Sammendrag
Homes and the everyday lives lived in and around them are arenas for sustainable and unsustainable practices. In Norway, a country where homes are often spacious, privately owned single-family houses, household energy use, car ownership and leisure activities challenge dominant visions of a sustainable future. Solutions to household consumption frequently take a universal technological approach and have urban places as the point of departure for design and development. However, the universal approach is challenged by the local everyday places found in and around homes. A representative of the universal technological concept, which promises to make groups of buildings CO2 neutral, is being tested in nine pilot neighbourhoods. One of the neighbourhoods is located in the small rural town of Elverum. Inspired by Marianne Gullestad’s (1984) seminal work about Norwegian homelife we analyse what local residents see as the good life in Elverum, reconsidering the idea of the home as a sustainable concept. In Elverum everyday life is attached to the pine forest that surrounds it. The forest influences ideas about what takes place in a home, where it is located, and working and leisure activities that are connected to homelife. The home in this place and the meanings and values associated with it offers understanding about why households adopt and maintain practices. By focusing on how things are and not on what they ought to be (Gullestad 1984) insight is gained into everyday practices and “ordinary” small town life becomes pertinent to wider discussions about sustainability.
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