Governing Our Choices: ‘Proenvironmental Behaviour’ as a Practice of Government

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The concept of proenvironmental behaviour change (PBC) has been the subject of an increasing volume of research. Much of this has either sought to make PBC ‘work better’ or offered critiques of the concept. This paper uses an ethnography of the UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs' Sustainable Behaviours Unit to understand PBC as a practice of government. Drawing on a governmentality framework, in this paper I explore how PBC can be thought of as a heterogeneous array of elements. I demonstrate not only the intellectual labours behind PBC but also how agents have sought to make it practicable. In exploring the coming together of PBC, I try to critically examine a practice which seeks to govern the way we ‘choose to behave’.