THE OTHER WAY ROUND: Walking Away from Carbon-Intense Lives

About the project

The dominant social narrative is built on the assumption that maintaining the quality of life in times of worsening polycrises, including environmental and climate, depends on innovative and technological solutions. At the political level, we often hear the argument that people are not willing to give up material comfort and activities associated with the lifestyle of socio-economically privileged residents of the countries in the global north. The project looks at the issue of sustainability from the opposite perspective. It explores the life stories of people who have decided to walk away from an ecologically unsustainable lifestyle and have come to the decision to reduce the carbon footprint of their lives. Such decisions often have expected negative impacts (e.g. reduced mobility, the need to look for a new job, dietary restrictions, etc.), but people still make these choices and by moving away from an environmentally harmful way of life, they gain expected and also unexpected gains. The project generates knowledge on already existing lived experiences, rather invisible in social and political discourse, potentially inspiring the path to decarbonization, underpinned by different principles than the ideology of technological innovations. 

The aim of the project is to contribute to an anthropological and sociological understanding of the decision-making process that an individual undergoes, always in the context of social relations. We are interested in decisions leading to walking away from socially widespread, but in the long term unsustainable practices. Such decisions can include e.g. refusal to fly, drive, consume meat and animal products, or to pursue a career in an unsustainable sector. We want to map how these conscious departures from unsustainability occur, what losses they entail and what benefits they bring to people’s life stories. The project explores aspects of the unspectacular and politically overlooked “sustainability from below”, and asks how walking away from an unsustainable way of life contributes to societal resilience. 

Time span: June 2026 – May 2029 

Funding: OP JAK (EU-funded)
UHK: Return – Research – Restart 

Team

Mgr. Zdenka Sokolíčková, Ph.D. MA

(Principal Investigator) curriculum vitae ORCID SCOPUS

Zdenka is a social anthropologist interested in perceptions of environmental and climate change, extractivism, and tourism sustainability, especially in the polar regions. She has extensive international experience working in interdisciplinary teams and using qualitative methods. Next to being a research fellow at the University of Hradec Králové, she works as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

Mgr. Jana Karlová, Ph.D.

(Team Member) curriculum vitae ORCID SCOPUS

Jana’s research focuses on how symbols shape human understandings of our place in the world, particularly in two areas: the relationships between human-made and natural environments, and between physical and digital bodies and landscapes; and the challenges of living in diverse societies and engaging in intercultural dialogue.

PhDr. Jan Vávra, Ph.D.

(Team Member) životopis ORCID SCOPUS

Jan works primarily at the Institute of Sociology, Czech Academy of Sciences. As an environmental sociologist, he studies alternative food systems. He has published a number of articles on this topic, including qualitative and quantitative empirical analyses as well as conceptual texts.

Mgr. Luděk Brož, M.Phil., Ph.D.

(Project Mentor) životopis ORCID SCOPUS

Luděk is the head of the Department of Ecological Anthropology, Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences, holder of an ERC Consolidator grant and scientific coordinator of the ERC incubator of the Czech Academy of Sciences. His research focuses on the coexistence between humans and animals from the perspective of more-than-human ethnography and the role of veterinary expertise in contemporary societies in the context of polycrises (pandemics, environmental change, conflicts).

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash