Sustainable Practices in The Minimalist Family? Values, Negotiations and Gender

Minimalism encourages reduced excess, decluttering, and owning less to reclaim time and achieve increased sense of freedom and fulfilment. In our current society characterised by social acceleration, the appeal of minimalism is not surprising.

Albeit, despite minimalism being a growing trend, with potential to disrupt unsustainable and wasteful consumption patterns, still little is known about the relation between minimalist practices and sustainable practices.

We also lack knowledge how minimalist lifestyles intersect with gender in a society where women spend almost twice as much time on housework and care than men.

To address the research gap, this project investigates minimalism through a critical, relational and gendered lens, focusing on the minimalist family.

The aim is to explore what motivates families to embrace minimalist values and practices, which benefits and challenges families experience and which strategies they adopt as individuals and families while they negotiate responsibilities and relations in everyday life.

Central in the project is to identify the motives behind the commitments to minimalist lifestyles and to explore whether they are related to norms regarding sustainability.

To generate rich qualitative data on minimalist family practices, an explorative, longitudinal mixed-method approach is adopted. Interviews will be complemented with repeated diary submissions. The project will produce new knowledge, useful for realising several SDGs.