differently. In addition, I would
accompany the group when they visited various “green champions” they had
identified in governance and industry.
Although field notes constitute my primary data source, I also conducted
fifteen qualitative interviews, thirteen of them with members of the Alliance
and the remaining two with company managers with whom the Alliance
became involved. I digitally recorded these interviews, which consisted of
open-ended questions designed to get the perspectives of the engineers and
scientists, at Halo University and local coffee shops.
Collaborating with industry

According to the Learning Alliance, industry is essential to achieving many of
their environmental goals, because 1) like it or not, industry sets the pace for
change, and 2) it is problems outside university walls that require attention.
The Learning Alliance feels strongly that the environmental problems the
world currently faces are particularly complex and that to solve them, perhaps
more than in any other area, scientists ought to work closely with any group
that has something to contribute. Although big business is often seen as a major
contributor to pollution, the Learning Alliance acknowledges that change is
not possible unless industry not only takes responsibility for current conditions
but also leads the way in developing innovative technologies and strategies to
reduce and eliminate waste. As one Alliance member made clear, “Government
is lost and turning to industry to help figure it all out. Don’t kid yourself.
Business is first and then government follows” (Field Notes, 2008). Another
member expressed the same sentiment regarding the importance of the private
sector. “When it comes to climate change, government is useless … they are
turning to industry to figure out innovative ways to reduce emissions … and
so you see the carrot more than the stick” (Interview 14, 2007).
Although the Learning Alliance recognizes the culpability of industry in the
degradation of the environment and in the generation of so many of the
problems for which solutions are now being sought, members are reluctant to
demonize industry. Rather, they suggest that entrepreneurial spirit is often at
196 Benjamin Kelly
the forefront of innovative change. They also understand that partnerships with
business are essential if their research vision is to move beyond academia and
assist in the resolution of real-world problems. Alliance members also recognize
their dependence on the cooperation of industry and that they are at a
disadvantage in moving forward a green vision. When it comes to incentives
to reduce pollution and overall ecological footprints, corporations currently
negotiate with groups like the Learning Alliance from a position of strength.
Industry defines the terms of negotiations. Therefore, in the absence of strong
governmental regulations or subsidies, the Learning Alliance was forced early
to compromise its goals in dealing with Steel Inc.
Controlling time and information

Face-to-face interactions between the Learning Alliance and Steel Inc. started
with Alliance members requesting a tour of the plant’s daily operations. As
representatives of the company and Alliance members walked through Steel
Inc.’s facilities a tentative discussion of the potential each location had for
immediate and sustainable alterations unfolded. It was during this walk that the
Learning Alliance first identified for itself a number of possibilities for
collaboration. Steel Inc. did not play an active role in selecting areas to address.
Rather, they took a hands-off approach, leaving it up to Alliance members to
identify what they felt required the most attention. Steel Inc.’s lack of
involvement generated a mixed reaction among Alliance members. On a
number of occasions, they asked to meet with a manager from one of Steel
Inc.’s facilities, but the manager continually offered excuses. Some members of
the Alliance found this apparent indifference frustrating. “Why did he agree to
work with us when he is unable to even meet with us for longer than five
minutes? I refuse to make another appointment with his secretary” (Field
Notes, 2008).
Alliance members began to sense that the managers at Steel Inc. wanted
them to come up with a simple pollution prevention plan that involved the
least disruption to the factory’s daily operations and routines as possible. A sore
point emerged between the two groups over accessibility to company data. In
order to put together a specific proposal the Learning Alliance needed data
from various facilities at Steel Inc., without which they could not properly
analyze trouble spots. The Alliance had stressed early in negotiations with Steel
Inc., that this data was key to identifying areas that required improvement and
to making recommendations. Nevertheless, managers dragged their feet. Any
data they did pass on, Alliance members found to be outdated or cryptic, which
caused them considerable frustration.
They do not see data as vital … we are trying to measure things they
would never consider. Projects are always broad at the beginning. Access
to the proper data allows us to make connections and narrow down the
problems. This is next to impossible when they take forever to get us the
specs, what we do have is out-dated and useless. A few of the charts we got
are veiled in a mess of mumbo jumbo.
(Interview 9, 2008)
Undeterred, the Alliance identified electricity wastage in Steel Inc.’s day-to-

day operations as a focus for action. Members hoped to devise a plan that
would allow Steel Inc. to operate at full capacity while at the same time
consuming one-third less energy. In a meeting with a number of departmental
managers Alliance members presented their idea and found that although
managers knew how much they spent on energy within their own departments
they were unaware of the expense the manufacturing plant as a whole
incurred—a fact that surprised Alliance members. One engineer commented,
“You would think a big company like Steel Inc. would be on the ball,
constantly updating and recording this kind of information” (Field Notes,
2008). Another member noted,
It seems like we not only have to get these guys to be more efficient with
technology in the way they use up energy, but they need assistance in
being more efficient with information sharing. They truly have no idea
how much water and energy they consume. Industry is in desperate need
of improving managerial procedures. Steel Inc.’s whole operation is
inefficient, not well monitored and certainly poorly maintained.
(Field Notes, 2008)
Since Steel Inc. did not have the data that the Learning Alliance needed to take
the next step, the Alliance decided that they would obtain accurate data
measurements themselves. To do so, however, required that the factory cease
operations for a short period of time. Alliance members contacted Steel Inc. to
ask if the company would stop production for a few hours so Alliance members
could run a number of diagnostic tests on key processing units in each major
facility simultaneously. Steel Inc. denied the request, arguing that a pause or
even a slow-down of production would result in a loss of revenues. The project
had reached a dead end.
Debriefing the incident, Alliance members began to recognize the
unrelenting stress on productivity and profits the company maintained. Why
would Steel Inc. not willingly make minor compromises to achieve greater
energy efficiency? One Alliance member commented, “[I]n the big picture,
what’s a few minutes really cost? Come on!” (Field Notes, 2008). Another
Alliance member made the same point saying,
We are being pulled from one department to another. All the managers
want us to think about their ‘bottom line’ but none of them want to take
on the time and responsibility required for the development of efficient
pollution prevention strategies.
(Field Notes, 2008)
198 Benjamin Kelly
The Learning Alliance faced a number of disadvantages during these early
phases of negotiation. Steel Inc. had a monopoly on two key resources, time
and information. I characterize these power discrepancies as a series of
frustrations that resulted in two failed boundary objects.
Failed boundary object #1: Common lighting

Despite Steel Inc.’s lack of cooperation, the Learning Alliance worked with the
little usable data they had to come up with a concrete proposal. The proposal
involved reducing the factory’s lighting costs. From the perspective of the
Learning Alliance, the project was not ideal in that it did not constitute what
they considered a priority item. But with so little to work with, the Alliance
had no choice. In their view, the key was to keep the collaborative process
going. Moreover, Alliance members sensed that their chances of keeping Steel
Inc. on board were greater if they started with modest projects, and with
projects that fit in with problems that interested the company itself. The
Alliance observed,
Most times we are dealing with businesses that already have a solution in
mind (i.e. warehouse lighting) and so they hire us to achieve their goals.
This can be frustrating when we find more severe problems that need to
be addressed but they would rather us ignore because that was not
their original concern. If we continue pressing for alternative solutions
they will just hire someone else who will commit to their profit driven
model.
(Interview 7, 2008)
The lighting project did not require a shutdown of the company’s operations,
but it did require the installation of mechanisms that could record essential
data and assist in more sensitive readings of energy loss. The Learning Alliance
understood the need to keep costs down, and these changes involved minimal
expense but were key to the completion of the project. Steel Inc. rejected the
proposal. The company was not willing to share essential data or incur the
expense of energy monitors. Since it had the power to control information,
the company’s response only generated more frustration for Alliance
members.
You want us to fiddle with the lights? Fine! But at least let us get the data
we need. When we suggested that we place electric meters on the
equipment to get more accurate readings, they looked at us like we were
crazy and they laughed. They understood the necessity, but the cost would
be an enormous burden for the company to carry. I am not sure how long
we can be involved in all this … being “nickel and dimed” bears its own
cost, we are losing patience and tired of being under appreciated.
(Field Notes, 2008)
Keen to maintain their relationship with Steel Inc., the Learning Alliance
compromised, generating an alternative and even more modest proposal. Steel
Inc. could save money on lighting by replacing their old light bulbs with more
energy-efficient halogen lamps. The Learning Alliance stressed that the
company would see a return on its investment in as few as five years. But Steel
Inc. balked even at this proposal. From Steel Inc.’s perspective, the timeframe
on the return was too long.
We spent a lot of time researching energy efficient industrial halogen

lights. These lights are amazing but they [Steel Inc.] refuse to purchase
them. I really wish we could tell them that they would see profits within a
matter of months, but it just isn’t in the cards. A payback period of five
years is out of the question for them.
(Interview 2, 2008)
The lighting project was shelved. The Learning Alliance responded to Steel
Inc.’s refusals by acknowledging that there was little point in continuing to
focus on lighting and suggested moving on to something broader in scope.
Failed boundary object #2: In-house chemical treatment

The second proposal the Learning Alliance made involved the paint assembly
line. During the initial walk through the factory a member of the Learning
Alliance had noticed that the chemical treatment of toxic waste generated by
the company’s paint assembly line did not meet environmental standards. In
following up on this observation, the Learning Alliance discovered that Steel
Inc. did not treat its own chemical waste but outsourced the process to another
company. The Alliance’s second proposal recommended that Steel Inc. manage
its own waste rather than pass it on to a company that might not process it
properly. The Learning Alliance argued that it was important for Steel Inc. to
maintain control over the process to ensure it met even minimal environmental
standards.
The proposed plan would have Steel Inc. refurbish a large abandoned room
within its factory to house the machinery needed to chemically treat the
company’s hazardous materials. Once again, however, Steel Inc. took full
advantage of the power discrepancies at play, rejecting the idea of in-house
treatment because the company had already expended considerable time and
resources selecting an appropriate company to handle their waste. In their
view, they had now replaced one company with another one more committed
to efficient waste treatment processes. The Learning Alliance’s argument that
Steel Inc. had no formal way to track where their waste went, what the
outsource company did with it, and whether appropriate environmental safety
standards were being met, fell on deaf ears. Steel Inc. felt that it had gone as far
as it was prepared to go in acting in an environmentally responsible manner by
seeking out a new waste elimination partner and considered the matter closed.
200 Benjamin Kelly
Once again, the Learning Alliance experienced resentment and constraint, and
the outsourcing of waste became a bone of contention between the two groups.
The Alliance felt that Steel Inc. was more concerned with building an
environmentally conscious image than actually taking the necessary steps to
ensure this was the case.
Just because they switched chemical treatment partners we are expected to

honor their moral integrity. They can’t just dismiss our concerns and
suggestions on in-house treatment because they feel they have already
taken responsibility for the mistreatment of industrial waste. Choices they
say have cost them money, but they are proud to have done it. They are
just covering their butts and making excuses to protect their bottom line.
They don’t seem to want to take that extra step forward.
(Field Notes, 2008)
Another Alliance member complained, “It’s like we were on different planets

when talking about the same problem. At times you think they are just going
through the motions and couldn’t care less about our concerns about waste
management” (Field Notes, 2008). She continued, “They are reluctant to have
us fix it, they think the disposal costs in the future will be financially devastating
… just ridiculous” (Field Notes, 2008). The waste management proposal, like
the lighting proposal, failed. However, both experiences proved valuable as
lessons for the Learning Alliance. Building on these failures and recognizing
their constraints, the Learning Alliance adapted and tabled a third proposal that
succeeded.
Greywater harvesting technology as a boundary object:

A limited success?
The third project the Learning Alliance proposed involved recycling Steel
Inc.’s used water instead of letting it go down the drain. The Learning Alliance
suggested the construction of a feedback system that would redistribute water
from facilities that no longer needed it or were wasting it to areas of the factory
that could use the water to cool pipes. This greywater reuse strategy would
drastically reduce the consumption of water and energy at Steel Inc.2
As members of the Learning Alliance discussed the possibility of a greywater
harvesting system, they increasingly sensed that the idea would appeal to Steel
Inc. because, while environmentally friendly, it was also economically feasible.
By this stage the Learning Alliance was determined not to “scare them away”
(Field Notes, 2008). Alliance members knew that the environmental merits of
the proposal alone would not be enough to bring Steel Inc. on board. When
making their proposal, they made sure to emphasise to Steel Inc. that investing
in greywater harvesting technology would be in the company’s best financial
interest. During a brief meeting at a local coffee shop just before meeting with
Steel Inc. to present the proposal, one member of the Alliance cautioned the
group to exercise care in the language they used, to downplay talk about
“changing the world,” and to present the idea instead as a relatively minor,
cost-effective adjustment to the company’s usual practices.
We have to reduce the talk about changing processes, they [Steel Inc.]
seem to see this as drastic and expensive change, we can minimize it more
into a language that alludes to it as merely tweaking the procedures they
are already familiar with.
(Field Notes, 2008)
Later in an interview another member emphasised the need to meet Steel Inc.
halfway.
We must get them [Steel Inc.] to think more long term. Our end goal, and
theirs, is to develop a pollution prevention program that is not dependent
on such a volatile market. They have an idea of security and so do we. It’s
a balancing act to make them happy, so we need to work within our own
area of competence but at the same time we need to step out of our
comfort zone, speak their language and provide them with what they need
to feel secure to move forward.
(Interview 5, 2008)
In the meeting, Alliance members argued that the company could invest in
water conservation technologies, thereby generating a reputation in the
community as a responsible steward of the environment while at the same time
saving money.
This time Steel Inc. responded positively. It agreed with the Alliance that
the project resonated with its needs and was realistic from a cost perspective. In
other words, Steel Inc. saw the greywater project as a win-win proposition;
the water reuse technologies would be visible to the public, thus signalling
the company’s commitment to the environment, while at the same time the
company would save money. Furthermore, the timeframe or “payback” period
was reasonable. The company would realize a return on investment within
nine months, just three months more than Steel Inc.’s stated acceptable window
of six months. The “green” factor of the project rendered this extension
allowable, but even one more month, it seems, would have been a deal breaker.
The Learning Alliance, operating within the constraints of the market, had
found a creative way to extend the allowable payback period. According to the
lead scientist involved in the project they had convinced business to link
revenue to the ability to advertise ecological accountability.
Often, businesses don’t know what they want to do. In the final analysis
we have to move them from the payback consumer philosophy to a more
sustainable, efficient, technical one. We gently steered them [Steel Inc.] in
an alternative direction—greywater harvesting technologies are a win-win
202 Benjamin Kelly
situation. We gave them something that the public will recognize—a
visible technology for all to see … People see a company that cares about
water resources. What a great advertisement! I’m telling you, environmental
sensitivity can be profitable.
(Interview 4, 2008)
At the outset of negotiations with Steel Inc, the Learning Alliance hoped to
implement a robust pollution prevention policy. The payback constraint
quickly tempered their expectations and they had to settle with a project that
only slightly modified Steel Inc.’s environmental behaviour. A number of
members were ambivalent with the greywater solution. To them, it represented
truncated success. Many were excited that a major industrial firm was willing
to cooperate, but since the Learning Alliance lacked power, engineering time
and expertise was not fully realized. Negotiations would not have appeared so
asymmetrical if Steel Inc. had more financial incentive to meet the Alliance
halfway.
In the end, the greywater harvesting project may have only slightly altered
the company’s environmental footprint. However, as a symbol of what the
Learning Alliance could accomplish—getting Steel Inc. to think about its
responsibility to account for environmental concerns—the project represented
progress. It is important to note, nevertheless, the great deal of compromise the
Learning Alliance accepted. A power discrepancy is inherent in this fragile
social order whose existence is only made possible by the formation of an
asymmetrical boundary object (i.e. greywater technology).
Discussion: The emergence of an asymmetrical boundary object

Clarke (2005) argues that, “the study of boundary objects can be an important
pathway into often complicated situations, allowing the analyst to study the
different participants through their distinctive relations with and discourses
about the specific boundary objects in question” (Clarke, 2005: 52). In this
case study, the tensions that arose out of the failed boundary objects (lighting
and chemical treatment) exposed differences in perspective between the
Learning Alliance and Steel Inc., but eventually culminated in a changed
approach and the emergence of a successful, but compromised, boundary
object. At the same time, studying these tensions and their ultimate resolution
usefully illuminates the power differences between these two social worlds.
Not all negotiations, and the boundary objects that constitute successful
social orders, are symmetrical. Maines (1982) defines a negotiation context as
“the relevant features of the setting which directly enter into negotiations and
affect their course” (Maines, 1982: 270). In this case study, the Learning
Alliance’s dependence on Steel Inc.’s control over resources constitutes the
relevant negotiation context. Hall (1987) observes that the social processes
involved in interactions and negotiations between social worlds are not without
their difficulties. He states, “The analysis of negotiative activity is markedly
processual and dynamic, yet grounded in the political realities of social life”
(Hall, 1987: 7). It took two failed projects for the Learning Alliance to fully
appreciate the “political realities” of Steel Inc.’s domination of the situation
and to adapt accordingly. The two failed proposals thus constitute ineffective
boundary objects. The Learning Alliance’s fundamental failure was its inability
to achieve what Strauss (1993) called a “matching of reciprocities” (Strauss,
1993: 234). The failure initially to find a project capable of bringing together
two social worlds, each committed to the principle of environmental
sustainability but within its own objectives and logics, stalled collaboration.
The two failures, however, proved valuable in that they showed the Learning
Alliance their disadvantage in defining the negotiation context. “The matching
of reciprocities” between the two groups were not equal. Greywater harvesting
technology emerged as an asymmetrical boundary object via compromised
negotiations. While industry and the Learning Alliance shared similar goals
regarding environmental responsibility, each social world operated within a
different field, influenced by its own definition of the situation (see Stebbins,
1969). My ethnographic data reveals the clear winners and losers during these
exchanges, where compromises had to be made, and by whom. Not all social
worlds and their boundary objects are created equally. Any comprehensive
study of how incommensurable worlds create negotiation contexts, therefore,
must identify the structural advantages one group has over another and how
the dominant group’s definition of the situation influences how and what
boundary objects are formed.
No matter how “green” those in industry seek to be, they are constrained
by certain institutional values and norms that academics do not necessarily
share. Another way to capture these differences is to say that business has to
orientate itself to the competitive nature of the arena in which it operates—
making profits, keeping shareholders satisfied, and ensuring the long-term
viability of the company. Scientists, on the other hand, are free to pursue their
goal of environmental stewardship in relatively unencumbered ways, unless of
course they choose to enter into negotiations with business. Once they commit
to the market, they come up against unfamiliar constraints. While industry
competes for monetary capital, scientists are more concerned with symbolic
capital (i.e. grants, publications, prestige, and status) (Bourdieu, 2001). It was
not until the Learning Alliance failed in several efforts to establish collaborative
projects that members began to appreciate the diverse logics that operate within
the two different social worlds. Coming together around environmentally
sensitive questions and a common desire to do things differently, both members
of the Learning Alliance and their industry partners had to manoeuver around
a range of complicated political, moral, and economic issues. Yet, it was the
engineers I followed who did the majority of this manoeuvering and
compromising. Power was a constant mitigating factor in their relationship
with Steel Inc., which my participants had no choice but to carefully navigate
during negotiations. The Learning Alliance felt Steel Inc. was not a site for rich
scientific discovery of environmental engineering solutions. The greywater
204 Benjamin Kelly
harvesting project did not yield original scientific findings, and a number of
Alliance members felt they sacrificed their autonomy during the collaboration
while many more were disappointed with the final outcome. But, given their
structural disadvantage, they all acknowledged that compromise on their side
was a key ingredient in moving negotiations forward to make what little
difference they could in reducing Steel Inc.’s ecological footprint.
Notes
1 Halo University is a pseudonym for a major university in Southern Ontario,
Canada.
2 Greywater is wastewater that comes from baths, faucets, showers, laundry, and the
kitchen.
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13 Escaping the iron cage of
environmental rationalizations
Microsocial decision-making in
environmental conflicts1
Filip Alexandrescu and Bernd Baldus
Gone are the days when the appropriation of natural resources had predictable
outcomes: the exploitation by powerful strangers of land inhabited by
indigenous populations, and the resulting social destitution and degradation of
ecosystems. Corporate financial power and local influence, often backed by
governmental support, still shape many of these disputes, but over the last
decades these forces have become less effective and have been matched by
increasingly active and vocal resistance movements mounting carefully
orchestrated campaigns. This global collision has led to projects being seen as
“highly controversial,” put on hold or being abandoned altogether. Plans for
pipelines such as Keystone XL in the United States, Northern Gateway in
Canada, or resource extraction projects such as Roşia Montană in Romania
have been stalled for years (Rogers and Ethridge, 2014; Preston, 2013). A kind
of evolutionary warfare developed between supporters and opponents. Each
side mustered ever more sophisticated rationalizations, the former by playing
up economic benefits and the environmental “sustainability” of their
investment, the latter painting scenarios of ecological damage, impacts on
climate change, and disrespect for the natural beauty and social history of the
affected areas.
Both sides were equally insistent that the consequences of these scenarios
were inescapable. Diametrically opposed in substance, they suggested similar
levels of certainty with regard to the meaning and purpose of industrial projects
and their social and environmental impacts. Both sides became more
sophisticated in “speaking for” local participants and in exaggerating or denying
the risks of projects. At the same time, the voices of local populations unwillingly
involved in ecological distribution conflicts, as well as the impact of organized
public campaigns on their private lives and views, were often lost from sight.
This problem is mirrored in the scientific treatment of environmental
conflicts and risks. Risk and its twin, creativity, have remained the loose ends
of social research, ignored, treated as transient or exceptional, and generally
considered an irritant rather than a constant undercurrent of social life. The
bulk of social research on risk has focused on singular events. Where, as in the
case of the late Ulrich Beck’s widely cited work, an effort was made to develop
a broader theoretical approach, risk and unpredictability appeared as systemic,
Escaping the iron cage of environmental rationalizations 207
unavoidable features of the societies of “late modernity,” driven by inexorable
technological change, but at the same time solvable by scientific, rational
“reflexive modernization,” the “self-confrontation with the consequences of
risk society” aided by science and experts (Beck, 1997: 28). Real people,
especially those wielding little power in environmental conflicts, do not appear
in Beck’s book. And although references to the power of the media and to the
social “construction” of risk are scattered throughout his work, there is no
coherent treatment of what processes shape such construction, how they
influence the views of the participants, and why they selectively favor some
outcomes over others.
These shortcomings are not mere oversights but consequences of theoretical
frameworks that have dominated sociological research since its beginnings in
the nineteenth century. They saw social processes and structures either as
products of a deterministic causality or of rational-functional human choice.
The inevitable logical consequence was that two vital components of social
processes disappeared from the sociological agenda: accidental, contingent
elements in the environments encountered by individuals, and their own
creative efforts to cope with them. Like the pre-scientific notion that nature
abhorred a vacuum and filled any void with denser matter, social theories
assumed that rational, functional, or biological constraints would rush in to
impose order on the apparent chaos of chance and human volition.
Contingency was dismissed as “mere noise, a nuisance in the process, a form
of instability or unreliability, a lack of robustness, not [as] meaningful change
that requires explanation” (Isaac and Lipold, 2012: 7). And while sociologists
spent much time debating the role of agency and structure in social life,
solutions remained elusive. As Giddens (1979: 253) observed, in sociology
“recognizably human actors seem to escape our grip: the stage is set, the script
is written, and the roles are handed out, but the actors strangely never reach
the scene.” Modern Neo-Darwinist theories of cultural evolution were just as
unwilling to give individual agency an independent role in evolution. Natural
selection was driven by the purely external forces of mutation and environments,
and it assembled cultural traits which, however indirectly, increased the
genetic fitness of the human species.
Theories matter because they guide our research. If sociological and
biological determinism blocks access to the contingent and intentional
dimensions of social life which are such obvious parts of environmental
conflicts, we must search for a more suitable theoretical framework. Darwin’s
original work offers an intriguing alternative for an understanding of the
interaction of chance and human agency. Instead of subordinating evolution,
including the evolution of culture, to rational choice or external constraints,
the process he described began with accidents (genetic mutation, recombination
and changes in selecting environments) which organisms actively explored for
possible uses and risks while they were alive, guided by some measure of
intelligence present even in animals “low on the scale of nature.” Without such
cognitive experimentation, potential benefits would remain undiscovered and
208 Filip Alexandrescu and Bernd Baldus
have no effect. Finding uses and retaining them as habits became therefore an
essential lifetime precursor of natural selection and gave organisms a significant
independent role in selection. Here lay the roots of human cultural evolution.
Cultural choices were far more under intentional than genetic control, and
their result did not always have beneficial or adaptive consequences. Darwin
noted that they involved “highly complex sentiments” and could lead to “the
strangest customs and superstitions” which, though “in complete opposition to
the true welfare and happiness of mankind, have become all-powerful
throughout the world” (Darwin, 1981: 99).
These ideas can provide a broad theoretical framework for understanding
how social actors operate in an uncertain world (Baldus, 2015). The sociologist
Niklas Luhmann recognized the implications: humans always confronted a
world that had more features than they could know, and offered more options
than they could use. The core of social life therefore consisted in reducing the
complexity of the world through the selective attribution of “sense” and
distinguishing between “outside” and “inside.” In Luhmann’s view, it was the
act of selection itself that mattered. What was selected was not necessarily
rational, optimal, or adaptive.
This interface between individual experience, and environments that can
change unpredictably and are often beyond one’s control is, in our view, a
crucial link between the micro- and the macrosociological aspects of social
behavior. In this article, we focus on this intersection by examining the
protracted conflict over a stalled gold mine project in Roşia Montană. Here,
external macrodynamic forces—natural features of the landscape and the
shifting policies and interventions by corporate investors, government agencies,
and organized opposition—encounter the microsociological, equally complex
and variable perceptions and responses of local people. Accidents and
unexpected occurrences rather than certainty and predictability influence the
course of events. Instead of conforming to the conventional model of the
rational actor, participants on each side can be sincere or deceitful, decisive,
hesitant, or confused. They can prevaricate and procrastinate, and act in self-
interested or cooperative ways. They face a world with many options; the
“success” of their choices often becomes evident only in hindsight, although it
is never clear whether unexplored options would not have yielded better
results. That makes the outcomes of environmental conflicts indeterminate and
imposes fundamental limitations on rational planning. Where such conditions
prevail—and they are pervasive in social systems—the problem becomes to
explain “why and how, given the potential for radical discontinuities in system
behavior, do some systems seem to evolve away from the extremes of complete
order, inertia, and stasis on one hand and complete randomness and chaos on
the other?” (Mathews, White, and Long, 1999: 446).
Temporary stability in such conflicts emerges unpredictably from congruence
or tension between external, macrodimensional events and microsociological,
individually constructed frames for understanding changing situations. Writing
about environmental conflicts in the Indonesian rainforest, Tsing (2005)
observes that they involve various local and national environmentalists, scientists
and international investors, the UN, community elders and students and that
all of these actors interact and create unstable and messy misunderstandings.
Notwithstanding their precarious character, some of these become the basis for
successful action. Under such conditions, social actors become inventive
opportunists seeking to make the best of an uncertain world, although their
interpretations are prone to error, and their actions often have unexpected
outcomes and unintended consequences.
The encounter between macrosociological and microsociological factors is
thus not one in which “large social institutions [acting] as coherent units”
(Dougherty and Olsen, 2014: 2) leave their imprint on the sensitive surface of
the social psychology of individuals. Rather than forcing actors to respond
predictably to the naked political economic “imperatives” of extractivism, the
structural factors of resource development are surrounded by a host of subtle
micro-sociological interpretations and reactions. Accidents, unexpected events,
and conflicts acquire specific cultural meanings, and understanding them is
essential in order to grasp the shades of resistance and negotiation between
locals and the proponents of mineral exploitation.
Current understandings of ecological distribution conflicts

Dougherty and Olsen (2014) provide a useful overview of the main arguments
in the literature that discusses the question of why agrarian host communities
protest mining. First, it is claimed that mining threatens peasants’ sources of
livelihoods or stocks of natural resources. Second, mining is seen to weaken
social relationships based on “traditions.” Third, mining endangers locals’ sense
of territorial sovereignty or their rights to land and resources. Fourth, mining
is incompatible with the worldview of small farmers or indigenous groups for
which nature has an inherent value. In this literature, there is at times a tendency
to reify local forms of action and resistance. Martinez Alier (2003) considers
mining and plantations to be the root of complaints and resistance by local
groups. Popular struggles against natural resource extraction on traditional or
indigenous lands are animated by values which are the opposite of the short-
term, profit-driven, environmentally unsustainable and socially harmful
practices of transnational corporations (Muradian et al., 2003). The political
economy of resource extraction thus anticipates a protracted conflict between
diverse forces of resistance on the one hand, and extractive capitalism and
imperialism on the other (Veltmeyer, 2013).
However, Escobar (2006) reminds us that these are multi-dimensional
struggles. If such conflicts were to be explored through a micro lens, a more
nuanced picture would emerge. Some ethnographically oriented research has
brought to light the intricacies of these encounters. From the minutest details
of daily life (Horowitz, 2002) to all-encompassing worldviews (Golub, 2006),
local lifeworlds cannot be reduced to any simple framework of “resistance” or
“colonization.” The identity of “local people,” be they indigenous groups,
peasants or, in the case of Roşia Montană, miners/state employees, is neither
natural and inevitable nor enforced or imposed.
In view of this, interest has turned to understanding why in environmental
conﬂicts “some people engage in or support violent protest while others oppose
this behavior, and [how] this heterogeneity is related to other intra-community
tensions” (Horowitz, 2009: 249). Such an approach has been advocated in
explicitly micropolitical and microsocial terms (Dougherty and Olsen, 2014).
Places like Roşia Montană are thus more than simply the neutral background
of essentially invariable ecological distribution conflicts. Instead, we must see
them as “places in between” with dynamic, fluid boundaries shaped by the
destabilizing effects of novelty and uncertainty, and the stabilizing power of
sense-making and social control. Their long-term progression becomes a path-
dependent process, the understanding of which requires a focus on:
1 The initial events and their microsocial implications that set a path in
motion.
2 The selective dynamics of persuasion, pressure, and resistance among the
participants which consolidate their views and actions for shorter or longer
periods around “dominant” objectives that favor or resist resource
extraction.
3 The continuing impact of novel events, ideas, micro-decisions and new
entrants into the conflict which destabilize these “pure” rationales and
change the path of the project either by strengthening the beliefs that
economic and political imperatives will make the project a certainty, or by
thwarting the smooth progression of the project and by forcing developers
to take other actors into account.
Before turning to these focal points of the analysis, we will briefly describe the
case and the data collection.
The Roşia Montană project

Roşia Montană, by its Latin name Alburnus Maior, is a mining town in the
Western Carpathian Mountains of Romania, known since the second century
AD for its gold riches (Slotta, Wollmann, and Dordea, 2002). Although gold
was extracted during the Middle Ages up to the end of the socialist period in
Romania, few outside Romania knew about this place until the early 2000s. At
that time, Gabriel Resources, a Canadian-based mining company, announced
that it had discovered an impressive gold deposit, in fact the largest in Europe
(10 million troy ounces of gold). Until 2006, gold had been extracted from an
open pit in Roşia Montană. The new bonanza, however, extends under the
town so that the large-scale exploitation required the relocation of almost
1,000 households from the commune of Roşia Montană. In 2002, the mining
company began the relocation of the affected population, ostensibly following
a “willing buyer, willing seller” approach, but sometimes applying various
pressure tactics on those unwilling to sell. The relocation caused a variety of
reactions from the local population, ranging from staunch refusal (e.g. NGO
Alburnus Maior) to enthusiastic acceptance (e.g. NGOs Pro Roşia Montană
and Pro Dreptatea). The most common reaction, however, has been a deep-
seated and recurrent ambivalence towards the mining project. Emancipatory
expectations and fears of loss and destruction have co-existed with the will and
initiative to take one’s destiny into one’s own hands.
Data collection and analysis

The empirical data used to reconstruct the path-dependent sequence above
come from several informal discussions and from 90 semi-structured interviews
carried out over a period of two months in 2006–2008 in the Roşia Montană
(RM) commune, in the nearby cities of Abrud and Câmpeni, in the neighboring
Bucium commune and in two locations where residents of RM had relocated
at the time of the interviews (Micesti and Cluj Napoca). In RM, residents both
within and outside the mining project footprint were interviewed. The answers
to the interviews were recorded in writing by the author and three research
assistants and analyzed via the identification of the main ideas and links between
them. The interview questions assessed the displacement risks indirectly by
asking about risks (in general), about current life in RM in comparison to the
time before the arrival of the mining company, about the apprehensions that
residents might have about the future, and about changes in individual and
collective lives since the displacement began. These broad questions enabled
respondents to unfold their own definitions of what displacement meant for
them and how they dealt with it. Additional data were drawn from participation
in two public meetings organized by the mining company in RM (December
2007). Media reports from daily and weekly newspapers were also used.
The struggle over Roşia Montană or how “all that was solid
melted into thin air”
Explaining the actual unfolding of natural resource conflicts requires an
approach that links contingency, subjectivity, and the selective attribution of
“sense.” We argue that environmental conflicts tend to take place in a space
characterized by contingent events on one hand, and a variety of selective
dynamics on the other. We show first how the conflict over RM germinated
in the subjective interpretation of events taking place in several largely
disconnected contexts. As they took shape, the organized parties in the conflict
adopted distinct rationalizing discourses and thus tried to consolidate certain
interpretations. The unfolding of the conflict, however, brought with it
increasing uncertainties so that the opponents were compelled to shift their
strategies in order to cope with change. As rationalizations changed, so did the
actors involved in the struggle. Their interventions made, in turn, the moves
of other participants less predictable, thus compounding the uncertainty of
who would win the struggle. It is this interplay between the ideological clash
of incompatible rationalizations and actors’ constant maneuvering in getting an
edge while steeped in uncertainty that is the hallmark of the conflict over RM
and of similar others.
The beginning of the conflict: Contingent events and their

subjective interpretation
In the literature, the opposed camps in mining conflicts often appear to be fully
aware about the fundamental nature of the conflict and each other’s attitudes
and values. We argue instead that, at times, the struggle may indeed lead to
seemingly unambiguous ideological disagreements, but the story of the conflict
as a whole is more messy and often involves small events and idiosyncratic
interpretations that lead to large but unanticipated ruptures.
Mining in RM has a long history of booms and busts, and working
conditions for miners have always been precarious. In his Mineralogical History,
Müller von Reichenstein (2002 [1789]) described the dangerous working
conditions of the local miners in the so-called “Cetate” (Romanian for
fortress) mountain of RM: “One cannot look without a shiver how foolhardy
miners lighten their way along these walls, in which they have carved out only
some steps, to reach from one loophole to the next” (Slotta, Wollmann, and
Dordea, 2002: 307). Mining has been carried out in RM, however, much
earlier than that. The Cetate Mountain described by von Reichenstein bore
numerous traces of Roman-era mining from the second and third centuries
AD. In fact, over the whole 165-year period of Roman occupation of the
province of Dacia where Alburnus Maior was located, mining occurred
without interruption (Roman, Santimbrean, and Wollmann, 1981). Seventeen
centuries later, in the 1970s, the central planners of the Romanian socialist
economy decided to phase out underground mining in favor of an open cast
mine in the same Cetate Mountain that von Reichenstein had so vividly
described. The result was the Cetate open pit that can now be seen on the
southern side of the Roşia valley. All this came to a grinding halt in 2006,
when the state decided to discontinue all its operations in RM. As Thompson
recognized, as “long as it continues to operate in the community, [the mine]
supplies one product or none at all” (Thompson, 1932: 607). Mining gold and
silver has always been a predominant path-initiating and path-directing factor
in the history of RM. It was a source of wealth, but also immersed the town
in occasional bleak times during periods of bust (Suciu, 1927). Long before
the arrival of the Canadian mining company, both locals and foreigners
associated RM with gold and silver mining.
When Gabriel Resources (GR) came to RM in the mid-1990s, it seemed
that not only RM, but Romania as a whole would welcome investment in its
ailing mining industry. Cunningham (2005) summarizes the arguments as
follows. Gold could be used to stabilize Romania’s volatile economy, it could
serve as a steady source of foreign exchange and provide employment to some
impoverished parts of the country. Geo-political benefits were also anticipated,
as Romania was under pressure to improve its economy and its global position
in order to support its high aspirations to join the European Union. Romania
had long depended on resource extraction for economic growth, especially
during the interwar years when it began to exploit its oil reserves. Finally,
Romania also had a bad environmental record so that the new technologies
brought by foreign investors were considered to offer opportunities for
clean-up of the pollution generated by the centrally planned economy.
What could be expected to happen at that point seemed straightforward.
RM had a low grade ore that could be mined using cyanide-in-leach
technologies and it already had an open pit mine. The Canadian miner seemed
to have the necessary technology and know-how. The local population could
be expected to support the new mine since it would continue the activities of
the former state-owned mine. For five years, between 1995 and 2000, the
company relied on these favorable circumstances to advance its mineral project.
At that time, the Romanian media described the project as virtually certain.
What was less clear then was that the arrival of GR set in motion several micro-
processes that created deep ambivalence among the locals. Even though the
stage seemed to be set for the successful entry of RMGC (Roşia Montană Gold
Corporation)2 in the RM economy, the cultural undertones of its arrival made
its project uncertain.
In the account of the arrival of RMGC to RM given by Stefan,3 one of the
outspoken opponents of the proposed project, the initial contact with the
investors took place in 1995 when a family of “Australians” consisting of
husband, wife, and one child first came to Roşia Montană. He was a geologist
and seemed so helpless in the beginning—for example walking without
appropriate footwear during the harsh RM winter—that he aroused some
sympathy from Stefan. As their small company grew, they needed some office
space and so Stefan decided to rent out part of his newly completed house.
More foreigners came in and some even “married girls from here” (Stefan,
interview, 2006), thus suggesting that RM was about to experience a new
boom period with its associated influx of foreigners, as is common for mining
towns. However, what followed afterwards were several shocks that fissured
what promised to be a typical story. Stefan recalls how one day the Australian
geologist showed him the Cârnic mountain that towered above Stefan’s house
and told him: “Can you see this mountain? In fifteen years it will be gone!”
Then came the unsettling rumor that the company would start buying houses
from the locals. Sometime later, the CEO of GR pointed to one of the old
churches of RM and told the locals: “it will be demolished and reconstructed
in the new locality” (Stefan, 2006). At the same time came the loud parties, the
visits by helicopter (Kocsis, 2004), and the even more unsettling news that
“they will leave and other [investors] will come” (Stefan, 2006).
Then followed the rather large shock of the closure of the state-owned
mining company RosiaMin in 2006. This came as a great surprise to some of
the locals: “Our fathers and forefathers said that mining is good. I don’t
understand why they stopped it” (Maia, interview, 2007). Interestingly,
however, these events did not only create the “shocked subjectivity” that took
hold in other “restructured” mining towns in Romania (Friedman, 2007).
Rather than being passive and self-defeating, some residents actively opposed
the new mine. Some of the locals created the local association Alburnus Maior,
originally as a forum to defend the interests of the traditional gold miners from
RM. Interestingly, the founding suggestion came from a Romanian politician
who had spent his childhood not far from RM.
We assume that these micro-level interactions created the premises for the
subsequent diversity of reactions and ambivalence towards the mining project.
First, the relatively arrogant and self-sufficient attitude of the new developers
once they had measured the ore body suggested that they were not willing to
share the bonanza with the locals, some of whom still had vivid recollections
of the time before their mines were brutally nationalized in 1948. Second,
starting with the politician who sided with them, locals learned that they did
have extra-local allies if they were to oppose the mining company. This was
later confirmed by the arrival of internationally networked activists in RM,
such as Stephanie Roth and Francoise Heidebroek. Third, locals also learned
that the mining company was interested to buy their houses and thus discovered
that they could act as sellers on an ad hoc local market which had not existed
before or, at least, not to the same extent. Fourth, with the rumor that there
were other investors who might replace the “pioneers” who had spoken to
them about their gargantuan plans, locals learned that they were potentially at
the beginning of what could be a long process.
These four micro-level interpretations accompanied the much more visible
clash between a historical mining and semi-rural community and foreign direct
investment. Over the following years, a growing gap between the two logics—
the micro- and the macro-social—shaped the evolution of the conflict over
RM. The macro-social factors came to be reflected via progressively simplified
rationalizations, while the micro-level took a life of its own and evolved into a
growing diversification of micro-social decisions.
Although the resettlement seemed to be a straightforward process, the
planners encountered difficulties. Even though they offered generous
compensation for the properties needed to make way for the mine, not
everyone was content. As it turned out, the emergence of a local housing
market, linked to the presence of a large buyer, unleashed complicated
processes of micro-social decision-making. Whereas some residents refused to
alienate their properties, others agreed to various extents and by various
arrangements. What is significant, however, is that while each of these events
in itself could perhaps have been countered by the mining company, their
simultaneous presence required a strategic move on the part of the company:
it needed a dominant objective to rationalize the proposed mine. At the same
time, the environmentalists concerned with the consequences of a disaster
such as the tailings dam failure at Baia Mare in 2000, the archaeologists fearing
the loss of Roman-era galleries, and the dissatisfied locals similarly sought to
construct their rationalizations. These initially rather disconnected parts
coalesced around certain unifying themes.
The selective construction of conflicting rationalizations

Between 2002 and 2013, two dominant images of RM emerged. They
portrayed the problem of whether or not to construct the mine in polar terms.
On one side the anti-mining camp saw a plethora of risks for the community
and its environment if the mine would be allowed to proceed: (1) a community
resettled against its will, (2) archaeological and cultural losses due to the large-
scale nature of the operation, (3) environmental impacts at the local and
regional level and (4) infringements against the rule of law. In the literature on
RM these positions were characterized as “red versus green” (Pop, 2008), “the
state and World Bank against local development” (Kalb, 2006), or neo-liberal
capitalism versus alternative development (Velicu, 2012). All these concerns
were articulated around the need to “Save Roşia Montană.”
In contrast, the “pro-mining camp” advertised the new mine as a solution
to two basic problems of this mountain area: (1) unemployment and the
associated poverty of a former mining community and (2) the problematic
environmental legacy left by pre-modern mining practices. The mining project
could solve both (Gabriel Resources, 2006). Because the ultimate aim was to
recreate the prosperous mining community that RM supposedly was, the
campaign for the mine used virtually the same slogan of the mine opponents:
“Let us save Roşia Montană!”
Over the years, both sides went to great lengths to sharpen their positions as
much as possible. The pro-mining camp made a significant effort to advertise
the benefits of the mining project, to the point where it appeared that the mine
itself assumed secondary importance compared to the need to tout its benefits.
First, it created a website called truestory.ro, to counter the allegedly false
stories of the anti-mining camp. Second, it sponsored two documentary
movies, one of which called “Mine your own business” (McAleer and
McElhinney, 2006) argued that apparently well-meaning environmentalists are
in fact a nuisance for local populations affected by unemployment. Because
they oppose job-creating mining projects—the argument went—
environmentalists wanted to keep locals in poverty. This movie struck a chord
with mining executives facing vocal opponents in other parts of the world
(Madagascar or Chile/Argentina) akin to those from RM. Third, the mine
supporters used direct advertising in the Romanian media, to the point where
it offered one of the largest advertising contracts in the country in 2009 (Ionescu
and Florea, 2009).
The anti-mining camp also mobilized international support against the mine.
British actress and activist Vanessa Redgrave and billionaire George Soros were
outspoken critics of the mine. In recognition of her success in creating an
international profile for the “Save Roşia Montană” campaign, activist Stephanie
Roth was awarded the Goldman environmental prize (2005). Finally, two
documentaries by Hungarian filmmaker Tibor Kocsis (2004) and German
filmmaker Fabian Daub (2012) portrayed the risks of the new mine.
Both camps constructed their preferred image of RM in a highly selective
way. The pro-mining camp insisted on the employment and environmental
clean-up benefits, without acknowledging the vulnerability of their project to
a variety of permitting and legal risks. They also did not acknowledge that, in
contrast to the centuries-old history of mining in RM, their project would be
the literally final one, as they would exploit all the reserves that could be
economically extracted in the foreseeable future. The anti-mining camp also
glossed over the historical dependence of the male population of RM on
mining employment and the challenges of shifting to a subsistence and tourist-
oriented economic base. They largely ignored the historical experience of
migration from RM in times of economic hardship (Matley, 1971). They also
tended to overstate the ability of the local population to secure their livelihoods
by intensifying agriculture during bust periods in the mining economy (Suciu,
1927).
Too much uncertainty to cope: The pursuit of flexible adaptation

Murphy (1994) recognized that the actual victims in an environmental conflict
are not visible on the “barricades,” that is, in the polarized constructions of
promoters and of opponents of environmentally disruptive projects. Our
argument is that neither of the two positions described above provided sufficient
guidance for the locals on whose behalf both parties presumed to speak. The
rationales offered by sponsors and opponents of the RM project did not clarify
the uncertainty the project created for the daily lives of the inhabitants of this
mining town, and offered no workable solutions for their daily sense-making.
We can distinguish several steps the residents took to make practical choices
in the face of uncertain futures. When the mining company began the
acquisition of properties in RM, some residents agreed to sell, while others
decided to resist the offers. In general, the former were more secure in their
choices, since they complied with the demands of a player (the company) that
had the upper hand in the game. However, even that choice was a risky one
because the willing locals were not sure that the company would pay
compensation for the acquired properties. In an interview, for example, two
relocated residents recounted that, when they decided to move, they stayed for
two weeks with “half a house purchased in Alba Iulia and another half still [not
sold] in Roşia Montană.”
Those who opposed the acquisition of properties faced higher risks since the
company played the role of a local power holder. Surprisingly for the pro-
mining camp, some of the locals reinvented themselves from miners to farmers.
In this way, they reacted to the decline of the mining industry, but this worked
only for those who had significant amounts of land on which to practice
agriculture. At the same time, they managed to tap into the sensibilities of
Western activists who had started to arrive at RM. By fitting into a familiar
storyline of farmers against mining corporations, they acquired a high profile as
locally based but internationally recognized activists, sometimes aided by their
charismatic personalities. Their voices weakened the rationalization of the
mining company that all locals wanted mining.
For other locals, however, this option was not workable. As the opposition
against the project intensified, they realized that the mining project and, with
it, the promised workplaces, would be more illusory than real. Even for those
who were not opposed to the new mine, the fact that the mining company
could not proceed with its project at the desired pace strengthened their doubts
about the project. As the company was trying to persuade locals to sell and
every persuaded local was an argument in favor of the project, the property
owners discovered that they had significant bargaining power against the
company. As a result, the levels of compensation went up and more locals left
RM.
This outcome was paradoxical for the anti-mining camp. As it countered
ever more effectively the plans of the mining company, the local base of
supporters dwindled quickly. Many of their former supporters became
“undecided,” as they could see that even in the absence of the gargantuan
mine, they might be forced to live in a hollowed-out community. Their
dilemmas are captured in Figure 13.1.
The people interviewed in RM and its surroundings or those relocated
display a multifaceted experience of uncertainty. Some see the possible loss of
one’s job as a problem, others the loss of the house, while still others fear the
loss of their health or peace of mind. But this is only part of the story of how
individuals interpret the events around them.
The other part is that the affected individuals place themselves in an
intermediate space between the polar perspectives of the mine’s opponents and
supporters. Whereas the latter two provide “rational” solutions and therefore
exhort locals to either refuse or accept their relocation from RM, actors on the
ground open for themselves many mobility options “that range from sentiment
to reasoning, from rational to irrational behavior, from selfish to collaborative
actions” (Baldus, 2015: 2). Based on the field research carried out, no less than
eleven mobility patterns were identified (for details see Alexandrescu, 2012:
150), but there could well be more.
They all represent individual solutions for coping with or, better perhaps, for
mobilizing in the face of uncertainty. Building uncertainty into their mobility
strategies expresses the propensity of actors to escape rigid rationalizations. For
example, Emilia experienced her relocation from RM as a form of upward
mobility which, in turn, was prompted by embracing the challenge of leaving
her hometown: “we risked moving here, but this risk worked in our favor.”
The ability to quickly bridge the risk of relocation was enhanced by the material
and status resources of this respondent, whose husband belonged to the local
political elite. In contrast, some of the residents who refused to sell their
properties to the mining company did not do so for mere “ideological” reasons.
For example, Gloria saw the trade-off between selling her house to RMGC
You see one neighbor

It is probably the curse of gold One year passes after the other leaving, then another …
… Isn’t it the curse of gold? and [the company] is still here and you ask yourself: what
That [the company] comes and and nothing happens and you is going to happen? (H. T.,
you have to leave[.] They don’t are always stressed. (R. N, Roşia Roşia Montană, affected
force you, you leave because Montană, affected area) area)
you want to. (L. B., Roşia
Montană, affected area)
You take the risk; we sold [our property]
two weeks ago; this is also a risk; you
don’t know where life takes you. (N. R.,
[Risks] for those who stay: what awaits them Roşia Montană, affected area)
here? What will their children [or] grandchil-
dren do? What will be in the future? For those
who leave: they are not accepted by the society I am afraid that if I [choose] a house at
where they go; they are not well regarded Piatra Albă, [what if ] they don’t keep
because they will increase the land prices[;] my children on the job? I don’t know
they can pay a lot of money [they do not what’s on their mind. (L. N., Roşia
negotiate, they pay with cash on the spot]; they Montană, affected area)
are marginalized. Risks [are] both ways…” (N. T.,
Roşia Montană, outside the affected area).
If there will be workplaces

[If the project will take place]: I as they [company] claim The [company] worries me
am sure that workplaces will only … we cannot tell, maybe because they want me to leave
be for 500 [people] and they will next year. We have been and they also want to leave –
be unable to hire from Bucium waiting for ten years. and I don’t know what to
and Corna. They will [bring] their (N. N., Roşia Montană, believe. (R. T., Roşia Montană,
people. It will be a desert. A affected area). affected area)
Sahara! A ruined landscape,
[without] workplaces. Some have
put all their hope in [the compa-
ny] – that it will bring them
happiness. The area will be Life was safer before [during [I agree with the project and
depopulated in a maximum of socialism] – things change I trust that the company will
fifteen years. (R. R., Bucium, too much these days – do a good job.] But it
outside affected area). companies go bankrupt etc. remains to be seen when it
Now you are like a starts if they respect the
shipwrecked sailor, beaten environmental regulations.
by waves from all directions. (H. C., Roşia Montană,
(H. S., Roşia Montană, affected area)
affected area)
Figure 13.1 Voices from Roşia Montană expressing uncertainty

Source: Alexandrescu (2011: 91)
and securing employment for her children with the same company as
unacceptable: “they hire them, but the workplaces are not stable.” Having
more limited resources than Emilia—mostly those of being a property owner—
seems to prevent her from venturing into uncertain waters.
Finally, there are also those residents who have followed an apparently
incoherent approach. They have agreed to sell just one part of their property
in RM—for example a piece of land—but continue to inhabit their old house.
They do not neatly fit either the extractivist or the political ecology case, but
develop emergent and paradoxical reactions to their contingent circumstances.
What has become of Roşia Montană?

The dwindling local base of the anti-mining camp and the inability of the pro-
mining camp to persuade all locals to sell show how micro-processes have
interfered with the pursuit of a clear and predictable future for RM, either with
or without mining. Under these circumstances, both camps have scaled up
their efforts in order to attract supporters, especially at the national level. Since
late 2009, the mining company has presented its new mine as a potential major
driver for the whole Romanian economy. It has thus sought to renew and
boost its alliance with national-level elites. A climax in this process occurred in
the summer of 2013, when the government prepared a draft law for RM that
declared the proposed project as one of “public utility.” This proposed law
would have allowed expropriation of properties for mineral exploitation,
effectively paving the way for the new mine. In response to this perceived
threat, the opposition mobilized in several Romanian cities the largest
environmentally motivated protests since the fall of communism. The protests
were successful in that the parliament dropped the law from its agenda. More
recently, in 2015, the mining company has threatened that it will seek an
international arbitration against the Romanian state but this process is still at an
early stage. All this shows that the rationalizations for and against the mine have
been scaled up by supporters and opponents alike.
What has become of RM after all of this? We can say that it has become an
increasingly hybrid and volatile place. In an important sense, the place has been
freed from its historical dependencies by the agency of all these actors, but this
was mostly an unintended consequence for both supporters and opponents.
The manifold trajectories of residents who traded their properties for cash—but
often only in part or only after a long time—shows their ability to interpret and
decide their individual trajectories.
Meanwhile new rationalizations have emerged rebuilding a place of memory
as a tourist attraction. Paradoxically, both the anti- and pro-mining camps
converge on this point. However, whereas the mine opponents see tourism as
an alternative to mining, the supporters of the project claim that the remodeled
landscape, which will follow their mine, will represent a tourist attraction. The
latter seek, in this way, to assuage current fears about an environmental disaster
in the wake of their mine. The environment has become alienated from the
lives of the locals, as it neither provides ores nor agricultural products for
subsistence. As the former mines are slowly revegetated, following a natural
process, the traces of human existence blend slowly into the landscape in a
process in which, now, nature enters as a further “actant” with a driving role.
In Bell’s (1997) terms, those who speak for RM refer to “ghosts” or presences,
to forms of cultural transcendence that connect the past and the future.
Many ghosts are thus able to co-exist in one place, making the recognition
of its past problematic and possibilities of its future wide open. The community
itself has become very much individualized, as paradoxical as this may seem.
The locals who have “resisted” represent, in a very idiosyncratic way, the “last
inhabitants” of RM. Those who have moved from the town live split lives,
oscillating between their new and their old locations. Overall, RM has become
neither a “modern mine” nor an “agricultural paradise,” but rather the
unstable outcome of contingent events and micro-level choices. These choices
keep open the opportunities that RM will follow an entirely new path that
cannot be anticipated in terms of the dominant rationalizations that hold at a
given moment.
Conclusion
In this chapter, we have used a variation-selection framework that involves
subjective interpretations and decisions in contingent environments to analyze
the complex layers and path-dependent dynamics of the RM mining project.
The convoluted evolution of this project over time followed neither the
ideological images constructed by the major proponents and critics of the mine
nor any inherent economic or environmental imperatives. Instead, the project
took a series of twists and turns as all participants revised their views and actions
in response to shifting contingencies and new strategies by their supporters and
opponents. Beyond the clash of macro-structural forces, the locals caught in
this conflict learned to read and act upon the subtle undertones that this
development encounter brought with it. They learned, for instance, that the
company is rich and willing to acquire their properties and yet not powerful
enough to expropriate them. They also discovered that they are not alone in
the struggle since many transnational or trans-local activists are ready to support
them yet also that it is unwise to follow environmental precepts to their final
consequences. They have used the grand rationalizations as tools for simplifying
a complex and changing local world, but have kept for themselves the ability
to decide when and how to use those tools.
Over time, the place in which this struggle took place was constantly
transformed: conflicting visions between mining company and organized
opponents, but also between local residents clashed, requiring reactions and
changes of previously held positions. Participants in this conflict faced a largely
unpredictable landscape of gains, risks, and losses, and shifting groups of
“winners” and “losers” emerged in the process. Rather than foresightful
rational planning, agency involved the exploration of frequently changing
opportunities. Only by a fine-grained, microsociological analysis of contingency
and agency, intent and unforeseen consequences can we hope to understand
the complexity of a process such as the Roşia Montană mining project. A
variation-selection approach to such an event sequence can offer a theoretical
net that allows us to capture these often minute, but consequential shifts and
the forces which lead to their selective consolidation.
Notes
1 The authors would like to thank the inhabitants of Roşia Montană and other
research participants who have generously shared their experiences, views, and
sometimes homes with the researchers. The first researcher acknowledges the
financial support received from the University of Toronto and from the German
Federal Foundation for the Environment (DBU) and the scientific support from the
German Mining Museum in Bochum. He would also like to thank Monica
Costache, Miriam Cihodariu, and Cosmin Stancu for their support during the
collection of interviews in Roşia Montană.
2 RMGC is a joint venture between Gabriel Resources and a state-owned enterprise.
3 The names of respondents were changed.
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Index
Page numbers in bold refer to figures; page numbers in italic refer to tables and
page numbers with an ‘n’ refer to the note number.
Abagale, K. F. et al. 161 animal cognition 137

acoustic analysis 134 animal selfhood 129–31, 137, 157n2
active non-knowledge 153, 157 animate micro-environmental sociology
activism: animal selfhood 129; earthcare 118, 124, 127
and social justice 76; green lifestyles animism 6, 9, 118, 124–7
84; lifestyle change 81–3, 85, 87, 89, Ann Kriebel Project 62, 72
91, 94; mediating relationships 29; anthropocentrism 128
micro-theoretical perspectives 2, 8; anthropomorphism 137, 157n2
millennial generation 112, 114n1; anti-scientific perspectives 181–2
non-representational theory 59; Appiah, K. A. 103–4, 105–6
Rosia Montanã project (Romania) Aslett, D. 163
214, 215, 216–17, 220; waste astronomical tourism 18
disposal 175 asymmetrical boundary objects 194,
actor-network theory 49, 51 202–4
adaptation 44, 102, 131, 145, 216–18 atmospheres 8, 21, 48–9, 51, 52–7, 57–9
Adler Planetarium (Chicago) 7, 17–18, attachment 18, 28, 123–4
18–19, 19–20, 20–7, 27–9 awe failures 26–7
adult literacy projects 67, 68 awe, mediating 7–8, 18, 19, 24–7
aerial acrobatics 41–2
affective characteristics 50–1, 53, 56, 58, backgrounds 51, 58–9
106, 135 Beck, U. 106, 206–7
affectivity 9, 132, 134–5, 136, 137 Berger, P. L. 162, 165, 168, 180
agency 9, 11; human-canine interactions bicycling as transportation 112–13
144; micro-social decision-making biological determinism 207
207, 219, 220; nature 75; relational biophysical realities 3, 99, 99–100, 101
50; self-authenticity 104–5; selfhood blocked circumstances 108, 111
beyond language 132–3, 134–5, body language 65, 131–2
136–7 boundary objects 11, 192–4, 198–9,
Alburnus Maior 210–11, 212, 214 199–200, 200–2, 202–4; see also
America see US (United States) asymmetrical boundary objects
analogies, use of 21 bourgeois animism 125–6
Anderson, B. 51–2 bourgeoisie 125–7
Angelo, H. 18 Bowker, G. 193
Index 225
Brenes, Ramón (landowner) 66–7, 69, contingency: environmental conflicts
72, 77n13 211, 212–15, 218, 219, 220;
Bulkeley, H. 164, 172, 174 non-representational theory 51;
Rosia Montanã project (Romania)
canine excrement 143–5, 145–8, 11, 207
148–51, 151–4, 154–5, 155–7 controlling information 196–8
Cârnic (mountain) 217 controlling time 196–8
case study logic 85 convenience 8, 49, 52–7, 58–9
Catholicism 67 conversation analysis (CA) 6, 7, 35
cats and dogs 9, 128, 129, 132, 135 Cook, G. A. 102–3, 105
Cetate (mountain) 212 cooling out 144–5, 151–3, 154
change see climate change; grass-roots cooling the shit out 144, 145–8,
change; lifestyle change; social 153
change Coope Santa Elena 63–4, 67, 72–3,
changing values 83, 91, 93 76n8, 77nn14&15
charity shops 164 core self 9, 132, 134–5
chimpanzees 130, 131 correspondence 62, 188, 189nn3&4
civic duties 155 cosmic scales 22–4, 27
civil inattention 143–4, 151, 154, 156, cosmopolitanism 104–6, 107
157 Costa Rica: Ann Kriebel 67–70;
Clarke, A. 202 earthcare 70–2; emotional space
climate change: compromised 64–6; Finca La Bella (FLB) 8, 61–2,
negotiations 195; environmental 72–4, 74–6; land 66–7; nature
claims 186; environmental tourism 33; politics of possession
conflicts 206; lifestyle and activism 120–1; Quakers 63–4
82, 86, 90–1, 94; mediating Cronon, W. 121
relationships 19, 28–9; politics of cultural impulses 105, 108, 111–13
possession 117 cultures of solidarity. 65
coastal waters 35, 36, 44 Cunningham, S. A. 212
cognitive dissonance 22
coherence 9, 132, 133–4, 134–5, Darwinism 11, 207–8
136–7 Davis, S. G. 32
collaborating with industry 195–6 deliberation: earthcare and social justice
collective action 82–3, 83–5, 87–9, 66, 70, 71, 74; green lifestyles 82,
93–4, 193 83; lifestyle change 91–2, 93;
Collins, R. 5, 8, 27, 65 non-representational theory 51
commercial organizations 35, 45n3, 55 Denzin, N. K. 64
compensation 214, 216–17 determinism 207
competences 104, 147, 148–9, 154, 155, Dewey, J. 91–2
201 Dickens, P. 27
compromised negotiations 192–4, 196, displaying dog poop 143, 154–5, 156
197, 199, 202–4 diversion programs 76, 164, 175
conflicting norms 148–51, 150 Doane Observatory (Chicago) 26
connecting Earth-based and documentaries 215–16
extraterrestrial natures 27–9 dog poop see canine excrement
connections with nature 18–19 dog waste legislation 148–51, 150
construction of attractions 33–4 dogs and cats 9, 128, 129, 132, 135
construction of reality 162, 165, 168, doings 51, 59
176, 181 domesticated animals 9–10, 129
226 Index
domination 52, 124, 203 micro-interactions 7, 18, 19–20;
Dougherty, M. L. 209 micro-level theory 1–2; non-
dramaturgy 4, 6, 10, 162, 172–5, 176; representational theory 53, 57;
see also impression management; Rosia Montanã project (Romania)
performances 209; whale-watch narration 34–5
duration (duree) 182–3, 187 ethnomethodology 180
Durkheim, E. 1, 2, 3 evaluation 43, 131, 136, 187, 188
everyday animism 6, 9, 118, 124–7
Earth-based nature 18–19, 20–1, 23, Ewing, G. 175
27–9 experiential synthesis 182, 185–6,
earthcare 62, 66, 70–2, 73, 76 187–8
earthquakes 178–9, 180, 182, 183–4, extractivism 209, 218
185–6, 187
ecological education 68 facilitating experiences 7, 17–18, 18–19,
ecological identities: earthcare and social 20–2, 28
justice 61–2, 64, 70, 75, 76n4; failed boundary objects. 198–9, 199–200,
interactionism 101–2, 113–14; 202
pragmatist action theory 9; see also feedback loops 65, 68, 70, 75, 100,
ecological selves 165
ecological processes 99, 99–100, 101, feelings of awe 7–8, 18, 19, 24–7
103, 114 Finca La Bella (FLB) project:
ecological selves 76n4, 101–2, 113–14 collaborative social spaces 67–70;
ecotourism 6–7, 33, 62, 73 earthcare and social justice 8, 61–2,
Edible Gardens Project 90 70–2, 72–4; emotional connection
educational aspects 20, 32–3, 68, 71, 88, 64–5, 74–6; land scarcity 66–7;
109 Quakers 63–4
elephants 130, 134, 135, 136–7 Fine, G. A. 5, 19, 34, 76n9
emotional energy 8, 27, 65, 68, 70, 75 flexible adaptation 216–18
environment: behavior 202; conflicts flukes (tail fins) 34, 37–8, 39–42, 43,
206–7, 208, 210, 211, 216; 44–5
engineering 194, 195, 203; insights fracking see hydraulic fracturing
32–3, 34, 35, 40, 45; standards 199; framing perspectives: emotional
stewardship 28, 86, 201, 203 connection 65; human-canine
environmental microsociological theory practices 147; phenomenology 179,
3, 4, 6, 98–102, 113–14 180, 188n1; reframing 10, 83,
environmental problems: backgrounds 2, 187–8; social movement theory
3, 5; green lifestyles and activism 4–5
82, 85; mediating relationships Frederico (Bri-Bri man) 120–1
28–9; nature tourism 34; Fredericton region (Canada) 166–71,
phenomenology 178–9, 185, 186, 167, 170, 174
187–8, 195 Freire, Paulo 67, 68
environmental rationalizations 206, Freudenburg, W. R. 3
211–12, 214–15, 215–16, 217, Friends Committee on Unity with
219–20 Nature (FCUN), later QEW:
epidemics 128 emotional connection 64, 66, 76n2;
epistemology 7, 106, 181, 189n4 identity and place 61–2, 71–2,
Escobar, A. 209 72–4, 75
ethnography: compromised Fundy region (Canada) 166–71, 167,
negotiations 193–4, 203; 169
Index 227
Gabriel Resources (GR) 210, 212–13, humpback whales 36–8, 39–42, 42–4,
215 46n4
Gallup, G. G. 130 Husserl, E. 179, 181
Garfinkel, H. 180, 189n3 hybrid vehicles 88, 117
Gecas, V. 104–5 hydraulic fracturing (fracking) 11, 178,
generation X 111 184, 186
Germany 143, 145
ghosts 118, 122–4, 219 idealization of performance 147
Giddens, A. 61, 64, 70, 207 ignorance 144, 146, 147–8, 157n6, 180
GISS (Goddard Institute for Space impression management 10, 19, 172,
Studies) 117 175, 200; see also dramaturgy;
global environmental problems 5, 28–9 performances
global warming 117, 186 individual agency 144, 207
Goddard Institute for Space Studies individualization 83–5
(GISS) 117 Ingold, T. 50
Goffman, E.: human-canine practices intentionality 183–4, 187
143–5, 146–7, 154, 156–7; politics interaction ritual chains theory (Collins)
of possession 123; theoretical 4, 6, 8, 27, 65
background 3–5, 10; waste disposal interactionism 2–3, 4, 6, 98–102
162, 172–5 interactions with nature 19
gold mining 11, 126, 208, 215 inverted quarantines 84, 85, 94
GR (Gabriel Resources) 210, 212–13,
215 Jackson, P. 152
grass-roots change 81, 90 Jacobsen, M. 174
Grazian, D. 19 James, W. 182, 185, 189n2
Great Spirit 121 Japan 8, 52, 54, 56–7
green home owners 8, 81, 83, 85–7, 88 Joas, H. 102
green lifestyles 8–9, 82, 83–5, 87–91, 93,
94 Kellert, S. R. 17
green religion 86 Keltner, D. 25
Gregson, N. 164, 172, 174 killer whales see orcas
Grenadier Island (Canada) 122 Knight, J. 56
greywater harvesting technology 200–2, Kriebel, Ann: collaborative social spaces
203 67–70, 69; emotional connection
Griesemer, J. R. 192–3 64, 65, 75; environmental activism
8, 62; transnational contexts 70–3;
Haidt, J. 25 see also Ann Kriebel Project
Hannigan, J. 34, 130
Harrison, P. 51–2 labor theory of property (Locke) 124,
hazardous waste 161, 163, 164, 166–7, 127n3
174 land scarcity 69, 71
holiness 123 land trusts 62, 72–4
Holmberg, T. 145 landholders see parceleros
Holt, D. B. 84 language: body language 65; etymology
household waste see trash 125; more-than-human
Howenstine, Bill 71, 72–4 environmental sociology 9, 128,
Hubble Extreme Deep Field 25 130–1, 131–2, 134, 136–7;
human-canine practices 145–8, 146 negotiations 201; phenomenology
human-nature relationships 17, 18, 27 179, 182; waste disposal 168
228 Index
Leadership in Energy and Environmental measurements as translation devices 18,
Design (LEED) program 86–7, 88 19, 20, 22–4, 27, 29
Learning Alliance: asymmetrical mediating relationships: with the cosmos
boundary objects 202–4; boundary 8, 18–19, 24–7, 27–9;
objects 200–2; collaborating with environmental problems 182; waste
industry 195–6; compromised disposal 10–11, 162, 175, 176
negotiations 193–4; controlling memory 123, 132, 135–6, 136–7, 219
time and information 196–8; failed meta-environmental microsociological
boundary objects 198–9, 199–200 theory 98, 114; see also
Lederach, J. P. 107 environmental microsociological
LEED (Leadership in Energy and theory
Environmental Design) program micro-environmental sociology 121, 127
86–7, 88 micro-processes 107, 218
Leitz, L. 65 micro-social decision-making 214
lifestyle changes: activism 8–9, 81–3, micropolitics 83, 87, 89–91, 94
87–9, 89–91; individualization or Millennial Advisory Committee, Andrew
collective action 83–5; pragmatist Goodman Foundation 109–10, 113
action theory 91–3, 94 millennial generation 9, 108–13,
lighting costs 198–9 113–14
literacy projects 67, 68 Mineralogical History (Reichenstein) 212
lived experiences 53, 181, 182, 183, 194 mirror self-recognition 130, 137
Lobo, Gilberth (landholder) 61, 63–4, mobility patterns 217
67, 72, 77n17 Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve
Locke, J. 124, 127n3 (MCFP) 8, 61–2, 63, 67, 70–1
Lorimer, H. 49–50 Monteverde (town) 61, 62, 63, 67, 70–1,
Luckman, T. 162, 165, 168, 180 72–5
Luhmann, N. 208 morality 98, 102–4, 105, 107, 108–13,
Lund, K. 54 113–14
more-than-human environmental
MacCannell, D. 33 sociology 12, 129, 137
Maines, D. 202 Mount Fuji 8, 48, 52–7, 57–8
mammals 132, 135, 136 municipal solid waste (MSW) 161–2,
managing expectations 42–4 165–72, 169–71, 172–5, 176
Mancus, P. 128 Murphy, R. 1, 216
Maniates, M. 85
marine ecosystems 32–3, 36, 44 narration, whale-watching: expert
markers 33–4, 193 narration 35, 40; live narration
Martinez Alier, J. 209 33–4, 45n2, 46n7; managing the
Marxism 1, 3, 104, 125, 127n4, 129 experience 36–8, 42, 44–5
McDonald, N. C. 111–12 nature brokering 19, 20, 27
McDonald, S. 173 nature tourism: spectacle 39–42, 42–4;
Mead, G. H.: influences on whale-watching experience 32–3,
contemporary theorists 3–4, 9; 33–4, 36–8; whale-watching
interactionism 98–102; self- narration 34–5, 44–5
authenticity 104–5; selfhood new moralities 103, 108
beyond language 130–1, 131–2, New Zealand 56
136; social psychology as moral non-domesticated animals 129
discipline 102–3, 106–7, 108, non-knowledge 10, 144, 147–8, 151–3,
113–14 156–7, 157n6; see also active
Index 229
non-knowledge; passive political standing 118–19, 121, 123
non-knowledge poop on display 143, 154–5, 156
non-mammalian species 136 poop scooping see scooping poop
non-profit organizations 35, 72–4, 86, 89 Portugal 143, 149–50, 150, 152
non-representational theory 6, 49–52, practice theory 10, 82, 144–5, 146–7
52–7, 57–9 pragmatism: green lifestyles and
micropolitics 91–2, 93–4;
Oates, C. 173 interactionism 103, 104–6, 106–7,
Olsen, T. D. 209 110; non-representational theory
ontology 7, 10, 81, 107, 180–1, 187 49; phenomenology 81–3, 181,
open pit mines 210, 212–13 186; politics of possession 127;
orcas (killer whales) 32, 130 pragmatist action theory 8–9
Ormrod, J. S. 27 pragmatist action theory 8–9, 81–2, 83,
oxygen 53, 55, 57 91–3, 94
prefigurative communities 84, 85
pagan animism 125–6 presences 118, 121, 126
paganism 125–7 problem situations 82, 91–2, 93, 94
Palmer, P. 71 Proudhon, P.- J. 119
paradigms 2, 6, 107, 128, 192 public attitudes to excrement 148–51,
parceleros (landholders) 62, 72–4, 76, 150
77n15 Pyle, R. M. 17, 27
participant observation 20, 44, 62, 81,
85–6, 194–5 Quaker Earthcare Witness (QEW),
passive non-knowledge 151–3, 157 formerly FCUN 62, 72–4, 75
path-dependency 211, 220 Quakers (Religious Society of Friends)
payback periods 199, 201 Ann Kriebel 67–8, 70; emotional
performances: human-canine practices connection 65–7, 76nn2&7; Finca
147, 149, 151, 153, 156; nature La Bella (FLB) 61–2, 72–4, 75–6;
tourism 32; non-representational Monteverde community 63–4;
theory 49–50, 58; waste disposal transnational contexts 70–2
162, 167, 172–5, 176; see also quakes see earthquakes
dramaturgy; impression
management rationalizations 206, 211–12, 214–15,
Pew Research Center 109–10, 112 215–16, 217, 219–20
phenomenology 178–89; and recycling waste: compromised
environmental problems 178–9, negotiations 200; phenomenology
186–7, 187–8; household waste 163–4; social constructionism 10,
162–5, 176; micro-theoretical 161–2, 166–71, 172–5, 176
perspectives 10–11; non- Reichenstein, M. von 212
representational theory 49; reification 165
sociology of the environment relational view 50–1, 53, 57, 124, 153
180–2, 182–6 relevance 5, 10–11, 113, 183–4, 186,
Phenomenology of the Social World, The 187
(Schutz) 180 religious environmentalists 8, 81, 83,
photographic identification 38 85–6, 92
planetariums 7, 17–18, 18–19, 19–20, research centers 35, 36, 109–10, 112
20–7, 27–9 rituals: earthcare and social justice 65;
political micro-environmental sociology human-canine practices 154;
127 interaction ritual chains theory 4, 6,
230 Index
8, 27; interactionism 128; non- 194; emotional connection 64, 75;
representational theory 51, 53; environmental conflicts 208, 209;
politics of possession 119, 120–1, interactionism 99–100, 108;
123; waste disposal 173; see also mediating relationships 19, 34;
interaction ritual chains theory phenomenology 178, 181
(Collins) social change: ecological identities 9;
RMGC (Rosia Montanã Gold green lifestyles and micropolitics 81,
Corporation) 213, 217 83, 85, 91, 94; human-canine
Roman era 212, 214 practices 147; interactionism 105,
Romania 206, 210, 212–14, 215, 219 107, 108–10, 112, 113–14; Quakers
Rosia Montanã Gold Corporation 62, 64–5, 67–8, 76; social
(RMGC) 213, 217 constructionism 165
Rosia Montanã project (Romania) 11; Social Change Manifesto (Millennial
background 206, 208, 210–11; the Advisory Committee) 109–10
conflict 211–12, 212–15; Social Construction of Reality, The (Berger
rationalizations 215–16, 218–20; & Luckman) 165
uncertainty 216–18, 218 social constructionism: backgrounds 3, 7,
routine sightings, whale-watching 36–8, 10; household waste 162, 165–72,
40 169–71, 176; more-than-human
environmental sociology 129, 137;
Sanders, C. R. 133 nature tourism 34–5; non-
scales of measurement: translation 7, 27, representational theory 57
29; unfamiliar 18, 19, 20, 23 social interactions: Finca La Bella (FLB)
Schor, J. 163 project 61–2, 63, 65, 71, 75;
Schutz, A. 178–9, 180–2, 183, 186, human-canine practices 144,
189nn2&3, 189nn6&7 157n2; mediating awe 26; political
scooping poop 148–9, 151–4, 153, standing 123; self and identity 98,
154–5, 155 100, 107
Scotland 54 social justice 62, 67, 68, 76, 77n13
Sea World 32, 34, 37 social life processes 99, 99–100, 103,
selective constructions 215–16 108–10, 113, 114
self-authenticity 104–6, 111, 113 social mediation 10, 176, 182
self-awareness in animals 130 social moralities 107
self-environment relationships 106–8 social networks 64, 68, 82, 87, 94
self-history 9, 132, 135–6 social play 133
selfhood 9–10, 129–31, 131–2, 136–7 social psychology 102–4, 106, 108,
Selznick, P. 102 113–14, 192–204, 209
sensory experiences 7, 19, 20–2, 27 social worlds: boundary objects 11;
serial action 83, 91, 93 compromised negotiations 192–4,
shared emotional energy 27 202–3; phenomenology 178, 180;
Shinjuku (Japan) 52, 55 and self 99, 99–101, 108; waste
Shove, E. et al. 147 disposal 165
shrines 123–4 society’s sustainability 106–8
signifiers 33 socio-ecological experiments 61, 66, 71,
Silver, D. 93 73–4, 76, 111
Simmel, G. 75 sociological determinism 207
Smith, G. 173 sociology of emotions framework 8, 61,
social actors: animal selfhood 129; 64–5, 74–5
compromised negotiations 192, sociology of ignorance 144, 146
Index 231
sociology of presence 121 Thrift, N. 49, 50
solar system exhibits 20–1, 22–4, 28 tourist attractions 33, 219
Solnit, R. 112 Tourist, The (MacCannell) 33
South Africa 124, 125, 126 trading rituals 120–1
Southeast region (Canada) 166–71, 167 trail stations 52–3, 54–6
Space Visualization Laboratory 22–3, 25 transitions 41, 81–3, 91–2, 94, 111, 113
Spectacular Nature (Davis) 32 translation of cosmic scales 23–4, 29
spectacular sights 32–3, 34–5, 39–42, transnational contexts: earthcare and
42–4, 45 social justice 61–2, 64, 70–2;
stage setting 157 emotional connection 65–6, 75;
Star, S. 192–3 environmental conflicts 209, 220
station facilities 52–3, 54–6 trash 10, 161–2, 162–5, 165–72, 172–5,
Steel Inc: asymmetrical boundary objects 176
202–4; boundary objects 200–2; Tsing, A. L. 208
collaborating 195–6; compromised typifications 184, 185–6, 187–8
negotiations 193–4; controlling
time and information 196–8; failed uncertainty: lifestyle change 87, 108;
boundary objects 198–9, 199–200 non-representational theory 50;
stellar winds 21 Rosia Montanã project (Romania)
Stickel, G. W. 3 11, 210, 211–12, 216–18, 218;
Strauss, A. 203 whale-watching narration 37
structural change 84, 114, 165 United States see US (United States)
struggle for land 65, 66–7 United States Environmental Protection
Summers-Effler, E. 65 Agency (USEPA) 161
sustainable lifestyles 82–3, 87, 94 unsettled lives 91–2
synthesis of experience 182, 185–6, 187–8 urban agriculture 98, 111–13
urban guerrilla action 112
taken-for-grantedness 58, 119, 186, 187, US (United States): compromised
188 negotiations 193; environmental
Tar Island (Canada) 122 conflicts 206; Finca La Bella (FLB)
Taylor, V. 65 project 61–2, 62–3, 67, 72–3; green
technologically driven social interactions lifestyles and micropolitics 81, 83,
107 86–7; household pets 128;
technologies: compromised negotiations mediating relationships 23;
195, 197, 200–2, 203; millennial generation 108–10, 112;
environmental conflicts 207, 213; phenomenology 180, 186; waste
fracking (hydraulic fracturing) 178; disposal 161; wilderness movement
green lifestyles and micropolitics 85; 59
interactionism 99, 107, 109–10, USEPA (United States Environmental
113; mediating relationships 21–2, Protection Agency) 161
25; non-representational theory
49–50; politics of possession 117 values, changing 83, 91, 93
Texas (US) 178, 180, 182, 183, 185–6, Vargas, Eugenio 67–9, 71, 72–3, 77n17
187 Veal, A. J. 83
Thomas, W. 127 virtual objects 22
Thomashow, M. 102 visitor-employee interactions 18
Thompson, E. T. 212 visualizations 22–3, 25
Thousand Islands (Canada) 121–4 voluntary simplifiers, 8, 81, 83, 84, 85–6,
three-dimensional models 22, 24, 28 89–90
232 Index
Walkowicz, L. 28 wild selves 137–8
waste treatment 199–200 wilderness 48, 55–6, 58–9
wayfinding 51, 54 women: Finca La Bella (FLB) project 63,
weather prediction 117 67–9, 76n10; human-canine
Weber, M. 1–2, 3, 125, 180, 189n7 practices 151; more-than-human
Weigert, A. J. 4, 9, 66, 99, 101 environmental sociology 134; waste
West Coast Trail (Canada) 8, 48, 52, disposal 165, 173
53–6, 58 worldviews 209
whale watching: contextualizing Worldwide Telescope interface 26
experiences 44–5; managing
expectations 8, 42–4; methods 35, York, R. 128
46nn3&4; nature tourism 33–4;
sightings 36–8, 39–42 Zavestoski, S. 9, 101
Whittier, N. 65
wild animals 9–10, 34, 36, 129, 133–5,
137

Microsociological Perspectives For Environmental Sociology

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Microsociological Perspectives for

Environmental sociology tends to be dominated by macrosociological theories,

Bradley H. Brewster is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Graceland

Antony J. Puddephatt is Associate Professor of Sociology at Lakehead

Interactionist Currents publishes contemporary interactionist works of exceptional

For a full list of titles in this series, please visit https://www.routledge.com/

Microsociological Perspectives for Environmental Sociology

Gendered Bodies and Leisure

Challenging Myths of Masculinity

ISBN: 978-1-4724-6258-9 (hbk)

Introduction: awakening micro-theoretical perspectives in

1 Micro-interactions of cosmic proportions:

2 “This is not Sea World”: spectacle and insight in nature

3 How to climb Mount Fuji (at your earliest convenience):

4 Negotiating identity, valuing place: enacting “earthcare” and

5 Green lifestyles and micropolitics: pragmatist action theory and

7 Present tense: everyday animism and the politics of possession 117

8 Wild selves: a symbolic interactionist perspective on species,

9 Dog shit happens: human–canine interactions and the

10 Sorting the trash: competing constructions and instructions for

11 The utility of phenomenology in understanding and addressing

12 The social psychology of compromised negotiations:

13 Escaping the iron cage of environmental rationalizations:

Filip Alexandrescu has received his MA from the University of Western

Environmental sociologists have spent a good deal of worthwhile effort

We employ the adjective ‘Goffmanesque,’ common in the literature on

Hence, while the ecological-symbolic perspective began from the roots of

Introduction to the chapters

Mediating connections with nature

Methods and field site

Making the cosmos close

Facilitating sensory experiences with distant objects

It has to do with the representation of something that is not naturally

For example, the creators of a visualization displaying a map of the entire

Translating cosmic scales into common metrics

This visitor fear is partly grounded in a lack of knowledge and familiarity

Connecting Earth-based and extraterrestrial natures

These two quotes illustrate a central tension in contemporary nature tourism.

Tourism and the construction of attractions

Underlining = speaker’s emphasis

(4) = 4 second pause

Equals sign (=) = latching (no interval or pause)

At the opening of Extract 4, we find a normal viewing sequence underway. At

The management of spectacle

h = audible exhalation (in “thaht”)

Conclusion: Making whales visible

I am no climber. Though I deeply respect and sometimes even admire the

Non-representational theory and research at a glance

Third, non-representational theory is built on the principle of relational

Conclusion: Doing research more-than-representationally

It’s hard to take a stand today, because nobody is standing still.

How do ecological identity, place, and emotion come together in an

The struggle for land

Collaborative social spaces: Ann Kriebel’s story

Identity, place, and emotion: “Earthcare” in a

Negotiating the reality of FLB

Lane, a voluntary simplifier, has transitioned to a greener lifestyle and advocates

Green lifestyles: Individualization or collective action

Methods and data

Connections between green lifestyles and collective action

From lifestyle change to collective action

Although Adrianna was reluctant at first to become involved, her level of

Activism supported by lifestyle change