CONDICIONES HIDRODINÁMICAS EN UN CANAL DE

Sonia- I get upset about the state the world. How could we do this to each other? (Boumemouth, October 1997)

The quote above demonstrates that A a H participants are not just concerned with asking questions about their own lifestyles. In asking questions o f ‘how will I live’ they also address questions of ‘how are we all living now and is it the right way?’ For the interviewees, participating in AaH appears to be viewed as an opportunity to reconsider modem practices and political relations. Importantly, this is an active process. Participants do not simply passively absorb more information to enable them to make some form o f detached lifestyle judgement, as the last two chapters have shown. Rather, they are actively looking to become part o f some form o f change by entering into social debates, using A aH to become part of these debates.

Within the interviews, conversations about the distributional equity of environmental ‘goods’ and ‘bads’ are fundamentally social questions about faimess. The following extract focuses on the faimess of water pricing systems in the UK. The interviewee clearly felt that the current system was untenable and unfair, and she had clear ideas about a replacement system that would be financially and socially equitable.

Rachel - Now I would like to suggest to somebody that we have differential rates. Everybody is entitled to so much water. There is no point in saying it’s like any other utility because it isn’t. If you can’t afford electricity you can use gas, if you can’t afford gas, you can use paraffin stoves but when there is no water, you are going to be dead

within a week. So I think that it’s quite unreasonable to charge people who are using hose pipes the same rate as drinking water. So if they reckon that one uses 150 litres a week, a day or whatever, the figure is 150 per person. Now I think if one has 100 litres on a low rate, a budget rate then everybody could afford to pay. And thereafter you then have a higher rate. It should be easy enough for the water people to work that out. But you have the first one hundred litres or something. Disabled people need more water, not all disabled people, just the ones that are definitely in need of more water—incontinence and things like that. Then they should be given a large quota of water. But I don’t see why one should pay the same amount for necessary drinking water as someone down the road who is washing their car. So I do think that it is an unfair system of pricing water. (Boumemouth, April 1998)

In this research, what are essentially debates about resource uses are also questions about social norms and forms of authority. Interviewees are creatively exploring how mediated relationships within systems of provision should or could be carried out as part of the active positioning of the individual within prevailing stmctural properties, as discussed at the end of the last chapter.

To give another example, debates about the distribution of environmental ‘goods’ were echoed in interview dialogue about forms o f environmental knowledges. The debates evoked issues of the ‘environmental uncertainty’ of science and expert advice, as a coherent body of knowledge (Irwin and Wynne 1996, Murdoch and Clark 1994). They were also concerned with issues of trust and sites o f power. Sagoff (1988) suggests that the questioning and withholding of absolute tmst is part of living in a centralised political system, such as in the UK. As a citizen, it is necessary to surrender some responsibilities and forms of knowledge to distanced authorities and then take part in an active monitoring of them. As one interviewee aptly stated:

Sean - To make a difference to anybody’s life, I think you’ve probably got to gain their trust. You’ve got to believe in what you’re telling them and they’ve got to see. (North­ west, May 1999)

Using AaH to ask questions about ‘whose knowledge?’ and ‘who to trust?’ can be seen as part of this active democratic monitoring. The following quote demonstrates how interviewees were reluctant to give their tmst to various purveyors of environmental information. They questioned these purveyor’s vested interests and their legitimacy in compiling information in a fair and neutral manner.

Rob - But you don’t know whether to actually believe some of this statistic stuff some of the time. I mean x hectares of forest are being destroyed every day but how many are being replanted in other parts of the world? You never get a tme balance I don’t feel. It’s very much the news impact rather that these people are looking for.

Tim - It exaggerates.

Ian - I always thought that was a common factor with the news, they always like disaster and they don’t like the good stuff

Rob - I would like to see statistics that are fully balanced and that we can believe but I don’t think we’re getting that. Even from environmental organisations I ’ve no confidence that you get a balanced story.

Tim - Yeah, I agree with that. It’s not just statistics, we want some more information as well, because you can do anything you want with statistics, lets be frank about it. I think we try and educate the public to a point and then stop, and I think we should be either taking it that little step beyond or stopping that little bit short and I think where we are at the moment is just an unhappy medium.

Me - So who would you tmst with that sort of information?

Sean - I certainly wouldn’t tmst a pressure group because they are going to be biased to be honest with you. I wouldn’t necessarily tmst a government because again they’ve got to be biased as well. Tmst no one I think! (laughter). I would tmst an independent researcher for example, if it was an established credible university doing a study. How topical is that today! (laughter). Then I would tmst that more than a government or a pressure group, provided of course you haven’t been funded by a pressure group (laughter). I would want to see your accounts! (North-west, October

1998)

Taking a//provides participants with a means to consider issues beyond their own practices. Indeed, it appears that the very process and the act of involvement with AaH represents a means for participants to address their social anxieties and to take part in the active search for tenable solutions. As the previous quotes demonstrated, it provides interviewees with a discursive space in which they can explore their own ideas about how things should be and possible ways in which current practices and relations could be improved. This is not just a simple mapping or blaming process but is, as the following quote succinctly demonstrates, a chance to take a step back and consider on-going social conditions.

Throughout the interviews it was clear that participants were not simply evaluating themselves and how they could act better. They were also looking for collective solutions to problems that they hoped could then be put into action.

Paul - What I’m hoping out of all this, is that at the end of the day, what comes out of the home environment in terms of how do we do things better. (North-west, October

1998)

How does being involved in A a H help its participants to work towards a collective improvement in the states and politics o f emancipation? To address this question—to understand what it is that they wish to change— it is first necessary to take a more in-depth look at the contents o f participant’s expressed concems about modem social life. These concems are focused on issues of community and spaces o f constructive interaction. They are mediated by the contexts through which AaH is experienced, which give rise to situated social and moral anxieties. In the Boumemouth case study a great deal o f talk concemed the degradation of communities. In the North-west case study there was a similar set of anxieties about mutual care and interaction but these were mediated and seen through relations in the workplace. By developing a deeper understanding of these social and moral anxieties, it will become clearer as to the way in which interviewees believe participating in A aH is a step to actively address their concems. This is possible because AaH allows individuals to actively map out social problems and to understand how they are, or can be, part o f the solutions, allowing them to talk a better future into existence.