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Article dans une revue Buildings and Cities Année : 2024

When socio-material spaces define our limits: Results of a survey

Résumé

This paper intends to contribute to the emerging scientific literature on “consumption corridors” (Fuchs et al., 2021 ; Sahakian et al., 2021) through an inquiry into socio-material spaces of energy-consuming practices in France, the sense of limits that is enacted into them and the political views as to what ought to be done concerning sufficiency. Theoretically, the paper situates itself within a material culture of consumption approach (Lury, 1996; Shove, 2003; Shove & Pantzar, 2005) while aiming at bridging consumption with public policy (Marres, 2012; Dubuisson-Quellier, 2023). Empirically, the paper offers the results of a large survey carried out on 3,018 respondents from the French metropolitan population in 2023. The survey addresses five structuring dimensions of socio-economic and material life: food, household equipment, domestic practices in terms of energy consumption, mobility and housing. Statistical analysis by geometric data analysis (GDA) and ascending hierarchical clustering (AHC) (Le Roux & Rouanet, 2004; Le Roux & Rouanet, 2011) carried out on the data make it possible to bring out four different socio-material spaces. A socio-material space uses the classic concept of social space (Blasius et al., 2020) enriched by its materiality – not as a consequence of social effects but as contributing to its shaping (Latour, 2005; Coole & Frost, 2010). The four spaces identified are characterized by different types of energy-consuming practices and degrees of sufficiency or profligacy. Three major divisions distinguish these four spaces: the relationship to consumption (more or less polluting and high energy-intensive practices, self or mass-consumption…), the relationship to climate change (degrees of attention and commitment) and the positioning on a center-periphery axis - going from highly anthropized territories (dense urban areas with numerous mobility and activities) to less ones (less connected rural areas with more limited activities). The article thus describes sufficiency through the articulation of energy consumption, housing, mobility, equipment and territorial dimensions. In addition, the individuals in those spaces make different judgments about the state of the world and the limits to be set. Likewise, their relationship to politics and public policies is not identical and ranges from effectiveness to justice, individual to collective actions, obligation to incentive… The question of who should do what and to what extent is therefore not shared by everyone and closely depends on the socio-material space we live in. This work is useful in the perspective of a democratic discussion on the limits to consumption (Lage et al., 2023), by showing the diverse starting points of the different groups that form French society – urban and built environments being a key structuring variable. It shows that for some groups, setting boundaries may be more difficult to accept. The challenge of this article is thus to de-generalize the notion of planetary boundaries framework and to empirically decline the program proposed by Brand et al. (2021) as opposed to theoretical (Blühdorn, 2022) or normative (Ensor & Hoddy, 2021) approaches. The article also contributes to the discussion on the relationship between limits and liberal societies (Fuchs et al., 2021; Gumbert and Bohn, 2021).

Domaines

Sociologie
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Dates et versions

halshs-04472290, version 1 (22-02-2024)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : halshs-04472290 , version 1

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Jérémy Bouillet, Catherine Grandclément. When socio-material spaces define our limits: Results of a survey. Buildings and Cities, In press. ⟨halshs-04472290⟩
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Dernière date de mise à jour le 20/04/2024
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