Towards studying energy systems as energy cultures.

This collection constitutes the second part of a special issue on the interwoven and co-constitutive nature of energy, society, and culture, the first part of which was published in volume 29, issue 3 of Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research.¹ All papers collected in both issues demonstrate that the use production and distribution of energy are deeply social issues. Indeed, if one wants to understand how deeply and inseparably interwoven the physical, technological, and social aspects of energy systems are, it makes sense to analyse energy systems as energy cultures (Pfister and Schweighofer, forthcoming; see also Horta et al. 2014; Rüdiger 2008; Sarrica et al. 2016; Stephenson et al. 2015; Strauss, Rupp, and Love 2013). Hence, we will use this brief introduction to sketch out one way how this could be approached. Given the limited space of an editorial, this sketch must necessarily be brief and rather rough. Yet, rather than outlining a far-reaching theoretical framework shared by the ensuing contributions, our aim is much more modest as we only want to give some suggestions how the following research papers could be read and put in a broader context.

Importantly, culture in this context should be neither understood as a certain part of society that contains arts, languages, religions, nor as an intervening variable that is mainly relevant with regard to understanding the “irrational” behaviour of people (in an energy context mostly consumers). Rather, culture, in this respect refers to a specific perspective on action and order. In particular, this perspective is dynamic and allows for understanding how the particular subjectivities, institutions, and infrastructures of an energy system emerge, develop, and what possibilities and limitations exist to influence these dynamics. There are different approaches to analysing energy systems as cultures. We suggest to grasp energy cultures as consisting of two co-constituted and interlinked layers: energy practices and collectively shared representations of the order of energy.

On the one hand, there are numerous practices related to energy stretching across a wide continuum. On one end, a growing literature on energy consumption investigates how the latter is embedded in a dazzling array of mundane everyday practices shared by many such as showering or doing the laundry (e.g. Shove 2003). In addition, there are the everyday practices of highly skilled and specially trained engineers, regulators, business managers, and scientists involved in developing and operating plants and grids, but also energy markets and governance regimes. In this issue, Russ’ study on the stabilisation how the concept of energy was made in the first place, Gjefsen’s investigation of practices aimed at building an expert community around issues of carbon capture and storage (CCS) or Scotti and Minervini’s exploration how national and trans-national energy policies are put into practice in a specific local context, could be read with great benefit from an angle on practice. A final example are the many agents who engage in practices to influence existing energy cultures to make them more sustainable across the whole continuum, for example, by re-organising energy at the local level (Fuchs and Hinderer 2016; Islar and Busch 2016). A key strength of a perspective on practice is the deep understanding of the mutual dependence of material and social elements, which is particularly relevant in the context of energy. Although most contributions to this issue do not explicitly draw on practice theory, they speak very fluently on these themes.

On the other hand, the second layer could be thought of as collectively shared notions of order regarding energy. Energy technologies and energy systems are perceived and evaluated differently in different social contexts involving, for example, specific shared imaginations how energy systems are ordered, how they should be ideally (re)ordered, and how they fit in the order of a society in a more general sense. The importance of this overarching cultural fabric of energy is demonstrated by historical studies of national energy cultures such as those by Hecht (2009), Hughes (1983), and Nye (1990). Moreover, the role and values as well as the identities and responsibilities attached to energy have been analysed in terms of sociotechnical imaginaries (Jasanoff and Kim 2009). This theoretical lens is also employed by Richter et al. in this volume who argue that such visions inscribed into energy systems influence, for example, pathways of their technological development.

However, when advocating to read the following papers from a perspective on energy cultures, we are not advocating to focus on either of these layers. The themes and theoretical approaches of these papers are much too diverse. Rather we are advocating attention to the dynamic links between these layers, which are mostly constituted by specific practices of knowledge generation and communication. The main focus of contemporary public and professional debates about energy is not on the smooth running of existing energy infrastructures and patterns of consumption, which, in this case, could be invisible unless disrupted. Rather, energy technologies, patterns of consumption, their social and environmental consequences are hotly contested among advocates of very different energy futures debating very different concerns and possible solutions. Under such circumstances, producing relevant energy knowledge becomes a crucial prerequisite for intervening in existing energy cultures. Despite the diversity of topics, cases, and theoretical approaches, all contributions to this volume (and many contributions to the first part of this special issue) can be read with a particular view on how knowledge is produced and employed to intervene in sociomaterial orders of energy or energy cultures. In the following, we briefly outline the main themes of the papers assembled in this special issue, group them according to some common themes, and point out aspects, which are particularly interesting from the perspective on knowledge production aimed at intervening in energy cultures.

Against this background, the first two papers discuss the social life of deeply technical issues of energy. The contribution by Russ offers a historical study that demonstrates two things. First, that studying energy and society not only pertains to political institutions, markets, or user practices but to the very core of the concept of energy itself. In the context of industrial energy production its meaning is quite different from the measurement in physics classrooms and labs. Rather, Russ traces how a specific notion of energy emerged as a statistical measure to compare resources, especially to classify different types of coal, based on the interactions of different social forces from engineering, economics, and resource statistics. Second, her paper is an excellent example for the centrality of knowledge production and interventions in energy knowledge for the constitution of modern energy systems, which applied even much earlier than contemporary debates about climate change, sustainability, and energy transitions.

In contrast to Russ’ historical study of an aspect that has been stabilised long ago and might seem natural to current readers, Gjefsen discusses the technology of CCS, which is currently debated as possible technological solution to many decades of fossil fuelled energy systems. Particularly investigating the role of training and recruitment events within the CCS expert community he coins the concept of the expert-advocate who amongst other things is capable of defending CCS against resistance and public scepticism. This demonstrates that it is not enough for a specific technology to simply “work” but that it requires embedding within (expert) communities promoting its use as well as its public value within the larger order of energy.

The next three papers of this special issue deal with political institutions and their (re)ordering activities within energy cultures. The paper by Leipprand, Flachsland, and Pahle traces different story lines within the debate about nuclear power and renewable energy in Germany from the late 1980s. On the one hand, they trace how a specific discourse promoting a transition to a non-nuclear and renewable-based energy system in Germany became dominant. On the other hand, they also demonstrate the internal heterogeneity and fluidity of the dominant discourse, which lost some of its initial ecological radicalism and adopted strong elements of ecological modernisation. With a view to the dynamic making of energy knowledge as critical interventions in energy cultures, the paper provides important insights in the making of public knowledge that is, for example, debated in parliaments but also closely entangled with discourses of scientific experts.

Franziska Müller offers a study of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), which seeks to establish an international governance regime around renewable energy. Knowledge production and the development of governance instrument is a key part of this mission. At the same time, the author draws to a large extent on governmentality approaches in order to understand how IRENA produced specific transformation knowledge allowing it to connect its mission of a global energy transition with activities at the local level, especially in the global south.

The third paper in this group by Andreas Klinke develops a broader theoretical framework how sustainable transformations could be governed. Based on his view on dynamic multilevel governance as post-national configuration, he argues that governance arrangements should be inclusive, adaptive, and characterised by differentiated and distributed deliberation to develop transformative power. While not engaging empirically with interventions in energy knowledge, the paper is a good example for the current significance of practices to design institutions and policy instruments to promote transformations towards sustainability and sustainable energy.

The final two papers in this collection share a focus on the interaction between the practices at the local/regional level (albeit dealing with localities of very different scales) and overarching visions and imaginaries of the value and order of energy. Ivano Scotti and Dario Minervini use Callon’s work on performativity and translation, to investigate how a small local community in rural Southern Italy translated national and supra-national regulations in local practices to promote renewable energy. These authors show how reconnecting a local energy system required new and repeated re-connections among different actors allowing to negotiate heterogeneous interests within the community and to co-construct a specific community vision of sustainability.

The final paper by Jennifer Richter et al. focuses on the Phoenix area, a locality of a much bigger scale with several million inhabitants. They argue that the energy (and water) systems in that region are embedded in the visions or imaginaries mainly of the technical, financial, and political experts involved in building and running them. Moreover, their paper contains two case studies (distributed generation and “smart” technologies for homes), which are not merely discussed in terms of technological innovations but provide crucial insights in the competing values attached to these technologies. Against the importance of the underlying values and imaginaries that influence the technological set-up, the governance, and the different social roles and relationships within an energy culture, the authors finally propose a methodology of sociotechnical integration research to provide reflexivity and deeper understanding of the complex dynamics influencing the development of energy systems and open them up for debate. On the basis of this multifaceted study, the paper also cuts across several of the themes taken up by the previous papers, including the contributions to the first part of this two part special issue.

Additional information

Funding

The EnergyCultures Research Group is supported by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, BMBF, project code 01LN1312A).

Notes

1. The idea for this special issue emerged at the 14th Annual STS Conference “Critical Issues in Science, Technology, and Society Studies” in Graz (Austria) in May 2015 when some of the authors met in two panels organised by the EnergyCultures research group.