Table Of ContentSustainable Consumption
and the Good Life
What does it mean to live a good life in a time when the planet is overheating,
the human population continues to steadily reach new peaks, oceans are turning
more acidic, and fertile soils the world over are eroding at unprecedented rates?
These and other simultaneous harms and threats demand creative responses at
several levels of consideration and action.
Written by an international team of contributors, this book examines in-depth
the relationship between sustainability and the good life. Drawing on a wealth of
theories, from social practice theory to architecture and design theory, and dis-
ciplines, such as anthropology and environmental philosophy, this book promotes
participatory action-research-based approaches to encourage sustainability and
wellbeing at local levels. It covers topical issues such as the politics of prosperity,
globalization, and indigenous notions of “the good life” and “happiness”. Finally,
it places a strong emphasis on food at the heart of the sustainability and good life
debate, for instance binding the global south to the north through import and
exports, or linking everyday lives to ideals within the dream of the good life, with
cookbooks and shows.
This interdisciplinary book provides invaluable insights for researchers and
postgraduate students interested in the contribution of the environmental
humanities to the sustainability debate.
Karen Lykke Syseis Associate Professor at the Centre for Development and the
Environment, University of Oslo, Norway.
Martin Lee Muelleris a Research Fellow at the Centre for Development and the
Environment, University of Oslo, Norway.
Routledge Environmental Humanities
Series editors: Iain McCalman and Libby Robin
Editorial Board
Christina Alt, St Andrews University, UK
Alison Bashford, University of Cambridge, UK
Peter Coates, University of Bristol, UK
Thom van Dooren, University of New South Wales, Australia
Georgina Endfield, University of Nottingham, UK
Jodi Frawley, University of Sydney, Australia
Andrea Gaynor, University of Western Australia, Australia
Tom Lynch, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, US
Jennifer Newell, American Museum of Natural History, New York, US
Simon Pooley, Imperial College London, UK
Sandra Swart, Stellenbosch University, South Africa
Ann Waltner, University of Minnesota, US
Paul Warde, University of East Anglia, UK
Jessica Weir, University of Western Sydney, Australia
International Advisory Board
William Beinart, University of Oxford, UK
Sarah Buie, Clark University, US
Jane Carruthers, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa
Dipesh Chakrabarty, University of Chicago, US
Paul Holm, Trinity College, Dublin, Republic of Ireland
Shen Hou, Renmin University of China, Beijing
Rob Nixon, University of Wisconsin-Madison, US
Pauline Phemister, Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University
of Edinburgh, UK
Deborah Bird Rose, University of New South Wales, Australia
Sverker Sorlin, KTH Environmental Humanities Laboratory, Royal Institute of
Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
Helmuth Trischler, Deutsches Museum, Munich and Co-Director, Rachel
Carson Centre, LMU Munich University, Germany
Mary Evelyn Tucker, Yale University, US
Kirsten Wehner,Head Curator, People and the Environment, National Museum
of Australia
TheRoutledge Environmental Humanities series is an original and inspiring venture
recognising that today’s world agricultural and water crises, ocean pollution and
resource depletion, global warming from greenhouse gases, urban sprawl, over-
population, food insecurity and environmental justice are all crises of culture.
The reality of understanding and finding adaptive solutions to our present and
future environmental challenges has shifted the epicentre of environmental
studies away from an exclusively scientific and technological framework to one
that depends on the human-focused disciplines and ideas of the humanities and
allied social sciences.
We thus welcome book proposals from all humanities and social sciences
disciplines for an inclusive and interdisciplinary series. We favour manuscripts
aimed at an international readership and written in a lively and accessible style.
The readership comprises scholars and students from the humanities and social
sciences and thoughtful readers concerned about the human dimensions of
environmental change.
Rethinking Invasion Ecologies from the Environmental Humanities
Jodi Frawley and Iain McCalman
The Broken Promise of Agricultural Progress
An environmental history
Cameron Muir
The Biosphere and the Bioregion
Essential writings of Peter Berg
Cheryll Glotfelty and Eve Quesnel
Sustainable Consumption and the Good Life
Interdisciplinary perspectives
Edited by Karen Lykke Syse and Martin Lee Mueller
‘Unlimited growth has not only damaged the biosphere, but also disrupted soli-
darity and cohesion within and between human groups. Sustainable Consumption
and the Good Lifepresents and questions various adaptations to the environmental
crises. The book is timely as it challenges and reframes issues of consumption and
well-being to meet the demands of an overheating planet.’
Peder Anker, New York University, USA
‘Living well is an aspiration freighted with environmental, economic and ethical
import. It pulses through contemporary society, just as it did the ancient world.
In this book, affirmative responses are found to critical questions about new
designs for life, always mindful of twenty-first century challenges. It gives us
insights into how consumptive habits can become more just and wise, as well as
answerable to needs and relations scaled from the personal to the planetary.
In these pages, our own reckoning is identified as the means for a powerful
reawakening.’
Hayden Lorimer, University of Glasgow, UK
Sustainable Consumption
and the Good Life
Interdisciplinary perspectives
Edited by
Karen Lykke Syse and
Martin Lee Mueller
First published 2015
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
© 2015 Karen Lykke Syse and Martin Lee Mueller
The right of the editors 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: 978-1-138-01300-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-79552-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Goudy
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Contents
List of figures and tables ix
List of contributors xi
Introduction 1
KAREN LYKKE SYSE AND MARTIN LEE MUELLER
1 Enough is enough? Re-imagining an ethics and aesthetics
of sustainability for the twenty-first century 7
LAWRENCE BUELL
2 The essayistic spirit of Utopia 27
THORUNN GULLAKSEN ENDRESON
3 Towards a sustainable flourishing: democracy, hedonism
and the politics of prosperity 43
KATE SOPER
4 Is the good life sustainable? A three-decade study of values,
happiness and sustainability in Norway 55
OTTAR HELLEVIK
5 Well-being and environmental responsibility 80
BENGT BRÜLDE
6 The problem of habits for a sustainable transformation 100
HAROLD WILHITE
7 Well-being in sustainability transitions: making use of needs 111
FELIX RAUSCHMAYER AND INES OMANN
viii Contents
8 Human needs and the environment reconciled: participatory
action-research for sustainable development in Peru 126
MÒNICA GUILLEN-ROYO
9 On the good life and rising electricity consumption in rural
Zanzibar 146
TANJA WINTHER
10 Celebrity chefs, ethical food consumption and the good life 165
KAREN LYKKE SYSE
11 Follow the food: how eating and drinking shape our cities 183
JESPER PAGH
12 Caged welfare: evading the good life for egg-laying hens 204
KRISTIAN BJØRKDAHL
13 Being salmon, being human: notes on an ecological turn
in the modern narrative tradition 224
MARTIN LEE MUELLER
14 Afterword: beyond the paradox of the big, bad wolf 244
THOMAS HYLLAND ERIKSEN
Index 257
List of figures and tables
Figures
4.1 Values and value dimensions of the Norwegian Monitor 57
4.2 Position on the materialism–idealism dimension and choice
between five wishes one would most like to have fulfilled (per cent;
NM 2003–2011 combined) 58
4.3 Dimensions of value preferences as discussed by Inglehart, Flanagan,
Schwartz and Hellevik 60
4.4 Position on the materialism–idealism value dimension and
subjective well-being (per cent; NM 2003–2011) 61
4.5 Position on the materialism–idealism dimension and actual versus
perceived necessary income (in NKr 1,000; NM 2003–2011) 62
4.6 Position on the materialism–idealism dimension and attitude
towards Norwegian aid to developing countries (per cent; NM
2003–2011) 64
4.7 Trend for the materialism–idealism dimension (per cent deciles
distribution and average deciles score times 10; NM 1985–2011) 67
4.8 Trends for selected value indexes (transformed to vary 0–100;
NM 1985–2011) 68
4.9 Trends in subjective well-being (level of happiness and level of
satisfaction; NM 1985–2011) 69
4.10 Trends in average actual and perceived necessary income (in
NKr 1,000; NM 2001–2011) 70
4.11 Trends in subjective economic situation (percentages; NM
1985–2011) 70
4.12 Trends in environmental attitudes and behaviour (percentages;
NM 1989–2011) 71
4.13 Percentage agreeing to the statement: “We should solve the
problems in our own country before spending money on helping
other countries” (NM 1985–2011) 72
4.14 Trends in civic attitudes (percentages; NM 1985–2011) 72
7.1 Sustainable human flourishing 115
