April 5: Downshifting and the Emergence of Low-Impact Lifestyles

[Emilie Dubois]

Juliet B. Schor, 1998, The Overspent American, ch 5.

Iain R. Black and Helene Cherrier, 2010, “Anti-consumption as part of
living a sustainable lifestyle: Daily practices, contextual
motivations and subjective values, Journal of Consumer Behavior, 9:
437–453

David Evans and Wokje Abrahamse, 2009, “Beyond Rhetoric: The
Possibilities for an of ‘Sustainable Lifestyles,” Environmental
Politics 18(4):486-502.

New Economics Foundation, 2009, 21 Hours, available at
http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/21-hours

Mikko Jalas, “Sustainability in Everyday Life: A Matter of Time?” in
The Ecological Economics of Consumption, edited by Lucia A. Reisch and
Inge Røpke, (Cheltenham, UK: Egward Elgar), pp. 151-171.

[Emilie Dubois]

I identify with Ellen.
(Schor 1998, pp. 128)

Even though she has become extremely frugal, she can’t get her monthly
expenses much below $1,200. (All told, my month expenses typically
border the limits of my graduate stipend, the support from which is
absent during January, June, July, and August.) She had run down her
savings and was on the verge of tapping into her retirement accounts.
(I have a pathetic little retirement account from working for a
university in New York. No financial support from my parents who,
after a firing, bouts with cancer and heart failure respectively, have
summarily depleted their savings and are slowly sieving through their
retirement account to pay their mortgage. Really, the largest amount
of money connected to my name is my student loan debt. After
attending college on a partial athletic scholarship and working full
time throughout most of my first MA (in history – beware the dangers
of disciplinary wandering), I still somehow have over $61,000 in
debt. The interest is grimly ticking forward even though I am a full-
time student. If I paid my loans back three years from today, making
payments of $2,000 a month, I will owe just over $75,000. If I wait
seven years and eke out $1,000 monthly payments, I will owe around
$84,000. Most likely, I won’t be able to make good on either payment
plan.) Ellen let her health insurance lapse. (I am thankful to have
health insurance but often charge prescriptions or pay out of pocket
for my asthma medication. Also, as a graduate student I have no
dental or eye insurance. I fill out sliding scale applications at low
cost clinics and laugh alongside my colleagues about our dental
catastrophes. I know of three students in my satellite graduate
office alone who have put off dental procedures for years resulting in
teeth broken by cavities, root canals six months in the making, and
one impending visit designed to undo the damage caused by three years
of neglect.) Professor Schor writes that Ellen has periodic emotional
crises about her situation and gets scared a lot. (Ellen, I hear
you.)

I lay bare my fiscal situation not to elicit doleful stares and
emphatic back pats, but to ask us, as a class, to make the personal
political in our consideration of the motives and life positions that
make alternatives to current consumptive practices viable. I’ve
sensed the annoyance of my hometown friends and of my family for
years, shrinking under their confused head-shaking and quizzical
murmurs about why, despite the fact that I have “my degree,” I am
still “in school.” I suspect, however, that this is a Catch-22 with a
presence more pervasive than its origin as a first-generation college
student vignette implies. It has an application to this class and to
our collective understanding of where the urge to sustain an image of
our lifestyles originates. I doubt that in glancing around our
classroom that any of us might guess that there are others among us
with such uncertain, guilt-ridden futures. I also doubt that I am
alone in this fundamental insecurity.

Downshifters cite a loss of balance in their lives, a word that
resonates with many Schor chronicles. Different from simple-livers,
downshifters “have experienced a change in which time and quality of
life became relatively more important than money” while simple-lives
“find a (low) level of sufficiency income, beyond which spending more
is no longer positive” (Schor 1998, pp. 138). Jonathan Wharton, a
design consultant who morally expatriated to simple-living unable to
rectify the decoupling between what design was supposed to do “make a
person’s life easier” from what he actually perceived “that as we
acquire things, they don’t necessarily enhance our lives” (Schor 1998,
pp. 140).

Black and Cherrier ask a two-fold question: “does anti-consumption fit
within the discourse of sustainability? If so, what are the
characteristics and meanings affiliated to practices of anti
consumption for sustainability and what makes practices of anti
consumption part of sustainable living?” (2010, pp. 438). They
discover that anti-consumption takes precedence over green consumption
and that rejecting, reducing, and reusing are practices essential to
maintaining desired anti-consumptive identities. The authors report
that all of their informants were “sustainable bricoleurs, negotiating
sustainability within their daily lives using whatever is available to
them … in constant movement amongst webs of identity claims and
responsibility towards individual needs and environmental
conservations” (Black and Cherrier 2010, pp. 449). The authors argue
that “care for individual needs was found as a strong element of anti-
consumption for sustainability… suggest[ing] that anti-consumption for
sustainability is not just a result of environmental concerns, but
that it mostly stems from the subjectivity of the consumer and their
personal needs” (2010, pp. 451). This self-orientation, is maybe
harder to swallow than the well oiled altruistic, other-centered
motivation for learning to live more lightly on the earth, but might
hold more promise for changing deeply embedded identity-based
practices. What will it take for people trying to signal that they’re
“made it” through their consumptive practices to adopt an
‘anticonsumerist ethic’ that their psyche does not intuitively
interpret as “antithetical to material prosperity?” (2010, pp.
451).

The example that I made out of my financial anxiety at the beginning
of this post might be part of the answer. Luka just started a
Roslindale branch of the Common Security Club (http://
www.commonsecurityclub.org/) a group designed to reconfigure personal
connections to the market through collective learning, sharing, and
support. Over 40 people showed up for the introductory session. Like
Evans and Abrahamse argue, consumptive “lifestyles are far more
complex than the rhetoric would have it, and that any attempt to
motivate their uptake on a wider scale needs to understand the many
facets, tensions and difficulties associated with ‘real world’
attempts to live one” (Evans and Abrahamse 2009, pp. 500). Can
collectives like this naturalize alternative lifestyles with a broad
enough impact so that the “structural” changes these articles always
circle eventually occur? Is normalizing a shorter (paid) working week
a possibility if this kind of deceleration catches hold?

This week our authors argue that just as we all negotiate identities,
cycling somewhat less than fluidly between them, one of the mechanisms
driving this kaleidoscopic motion is presentation of self. Is a
perverse reciprocal relationship at play wherein the decreasing
likelihood of individual financial abundance brings about elevated or
exaggerated levels of our personal performances of it? How can we
repurpose this energy so that our propensity towards what Evans and
Abrahanmse call “life projects” serves to mitigate economic and
ecological tensions rather than exacerbate them?

[Tom Laidley]

Right there with you Emilie. ~80K in debt, 2k left until I hit my credit card limits, and probably moving into my mom's 2 br apartment in September. I couldn't help but notice during the paroxysm of 2008/9 that we (me + parents) really stayed pretty calm, because we had nothing to lose to begin with.

Also, an aside, not entirely humorous, before I start: Does the 20 hour work week apply to academics? To me, the closest thing we come to that in academia is the increasing prevalence of adjunct labor. Maybe this might not fit every sector equally?

At the core of our global environmental problems lies a fairly simple and well-known calculus of aggregate resource depletion (and the related greenhouse gas emissions resulting from it): # of people * technology * affluence = impact (IPAT; of course, theorists have drawn more complex models from this, but let’s operate under Occam’s razor for the purposes of the discussion). From this, there emerges three rather predictable trends of advocacy: People that focus on global population (popular in the 70’s but pockmarked by the dubious ethical character of essentially scolding poor people for reproducing at higher rates), technology (we can make the things we use more efficient, and perhaps even carbon neutral, with human ingenuity), and the critics of affluence, consumerism, and material consumption. The last group makes some good points- though population of course matters, it becomes a perverse spectacle when, say, and American academic (who uses forty times the energy as a rural Indian or Chinese peasant) thrusts these problems onto the backs of the global south. And technology is rarely a panacea- for all the strides people at MIT make, nobody is brilliant enough to break the laws of thermodynamics. So where does that leave us?

With a deliberate slowing down of material acquisition through a redefinition of what constitutes human progress, more or less. Because needs are always situated to a baseline that’s consistently moving upward with attendant macro-level economic growth, making more arguably does not lead to fulfillment. Projects like 21 hours argue that working less will lead to a confluence of desirable social trends: Less material acquisition, more free time, and because firms won’t be allocating as much work to individuals, more overall employment. Still, there are enormous social and cultural roadblocks from realizing that kind of a sea change. More than anything, Evans and Abrahamse illustrate the need for a simultaneous engagement on individual and structural levels. If nobody else is going to willingly work 21 hours  a week, then it makes no sense for me to; I’m fronting the costs, and since others are still working 45 hour weeks, I’m not getting any of the social benefits. Jalas makes a very good point about the possibility for rebound effects vis-à-vis time saving efficiency gains; this would be a concern for such ‘deceleration’ models, but it’s likely the decrease in income resulting from the shortened work week would preclude a ramping up of material consumption or an obviation of the benefits accrued. Still, there are enormous barriers to such a wholesale reorganization- is it even possible within a capitalist political economy? Is it possible keeping in mind the powerful cultural and social forces which would oppose it? Would it solve problems of structural unemployment? How would robust workplace benefits fare (Sure, I can guess advocates for this approach also support a welfare provisioning which would largely defuse this concern, but what if that doesn’t happen)? And perhaps most important, would we be sacrificing one set of problems for another? That is to say, of course Americans will score higher on depression/anxiety metrics than lots of people in relatively squalid places…but does that not illustrate to some extent how we have passed an existential insecurity and now in some sense have the ‘luxury’ of being anxious over work? (That’s not to marginalize depression or illness, nor to suggest our current obsession with work is unproblematic, just arguing for an open-minded interpretation of what these trends may mean.) Speaking in geo-political terms, can industrialized countries collectively agree to these slow-downs, and how does the global south fit in? These aren’t just cultural or even political matters, either. We have spent most of human history running away from material necessity, and even want. Do we have the collective self-consciousness to broker a deal with ourselves to sacrifice some of the comfort we’ve attained in order to enhance our long term prospects of thriving on a planet that isn’t we’re not actively degrading?

[L Carfagna]

I'll echo the anxiety of Emilie and Tom (and Ellen, etc) - and at the same time count my blessings.  I carry just under $40k in debt which isn't that remarkable, except to say that it came from one year of graduate school and was supplemented by about $13k in partial academic scholarship.  In addition, I worked 3 jobs while writing my MA thesis and emotionally struggled to find worth in writing something that no one would read, unless I gave it practical significance (which we all know can bring down the "prestige" of the project).  I was lucky to have undergrad paid for by a full athletic scholarship, but paid severely with long time health problems sustained from multiple concussions that ended my career early.  Forced to choose between playing and risking brain damage and having a shot at grad school one day, I chose grad school - a path I knew nothing about as a first generation college student.  I was lucky to have friends that were student affairs administrators on campus who threw me in a car one day on their way to a conference in Boston, where they let me sneak in on their university expensed hotel room while I rode the trains (for the first time ever) and talked to grad schools in the area.  Fast forward two years and I'm working at a moving company either hauling household goods or making up for the clerical mistakes of my unhappy, overworked supervisor - with a Masters degree from a prestigious University.  Since then I've learned how to fill out the sliding fee waivers that Emilie spoke of and how to keep my cool in front of well-meaning but patronizing social workers who have stood between my health and my dignity at times.  And yet the lesson I've never learned is how to not feel like a fraud in that system because of the expansiveness of my education and the supposed opportunities it offers, nor have I completely learned how to not feel like a fraud in the academic system because I carry so much economic insecurity.   I count my blessings daily and as a person of faith I try to surrender my anxiety to one I believe to be greater than I'll ever understand, but I'd be lying if I said its not taxing.  Knowing my classmates harbor that anxiety is unsettling and infuriating, but yet brings a sense of relief.

As Emilie noted, I did start a group in Roslindale called a Common Security Club and in facilitating this group I've been privy to real life examples of our readings.  Just this morning in a conversation around how to tell ourselves a "new story" about the "new economy" when economy recovery is neither likely nor desirable, I heard a participant express a bit of defeat over how to live sustainably.  This person referenced a need for structural support or "changing the whole system" like Evans and Abrahamse noted in their interviews - despite individual sustainable choices that they were practicing.  Anti-consumption is overwhelmingly referenced as a way to survive hard economic times and the "green literacy" of our group is between beginner and intermediate at best, yet sustainable solutions are gaining a foothold (see Black and Cherrier).  Today we watched "The Story of Stuff" (www.storyofstuff.com - totally worth 20 minutes of your day) and the response was a bit stunning.  If anti-consumption is an individual pushing a boulder up a hill, sustainability might be the cognitive equivalent of reaching the top of the hill and letting go of something so burdensome.  In our group, people trying to live more with less (because they had to, not out of a principle of simple-living) were finding the nuanced connection between their (limited) choices and their (potentially limitless) agency.  Sure, there's no real silver lining to being broke and to suggest that their is would exoticize class struggle in our society (or take it a step further and it would be exoticizing the global south).  However, is there something empowering about making necessary choices that have an impact?  

Further, Professor Schor makes the following point in her chapter:  "To maintain psychological comfort, most of us must transcend the strictures of the current consumption map.  We must go "beyond Bourdieu," if you will.  The first step is to decouple spending from our sense of personal worth, a connection basic to all hierarchical consumption maps.  The second is to find a reference group for whom a low-cost lifestyle is socially acceptable" (139).  In our Common Security Club we are looking to achieve the first step by re-valuing our self worth in a system of community connections and mutual aid.  The second step, I believe,  will come as a result of those connections.  Despite the personal story I opened with, I've begun to successfully revalue myself in the past several years and I hope that I can maintain that mentality when life ramps up with the challenges beyond what I know right now (like raising children and caring for sick parents).  As a result, I've seen my consumption decrease dramatically, unless we count my unhealthy addiction to bikes.  (By the way, does anyone need a bike?  I have two that could use homes)

So where's the answer?  We know anti-consumption is a sustainable alternative for the planet, but is it the most sustainable solution for our economic security?  If so, how does it become a cultural norm as more and more of us go into debt?  Also, what if we discover the next financial gimmick (like sub prime lending or derivatives or hedge funds) in the next year and we're faced with a false economic recovery.  Will anti-consumption still find its way if we're making more money?  Then what?  How will sustainability for environmental reasons become paramount?

[weiwei]

The most fascinating part of the Black and Cherrier’s article is that
they bring ‘economic interest’ back when analyzing sustainable
consumption. Like most sociologists, Black and Cherrier agree with the
notion “that sustainability is [used to] be conducted by ‘a
responsible consumer, a socially-aware consumer…..a consumer whose
actions must be morally defensible and who must occasionally be
prepared to sacrifice personal pleasure to communal well-
being” (p451). However, unlike most sociologists, Black and Cherrier
also argue that anti-consumption for sustainability is not just a
product of environmental concerns, but that it mostly comes from the
subjectivity of the consumer and their personal needs (p 451).

The term “interest” is emphasized in the discipline of economics.
Sociologists criticize economic theory’s assumption, which consists of
maximizing behavior, market equilibrium, and stable preferences.
Sociologists argue that when analyzing economic problems, social
factors need to be taken into account. When analyzing sustainable
consumption, most scholars emphasize social network, culture, and
morality-- "interest" is often overlooked.

In China’s context, the older generation is very frugal, but their
anti-consumption attitudes and behaviors stem from their personal
experience with the Cultural Revolution and Three Years of Natural
Disasters. Chinese Great Famine in the 1960s left them an
unforgettable memory; hence they keep track of each penny that they
spend. They do not use fresh water to flush toilets (reducing
consumption), and they even mend their broken clothes or socks
(reusing consumption), but I believe that they never thought that
their behaviors benefit the environment. They just want to save as
much as they can to acquire a sense of security. Maybe a Chinese
saying goes well with this phenomenon, wu xin cha liu liu cheng yin
(meaning unintentionally positive outcome).

[Hyemi]

Professor Shor’s “The Downshifter Next Door” in The Overspent American
describes people who have freed themselves from societal pressure of
the work-and-spend cycle. Most Americans can be actually said to be
buried in this work-and-spend cycle. They excessively work, and
therefore do not have enough time to enjoy their own lives. They
relentlessly spend time and money buying even needless things, in
attempt to fill the emptiness. People tend to buy products even
without considering a product’s usefulness or necessity. It is the
reality of the contemporary society that to people, consumer goods,
rather than having functionalities, have symbolic meaning such as
sense of identities or personal worth. However, the problem is that
the connection between consumption and symbolism has been
overwhelmingly shaped by society or social relations; this is consumer
culture and it shapes our lives. This culture concerning consumption
forces people to overwork at an inhumanely fast pace in order to
afford goods. Products they purchase over time do not consequentially
mean anything to them. Those who find themselves lost lives’ balance
decide to make changes in their lifestyles, prompted by voluntary or
involuntary triggers according to people.

After reading the article, I thought that practice of downshifter and
simple-livers could be considered as a resistance to class
consciousness; the middle or upper-class informants discussed in the
article attempt to escape from “class-based consumption norms.” In
terms of social practice related to the class consciousness, I wonder
how we can understand the “simplicity” of the low class. On the other
hand, I learned the significance and necessity of the consumer
movement. Given the societal pressure to spend, I think it is
difficult for any mere practice realized in the individual level to
overcome the enormous influence of the society. In order to change the
preexisting consumer culture, a robust collective power through
movement is particularly required. Another question is, in a case of a
family where a downshifter wife Alice is financially dependent on
husband, could Alice truly be labeled as a downshifter.

On Apr 3, 3:39 pm, Emilie Dubois <emilie.anne.dub...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Juliet B. Schor, 1998, The Overspent American, ch 5.
>
> Iain R. Black and Helene Cherrier, 2010, “Anti-consumption as part of
> living a sustainable lifestyle: Daily practices, contextual
> motivations and subjective values, Journal of Consumer Behavior, 9:
> 437–453
>
> David Evans and Wokje Abrahamse, 2009, “Beyond Rhetoric: The
> Possibilities for an of ‘Sustainable Lifestyles,” Environmental
> Politics 18(4):486-502.
>

> New Economics Foundation, 2009, 21 Hours, available athttp://www.neweconomics.org/publications/21-hours

[Drew Love]

Evans and Abrahamse article on personal lifestyle choices raised an interesting point. There seemed to be a general consensus amongst the interviewees that their individual lifestyle changes were important, but lacked the impact that structural changes could create. 

One respondent summarized these thoughts when he said "I actually think it should be coming from the top down, through legislation... so a big example would be much greater tax on energy in general" (491). I'm curious if sustainable lifestyle changes eventually do lead to the type of advocacy work that might create large scale structural changes. 

[Drew Love]

So I just read the other posts and feel like I should address the ongoing conversation revolving around socio-economic status, identity, and consumption. 

My interest in this particular class is one of many effects of a multi-year journey that began with an interest in leading a more sustainable and meaningful lifestyle. 

I wanted to be a downshifter and do more "meaningful" work, so I decided to quit my first job out of college working for an English Language Center, where I made 33k a year. At 22 years of age that was a lot of money, and now at 26 years of age, it's still the most amount of money I've made in a year. The work wasn't meaningful though, so I quit that job to teach yoga and work at a grocery store (and learned that paying for Cobra  is more uncomfortable than any medical procedure I've ever been subject to) That eventually led to more volunteer work, and eventually an interest in food systems work, social justice movements, and sustainability. 

When I type out that story it sounds nice and respectable, but living that story, as other classmates have commented upon, can be harrowing. The idea of living a sustainable lifestyle might have all the moralistic merit in the world, but at the end of the day if you're a blue collar worker, making hourly wages, then you're viewed a certain way, and that public perception has a stronger emotional impact than the self-perception that you're living according to your values. 

Or viewed another way, while you might express the values and ideas of a high cultural capital individual, if you don't have the financial capital, or more accurately the professional capital, to back up those ideas, there is the risk of social exclusion. 

I think Lucca chose just the right quote from Schor's chapter. 

"To maintain psychological comfort, most of us must transcend the strictures of the current consumption map.  We must go "beyond Bourdieu," if you will.  The first step is to decouple spending from our sense of personal worth, a connection basic to all hierarchical consumption maps.  The second is to find a reference group for whom a low-cost lifestyle is socially acceptable" (139)

This is completely accurate, and also much easier said than done. I think another key point though is the status gained through professional prestige. While I assign less importance to income, I still assign a lot of importance to the type of work that I do, which is why I found myself in three jobs, including two part time jobs with non-profits that allow me to find a strong sense of professional identity, even though the financial compensation is minimal. 

I would consider myself a downshifter in the sense that I want to have a an ethical impact upon the environment and its inhabitants, and that I'm willing to make less money to achieve those objectives. However, I also find myself working more hours than I ever did at my 9-5 job at the English Language Center. I can't reduce my work schedule without feeling disconnected from my identity, even if that identity is socially defined and somehow influenced by the work obsessed culture in which we live (Boston, MA being no exception).

[Monique]

These are some of my favorite readings thus far in the course (which
says a lot because I have enjoyed each week). I feel that three are
particularly applicable to my own research agenda: Schor’s chapter,
Black & Cherrier’s article, and Evans & Abrahamse’s article. Here are
comments/questions based on each:

Schor’s chapter:
Toward the end of the chapter, there is a quote from industrial
designer Jonathan Wharton about the role that so-called “time saving”
devices have in terms of chaining people to routines of maintenance
and care which actually mitigate many of the benefits the devices are
marketed to provide. In light of the fact that many people view such
devices as essential tools in their daily routines, it would be really
interesting to, perhaps through a modified practice-theory approach,
investigate how people actually use the tools compared with how they
talk about the need for such tools.


Black & Cherrier’s article:
How does their definition of anti-consumption hold up? I’m not sure
that I agree all of the practices that they describe would qualify as
anti-consumption.
How well does the article support the conclusion that the study
participants are all integrating sustainability into their core values
and identities?

Evans & Abrahamse’s article:
The discussion of the tensions of choosing between sustainability and
other values was really good. I wonder how the authors’ interpretation
would change if their definition of sustainability were to include
more that just environmental sustainability.

[maria grinko]

I think the Jalas reading offers some good news and bad news. The bad news is the consumption discussion is just as contradictory as the issues that have arisen in the alternative food movement and energy debates (e.g. local produce has a bigger carbon footprint in some cases). It presents a sort of "damned if you do and damned if you don't" kind of situation, which can be defeating, especially when the authors admit how much analysis is STILL needed to fully understand the rebounding effects. But there are also some insights that offer more hope here, I think. The analysis here would help to defend against the worry that sustainability is a "sacrifice" message only--the path to sustainability is much more nuanced and even counter-intuitive at times. I especially liked the idea that "generally hanging around" and watching TV could be considered eco-efficient :)

[Gemma]

I was really interested in Black and Cherrier’s article on integrating anti-consumption and sustainable living into one lifestyle. I agree with their claim that in order for marketers to succeed in selling green products they must not only appeal to how environmentally friendly the product is, but also how that product will directly benefit the consumer. While I consider myself a green consumer, I can identify with Mandy (448) and some of the other interviewees that allow themselves some leeway and forgiveness when they cheat or “negotiate” with whatever is available at that moment. For example, I usually try to stay away from purchasing water bottles, but there have been times at BC when I forget my nalgene and am desperate for water, so I go to a vending machine. I think that there should exist a balance between promoting what a product can do for the earth as well as the value and quality of the product itself. One aspect of the article I did not necessarily agree with was Black and Cherrier seemed to claim that concerns for the environment is not one of the “core elements of self” (443). I consider my passion for the environment a key part of my identity. The informants in the article express a “fear of being stigmatized as deviant and acting outside the mainstream” and “reject the label or identity of ‘conservationist’ … or indeed ‘tree hugger’” (445). In my different groups of friends at BC and at home I am labeled as the hippie, crunchy-granola girl and I accept it as much a part of my identity as any of my other passions. I think that this angle is present in this article because of the age of the informants. While my parents consider themselves still to be hippies, and they are in their late 50’s, they may not represent the social norm of adults their age. Should green products work on targeting certain age groups, so that some green products focus more on younger generations by promoting how eco-friendly that products is, as opposed to products for later generations that emphasize frugality? Overall, is anti-consumption more beneficial to sustainable living or is purchasing green products?

[John Petroff]

Similar to Maria, I noticed some parallels between this week's reading
and our reading on the alternative food movement. The traditional
rhetoric in both cases is fairly straightforward, and people can
easily be made aware of how their consumption affects the environment
and their communities. Despite the fairly easily understood
connections between specific consumption habits and ecology, the net
effects of ethical consumption practices are not so easily understood.
For example, how do ethical consumers choose between local and organic
when they cannot have both, and how do they choose between local and
fair trade? There is a marginalization effect to more of our
consumption choices than we realize. Downshifting and simply buying
less is one choice that does not easily present a tradeoff. Similar to
the cost barriers associated with the foodie culture, downshifters
face social and psychological barriers that may be just as difficult
to overcome as substantial economic barriers.

[Shan]

Like many of my colleagues, I find this week's readings to hit
particularly close to home. Several years ago, I left a reasonably
well-paying job teaching English at a large state university because I
was grossly overworked and felt I did not have a good quality of life
on many fronts, including in my relationship with the environment (for
example, I drove a total of two hours to and from work). I returned to
school and have had to work several part-time jobs to support my
further education, often to the detriment of my studies; the residual
effects of my previous lifestyle, which was more grounded in a typical
middle-class American consumption practice and thought process,
linger, so I have some consumer and educational debt and a condo in
Nashville that I can't sell. (Anyone need a 1br/1ba near Vanderbilt?)

With regard to this downshifting--both voluntary and involuntary--I
swing widely both in my emotional and rational processes. Initially, I
had thought that leaving my insane job teaching a 5/5 load and 125
students a semester would give me more time to be a human being in
touch with myself, my neighbors, and the physical/natural world I
inhabit. However, this has not turned out to be the case. Somehow, the
pervasive influence of my middle class upbringing, the continuing
messages of American consumerist society, and the structures that prop
up this whole way of living keep pushing me back into patterns I'd
like to shatter. Nevertheless, I keep trying.

Evans and Abrahamse captured my experience well with these two
comments:
"Even though respondents attached a certain sense of futility to the
whole domain of lifestyle change, nobody suggested that this was
grounds for them or anybody else to give up on personal efforts to
combat environmental problems" (499).
"...there was broad consensus among these respondents that individual
lifestyle change is not enough to bring about the changes that they
suggest are required to ameliorate present environmental crises. As
such, they suggested that vast 'structural' changes are needed such as
economic, educational and social reform..." (501).

To this end, I enjoyed reading the "21 Hours" report and spent time
trying to imagine if this approach could be possible. Like some of my
colleagues, I wonder if academia could permit 21 hours a week,
especially given the way that tenure is structured at the present
time. In my previous work teaching English, I resisted heading onto
the tenure track, thinking that avoiding it would give me more freedom
(in terms of time, mental space, and the configuration of my life),
but I did not find a way to create a sustainable lifestyle through
avoidance of the traditional model. At the same time, I look at people
I know who have recently gone through the tenure process, and I do not
see much that I like. This world is such a hamster wheel, and we can
talk all we want about changing wider society, but I wonder if those
of us in academia are talking out of two sides of our mouths because
we can't even seem to change the structures of the little hamster
wheel of higher education that we are treading?