A ferry making waves: A demonstration project ‘doing’ institutional work in a greening maritime industry

ABSTRACT

The objective of the article is to show how the demonstration project and battery ferry Ampere has contributed to a greening of public ferry procurement in Norway. Building on theories on demonstration projects in transition studies and institutional work, the author argues for a more integrated focus than hitherto on the dynamic interplay of materiality, organization, and discourse in demonstration projects, and how the agency of actor networks and the materiality connected to demonstration projects can affect institutional change accompanying transition processes. This is done by conceptualizing Ampere as a ‘performing project’: a complex of discursive and organizational strategies of framing and lobbying deployed by the actor networks connected to it and its materiality. Methodically, the author draws on semi-structured interviews and document analysis. The results suggest that Ampere’s ‘performance’ has contributed to changes in national and regional ferry procurement practices and been vital for an emerging maritime battery niche.

KEYWORDS:

• demonstration project
• institutional work
• maritime battery niche
• performing project
• policy change

Acknowledgments

Professor Arnt Fløysand and Professor Stig-Erik Jakobsen, and colleagues at the Mohn Centre for Innovation and Regional Development, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, are thanked for valuable help and feedback on the article. Additionally, thanks are given to the two anonymous reviewers for feedback and Fredrik Ingmar Boge for preparing Fig. 1.

Notes

1 All quotes from informants and quotations from cited publications were translated from Norwegian into English by the author, Svein Gunnar Sjøtun. The interview quotes used in this article, including subsequent additions and omissions by the author, were approved by the informants.