ABSTRACT
This chapter offers rich insights into the cultural and political complexities of the household as a site of analysis. It shows that the household invoked in environmental policy is highly normalised and constituted through specific empirical processes. The chapter examines the dynamics of change in households and raises the fundamental question of how ways of living are transformed. It discusses how the dynamics of culture are realised through endlessly variable relations with the non-human. The chapter explores household cultures as spaces of possibility, connected and constrained and always susceptible to the emergence of the political. The reduction of waste removal services and introduction of compulsory household sorting and recycling in most Australian homes over the last thirty years has transformed how people relate to their rubbish. Chris Gibson and colleagues explore the ways in which ethico-political frameworks inform consumption practices. Reactive opposition and adversarial techniques are often the least effective way to establish lasting and democratic collaboration.
