Reducing energy consumption in urban households is essential for reaching the necessary climate research and policy targets for CO2 reduction and sustainability. The dominant approach has been to invest in technological innovations that increase household energy efficiency. This article moves beyond this approach, first by emphasising the need to prioritise reducing energy demand over increasing energy efficiency and, second, by addressing the challenge of energy consumption at the level of the community, not the individual household. It argues that energy consumption is shaped in and by social communities, which construct consciousness of the energy implications of lifestyle choices. By analysing a specific type of community, a digital community, it looks at the role that communication on online discussion boards plays in the social process of questioning energy needs and shaping a “decent lifestyle”. The article explores three social processes of community interaction around energy practices – coercive, mimetic, and normative – questioning the ways in which they contribute to the activation of energy discursive consciousness. In conclusion, the article reflects on the potential implications of these social processes for future research and interventions aimed at reducing energy demand. To illustrate how the three selected social processes influence one another, the article builds on the results of a research project conducted in Amsterdam, analysing the potential contribution of online discussion boards in shaping energy norms in the Sustainable Community of Amsterdam Facebook group.
With the introduction of research activities in higher professional education in the Dutch higher education system, the notions of ‘research’ that were previously silently agreed upon among academics in traditional universities also came under pressure. Additionally, bothtypes of higher education actively claim to have educational programs of a different character. The ground underneath the difference is claimed to be the presence of distinct research activities. This study considers this difference through the discourse on ‘research’ of lecturers in both higher professional education and university education. In interviews, lecturers were asked to judge an argument on their own work-related activities to be ‘research’ or ‘nonresearch’. Through a network-analysis approach, the data results in five discursive building blocks that all lecturers apply in their arguments, and three discursive themes on research. Furthermore, this research indicates that differences among lecturers on discursive themes areonly partly based on institutional differences.
Citizens have responded to newcomers in the Netherlands with acts of solidarity and programmes to support integration, often in response to increasingly restrictive government policies. In a previously published study by the primary author, a critical discourse analysis was conducted of texts used in mandatory government integration programmes. Findings showed that texts discursively construct the “modern Us” the “unmodern Other” and a hierarchical relationship between the two, recreating in practice racialized categories reminiscent of colonial times. Considering the role citizen initiatives play in integration, it is important to also understand their discourse on integration. A critical discourse analysis using Bacchi’s What’s the Problem Represented to Be? approach was conducted on texts used in citizen initiatives for integration in the Netherlands. Additionally, as part of a larger institutional ethnography, ethnographic data was gathered on their day-to-day work. These data were analyzed through a theoretical lens inspired by occupational science, governmentality and post/decolonial studies. Initial findings show dominant discourses found in formal integration programmes being actively reproduced in citizen initiatives. Additionally, findings display concepts of ‘successful’ integration, the “Us”, and the “Other” being discursively shaped by promoting ‘modern’ occupations as part of ‘successful’ everyday life. Occupational science is a field with particular interest in social transformation projects, projects often based in the informal sector. Understanding how dominant discourses are reproduced in informal programmes provides important perspectives on their impact on everyday life, demonstrating the importance of remaining critical of discourses in projects operating in the peripheries.
MULTIFILE
