TY - JOUR
T1 - Networked Ecological Citizenship, The New Middle Classes and the Provisioning of Sustainable Waste Management in Bangalore, India
AU - Anantharaman, Manisha
PY - 2014/1/1
Y1 - 2014/1/1
N2 - Globalization and economic liberalization are enabling individuals in emerging economies like India to access lifestyles similar to the resource-intense West. This spread of consumerism poses substantial ecological challenges, and calls for studies that investigate the environmental values, ethics, and politics of India's new consumers. In this paper, I explore emerging pro-environmental behaviors in the city of Bangalore, India, among the new middle classes- its most significant consumer class. Using the case of home waste management, I show how household behavior change is made possible by neighborhood-based coordination, involving multiple actors such as environmentally-conscious residents, domestic help, and hired waste workers. Drawing on ecological citizenship theory, I discuss how waste management through recycling and composting is being implemented in Bangalore through networks of socio-economically privileged new middle class individuals. Their privileged social, political, and economic positions enable them to collectively enact changes in their cultural and structural contexts to facilitate pro-environmental initiatives. At the same time, the role of other actors like domestic servants and waste workers is also critical to the process. I show how ecological citizenship theory can be used to analyze and highlight voluntary involvement by socio-economically privileged individuals but fails to recognize the contributions of actors, who through their livelihood practices, play a pivotal role in producing the systems that enable pro-environmental behaviors among the elite. I conclude by suggesting that a critical analysis of the processes and political arrangements that produce pro-environmental behaviors is vital to sustainable consumption and production research in emerging economies like India.
AB - Globalization and economic liberalization are enabling individuals in emerging economies like India to access lifestyles similar to the resource-intense West. This spread of consumerism poses substantial ecological challenges, and calls for studies that investigate the environmental values, ethics, and politics of India's new consumers. In this paper, I explore emerging pro-environmental behaviors in the city of Bangalore, India, among the new middle classes- its most significant consumer class. Using the case of home waste management, I show how household behavior change is made possible by neighborhood-based coordination, involving multiple actors such as environmentally-conscious residents, domestic help, and hired waste workers. Drawing on ecological citizenship theory, I discuss how waste management through recycling and composting is being implemented in Bangalore through networks of socio-economically privileged new middle class individuals. Their privileged social, political, and economic positions enable them to collectively enact changes in their cultural and structural contexts to facilitate pro-environmental initiatives. At the same time, the role of other actors like domestic servants and waste workers is also critical to the process. I show how ecological citizenship theory can be used to analyze and highlight voluntary involvement by socio-economically privileged individuals but fails to recognize the contributions of actors, who through their livelihood practices, play a pivotal role in producing the systems that enable pro-environmental behaviors among the elite. I conclude by suggesting that a critical analysis of the processes and political arrangements that produce pro-environmental behaviors is vital to sustainable consumption and production research in emerging economies like India.
KW - Behavior change
KW - Ecological citizenship
KW - India
KW - Recycling
KW - Urban sustainability
UR - https://digitalcommons.stmarys-ca.edu/school-liberal-arts-faculty-works/280
U2 - 10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.08.041
DO - 10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.08.041
M3 - Article
VL - 63
JO - Journal of Cleaner Production
JF - Journal of Cleaner Production
ER -