Dr Amy Isham
What Faculty do you work in?
I’m in the School of Psychology within the Faculty of Medicine, Health, and Life Sciences
What is your main area of research?
My research explores the relationship between human wellbeing and ecological sustainability. I am trying to locate instances when these two things are compatible (the achievement of what I call ‘sustainable wellbeing’) or may be in conflict. This work has now encompassed a variety of topics including flow experiences, mindfulness, human values (especially materialistic values), consumer culture, productivity, nature-based interventions, and pro-environmental behaviour change.
Why is your research important?
One of the barriers that can prevent individuals and households from trying to lead more sustainable lifestyles is the perception that acting sustainably requires some kind of sacrifice on their part. People think that sustainable lifestyles are effortful, costly, or perhaps most worryingly, can reduce their quality of life. Through my work I am trying to showcase how living sustainably has the potential to enhance wellbeing, and from this hopefully encourage climate action.
What SDG is your research most closely aligned with?
SDG 3, good health and well-being.
What do you hope to accomplish with your research?
I hope to change the narrative around sustainable lifestyles, away from something that is only engaged in by those who care about the environment at some kind of detriment to themselves, and towards something that is seen as genuinely beneficial to all people regardless of their environmental values. Research documents that many features of our current consumer societies are harming our wellbeing as well as being unsustainable, so we need to support shifts in ways of living towards those that support people and planet. I also want to encourage other early career researchers and academics to consider how their research can help tackle environmental challenges. For this reason, I founded the Sustainable Wellbeing Research Group as a hub for researchers trying to support more rewarding, sustainable lifestyles.
Is there a cross-disciplinary element to your research? If so, who else at the University is involved?
Yes, I have found it invaluable to collaborate with colleagues from across departments at Swansea. Many of these collaborations have been supported by projects funded through the Morgan Advanced Studies Institute – MASI. For example, I have been working with researchers in Public Health and Health and Social Care on a project where we are using art methodologies to examine the types of environments that best support wellbeing. With colleagues in Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, we are exploring how climate narratives can promote climate agency across the Global North and South. And with researchers in the School of Management we are testing the factors that influence people’s disposal of pharmaceutical waste in their home. These are just some examples of projects where we are working in interdisciplinary teams across the University.
Are there any external collaborators involved?
Working with external collaborators, especially those outside of academia, has been really helpful in developing my work and thinking about its potential impact. Our research group has partnerships with local health boards, community-based organisations, charities, and businesses. For several years I have been working alongside collaborators at Middlesex University on a project with IKEA, where we are examining how their Live Lagom intervention can help to encourage more sustainable ways of living amongst their customers. With Prof Andrew Kemp and Dr Luke Jefferies in Psychology, I am developing a body of work around the potential wide-ranging benefits of ecotherapy, and for this we are working with several organisations such as Cae Felin, a local community support agriculture initiative, and Gwent Wildlife Trust. Last year, we hosted an Agenda Setting Event here at Swansea on the theme of “Crafting and Communicating Positive Visions of Sustainable Futures” which was attended by Public Health Wales, Natural Resources Wales, and the Welsh Government (amongst others) and generated new understandings on how we could communicate possibilities for sustainable wellbeing.
What is next for your research?
I want to spend more time researching the concept of flow, which my PhD and postdoctoral work was focused on, but I have had less time to dedicate to since starting my lectureship. Flow is a state of intense immersion in an activity, and I am trying to document how it can be facilitated through more sustainable actions and lead to more constructive relationships with our environments. I also want to expand the focus of my work to international contexts. Currently we have quite a lot of data on the means of achieving sustainable wellbeing from people in the UK and other European countries but know less about what people in the Global South think that they need to live well and the extent to which this is aligned with sustainability targets. I have started a project where we are asking people across the world to describe what a ‘good life’ means to them and hope to continue this to document what sustainable wellbeing could look like across the globe.