The Greening of Everyday Life Challenging Practices, Imagining Possibilities

The Greening of Everyday Life develops a distinctive new way of talking about environmental concerns in post-industrial society. It brings together several conceptual frameworks with a diversity of case studies and practical examples of efforts to orient everyday material practices toward greater sustainability. The volume builds upon internal criticisms of dominant strands of contemporary environmentalism in post-industrial societies, and develops a new approach which emerges from a number of disciplines, but is unified by a normative concern for the material objects and practices familiar to members of societies in their everyday lives. In exploring alternatives, the chapter authors utilize conceptual frameworks rooted in environmental justice, new materialism, and social practice theory and apply it to the everyday; attention to urban biodiversity, infrastructure for storm water run-off, green home remodelling, household toxicity, community gardens and farmers markets, bicycling and automobility, alternative technologies, and more. With contributions from leading international and emerging scholars, this volume critically explores specific strategies and actions taken to generate homes, communities, and livelihoods that might be scaled-up to promote more sustainable societies.

John M. Meyer is Professor in the Department of Politics and in the programs on Environmental Studies and Environment and Community at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California. He is the author, most recently, of Engaging the Everyday: Environmental Social Criticism and the Resonance Dilemma (MIT Press, 2015) and the co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Political Theory (Oxford, 2015). His work lies at the intersection of Environmental Politics and Political Theory. Jens Kersten is Chair of Public Law and Governance at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich. His research focuses on Constitutional and Administrative Law, Bioethics and Law, Environmental and Planning Law, and Legal Theory.