Redefining Normality with Acts of Everyday Activism

Like many students, I came to university hoping to find a way to make the world a more just and sustainable place. After a few environmental science courses that explored the causes and consequences of climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, food insecurity, and resource depletion, I was overwhelmed by the scale of these challenges. I questioned whether I, as an individual, could play a role in addressing them. How could turning off the lights or choosing re-useable shopping bags help? Surely I would need to become the Secretary General of the United Nations, or achieve something similarly as out-of-reach, to make any real impact on the major challenges confronting humanity and the environment! Despite my initial scepticism, however, I have become convinced that our individual actions are important and influential.

As students, we are in a particularly good position to engage in acts of everyday activism. We can use our everyday actions to redefine normality and initiate societal changes that will help to address major environmental challenges. I propose that behavioural changes and attempts to change ourselves, induced by education and reinforced by systemic changes, are true and important acts of student activism.

Students: The Ideal Everyday Activists

As attested to by the other articles in this issue, many students are inclined to fight for social change and to live more sustainably because we are exposed to the most up-to-date evidence about the challenges facing our world. For example, many learn about the injustices caused by climatic changes world-wide and wish to reduce the incidences of those injustices. Thus, we choose not to eat meat, we avoid wasting food and electricity, we choose recycled paper, we volunteer our time to causes we care about, and we seek to do ethical, meaningful work rather than simply following the money. I believe that these are all meaningful acts of student activism. These actions can stem from our privileged position as educated young people but help reform a deeply engrained system for the benefit of many.

Regardless of our political views or level of environmental consciousness, we as students often live relatively environmentally and socially sustainable lifestyles because our budgets constrain our behaviour. For example, many students are financially unable to own a car and so use low-emission transport options such as bicycles and public transport. As students, we choose to deliberately reduce our level of income. This forces us to reduce our level of resource consumption. In our everyday lives, while still living within a capitalist economy, we challenge the assumption that high incomes, fancy possessions and rampant consumerism are the keys to happiness and contentment. We choose to gain a sense of belonging and fulfilment from our learning and interactions with others, rather than our possessions.

I consider such personal behaviours which contribute to producing favourable social or environmental outcomes as “acts of everyday activism”. Acts of everyday activism work to change notions of normality and alter systems so that they are more sustainable. The concepts of normality and systems can help us further unpack why acts of everyday activism are important.

Education -> Altering Behaviour -> Redefining Normality

We know that people’s actions are guided by what is considered normal (Kollmuss and Agyeman, 2002; Shove and Walker, 2010) and are driven by the systems in which they live (Burkhout, 2002; Urry, 2004). That is, we might not be able to choose whether to live sustainably or not, simply because of the options available to us. It takes a remarkable amount of mental energy, sometimes financial capacity, and often physical effort to resist norms and work outside of systems (Gifford, 2011). The two previous observations about why students are everyday activists suggest that changes to personal behaviours are, firstly, encouraged by education, and, secondly, enforced by systems. Indeed, there are, broadly, two sets of circumstances in which we are willing to make sacrifices and change our behaviours for a wider good.

Firstly, we might take action when we really, really care about the consequences of our actions (Stern, 1999). This is where many students find themselves, constantly working harder to make a small contribution to saving the planet or improving society because they know and care about a bigger picture. Indeed, education can sometimes encourage behavioural change.

Secondly, we tend to make these sacrifices when it becomes normal to make these sacrifices (Schultz, 2014; Costanza et al., 2017). It may become normal to make sacrifices through a process of gradual transition: perhaps a large group of students may sacrifice their personal meat consumption because they learn about and really, really care about the impact of animal agriculture on the environment, or find meat prohibitively expensive. Over time – as these values and new ways of living are passed on to the next generation – a new social norm can be created. Others begin to make the same sacrifices because the system begins to accommodate a new type of behaviour and the co-benefits of the behaviour become easier to recognise. More restaurants serve vegetarian food, the cost of meat alternatives decreases, and evidence may emerge that the new behaviour improves physical health. Academics would say that the system of protein consumption would have undergone a “paradigm shift” (Dyball and Newell, 2015). This suggests that to harness the environmental benefits of behaviour changes, it is necessary to change what is “normal”.

Transportation in Canberra is another example. Many people buy cars because it is relatively normal to do so and because urban layouts and the system of streets in cities encourage and sometimes even necessitate car dependency. To not have a car becomes an inconvenience and can be socially isolating if alternative transport systems are not available. Yet, many students cycle or take public transport; it is almost normal for a student to not own a car. Concurrently, while it is far from a majority of people who cycle to university or work, more people cycle in Canberra than elsewhere in Australia (Belot and Westcott, 2014). Consequently, Canberra has better infrastructure for cycling, such as dedicated bicycle lanes, paths, and racks in most areas. This, in turn, encourages more people, including students, to cycle. From many small individual actions, a reinforcing loop can be created which encourages both sustainable behaviour and systemic change.

Thus, everyday actions of individuals when undertaken by large groups can have profound systemic impacts. Students are generally young, educated, and just developing their notions of normality – starting to redefine their habits as adults. We have the power to change our own actions and, thereby, change systems and change the world.

Protesting as an Everyday Activism

Unfortunately, changing notions of normality is a fraught and slow process. Mass acts of activism such as protests and boycotts can be crucial, as they seek to redefine normal by encouraging those in power to change according to what we, the People, believe to be right (O’Brien, 2015). In 2010, then ANU student Phoebe Howe led the “Canberra Loves 40%” campaign that successfully encouraged the ACT Government to introduce ambitious renewable energy targets. This campaign, which engaged Canberrans from many different social groups in political activism, challenged the idea that electricity produced from fossil fuels is acceptable. The campaign encouraged systemic changes, in this case to the energy mix, that help everyone live more sustainable lifestyles without even having to think about it. These campaigns can be powerful.

Thus, the act of protesting, in itself an individual action that gives power to a broader whole, ought to be a norm. As a student with a flexible schedule, I have made a habit of attending rallies, marching and holding placards to convince elected officials to “keep coal in the ground”. I join other students at these protests, gaining a sense of solidarity. Such communal action can both encourage further action and alter notions of normality, such as by making protesting feel acceptable and worthwhile. Each participant’s beliefs, values and decision to take action give power to these campaigns.

Before engaging in these campaigns, we first adopt a set of values and beliefs that support our participation. In this sense, our lives become activist and our activism becomes part of our lives. Acknowledging the importance of individual change encourages students to translate their values into meaningful sacrifices and actions that can be part of their journey to changing the world.

Individual Actions and the Need for Systemic Changes

There are certainly limits to the impacts of individual actions, notably because our actions still occur within system structures that usually cause harm to the environment (Maniates, 2001). It would be reasonable to point out that considering everyday actions as activism could serve to justify small, possibly insignificant changes to already over-consumptive lifestyles. Why, some would ask, are we not making more radical changes more quickly? I would argue that while many of us have the power to change our everyday behaviours, we have limited options for radically and completely changing our lifestyles due to systemic constraints and existing notions of normality. For example, it is normal and necessary to earn money through employment to feed, shelter and clothe ourselves, so we cannot all move away from (arguably unsustainable) metropolitan areas that provide employment to (arguably more sustainable) off-grid lifestyles. However, we can, should and do press for systemic changes that will make our metropolitan lifestyles more sustainable through our protests and we can make smaller changes, within existing systems, that move towards sustainability. We need to encourage small-scale individual behaviour change because otherwise it is too easy to convince ourselves that there is nothing we can do.

To change the world, we must change ourselves. As students, we are in a great position to change ourselves, change our actions, change conceptions of normal, and try to speed up the dawdle towards a better world. Every day, we seek a better world through our acts of activism.