Programme full

Thursday 16 April 2015 15:30 - 17:00
PAPER SESSION 6 / PECHA KUCHA SESSIONS
British Fighters in Syria: Social Media, the Visual and Scapes of Affect
McDonald, K.
(Middlesex University)
Understanding online jihadism demands that we engage not only with changing practices of violence typical of 'new
wars', but also with the reshaping of public and private, affect and subjectivity at stake in new forms of social media.
Such transformations are central to emerging social media collaborations, from protest and activism to contemporary
extremist networks. This paper explores the structures and scapes of affect being generated through the social media
use of a small number of British fighters in Syria, with a particular focus on images and videos being communicated
through these practices. Drawing on contemporary analyses of visual communication and experience, this paper
highlights the importance of social media as a medium to constitute intimate co-presence, and examines the extent to
which these fighters are involved in communicating 'sensation' rather than 'meaning'. The paper considers the
implications of this form of communication, both in terms of the types of social scapes constituted, and in terms of
implications for paths into and out of action shaped by an imaginary of violence and the extreme. In the Syrian case
this analysis offers insight into the attraction of deterritorialized violence associated with groups such as ISIS when
compared to the imaginaries of violence associated with nationalist actors in the Syria conflict.
POLICY AND PRACTICE
Environment and Society
W622, HAMISH WOOD BUILDING
Enacting Accountability: Sustainable Housing Development and Environmental Policy
Ozaki, R., Shaw, I.
(Imperial College London)
Building 'sustainable' homes is integral to UK government initiatives to reduce energy consumption, fuel poverty and
carbon emissions, and to generate renewable energy. Complying with policy requires of practitioners that their actions
are held to account; and this applies to the context of sustainable development of the social housing sector and its use
of renewable technologies. In this paper, we examine how 'accountability' is promoted by both the UK government's
environmental policy and local councils in their planning criteria. We investigate how accountability is enacted in, and
generative of, the practices of sustainable housing development by housing professionals. We identify a key process
of accountability: a politics of making environmental sustainability visible through demonstrating the utilisation of
renewable technologies. For housing developers, the choice to install such visible renewable technologies is part of
their practices to strategically and creatively meet the policy criteria and the local council's target for planning
permission. These practices reveal much about the politics that underpin how local planning authorities and housing
professionals together shape environmental accountability in a bid to comply, win building contracts, and demonstrate
their sustainability credentials. We demonstrate how these practices have implications for potential energy provision
and consumption.
Improving the Relevance of Practice Theory for Energy Policy: The Problem of Data and Methodology
Roberts, T.
(University of Surrey)
A growing proportion of research into energy consumption is being conducted from a social practice perspective,
focusing on patterns of consumption and mundane aspects of everyday life. In particular, the work of Elizabeth Shove
has been fundamental in driving this body of work forward, encouraging both scholars and policy makers to question
dominant rational choice paradigms traditionally favoured by behavioural psychologists and economists. However, as
Shove herself concedes, little of this research has found its way into climate change policy (Shove, 2012).
Consequently a key question for scholars of practice theory is, why? One possible explanation is the different type's
of methodologies and data sets which are favoured by the two approaches. Scholars working from the rational choice
perspective, tend to favour quantitative data collected through large scale surveys. Such data is also appealing to
policy makers as it provides headline statistics and enables them to set targets which can be easily measured. In
contrast, research undertaken from a practice theory perspective tends to utilise small samples and produce largely
qualitative data focussing on understanding the complex nature of everyday routines and how these result in people
living high energy consuming lifestyles. This paper seeks explore how research from a practice theory perspective
can be made more amenable to policy makers. Key questions will include, should practice theory scholars try to
BSA Annual Conference 2015 202
Glasgow Caledonian University