PhD Supervision Interests

Research students welcome on topics relating to social theories of practice;  infrastructures and institutions of everyday consumption, climate change and issues of energy and water demand; design, materiality,  technology studies and research policy.

Research Interests

See my personal web page for recent publications and details of past and present projects.

I came to Lancaster in 1995 as deputy director of the Centre for the Study of Environmental Change and was director of the Centre for Science Studies for a couple of years before joining the Sociology Department in 2000. My current research interests have to do with the relation between consumption, everyday practice and ordinary technology. I am co-director of DEMAND, an EPSRC/ESRC funded research centre on the Dynamics of Energy, Mobility and Demand.  DEMAND starts in May 2013 and runs for 5 years. 

Recent research includes:

Transitions in Practice - an  ESRC funded Climate Change Leadership Fellowship that ran from 2008-2012. Follow the link for more details, including the film of the extraordinary lecture on how the social sciences can help climate change policy.  The Dynamics of Social Practice (Sage 2012) was partly based on this work. 

Sustainable Practices Research group - I am on the management team of the SPRG (2010-2013), and involved with three projects in the group: keeping cool,interaction and engagement, and theoretical development and integration.

The Design of Everyday Life (Berg2007) is based on 'Designing and Consuming: objects, practices and processes'. This project, undertaken with Matt Watson at Durham University and Jack Ingram at Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, exploits the potential for theoretical development at the interface of science and technology studies, design and the sociology of consumption. This projectwas funded by the ESRC's Cultures of Consumption programme.

The choreography of everyday life - a collaborative project with Mika Pantzar at the National Consumer Research Centre, Helsinki, Finland. We have written about a range of different topics - Nordic Walking, Kitchen rationalisation, Floorball, Plastic, Heart Rate Meters and more. The link will take you to a series of web pages outlining some of our ideas, many of which feature in the Dynamics of Social Practice (2012).

Interactive Agenda Setting in the Social Sciences: A programme of six research workshops on non-academic concerns and academic research agendas was funded by the ESRC. The web site includes background papers and reports on interactive agenda setting and: disciplines, centres, interdisciplinarity and research programmes.

Traces of Water, with Will Medd, was funded by the UK Water Industry Research Association. This project brings sociological ideas about practice and technology to bear on domestic water consumption.The web site includes details of a programme of research workshops.

Manufacturing Leisure (2005), an electronic book, edited with Mika Pantzar, which examines innovations in fun. Together, the chapters show how consumers and producers are continuously and actively involved in integrating, inventing and reproducing specific combinations of ideologies, materials and forms of competence of which leisure practices are formed.

Future Comforts, with Heather Chappells, examined future expectations of comfort and the indoor environment (funded by the ESRC's Environment and Behaviour Programme.). The future comforts web site includes a selection of papers and a bibliography of social scientific work on thermal comfort.

Sustainable Domestic Technologies with Alan Warde and Dale Southerton at Manchester University, is about the design and use of kitchens and bathrooms and is funded by the ESRC's Sustainable Technologies Programme.

Consumption, Everyday Life and Sustainability a five-year programme of workshops, exchanges and summer schools onconsumption, everyday life and sustainability" (funded by the European Science Foundation).

Current Teaching

I currently teach "Research Projects in Practice", an MA Module in which students undertake a small-scale research project from start to finish during the course of the term. This is also available through the Faculty Research Training Programme.

During 2012-2013 I am running a programme of "Craft Skills" workshops open to Masters and PhD students.

• DEMAND: Dynamics of Energy, Mobility and Demand

  01/03/2013 →
  ... Read more»

• ESRC PDF for Anna Carlsson-Hyslop (Elizabeth Shove)

  30/04/2012 →
  ... Read more»

• The Forge - Social science researcher network for transport & mobilities

  01/05/2011 →
  A programme of summer schools and a research network, led by Greg Marsden from Leeds ITS. ... Read more»

• Temporary Spaces

  01/06/2010 →
  ... Read more»

• Transitions in practice: Climate change and everyday life

  01/10/2008 → 31/03/2012
  A three year ESRC funded climate change leadership fellowship ... Read more»

• The choreography of everyday life: towards an integrative theory of practice

  01/09/2007 →
  This is a collaborative project with Mika Pantzar at the National Consumer Research Centre, Helsinki, Finland. We have written about a range of different topics - Nordic Walking, Kitchen rationalisati ... Read more»

• Time, Consumption and Everyday Life: New Agendas and Directions

  01/07/2007 →
  Time, Consumption and Everday Life (Berg, 2009) Editors: Elizabeth Shove (Lancaster University), Frank Trentmann (Birkbeck College, University of London) and Richard Wilk (Indiana University) ... Read more»