Whatever happened to the appropriate technology movement in Australia? A preliminary inquiry into the convergence of environmentalism, technology and home

The Australian alternative technology movement, whose heyday was the late-1970s and early-1980s, has gone largely undocumented by social researchers. This paper sketches out the key features of this movement and considers what may have happened to in the wake of the rise of agendas for sustainable development, and related calls for sustainable production and consumption, in the late-1980s. The ideal of the self-sufficient home at the centre of the alternative technology is contrasted with the presently emerging ideal of the eco-efficient home. It is argued that while many of the domestic technologies advocated by the alternative technology movement are now becoming a common feature of Australian homes, the political objectives of this movement remain substantially unrealised.