Memo34+Comparative+Positioning--sferguson

Considering the last discussion we had about my project and the subsequent reshifting of its focus, this might be a little tough. I had begun this whole mess out of an interest to recreate and push beyond David Hess's Alternative Pathways... There were some limits to the discussion about social movements in the context of each other and in society that I found lacking. The further I've gone in this project the more I realize that it isn't the social movements per se that I am interested in but rather the changes that come about through their intervention. Working with Abby I began to think a bit more like a sociologist and wondered about the infrastructures that surround social movements and the pathways they attempt to develop. As a result I seem to be positioning myself within the fields of scholarship that deal with a) large and complex technical systems (something like Govind I suspect) and b) how these same systems co-evolve with social and cultural norms and practice. More specifically I want to look at the constraining and enabling (I will use constrable at some point in the book) effects of existing systems of consumer purchasing, daily decision making and waste processing industries on pathways for sustainability.

I can't quite tell if I'm going to be leaning more toward cultural practice, power ladenness of technologies, a marxian take on privatization/profitability of sustainability, or some other conceptual framework.