Grégoire Wallenborn

How to attribute power to consumers?: When epistemology and politics converge

What powers do consumers have to change their behaviours? The answer to that question depends on the definition given of consumers and the attributes that result. But the definition of consumers varies widely from one theoretical model to the next. This paper reviews different models of consumers and analyses the role and powers they supposedly have in the more general framework of the consumer society. It concludes that consumers practices and attitudes are currently shaped by performative models of individuals, and calls for collective devices that could redistribute current relationship of powers.1. Introduction Sustainable Consumption: A Short List of Contradictions Part 1: Consumption: What Kind of a Problem for Sustainable Development? 2. Sustainable Household Consumption: Fact, Future or Fantasy? 3. Epistemological Approach of Consumption: How to Attribute Power to the Consumers? 4. Unsustainable Consumption in Social and Psychological Context 5. Sustainable Consumption and Sustainable Welfare 6. Whats Wrong with Consumption: Overconsumption, Underconsumption, Misconsumption? 7. Consumption: A Field for Resistance and Moral Containment 8. Fair Trade and Economic Growth Part 2: Who Are the (Ir)responsible Consumers and Why? 9. Belgian Households and Sustainable Consumption: Capacity and Incapacity of Action 10. The Dynamic of Sustainable Consumption: Results of Qualitative Surveys 11. What Justifications for a Sustainable Consumption? 12. Consumption as a Solidarity-Based Commitment: The Case of Oxfam Worldshops Customers Part 3: How Can (or do) Consumers and Citizens Influence Producers? 13. Marketing Ethical Products: What Can We Learn from Fair-Trade Consumer Behaviour in Belgium 14. Can Fair Trade be Extended to Massive Sales? 15. Impact of the Construction of Quality Networks at Farmers Level: The Example of Fair Trade Cotton 16. Changing Companies for Changing the Consumers Behaviour, Application of the Actionalist Theory

Emergent transformation games: Exploring social innovation agency and activation through the case of the Belgian electricity blackout threat

The persistence of current societal problems has given rise to a quest for transformative social innovations. As social innovation actors seek to become change makers, it has been suggested that they need to play into impactful macrodevelopments or “game-changers”. Here, we aim to deepen the understanding of the social innovation agency in these transformation games. We analyze assumptions about the game metaphor, invoking insights from actor-network theory. The very emergence of transformation games is identified as a crucial but easily overlooked issue. As explored through the recent electricity blackout threat in Belgium, some current transformation games are populated with largely passive players. This illustrative case demonstrates that socially innovative agency cannot be presupposed. In some transformation games, the crucial game-changing effect is to start the game by activating the players.