Alice Taylor

Citation

Thesis Title
How then could we live? The pragmatic creation of sustainable ecological habitus in cities

Read article at Massey Research Online:

Transitioning to more ecologically sustainable ways of life is desirable and necessary for humanity's long-term future. However, this remains an unrealised aspiration at the broad scale. Miss Taylor's research focused on Western cities as strategic places for accelerating global sustainability. Through qualitative interviews with 25 experts in socio-ecology and city futures, she assembled interdisciplinary visions for sustainable future cities and identified the critical contemporary barriers to making these visions reality. She progressed the emerging theory of 'ecological habitus' to conceptualise how the complex socio-ecological phenomena involved in city sustainability are reproduced or changed. Applying this theory to analyse her data, she concluded that enriching 'ecological reflexivity' within a spectrum of city people is the key to holistic solutions. Significantly, this could begin with everyday changes, including collaboration by authorities within leading city institutions, strategic enrichment of cities with natural capital, and sustainable micro-interventions within city people's everyday lives.

Supervisors
Associate Professor Bob Stewart
Associate Professor Trisia Farrelly
Dr Peter Howland