Magnus Boström

Örebro University | oru · School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences

Ethical consumption can take different forms, each with its own justifications and underlying rationales. While countries in north-western Europe have well-established mechanisms for promoting ethically labelled products, the situation is different in many other regions across the world. This paper examines ethical consumption in Sweden and Iran to...

Adoption of sufficiency-oriented lifestyles is an important part of curbing overconsumption, yet many individuals who try to reduce their consumption volumes experience social difficulties. Combining the perspectives of care and sufficiency-oriented lifestyle changes, this article aims to contribute to the understanding of why such social obstacles...

Reflexivity and its counterpart— anti-reflexivity— are key concepts in environmental sociology. Reflexivity and similar concepts are presented as means for taking constructive steps towards sustainability in face of the often wicked nature (complex, uncertain, dynamic, value-laden, dilemmatic, ambivalent) of socio-ecological problems and risks. Ant...

his entry reviews the concept of transformative learning. Transformative learning theory stresses a learning perspective for situations when actors in (self-)critical ways recognize and reassess basic assumptions and expectations that steer their thinking, feeling, and acting. The theory relies on the humanistic assumption that people have, via del...

Environmental Sociology and Social Transformation demonstrates how sociological theory and research are critical for understanding the social drivers of global environmental destruction and the conditions for transformative change. Written by two professors of sociology who are deeply involved in the international community of environmental socio...

This chapter explores why it is difficult to initiate more radical and far-reaching transformative change. It begins by discussing two common barriers to change: complexity and resistance to change. It shows how resistance to change relates to all five facets of the social. It then discusses how the proliferation of “solutions” risks becoming a bar...

This chapter looks at the causes of our current environmental situation and emphasizes that they are fundamentally social. This means that it is not enough to make sweeping statements about the causes being in “culture,” “society,” or “humanity,” but that it is necessary to examine how contemporary societies function and how they have been shaped h...

This chapter explores how people and organizations make sense of environmental problems through science and other sources of knowledge. It argues that the slogan “listen to the science” is not sufficient to guide action, because the wider stories are what motivate people and organizations to act. These include how environmental problems and challen...

This chapter introduces the book and the central argument that we need to better understand the social nature of environmental problems in order to grasp what social transformation means and implies. Because of the current environmental situation, which is defined as a civilizational crisis, social transformation is presented as the most important...

This chapter addresses the question of how we can transform society, a very challenging but nevertheless feasible task. The chapter emphasizes that human action and social structures are dynamically related, making it extremely difficult to anticipate the consequences of decisions and actions. It argues that we must avoid the extreme positions of d...

This chapter looks at how differences between social groups and categories – such as class, gender, ethnicity, and their intersections – relate to and deeply affect environmental problems. Social stratification shapes life chances, material welfare, and access to natural and other key resources. It exposes people to different hazards and risks, and...

The Social Life of Unsustainable Mass Consumption draws on a variety of theories and research to contribute to our understanding of unsustainable mass consumption. It addresses the role of identities, social relations, interactions, belonging, and status comparison, and how perceived time scarcity is both a cause and an effect of consumption. It ex...

Environmental organisations have been active since the early 1960s in putting environmental issues on the political agenda and in strengthening the environmental consciousness of the public. The struggle has been successful in the sense that there is now a strong demand for practical solutions among all kinds of actors. It is, however, difficult fo...

This article discusses the importance of a multilevel and intertwined understanding of ethical consumption given its conjunction with other social practices. Although the literature on ethical consumption is vast, the role of sociotechnical regimes including technological and cultural elements, infrastructure, market and regulation has been mainly...

This article discusses the importance of a multilevel and intertwined understanding of ethical consumption given its conjunction with other social practices. Although the literature on ethical consumption is vast, the role of sociotechnical regimes including technological and cultural elements, infrastructure, market and regulation has been mainly...

The COVID-19 pandemic implied a disruption of several consumer practices, which offers an opportunity to explore experiences and possibilities to switch toward more sustainable lifestyles with reduced consumption. This article asks if there is long-term transformative potential toward more sustainable and climate friendly consumption practices embe...

Framtiden intresserar oss människor. Om tillvaron uppfattas som formbar och föränderlig, då finns också en framtid att planera för och sträva emot. Framtiden har länge, i vårt samhälle, tett sig som något positivt. Som indi-vider och grupper ser vi fram emot att realisera våra planer och vi rör oss som samhälle framåt tack vare framsteget. Historie...

Overconsumption habits and structures have a huge environmental impact. The article uses a qualitative interview study of environmentally conscious Swedish citizens undertaking a lifestyle transformation process to reduce their overall consumption in the context of mass consumption society. The purpose is to emphasise the importance of a transforma...

Increasing numbers of people in welfare societies express worries about their ecological footprint. Some make efforts to significantly reduce their consumption. Because people have been socialized into a society of mass/excess consumption, there are great challenges. How can someone learn to downsize when society incessantly compels her to continue...

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to significant restrictions on lifestyles and consumption everywhere. Many consumer practices have been disrupted due to the shutting down of economic and social activities, limiting of mobility in public places, closing of shopping centers and non-essential stores, and closing of borders. These restrictions have had a...

Macro-institutional structures and consumerist culture force and urge people to reproduce unsustainable levels of consumption. A crucial role for sociology, the article argues, is to address theoretically and empirically the intersection between social relations and (over)consumption. The purpose with this article is to address how social relations...

I Örebro universitets visionsarbete är bildning och hållbar utveckling prioriterade områden. Bildning och hållbar utveckling är inga självklara termer. Än mindre självklart är vilken relation de har till varandra och vilken roll ett universitet kan ha i förhållande till dem. Vi har i den här rapporten på uppdrag av HS-fakulteten bjudit in fakultete...

The article uses social science theory and literature to theorize mass and excess consumption. The purpose is to contribute a conceptual framework for studying how institutions and mechanisms of social life drive and reproduce patterns of mass/excess consumption, and to discuss the potential for bottom-up transformative processes to move us away fr...

The Oxford Handbook of Political Consumerism addresses the study of political consumerism. It discusses how production and consumption affect broader societal affairs at home and abroad, and how the phenomenon of political consumerism has developed in different directions—geographically, conceptually, and methodologically—and in multiple sectors, a...

Brands play important roles as targets and arenas for political consumerism. Much of political consumerist action navigates towards large and highly visible brands, which political consumers reject or embrace. This chapter views a brand—the name and logo of an actor/object and their associated/recognized meanings—as a core symbolic asset of an orga...

This chapter focuses on the relation between mass consumption and political consumerism. Mass consumption concerns the omnipresent role of consumption in contemporary societies with associated problems of excessive resource use in current practices of consumption. The late modern context and forces of mass consumption can both trigger and prevent p...

This chapter highlights The Oxford Handbook of Political Consumerism’s most interesting findings and identifies major characteristics and conceptual/methodological topics for advancing research on the phenomenon of political consumerism. It emphasizes how scholars study the phenomenon’s multidimensionality in a more fragmented context and explains...

More information here: https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190629038.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190629038

Continued unsustainability and surpassed planetary boundaries require not only scientific and technological advances, but deep and enduring social and cultural changes. The purpose of this article is to contribute a theoretical approach to understand conditions and constraints for societal change towards sustainable development. In order to break w...

This introductory chapter presents the purpose of the book: to scrutinize existing core conceptualizations of environment-society relations, because such a critical gaze will allow for deeper reflection, help to confront denialism, engage sociological imagination, and lead to more fruitful communication and action within the environmental sciences...

This concluding chapter begins by elaborating on the importance of conceptual pluralization and reflexivity to confront contemporary tendencies of denialism and anti-reflexivity. It then offers critical reflections on the concepts explored in this volume, by returning to the three questions raised in the introductory chapter: What is the explanator...

Modern industrial society has transformed the textile sector. Brand-owning companies today seldom own the production process but instead rely on global supply chains consisting of a myriad of suppliers and sub-suppliers. The global scope of this sector, along with the complex and uncertain health and environmental risks associated with textile prod...

This book offers a critical analysis of core concepts that have influenced contemporary conversations about environment-society relations in academic, political, and civil circles. Considering these conceptualizations are currently shaping responses to environmental crises in fundamental ways, critical reflections on concepts such as the Anthropoce...

Purpose This paper focuses on differences in resource mobilization opportunities among environmental social movement organizations (ESMOs), with empirical focus on ESMOs from five European Union countries – two Northwest European countries (Sweden, Germany) and three post-communist countries (Poland, Croatia, and Slovenia). Whereas mass-membership...

In policy and research on sustainable consumption in general, and climate-oriented consumption specifically, key questions centre around whether people are motivated and prompted to support such consumption. A common claim in the scholarly debate is that policy makers, in face of fundamental governance challenges, refrain from taking responsibility...

Literature on environment and representation in politics, management, and deliberation has paid little attention on the people involved: environmental representatives. The aim of this paper is to illuminate how environmental representatives in various organizational and professional contexts understand their role as representatives, and how they ar...

Many have discussed the crucial role that environmental nongovernmental organizations (ENGOs) have played in the implementation of nature protection policies across European member states. However, there are important differences in the opportunity structures among new and old member states that influence how ENGOs can act and undertake activities....

Reflexivity is a central concept in environmental sociology, as in environmental social science in general. The concept is often connected to topics such as modernity, governance, expertise, and consumption. Reflexivity is presented as a means for taking constructive steps towards sustainability as it recognizes complexity, uncertainty, dilemmas, a...

The environment cannot plead its own case but must be represented. The aim of this paper is to elaborate on the concept of representation and demonstrate its relevance for environmental sociology. Drawing on Pitkin’s classic work on representation, we discuss representation as both ‘acting for’ and ‘standing for’. We also make a distinction between...

This chapter focuses on forms of and challenges for risk communication within regional environmental governance, based on an analysis of fi ve environmental risks in the Baltic Sea – marine oil transportation, chemicals, overfi shing, eutrophication and alien species. We address questions about how risks are framed and communicated and also analyse...

This chapter analyses the governance structures linked to the marine environment of the Baltic Sea. The purpose is to assess whether current developments of the governance structures have a potential to take into account requirements of an Ecosystem Approach to Management (EAM). We use the concept of refl exive governance to understand key componen...

ABSTRACT Based on a literature review of over 160 journal articles and books, this paper examines the ecosystem management and environmental governance approaches, and looks for common topics and integrated research agendas. While scientific articles on environmental governance stem primarily from social science research, the ecosystem management a...

This chapter gives an overview of the roles ordinary people, here called citizen-consumers, could play in relation to climate governance. Four roles are identified: (1) empowered citizen-consumers motivated by information about climate threats associated with their daily practices, (2) citizen-consumers acting within given structures set up to faci...

The synergies and trade-offs between the various dimensions of sustainable development are attracting a rising scholarly attention. Departing from the scholarly debate, this article focuses on internal relationships within social sustainability. Our key claim is that it is diffi cult to strengthen substantive social sustainability goals unless ther...

Previous studies of environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGO) have primarily taken place within a nation-state perspective without considering multiple levels of politics and governance. Because environmental problems are usually cross-border phenomena, environmental movements must develop transnational features to play constructive roles...

Departing from previous theoretical and empirical studies on sustainable supply-chain management, we investigate organizational commitment (drivers and motivations) and capabilities (resources, structures, and policy instruments) in sustainable procurement of “noncore” products. By focusing on chemicals in textiles, the article explores the activi-...

Climate governance presents a tremendous challenge for contemporary policymakers. Increasing focus is placed on people’s hybrid role as ‘citizen-consumers,’ their potential for both reducing climate gas emissions through changes in consumption and for impacting social norms and politics in a climate friendly direction. This chapter advances the con...

In Europe, marine environmental risks are governed in a complex multi-level system. The role that the marine region could or should play as a level of risk governance has attracted growing attention of late. In this context, reference has been made to the regional sea as one level at which participatory processes in the future governing of European...

Most environmental problems are extremely long term and have cross-border implications. For environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) to achieve significant impact on environmental governance cross-border and sustained activities are required. The purpose of the paper is to identify key barriers and possible pathways to develop sustained...

In line with the current trend toward sustainability and CSR, organizations are pressured to assume extended responsibility. However, taking such a responsibility requires serious and challenging efforts as it appears to involve a wider range of issues and increased need for close interaction between actors along commodity chains. Using a qualitati...

The marine natural environment is under high pressure. Not only are marine resources as flora and fauna intensively used (with consequent decrease of stocks) but in recent times, the seas have become the next frontier of a specific type of anthropization (i.e. the conversion of open space by human action) that of energy infrastructure. While this i...

The management of environmental and health risks associated with products from global product chains is a pressing task for contemporary society, a task that involves public and private actors and poses great governance challenges. This article explores how governance arrangements relate to these challenges by focusing on how public and private pro...

Worldwide we see the rise of new non-state, ‘multi-stakeholder’ organizations setting standards for socially and environmentally responsible practices. A multi-stakeholder organization builds on the idea of assembling actors from diverse societal spheres into one rule-setting process, thereby combining their resources, competences, and experiences....

Currently, European marine governance seems to be undergoing significant changes. From having been based largely on scientific expert knowledge, restricted risk assessments and governmental regulation, we are now witnessing a management turn towards holistic perspectives, the inclusion of stakeholders, adaptive governance, and co-production of know...

This report focuses on IKEA’s management and communication surrounding sustainability in general and chemical risks specifically. IKEA’s work is analysed in relation to theoretical concepts around responsibility, supply chain, and governance . The report focuses on IKEA’s visions and organizational structures, its policy instruments to deal with ch...

Currently, European marine governance seems to be undergoing significant changes. From having been based largely on scientific expert knowledge, restricted risk assessments and governmental regulation, we are now witnessing a management turn towards holistic perspectives, the inclusion of stakeholders, adaptive governance, and coproduction of knowl...

The management of social, environmental and health risks associated with products from global product chains is one of the most pressing task for contemporary society; a task that involves public as well as private actors and poses great challenges in terms of capabilities, knowledge, communication, collaboration, and policy instruments. In various...

Since publication of the Brundtland Report in 1987, the notion of sustainable development has come to guide the pursuit of environmental reform by both public and private organizations and to facilitate communication among actors from different societal spheres. It is customary to characterize sustainable development in a familiar typology comprisi...

There is broad support worldwide for the concept of sustainable development and the integration of its three pillars: economic development, environmental protection and social development. Nevertheless, previous research shows substantial difficulties associated with fully incorporating and operationalising social sustainability features in various...

The objective of this study is to gain insights about the opportunities and challenges that private and public organisations face regarding the development of responsible procurement in a complex and uncertain issue. The paper focuses on chemicals in textiles, and uses a qualitative methodology with semi-structured interviews. Key elements of a pro...

In the present study, we ask whether and how different organizations work with sustainable procurement and how this work relates to the complexity of the product chain. We have chosen to focus on chemical risks in relation to textiles – an issue that increasingly is becoming part of the public discourse and a target for journalists. In the case...

We have seen a worldwide increase in new nonstate, multi-stakeholder organizations setting standards for socially and environmentally responsible behavior. These standard-setting arenas offer new channels for political participation for NGOs. Scholars have drawn attention to the rise and the role of NGOs in global politics, but there is less resear...

This paper reviews the current literature on political and ethical consumers, and relates it to the topic of sustainable food consumption. A first aim is to problematise a somewhat simplistic view of the political and ethical consumer found in the literature. The paper sheds light on some of the dilemmas that confront green political consumers. We...

https://journals.openedition.org/aof/6379