Paper short abstract:

How our daily practices enable us to domesticate or deny uncertainties related to human relationships with nature? Where do individuals seek help? The communication is going to try to answer to those two questions. To support this reflection a fieldwork has been conducted in Palo Alto (California) in a Transition group.

Paper long abstract:

How do our daily practices enable us to domesticate or deny uncertainties related to human relationships with nature? Where do individuals seek help? The communication is going to try to answer to those two questions thanks to a resarch conducted in the Bay area (California). "Transition towns" is an international association with local antennas around the world. The aim is to create a resilient community in a post carbon society. To reach this aim, the group in Palo Alto is repeatedly conducting some reading groups about the books edited by the association whose aim is to create the condition for a change of behavior. During a fieldwork conducted in 2010-2011 several reading groups have been followed.

For this presentation I will first present who the people following those readings are and what their motivations are. In the second part of the presentation I will question how do individuals do to cope with environmental latent or real degradation, what kind of patterns of consumption and citizenship emerge and to what respect they offer a control over concerns about an uncertain future.