Putting Japanese Youth into Practice: Japanese Student Campus Practices and Sustainability

Practice theory has been increasingly employed to deepen understanding of how everyday life is conducted, including the question of how our daily activities might evolve in more sustainable directions (Shove and Spurling 2013; Strengers and Maller 2015). This thesis uses practice theory – specifically a modified version of the Three-Element (3E) Model of social practice as developed by Shove, Pantzar and Watson (2012) – to bring a new understanding of student activities on the campus of a Japanese university, and suggest how insights might contribute to the wider debate on sustainability. This is the first piece of research to use the practice theory approach to look at the daily lives of Japanese university students. Longitudinal data were gathered using various qualitative methods including intensive interviews with Japanese students, a field diary at several locations on the campus, and through the shadowing of students around the campus. The data were then analysed from a practice theory perspective using an expanded form of the 3E Model that incorporates consideration of Japanese socialisation processes (Nakane, 1970; Kumagai, 1996; Sugimoto, 2014), and various radical notions of spatiality and temporality (Massey, 2005; Southerton, 2013). This shows how collective social practices on a campus in Japan are produced, and how the establishment of a greater level of sustainability among the cohort of Japanese students might be informed. The thesis finds that practice theory offers an effective route for a greater understanding of the actions of Japanese university students especially if it incorporates expanded concepts of spatiality and collective cultural experiences.