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Short abstract:

The article degeneralize the notion of planetary boundaries framework (Brand et al., 2021) using the data of a large survey made in France in 2023. It aims at linking the material spaces in which people evolve to their judgments about the state of the world and the limits to be set.

Long abstract:

This paper contribute to the scientific literature on “consumption corridors” (Fuchs et al., 2021 ; Sahakian et al., 2021) through an inquiry into socio-material spaces of energy-consuming practices in France, the sense of limits that is enacted into them and the political views as to what ought to be done concerning sufficiency. Theoretically, the paper situates itself within a material culture of consumption approach (Shove, 2003; Shove & Pantzar, 2005) while aiming at bridging consumption with public policy (Marres, 2012; Dubuisson-Quellier, 2023).

Empirically, the paper offers the results of a survey carried out on 3,018 respondents from the French metropolitan population in 2023. The survey addresses five structuring dimensions of socio-economic and material life: food, household equipment, domestic practices in terms of energy consumption, mobility and housing. Statistical analysis by geometric data analysis and ascending hierarchical clustering (Le Roux & Rouanet, 2011) carried out on the data make it possible to bring out four different socio-material spaces i.e. a social space (Blasius et al., 2020) enriched by its materiality (Latour, 2005; Coole & Frost, 2010).

The four spaces identified are characterized by different types of energy-consuming practices and degrees of sufficiency or profligacy. They distinguish themselves by their relationship to consumption, to climate change and the positioning on a center-periphery axis. The article thus links sufficiency with energy consumption, housing, mobility, equipment and territorial dimensions but also relationships to politics and public policies ranging from from effectiveness to justice, individual to collective actions, obligation to incentive...