Practice Theories In Studies On Sustainable Consumption: A Bibliometric Study

The practice theories approach has gained popularity among a growing body of researchers because of its significant impact on sustainable consumption studies. At the international level, it has provided the opportunity to conceptualize and analyze consumption processes according to alternative ways of understanding daily life through consumption practices, inserted in socio-cultural contexts. It is promising since the understanding of more or less sustainable consumption focuses on social practices of daily life, not just on the individual's attitudes, values and beliefs. Thus, in order to contribute to the increase of the understanding on this subject, the objective of this article is to map the international scientific production on the practice theories in the field of sustainable consumption studies. A bibliometric study, of the descriptive type, with quantitative approach was conducted. The research took place in high impact international journals in the area of management between the period of 2009 and 2018. Scientific publications were searched in Science Direct, Scopus and Web of Science databases, resulting in a total of 36 articles for the analysis. Descriptive statistics, content analysis and categorical analysis techniques were used. The evolution of scientific production in the field intensified in the period between 2014 and 2018, being the Journal of Cleaner Production, Journal of Consumer Culture and Ecological Economics the most relevant journals. Authors are generally affiliated with European institutions, work in co-authorship, and, for the most part, have only one publication on the subject. Among the most representative countries in the researchers' affiliations, a greater number of institutions from the United Kingdom, Australia and Germany were identified. It was noticed the lack of Latin American countries in the affiliation institutions. We verified a tendency of empirical studies, with qualitative or mixed approach, and ethnographic or case studies techniques. Regarding data collection, we verified a propensity to use interviews or interviews combined with observations, and in relation to the data analysis, the grounded theory was the most commonly used method. Of the ten correlated thematic axes identified, three stand out: social and technical perspective, sustainability and marketing. The objects of study were divided into six types of practices. In general, they involve a number of sustainable consumption practices, but in particular, they focus on food consumption and household consumption. This study contributes to the academy for mapping the international scientific production of practice theories, an approach that has proven attractive to researchers of sustainable consumption, judging by the remarkable intensification of studies on the topic in the last five years. The methodological panorama identified in the analyzed studies can guide future researches of this nature. Finally, future research may explore several consumption practices as potential objects of study, considering those identified as the most used in this field.