Sarah Barfield Marks

I am a PhD Researcher based at the University of Bath exploring how flight-free and low-carbon holidays can reduce aviation emissions and help tackle climate change. My work interrogates what holidays mean and how they might be reimagined to align with life within planetary boundaries. I am taking an interdisciplinary approach to incorporate both sociological, psychological and structural perspectives. My first study involved focus groups with different holidaymakers and shows how holiday meaning and the legitimacy of flying for holidays is not only individually determined but socially mediated through group talk.

I am particularly interested in how to achieve both a widespread shift is social norms and structural changes that make low-carbon holidays socially desirable and practically feasible. For the remainder of my PhD I will develop and tests interventions aimed at achieving this.

I am an affiliate of the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations (CAST).