Browsing by Author "Madetoja, Mariel"

Sustainability transition is a multidisciplinary topic currently researched broadly. The great necessity of sustainability transition is commonly accepted, but the needed changes in different levels of society from political actions to individual behavior are still slow and inefficient. Socio-technic systems as food-, housing- and transportation systems are fundamentally built for facilitating individuals’ wellbeing in everyday life, and thus the everyday life becomes an important arena of sustainability transition. Former research agrees that many factors having different, independent influences on an individuals behavior are making it difficult to promote sustainable behavior. In this research the aim was to study how individuals explain their actions that have an impact on sustainability and investigate the differences in these arguments’ obligatority. This study utilizes qualitative research methods and narrative approach. The research material used in this study contains 73 writings originally collected in 2018 with an open invitation letter by Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura (Society of Finnish literature) and Talonpoikaiskulttuurisäätiö (Foundation of peasant culture) as a part of Writings about sustainable development 2018 -writing competition. Some of the writings were sorted out based on their unclearness or artistic form. The remaining 43 writings were analyzed using analysis of narratives. Narrative approach was used due to the format of the research material, but it also brought in the conception of telling as a humane way of constructing and sharing knowledge. The explanations given for the sustainable behavior were divided into ten upper classes, from which three main classes were formed. Main classes were named personal features (feelings, likings, values, health), personal resources (money, time, knowledge and abilities, personal justifications and compensations) and external factors (influence of others, environment). The difference in effect of the given explanations was named obligatority and it ranges on a scale from adaptive to unconditional. The individuals perceive many personal and external factors influencing their actions. The factors can be of differing obligatority and thus the individual sees less or more chances to change their behavior.