Explaining Showering: a Discussion of the Material, Conventional, and Temporal Dimensions of Practice

This article considers the increasing popularity of showering in the UK. We use this case as a means of exploring some of the dimensions and dynamics of everyday practice. Drawing upon a range of documentary evidence, we begin by sketching three possible explanations for the current constitution of showering as a private, increasingly resource-intensive routine. We begin by reviewing the changing infrastructural, technological, rhetorical and moral positioning of showering. We then consider how the multiple and contingent constituents of showering are arranged and re-arranged in and through the practice itself. In taking this approach, we address a number of more abstract questions about the relation between practices, technologies and infrastructures and about what these relationships mean for the fixity and fluidity of ordinary routines and for associated patterns of consumption. The result is a method that allows us to analyze the ways in which material cultures and conventions are reproduced and transformed. This has practical implications for those seeking to contain the environmental consequences of resource-intensive practices.Xx

Categories, Concepts and Units : Representing energy demand in and through time

Preprin

Diagramming social practice theory:An interdisciplinary experiment exploring practices as networks

Achieving a transition to a low-carbon energy system is now widely recognised as a key challenge facing humanity. To date, the vast majority of research addressing this challenge has been conducted within the disciplines of science, engineering and economics utilising quantitative and modelling techniques. However, there is growing awareness that meeting energy challenges requires fundamentally socio-technical solutions and that the social sciences have an important role to play. This is an interdisciplinary challenge but, to date, there remain very few explorations of, or reflections on, interdisciplinary energy research in practice. This paper seeks to change that by reporting on an interdisciplinary experiment to build new models of energy demand on the basis of cutting-edge social science understandings. The process encouraged the social scientists to communicate their ideas more simply, whilst allowing engineers to think critically about the embedded assumptions in their models in relation to society and social change. To do this, the paper uses a particular set of theoretical approaches to energy use behaviour known collectively as social practice theory (SPT) - and explores the potential of more quantitative forms of network analysis to provide a formal framework by means of which to diagram and visualize practices. The aim of this is to gain insight into the relationships between the elements of a practice, so increasing the ultimate understanding of how practices operate. Graphs of practice networks are populated based on new empirical data drawn from a survey of different types (or variants) of laundry practice. The resulting practice networks are analysed to reveal characteristics of elements and variants of practice, such as which elements could be considered core to the practice, or how elements between variants overlap, or can be shared. This promises insights into energy intensity, flexibility and the rootedness of practices (i.e. how entrenched/ established they are) and so opens up new questions and possibilities for intervention. The novelty of this approach is that it allows practice data to be represented graphically using a quantitative format without being overly reductive. Its usefulness is that it is readily applied to large datasets, provides the capacity to interpret social practices in new ways, and serves to open up potential links with energy modeling. More broadly, a significant dimension of novelty has been the interdisciplinary approach, radically different to that normally seen in energy research. This paper is relevant to a broad audience of social scientists and engineers interested in integrating social practices with energy engineering

Paper Session I-A - Geographic and planning characteristics of commercial spaceports: Strategic policy considerations for their future

The presentation is based on two academic papers I previously wrote. I know the topic is broad but it addresses spaceports in a bigger light of regional issues required for a successful spaceport. Space is a geographic place from which numerous private and government entities operate just as terrestrial industries. Due to government policy changes in the late 1980s commercial space industries began to spin-off from the U.S. government space program and separately evolve. At the dawn of the 21st Century commercial space industries have stabilized into viable business industrial operations referred to as space commerce. Motivated by profit, a distinct geography of space commerce and spaceports are emerging from the geography of government space activities. It appears that the geography of space commerce and spaceports follows traditional neo-classical economic industrial location theory but with a few peculiarities

Short Legs Racing Towards Extinction: The Landscape Genetics of UK Hedgehogs

Biodiversity has been in global declines since the 1940s with industrialised nations including the UK seeing significant declines driven by habitat loss and fragmentation, land use changes and barrier effects, among others. These declines have not only resulted in the loss of species and ecosystem diversity but also genetic diversity, a key component to species survival. The relationship between genetic loss and landscape changes has been demonstrated for a variety of specialist species but is less well established for generalist species, such as the West European Hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus). This species has seen significant declines and changes in distribution across the UK since the 1950s. Although the drivers of these changes are not well understood, anthropogenic changes in the landscape such as modified agricultural practices and increased road traffic have been proposed to play a part. I used microsatellite genetic analysis to investigate the impact of landscape features on the genetic structure of hedgehogs across South Wales. To understand how landscape features might impact on population genetics, I developed landscape resistance mapping for habitats, roads, watercourses and geographic distance, producing surfaces representing the ‘resistance’ of movement of hedgehogs through South Wales. I then combined these with the genetic data to test for landscape effects on genetic relatedness using circuit theory. I detected weak genetic structure, with four genetic clusters, but many individuals were admixed. The landscape genetic analysis showed no significant effect from any of the resistance variables on genetic relatedness, including geographic distance, suggesting that gene flow within the sample population is not impacted by landscape resistance. I discuss the potential reasons for this along with other possible causes for the genetic structure observed. This study demonstrates the importance of understanding the interactions between a species and landscape to ensure successful conservation management and appropriate consideration within ecological consultancy