Sustainable Relationships?: Families, Personal Lives and Global Change

‘Sustainable relationships’ can be understood from a range of perspectives and in multiple ways, from micro family-level everyday practices to macro and global level contexts and shifts, including those brought about by COVID-19. But whatever the level of focus, relationships are lived against an increasingly precarious backdrop resulting from environmental changes, which have implications for how and where lives are lived. However, connections between family lives and environmental actions are not often explicitly drawn in family-focused research. Individuals and families are not carbon-neutral, yet few of the many social science researchers writing about familial relationships and personal lives address elements of climate change and sustainability. The 10th ESFR conference will be an opportunity to examine these issues, alongside other challenges currently being explored by researchers working on families and relationships from a range of perspectives.

Social science researchers are well placed to engage their work to examine more sustainable practices as they investigate family lives and relationships. It is timely then to consider the ways in which families and personal relationships are multiply engaged in producing or inhibiting the possibilities of a more sustainable and equitable planet and more equitable relationships. European societies continue to be confronted with many challenges such as inequalities, the integration of new migrants and refugee families, welfare ‘restructuring’, extended care needs and responsibilities in ageing populations, while a commitment to ‘family’ and ‘intimate relationships’ remain major areas of life investment for individuals – and debate. Many of these areas have been heightened as the effects of the COVID_19 pandemic are felt.