The Greening of Everyday Life Challenging Practices, Imagining Possibilities

The Greening of Everyday Life develops a distinctive new way of talking about environmental concerns in post-industrial society. It brings together several conceptual frameworks with a diversity of case studies and practical examples of efforts to orient everyday material practices toward greater sustainability. The volume builds upon internal criticisms of dominant strands of contemporary environmentalism in post-industrial societies, and develops a new approach which emerges from a number of disciplines, but is unified by a normative concern for the material objects and practices familiar to members of societies in their everyday lives. In exploring alternatives, the chapter authors utilize conceptual frameworks rooted in environmental justice, new materialism, and social practice theory and apply it to the everyday; attention to urban biodiversity, infrastructure for storm water run-off, green home remodelling, household toxicity, community gardens and farmers markets, bicycling and automobility, alternative technologies, and more.

With contributions from leading international and emerging scholars, this volume critically explores specific strategies and actions taken to generate homes, communities, and livelihoods that might be scaled-up to promote more sustainable societies.

John M. Meyer is Professor in the Department of Politics and in the programs on Environmental Studies and Environment and Community at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California. He is the author, most recently, of Engaging the Everyday: Environmental Social Criticism and the Resonance Dilemma (MIT Press, 2015) and the co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Political Theory (Oxford, 2015). His work lies at the intersection of Environmental Politics and Political Theory.


Jens Kersten is Chair of Public Law and Governance at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich. His research focuses on Constitutional and Administrative Law, Bioethics and Law, Environmental and Planning Law, and Legal Theory.

Introduction: Environmentalism and Everyday Life, John M. Meyer and Jens Kersten
I. Concepts and Movements
1. The New Environmentalism of Everyday Life: Sustainability, Material Flows, and Movements, David Schlosberg and Romand Coles
2. Just Another Brick in the Toilet: 50 Simple Things That You Can Do to Save the Earth and the Riddle of Green Consumer Culture, Andrew N. Case
II. Household
3. The Household as Infrastructure: Porosity, Sustainability and Material Practices of Everyday Environmentalism, Fiona Allon
4. Homemaking Practices of Provision and Maintenance: Implications for Environmental Action, Cecily J. Maller
5. The Everyday Toxicity of the 'Average' North American Home, Teena Gabrielson
6. Household Maintenance and the Environmental Politics of Tending, Brad Mapes-Martins
III. Infrastructure
7. Greening Lifestyles, Homes, and Urban Infrastructure in Chicago, IL and Jacksonville, FL, Michael J. Lorr
8. At Home in the Watershed: Environmental Imaginaries and Spatial Politics in Los Angeles, Sayd Randle
IV. Biodiversity in Unexpected Spaces
9. Reimagining the Backyard: Implications and Opportunities for Sustainability, Shannon K. Orr
10. Urban Biodiversity: Ambivalences, Concepts, And Policies, Jens Kersten
V. Land
11. The Tragedy of the Uncommon: Property, Possession, and Belonging in Community Gardens, Piers H.G. Stephens
12. Making the Land Connection: Local-Food Farms and Sustainability of Place, Jennifer Meta Robinson
VI. Mobility
13. Automobility and Freedom, John M. Meyer
14. Bicycling and the Politics of Recognition, Yogi Hale Hendlin
VII. (Dis)Engagement
15. Ontologies of Sustainability in Ecovillage Culture: Integrating Ecology, Economics, Community and Consciousness, Karen Litfin
16. Everyday Household Practice in Alternative Residential Dwellings: The Non-Environmental Motivations for Environmental Behavior, Chelsea Schelly