Pro-environmental interaction: Engaging Goffman on pro-environmental behaviour change

Arbeitspapier

Reductions in the environmental impacts of everyday life are increasingly accepted as a crucial part of any transition to a sustainable economy. Despite profound differences in how it should be achieved, the vast majority of recent research on such pro-environmental action recognises that it poses a fundamentally social challenge - demanding shifts not merely in individuals' attitudes and behaviours, but also in social norms, contexts and practices. Despite this general acceptance of the social nature of the problem, however, to date there has been very little attention paid to perhaps the most basic social medium: social interaction. To address this gap, the paper applies some of Erving Goffman's concepts to an ethnographic case study of a pro-environmental change initiative called Environment Champions. The analysis reveals how interaction processes can both help and hinder the spread of pro-environmental acts, and thus calls for them to be given further attention in future research.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: CSERGE Working Paper ; No. 2011-04

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft
• Subject: pro-environmental behaviour change ; social interaction ; Erving Goffman ; ethnography ; conspicuous environmentalism ; banal environmentalism

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Hargreaves, Tom
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): University of East Anglia, The Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment (CSERGE)
• (where): Norwich
• (when): 2011

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/48804
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET