The moral basis of sustainable society: the Gandhian concept of ecological citizenship

Dominant approaches to sustainability have focused on environmental governance with efficient mechanisms and technical quick-fixes for regulatory changes and policy reforms within the growth-centred economic model. However, they fail to develop an authentic ‘ecological citizenship’ for a more fundamental change in the framework of moral values guiding individuals' behaviour and attitude towards the environment and their choices to live lightly on earth. This article argues that the transformation to a sustainable society necessitates deeper moral changes and the development of an ecological morality at the individual level as the core of sustainability. The article examines the distinctiveness of the Gandhian approach to ‘ecological citizenship’ within his paradigm of non-violence and ethical holism as an alternative to the dominant thinking. Within his broader moral-philosophical framework, the paper focuses on Gandhi's theories of eco-localism, unity of life, economics of well-being, and the moral praxis of subordinating the material to moral development realized by the human self through an ‘inner revolution’ with a goal to improve the ‘quality of man’, moving beyond the conventional ‘fear–greed’ dichotomy as motivators of behaviour to bring about a societal transformation towards a sustainable society based on freedom, equity, justice, and peace.     

Consuming conventions: sustainable consumption, ecological citizenship and the worlds of worth

In light of the recognition that current patterns of consumption in the developed world are environmentally damaging, the question of sustainable consumption has become increasingly prominent in public and policy discourse. This paper joins an emerging body of work that critiques the behaviorist perspectives that currently dominate the field and specifically, a case is made for using conventions theory (Boltanski and Thévenot, 1991) to complement the ‘social practices’ approach to consumption, sustainability and everyday life. Drawing on a qualitative study of persons who identified themselves as attempting to live in ways that are environmentally more friendly, the analysis first explores the ways in which sustainable consumption intersects and overlaps with other practices and imperatives. Attention is paid to the competing demands of day to day living and the ways in which cultural conventions work - or not - to legitimate practices of sustainable consumption. The second part of the analysis discusses the citizenship relations that are articulated through practices of sustainable consumption and here, attention is paid to the conventions that underpin the imperative to reduce the environmental impacts of personal consumption. Taken together, I consider the possibility that environmental conventions might be emerging from the empirical material alongside the ways in which these might operate in support of sustainable consumption. To conclude I suggest that the experiments in practice encountered here are unlikely to generate the conventions through which sustainable forms of consumption can be normalized and integrated into everyday lives.     

Beyond Organic and Fair Trade? An Analysis of Ecolabel Preferences in the United States

The success of alternative food initiatives indicates increasing interest in changing the way food is produced, processed, and sold. Ecolabels such as organic and Fair Trade have entered the mainstream marketplace, and other voluntary identifiers on products are emerging to address criteria not included in these successful initiatives. Little is known about consumer interests in these criteria, however. To anticipate the direction of food‐system changes, as well as assist food producers to meet consumer demands, we conducted a national mail survey to assess preferences for criteria that go “beyond” (or could complement) organic and Fair Trade. We utilized a forced‐choice paired‐comparisons question format to rank five possibilities (humane, local, living wage, small‐scale, U.S. grown) that might feasibly be implemented by food producers. Local was the most popular choice, although humane also received a high level of support. Multilevel logistic regression indicated that local was preferred by rural residents, and that humane was preferred by frequent organic consumers and high‐income households. Survey respondents also chose product labels more frequently than other potential sources of information about their food. Preferences for local and humane ecolabel criteria should be placed in perspective, as consumers expressed much higher levels of interest in the more individualized concerns of safety and nutrition. The results suggest, however, that consumers are interested in a food system that addresses broader political and ethical values, which has implications for production, marketing, and movement building for sustainable food systems.     

The language of newcomers: developments in Dutch citizenship education

A new citizenship policy in the Netherlands is intended to provide ethnic minority newcomers with self‐management competencies for their daily lives, further education and employment. The advocates of the compulsory language training that is the main ingredient of this policy argue that it will foster newcomers' chances of getting jobs, accessing education and being incorporated into the mainstream of Dutch society. According to the Scientific Council for Government Policy, no country in Europe has gone as far as the Netherlands in terms of its citizenship policy. In this paper, we evaluate the backgrounds and the consequences of this policy, and we take a critical look at the attempt to present command of the Dutch language as the main road to integration for ethnic minority newcomers.     

Citizenship and postmodernity

Citizenship has to be taught in the UK as a new strand in the school curriculum. This citizenship initiative is intended to replace a general feeling of political apathy among the young, yet the initiative itself is leading to concern about what citizenship is and how it can be taught. Citizenship teaching may fail if there is too great a dissonance between the sincerity of citizenship and postmodern scepticism. Hermeneutical philosophy can provide an antidote to doubt and connect the various levels of meaning in our lives: the personal, the local and the global. Citizenship with a global component can succeed by enabling us to compare ourselves with countries where postmodern doubt is not prevalent, as shown in a collaborative project with the Department for International Development.     

Adult protection and ‘intimate citizenship’ for people with learning difficulties: empowering and protecting in light of the No Secrets review

The government are consulting on the introduction of legislation to give professionals powers to enter the homes of ‘vulnerable adults’ where abuse is suspected and remove the ‘victim’ without their consent . This article considers the consequences of such legislation for the ‘intimate citizenship’ of people with learning difficulties who have capacity to consent to sexual relationships. Proposals of the consultation are considered in terms of their practical relevance, finding that changes can be made with better guidance, resources, policy implementation and a sound evidence base for adult protection. A case is made that proposals contravene human rights, mental capacity laws and the ethos of personalisation, increasing the focus on risk in practice. An ecological model of vulnerability is supported, which offers an approach that can prevent sexual abuse through empowerment without the need for new legislation.     

Ecological Succession and Asian Immigrants in Australia

In recent immigration policy debates in Australia, it has been asserted that Asian immigrants concentrate in ethnic ghettos, thus posing a threat to the social cohesion of Australian society. This assertion has been based mainlyon selective observations made by anti-immigration groups. Nevertheless, it is more or less consistent with expectations of an ecological succession model that has guided studies on patterns of housing consumption behaviour of new immigrants in the West.
The ecological succession model contends that new immigrants concentrate in ethnic ghettos or low-cost housing areas and will move to good neighbourhoods only after they improve their socio-economic position in the host society.
Using data from the 1991 Housing and Location Choice Survey conducted in Melbourne and Sydney, the article shows that the assertion concerning the poor housing condition of Asian immigrants in Australia is unfounded. There is no ecological succession among them because they lived in good neighbour-hoodsin Melbourne and Sydney shortly after their arrival in Australia.
The ecological succession model is a valid framework for poor immigrants from Indo-China, but it does not apply to patterns of housing consumption behaviour among well-to-do immigrants from North and South-East Asia.     

Women and citizenship post‐trafficking: the case of Nepal

This article analyses the relationship between gender, sexuality and citizenship embedded in models of citizenship in the Global South, specifically in South Asia, and the meanings associated with having – or not having – citizenship. It does this through an examination of women's access to citizenship in Nepal in the context of the construction of the emergent nation state in the ‘new’ Nepal ‘post‐conflict’. Our analysis explores gendered and sexualized constructions of citizenship in this context through a specific focus on women who have experienced trafficking, and are beginning to organize around rights to sustainable livelihoods and actively lobby for changes in citizenship rules which discriminate against women. Building from this, in the final section we consider important implications of this analysis of post‐trafficking experiences for debates about gender, sexuality and citizenship more broadly.     

It Is Not Old‐Fashioned,It Is Vintage,Vintage Fashion and The Complexities of 21st Century Consumption Practices

This article reviews consumption practices concerning vintage, a fashion style based on used or retro‐style garments. Existing studies connect vintage with authenticity, nostalgia and identity. We explore how the vintage style deploys and comments on consumer culture, bypassing producers by wearing old garments to communicate ‘authentic’ identities. We argue that existing theories on consumption, fashion and subculture cannot fully explain vintage practices. Bypassing the dichotomies and one‐dimensional explanations of these theories, we show that vintage, with its ambivalent relation to both subcultural distinction practices and mainstream consumer culture, serves as a prism through which to examine and understand the complexities and subtleties of 21st century consumption practices.     

The Bologna process in European and post-Soviet higher education: institutional legacies and policy adoption

This paper addresses the puzzle of the unlikeliness of the implementation of elements of the Bologna Process agenda in Europe and post-Soviet higher education systems. Following mainstream policy science theories, the policy initiative would be qualified as “prone to failure”, but surprisingly many governments took up the challenge to develop regulations and guidelines and to change the structures of their higher education systems. Looking at the adoption of Bologna process elements in various countries – east and west – I will be able to point at factors that contribute to explaining why and to what extent countries engaged with the process and hence to contribute to the literature on Europeanisation and policy adoption.     

Transnational regimes of labor and statelessness: Intersections of citizenship regimes and local norms in East and Southeast Asia

This article offers a review of the literature on transnational labor regimes and statelessness to pursue further theorization from East and Southeast Asian contexts. The main focus is on how local norms (local sense of belonging, local moral code, and local hierarchies) are entangled with national‐level citizenship regimes to legitimate the discrimination of certain people to be statelessness and secure low‐wage migrant workers for the new global labor regime. First, traditional literature on citizenship and statelessness was reviewed; binary theoretical frameworks (including citizens/excluding non‐citizens) based on political recognition were indicated as the main limitations. Second, recent theories arguing for an intersection between national citizenship regimes and a new global labor regime were reviewed. Third, recent theories that illuminate the importance of local contexts in determining citizens' rights were reviewed based on formal exclusion and informal inclusion as well as formal inclusion and informal exclusion. Finally, it was concluded that further theorization is needed on how citizenship regimes and local norms intersect to produce statelessness, securing low‐wage migrant workers for the global labor regime through the global assemblages approach. Through the paper, East and Southeast Asia were illuminated as potentially fruitful research sites for further theorization on the topic.     

Special Children,Integration and Moral Education

SUMMARY: This paper explores issues concerning the integration of children with disabilities into mainstream schools and draws out the implications of the discussions for moral education. Social and personal theories of disability are reconciled to provide a basis for a moral education which bridges ‘alternative’ moral traditions. I argue that successful integration requires a moral education for teachers and pupils which encourages the development of both a ‘caring justice’ and a ‘judicious care’.     

The citizen-consumer hybrid: ideological tensions and the case of Whole Foods Market

Ethical consumer discourse is organized around the idea that shopping, and particularly food shopping, is a way to create progressive social change. A key component of this discourse is the “citizen-consumer” hybrid, found in both activist and academic writing on ethical consumption. The hybrid concept implies a social practice – “voting with your dollar” – that can satisfy competing ideologies of consumerism (an idea rooted in individual self-interest) and citizenship (an ideal rooted in collective responsibility to a social and ecological commons). While a hopeful sign, this hybrid concept needs to be theoretically unpacked, and empirically explored. This article has two purposes. First, it is a theory-building project that unpacks the citizen-consumer concept, and investigates underlying ideological tensions and contradictions. The second purpose of the paper is to relate theory to an empirical case-study of the citizen-consumer in practice. Using the case-study of Whole Foods Market (WFM), a corporation frequently touted as an ethical market actor, I ask: (1) how does WFM frame the citizen-consumer hybrid, and (2) what ideological tensions between consumer and citizen ideals are present in the framing? Are both ideals coexisting and balanced in the citizen-consumer hybrid, or is this construct used to disguise underlying ideological inconsistencies? Rather than meeting the requirements of consumerism and citizenship equally, the case of WFM suggests that the citizen-consumer hybrid provides superficial attention to citizenship goals in order to serve three consumerist interests better: consumer choice, status distinction, and ecological cornucopianism. I argue that a true “citizen-consumer” hybrid is not only difficult to achieve, but may be internally inconsistent in a growth-oriented corporate setting.     

Vertical Farming: Social Work and Sustainable Urban Agriculture in an Age of Global Food Crises

Abstract

Environmental concerns, including issues of ecological justice, attention to sustainability, and focus on issues of food security have gathered increased momentum in social work. This article will trace the background of sustainable urban agriculture as a partial solution to the issue of global food insecurity and its impact on marginalised urban populations. It will review the development of a sustainable agricultural initiative called vertical farming and suggest that it holds promise for communities struggling with chronic food security problems. It will outline some tentative steps social work may consider in order to become more fully involved in support of vertical farming initiatives.     

The social welfare impact of privatisation in sub‐Saharan Africa: A discussion

Against the background of rising levels of anxiety around the state of the social fabric in South African society, this paper explores the disjuncture between the post-apartheid state’s policy discourse on social cohesion and the local discourses of South African residents in 24 focus groups held in townships around the country, which reveal significant levels of social fragmentation and intense contestation regarding the new regime of rights. The paper argues that the state’s policy discourse on social cohesion is part of an attempt to manage a complex social environment in terms of a project of developmental nation-state building that seeks to constitute the social domain as a normative realm of imagined homogeneity in which citizenship is premised on constitutional values. I argue that while the state’s concern with the ‘social’ relates to the critical question of solidarity in modern democracies, this has led, in the South African context, to the constitution of the social domain as a site of pathology, divorced from the broader political and economic relations of power in which this ‘pathology’ is embedded. At issue in this interaction between state and local discourses on the question of solidarity are the terms of membership in the political community. Who will and will not be part of the ‘new’ nation?     

Alternative Food Networks and the Labor of Food Provisioning: A Third Shift?

Scholars have increasingly examined the sphere of consumption in alternative food networks (AFNs). However, research has largely overlooked women's experiences as food provisioners. This is problematic, as AFNs prescribe practices that could be expanding women's food provisioning labor. This article addresses this gap in the literature by examining how the physical labor of food provisioning varies for women engaged in AFNs relative to those not engaged in AFNs, and how diverse AFNs as well as socioeconomic status (SES) influence the labor of food provisioning for women engaged in AFNs. Using data from the 2012 Ohio Survey of Food, Agriculture and Environmental Issues, I demonstrate that women engaged in AFNs, relative to women not engaged in AFNs, exert more physical labor in food provisioning, that prioritizing local food systems involves more physical labor than prioritizing organic foods, and that women with lower household incomes who prioritize organic foods exert greater physical labor in food provisioning than women with higher incomes who prioritize organic foods. I conclude by arguing that women who prioritize local food systems are engaging in a third shift and that greater attention should be paid to the role of SES in shaping women's experiences as food provisioners in AFNs.     

Public duty and private prejudice: sexualities equalities and local government

Rather than critiquing social institutions and practices that have historically excluded lesbians and gay men, as did earlier social movements in the 1960s and 1970s, since the 1990s the politics of sexuality has increasingly been about demanding equal rights of citizenship. These citizenship demands have, at least to a degree, been answered via a raft of recent legislation in the UK including the Adoption and Children Act 2002, Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003, Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the Civil Partnership Act 2004, and by associated changes in policy making and practice that emphasize ‘Equality and Diversity’. In this article we consider how the implementation of sexualities equalities policies is related to processes of privatization and individualization. This is illustrated by using sexualities equalities work in local government as a case study to indicate how processes of change and resistance are aided by these processes. The article draws on findings from a study of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) equalities initiatives in local government in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, which examined the views of those who now have a public duty to implement recent legislative and policy shifts and are obliged to develop equalities initiatives concerning ‘sexual orientation' and ‘gender reassignment’.     

The changing practice of eating: evidence from UK time diaries, 1975 and 2000

This paper examines some central themes about change in consumption behaviour through an empirical investigation of the practice of eating. It analyses patterns of food consumption in the UK using time diary data from 1975 and 2000. The practice of eating is decomposed into four component activities which are used to explore systematically the inter-relationships between social processes - such as commodification and temporal fragmentation - and ways of providing and consuming food. It charts the expansion of eating out, the degree to which it substitutes for other eating activities, and the implications of its development for social relations and the temporal organization of daily life. Analysis reveals that food consumption continues to be differentiated along established lines of social division, although the content of those divisions has changed and varies across components of the practice. Increasing commodification of the food chain is documented, but without appearing to have a corrosive impact on household organization or social relationships. While tendencies indicative of temporal fragmentation are revealed, counter-tendencies exist which suggest that the practice of eating is resilient to many forms of external pressure. Finally, the application of a practice-based analytical approach permits critical evaluation of theories of social transformation.     

Female narratives of ‘new’ citizens’ belonging(s) and identities in Europe: case studies from the Netherlands and Britain

Public discourses on citizenship, identity and nationality, which link geographical borders and the political boundaries of a community, are infused with tensions and contradictions. This paper illustrates how these tensions are interwoven with multilayered notions of home, belonging, migration, citizenship and individual's ‘longing just to be’, focusing on the Dutch and the British context. The narratives of a number of Dutch and British women, who either immigrated to the respective countries or were born to immigrants, illustrate how the growing rigid integration and assimilative discourses in Europe contradict an individual anchoring in national and local communities. The narratives of women participating in these studies show multilayered angles of belonging presenting an alternative to the increasing strong argument for a fixed notion of positioning and national belonging. The female ‘new’ citizens in our study tell stories of individual choices, social mobility and a sense of multiple belonging in and across different communities.