David Evans - SCI Lecturer and Research Fellow

David came to Manchester in April 2009, as a postdoctoral research in the Sustainable Consumption Institute. In April 2011 he secured a joint appointment as an SCI research fellow and lecturer in sociology. Prior to this, he was part of the ESRC research group on Lifestyles, Values and the Environment (RESOLVE) at the University of Surrey, which he joined after completing his PhD at the University of Cardiff. He is also a visiting researcher in the Department of Geography at the University of Sheffield.

David is interested in how consumption relates to the dynamics of everyday practices and the ordering of social relations. Focusing on a range of processes and at a variety of scales, his work explores how certain forms of consumption emerge and the means through which they might be governed.  To date, he has addressed a number of substantive themes, including:  sustainability, lifestyles (and livelihoods), alterity, food, disposal, energy,  innovation,mobility and environmental policy. His research engages with sociological, geographical and anthropological literatures on material culture, ANT and theories of practice.

His current research is structured around a number of projects:

1) Eco-Innovation and Consumer Behaviour: David is Co-Investigator (Co-I) on this ESRC co-funded project (BSB-02) where he is working with Chris Foster (Co-I), Dale Southerton (PI) and Andy McMeekin (PI). This research explores a number of case studies in order to better understand the connections between innovation processes and processes of consumption.

2) Urban Waste Governance he is working with Sally Gee and Elvira Uyarra, from the SCI and MIoIR, to develop understandings of how innovations in infrastructures and institutions connect to household dynamics and the practices of everyday life. They are in receipt of seedcorn funding from cities@Manchester to explore these issues in relation to questions of urban waste governance.

3) Modelling Consumer Behaviour: an SCI funded interdisciplinary study of sustainable food consumption that is led by Dale Southerton.

4) CONREG: a cross-cultural study of consumption in 3 different regulatory contexts (UK, France, Norway) that is led by Unni Kjærnes.

5) Food Waste in Domestic Space: David is PI on this ethnographic research into household food waste.

David is currently finishing off two books that derive from his research into food waste. The first is a sole-authored contribution entitled Food Waste: Home Consumption, Material Culture and Everyday Life. This book is under contract with Berg and it will form part of their materialising culture series.

The second is a collection that he is editing with Hugh Campbell and Anne Murcott entitled Waste Matters: New Perspectives on Food and Society. This book will form part of the Sociological Review’s book series (published by Wiley-Blackwell) and was commissioned as the outcome of a competitive process.

Before coming to Manchester, David conducted qualitative and quantitative research into the nature of 'sustainable lifestyles' at the University of Surrey. His doctoral research at Cardiff University was an ethnographic exploration of marginal spaces.

Looking forward, David is developing regional interests in East and South-East Asia as well as substantive interests in qualitative commodity chain analysis, digital innovation and the role of ‘freshness’ in the evolution of variously sustainable food systems.

Publications

Journal articles

Evans, D. (2012) Binning, gifting and recovery: the conduits of disposal in household food consumption Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 30(6): pp. tbc)

Cooper, G., Green, N., Burningham, K., Evans, D. & Jackson, T. (2012) Unravelling the threads: discourses of sustainability and consumption in an online forum. Environmental Communication: a Journal of Nature and Culture 6(1): 101-118.

Evans, D. (2012) Beyond the throwaway society: ordinary domestic practice and a sociology of household food waste, Sociology 46(1): 43-58 (DOI:10.1177/0038038511416150).

Evans, D. (2011) Blaming the consumer – once again: the social and material contexts of everyday food waste practices in some English households Critical Public Health 21(4): 429-440.

Evans, D. (2011) Waste matters, Sociology 45(4): 707-712.

Evans, D. (2011) Thrifty, green or frugal: reflections on sustainable consumption in a changing economic climate, Geoforum 42(5): 550-557

Evans, D. (2011) Consuming conventions: sustainable consumption, ecological citizenship and the worlds of worth Journal of Rural Studies 27(2): 109-115

Evans, D and Abrahamse, W (2009) Beyond rhetoric: the possibilities of and for ‘sustainable lifestyles’, Environmental Politics 18(4): 486-502.

Reports
Southerton, D. McMeekin, A. and Evans, D. (2011) International Review of Behaviour Change Initiatives, Edinburgh: Scottish Government.

United Nations Environment Programme  (2011) Visions for change - recommendations for effective policies on sustainable lifestyles, Paris: UNEP.

Bedford, T., Collingwood, P., Darnton, A., Evans, D., Gatersleben, B., Abrahamse, W & Jackson, T. (2010). Motivations for Pro-Environmental Behaviours: a report to the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. London: Defra.

Book chapters and other writing.

Evans, D. Southerton, D and McMeekin, A (2012) 'Sustainable consumption, behaviour change policies and theories of practice', in A.Warde and D.Southerton (eds.) The Habits of Consumption, COLLeGIUM: Studies across Disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences, Helsinki: Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies.

Evans, D (2011) ‘Commodification’; ‘Division of Labour’ ;‘Externalities’; ‘Re-use and Recycling’; ‘Surplus Value’ and ‘Systems of Provision’ in D. Southerton (eds.) Encyclopaedia of Consumer Culture.  Sage.

Evans, D (2010) ‘Diderot Effect’; ‘Frugality’; ‘Second Hand Consumption’  and ‘Shopping’ in P. Robbins, J. Mansvelt and G.Golson (eds.) Encyclopaedia of Green Consumerism. Sage.

Evans, D. (2010) Sustainable communities: neo-tribalism between modern lifestyles and social change, in S. Fudge, M. Peters and T. Jackson (eds.) Sustainable Communities: Imaginative Approaches to Combating Climate Change Locally, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar: pp. 33-47.

Evans, D. (2010) review of Mike Goodman, Max Boykoff and Kyle Evered’s Contentious Geographies: Environmental Knowledge, Meaning, Scale, Environmental Politics 19(1): 162-164.

Evans, D. (2009) review of Philip Sutton’s The Environment: a Sociological Introduction, Environmental Politics 18(2): 311 – 312.

Teaching
SOCY60551 Sociology of Consumption

SOCY30061 Urban Sociology

Postgraduate opportunities
David is happy to supervise PhD candidates in the following areas (or similar):

• 
  Consumption
• Environment and sustainability
• Materials and material culture
• Food
• Cities and space
• Science, technology and innovation

Further information, please see the Sociology website:
http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/disciplines/sociology/

Phone: (0)161 275 0258
Email: david.evans-2@manchester.ac.uk