Abstract
We investigate whether and how workers in a transnational oil corporation carry practices, meanings, and identities between the places of work and home, focusing on environmental and health and safety practices, in order to understand the larger question, how can environmentally relevant practices be generalized in society at large? Our theoretical starting point is that societal institutions function according to different logics (Thornton et al., 2012) and the borders (Clark, 2000) between these institutions create affordances and constraints on the transfer of practices between these places. By connecting their theoretical ideas, we suggest that these provide an alternative critique and explanatory account of the transfer of environmental practices between home and work than a “spillover” approach. We employ life history interviews to explore the development and complexity of the causes, justifications, and legitimations of people’s actions, social relationships, and the structural constraints which govern relationships between these spaces. While Clark’s concepts of permeable, strong, or blended borders are useful heuristic tools, people may simultaneously strengthen, transgress, or blend the borders between work and home in terms of practices, meanings, identities, or institutional logics. Individuals have to be understood as creators of the border crossing process, which is why their life histories and the ways in which their identities and their attachments to places (i.e., institutions) are shaped by the logics of these places are important. For environmental practices to travel from work to home, they need to become embedded in a company culture that allows their integration into workers’ identities.
Highlights
Our interest in the ways in which individuals might take practices, identities, and meanings from one place to another is rooted in our concern for environmental change, which requires a transformation of the way we produce and consume
The second author comes from sociology where the interest is on the societal structure of a place: what is the societal goal of place, what are the societal rules governing the actions at this place, and how do these shape the ways in which people act and think about places? To bring together the approach of environmental psychology and sociology, we draw on two theoretical approaches to make sense of our material: Clark’s (2000) theory of border crossing, which centers on individuals as conscious actors, and the theory of institutional logics (Friedland and Alford, 1991; Thornton et al, 2012) which analyses the societal structures of places
Safety practices are more significant at work, because individuals and corporations receive more immediate feedback from health and safety incidents than from climate change (Gifford, 2011)
Summary
Our interest in the ways in which individuals might take practices, identities, and meanings from one place to another is rooted in our concern for environmental change, which requires a transformation of the way we produce and consume. To bring together the approach of environmental psychology and sociology, we draw on two theoretical approaches to make sense of our material: Clark’s (2000) theory of border crossing, which centers on individuals as conscious actors, and the theory of institutional logics (Friedland and Alford, 1991; Thornton et al, 2012) which analyses the societal structures of places In this theoretical framework, the places of home and work are institutions, socially created places, with specific societal goals and specific rules and regulations (logics) governing what kind of practices can (and must) take place there and which ones are “out of place,” need to be avoided. Offshore technician; later onshore office Offshore and onshore engineer Offshore operator Wiring technician (offshore) Diver (offshore)
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