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Citizen-Consumers as Agents of Change in Globalizing Modernity: The Case of Sustainable Consumption

Author

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  • Gert Spaargaren

    (Environmental Policy Group, Wageningen University, P.O. Box 8130, Hollandseweg 1, 6706 KN Wageningen, The Netherlands)

  • Peter Oosterveer

    (Environmental Policy Group, Wageningen University, P.O. Box 8130, Hollandseweg 1, 6706 KN Wageningen, The Netherlands)

Abstract

The roles that individuals can adopt, or get assigned, in processes of global environmental change, can be analyzed with the help of three ideal-type forms of commitment: as environmental citizens, as political consumers, and as individual moral agents. We offer a discussion of the three roles in the context of sustainability changes in everyday life practices of consumption. Sociological accounts of (sustainability) transitions are discussed with respect to their treatment of the concept of agency vis à vis the objects, technologies, and infrastructures implied in globalizing consumption practices. Using consumption practices as basic units of analysis helps to avoid individualist and privatized accounts of the role of citizen-consumers in environmental change, while making possible a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between the personal and the planetary in the process of greening everyday life consumption.

Suggested Citation

  • Gert Spaargaren & Peter Oosterveer, 2010. "Citizen-Consumers as Agents of Change in Globalizing Modernity: The Case of Sustainable Consumption," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 2(7), pages 1-22, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:2:y:2010:i:7:p:1887-1908:d:8831
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Elizabeth Shove & Gordon Walker, 2007. "Caution! Transitions Ahead: Politics, Practice, and Sustainable Transition Management," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 39(4), pages 763-770, April.
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