An Introduction to Sustainability: Environmental, Social and Personal Perspectives by Martin Mulligan

Author:Martin Mulligan
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781138698307
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-11-20T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Personal dimensions of sustainability

Key concepts and concerns

■ personal resilience

■ taking and sustaining action

■ from individual sense-making to collective endeavour

■ opportunities in the ‘digital age’

■ communities of practice

■ arguments for hope

■ entering a new era in the history of humanity

Introduction

Throughout this book there is an emphasis on what individuals can do to respond to big global sustainability challenges and the personal benefits that may come from participating actively in the global movement for sustainable living. This orientation is facilitated by the Social Ecology model for sustainability, which brings the ‘personal’ dimension into play. The challenge to live more sustainably confronts every person on Planet Earth. It is not something we can leave to ‘experts’ or governments or society at large. Clearly there is a critical role for expert knowledge and for policies and systems that encourage, enable and enhance individual action. However, in suggesting, rather provocatively, that society as we have known it is dead, Nikolas Rose (1996) has argued that it has become critically important for individuals to create the communities that can give each of us a sense of belonging and purpose and this suggests that the construction of society begins with individuals rather than the society shaping the emergence of mature individuals. At the same time, every individual has a personal relationship with the non-human, ecological, systems that make life possible. The Social Ecology model encourages us to examine the categories of ‘environmental’ and ‘social’ from the perspective of individual responsibility and action.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.