5.5.2
Ultimately, my thematising was framed with ecological habitus, organising the interim topics listed in Table 6 into three major themes, which were structured as backcasted pathways, and constitute my final interview results. This, combined with the theory development in Chapter 6, responds to Objective 3, developing a methodological and theoretical framework for analysing the interdisciplinary interview data, and framing pragmatic pathways towards future sustainability using this framework.
My intention was that these pathways would together provide a well-rounded response to my overarching research aim. In the final stages of my analysis, I was thematising the data and adapting ecological habitus theory as a framework simultaneously, and these processes reciprocally informed one another. This chapter focuses on the data processing involved, while the theory and framework development are discussed in the next chapter. A simplified diagram of the complete process is shown in Figure 6, below.
As I was thematising I was exploring the ecological habitus literature as one potential avenue for framing my data analysis. This concept was one that I had encountered before the interviews and sought to pursue by interviewing some ecological habitus scholars. However, at this stage I did not
Figure 6: Chronological diagram of analysis. From top to bottom (arrow indicates direction of process) 56: (1.) The research aim directed (2.) the 25 expert interview transcriptions.
Transcripts were analysed to delineate many codes (3.), which were then mapped as (4.) a sticky-note network containing five interim categories. From this, key interim topics (5.) were identified. During thematising, interim topics were variously included (see Key) into the final research outcomes, which were the three final backcasted pathways (6.) and the final ecological habitus framework (7.)57. All analysis portrayed in this diagram is elaborated upon in-text.
Nevertheless, the more that I read into this theory during my analysis, the stronger ecological habitus became as a contending analytical framework. Glaser and Strauss, the founders of grounded theory, confirm that most frameworks, ideas, and theories that arise from the grounded research process entail researcher’s use of “substantive theories” (i.e. pre-existing, established scholarly theories) to strategically link their data to their “formal theory” (i.e. researcher-constructed theory, model, or in my case, framework) and that this is both desirable and usually necessary (Glaser & Strauss, 1967, p.79).
This stimulus from the literature, they claim, offers initial direction when it comes to developing categories from the data and properties of the theory/framework, as well as informing the integration of the data into the framework (Glaser & Strauss, 1967).
This was the case for me with my ecological habitus framework. Bourdieu’s detailed theory of habitus (reviewed in Chapter 2) provided me with robust conceptual categories within which many inherent facets of my data could fit (e.g. capitals, practices, habitus, dispositions, reflexivity, etc.). Developing my understanding of Bourdieu and a comprehensive reading of ecological habitus scholarship enabled me to adapt this emerging theory, in line with my research aim, to effectively organise and frame my data.
This substantive theoretical basis (i.e. ecological habitus) was arrived at in a grounded way. Although I was aware of the concept before the interviews, I did not see it as being of any greater significance to my research than any of the myriad other theories of which the different experts were proponents and which I had reviewed in the literature previously (examples given below). Indeed, it was relatively less appealing to me because of my unfamiliarity with anthropology/sociology. However, ecological habitus was selected for a number of reasons. Following my original reviews of literature where the concept arose as a way to conceptualise the practicalities of socio-ecological relationships, it was elaborated upon and reinforced to me as being a valuable and relevant research tool during several of the interviews. Following up on many different ideas raised in the interviews, including this one, I investigated and assessed Bourdieu’s work and further ecological habitus literature (and eventually gained a supervisor with expertise in the theory). I found that habitus had the capacity to describe social reproduction and change, reflexivity, and the role of everyday practice, and therefore could frame key features of my interviews.
This selection rationale was comparatively grounded. According to Glaser and Strauss (1967), most researchers rely instead upon familiarity with theory and substantive literatures from their accustomed disciplines as platforms for grounded research (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Alternatively, the researcher’s agenda and expectations may decide this, with reference to norms (or funding) of their research community (Christiansen, 2011). The reflexive methodology that I endeavoured to
interlinked, including within the researcher’s internal world, and the alternative worldviews that are represented in the research findings (May & Perry, 2011). Further commentary on this reflexive process is provided in Appendix 3. According to Hibbert, et al. (2010, p.55) such critical reflexivity is a “necessarily messy” and “unsettling” process, whereby “insidious” assumptions and interlinked interpretations are “unravel[led] and disconnect[ed]”, and “thoughts and experiences are questioned and made more complex through the inputs of others”. The “doubt and contradiction” that this entails is “clearly distinct from the routine of systematic confirmatory reflexive modes” such as repetition of the familiar or incremental extension of well-known frameworks of thought and action (Hibbert, et al., 2010, p.55). So while ecological habitus was a rational choice for framing the data with integrity, it was not an intellectually doxic option.
Framing my research with an existing theory (e.g. one of many urban-ecology theories) would have been a less challenging approach to take. However, this would not have accurately represented the emphasis that the experts put on social reproduction, change, normativity, routinised practice, and critical reflexivity, which are the strengths of Bourdieu’s theory. Similarly, other theories of multilevel sustainability-transition, such as Geels’ (2002) framework for technological change, have previously been applied in sustainability backcasting research (Neuvonen, et al., 2014; further detail in Appendix 2); however, Geels’ theory focuses on niche technologies rather than routinised everyday practice, and techno-economic market forces and innovations rather than sociological forms of change, making it a less appropriate choice. Further examples include Xiang (2016) and Morita (2010) who describe ‘ecophronesis’ and ‘ecological reflexivity’, respectively as models for describing how ecologically sustainable practice in individuals can contribute incrementally to more ecological ethics, and Xiang in particular proposes ‘ecophronesis’ as a problem-solving methodology. Eventually I adopted features of these theories into my conceptualisations of ecological habitus. However, on their own, they did not account for socially structured capital barriers to change or the way that ecological ethics and practices are reproduced in society. I was also influenced by various experts’ theories (e.g. Beatley, 2011; Kellert, 2003; Leman-Stefanovic, 2012; Louv, 2011; Perlman & Hopkins, 1997; Register, 2002), as well as the many resources that they directed me to, and these are accordingly cited in the manuscripts of Part II.
Ultimately, ecological habitus was the most appropriate theory that I had encountered for responding to my research question and representing what the expert interview data was “telling me” with integrity, which is the priority of qualitative research (Srivastava & Hopwood, 2009), albeit requiring me to learn, adopt, and adapt to what was an entirely new theoretical platform for me. Undoubtedly there are other theories that could have insightfully informed my data analysis, and I make no claim to exhaustive searching. However, having spent three years full-time researching the topic to this point, on top of relatively interdisciplinary undergraduate studies, interviews with 25 experts, and surveys of material that they directed me to, it was evident that this theory could provide the heuristic necessary to process and present my data, proffering many benefits to this end.
Applying and later developing ecological habitus as an analytical framework happened in stages. At first I constructed a basic cyclic model to represent the fundamentals of habitus (Figure 2, p.26), re- interpreting the interim topics listed above through this Bourdieuan-inspired lens, with constant reference to the sticky-notes, quotes, and other data. This involved asking questions of the data such as:
What are the perceivable social fields involved?
What are the dispositions involved and what are the origins of these? What are the capitals involved and who commands these?
Who are the agents involved?
What are the practices that contribute to reproducing the status quo?
What are the practices that have potential, or are seen already to create change?
This provided me with a set of well established Bourdieuan-analysis starting points, but I found Bourdieu’s habitus model to be deficient when it came to framing ecological and natural capitals, and ecological reflexivity (ER). In the next chapter, I argue that these are critical to conceptualising
ecological habitus and document my development upon habitus and ecological habitus scholarship and models to create my own framework, which integrates these factors. As my theorising developed, I formalised the need for further questions such as:
What is the net effect of different forms of ecological habitus on natural capital?
Where is reflexivity routinised and subconscious and where is it being intentionally and critically applied?
How can critical ER (critER) be promoted?
Where in the cycle of ecological habitus can change most pragmatically begin?
This process of questioning essentially entailed my own deployment of critER (i.e. evolving critical analysis of ecological habitus and its constituent interactive factors) as a methodological tool. This is what Kasper (2009a) proposed ecological habitus be developed into, and is equivalent to the way that Bourdieu applied reflexivity of habitus as a methodological tool in his own work. In Chapter 5, I discuss the role of ER as part of my ecological habitus framework, and in Chapter 6, I go into more detail about scholarly history and my own theorising around this nascent methodology as well as discussing the potential value that I foresee it could bring to socio-ecological research.
Through this process I re-assessed all of the interim topics that came from my data and either set a place for them as part of one of my final themes (i.e. pathways), or included them in my final results in other ways. Below I explain this process, clearly tracing how the interim topics shown in Table 6 (above) were linked into my ecological habitus framework to generate my final research results.
Table 7: Three major backcasted pathways to sustainability and the interim topics incorporated directly into these.
Sustainable city aspiration
Barrier to sustainability and practical solution
Interim topics included
1. City authorities as ecologically reflexive sustainability leaders Barrier- Disciplinary silos inhibiting conscious/critical ecological reflexivity
Sharing ideas and solutions:
o across disciplines; and
o between experts and city dwellers.
Rethinking perceptions of what is
‘normal’ regarding institutional disciplinary silos.
Offering visions of sustainable futures.
Solution- Promotion of interdisciplinarity and ecological imagination 2. Enhancing everyday experiences of natural capital in cities Barrier-
Need for greater human- nature connection in cities
The value of nature in cities:
o to individuals (i.e. for
biopsychosocial benefits); and
o at a local/global scale (e.g. effects on
local/global ecosystem function).
Contextualisation of cities within local
bioregions/ecologies.
Improving equality of resource
distribution (proximity, quality and quantity of natural capital
particularly). Solution-
Enrichment of cities with greater quality and quantities of nature 3. Small ecological actions towards mainstream sustainability in cities Barrier- Sustainable ecological habitus being outside of mainstream society
Engaging more city dwellers in
sustainability solutions.
Sharing ideas and solutions among city
dwellers.
Rethinking perceptions of what is
‘normal’ including city dwellers’ routine everyday practices.
Changing the publicised messages about
socio-ecological issues and ways of life to include more digestible, acceptable, practical/achievable, and positive effective visions of potential alternatives.
Offering visions of sustainable futures.
Solution-
Identifying and enacting accessible ways for people to practice sustainability