Climate Change or Social Change? Debate within, amongst, and beyond Disciplines

In `̀ Beyond the ABC: climate change policy and theories of social change'', Shove (2010) acknowledges her position to be ``deliberately provocative'' (page 1273): and as (social) scientists of all descriptions interested in climate change, we should welcome an openness and questioning of the methodologies and epistemology underlying our research. Shove aims to explain how all social science disciplines contain theoretical understandings that can constructively contribute to improving the management of huge societal challenges such as climate change and, ultimately, sustainability. Shove's paper is enlightening in many ways, highlighting the need to give greater attention to structural dimensions of unsustainability and social change, to the limitations of individualistic models of behaviour, and to the value of sociotechnical and practice approaches to address climate change. One of Shove's main critiques, we find, lies in the suggestion that the ABC (`attitude ^ behaviour ^ choice') model remains prevalent in policy circles, as it tailors with `̀ the dominant paradigms of economics and psychology'' (page 1274). Our reading suggests that her paper is restricted in its simplistic portrayals of psychological models of behaviour, and wholesale dismissal of nonsociological approaches to social or behavioural change. It is frustratingöespecially in relation to sustainability where there has been some success in bringing together different disciplines towards similar aims and goalsöthat different disciplinary perspectives continue to be perceived both as necessarily opposed and in opposition. Sustainability is a complex and multi-layered problemöevident at the levels of both social structures and individual actionsöwhich demands contributions from a range of perspectives, not one single worldview, theory, or research methodology. Of course, different disciplines have different strengths and weaknesses, which is precisely why we need interdisciplinary approaches to address important societal and environmental problems. Naturally, insofar as we can generalise, psychologists tend to focus on individualsöalbeit within a social and physical contextöwhile sociologists tend to focus on the contextöalbeit how individuals enact and reflect that context. However, just as psychologists may tend towards an overly individualistic or decontextualised view, so sociologists tend towards the overly structural and undifferentiated. Similarly, while psychologists may indeed be relatively uncritical of dominant societal assumptions in their work, sociologists could equally be criticised as offering little in the way of practical solutions to pressing societal problems such as climate change (as Shove herself acknowledges). Critically, though, to claim that research within this very broad field is `̀ homogenous'' (as Shove claims, page 1278), and to state that there is `̀ a dominant line of reasoning reinforced by extensive mutual cross-referencing'' (page 1274) is far too simplistic and does not do justice to the range of theories and approaches which are extant in the diverse literature of climate ^ society interaction. Shove sets up a `straw man' of psychology and economicsöreferring to the so-called ABC modelöand yet refers to the C in Stern's (2000) environmental psychology ABC model as Choice, rather than Context (as originally intended). No doubt, individual choice is a feature of many social science models, but anything more than a casual inspection reveals a far more complex academic landscape. Perhaps the more fundamental, deeply rooted, and difficult question that Shove subtly suggests here, and more Commentary Environment and Planning A 2011, volume 43, pages 258 ^ 261