Theorising
As summer is moving towards autumn, I feel like writing again. For me, autumn and winter are always the seasons for thinking and creating academic works. My co-author (who is also my partner) and I oftentimes work from our bed office. Our bed is a mattress on the floor. In the morning, we were revisiting our theory (deep transformations theory of degrowth). We were trying to identify various gaps in it and ways to take it further. Because academia is so fast-paced and there is so much pressure to publish, it is rare when fellow humans engage deeply with others' works. We rarely get in-depth feedback (I usually get it on my autoethnography though), so we try to be self critical and revisit our own works.
As we were splitting our theory into various elements, looking for connections between them and wondering what we have overlooked, I was contemplating everyday life. For example, we say that sustainability transformations are a result of actions from civil society, the state, and business. But what actions? We say rather general things about them in our works. Yet, these actions are very concrete. Felt. Experienced. En-acted. They are everyday decisions that we make or do not make. That's why I love autoethnography as a method. When I contemplate change in civil society, I think about academia, social movements (e.g., voluntary simplicity, minimalism, zero-waste and many others), alternative organisations (byttestationer, libraries). But also about how my day unfolds and all the ways in which I try (succeed and fail) to live in the world in a certain way. In our common academic works my partner and I don't talk much about everyday life. In one of our future works we will. Perhaps for many non-academics it is difficult to relate to what we say in our theoretical works. Our theory describes, in very general terms, what needs to happen for a genuinely sustainable society to come into being. Yet, in everyday life, I sit by the pond, sometimes for hours, being with non-humans (crayfish, waterlilies, trees, watercress). I have fika with the sun. I sit on the balcony in the evening looking at the moon in pink clouds. I repair a hole in my shirt. I take a plain cotton tote bag to a meeting thinking that many years ago I would have felt apprehensive about looking so casual. I say no to a project that would benefit my career but doesn't feel right. I take water with me because I want to avoid single use plastic. I agree to a 5 hour train journey with my stepchild though we haven't done it before, but I want to nurture our connection. I wrap my hair in a muslin cloth used for babies because I don't want to buy a new towel. And that's just me. There are so many fellow humans who navigate their everyday life too, in their own unique ways.
