Transformation and the psychosocial:

biographies of attachment & energy

practicesChristopher Groves, Catherine Butler, Karen Henwood, Karen Parkhill, Nick Pidgeon and Fiona Shirani

Energy Biographies Project

School of Social Sciences

Cardiff University

http://energybiographies.org

Energy Biographies: theoretical

background

• Practice theory1 as critique of methodological individualism

• Social change not caused by independent variables

• Instead, is patterned but also non-linear product of interactions or range of elements

Practice

Compe-tences

Infra-structuresMeanings

1. Shove, E., M. Pantzar and M. Watson (2012). The Dynamics of Social

Practice: Everyday Life and how it Changes. London, SAGE Publications.

Individual actors

practices

How is practice related to agency?

• Practices constrain/enable agency

• Individuals may introduce variation into practices

• Recruitment to/defection from practices related to ‘internal rewards’ (Shove, Pantzar & Watson, 2012: p. 75)

▫ i.e. intrinsic value of practice, such as wider meaning of participation etc.

Patterned practices,

patterned individuals

ATTACHMENTS

‘Transformative moments’

• Sarah Hards1,2 makes a case for narrative approach to understanding practice recruitment/defection in relation to changing values

• Changes in practices may sometimes be shaped by emotional investments in ideals (e.g. taking up pro-environmental practices)

1. Hards, S. (2011). "Social Practice and the Evolution of Personal Environmental Values." Environmental Values 20(1):

23-42.

2. Hards, S. (2012). "Tales of transformation: The potential of a narrative approach to pro-environmental practices."

Geoforum 43(4): 760-771.

• A psychosocial approach is alive to how biographically patterned emotional investments may

▫ promote…

▫ …or block

practice recruitment/defection

• Example: practice of commuter cycling

‘Biographies of attachment’

• Attachment theory

▫ patterning of individual biographies by emotional investments

▫ Do specific patterns of attachment make certain internal rewards more attractive?

• Liminality

▫ patterning of lifecourse transitions typical of a given society

• Key question: how do changing patterns of attachment create/block potential for change in practices?

Attachment: identity & self-efficacy

• From infancy, attachment relationships are constitutive of self and world

• A sense of how the world should be and how the individual can influence it

• Tames uncertainty about the future by building mutual expectations

Patterns of attachment

• Individuals experience and live with attachment in different, biographically-patterned ways (‘styles of attachment)

• Patterns evolve in response to experiences of vulnerability and attachment loss▫ Loss may traumatically disrupt identity

▫ Subsequent reconstruction of identity needed1

• Internal rewards of practices may lie in how they confirm the value of these patterns for maintaining identity

1. Nussbaum, M. C. (2001). Upheavals of thought: the intelligence of emotions. Cambridge, Cambridge University

Press.

Liminal and liminoid1

• Liminal: ▫ traditional and post-traditional

▫ obligatory transitions between social categories, transforming individual identity (e.g. marriage, end of childhood –retirement)

▫ Managed through rituals for breaking/reforming attachments and initiating into new practices

1. Turner, V. (1974). "Liminal to liminoid in play, flow and ritual: an essay in comparative symbolology." Rice

University Studies 60(3): 53-92.

• Liminoid:

▫ post-traditional

▫ voluntary,

▫ involve reflexivity towards identity and towards social identity categories

Through transition to re-

integration

Pre-liminalLiminal/ Liminoid

state

Re-integration

Breaking of attachment

Re-forming attachment/

creating identity

‘Biographies of attachment’

• Change in practices may reflect social patterning of biographical transitions

• But change (especially in liminoid transitions) may be shaped by individual biographies of attachment

• Internal rewards of practices may reflect unspoken attachments and dimensions of identity (felt perhaps to be shameful, etc.)

• Narrative methods can explore these ‘evasive’ dimensions1

1. Parkhill, K. A., K. L. Henwood, N. F. Pidgeon and P. Simmons (2011). "Laughing it off? Humour, affect and emotion work in communities living with nuclear risk." The British Journal of Sociology 62(2): 324-346.

The Energy Biographies project

• Four sites (West Wales, Royal Free Hospital, Cardiff x 2)

• 68 first round narrative interviews, 36 2nd and 3rd round

Longitudinal narrative interview approach

• Alongside 2nd and 3rd round interviews

• Text message-prompted photo task• Film clips on ‘energy and the future’

Multimodal methods

Example: ‘Lucy’, Peterston-super-

Ely (NW of Cardiff)

• Peterston is an affluent village community on the outskirts of Cardiff.

• Lucy moved to Peterstonwith her partner and 2 children from London

• She and her partner have family roots in South Wales

Burning wood to ‘make’ the room

“[…] we’ve put massive radiators in our new house cos its really Victorian, tall ceilings, and so we just don’t need a wood burner to be on at any point but actually it’ll sort of make the room and the you know that kind of thing but and how expensive wood is actually as well so all a bit about I guess how much wood we’re using.”

(Interview 2)

Hosting and conviviality

“[…] so big Saturday dinner and a few bottles of wine and big Sunday lunch and stuff like that so. But yeah because a lot of people are coming from London or that kind of area, we tend to like you know go to the beach or go to a big park or go to the woods or you know do the kind of country stuff as we're here, sort of thing so, yeah.”

(Interview 1)

‘Heating the outdoors’

“So this is, look this is our very bad but we love cos these are like, there you go look it hasn’t been used since then I imagine but these are our, we do love our patio heater when it’s a sunny evening but it gets a bit cold and dark and you can sit out and they’re like probably the worst things aren’t they?But we love it well we only use it about five times a year so it’s OK”

(Interview 2)

‘Heating the outdoors’“Cos we love being outside, we just love that you can you know go, we were sitting out there one evening I can’t remember when it would have been, with friends, and it was like midnight and you could have a drink outside still and it’s so lovely here cos it’s so quiet and everything so but you wouldn’t have been able to do it without that so or you would have been freezing. So that’s our kind of, we know it’s really bad but we’re still going to use it ”

(Interview 2)

Insights

• Liminal/liminoid transitions can motivate ‘first encounters’ with new practices

• ‘Internal rewards’ derive from interaction between patterns of attachment and practices

• Rewards can become constitutive of identity, even if ‘shaming’, and compel ongoing participation in practice

Thanks for your attention

Energy Biographies Project

School of Social Sciences

Cardiff University

http://energybiographies.org