The place of qualitative research in the past, present and future of environmental psychology

In a time of anthropogenic climate catastrophe, understanding how people relate to their natural environment is of utmost importance for generating fairer and more sustainable futures. Calls from environmental psychology at large have asked for an increased emphasis on people, and psychology and the social sciences have fundamental contributions to make to climate action internationally (Devine-Wright et al., 2022; Whitmarsh et al., 2011). Indeed, the IPCC Synthesis Report (2023) stresses a need for diverse research methodologies for addressing the climate and ecological emergency, including a prioritisation of “meaningful participation”, “inclusive engagement”, “indigenous knowledge” and local knowledge. One way to produce knowledge required to address the climate and ecological emergency is by using qualitative research methods. Qualitative methods are traditionally defined as methods that produce and analyse non-numeric data, such as text, recordings, images, observations or field notes (Madill & Gough, 2008). Qualitative perspectives by nature, are grounded in social and environmental context, prioritising depth of contextual understanding and insight over the generalisability and replicability offered by quantitative methods such as experiments. Qualitative methods help us to understand the social dynamics of pro-environmental behaviours and actions, at a variety of levels ranging from the micro individual to the macro political (Kurz & Prosser, 2021). In this chapter, we outline the need for, and investment in qualitative methods within environmental psychology. We aim to highlight the value of qualitative scholarship and provide evidence of the strong historic contribution qualitative methods have made to our field. We conclude this chapter by outlining steps organisations, editors and scholars can take to improve the representation of qualitative research methods - and qualitative researchers - in environmental psychology. In sum, we argue that qualitative research is not ancillary but foundational to understanding one of environmental psychology’s central concern - how people make sense of and act within environmental crises.