Microsociological Perspectives for Environmental Sociology 9781472462589, 9781315595191

Table of contents :
Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
List of illustrations
Preface
Notes on contributors
Introduction: awakening micro-theoretical perspectives in environmental sociology
1 Micro-interactions of cosmic proportions: mediating human–cosmos relationships in the planetarium
2 “This is not Sea World”: spectacle and insight in nature tourism
3 How to climb Mount Fuji (at your earliest convenience): a non-representational approach
4 Negotiating identity, valuing place: enacting “earthcare” and social justice at Finca La Bella, Costa Rica
5 Green lifestyles and micropolitics: pragmatist action theory and the connection between lifestyle change and collective action
6 Mead, interactionism, and the improbability of ecological selves: toward a meta-environmental microsociological theory
7 Present tense: everyday animism and the politics of possession
8 Wild selves: a symbolic interactionist perspective on species, minds, and nature
9 Dog shit happens: human–canine interactions and the immediacy of excremental presence
10 Sorting the trash: competing constructions and instructions for handling household waste
11 The utility of phenomenology in understanding and addressing human-caused environmental problems
12 The social psychology of compromised negotiations: constructing asymmetrical boundary objects between science and industry
13 Escaping the iron cage of environmental rationalizations: microsocial decision-making in environmental conflicts
Index

Citation preview

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 Preface Notes on contributors

Introduction: awakening micro-theoretical perspectives in environmental sociology

ix xi xiii

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 JANET A. LORENZEN

81

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   6.1 Social world–biophysical world interaction   9.1 A flag warning of the presence of poop, apparently put there by people annoyed by the latter   9.2 Old sign installed by the municipality of Lisbon asking dog owners to “Keep the sidewalks clean”   9.3 New sign erected by the municipal authority of Lisbon   9.4 A red bag with white hearts used for (a) wrapping poop and (b) displaying it near a set of steps (Lisbon, Portugal)   9.5 Dog poop wrapped up in a plastic bag and displayed next to a tree 13.1 Voices from Roşia Montană expressing uncertainty

69 99 146 150 150 152 155 218

Tables   9.1 Main forms of non-knowledge as strategies for “cooling the shit out” 10.1 Collection and pick-up system for household waste in southern New Brunswick, Canada 10.2 Deconstructing household waste sorting instructions

153 167 169

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, realworld 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 mesolevel 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 wellknown 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 socioenvironmental 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 smallerscale, 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

4  Bradley H. Brewster and Antony J. Puddephatt

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 ecologicalsymbolic 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

6  Bradley H. Brewster and Antony J. Puddephatt

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 microtheoretical 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, practicetheory, 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 whalewatching 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 expertfacilitated 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,

8  Bradley H. Brewster and Antony J. Puddephatt

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

10  Bradley H. Brewster and Antony J. Puddephatt

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 preexisting 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

12  Bradley H. Brewster and Antony J. Puddephatt

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 13 Broto, Vanesa Castán, Kate Burningham, Claudia Carter, and Lucia Elghali. 2010. “Stigma and Attachment: Performance of Identity in an Environmentally Degraded Place.” Society and Natural Resources 23(10): 952–968. Bruni, Coral M., and P. Wesley Schultz. 2010. “Implicit Beliefs about Self and Nature: Evidence from an IAT Game.” Journal of Environmental Psychology 30(1): 95–102. Buijs, Arjen E., Bas J. M. Arts, Brigit H. M. Elands, and Japp Lengkeek. 2011. “Beyond Environmental Frames: The Social Representation and Cultural Resonance of Nature in Conflicts over Dutch Woodland.” Geoforum 42(3): 329–341. Buttel, Frederick H. 1996. “Environmental and Resource Sociology: Theoretical Issues and Opportunities for Synthesis.” Rural Sociology 61(1): 56–76. Caillaud, Sabine, Nikos Kalampalikis, and Uwe Flick. 2012. “The Social Representations of the Bali Climate Conference in the French and German Media.” Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology 22(4): 363–378. Čapek, Stella M. 2006. “Surface Tension: Boundary Negotiations around Self, Society, and Nature in a Community Debate Over Wildlife.” Symbolic Interaction 29(2): 157–181. ———. 2012. “Paving Paradise: Exploring an Urban ‘Partnership-with-Nature’ Frame.” Sociological Quarterly 53(4): 556–584. Castro, Paula. 2006. “Applying Social Psychology to the Study of Environmental Concern and Environmental Worldviews: Contributions from the Social Representations Approach.” Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology 16(4): 246–266. Castro, Paula, and Maria Luisa Lima. 2001. “Old and New Ideas about the Environment and Science: An Exploratory Study.” Environment and Behavior 33(3): 400–423. Catton, William R., Jr. 1998. “Darwin, Durkheim, and Mutualism.” In Advances in Human Ecology, Volume 7, ed. Lee Freese, 89–138. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Catton, William R., Jr., and Riley E. Dunlap. 1980. “A New Ecological Paradigm for Post-Exuberant Sociology.” American Behavioral Scientists 24(1): 15–47. Cho, Charles H., and Robin W. Roberts. 2010. “Environmental Reporting on the Internet by America’s Toxic 100: Legitimacy and Self-Presentation.” International Journal of Accounting Information Systems 11(1): 1–16. Cohen, Joseph. 1989. “About Steaks Liking to be Eaten: The Conflicting Views of Symbolic Interactionists and Talcott Parsons Concerning the Nature of Relations between Persons and Nonhuman Objects.” Symbolic Interaction 12(2): 191–213. Collins, Randall. 1981. “On the Microfoundations of Macrosociology.” American Journal of Sociology, 86(5): 984–1014. Dickens, Peter. 1997. “Beyond Sociology: Marxism and the Environment.” In The International Handbook of Environmental Sociology, eds. Michael R. Redclift and Graham Woodgate, 179–192. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. Dunlap, Riley E. 2002. “Environmental Sociology: A Personal Perspective on Its First Quarter Century.” Organization and Environment 15(1): 10–29. Dunlap, Riley E., and William R. Catton, Jr. 1983. “What Environmental Sociologists Have in Common (Whether Concerned with ‘Built’ or ‘Natural’ Environments).” Sociological Inquiry 53(2–3): 113–135. Fine, Gary Alan. 1991. “On the Macrofoundations of Microsociology: Constraint and the Exterior Reality of Structure.” The Sociological Quarterly 32(2): 161–177. Fine, Gary Alan. 1997. “Naturework and the Taming of the Wild: The Problem of ‘Overpick’ in the Culture of Mushrooms.” Social Problems 44(1): 68–88.

14  Bradley H. Brewster and Antony J. Puddephatt Fine, Gary Alan, and Lori Holyfield. 1996. “Secrecy, Trust, and Dangerous Leisure: Generating Group Cohesion in Voluntary Organizations.” Social Psychology Quarterly 59(1): 22–38. Fine, Gary Alan, and Kent L. Sandstrom. 2005. “Wild Thoughts: An Interactionist Analysis of Ideology, Emotion, and Nature.” In Illuminating Social Life: Classical and Contemporary Theory Revisited, ed. Peter Kivisto, 237–258. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge. Foster, John Bellamy. 1999. “Marx’s Theory of Metabolic Rift: Classical Foundations for Environmental Sociology.” American Journal of Sociology 105(2): 366–405. Foster, John Bellamy, and Hannah Holleman. 2012. “Weber and the Environment: Classical Foundations for a Post-Exemptionalist Sociology.” American Journal of Sociology 117(6): 1625–1673. Freudenburg, William R. 2005. “Privileged Access, Privileged Accounts: Toward a Socially Structured Theory of Resources and Discourses.” Social Forces 84(1): 89–114. Freudenburg, William R., and Robert Gramling. 1989. “The Emergence of Environmental Sociology: Contributions of Riley E. Dunlap and William R. Catton, Jr.” Sociological Inquiry 59(4): 439–452. Furst, Gennifer. 2007. “Without Words to Get in the Way: Symbolic Interaction in Prison-Based Animal Programs.” Qualitative Sociology Review 3(1): 96–109. Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor. ———. 1967. Interaction Ritual, Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior. New York: Pantheon. ———. 1974. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Boston: Northeastern University. Gottschalk, Simon. 2001. “The Greening of Identity: Three Environmental Paths.” Studies of Symbolic Interaction 24: 245–271. Humphrey, Craig R., Tammy L. Lewis, and Frederick H. Buttel. 2002. Environment, Energy, and Society: A New Synthesis. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Irvine, Leslie. 2003. “George’s Bulldog: What Mead’s Canine Companion Could Have Told Him about the Self.” Sociological Origins 3(1): 46–49. ———. 2004. “A Model of Animal Selfhood: Expanding Interactionist Possibilities.” Symbolic Interaction 27(1): 3–21. ———. 2013. “Animals as Lifechangers and Lifesavers: Redemption Narratives among Homeless Pet Owners.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 42(1): 3–30. Jarolmack, Colin, and Iddo Tavory. 2014. “Molds and Totems: Nonhumans and the Constitution of the Social Self.” Sociological Theory 32(1): 64–77. Jarvikoski, Timo. 1996. “The Relation of Nature and Society in Marx and Durkheim.” Acta Sociologica 39(1): 73–86. Johnston, Hank. 1995. “A Methodology for Frame Analysis: From Discourse to Cognitive Schemata.” In Social Movements and Culture (Social Movements, Protests, and Contention, Volume 4), eds. Hank Johnston and Bert Klandermans, 217–246. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota. Kroll-Smith, J. Stephen, and Stephen R. Couch. 1991. “What Is a Disaster? An Ecological-Symbolic Approach to Resolving the Definitional Debate.” International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters 9(3): 355–366. Leap, Braden. 2015. “Redefining the Refuge: Symbolic Interactionism and the Emergent Meanings of Environmentally Variable Spaces.” Symbolic Interaction 38(4): 521–538.

Introduction 15 Lynam, Timothy, Raphael Mathevet, Michel Etienne, Samantha Stone-Jovicich, Anne Leitch, Nathalie Jones, Helen Ross, Derick Du Toit, Sharon Pollard, Harry Biggs, and Pascal Perez. 2012. “Waypoints on a Journey of Discovery: Mental Models in Human–Environment Interactions.” Ecology and Society 17(3): Article 23. McCarthy, E. Doyle. 1984. “Toward a Sociology of the Physical World: George Herbert Mead on Physical Objects.” Studies in Symbolic Interaction 5: 105–121. Murphy, Raymond. 1994. Rationality and Nature. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. ———. 1995. “Sociology as if Nature Does Not Matter: An Ecological Critique.” British Journal of Sociology 46(4): 688–707. Owens, Erica. 2007. “Nonbiologic Objects as Actors.” Symbolic Interaction 30(4): 567–584. Prus, Robert. 1996. Symbolic Interaction and Ethnographic Research. New York, NY: SUNY Press. Puddephatt, Antony J. 2005. “Mead has Never Been Modern: Using Meadian Theory to Expand the Constructivist Sociology of Technology.” Social Epistemology 19(4): 357–380. ———. 2009. “The Search for Meaning: Revisiting Herbert Blumer’s Interpretation of George Herbert Mead.” The American Sociologist 40(1): 89–105. Sanders, Clinton R. 2007. “Mind, Self, and Human–Animal Joint Action.” Sociological Focus 40(3): 320–336. Schultz, P. Wesley. 2000. “Empathizing With Nature: The Effects of Perspective Taking on Concern for Environmental Issues.” Journal of Social Issues 56(3): 391–406. ———. 2001. “The Structure of Environmental Concern: Concern for Self, Other People, and the Biosphere.” Journal of Environmental Psychology 21(4): 327–339. Schultz, P. Wesley, Chris Shriver, Jennifer J. Tabanico, and Azar M. Khazian. 2004. “Implicit Connections with Nature.” Journal of Environmental Psychology 24(1): 31–42. Statham, Anne. 1995. “Environmental Identity: Symbols in Cultural Change.” Studies in Symbolic Interaction 17: 207–240. Stets, Jan E., and Chris F. Biga. 2003. “Bringing Identity Theory into Environmental Sociology.” Sociological Theory 21(4): 398–423. Stickel, George W. 1990. “The Land as a Social Being: Ethical Implications from Societal Expectations.” Agriculture and Human Values 7(1): 33–38. Weigert, Andrew J. 1991a. “Imagining the Environment in Transverse Interaction: Toward an Ecological Attitude.” Journal of Mental Imagery 15(1–2): 163–166. __________. 1991b. “Transverse Interaction: A Pragmatic Perspective on Environment as Other.” Symbolic Interaction 14(3): 353–363. ———. 1994. “Lawns of Weeds: Status in Opposition to Life.” The American Sociologist 25: 80–96. ———. 1997a. “Definitional and Responsive Environmental Meanings: A Meadian Look at Landscapes and Drought.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior 27(1): 65–91. ———. 1997b. Self, Interaction, and Natural Environment: Refocusing Our Eyesight. Albany, NY: State University of New York. ———. 2008. “Pragmatic Thinking about Self, Society, and Natural Environment: Mead, Carson, and Beyond.” Symbolic Interaction 31(3): 235–258.

16  Bradley H. Brewster and Antony J. Puddephatt ———. 2010. “Metatheoretical Theses on Identity, Inequality, Time, and Hope: Toward a Pragmatic Cosmopolitanism.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 40(3): 249–273. West, Patrick C. 1985. “Max Weber’s Human Ecology of Historical Societies.” In Theory of Liberty, Legitimacy, and Power, ed. Vatro Murvar, 216–234. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul. White, Robert, and Dallas Hanson. 2002. “Corporate Self, Corporate Reputation, and Corporate Annual Reports: Re-Enrolling Goffman.” Scandinavian Journal of Management 18(3): 285–301. Zavestoski, Stephen. 2003. “Constructing and Maintaining Ecological Identities: The Strategies of Deep Ecologists.” In Identity and the Natural Environment: The Psychological Significance of Nature, eds. Susan Clayton and Susan Opotow, 297–315. Cambridge, MA: MIT.

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

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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

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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

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States. Today the building contains three theaters and multiple astronomythemed 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

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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 threedimensional 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

26  Megan S. Albaugh Bonham

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

Micro-interactions of cosmic proportions  27

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.

28  Megan S. Albaugh Bonham

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,

Micro-interactions of cosmic proportions  29

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.

References Angelo, Hillary. 2013. “Bird in Hand: How Experience Makes Nature.” Theory and Society 42(4): 351–368. doi:10.1007/s11186-013-9196-x. Arcand, Kim Kowal, and Megan Watzke. 2014. “Here, There and Everywhere: Science through Metaphor, Near and Far.” Communicating Astronomy with the Public 15: 8–9. Bogard, Paul. 2013. “Opinion: Bright Nights, Big Problems.” National Geographic, July 20. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/07/130720-night-dark-lightpollution-science-stars Brewster, Bradley H., and Michael Mayerfeld Bell. 2009. “The Environmental Goffman: Toward an Environmental Sociology of Everyday Life.” Society & Natural Resources 23(1): 45–57. doi:10.1080/08941920802653505. Čapek, Stella M. 2010. “Foregrounding Nature: An Invitation to Think About Shifting Nature–City Boundaries.” City & Community 9(2): 208–224. doi:10.1111/ j.1540-6040.2010.01327.x. Collins, Randall. 2004. Interaction Ritual Chains. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

30  Megan S. Albaugh Bonham Collison, Fredrick M., and Kevin Poe. 2013. “‘Astronomical Tourism’: The Astronomy and Dark Sky Program at Bryce Canyon National Park.” Tourism Management Perspectives 7: 1–15. doi:10.1016/j.tmp.2013.01.002. Dickens, Peter, and James S. Ormrod. 2007a. “Outer Space and Internal Nature: Towards a Sociology of the Universe.” Sociology 41(4): 609–626. doi:10.1177/ 0038038507078915. ———. 2007b. Cosmic Society: Towards a Sociology of the Universe. New York, NY: Routledge. Fine, Gary Alan. 1995. “Wittgenstein’s Kitchen: Sharing Meaning in Restaurant Work.” Theory and Society 24(2): 245–269. ———. 1997. “Naturework and the Taming of the Wild: The Problem of ‘Overpick’ in the Culture of Mushroomers.” Social Problems 44(1): 68–88. doi:10.2307/3096874. ———. 1998. Morel Tales: The Culture of Mushrooming. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Franklin, Adrian. 2002. Nature and Social Theory. London: Sage Publications. Grazian, David. 2012. “Where the Wild Things Aren’t: Exhibiting Nature in American Zoos.” The Sociological Quarterly 53(4): 546–565. doi:10.1111/ j.1533-8525.2012.01249.x. Griffiths, Alison. 2013. Shivers Down Your Spine: Cinema, Museums, and the Immersive View. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Jasanoff, Sheila. 2010. “A New Climate for Society.” Theory, Culture & Society 27(2–3): 233–253. doi:10.1177/0263276409361497. Jerolmack, Colin, and Iddo Tavory. 2014. “Molds and Totems: Nonhumans and the Constitution of the Social Self.” Sociological Theory 32(1): 64–77. doi:10.1177/ 0735275114523604. Johnson, Steve. 2014. “Contemplating the Infinite at Adler Planetarium.” Chicago Tribune. July 16. http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/museums/ ct-adler-planetarium-summer-20140716-column.html#page=1 Kellert, Stephen R. 2002. “Experiencing Nature: Affective, Cognitive, and Evaluative Development in Children.” In Children and Nature: Psychological, Sociocultural, and Evolutionary Investigations, eds. Peter H. Kahn and Stephen R. Kellert, 117–152. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Keltner, Dacher, and Jonathan Haidt. 2003. “Approaching Awe, a Moral, Spiritual, and Aesthetic Emotion.” Cognition and Emotion 17(2): 297–314. doi:10.1080/ 02699930302297. Lee, Jeff. 2015. “Young Achievers Present Provocative Ideas at TED Conference Opening Lectures.” The Vancouver Sun, March 18. http://www.vancouversun. com/Young+achievers+present+provocative+ideas+conference+opening+lectu res/10894921/story.html Lin II, Rong-Gong. 2011. “A Desert Plea: Let There Be Darkness.” Los Angeles Times, January 4. http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/04/local/la-me-light-pollution20110104 Lynch, Michael. 1985. “Discipline and the Material Form of Images: An Analysis of Scientific Visibility.” Social Studies of Science 15(1): 37–66. Marché, Jordan. 2005. Theaters of Time and Space: American Planetaria, 1930–1970. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Melbin, Murray. 1978. “Night As Frontier.” American Sociological Review 43(1): 3–22. doi:10.2307/2094758.

Micro-interactions of cosmic proportions  31 Mitman, Gregg. 1996. “When Nature Is the Zoo: Vision and Power in the Art and Science of Natural History.” Osiris 11: 117–143. Munro, Ealasaid. 2014. “Doing Emotion Work in Museums: Reconceptualising the Role of Community Engagement Practitioners.” Museum and Society 12(1): 44–60. Pyle, Robert Michael. 2003. “Nature Matrix: Reconnecting People and Nature.” Oryx 37(02): 206–214. doi:10.1017/S0030605303000383. Rich, Catherine, and Travis Longcore, eds. 2005. Ecological Consequences of Artificial Night Lighting. 2nd edn. Washington, DC: Island Press. Riegel, Kurt W. 1973. “Light Pollution: Outdoor Lighting Is a Growing Threat to Astronomy.” Science 179(4080): 1285–1291. doi:10.1126/science.179.4080.1285. Schernhammer, Eva S., Francine Laden, Frank E. Speizer, Walter C. Willett, David J. Hunter, Ichiro Kawachi, and Graham A. Colditz. 2001. “Rotating Night Shifts and Risk of Breast Cancer in Women Participating in the Nurses’ Health Study.” Journal of the National Cancer Institute 93(20): 1563–1568. doi:10.1093/jnci/93.20.1563.

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 whalewatch 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 whalewatch 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).

“This is not Sea World” 35

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 whalewatch 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 whalewatch 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

“This is not Sea World” 37

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 tripgoers 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 researchrelevant 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 researchrelevant information.

“This is not Sea World” 39

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 14

(3) WW:

15 16

On the other side? (1)

WWK:

17

Look. (1)

18

WWK:

You see?

19

WWK:

Wha-

20

(2)

21

WWK:

Wo:::w!

22

WWK:

Look.

23

(3)

24

WWs:

25

N:

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

Oh! Oh! Oh my go:::hhhd!

Ze=OH AGAIN, OH, GO, back at seven o’clock.

33 34

OOOO OO↓OOOOH!

(6) WWK:

Oh it’s goin’ back this side.

“This is not Sea World” 41 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.

“This is not Sea World” 43

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 openended, 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

“This is not Sea World” 45

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

4 5

6

7 8

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. Humpbacks are relatively slow moving and display a variety of conspicuous behaviors that make them favorites with the whale-watching public. 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. 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. 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. 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.

“This is not Sea World” 47 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 halfway 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 “morethan-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 actornetwork 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:

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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 nonrepresentationalists 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

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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 nonrepresentational 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,

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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 mistshrouded, 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

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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

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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

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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-feetwide 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

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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

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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 nonrepresentational 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-

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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

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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.

References Anderson, Ben. 2006. “Becoming and Being Hopeful: Towards a Theory of Affect.” Environment & Planning D 24: 733–752. ———. 2009. “Affective Atmospheres.” Emotion, Space & Society 2: 77–81. Anderson, Ben, and Paul Harrison. 2010. “The Promise of Non-Representational Theories.” In Taking Place: Non-Representational Theories and Geography, eds. Ben Anderson and Paul Harrison, 1–34. Farnham: Ashgate. Bissell, David. 2008. “Comfortable Bodies: Sedentary Affects.” Environment & Planning A 40: 1697–1712. ———. 2010. “Passenger Mobilities: Affective Atmospheres and the Sociality of Public Transport.” Environment & Planning D 28: 270–289. Crowley, John. 2001. The Invention of Comfort. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. DeLanda, Manuel. 2006. A New Philosophy of Society. London: Continuum. Dewsbury, John David. 2000. “Performativity and the Event: Enacting a Philosophy of Difference.” Environment & Planning D 18: 473–496. Horne, John. 1998. “Understanding Leisure Time and Leisure Space in Contemporary Japanese Society.” Leisure Studies 17: 37–52. Ingold, Tim. 2000. The Perception of the Environment. London: Routledge. ———. 2011. Being Alive. London: Routledge. Ishikawa, Akira, and Tai Nejo. 2002. The Success of Seven–Eleven Japan. Singapore: World Scientific. Iwao, Sumiko. 1990. “Recent Changes in Japanese Attitudes.” In Same Bed, Different Dreams: America and Japan—Societies in Transition, eds. Alan Romberg and Tadashi Yamamoto, 41–66. New York, NY: Council in Foreign Relations Press. Kearns, Robin and Jonathan Fagan. 2014. “Sleeping with the Past? Heritage, Recreation, and Transition in New Zealand Tramping Huts.” New Zealand Geographer 70: 116–130.

60  Phillip Vannini Khamis, Susan. 2006. “It only Takes a Jiffy to Make: Nestlé, Australia, and the Convenience of Instant Coffee.” Food, Culture, & Society 12: 217–233. Knight, John. 2010. “The Ready-to-View Wild Monkey: The Convenience Principle in Japanese Wildlife Tourism.” Annals of Tourism Research 37: 744–762. Law, John and John Hassard. 1999. Actor Network Theory and After. New York, NY: Wiley-Blackwell. Levine, Robert. 2006. A Geography of Time. Oxford: Oneworld Publications. Lorimer, Hayden. 2005. “Cultural Geography: The Busyness of Being ‘More-thanRepresentational.’” Progress in Human Geography 29: 83–94. ———. 2008. “Cultural Geography: Non-Representational Conditions and Concerns.” Progress in Human Geography 32: 551–559. Lund, Katrin. 2005. “Seeing in Motion and the Touching Eye: Walking over Scotland’s Mountains. Ethnofoor 18: 27–42. Massumi, Brian. 2002. Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. McCormack, Derek. 2002. “A Paper with an Interest in Rhythm.” Geoforum 33: 469–485. ———. 2006. “For the Love of Pipes and Cables: A Response to Deborah Thien.” Area 38: 359–377. ———. 2008. “Engineering Affective Atmospheres on the Moving Geographies of the 1897 Andrée Expedition.” Cultural Geographies 15: 413–431. Nash, Roderick. 1982. Wilderness and the American Mind. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Olafsdottir, Gunthora. 2011. “Practising (Nature-Based) Tourism: An Introduction.” Landabréfið 25: 3–14. Ritzer, George. 1993. The McDonaldization of Society. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press. Shove, Elizabeth. 2003. Comfort, Convenience, and Cleanliness. Oxford: Berg. Stewart, Kathleen. 2007. Ordinary Affects. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. ———. 2011. “Atmospheric Attunements.” Environment & Planning D 29: 444–453. Sutter, Paul. 2002. Driven Wild: How the Fight Against Automobiles Launched the Modern Wilderness Movement. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press. Thrift, Nigel. 2008. Non-Representational Theory: Space/ Politics/Affect. London: Routledge. Warde, Alan. 1999. “Convenience Food: Space and Timing.” British Food Journal 101: 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

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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

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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:

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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 socioecological 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).

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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:

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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

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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 bridgebuilder 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

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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

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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).

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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 Bella tierra San Luiseña. Me la podes contestar bien bajito Porque estoy escuchando…

Permit me to ask a question Beautiful land of San Luis You may answer me quite softly 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

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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-toface (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

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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:

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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

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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

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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

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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”;

Negotiating identity, valuing place 77 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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Negotiating identity, valuing place 79 Jimenez, Jean M. 2013. History of Monteverde, Part 1, “Interview with Mr. Marvin Rockwell, one of the original Monteverde Quakers.” Filmed and edited by Jean M. Jimenez, Discovery Costa Rica, June 2013. http://www.quakerquaker.org/video/ interview-with-mr-marvin-rockwell-monteverde-costa-rica-part-1?commentId=2 360685%3AComment%3A121148 Jiménez, Patricia. 2015. Interview with the author, Santa Elena, July 9. Kriebel, Ann. 1983. Photocopy of songbook lyrics, August 9. Land, Sharli Powers. 1984. “Ann’s Final Letter to RSWR Describes ‘Winds of Major Change.’” Right Sharing News XI(2): (March–April). Lobo, Gilberth Navarro. 2008. Interview with author and translator Logan Weygandt, Finca La Bella, May 27. ———. 2010. Interview with author, Finca La Bella, June 22. ———. 2015. Interview with author, Finca La Bella, July 1. Low, Setha M. and Denise Lawrence-Zúñiga. 2003. The Anthropology of Space and Place: Locating Culture. Malden, MA: Blackwell. McCandless, Susannah R. and Marla R. Emery. 2007. “Partial Power, Partial Knowledge: Accounting for the Dis-Integration of a Costa Rican Cooperative.” Society and Natural Resources 21: 310–323. Mead, George Herbert. 1934. Mind, Self, and Society from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist, ed. Charles W. Morris. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago. Mendenhall, Mildred. 2001. “From the book ‘Monteverde’.” In Monteverde Jubilee Family Album, ed. Lucille (Lucky) Guindon, Martha Moss, Marvin Rockwell, John Trostle, and Sue Trostle, 13. Monteverde: Monteverde Friends Meeting. Moss, Martha. 2015. Interview with the author, Monteverde, July 8. n.a. 1983. “Notes from Ann’s letters.” Typed notes for a newsletter, 1982–1983. Norgaard, Kari Marie. 2011. Living in Denial: Climate Change, Emotions, and Everyday Life. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Palmer, Parker J. 2000. Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Palmer, Paula. 1983. Photocopy of a letter describing Anne Kriebel’s funeral, November 26. ———. 2009. Phone interview with the author, February 3. Pellow, David Naguib. 2007. Resisting Global Toxics: Transnational Movements for Environmental Justice. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Plüss, Caroline. 2007. “Analysing Non-Doctrinal Socialization: Re-Assessing the Role of Cognition to Account for Social Cohesion in the Religious Society of Friends.” British Journal of Sociology 58(2): 253–275. Quaker Earthcare Network Finca La Bella Committee. 2011. Open letter to members of the boards of the Asociatión Agrícola Finca La Bella. Ann Kriebel and the Monteverde Institute, June 27. Salazar, Oldemar. 2010. Interview with the author, Finca La Bella, June 16. Schuessler, Ryan. 2015. “Costa Rica’s Quakers Dodged US Draft, Now Face Perils of Changing World.” http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/1/15/quakersmonteverdecostarica.html Simmel, Georg. 1950. In The Sociology of Georg Simmel, ed. Kurt H. Wolff, 402–408. Glencoe: IL: The Free Press. Smith, Jackie. 2008. Social Movements for Global Democracy. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University.

80  Stella M. Čapek Stets, Jan E. and Jonathan Turner. 2008. “The Sociology of Emotions.” In Handbook of Emotions. 3rd edn, eds. Michael Lewis, Jeannette M. Haviland-Jones, and Lisa Feldman Barrett, 402–408. New York, NY: Guilford. Stocker, Karen. 2013. Tourism and Cultural Change in Costa Rica: Pitfalls and Possibilities. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Summers-Effler, Erika. 2002. “The Micro Potential for Social Change: Emotion, Consciousness, and Social Movement Formation.” Sociological Theory 20(1): 41–60. Swennerfeldt, Ruah. 2010. Executive Director of QEW (formerly FCUN). Phone interview with author, March 15. Taylor, Verta. 2013. “Social Movement Participation in the Global Society: Identity, Networks, and Emotions.” In The Future of Social Movement Research: Dynamics, Mechanisms, and Processes, eds. Jacquelien van Stekelenburg, Conny Roggeband, and Bert Klandermans, 37–57. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Taylor, Verta and Lisa Leitz. 2010. “From Infanticide to Activism: Emotions and Identity in Self-Help Movements.” In Social Movements and the Transformation of American Health Care, eds. Jane Banaszak-Holl, Sandra Levitsky, and Mayer N. Zald, 37–57. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Taylor, Verta and Lila J. Rupp. 2002. “Loving Internationalism: The Emotion Culture of Transnational Women’s Organizations, 1888–1945.” Mobilization 7(2): 141–158. Taylor, Verta and Nancy Whittier. 1995. “Analytical Approaches to Social Movement Culture: The Culture of the Women’s Movement.” In Social Movements and Culture, eds. Hank Johnston and Bert Klandermans, 163–187. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota. Trostle, Sue. 2001. “Our Community History: Introduction.” In Monteverde Jubilee Family Album, eds. Lucille (Lucky) Guindon, Martha Moss, Marvin Rockwell, John Trostle, and Sue Trostle, 9. Monteverde: Monteverde Friends Meeting. VanDusen, Katy. 2010. Interview with author, Monteverde, June 23. Vargas, Eugenio. 1984. “Una vida ejemplar.” Eco Catolico (weekly paper of the Catholic church, Costa Rica). ———. 2008a. “Memories of My Family, San Luis, Costa Rica.” Published January 9, 2008 online in Whiteblack Report. Online link no longer available. ———. 2008b. Interview with author, San Luis, July 2. ———. 2010. Interview with author, San Luis, June 23. ———. 2015. Interview with author, San Luis, July 4. Vivanco, Luis A. 2006. Green Encounters: Shaping and Contesting Environmentalism in Rural Costa Rica. New York, NY: Berghahn. Voces del Valle. 1983. Newsletter edited by Ann Kriebel and Eugenio Vargas. Weigert, Andrew J. 1997. Self, Interaction, and Natural Environment: Refocusing Our Eyesight. Albany, NY: State University of New York. Wildcat, Daniel. 2013. “After Progress: Enacting Systems of Life Enhancement.” Plenary talk at the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment meetings, Lawrence, Kansas, June 1. Wiley, Norbert. 1994. The Semiotic Self. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago. Zavestoski, Stephen. 2003. “Constructing and Maintaining Ecological Identities: The Strategies of Deep Ecologists.” In Identity and the Natural Environment: The Psychological Significance of Nature, eds. Susan Clayton and Susan Opotow, 297–315. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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

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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

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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 faceto-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

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“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, SullivanCatlin 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

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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 daycamp 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

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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).

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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.

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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

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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.

References Abair, J. W. 2008. “Green Buildings: What it Means to be ‘Green’ and the Evolution of Green Building Laws.” Urban Lawyer 40: 623–632. Alexander, Samuel, and Simon Ussher. 2012. “The Voluntary Simplicity Movement: A Multi-national Survey Analysis in Theoretical Context.” Journal of Consumer Culture 12: 66–86. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Translated by Richard Nice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Calhoun, Craig. 1993. “‘New Social Movements’ of the Early Nineteenth Century.” Social Science History 17: 385–427. Chaney, David. 1996. Lifestyles. London: Routledge. Cooper, Davina. 2001. “Against the Current: Social Pathways and the Pursuit of Enduring Change.” Feminist Legal Studies 9: 119–148. Della Porta, Donatella, and Mario Diani. 2006. Social Movements: An Introduction. 2nd edn. Oxford: Blackwell. Dewey, John. 1922. Human Nature and Conduct: An Introduction to Social Psychology. New York, NY: Modern Library. http://www.brocku.ca/MeadProject/Dewey/ Dewey_1922/Dewey1922_02.html

Green lifestyles and micropolitics 95 Elgin, Duane. 1981. Voluntary Simplicity: Toward a Way of Life that is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc. Evans, David, and Wokje Abrahamse. 2009. “Beyond Rhetoric: The Possibilities of and for ‘Sustainable Lifestyles.’” Environmental Politics 18: 486–502. Fischer, Eric A. 2010. “Issues in Green Building and the Federal Response: An Introduction.” Congressional Research Service. http://www.policyarchive.org/ handle/10207/bitstreams/18960.pdf Giddens, Anthony. 1991. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Modern Age. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Grigsby, Mary. 2004. Buying Time and Getting By: The Voluntary Simplicity Movement. New York, NY: State University of New York Press. Groom, Sean. 2008. Making the Green-building Dean’s List: LEED for Homes. Fine Homebuilding 195: 94–101. Gross, Neil. 2009. “A Pragmatist Theory of Social Mechanisms.” American Sociological Review 74: 358–379. Haenfler, Ross, Brett Johnson, and Ellis Jones. 2012. “Lifestyle Movements: Exploring the Intersection of Lifestyle and Social Movements.” Social Movement Studies 11: 1–20. Haluza-Delay, Randolph. 2014. “Religion and Climate Change: Varieties in Viewpoints and Practices.” Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change 5: 261– 279. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wcc.268/abstract Holt, Douglas B. 1997. “Distinction in America?: Recovering Bourdieu’s Theory of Tastes from its Critics.” Poetics 25: 93–120. Horton, Dave. 2006. “Demonstrating Environmental Citizenship? A Study of Everyday Life among Green Activists.” In Environmental Citizenship, eds. Andrew Dobson and Derek Bell, 127–150. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Howell, Rachel A. 2013. “It’s Not (Just) ‘the Environment, Stupid!’ Values, Motivations, and Routes to Engagement of People Adopting Lower-Carbon Lifestyles.” Global Environmental Change 23: 281–290. Huneke, Mary E. 2005. “The Face of the Un-Consumer: An Empirical Examination of the Practice of Voluntary Simplicity in the United States.” Psychology & Marketing 22: 527–550. Johnston, Timothy C., and Jay B. Burton. 2003. “Voluntary Simplicity: Definitions and Dimensions.” Academy of Marketing Studies Journal 7: 19–36. Kearns, Laurel. 1996. “Saving the Creation: Christian Environmentalism in the United States.” Sociology of Religion 57: 55–70. ———. 2004. “The Context of Eco-theology.” In The Blackwell Companion to Modern Theology, ed. G. Jones, 466–484. New York: Wiley-Blackwell. Kennedy, Emily H. 2011. “Rethinking Ecological Citizenship: The Role of Neighbourhood Networks in Cultural Change.” Environmental Politics 20: 843–860. Lichterman, Paul. 1996. The Search for Political Community: American Activists Reinventing Commitment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lorenzen, Janet A. 2012. “Going Green: The Process of Lifestyle Change.” Sociological Forum 27: 94–116. ———. 2014a. “Convincing People to Go Green: Managing Strategic Action by Minimising Political Talk.” Environmental Politics 23: 454–472. ———. 2014b. “Green Consumption and Social Change: Debates over Responsibility, Private Action, and Access.” Sociology Compass 8: 1063–1081.

96  Janet A. Lorenzen Maniates, Michael. 2002a. “In Search of Consumptive Resistance: The Voluntary Simplicity Movement.” In Confronting Consumption, eds. Thomas Princen, Michael Maniates, and Ken Conca, 199–235. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ———. 2002b. “Individualization: Plant a Tree, Buy a Bike, Save the World?” In Confronting Consumption, eds. Thomas Princen, Michael Maniates, and Ken Conca, 43–66. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. McAdam, Doug, and Ronnelle Paulsen. 1993. “Specifying the Relationship between Social Ties and Activism.” American Journal of Sociology 99: 640–667. McDonald, Seonaidh, Caroline J. Oates, C. William Young, and Kumja Hwang. 2006. “Toward Sustainable Consumption: Researching Voluntary Simplifiers.” Psychology & Marketing 23: 515–534. Nye, Michael, and Thomas Hargreaves. 2010. “Exploring the Social Dynamics of Proenvironmental Behavior Change: A Comparative Study of Intervention Processes at Home and Work.” Journal of Industrial Ecology 14: 137–149. Passy, Florence, and Marco Giugni. 2000. “Life-Spheres, Networks, and Sustained Participation in Social Movements: A Phenomenological Approach to Political Commitment.” Sociological Forum 15: 117–144. Pichardo Almanzar, N. A., H. Sullivan-Catlin, and G. Deane. 1998. “Is the Political Personal? Everyday Behaviors as Forms of Environmental Movement Participation.” Mobilization 3: 185–205. Sandlin, Jennifer A., and Carol S. Walther. 2009. “Complicated Simplicity: Moral Identity Formation and Social Movement Learning in the Voluntary Simplicity Movement.” Adult Education Quarterly 59: 298–317. Schneiderhan, Erik. 2011. “Pragmatism and Empirical Sociology: The Case of Jane Addams and Hull-House, 1889–1895.” Theory and Society 40: 589–617. Schor, Juliet B. 2010. Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth. New York, NY: Penguin Press. Silver, Daniel. 2011. “The Moodiness of Action.” Sociological Theory 29: 199–222. Small, Mario Luis. 2009. “‘How Many Cases Do I Need?’ On Science and the Logic of Case Selection in Field-Based Research.” Ethnography 10: 5–38. Smith, Angela M., and Pulver, Simone. 2009. “Ethics-Based Environmentalism in Practice: Religious Environmental Organizations in the United States.” Worldviews: Environment, Culture, Religion 13: 145–179. Spaargaren, Gert, and Bas van Vliet. 2000. “Lifestyles, Consumption and the Environment: The Ecological Modernisation of Domestic Consumption.” Environmental Politics 9: 50–76. Swidler, Ann. 2001. Talk of Love: How Culture Matters. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Szasz, Andrew. 2007. Shopping Our Way to Safety: How We Changed from Protecting the Environment to Protecting Ourselves. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Taylor, Sarah M. 2007. Green Sisters: A Spiritual Ecology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Thompson, Craig J. 1996. “Caring Consumers: Gendered Consumption Meanings and the Juggling Lifestyle.” Journal of Consumer Research 22: 388–407.  Thongplew, Natapol, C.S.A. Van Koppen, and Gert Spaargaren. 2014. “Companies Contributing to the Greening of Consumption: Findings from the Dairy and Appliance Industries in Thailand.” Journal of Clearer Production 75: 96–105. Veal, A. J. 1993. “The Concept of Lifestyle: A Review.” Leisure Studies 12: 233–252.

Green lifestyles and micropolitics 97 Veldman, Robin Globus, Andrew Szasz, and Randolph Haluza-Delay. 2014. “Social Science, Religions, and Climate Change.” In How the World’s Religions Are Responding to Climate Change, eds. R. G. Veldman, A. Szasz and R. Haluza-Delay, 3–19. New York, NY: Routledge. Whitford, Josh. 2002. “Pragmatism and the Untenable Dualism of Means and Ends: Why Rational Choice Theory does not Deserve Paradigmatic Privilege.” Theory and Society, 31: 325–363.

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 metaenvironmental 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

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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 World

Social Life Processes

Ecological Processes SOCIAL LIFE PROCESSES Cultural beliefs Material culture Technology Value systems Economic systems Political systems Social institutions Self-concept Socialization Social control Social structure

ECOLOGICAL PROCESSES Water and air purification Drought and flood mitigation Decomposition and detoxification of wastes Generation and renewal of fertile soil Pollination Seed dispersal and translocation of nutrients Maintenance of biodiversity Protection from UV rays Climate stability Moderation of extremes (e.g., temp., waves) (Daily 1997)

Figure 6.1  Social world–biophysical world interaction

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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 selfauthenticity 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

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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 selfdevelopment. 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

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“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 nationstates 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 selfesteem 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 socionaturalism, 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

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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 longstanding 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

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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

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million strong the largest living generation, having recently surpassed the shrinking Boomer generation (77 million). With more than 43 percent nonwhite 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 shortterm 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:

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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 communityfocused, 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

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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)

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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

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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.

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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.”

References Appiah, K. A. 2005. The Ethics of Identity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ———. 2006. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers. New York, NY: Norton. ———. 2008. Experiments in Ethics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Mead, interactionism, and the improbability of ecological selves 115 Baldwin, J. D. 1986/2002. George Herbert Mead. Dubuque: Kendall/Hunt. Beck, U. 2006. Cosmopolitan Vision. Malden, MA: Polity Press. Brewster, B. 2011. Environmental Reconstruction in Microsociological Theory for Microsociological Reconstruction in Environmental Sociology. PhD dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Brewster, B., and A. Puddephatt. forthcoming. “George Herbert Mead as a SocioEnvironmental Thinker.” In The Timeliness of George Herbert Mead, eds. H. Joas and D. Huebner. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Broyer, J. A. 1973. “Mead’s Ethical Theory.” In The Philosophy of George Herbert Mead, ed. Walter Robert Corti, 171–192. Winterthur, Switzerland: Amriswiler Bucherei. Catton, W. R., Jr., and R. E. Dunlap. 1978. “Environmental Sociology: A New Paradigm.” American Sociologist 13: 307–323. ———. 1980. “A New Ecological Paradigm for Post-Exuberant Sociology.” American Behavioral Scientist 24(1): 15–47. Cook, G. A. 1993. George Herbert Mead. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Costanza, R., R. d’Arge, R. S. de Groot, S. Farber, M. Grasso, B. Hannon, K. Limburg, S. Naeem, R. V. O’Neill, J. Paruelo, R. G. Raskin, P. Sutton, and M. van den Belt. 1997. “The Value of the World’s Ecosystem Services and Natural Capital.” Nature 387: 253–260. Daily, G. C. (ed.). 1997. Nature’s Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems. Washington, DC: Island Press. Daily, G. C., T. Söderqvist, S. Aniyar, K. Arrow, P. Dasgupta, P. R. Ehrlich, C. Folke, A. M. Jansson, B. O. Jansson, N. Kautsky, S. Levin, J. Lubchenco, K. G. Maler, S. David, D. Starrett, D. Tilman, and B. Walker. 2000. “The Value of Nature and the Nature of Value.” Science 289: 395–396. de Groot, R. S., M. A. Wilson, and R.M.J. Boumans. 2002. “A Typology for the Classification, Description and Valuation of Ecosystem Functions, Goods and Services.” Ecological Economics 41: 393–408. Erikson, R. J. 1995. “The Importance of Authenticity for Self and Society.” Symbolic Interaction 18: 121–144. Gecas, V. 1994. “In Search of the Real Self: Problems of Authenticity in Modern Times.” In Self, Collective Behavior and Society, eds. Gerald M. Platt and Chad Gordon, 139–154. Greenwich: JAI Press. ———. 2000. “Value Identities, Self-Motives, and Social Movements.” In Self, Identity, and Social Movements, eds. Sheldon Stryker, Timothy J. Owens, and Robert White, 93–109. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Goldman Sachs. 2015. Millennials: Coming of Age (infographic). Accessible at: http:// www.goldmansachs.com/our-thinking/outlook/millennials/ IBM. 2015. “Myths, Exaggerations and Uncomfortable Truths: The Real Story Behind Millennials in the Workplace.” Accessible at: http://www-935.ibm.com/services/ us/gbs/thoughtleadership/millennialworkplace/ Joas, H. 2015. “Foreword.” In Mind, Self and Society [The Definitive Edition], ed. C. W. Morris, ix–xii. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Lederach, J. P. 2005. The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. McDonald, N.C. 2015. “Are Millennials Really the ‘Go-Nowhere’ Generation?” Journal of the American Planning Association. doi: 10.1080/01944363.2015.1057196 Mead, G. H. 1934. Mind, Self, and Society from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist, ed. C. W. Morris. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

116  Stephen Zavestoski and Andrew J. Weigert ———. 1938. Philosophy of the Act. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. ———. 1964. Selected Writings: George Herbert Mead, ed. Andrew J. Reck. Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill. Milbrath, L. W. 1989. Envisioning a Sustainable Society. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Millennial Advisory Committee. 2015. Social Change Manifesto. Andrew Goodman Foundation. Accessible at: http://macmanifesto.org Miller, D. 1973. George Herbert Mead: Self, Language, and the World. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Morhayim, L. 2015. “Fixing the City in the Context of Neoliberalism: Institutionalized DIY.” In Incomplete Streets: Processes, Practices and Possibilities, eds. S. Zavestoski and J. Agyeman, 225–244. New York, NY: Routledge. Owusu, N. “How Can Millennials Help to Build a 21st Century Social Change Movement?” Living Cities Blog (March 4, 2015). Accessible at: https://www. livingcities.org/blog/788-how-can-millennials-help-to-build-a-21st-century-socialchange-movement Pew Research Center. 2014. “Millennials in Adulthood: Detached from Institutions, Networked with Friends.” (March). Accessible at http://www.pewsocialtrends. org/files/2014/03/2014-03-07_generations-report-version-for-web.pdf PricewaterhouseCoopers. 2011. “Millennials at Work: Reshaping the Workplace.” Accessible at: http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/managing-tomorrows-people/futureof-work/download.jhtml Selznick, P. 1992. The Moral Commonwealth. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Solnit, R. 2012. “Revolutionary Plots.” Orion Magazine. Accessible at: https:// orionmagazine.org/article/revolutionary-plots/ Stets, J. E. 2013. “The Social Psychology of the Moral Identity.” In Handbook of the Sociology of Morality, eds. S. Hitlin and S. Vaisey, 385–409. New York, NY: Springer. Sugarman, M. 2013. “The Push to Grow Fruits, Vegetables on the Land between Streets and Sidewalks in Los Angeles,” KPCC Radio (September 9). Accessible at: http://www.scpr.org/news/2013/09/09/39061/the-push-to-grow-fruits-vegetableson-the-land-bet/ Tanenhaus, S. 2014. “Generation Nice,” New York Times (August 15). Accessible at: http://nyti.ms/1sK5kI3 Taylor, C. 1991. The Ethics of Authenticity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Thomashow, M. 1995. Ecological Identity: Becoming a Reflective Environmentalist. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Turow, E. 2015. A Taste of Generation Yum: How the Millennial Generation’s Love for Organic Fare, Celebrity Chefs, and Microbrews Will Make or Break the Future of Food. New York, NY: Pronoun. Weigert, A. J. 1991. “Transverse Interaction: A Pragmatic Perspective on Environment as Other.” Symbolic Interaction 14(3): 353–363. ———. 1997. Self, Interaction, and Natural Environment: Refocusing Our Eyesight. Albany, NY: State University of New York. ———. 2009. “Self Authenticity as Master Motive.” In Authenticity in Culture, Self, and Society, eds. P. Vannini and P. Williams, 37–50. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing. Zavestoski, S. 2003.  “Constructing and Maintaining Ecological Identities:  The Strategies of Deep Ecologists.” In Identity and the Natural Environment, eds. S. Clayton and S. Opotow, 297–315. Cambridge: MIT Press.

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

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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 microenvironmental 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 microenvironmental 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

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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.

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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.

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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

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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 sevengreats 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 yearround 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

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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

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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

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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 grouporiented 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.

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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.

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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 microenvironmental 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

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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 nonhuman 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

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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,

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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

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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,

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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

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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). Blackcapped 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 selfexperiences. 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.

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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 oneminute 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

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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

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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 nonhuman 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 Disneyesque 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

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environmental sociology as individuals can spark new ways of thinking about, and living in, the “natural” world.

References Alger, Janet M., and Steven F. Alger. 2003. Cat Culture: The Social World of a Cat Shelter. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Allen, Colin, and Marc Bekoff. 2007. “Animal Minds, Cognitive Ethology, and Ethics.” The Journal of Ethics 11: 299–317. American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA). 2012. U.S. Pet Ownership and Demographics Sourcebook. Schaumburg, IL: Center for Information Management of the American Veterinary Medical Association. Anderson, Virginia DeJohn. 2006. Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Bekoff, Marc. 1975. “The Communication of Play Intention: Are Play Signals Functional?” Semiotica 15: 231–239. ———. 1977. “Social Communication in Canids: Evidence for the Evolution of a Stereotyped Mammalian Display.” Science 197: 1097–1099. ———. 1995. “Play Signals as Punctuation: The Structure of Social Play in Canids.” Behaviour 132: 419–429. ———. (ed.). 2000. The Smile of a Dolphin: Remarkable Accounts of Animal Emotions. New York, NY: Discovery Books. ———. 2001. “Observations of Scent-Marking and Discriminating Self from Others by a Domestic Dog (Canis familiaris): Tales of Displaced Yellow Snow.” Behavioural Processes 55: 75–79. Bekoff, Marc, and Colin Allen. 1998. “Intentional Communication and Social Play: How and Why Animals Negotiate And Agree To Play.” In Animal Play: Evolutionary, Comparative, and Ecological Perspectives, eds. M. Bekoff and J. Byers, 97–114. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Bekoff, Marc, and John A. Byers. 1998. Animal Play: Evolutionary, Comparative, and Ecological Approaches. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Bekoff, Marc, and Jessica Pierce. 2009. Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Benton, Ted. 1993. Natural Relations: Ecology, Animal Rights and Social Justice. New York, NY: Verso. Blumstein, Daniel T., and Kenneth B. Armitage. 1997. “Alarm Calling in YellowBellied Marmots: The Meaning of Situationally Variable Alarm Calls.” Animal Behavior 53: 143–171. Bogdan, Robert, and Steven Taylor. 1989. “Relationships with Severely Disabled People: The Social Construction of Humanness.” Social Problems 36: 135–148. Bradshaw, Gay A., Allan N. Schore, Janine L. Brown, Joyce H. Poole, and Cynthia J. Moss. 2005. “Elephant Breakdown.” Nature 433: 807–807. Brandt, Keri. 2004. “A Language of Their Own: An Interactionist Approach to Human–Horse Communication.” Society & Animals 12: 299–316. Brazelton, T. Berry. 1984. “Four Stages in the Development of Mother–Infant Interaction.” In The Growing Child in Family and Society, eds. Noboru Kobayashi and T. Berry Brazelton, 19–34. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press. Bryant, Clifton D. 1979. “The Zoological Connection: Animal-Related Human Behavior.” Social Forces 58: 399–421.

Wild selves 139 Burghardt, Gordon M. 1998. “The Evolutionary Origins of Play Revisited: Lessons from Turtles.” In Animal Play: Evolutionary, Comparative, and Ecological Approaches, eds. M. Bekoff and J. Byers, 1–26. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Catton, William R., Jr., and Dunlap, Riley E. 1978. “Environmental Sociology: A New Paradigm.” The American Sociologist 13: 41–49. Collett, Thomas S., Paul Graham, Robert A. Harris, and Natalie Hempel-de-Ibarra. 2006. “Navigational Memories in Ants and Bees: Memory Retrieval When Selecting and Following Routes.” Advances in the Study of Behavior 36: 123–172. Delfour, Fabienne, and Ken Marten. 2001. “Mirror Image Processing in Three Marine Mammal Species: Killer Whales (Orcinus orca), False Killer Whales (Pseudorca crassidens) and California Sea Lions (Zalophus californianus).” Behavioural Processes 53: 181–190. Diamond, Jared. 1999. Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York, NY: Norton. Dickens, Peter. 1992. Society and Nature: Towards a Green Social Theory. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf. ———. 1996. Reconstructing Nature: Alienation, Emancipation, and the Division of Labour. London: Routledge. Dunlap, Riley E. 2002. “Environmental Sociology.” In Handbook of Environmental Psychology, eds. R. Bechtel and A. Churchman, 160–171. New York, NY: Wiley and Sons. Edwards, Bob, and Adam Driscoll. 2009. “From Farms to Factories: The Environmental Consequences of Swine Industrialization in North Carolina.” In Twenty Lessons in Environmental Sociology, eds. K. Gould and T. Lewis, 153–175. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Gallup, Gordon G., Jr. 1970. “Chimpanzees: Self-Recognition.” Science 167: 86–87. Gallup, Gordon G., James R. Anderson, and Daniel J. Shallito. 2002. “The Mirror Test.” In The Cognitive Animal: Empirical and Theoretical Perspective in Animal Cognition, eds. M. Bekoff, C. Allen, and G. Burghardt, 325–334 Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books. Greene, Erick, and Thomas Meagher. 1998. “Red Squirrels Produce Predator-Class Specific Alarm Calls.” Animal Behavior 55: 511–518. Gubrium, Jaber. 1986. “The Social Preservation of Mind: The Alzheimer’s Disease Experience.” Symbolic Interaction 6: 37–51. Gunderson, Ryan. 2013. “From Cattle to Capital: Exchange Value, Animal Commodification, and Barbarism.” Critical Sociology 39: 259–275. Hannigan, John. 2014. Environmental Sociology, 3rd edn. New York, NY: Routledge. Heinrich, Bernd. 1999. Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds. New York, NY: Cliff Street Books. Herda-Rapp, Ann and Theresa L. Goedeke (eds.) 2005. Mad About Wildlife: Looking at Social Conflict Over Wildlife. Amsterdam: Brill. Holstein, James A., and Jaber F. Gubrium. 2000. The Self We Live By: Narrative Identity in a Postmodern World. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Hood, Bruce. 2012. The Self Illusion: How the Social Brain Creates Identity. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Hyatt, Charles W., and William D. Hopkins. 1994. “Self-Awareness in Bonobos and Chimpanzees: A Comparative Approach.” In Self-Awareness in Animals and Humans:

140  Leslie Irvine Developmental Perspectives, eds. S. Parker, R. Mitchell, and M. Boccia, 248–253. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Irvine, Leslie. 2004a. If You Tame Me: Understanding Our Connection with Animals. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. ———. 2004b. “A Model of Animal Selfhood: Expanding Interactionist Possibilities.” Symbolic Interaction 27: 3–21. ———. 2007. “The Question of Animal Selves: Implications for Sociological Knowledge and Practice.” Qualitative Sociology Review 3: 5–21. ———. 2009. Filling the Ark: Animal Welfare in Disasters. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. ———. 2012. “Sociology and Anthrozoology: Symbolic Interactionist Contributions.” Anthrozoös 25: 379–393. Kalof, Linda, and Carl Taylor. 2007. “The Discourse of Dog Fighting.” Humanity & Society 31: 319–333. Manser, Marta. 2001. “The Acoustic Structure of Suricates’ Alarm Calls Varies Depending on Predator Type and the Level of Urgency.” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: 2315–2324. Mather, Jennifer A., and Roland C. Anderson. 1999. “Exploration, Play and Habituation in Octopuses (Octopus dofleini).” Journal of Comparative Psychology 113: 333–339. McComb, Karen, Cynthia Moss, Soila Sayialel, and Lucy Baker. 2000. “Unusually Extensive Networks of Vocal Recognition in African Elephants.” Animal Behaviour 59: 1103–1109. McComb, Karen, Graeme Shannon, Katito N. Sayialel, and Cynthia Moss. 2014. “Elephants Can Determine Ethnicity, Gender, and Age from Acoustic Cues in Human Voices.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111: 5433–5438. Mead, George Herbert. 1962 [1934]. Mind, Self and Society. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Mitchell, Robert W. 1993. “Mental Models of Mirror-Self-Recognition: Two Theories.” New Ideas in Psychology 11: 295–325. Morris, Paul H., Christine Doe, and Emma Godsell. 2008. “Secondary Emotions in Non-Primate Species? Behavioural Reports and Subjective Claims by Animal Owners.” Cognition and Emotion 22: 3–20. Munro, Lyle. 2004. “Animals, ‘Nature,’ and Human Interests.” In Controversies in Environmental Sociology, ed. R. White, 61–76. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Myers, Gene. 1998. Children and Animals: Social Development and Our Connections to Other Species. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Noske, Barbara. 1989. Humans and Other Animals. London: Pluto Press. ———. 2004. “Two Movements and Human–Animal Continuity: Positions, Assumptions, Contradictions.” Animal Liberation Philosophy and Policy Journal 2: 1–12. Payne, Katy. 2003. “Sources of Social Complexity in the Three Elephant Species.” In Animal Social Complexity: Intelligence, Culture, and Individualized Societies, eds. F. de Waal and P. Tyack, 57–85. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pellow, David Naguib. 2014. Total Liberation: The Power and Promise of Animal Rights and the Radical Earth Movement. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Wild selves 141 Pellow, David N., and Hollie Nyseth Brehm. 2015. “From the New Ecological Paradigm to Total Liberation: The Emergence of a Social Movement Frame.” The Sociological Quarterly 56: 185–212. Placer, John, and C. N. Slobodchikoff. 2000. “A Fuzzy-Neural System for Identification of Species-Specific Alarm Calls of Gunnison’s Prairie Dogs.” Behavioural Processes 52: 1–9. Plotnik, Joshua M., Frans B. M. De Waal, and Diana Reiss. 2006. “Self-Recognition in an Asian Elephant.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103: 17053–17057. Pollner, Melvin, and Lynn McDonald-Wikler. 1985. “The Social Construction of Unreality: A Case Study of a Family’s Attribution of Competence to a Severely Retarded Child.” Family Process 24: 241–254. Poole, Joyce. 1998. “An Exploration of a Commonality between Ourselves and Elephants.” Etica & Animali 9: 85–110. Porcher, Jocelyn. 2011. “The Relationship between Workers and Animals in the Pork Industry: A Shared Suffering.” Journal of Agricultural & Environmental Ethics 24: 3–17. Porcher, Jocelyn, and Tiphaine Schmitt. 2012. “Dairy Cows: Workers in the Shadows?” Society & Animals 20: 9–60. Reiss, Diana, and Lori Marino. 2001. “Mirror Self-Recognition in the Bottlenose Dolphin: A Case of Cognitive Convergence.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98: 5937–5942. Rochat, Philippe. 1995. “Early Objectification of the Self.” In The Self in Infancy: Theory and Research, ed. P. Rochat, 53–72. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Sanders, Clinton R. 1991. “The Animal ‘Other’: Self-Definition, Social Identity, and Companion Animals.” In Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 17, eds. M. Goldberg, G. Gorn, and R. Pollay, 662–668. Provo, Utah: Association for Consumer Research. ———. 1999. Understanding Dogs: Living and Working with Canine Companions. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. ———. 2003. “Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Close Relationships between Humans and Nonhuman Animals.” Symbolic Interaction 26: 405–426. Scarce, Rik. 1998. “What Do Wolves Mean? Conflicting Social Constructions of Canis lupus in ‘Bordertown’.” Human Dimensions of Wildlife 3: 26–45. ———. 2000. Fishy Business: Salmon, Biology, and the Social Construction of Nature. Philadelpia: Temple University Press. Sherry, David F., and Sarah J. Duff. 1996. “Behavioural and Neural Bases of Orientation in Food-Storing Birds.” The Journal of Experimental Biology 199: 165–172. Slobodchikoff, C. N., Judith Kiriazis, C. Fischer, and E. Creef. 1991. “Semantic Information Distinguishing Individual Predators in the Alarm Calls of Gunnison’s Prairie Dogs.” Animal Behaviour 42: 713–719. Stern, Daniel N. 1985. The Interpersonal World of the Infant: A View from Psychoanalysis and Developmental Psychology. New York: Basic Books. Stuart, Diana, Rebecca L. Schewe, and Ryan Gunderson. 2013. “Extending Social Theory to Farm Animals: Addressing Alienation in the Dairy Sector.” Sociologia Ruralis 53: 201–222. Suarez, Susan D., and Gordon G. Gallup. 1981. “Self-Recognition in Chimpanzees and Orangutans, but not Gorillas.” Journal of Human Evolution 10: 175–188. Templeton, Christopher N., Erick Greene, and Kate Davis. 2005. “Allometry of Alarm Calls: Black-Capped Chickadees Encode Information about Predator Size.” Science 308: 1934–1937.

142  Leslie Irvine Tovey, Hilary. 2003. “Theorising Nature and Society in Sociology: The Invisibility of Animals.” Sociologia Ruralis 43: 196–215. Wahaj, Sofia A., Kevin R. Guse, and Kay E. Holekamp. 2001. “Reconciliation in the Spotted Hyena (Crocuta crocuta).” Ethology 107: 1057–1074. Wilkie, Rhoda. 2015. “Multispecies Scholarship and Encounters: Changing Assumptions at the HumanAnimal Nexus.” Sociology 49: 323–339. York, Richard, and Philip Mancus. 2013. “The Invisible Animal: Anthrozoology and Macrosociology.” Sociological Theory 31: 75–91. Zussman, Robert. 2005. “The Self.” Contexts 4: 48–50.

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

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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

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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,

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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

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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

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“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

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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.

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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.

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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

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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 non-knowledge

Actively looking away, so as not to see the dog pooping.

Passive non-knowledge

Forgetfulness or indifference to poop by conveniently putting it out of mind.

Talking on a cell phone, or turning in the opposite direction when the dog is about to start pooping. Care about dog poop only when someone is watching, and later “forget” and leave it. Or, letting the dog off of the leash, without worrying about probable pooping.

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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.

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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

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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.

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Finally, our cases have illustrated strategic regulations between active nonknowledge, 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, PariPerrin, 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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References Arhant, Christine, and Josef Troxler. 2009. Dog Litter in an Urban Environment: Factors Associated with Owners’ Decision Not to Pick up their Dogs’ Droppings. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 4(2): 62. Arluke, Arnold, and Clinton Sanders (eds.). 2009. Between the Species: A Reader in Human–Animal Relationships. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Beck, Alan M. 1974. The Dog: America’s Sacred Cow? Nation’s Cities 12 (February): 29–35. Borthwick, Fiona. 2009. Governing Pets and their Humans: Dogs and Companion Animals in New South Wales, 1966–98. Griffith Law Review 18(1): 185–201. de Certeau, Michel. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Derges, Jane, Rebecca Lynch, Angela Clow, Mark Petticrew, and Alizon Draper. 2012. Complaints about Dog Faeces as a Symbolic Representation of Incivility in London, UK: A Qualitative Study. Critical Public Health 22(4): 419–425. Franklin, Adrian. 2006. “Be[a]ware of the Dog”: A Post-Humanist Approach to Housing. Housing, Theory and Society 23(3): 137–156. Gaunet, Florence, Elodie Pari-Perrin, and Geneviève Bernardin. 2014. Description of Dogs and Owners in Outdoor Built-Up Areas and Their More-Than-Human Issues. Environmental Management 54: 383–401. Goffman, Erving. 1952. On Cooling the Mark Out: Some Aspects of Adaptation to Failure. Psychiatry: Interpersonal and Biological Processes 15(4): 451–463. ———. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books. ———. 1969. Strategic Interaction. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. ———. 1971. Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order. New York: Basic Books. ———. 1974. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. New York: Harper. Greenebaum, Jessica. 2004. It’s a Dog’s Life: Elevating Status from Pet to “Fur Baby” at Yappy Hour. Society & Animals 12(2): 117–135. ———. 2010. Training Dogs and Training Humans: Symbolic Interaction and Dog Training. Anthrozoös 23(2): 129–141. Gross, Matthias. 2010. Ignorance and Surprise: Science, Society, and Ecological Design. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ———. 2015. Natural Waste: Canine Companions and the Lure of Inattentively Pooping in Public. Environmental Sociology 1(1): 38–47. ———. 2016. Risk and Ignorance. In Adam Burgess, Alberto Alemanno, and Jens Zinn (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Risk Studies, 310–317. London: Routledge. Gross, Matthias, and Linsey McGoey (eds.). 2015. Routledge International Handbook of Ignorance Studies. London: Routledge. Guéguen, Nicolas, and Serge Ciccotti. 2008. Domestic Dogs as Facilitators in Social Interaction: An Evaluation of Helping and Courtship Behaviors. Anthrozoös 21(4): 339–349. Haraway, Donna. 2003. The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness. Chicago, IL: Prickly Paradigm. Herst, Diana. 2014. Dogs as a Substitute for Children. Liberty Voice. February 13. Available online at: http://guardianlv.com/2014/02/dogs-as-a-substitute-forchildren/

Dog shit happens 159 Hirschauer, Stefan. 2005. On Doing Being a Stranger: The Practical Constitution of Civil Inattention. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 35(1): 41–67. Holmberg, Tora. 2013. Trans-Species Urban Politics: Stories from a Beach. Space and Culture 16(1): 28–42. Horta, Ana, Harold Wilhite, Luísa Schmidt, and Françoise Bartiaux. 2014. SocioTechnical and Cultural Approaches to Energy Consumption. Nature and Culture 9(2): 115–121. Ioja, Cristian, Laurentiu Rozylowicz, Maria Patroescu, Mihai Nita, and Gabriel Vanau. 2011. Dog Walkers’ vs. Other Park Visitors’ Perceptions: The Importance of Planning Sustainable Urban Parks in Bucharest, Romania. Landscape and Urban Planning 103: 74–82. Irvine, Leslie. 2013. My Dog Always Eats First: Homeless People and Their Animals. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Jackson, Patrick. 2012. Situated Activities in a Dog Park: Identity and Conflict in Human–Animal Space. Society and Animals 20(3): 254–272. Kim, Esther C. 2012. Nonsocial Transient Behavior: Social Disengagement on the Greyhound Bus. Symbolic Interaction 35(3): 267–283. Koski, Leena, and Pia Backlund. 2015. On the Fringe: The Positions of Dogs in Finnish Dog Training Culture. Society & Animals 23(1): 24–44. Laurier, Eric, Ramia Maze, and Johan Lundin. 2006. Putting the Dog Back in the Park: Animal and Human Mind-in-Action. Mind, Culture, and Activity 13(1): 2–24. Maher, Jennifer, and Harriet Pierpoint. 2011. Friends, Status Symbols and Weapons: The Use of Dogs by Youth Groups and Youth Gangs. Crime, Law and Social Change 55(5): 405–420. Marston, Linda, Pauleen Bennett, and Grahame Coleman. 2005. Adopting Shelter Dogs: Owner Experiences of the First Month Post-Adoption. Anthrozoös 18(4): 358–378. McCarthy, Daniel. 2016. Dangerous Dogs, Dangerous Owners, and the Waste Management of an ‘Irredeemable Species.’ Sociology 50(3): 560–575. McGoey, Linsey. 2012. The Logic of Strategic Ignorance. British Journal of Sociology 63(3): 533–576. Miller, Rohan, and Gwyneth Howell. 2008. Regulating Consumption with Bite: Building a Contemporary Framework for Urban Dog Management. Journal of Business Research 61: 525–531. Ocejo, Richard E., and Stéphane Tonnelat. 2014. Subway Diaries: How People Experience and Practice Riding the Train. Ethnography 15(4): 493–515. Peggs, Kay. 2012. Animals and Sociology. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Prus, Robert C. and C.R.D. Sharper. 1977. Road Hustler: The Career Contingencies of Professional Card and Dice Hustlers. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books. Reckwitz, Andreas. 2002. Toward a Theory of Social Practices: A Development in Culturalist Theorizing. European Journal of Social Theory 5(2): 243–263. Sampson, William W. 1984. The Urban Canine: Pet—Disease Vector—Safety Hazard —Nuisance. Journal of Environmental Health 46(6): 306–310. Sanders, Clinton. 1999. Understanding Dogs: Living and Working With Canine Companions. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Scott, Susie. 2010. How to Look Good (Nearly) Naked: The Performative Regulation of the Swimmer’s Body. Body & Society 16(2): 143–168. Shove, Elizabeth, and Gordon Walker. 2014. What is Energy for? Social Practice and Energy Demand. Theory, Culture & Society 31(5): 41–58.

160  Matthias Gross and Ana Horta Shove, Elizabeth, Mika Pantzar, and Matt Watson. 2012. The Dynamics of Social Practice: Everyday Life and How it Changes. London: Sage. Strengers, Yolande, and Cecily Maller (eds.). 2015. Social Practices, Intervention and Sustainability: Beyond Behaviour Change. London: Routledge. Tipper, Becky. 2011. ‘A Dog Who I Know Quite Well’: Everyday Relationships Between Children and Animals. Children’s Geographies 9(2): 145–165. Twining, Hillary, Arnold Arluke, and Gary Patronek. 2000. Managing the Stigma of Outlaw Breeds: A Case Study of Pit Bull Owners. Society & Animals 8(1): 1–28. Urbanik, Julie, and Mary Morgan. 2013. A Tale of Tails: The Place of Dog Parks in the Urban Imaginary. Geoforum 44: 292–302. Webley, Paul, and Claire Siviter. 2000. Why Do Some Owners Allow Their Dogs to Foul the Pavement? The Social Psychology of a Minor Rule Infraction. Journal of Applied Social Psychology 30(7): 1371–1380. Wells, Deborah L. 2006. Factors Influencing Owners’ Reactions to Their Dogs’ Fouling. Environment and Behavior 38(5): 707–714. Westgarth, Carrie, Robert Christley, Gina Pinchbeck, Rosalind Gaskell, Susan Dawson, and John Bradshaw. 2010. Dog Behaviour on Walks and the Effect of Use 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

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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

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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, oncevaluable 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

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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

Sorting the trash 165

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

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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 crosspurposes. 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

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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 Weekly

Fundy region Solid waste

Fredericton regional Solid waste

Southeast regional service

Drop-off points

Bi-weekly

Mixed

Organic

Anytime

On-site limited scheduled hours

Recycle

On-site during normal hours of operation Mixed

Organic

Hazard

!

Mixed

Recycle

Recycle

Recycle

Recycle

Hazard

Mixed

!

Dry

Wet

Hazard

Wet

Dry

!

Source: Constructed from Fredericton Region Solid Waste Commission, 2015; Fundy Region Solid Waste, 2015; Southeast Regional Service Commission, 2015

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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

Wet

Organic

Dry

Wet

Mixed

Recycle

Organic

Recycle

Recycle

Fundy Region solid waste

(continued)

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 Dry paper, ribbon Wet and bows, Organic Recycle cups and lids, Hazard gift wrap, wrapping 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 ! above or seasonal/special discards handled items listed

At drop-off points only they accept corrugated cardboard; paper and boxboard; and plastic, metal and milk containers 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

All food waste (including bones, coffee grinds, dairy products) Yard waste: brush, cedar clippings, grass clippings (not chemically treated), leaves, pine cones, plants, roots, 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

Table 10.2  Deconstructing household waste sorting instructions

ixed

Recycle

Mixed

Recycle

“BLUE BOX”

Recycle

!

Hazard

“GREY BOX”

Recycle

Dry

Wet

Organic

Recycle

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

!

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 Hazard Dry Wetpaper clips Organic Recycle and flatten boxes but staples and do not need to be removed

Fredericton Regional solid waste

Table 10.2  continued

!

azard

cycle

Dry

!

Hazard

Organic

Wet

Green is organic—all food and yard waste is collected (branches have to be 1-inch diameter or less, bundled in 2’x2’x2’) 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

Wet

“BLUE BAG”

Dry

The blue bag is for recyclables, glass, and everything else: Cloth: clothes, curtains, fabric, footwear, gloves, scarves, hats, leather, linens, sheets, nylons, pillows, rags, 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) 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

Southeast Regional service

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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.

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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

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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

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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.”

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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 Abagale, K. F., A. Mensah, R. A. Osei. 2012. Urban Solid Waste Sorting in a Growing City of Ghana. International Journal of Environment and Sustainability 1(4): 18–25. Aslett, D. 2000. Lose 200 Lbs. This Weekend: It’s Time to Declutter Your Life! Cincinnati, 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. Dahlén, L., H. Åberg, A. Lagerkvist, and P. Berg. 2009. Inconsistent Pathways of Household Waste. Waste Management 29(6): 1978–1806. Ewing, G. (2001). Altruistic, Egoistic, and Normative Effects on Curbside Recycling. Environment and Behavior 33(6): 733–764.

Sorting the trash 177 Ferguson, H. 2006. Phenomenological Sociology: Experience and Insight in Modern Society. London: Sage. Fredericton Region Solid Waste Commission. 2015. Operations [Online: Fredericton Region Solid Waste]. Available at: http://frswc.ca/operations/ Fundy Region Solid Waste. 2015. Compost, Recycle and Garbage [Online: Fundy Region Solid Waste] Available at: http://www.fundyrecycles.com Gallardo, A., M. D. Bovea, F. J. Colomer, M. Prades, and M. Carlos. 2010. Comparison of Different Collection Systems for Sorted Household Waste in Spain. Waste Management 30: 2430–2439. Hoornweg, D., P. Bhada-Tata, and C. Kennedy. 2013. Waste Production Must Peak This Century. Nature 502(7473): 615–617. Jacobsen, M., and S. Kristiansen. 2015. The Social Thought of Erving Goffman. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Oates, C., and S. McDonald. 2006. Recycling and the Domestic Division of Labour: Is Green Pink or Blue? Sociology 40(3): 417–433. Schor, J. 1999. The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don’t Need. New York, NY: Harper Perennial. Smith, G. 2006. Erving Goffman. New York, NY: Routledge. Southeast Regional Service Commission. 2015. Let’s Sort It Out [Online: Southeast Regional Services] Available at: ww.nbse.ca/solidwaste/sorting Southerton, D. 2012. Habits, Routines, and Temporalities of Consumption: From Individual Behaviours to the Reproduction of Everyday Practices. Time & Society 22(3): 335–355. Statistics Canada. 2013. Waste Management Industry Survey Business and Government Sectors. Catalogue no: 16F0023X. Ottawa, ON: Minister of Industry. Strengers, Y. 2011. Negotiating Everyday Life: The Role of Energy and Water Consumption Feedback. Journal of Consumer Culture 11(3): 319–338. Suthar, S., and Singh, P. 2015. Household Solid Waste Generation and Composition in Different Size and Socio-Economic Groups. Sustainable Cities and Society 14(1): 56–63. Treviño, A. 2003. Erving Goffman and the interaction order. In Goffman’s Legacy, ed. A. Treviño, 1–49. Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield. United States Environmental Protection Agency. 2011. Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States: Facts and Figures for 2010. Washington, 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

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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.

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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 “ecophenomenology” (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

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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“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 “lifeworld”—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

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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

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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

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2 3 4 5

6 7

8

two distinct “provinces of meaning.” With this in mind, the framing of scientific findings seems reasonable and necessary. It should be noted that Schutz’s ideas were also deeply influenced by the ideas of Henri Bergson and William James. Both Luckmann and Berger were students of Schutz. Garfinkel was not a student but did, however, carry on an extended correspondence with him. An in-depth argument for epistemological realism can be found in John Searle’s discussion of the “correspondence theory of truth” (Searle, 1997). 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. 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. 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. 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.

References Berger, Peter L., and Thomas Luckmann. 1966. The Social Construction of Reality; a Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York, NY: Doubleday. Bergson, Henri. 1913. Time and Free Will. New York, NY: Macmillan. Buttel, Frederick H., William R. Catton, Jr., and Riley E. Dunlap. 1978. Environmental Sociology: A New Paradigm? The American Sociologist 13(4): 252–256. Casey, Edward S. 2003. Taking a Glance at the Environment: Preliminary Thoughts on a Promising Topic. In Eco-Phenomenology, eds. Charles S. Brown and Ted Toadvine, 187–210. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Chamarette, Jenny. 2015. Embodied Worlds and Situated Bodies: Feminism, Phenomenology, Film Theory. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 40(2): 289–295. Dewey, John. 1920. Reconstruction in Philosophy. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Garfinkel, Harold. 1967. Studies in Ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press. Harvey, Sharon R. 2009. Heidegger and Eco-Phenomenology: Gelassenheit as Practice. Saarbrücken, Germany: Verlag. Husserl, Edmund. 1969. Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology. London, New York: Allen & Unwin; Humanities Press. James, William. 1890. The Principles of Psychology. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company. Llewelyn, John. 2003. Prolegomena to Any Future Phenomenological Ecology. In Eco-Phenomenology, eds. Charles S. Brown and Ted Toadvine, 51–72. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

190  Jerry Williams Marietta, Don E. 2003. Back to the Earth with Reflection and Ecology. In EcoPhenomenology, eds. Charles S. Brown and Ted Toadvine, 121–138. Albany, NY: State University Press of New York. Nisbet, Matthew, and Chris Mooney. 2007. Framing Science. Science 316(5821): 56. Psathas, George. 2004. Alfred Schutz’s Influence on American Sociologists and Sociology. Human Studies 27: 1–35. RT News. 2013. Fracking to Blame? Texas Rocked by 16 Earthquakes in Last 3 Weeks. https://www.rt.com/usa/texas-fracking-earthquakes-azle-445/ Schutz, Alfred. 1962a. Common-Sense and Scientific Interpretation of Human Action. In Collected Papers I: The Problem of Social Reality, ed. Maurice Natanson, 3–94. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. ———. 1962b. Concept and Theory Formation in the Social Sciences. In Collected Papers I: The Problem of Social Reality, ed. Maurice Natanson, 48–66. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. ———. 1962c. On Multiple Realities. In Collected Papers I: The Problem of Social Reality, ed. Maurice Natanson, 340–345. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. ———. 1962d. Some Leading Concepts of Phenomenology. In Collected Papers I: The Problem of Social Reality, ed. Maurice Natanson, 99–117. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. ———. 1964a. The Problem of Rationality in the Social World. In Collected Papers II: Studies in Social Theory, ed. Arvid Brodersen, 64–88. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. ———. 1964b. The Social World and the Theory of Social Action. In Collected Papers II: Studies in Social Theory, ed. Arvid Brodersen, 3–62. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. ———. 1964c. The Stranger. In Collected Papers II: Studies in Social Theory, ed. Arvid Brodersen, 91–105. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. ———. 1964d. The Well-Informed Citizen: An Essay on the Social Distribution of Knowledge. In Collected Papers II: Studies in Social Theory, ed. Arvid Brodersen, 120–134. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. ———. 1967. The Phenomenology of the Social World, Northwestern University Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Schutz, Alfred, and Thomas Luckmann. 1973. The Structures of the Life-World, Northwestern University Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Schutz, Alfred, and Eric Voegelin. 2011. A Friendship That Lasted a Lifetime: The Correspondence between Alfred Schutz and Eric Voegelin, trans. William Petropulos, eds. Gerhard Wagner and Gilbert Weiss. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press. Searle, John R. 1997. The Construction of Social Reality. New York, NY: Free Press. Singh, Vikash. 2014. Religious Practice and the Phenomenology of Everyday Violence in Contemporary India. Ethnography 15(4): 469–492. Sykes, Bryan. 2002. The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science That Reveals Our Genetic Ancestry. New York, NY: Norton. Tattersall, Ian. 2012. Masters of the Planet: The Search for Our Human Origins. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Thomason, Burke C. 1982. Making Sense of Reification: Alfred Schutz and Constructionist Theory. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press. Williams, Jerry. 1998. Knowledge, Consequences, and Experience: The Social Construction of Environmental Problems. Sociological Inquiry 68(4): 476–497.

The utility of phenomenology 191 ———. 2003. Natural and Epistemological Pragmatism: The Role of Democracy in Confronting Environmental Problems. Sociological Inquiry 73(4): 529–544. ———. 2007. Thinking as Natural: Another Look at Human Exemptionalism. Human Ecology Review 14(2): 130–139.

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).

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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,

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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.

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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

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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

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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-today 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)

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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)

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

References Adler, Patricia, and Peter Adler. 1987. Membership Roles in Field Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Archer, Margaret. 1990. Human Agency and Social Structure: A Critique of Giddens. In Anthony Giddens: Consensus and Controversy, eds. Jon Clark, Celia Modgil, and Sohan Modgil, 73–84. New York, NY: Falmer Press. Athens, Lonnie. 2007. Radical Interactionism: Going Beyond Mead. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 37: 137–165. Blau, Peter. 1964. Exchange and Power in Social Life. New York, NY: Wiley Blumer, Herbert. 1969. Symbolic Interactionism. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2001. Science of Science and Reflexivity. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Bowker, Geoffrey, and Susan Star. 1999. Sorting Things Out: Classification and its Consequences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Cast, Alicia. 2003. Power and Ability to Define the Situation. Social Psychology Quarterly 66: 185–201. Clarke, Adele. 2005. Situational Analysis: Grounded Theory After the Postmodern Turn. London: Sage. Cohen, Alice. 2012. Rescaling Environmental Governance: Watersheds as Boundary Objects at the Intersection of Science, Neoliberalism, and Participation. Environment and Planning 44: 2207–2224. Collins, Randall. 1981. On the Micro-Foundation of Macro-Sociology. American Journal of Sociology 86: 984–1014. ———. 2000. Situational Stratification: A Micro-Macro Theory of Inequality. Sociological Theory 18(1): 17–43. Dennis, Alex, and Peter Martin. 2005. Symbolic Interactionism and the Concept of Power. The British Journal of Sociology 56: 191–213. Fine, Gary Alan. 1984. Negotiated Orders and Organizational Cultures. Annual Review of Sociology 10: 239–262.

The social psychology of compromised negotiations 205 Giddens, Anthony. 1984. The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Cambridge: Polity Press. ———. 1997. Sociology (3rd edition). Cambridge: Polity Press. Gouldner, Alvin. 1970. The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology. London: Heinemann. Habermas, Jurgen. 1987 [1981]. Theory of Communicative Action Volume Two: Liveworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason, trans. Thomas A. McCarthy. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Hall, Peter. 1985. Asymmetric Relationships and Processes of Power. In Foundations of Interpretive Sociology, eds. Harvey Farberman and Robert Perinbanayagam, 309–344. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. ———. 1987. Interactionism and the Study of Social Organization. Sociological Quarterly 28: 1–22. Haralambos, Michael. 1980. Sociology: Themes and Perspectives, Slough: University Tutorial Press. Maines, David. 1982. In Search of Mesostructure: Studies in the Negotiated Order. Urban Life 11: 267–279. ———. 1989. Repackaging Blumer: The Myth of Herbert Blumer’s Astructural Bias. Studies in Symbolic Interaction 10: 383–413. Marie, Jenny. 2008. For Science, Love and Money: The Social Worlds of Poultry and Rabbit Breeding in Britain, 1900-1940. Social Studies of Science 38: 919–936. Meltzer, Bernard, John Petras, and Larry Reynolds. 1975. Symbolic Interactionism: Genesis, Varieties and Criticism. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Musolf, Gil. 1992. Structure, Institutions, Power, and Ideology: New Directions Within Symbolic Interactionism. The Sociological Quarterly 33: 171–189. Parker, John. 2000. Structuration. Philadelphia: Open University Press. Prus, Robert. 1999. Beyond the Power Mystique. New York, NY: State University of New York Press. Puddephatt, Antony. 2013. Toward a Radical Interactionist Account of Science. Studies in Symbolic Interaction. 41: 53–82. Star, Susan, and James Griesemer. 1989. Institutional Ecology, ‘Translations’ and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907–39. Social Studies of Science 19: 387–420. Star, Susan. 1993. Cooperation without Consensus in Scientific Problem Solving: Dynamics of Closure in Open Systems. In CSCW: Cooperation or Conflicet ed. Steve Easterbrook, 93–106. London: Springer. Stebbins, Robert. 1969. Studying the Definition of the Situation: Theory and Field Research Strategies. Canadian Review of Sociology 6: 193–211. Strauss, Anselm. 1993. Continual Permutation of Action. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Sundberg, Mikaela. 2007. Parameterizations as Boundary Objects on the Climate Arena. Social Studies of Science 37: 473–488.

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,

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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

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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 selfinterested 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)

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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 shortterm, 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,

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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 pathdependent 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

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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 deepseated 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

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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

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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 microprocesses 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

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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

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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 largescale 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

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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 touristoriented 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 promining 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

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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

218  Filip Alexandrescu and Bernd Baldus It is probably the curse of gold … Isn’t it the curse of gold? That [the company] comes and you have to leave[.] They don’t force you, you leave because you want to. (L. B., Roşia Montană, affected area)

One year passes after the other and [the company] is still here and nothing happens and you are always stressed. (R. N, Roşia Montană, affected area)

[Risks] for those who stay: what awaits them here? What will their children [or] grandchildren do? What will be in the future? For those who leave: they are not accepted by the society where they go; they are not well regarded because they will increase the land prices[;] they can pay a lot of money [they do not negotiate, they pay with cash on the spot]; they are marginalized. Risks [are] both ways…” (N. T., Roşia Montană, outside the affected area).

[If the project will take place]: I am sure that workplaces will only be for 500 [people] and they will be unable to hire from Bucium and Corna. They will [bring] their people. It will be a desert. A Sahara! A ruined landscape, [without] workplaces. Some have put all their hope in [the company] – that it will bring them happiness. The area will be depopulated in a maximum of fifteen years. (R. R., Bucium, outside affected area).

You see one neighbor leaving, then another … and you ask yourself: what is going to happen? (H. T., 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., Roşia Montană, affected area) I am afraid that if I [choose] a house at Piatra Albă, [what if ] they don’t keep my children on the job? I don’t know what’s on their mind. (L. N., Roşia Montană, affected area)

If there will be workplaces as they [company] claim … we cannot tell, maybe next year. We have been waiting for ten years. (N. N., Roşia Montană, affected area).

Life was safer before [during socialism] – things change too much these days – companies go bankrupt etc. Now you are like a shipwrecked sailor, beaten by waves from all directions. (H. S., Roşia Montană, affected area)

The [company] worries me because they want me to leave and they also want to leave – and I don’t know what to believe. (R. T., Roşia Montană, affected area)

[I agree with the project and I trust that the company will do a good job.] But it remains to be seen when it starts if they respect the environmental regulations. (H. C., Roşia Montană, 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 promining 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

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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

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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

Escaping the iron cage of environmental rationalizations 221 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 acoustic analysis 134 active non-knowledge 153, 157 activism: animal selfhood 129; earthcare and social justice 76; green lifestyles 84; lifestyle change 81–3, 85, 87, 89, 91, 94; mediating relationships 29; micro-theoretical perspectives 2, 8; millennial generation 112, 114n1; non-representational theory 59; Rosia Montanã project (Romania) 214, 215, 216–17, 220; waste disposal 175 actor-network theory 49, 51 adaptation 44, 102, 131, 145, 216–18 Adler Planetarium (Chicago) 7, 17–18, 18–19, 19–20, 20–7, 27–9 adult literacy projects 67, 68 aerial acrobatics 41–2 affective characteristics 50–1, 53, 56, 58, 106, 135 affectivity 9, 132, 134–5, 136, 137 agency 9, 11; human-canine interactions 144; micro-social decision-making 207, 219, 220; nature 75; relational 50; self-authenticity 104–5; selfhood beyond language 132–3, 134–5, 136–7 Alburnus Maior 210–11, 212, 214 America see US (United States) analogies, use of 21 Anderson, B. 51–2 Angelo, H. 18

animal cognition 137 animal selfhood 129–31, 137, 157n2 animate micro-environmental sociology 118, 124, 127 animism 6, 9, 118, 124–7 Ann Kriebel Project 62, 72 anthropocentrism 128 anthropomorphism 137, 157n2 anti-scientific perspectives 181–2 Appiah, K. A. 103–4, 105–6 Aslett, D. 163 astronomical tourism 18 asymmetrical boundary objects 194, 202–4 atmospheres 8, 21, 48–9, 51, 52–7, 57–9 attachment 18, 28, 123–4 awe failures 26–7 awe, mediating 7–8, 18, 19, 24–7 backgrounds 51, 58–9 Beck, U. 106, 206–7 Berger, P. L. 162, 165, 168, 180 bicycling as transportation 112–13 biological determinism 207 biophysical realities 3, 99, 99–100, 101 blocked circumstances 108, 111 body language 65, 131–2 boundary objects 11, 192–4, 198–9, 199–200, 200–2, 202–4; see also asymmetrical boundary objects bourgeois animism 125–6 bourgeoisie 125–7 Bowker, G. 193

Index 225 Brenes, Ramón (landowner) 66–7, 69, 72, 77n13 Bulkeley, H. 164, 172, 174 canine excrement 143–5, 145–8, 148–51, 151–4, 154–5, 155–7 Cârnic (mountain) 217 case study logic 85 Catholicism 67 cats and dogs 9, 128, 129, 132, 135 Cetate (mountain) 212 change see climate change; grass-roots change; lifestyle change; social change changing values 83, 91, 93 charity shops 164 chimpanzees 130, 131 civic duties 155 civil inattention 143–4, 151, 154, 156, 157 Clarke, A. 202 climate change: compromised negotiations 195; environmental claims 186; environmental conflicts 206; lifestyle and activism 82, 86, 90–1, 94; mediating relationships 19, 28–9; politics of possession 117 coastal waters 35, 36, 44 cognitive dissonance 22 coherence 9, 132, 133–4, 134–5, 136–7 collaborating with industry 195–6 collective action 82–3, 83–5, 87–9, 93–4, 193 Collins, R. 5, 8, 27, 65 commercial organizations 35, 45n3, 55 compensation 214, 216–17 competences 104, 147, 148–9, 154, 155, 201 compromised negotiations 192–4, 196, 197, 199, 202–4 conflicting norms 148–51, 150 connecting Earth-based and extraterrestrial natures 27–9 connections with nature 18–19 construction of attractions 33–4 construction of reality 162, 165, 168, 176, 181

contingency: environmental conflicts 211, 212–15, 218, 219, 220; non-representational theory 51; Rosia Montanã project (Romania) 11, 207 controlling information 196–8 controlling time 196–8 convenience 8, 49, 52–7, 58–9 conversation analysis (CA) 6, 7, 35 Cook, G. A. 102–3, 105 cooling out 144–5, 151–3, 154 cooling the shit out 144, 145–8, 153 Coope Santa Elena 63–4, 67, 72–3, 76n8, 77nn14&15 core self 9, 132, 134–5 correspondence 62, 188, 189nn3&4 cosmic scales 22–4, 27 cosmopolitanism 104–6, 107 Costa Rica: Ann Kriebel 67–70; earthcare 70–2; emotional space 64–6; Finca La Bella (FLB) 8, 61–2, 72–4, 74–6; land 66–7; nature tourism 33; politics of possession 120–1; Quakers 63–4 Cronon, W. 121 cultural impulses 105, 108, 111–13 cultures of solidarity. 65 Cunningham, S. A. 212 Darwinism 11, 207–8 Davis, S. G. 32 deliberation: earthcare and social justice 66, 70, 71, 74; green lifestyles 82, 83; lifestyle change 91–2, 93; non-representational theory 51 Denzin, N. K. 64 determinism 207 Dewey, J. 91–2 Dickens, P. 27 displaying dog poop 143, 154–5, 156 diversion programs 76, 164, 175 Doane Observatory (Chicago) 26 documentaries 215–16 dog poop see canine excrement dog waste legislation 148–51, 150 dogs and cats 9, 128, 129, 132, 135 doings 51, 59 domesticated animals 9–10, 129

226  Index domination 52, 124, 203 Dougherty, M. L. 209 dramaturgy 4, 6, 10, 162, 172–5, 176; see also impression management; performances duration (duree) 182–3, 187 Durkheim, E. 1, 2, 3 Earth-based nature 18–19, 20–1, 23, 27–9 earthcare 62, 66, 70–2, 73, 76 earthquakes 178–9, 180, 182, 183–4, 185–6, 187 ecological education 68 ecological identities: earthcare and social justice 61–2, 64, 70, 75, 76n4; interactionism 101–2, 113–14; pragmatist action theory 9; see also ecological selves ecological processes 99, 99–100, 101, 103, 114 ecological selves 76n4, 101–2, 113–14 ecotourism 6–7, 33, 62, 73 Edible Gardens Project 90 educational aspects 20, 32–3, 68, 71, 88, 109 elephants 130, 134, 135, 136–7 emotional energy 8, 27, 65, 68, 70, 75 environment: behavior 202; conflicts 206–7, 208, 210, 211, 216; engineering 194, 195, 203; insights 32–3, 34, 35, 40, 45; standards 199; stewardship 28, 86, 201, 203 environmental microsociological theory 3, 4, 6, 98–102, 113–14 environmental problems: backgrounds 2, 3, 5; green lifestyles and activism 82, 85; mediating relationships 28–9; nature tourism 34; phenomenology 178–9, 185, 186, 187–8, 195 environmental rationalizations 206, 211–12, 214–15, 215–16, 217, 219–20 epidemics 128 epistemology 7, 106, 181, 189n4 Escobar, A. 209 ethnography: compromised negotiations 193–4, 203;

micro-interactions 7, 18, 19–20; micro-level theory 1–2; nonrepresentational theory 53, 57; Rosia Montanã project (Romania) 209; whale-watch narration 34–5 ethnomethodology 180 evaluation 43, 131, 136, 187, 188 everyday animism 6, 9, 118, 124–7 Ewing, G. 175 experiential synthesis 182, 185–6, 187–8 extractivism 209, 218 facilitating experiences 7, 17–18, 18–19, 20–2, 28 failed boundary objects. 198–9, 199–200, 202 feedback loops 65, 68, 70, 75, 100, 165 feelings of awe 7–8, 18, 19, 24–7 Finca La Bella (FLB) project: collaborative social spaces 67–70; earthcare and social justice 8, 61–2, 70–2, 72–4; emotional connection 64–5, 74–6; land scarcity 66–7; Quakers 63–4 Fine, G. A. 5, 19, 34, 76n9 flexible adaptation 216–18 flukes (tail fins) 34, 37–8, 39–42, 43, 44–5 fracking see hydraulic fracturing framing perspectives: emotional connection 65; human-canine practices 147; phenomenology 179, 180, 188n1; reframing 10, 83, 187–8; social movement theory 4–5 Frederico (Bri-Bri man) 120–1 Fredericton region (Canada) 166–71, 167, 170, 174 Freire, Paulo 67, 68 Freudenburg, W. R. 3 Friends Committee on Unity with Nature (FCUN), later QEW: emotional connection 64, 66, 76n2; identity and place 61–2, 71–2, 72–4, 75 Fundy region (Canada) 166–71, 167, 169

Index 227 Gabriel Resources (GR) 210, 212–13, 215 Gallup, G. G. 130 Garfinkel, H. 180, 189n3 Gecas, V. 104–5 generation X 111 Germany 143, 145 ghosts 118, 122–4, 219 Giddens, A. 61, 64, 70, 207 GISS (Goddard Institute for Space Studies) 117 global environmental problems 5, 28–9 global warming 117, 186 Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) 117 Goffman, E.: human-canine practices 143–5, 146–7, 154, 156–7; politics of possession 123; theoretical background 3–5, 10; waste disposal 162, 172–5 gold mining 11, 126, 208, 215 GR (Gabriel Resources) 210, 212–13, 215 grass-roots change 81, 90 Grazian, D. 19 Great Spirit 121 green home owners 8, 81, 83, 85–7, 88 green lifestyles 8–9, 82, 83–5, 87–91, 93, 94 green religion 86 Gregson, N. 164, 172, 174 Grenadier Island (Canada) 122 greywater harvesting technology 200–2, 203 Griesemer, J. R. 192–3 Haidt, J. 25 Hannigan, J. 34, 130 Harrison, P. 51–2 hazardous waste 161, 163, 164, 166–7, 174 holiness 123 Holmberg, T. 145 Holt, D. B. 84 household waste see trash Howenstine, Bill 71, 72–4 Hubble Extreme Deep Field 25 human-canine practices 145–8, 146 human-nature relationships 17, 18, 27

humpback whales 36–8, 39–42, 42–4, 46n4 Husserl, E. 179, 181 hybrid vehicles 88, 117 hydraulic fracturing (fracking) 11, 178, 184, 186 idealization of performance 147 ignorance 144, 146, 147–8, 157n6, 180 impression management 10, 19, 172, 175, 200; see also dramaturgy; performances individual agency 144, 207 individualization 83–5 Ingold, T. 50 intentionality 183–4, 187 interaction ritual chains theory (Collins) 4, 6, 8, 27, 65 interactionism 2–3, 4, 6, 98–102 interactions with nature 19 inverted quarantines 84, 85, 94 Jackson, P. 152 Jacobsen, M. 174 James, W. 182, 185, 189n2 Japan 8, 52, 54, 56–7 Joas, H. 102 Kellert, S. R. 17 Keltner, D. 25 killer whales see orcas Knight, J. 56 Kriebel, Ann: collaborative social spaces 67–70, 69; emotional connection 64, 65, 75; environmental activism 8, 62; transnational contexts 70–3; see also Ann Kriebel Project labor theory of property (Locke) 124, 127n3 land scarcity 69, 71 land trusts 62, 72–4 landholders see parceleros language: body language 65; etymology 125; more-than-human environmental sociology 9, 128, 130–1, 131–2, 134, 136–7; negotiations 201; phenomenology 179, 182; waste disposal 168

228  Index Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program 86–7, 88 Learning Alliance: asymmetrical boundary objects 202–4; boundary objects 200–2; collaborating with industry 195–6; compromised negotiations 193–4; controlling time and information 196–8; failed boundary objects 198–9, 199–200 Lederach, J. P. 107 LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program 86–7, 88 Leitz, L. 65 lifestyle changes: activism 8–9, 81–3, 87–9, 89–91; individualization or collective action 83–5; pragmatist action theory 91–3, 94 lighting costs 198–9 literacy projects 67, 68 lived experiences 53, 181, 182, 183, 194 Lobo, Gilberth (landholder) 61, 63–4, 67, 72, 77n17 Locke, J. 124, 127n3 Lorimer, H. 49–50 Luckman, T. 162, 165, 168, 180 Luhmann, N. 208 Lund, K. 54 MacCannell, D. 33 Maines, D. 202 mammals 132, 135, 136 managing expectations 42–4 Mancus, P. 128 Maniates, M. 85 marine ecosystems 32–3, 36, 44 markers 33–4, 193 Martinez Alier, J. 209 Marxism 1, 3, 104, 125, 127n4, 129 McDonald, N. C. 111–12 McDonald, S. 173 Mead, G. H.: influences on contemporary theorists 3–4, 9; interactionism 98–102; selfauthenticity 104–5; selfhood beyond language 130–1, 131–2, 136; social psychology as moral discipline 102–3, 106–7, 108, 113–14

measurements as translation devices 18, 19, 20, 22–4, 27, 29 mediating relationships: with the cosmos 8, 18–19, 24–7, 27–9; environmental problems 182; waste disposal 10–11, 162, 175, 176 memory 123, 132, 135–6, 136–7, 219 meta-environmental microsociological theory 98, 114; see also environmental microsociological theory micro-environmental sociology 121, 127 micro-processes 107, 218 micro-social decision-making 214 micropolitics 83, 87, 89–91, 94 Millennial Advisory Committee, Andrew Goodman Foundation 109–10, 113 millennial generation 9, 108–13, 113–14 Mineralogical History (Reichenstein) 212 mirror self-recognition 130, 137 mobility patterns 217 Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve (MCFP) 8, 61–2, 63, 67, 70–1 Monteverde (town) 61, 62, 63, 67, 70–1, 72–5 morality 98, 102–4, 105, 107, 108–13, 113–14 more-than-human environmental sociology 12, 129, 137 Mount Fuji 8, 48, 52–7, 57–8 municipal solid waste (MSW) 161–2, 165–72, 169–71, 172–5, 176 Murphy, R. 1, 216 narration, whale-watching: expert narration 35, 40; live narration 33–4, 45n2, 46n7; managing the experience 36–8, 42, 44–5 nature brokering 19, 20, 27 nature tourism: spectacle 39–42, 42–4; whale-watching experience 32–3, 33–4, 36–8; whale-watching narration 34–5, 44–5 new moralities 103, 108 New Zealand 56 non-domesticated animals 129 non-knowledge 10, 144, 147–8, 151–3, 156–7, 157n6; see also active

Index 229 non-knowledge; passive non-knowledge non-mammalian species 136 non-profit organizations 35, 72–4, 86, 89 non-representational theory 6, 49–52, 52–7, 57–9 Oates, C. 173 Olsen, T. D. 209 ontology 7, 10, 81, 107, 180–1, 187 open pit mines 210, 212–13 orcas (killer whales) 32, 130 Ormrod, J. S. 27 oxygen 53, 55, 57 pagan animism 125–6 paganism 125–7 Palmer, P. 71 paradigms 2, 6, 107, 128, 192 parceleros (landholders) 62, 72–4, 76, 77n15 participant observation 20, 44, 62, 81, 85–6, 194–5 passive non-knowledge 151–3, 157 path-dependency 211, 220 payback periods 199, 201 performances: human-canine practices 147, 149, 151, 153, 156; nature tourism 32; non-representational theory 49–50, 58; waste disposal 162, 167, 172–5, 176; see also dramaturgy; impression management Pew Research Center 109–10, 112 phenomenology 178–89; and environmental problems 178–9, 186–7, 187–8; household waste 162–5, 176; micro-theoretical perspectives 10–11; nonrepresentational theory 49; sociology of the environment 180–2, 182–6 Phenomenology of the Social World, The (Schutz) 180 photographic identification 38 planetariums 7, 17–18, 18–19, 19–20, 20–7, 27–9 political micro-environmental sociology 127

political standing 118–19, 121, 123 poop on display 143, 154–5, 156 poop scooping see scooping poop Portugal 143, 149–50, 150, 152 practice theory 10, 82, 144–5, 146–7 pragmatism: green lifestyles and micropolitics 91–2, 93–4; interactionism 103, 104–6, 106–7, 110; non-representational theory 49; phenomenology 81–3, 181, 186; politics of possession 127; pragmatist action theory 8–9 pragmatist action theory 8–9, 81–2, 83, 91–3, 94 prefigurative communities 84, 85 presences 118, 121, 126 problem situations 82, 91–2, 93, 94 Proudhon, P.- J. 119 public attitudes to excrement 148–51, 150 Pyle, R. M. 17, 27 Quaker Earthcare Witness (QEW), formerly FCUN 62, 72–4, 75 Quakers (Religious Society of Friends) Ann Kriebel 67–8, 70; emotional connection 65–7, 76nn2&7; Finca La Bella (FLB) 61–2, 72–4, 75–6; Monteverde community 63–4; transnational contexts 70–2 quakes see earthquakes rationalizations 206, 211–12, 214–15, 215–16, 217, 219–20 recycling waste: compromised negotiations 200; phenomenology 163–4; social constructionism 10, 161–2, 166–71, 172–5, 176 Reichenstein, M. von 212 reification 165 relational view 50–1, 53, 57, 124, 153 relevance 5, 10–11, 113, 183–4, 186, 187 religious environmentalists 8, 81, 83, 85–6, 92 research centers 35, 36, 109–10, 112 rituals: earthcare and social justice 65; human-canine practices 154; interaction ritual chains theory 4, 6,

230  Index 8, 27; interactionism 128; nonrepresentational theory 51, 53; politics of possession 119, 120–1, 123; waste disposal 173; see also interaction ritual chains theory (Collins) RMGC (Rosia Montanã Gold Corporation) 213, 217 Roman era 212, 214 Romania 206, 210, 212–14, 215, 219 Rosia Montanã Gold Corporation (RMGC) 213, 217 Rosia Montanã project (Romania) 11; background 206, 208, 210–11; the conflict 211–12, 212–15; rationalizations 215–16, 218–20; uncertainty 216–18, 218 routine sightings, whale-watching 36–8, 40 Sanders, C. R. 133 scales of measurement: translation 7, 27, 29; unfamiliar 18, 19, 20, 23 Schor, J. 163 Schutz, A. 178–9, 180–2, 183, 186, 189nn2&3, 189nn6&7 scooping poop 148–9, 151–4, 153, 154–5, 155 Scotland 54 Sea World 32, 34, 37 selective constructions 215–16 self-authenticity 104–6, 111, 113 self-awareness in animals 130 self-environment relationships 106–8 self-history 9, 132, 135–6 selfhood 9–10, 129–31, 131–2, 136–7 Selznick, P. 102 sensory experiences 7, 19, 20–2, 27 serial action 83, 91, 93 shared emotional energy 27 Shinjuku (Japan) 52, 55 Shove, E. et al. 147 shrines 123–4 signifiers 33 Silver, D. 93 Simmel, G. 75 Smith, G. 173 social actors: animal selfhood 129; compromised negotiations 192,

194; emotional connection 64, 75; environmental conflicts 208, 209; interactionism 99–100, 108; mediating relationships 19, 34; phenomenology 178, 181 social change: ecological identities 9; green lifestyles and micropolitics 81, 83, 85, 91, 94; human-canine practices 147; interactionism 105, 107, 108–10, 112, 113–14; Quakers 62, 64–5, 67–8, 76; social constructionism 165 Social Change Manifesto (Millennial Advisory Committee) 109–10 Social Construction of Reality, The (Berger & Luckman) 165 social constructionism: backgrounds 3, 7, 10; household waste 162, 165–72, 169–71, 176; more-than-human environmental sociology 129, 137; nature tourism 34–5; nonrepresentational theory 57 social interactions: Finca La Bella (FLB) project 61–2, 63, 65, 71, 75; human-canine practices 144, 157n2; mediating awe 26; political standing 123; self and identity 98, 100, 107 social justice 62, 67, 68, 76, 77n13 social life processes 99, 99–100, 103, 108–10, 113, 114 social mediation 10, 176, 182 social moralities 107 social networks 64, 68, 82, 87, 94 social play 133 social psychology 102–4, 106, 108, 113–14, 192–204, 209 social worlds: boundary objects 11; compromised negotiations 192–4, 202–3; phenomenology 178, 180; and self 99, 99–101, 108; waste disposal 165 society’s sustainability 106–8 socio-ecological experiments 61, 66, 71, 73–4, 76, 111 sociological determinism 207 sociology of emotions framework 8, 61, 64–5, 74–5 sociology of ignorance 144, 146

Index 231 sociology of presence 121 solar system exhibits 20–1, 22–4, 28 Solnit, R. 112 South Africa 124, 125, 126 Southeast region (Canada) 166–71, 167 Space Visualization Laboratory 22–3, 25 Spectacular Nature (Davis) 32 spectacular sights 32–3, 34–5, 39–42, 42–4, 45 stage setting 157 Star, S. 192–3 station facilities 52–3, 54–6 Steel Inc: asymmetrical boundary objects 202–4; boundary objects 200–2; collaborating 195–6; compromised negotiations 193–4; controlling time and information 196–8; failed boundary objects 198–9, 199–200 stellar winds 21 Stickel, G. W. 3 Strauss, A. 203 structural change 84, 114, 165 struggle for land 65, 66–7 Summers-Effler, E. 65 sustainable lifestyles 82–3, 87, 94 synthesis of experience 182, 185–6, 187–8 taken-for-grantedness 58, 119, 186, 187, 188 Tar Island (Canada) 122 Taylor, V. 65 technologically driven social interactions 107 technologies: compromised negotiations 195, 197, 200–2, 203; environmental conflicts 207, 213; fracking (hydraulic fracturing) 178; green lifestyles and micropolitics 85; interactionism 99, 107, 109–10, 113; mediating relationships 21–2, 25; non-representational theory 49–50; politics of possession 117 Texas (US) 178, 180, 182, 183, 185–6, 187 Thomas, W. 127 Thomashow, M. 102 Thompson, E. T. 212 Thousand Islands (Canada) 121–4 three-dimensional models 22, 24, 28

Thrift, N. 49, 50 tourist attractions 33, 219 Tourist, The (MacCannell) 33 trading rituals 120–1 trail stations 52–3, 54–6 transitions 41, 81–3, 91–2, 94, 111, 113 translation of cosmic scales 23–4, 29 transnational contexts: earthcare and social justice 61–2, 64, 70–2; emotional connection 65–6, 75; environmental conflicts 209, 220 trash 10, 161–2, 162–5, 165–72, 172–5, 176 Tsing, A. L. 208 typifications 184, 185–6, 187–8 uncertainty: lifestyle change 87, 108; non-representational theory 50; Rosia Montanã project (Romania) 11, 210, 211–12, 216–18, 218; whale-watching narration 37 United States see US (United States) United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) 161 unsettled lives 91–2 urban agriculture 98, 111–13 urban guerrilla action 112 US (United States): compromised negotiations 193; environmental conflicts 206; Finca La Bella (FLB) project 61–2, 62–3, 67, 72–3; green lifestyles and micropolitics 81, 83, 86–7; household pets 128; mediating relationships 23; millennial generation 108–10, 112; phenomenology 180, 186; waste disposal 161; wilderness movement 59 USEPA (United States Environmental Protection Agency) 161 values, changing 83, 91, 93 Vargas, Eugenio 67–9, 71, 72–3, 77n17 Veal, A. J. 83 virtual objects 22 visitor-employee interactions 18 visualizations 22–3, 25 voluntary simplifiers, 8, 81, 83, 84, 85–6, 89–90

232  Index Walkowicz, L. 28 waste treatment 199–200 wayfinding 51, 54 weather prediction 117 Weber, M. 1–2, 3, 125, 180, 189n7 Weigert, A. J. 4, 9, 66, 99, 101 West Coast Trail (Canada) 8, 48, 52, 53–6, 58 whale watching: contextualizing experiences 44–5; managing expectations 8, 42–4; methods 35, 46nn3&4; nature tourism 33–4; sightings 36–8, 39–42 Whittier, N. 65 wild animals 9–10, 34, 36, 129, 133–5, 137

wild selves 137–8 wilderness 48, 55–6, 58–9 women: Finca La Bella (FLB) project 63, 67–9, 76n10; human-canine practices 151; more-than-human environmental sociology 134; waste disposal 165, 173 worldviews 209 Worldwide Telescope interface 26 York, R. 128 Zavestoski, S. 9, 101