Giving in to the Disheartened Hero: A Case Study on Why We Ignore Our Ecological Conscience

Abstract: A case study on the phenomenological obstacles for adjusting lifestyle to ecological awareness. The data is obtained mainly through deep interview, backed by preparatory research including chiefly participant observation, informal and semi structured interviews. The findings have been connected to relevant concepts and theories in a process of grounded theory. The fatigue, fears and doubts felt by the interviewee as hindering her from fulfilling the ideals of her eco-consciousness were connected mainly to the concepts of identity building, habitus, and social capital. Some economical motives figured as well, but they turned out not to be pivotal in this case. The theory of unequal exchange, time and space appropriation, and the commensurability of everything, are shown to be relevant for triggering the responses of hesitation to carry through or off-setting from the interviewee. These are my research questions: What is hindering a person who has acquired an ecological awareness to pursue the lifestyle she finds optimal for her ecological conviction? What motivates her when she decides whether or not to follow what she perceives as the best course of action seen from an eco-awareness perspective? What, if anything, could be done about those obstacles?