Practices, our conceptual lense

We focus on social practices, as opposed to structures or individuals, to study sustainability transformations and environmental governance. We consider practices as the basis of social life, which means understanding human action in dynamic socio-material contexts as interconnected embodied routines.

We further practice-based approaches which can inform efforts focused on designing social interventions towards sustainability in ways that can support already existing, and sometimes latent, sustainable practices in daily life. We do this by embedding energy, food, water and mobility practices in a wider systems perspective. We also aim to further understand how power and normativity work in and through practices, and study what practice futures and imaginaries look like and how they can contribute to designing change in the present.

Questions we ask

How can the routinised nature of practices help to explain the lock-in effects of socio-technical systems transformations, and what are ways to overcomes such lock-ins to certain sustainability trajectories?

What are the socially differentiated implications of policies aimed at steering sustainability transformations in food, water, energy and mobility domains within and across societies and time periods?