Interventions in practices: Sustainable mobility policies in England

N Spurling, A McMeekin - Social practices, intervention and …, 2014 - taylorfrancis.com
Social practices, intervention and sustainability, 2014taylorfrancis.com
This chapter explores two questions:'how can social theories of practice contribute to
understanding the prospects of intervening in the sustainability of everyday life?'and 'how
would policy intervention be different from current approaches, if it was conceived of–or
reframed as–intervention in practice?'In order to tackle these questions we take some of the
central ideas from Shove et al.'s (2012) Dynamics of Social Practice and consider their
relevance to sustainable transport policy in England. Our starting point is that common …
This chapter explores two questions: ‘how can social theories of practice contribute to understanding the prospects of intervening in the sustainability of everyday life?’ and ‘how would policy intervention be different from current approaches, if it was conceived of – or reframed as – intervention in practice?’ In order to tackle these questions we take some of the central ideas from Shove et al.’s (2012) Dynamics of Social Practice and consider their relevance to sustainable transport policy in England. Our starting point is that common intervention framings of ‘technology fix’ and ‘shifting consumer choices’ are both underpinned by particular understandings of the problem, of how change happens, and of possible solutions (McMeekin and Southerton 2012, p. 346). The alternative change mechanisms that practice theory provides offer new ways of conceptualising the sustainability challenge. The intervention framings we explore in this chapter are ‘recrafting practices’, ‘substituting practices’ and ‘changing how practices interlock’. We suggest that these framings open up new ‘sites’ for policy intervention (Spurling et al. 2013). We illustrate the form that such ‘interventions-in-practice’ might take, by drawing on examples of direct and indirect1 sustainable mobility-related policy interventions in England.
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