I will be participating on February 2, 2024, in a conference as part of ‘SUFFICIENCY strategies & POST-GROWTH trajectories’ organized by the University Paris-Saclay with Philippe JACQUINOT from Université Paris-Saclay, Univ Evry, and Arnaud PELLISSER-TANON from Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne. Below is the summary of our intervention.
This research aims to understand how virtues manifest among members of a cooperative focused on sobriety, as well as the spiritual aspect of this sobriety. It explores a sufficiency-driven business model, seeking to moderate consumer demand by encouraging people to make do with less. Sobriety is presented as a virtue of sustainable development, transcending materialism. Core values can be influenced by spiritual and religious perspectives, with a connection between spirituality and consumption decisions.
The study relies on interviews conducted with 15 members of a cooperative in Saint-Denis, Paris, whose sober approach contrasts with a proliferation of social relationships. The founders have opened their doors to reflection on their model, allowing researchers to conduct on-site visits and open-ended interviews. Data analysis includes the use of automated coding with ChatGPT, as well as exploration of the spiritual dimensions of theological and cardinal virtues, in connection with the practices and values of the cooperative.
Sobriety is examined as a fusion of opposite aspects of life, symbolized by the Temperance card, and as a process of transmuting negative energies and emotions into positive ones. The research aims to understand the intrinsic motivations of individuals engaged in sobriety and to illuminate this concept in various contexts.
