Sarah Marie Hall

Big society, little justice? Community renewable energy and the politics of localism

This paper challenges “Big Society (BS) Localism”, seeing it as an example of impoverished localist thinking which neglects social justice considerations. We do this through a critical examination of recent turns in the localist discourse in the UK which emphasise self-reliant communities and envisage a diminished role for the state. We establish a heuristic distinction between positive and negative approaches to localism. We argue that the Coalition Governments BS programme fits with a negative localist frame as it starts from an ideological assumption that the state acts as a barrier to community-level associational activity and that it should play a minimal role. “BS localism” (as we call it) has been influential over the making of social policy, but it also has implications for the achievement of environmental goals. We argue that this latest incarnation of localism is largely ineffective in solving problems requiring collective action because it neglects the important role that inequalities play in inhibiting the development of associational society. Drawing upon preliminary research being undertaken at the community scale, we argue that staking environmental policy success on the ability of local civil society to fill the gap left after state retrenchment runs the risk of no activity at all.

Energy justice and ethical consumption: comparison, synthesis and lesson drawing

This paper takes a first step in comparing and synthesising the emerging concept of energy justice with extant ethical consumption literatures as two complementary theoretical approaches to ethics and consumption. To date, theories of ethical consumption and energy justice remain somewhat disconnected, so while they have some areas of potential comparability, these have not yet been fleshed out or developed. To address this lacuna, this paper explores areas where research into ethical consumption might be useful for furthering concepts of energy justice. More specifically the discussion draws on the philosophical foundations, the relationship between consumption and development, and the role of transparency and visibility in reconnecting consumption and production practices as the main areas of overlap in these literatures. The conclusion points to some lessons for emerging energy justice literatures that can be drawn from this task of comparison and synthesis.

Post-Soviet Civil Society Development in the Russian Federation: The Impact of the NGO Law

The passing of the Russian NGO Law in mid-2006 set clear parameters for Russian NGO activity and civil society development. In this paper we assess the impact of the NGO Law on both NGOs and Russian civil society. Our findings illustrate that the NGO Law has led to a reduction in NGO activity and curtailment of civil society development. We conclude that Russian civil society appears to be dominated by groups funded and thus controlled by the state. This has implications for Russias on-going democratic development.

New approaches to energy: equity, justice and vulnerability. Introduction to the special issue

Energy is currently high on political agendas around the world, due to concerns over security of supply, rising prices and climate change. At the same time, the global financial crisis means that many societies are now facing new challenges of poverty and inequity. These concerns have brought with them new interests on questions of energy and social justice. For the past two decades and more it has been through the concept of fuel poverty that the connections between social disadvantage and energy have been most clearly articulated. However, as energy issues rise once more on the research and policy agendas, it is clear that fuel poverty is just one of many ways in which power relations, fairness and disadvantage are created and expressed within energy systems. This special issue is concerned with revealing and exploring these complex and diverse intersections between energy and equity, justice and vulnerability. The debate over the affordability of energy remains at the core of policy concerns. In the UK, the launch of the “green deal”, a loan-based scheme aimed at improving home energy efficiency, has attracted criticism that it will fail to adequately address fuel poverty (Lloyd et al. 2012, NEA 2012). At the same time, the term “fuel poverty” has started to be used in countries where the problem has not previously been recognised, such as Canada (White 2011). Increasing attention is also being paid to the issue in France, where it has previously been neglected (Dubois 2012). This shift in thinking is illustrated by the 2010 launch of a nationwide programme called “Habiter mieux”, aiming to improve the thermal efficiency of homes, and the creation of a National Observatory of Fuel Poverty in 2011. Meanwhile, in the UK, the government is reviewing concepts and measurements of fuel poverty, to develop a new definition of the problem. This ongoing process of review and consultation has caused controversy because although some aspects of the change have been generally welcomed, there are fears that the government is attempting to “move the goalposts” to justify missing their targets for fuel poverty eradication (e.g. Monk 2012). It is in this context of a shifting policy landscape that researchers have begun to critically examine the fuel poverty concept, and to explore in depth its measurement, distribution, causes, effects and meanings. However, engagement with the wider issues of equity, justice and vulnerability within energy systems is still a new and emerging field. In the UK, it is an agenda that has been taken up and led by members of the Interdisciplinary Cluster on Energy Systems, Equity and Vulnerability (InCluESEV) – a three-year networking programme funded under the RCUK Energy Programme (running between 2009 and 2011). This special issue aims to build upon and develop the innovative work of InCluESEV, by exploring previously neglected aspects of energy consumption and production, including issues around social power, status, ethics and exclusion. In doing so, the papers draw on a range of locations, contexts and social groups, as well as a range of data sources and methodologies. As such, the papers in this collection offer six different but complementary perspectives on the core, underlying themes. By bringing these papers together, we hope to lay

Make, mend and befriend: geographies of austerity, crafting and friendship in contemporary cultures of dressmaking in the UK

Dressmaking is a practice infused with historical significance which in the contemporary context of austerity has renewed social, cultural, economic, political and moral importance. Drawing on writing from across the social sciences we advance a geographical understanding of dressmaking by focusing on the themes of feminism and crafting practices, austerity, fashion and consumption, and friendship and encounters in order to theorise the everyday spatialities of contemporary crafting cultures. In doing so we argue that the recent return to dressmaking cannot be understood as an extension or repetition of historic practices but that contemporary dressmakers are claiming a history and geography of their own. To conclude, we argue that dressmaking and other related fabricultures have much to offer our understanding of austerity, feminism and friendship and thus merit further theoretical and empirical investigation.

Ethics of Ethnography with Families: A Geographical Perspective

This paper contributes to debates on geographies of family and intimate relations, and research ethics in ethnographic research by addressing the ethics of doing ethnography with families. Drawing on debates in human geography, anthropology, and sociology, I argue that the intimate nature of both ethnography and familial relations presents particular challenges to using an ethnographic approach to studying families. Using experiences from two years of ethnographic research with six families in the UK, the ethics of confidentiality (within and between families, and in published materials), and disengagement (following long-term involvement, transforming relationships, and staying in contact with participants) are explored. In addition, the paper sheds light on the geographical and ethical complexities of doing ‘ethnography on your doorstep’. The conclusions outline the contributions of the paper to discussions within and beyond geography, family studies, and ethnography.

Family Practices, Holiday and the Everyday

Abstract Holidays are central to the rhythm of everyday family practices and consumption, and are often depicted, within both academic literature and consumer marketing, as a defining moment in contemporary family life. To date, academic accounts of the experiences of travel and tourism have been mostly developed outside of the realm of everyday family practices and intimate relations. In this paper, therefore, we advance an interpretation of family holidays as a constituent of everyday family practices. To do this, we bring together three distinct yet interrelated conceptual frameworks: those of family practices, holiday and the everyday. Presenting and analysing data collected from ethnographic research with six families and exploring the themes of anticipation and utopian family practices, we identify how the notion of family holidays can be used a conduit for realising not only relationality between family members but also as a means of easing out the tensions and aspirations of everyday family life, a way to perfect the everyday and also to make it more palatable.

Environmental responsibility in a transition context: Russian NGO perception and response

In this paper we examine the issue of environmental responsibility in the Russian Federation by engaging in responsibility narratives with environmental nongovernmental organisations (NGOs). We do so to examine in more depth the impact of the deinstitutionalisation of environmental responsibility in Russia throughout the transition period. We find that while NGOs regard the state and other key actors to have abdicated in their responsibility for protecting the natural environment, Russian environmental NGOs appear unable to substitute for these actors. Consequently, the Russian environment remains largely unprotected and thus subject to continuing irresponsibility in the field of environmental protection and pollution control.

Moral geographies of family: articulating, forming and transmitting moralities in everyday life

Abstract The family is often considered the foundation of moral learning in society, responsible for caring and parenting, and transmitting morals to children and young people, while a lack of moral guidance from family is associated with antisocial behaviour. Despite this deep moralizing of family life, very little is known about how morals are understood in the context of family, how family members form their moral outlooks, and how morals and difference are negotiated within everyday family practices. This paper addresses some of these burgeoning questions around the moral geographies of family. Drawing on two years of ethnographic research with six families in the UK, I consider normative assumptions about what morals mean to families, which parts of family life morals are drawn from, and how morals are transmitted by and within families. In the conclusion I outline my contributions to both established and emerging areas of geographical interest.

The circadian regulator BMAL1 programmes responses to parasitic worm infection via a dendritic cell clock

Resistance to the intestinal parasitic helminth Trichuris muris requires T-helper 2 (TH2) cellular and associated IgG1 responses, with expulsion typically taking up to 4 weeks in mice. Here, we show that the time-of-day of the initial infection affects efficiency of worm expulsion, with strong TH2 bias and early expulsion in morning-infected mice. Conversely, mice infected at the start of the night show delayed resistance to infection, and this is associated with feeding-driven metabolic cues, such that feeding restriction to the day-time in normally nocturnal-feeding mice disrupts parasitic expulsion kinetics. We deleted the circadian regulator BMAL1 in antigen-presenting dendritic cells (DCs) in vivo and found a loss of time-of-day dependency of helminth expulsion. RNAseq analyses revealed that IL-12 responses to worm antigen by circadian-synchronised DCs were dependent on BMAL1. Therefore, we find that circadian machinery in DCs contributes to the TH1/TH2 balance, and that environmental, or genetic perturbation of the DC clock results in altered parasite expulsion kinetics.