Energy Biographies: Researching sustainable energy, inventing sustainable futures?

Christopher Groves, Karen Henwood, Catherine Butler, Karen Parkhill, Nick Pidgeon and Fiona Shirani

Energy Biographies Project

School of Social SciencesCardiff Universityhttp://energybiographies.org

Sense-making and lived futures• The lived future1 (anticipating,

promising, hoping…) shapes present belief/action and identity2

• “[...] the essential characteristic of a horizon is that we can never touch it, never get at it, never surpass it, but that in spite of that, it contributes to the definition of the situation”3

• Sustainability “[…] requires us to extend our circle of concern and connection out from our space and our time, to encompass those who we will never meet but whose fates are already inextricably bound up with our own’4

1. Adam, B., and Groves, C. 2007 Future Matters: Action, Knowledge, Ethics. Leiden: Brill2. Henwood, K. and Shirani, F. 2012. Extending temporal horizons , Timescapes Methods Guides Series.4,

http://www.timescapes.leeds.ac.uk/assets/files/methods-guides/timescapes-henwood-extending-temporal-horizons.pdf 3. Luhmann, Niklas. "The future cannot begin: temporal structures in modern society." Social Research (1976): 130-152.4. Groves, C. 2010. “Living in uncertainty: anthropogenic global warming and the limits of “risk thinking”. In Future ethics: climate change

and apocalyptic imagination, Edited by: Skrimshire, S. 107–128. London: Continuum, at p. 124.

Extending temporal horizons?

• Obstacles to wider horizons:

‘the difficulties lay not in making ethical links to future generations or in the creation of empathy, but in maintaining those links in the context of everyday pressures and other competing moral responsibilities’1

• Competing rhythms: habits, practices

1. Shirani, Fiona, Catherine Butler, Karen Henwood, Karen Parkhill, and Nick Pidgeon. 2013. "Disconnected futures: exploring notions of ethical responsibility in energy practices." Local Environment 18(4) : 455-468.

Practices and meaning

“The capability to ‘go on’ through the flow of largely routinized social life depends on forms of practical knowledge, guided by structural features – rules and resources – of the social systems which shape daily conduct”1

“This constructed world of predictable relationships is the context of our actions. But it is subject to constant revision, and always more or less vulnerable to loss, self-doubts, experiences which make no sense to us. Then we no longer know what to do.”2

1. Shove, E., M. Pantzar and M. Watson 2012. The Dynamics of Social Practice. London, SAGE Publications

2. Marris, P. 1996. The politics of uncertainty: attachment in private and public life. London; New York, Routledge

‘Heating the outdoors’: practices and identity“Cos we love being outside, we just love that you can you know go, we were sitting out there one evening I can’t remember when it would have been, with friends, and it was like midnight and you could have a drink outside still and it’s so lovely here cos it’s so quiet and everything so but you wouldn’t have been able to do it without that so or you would have been freezing. So that’s our kind of, we know it’s really bad but we’re still going to use it ”

Lucy, Peterston

The Energy Biographies project

• QLL biographical interviews

▫ Four sites: Cardiff (Ely, Peterston), Lammas, Royal Free Hospital (RFH, London)

▫ 3 longitudinal interviews (original group of 74 in first round narrowed down to 36 for rounds 2 & 3)

▫ 6 months between interviewsLammas, West Wales

Royal Free Hospital,

London

Interview 1Themes: community and context, daily routine, life transitions

Activity 1Participant-generated photos

Interview 2Themes: changes since interview 1, discussion of pictures generated in activity 1,

follow up on emergent themes from interview 1

Activity 2Text-prompted photos

Interview 3Themes: changes since interview 2, discussion of pictures generated in activity 2

discussion of video clips provided by researcher

Structure of empirical

phase

More information on each stage available at

http://energybiographies.org/our-project/project-design/

Participant photography

1. Participant-prompted photos

▫ Two week period for each of four themes

▫ Used as basis of discussion in interview 2

1. SMS-prompted photos▫ Used as basis of

discussion in interview 3 alongside film clips

Film clips and social imaginaries

• “What will the society be like? [Laughs] That’s a broad question. It’s really difficult to answer that.” (Anna, Lammas)

• Making the intangible tangible

The lived future: initial interviews

“[…] I do kind of look at the world and see the trends and think, shit (Laughter), what kind of my life are my kids going to have? I kind of worry a bit about my kids’ future and quite what will be available to them, and their expectations because, you know, they don’t know all this stuff about houses with coal fires and coal range cooking and all of that. They have a very different set of aspirations and expectations and could be very, very bitter and betrayed about it if all of that goes.”

(Jeremy, Peterston)

“I think it was looking at a kind of increased convenience and it had just come out of the war hadn’t it? […] And it was I mean the 50’s was that the hoover, the vote, the automobile you know all those things like washing machines, dryers that all kind of came at that time so it was sort of life was going to be easier because of it.”

(Vanessa, Lammas)

“And I think we lost common sense on things like energy and material usage, in perhaps the Sixties and Seventies, where the standard of living went up.”

(Jonathan, Peterston)

Film clips: critiques of futures past

Retro-futures: Retro-futures: abundance abundance and and automationautomation

“I think they thought everything would be very easy and effortless basically, life was made so easy that you could just press a button and that would give you time to spend with your husband or your wife and your children […] So it’s abundance, it’s an easy life, not easy life in a bad way but in a good way that you don’t have to do a lot of chores and you can enjoy your life more so I think it was towards this direction, it’s more enjoyment without thinking if it’s practical, if it’s functional, if it’s economically viable and things like that.”

(Suzanna, RFH)

Still from ‘’House of the Future’ (1957)

Present Present futures: futures: return to return to techno-fixes?techno-fixes?

“The amazing thing about that is that how similar it was to the 1950’s one. Very gadget focused. Which amazed me really and it wasn’t about energy saving or anything like that … It doesn’t have the feel of the way I would see the house of the future because it seems like more consumption and more reliance on electricity and things like that. It seems to be leading to the increased consumption business; it’s not focusing on people reducing the amount of consumption … That’s what strikes me about that. It’s just like the 1950’s one!”

(Graham, Lammas)

Still from Ch4 ‘Home of the Future’

Nature as fragmented resources“It’s like that Western thought of compartmentalising things, so you can take an aspect i.e. the plant and you can disregard all the other elements that make the plant what it is and you can transport it into this completely artificial environment where there’s no soil, artificial light you know nutrients that are, where are the nutrients coming from? […] you know you need that degree of factory capacity and chemical understanding in order to get those nutrients out of the air or you know you’re going to distil them from soil somewhere else on the planet in order to stick them in a little pot in order to grow your plant in your kitchen, it’s just like it’s just not joining up the dots”

(Vanessa, Lammas)

Responses from participants

“I think it’s made me consciously think about it in a way that I probably wouldn’t have”

(Mary, Peterston)

“last night I just thought bloody hell how many things have we got on in this room?”

(Jonathan, Peterston)

“whether it makes any difference into whether I’m using it or not that is a different matter ”

(Anna, Lammas)

“sometimes that really important core reason why we are here gets forgotten about […] . So it’s just a nice little gentle reminder of what we are doing I suppose”

(Anna, Lammas)

“and the whole place was lit up like a Christmas tree as well […] all these lights going and jukebox going, TV going but in fact I think there was a couple of TVs going”

(Scott, RFH)

Crafting new lived futures?“It’s not supposed to be on a trajectory of everlasting progress like we are supposed to be living on the land and it just cycles along, and it is the same every year really. You just sort of harvest the stuff in the summer and sell it and then you do other things in the winter and just keeps on going so you don’t have this kind of need for everlasting progression”

Graham, Lammas

“Hopefully I will still be cleaning potatoes and making dinner and checking bees and children, in ten years? [...] it’s like the connection is real you know if you want an egg you go out and get it from the chicken that lives is in the garden that you’ve fed and you’ve made sure that you’ve closed at night so the fox doesn’t get it, you know? There is much more direct links with our needs you know?”

Vanessa, Lammas

Thanks for your attention

Energy Biographies Project

School of Social SciencesCardiff Universityhttp://energybiographies.org