Environmental destruction as (objectively) uneventful and (subjectively) irrelevant

Abstract

This essay contributes to the recent criticism against individualism and cognitivism in environmental social scientific theorizing by conceptualizing two undertheorized phenomena related to environmental changes: uneventfulness and irrelevance. Under much of environmental predicament lies a process characterized by recurrent acts through which pieces of sociomateriality are taken from or added to a particular sociomaterial system. Such process not only produces cumulative sociomaterial changes, but also the corresponding withdrawals and additions lose their eventfulness over time. Elaborating on Theodore Schatzki's work, complexity is built into the concept of practice rather than accounting for complexity with the interrelatedness of practices. Another part of the essay analyzes the subjectivity of the actor, focusing on the relevance structures of the ordinary citizens in the Global North. Environmental changes are imposed to the consciousness as intellectual problems, which tend to be incommensurate with the pragmatic necessities of everyday life. Applying Alfred Schütz's phenomenological sociology to environmental phenomena opens up new avenues for empirical environmental sociology. Understanding the objective uneventfulness and subjective irrelevance associated with much of environmental changes helps explain the inactivity of the masses amid widespread attention on the environmental predicament.

A political‐economic theory of relevance: Explaining climate change inaction

“…Ollinaho, (, p. 57) seeks to answer some of these questions in his theory of how collective environmental problems—using climate change as a common example—are maintained, rather than addressed, at the level of social practice among everyday citizens of the Global North. He develops two lines of argumentation: environmental degradation is (1) objectively uneventful and (2) subjectively irrelevant.…”

“…By embedding practices and relevance structures in social structures, specifically those of capitalist, technological‐advanced, and urban‐based societies, Ollinaho () corrects one of the most common critiques of phenomenological approaches in sociology (i.e., ignoring social structure). Our political economy of relevance approach can strengthen Ollinaho's application of Schutz in one important respect: explaining the prevalence of unreflective instrumentally rational practices unconcerned with substantive ends.…”

“…This philosophical anthropology lies beneath many of Schutz's reflections. Drawing primarily from Schutz, Ollinaho, (, p. 59, cf. p. 58) accepts the pragmatic motive as an underlying explanation in his analysis: the pragmatic motive is “a typical attitude of everyday life.” This subsection can be read as a case to historicize the “pragmatic motive.”…”

“…Others point to a variety of ideational, practice‐based, and cultural culprits, from interpersonal relations to the cultural dimensions of institutions: the ideological assumptions of mainstream climate change policy that mask the contradiction between capitalism's dual requirements to expand, on the one hand, and maintain a stable climate system on the other (Gunderson, Stuart, & Petersen, ), norms and emotions that divorce knowledge about climate change from taking action about climate change (Norgaard, ), the non‐identity of objective and subjective dimensions of the “environment‐society problematic” due to reification (Stoner, ), and “post‐ecologist” norms underlying depoliticized climate politics (Blühdorn, ; for extended review of different levels of explanation and an integrated model, see Brulle & Norgaard, ). In an article that has not yet received due attention that we engage in detail below, Ollinaho (), in a deceptively simple line of argument, makes the case that the climate change is experienced as an intellectual problem in the Global North, a “relevance structure” that does not supersede the pragmatic practices and concerns of everyday life. In other words, the drivers of climate change are reproduced in everyday life because climate change is irrelevant.…”

Farmers’ Perceptions of Climate Change in Context: Toward a Political Economy of Relevance

“…For instance, without explicitly drawing on Schutz’s theory of relevance types, Ollinaho () recently developed a Schutzian explanation for climate change inaction, arguing that climate change is experienced as an intellectual problem among citizens of the Global North, a problem that is irrelevant when compared to everyday pragmatic concerns (for assessment, see Gunderson et al in press). Ollinaho () work clearly points to the potential a Schutzian perspective for understanding climate change inaction/views and begins to correct Schutz’s limited perspective, which remains focused on internal, subjective experience (Habermas , p. 112; see Mayrl ; McNall and Johnson ; Habermas , p. 129f). Schutz acknowledges this limitation in his posthumous Reflections on the Problem of Relevance (, p. 73) where he admits that he tackles the problem of relevance ‘as if there were no social world at all’.…”