Wilcox+Emerging+Narrative,+3+Literatures

Emerging Narrative + 3 Literatures James Wilcox, Spring 2013

Energy issues are inherently global and local, thanks not only to planet-spanning commodity chains, international markets, and geopolitical pressures, but also to pollution that flows across borders and environmental impacts that exacerbate climate change and ecosystem collapse. Yet at a time in which it would seem prudent to reduce global energy use, dominant discourses surrounding energy link energy abundance to both economic prosperity and quality of life. This makes sense for the more than 1 billion people who experience “energy poverty,” but it makes less sense for those living in “high energy regimes,” particularly the U.S., which uses 20% of the planet’s energy despite making up only 5% of its population. Just taking climate change into account, it is clear that in order to alleviate energy poverty while curbing carbon emissions, absolute energy use levels will need to be slashed in the U.S. across all areas of society. However, despite investments in greater energy efficiency that have (arguably) prevented sharp increases in energy use over the past thirty years, interventions by institutions in “high energy regimes” such as government agencies, advocacy organizations, and design firms have not delivered absolute reductions in energy use. No plans are on the horizon to match the scale of the change that is needed to address climate change and energy poverty over the next 20-30 years.

Why is it so difficult for the U.S. to reduce its energy use? This is both a simple and difficult question to answer. A primary culprit is the “American way of life” (a.k.a. “consumer culture”) in which even a household earning below the median income commands as much energy as a small village did two hundred years ago. A high-consumption lifestyle is resource intensive, and tons of products embodying vast amounts of water and energy flow through American households each year. Institutional interventions rarely address consumer culture in relation to “energy” despite the fact that consumption is a primary driver of energy use levels in the industrial and transportation sectors—the largest in terms of energy use, leading residential and commercial—higher. They “why” behind this phenomenon most likely has to do with the dominant discourses linking consumption, economic prosperity, and quality of life.

Institutional interventions do attempt to address everyday energy use in the residential sector, which primarily consists of refrigeration, space heating and cooling, and various appliances. The primary strategies are providing information and incentives to make homes more energy efficient and—to a lesser extent—to promote distributed renewable energy generation. These approaches miss a number of opportunities to intervene in the practices that use energy because of a bifurcated focus on rational energy using humans on the one hand and technologies on the other. The sociotechnical regimes that form the context of energy use practices are outside of the focus, and the potential inflection points that could come into view never materialize. Moreover, since energy users are generally seeking “energy services” rather than electricity or fuel itself, and since energy is consumed by practices rather than people, the consumption metaphor is particularly poorly suited for energy issues. An alternative, such as engagement or association, that takes into account the lively, enabling qualities of energy sources and energy systems would likely be more productive.

Another reason that interventions prove to be so weak is that at all scales, the U.S. has neglected to set clear energy use goals. Modest emissions reduction goals generally exist around the country, but these figures are too abstract to be meaningful to most citizens. State and Federal agencies routinely make projections about energy demand in the future. These projections, which are based on past economic trends, rarely include scenarios involving significant energy use reductions.

The style of institutional intervention matters. Bureaucratic-style interventions will likely achieve incremental results. More visionary and socially nuanced-style interventions will likely achieve more dramatic results. Interventions of this type may also act to shift “energy imaginaries,” perhaps even contextualizing U.S. energy use within the global dynamic of energy abundance and energy poverty.


 * Reading Lists:**


 * Politics of Design, Technology, and Expertise (Dean)**

--Sclove. Democracy and Technology

--Fischer. Democracy and Expertise

--Tony Fry. Politics of Design

--Winner. Energy Regimes/Efficiency, Techne + Politeia.

--Scarry. The Body in Pain: Making/Unmaking… (section on making)

--Marres. Material Participation

--Dewey. Public and its Problems

--Braun and Whatmore. Political Matter: Technoscience, Democracy, and Public Life

--Noble. America by Design

--Woodhouse, E.J., and Dean C. Nieusma. "Democratic Expertise," in Hischemoller et al., eds., Knowledge, Power, and Participation in Environmental Policy Analysis (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2001).

--Sarewitz, Daniel, Roger A. Pielke, Jr., and Rad Byerly, Jr. Prediction: Science, Decision Making, and the Future of Nature (Washington, DC and Covelo, CA: Island Press, 2000).

--Martin, Brian, ed. Technology and Public Participation. (www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/TPP/, 1999).

--Sarewitz, Daniel. Frontiers of Illusion: Science, Technology, and the Politics of Progress (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1996).

--Collingridge, David. The Social Control of Technology (New York; St. Martins' Press, 1980).

--Laird, Frank, Solar Energy, Technology Policy, and Institutional Values, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001;

--Jesse Tatum, Energy Possibilities: Rethinking Alternatives and the Choice-Making Process, Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1995.

--Flyvbjerg. Rationality and Power and Making Social Science Matter

--Feenberg. Questioning Technology

--Nye. Consuming Power.

--Nye. Electrifying America.

--Hughes. Networks of Power.

--Latour, B. (1992). Where are the missing masses? The sociology of a few mundane artifacts. In Bijker W. and Law J. (Eds.). (1994//). Shaping technology/building society.// pp. 225-258. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

--Lovins, A. B. (1979). //Soft energy paths: Toward a durable peace//. New York: Harper colophon.

--Strengers, Y. (2012). Peak electricity demand and social practice theories: Reframing the role of change agents in the energy sector. //Energy Policy.// 44 (2012) 226–234.

-- Shove, E., //et al.// (2007). //The design of everyday life.// Oxford: Berg.

--Nieusma. Alternative Design Scholarship: Working Toward Appropriate Design

-- Verbeek P. & Kockelkoren P. (1998). The things that matter. //Design Issues//. 14(3), 28-42.

--Whiteley, N. (1993). //Design for society//. London: Reaktion Press.

-- Latour, B. (1991). Technology is society made durable. in Law, J. (Ed.). //A sociology of monsters: Essays on power, technology, and domination//. London: Routledge.

-- Buchanan, R. (1992). Wicked problems in design thinking. //Design Issues, 8//(2), 5-21.

--Cross, N. (2006). //Designerly ways of knowing.// London: Springer.

--Verbeek. What Things Do.

--Jasanoff. Designs on Nature.

--Jasanoff. Fifth Branch.

-- Brown. Science in Democracy. http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/science-democracy


 * Sociology of Practices, Institutions, and the Environment (Abby)**

--Bourdieu. Logic of Practice

--Shove. Comfort, Cleanliness, Convenience: The Social Organization of Normality

--Brian Wynne. (1988). Unruly Technology: Practical Rules, Impractical Discourses and Public Understanding.

--Ulrich Beck on Cosmopolitanism, Ecological Modernization, and the Risk Society

--Shove, Wilk (eds.). Time, Consumption and Everyday Life.

--Yearley. Cultures of Environmentalism

--Fine and Leopold. (2002.) The World of Consumption: the Material and Cultural Revisited

--Lutzenhiser, L. (1993). Social and Behavioral aspects of energy use. Annual Review of Energy and Environment. 12:247-89.

--Knorr-Cetina, Schatzki, von Savigny. (eds.) 2001. Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory

--Knorr-Cetina. //Epistemic Cultures.//

--Lash, Scott, Bronislaw Szerszynski, and Brian Wynne. Risk, Environment and Modernity: Towards a New Ecology (1996).

--De Certeau. The Practice of Everyday Life

--Chappells, H. an d Shove, E. (1999) The D ustbin: A stu d y of d omestic waste, househol d pr ac tices an d utility services. // International Planning Stu // //d// // ies //, 4 (2): 267-280.

--Hand, M., Shove, E., & Southerton, D. "Explaining showering: a discussion of the material, conventional, and temporal dimensions of practice." //Sociological Review Online// (2005).

--Reid, L., Sutton, P., and Hunter, C. Theorizing the meso level: the household as a crucible of pro-environmental behavior. //Progress in Human Geography//. 34(3) (2010) pp. 309–327.

--Shove, E., Chappells, H., & Lutzenhiser, L. (2010). //Comfort in a lower carbon society//. London: Routledge.

--Shove, E., & Spurling, N. (2012). //Sustainable practices: Social theory and climate change//. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

--Warde + Shove. Inconspicuous Consumption: The Sociology of Consumption, Lifestyles, and the Environment.


 * Anthropology of the Environment, Consumption, Imaginaries; Poststructuralist Theory + Politics (Kim)**

--Marcus. Multi-sited Ethnography

--Richard Wilk. Consumption, human needs, and global environmental change

--Richard Wilk. A Critique of Desire: Distaste and Dislike in Consumer Behavior

--Douglas and Isherwood. World of Goods

--Ottinger, Cohen, Fortun. Technoscience and Environmental Justice

--Deleuze. Spinoza.

--Fischer, Michael M.J. 2003 Emergent Forms of Life and the Anthropological Voice. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.

--Clifford, James, and George E. Marcus (eds.). Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. University of California Press, 1986.

--Foucault, Michel. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977. Pantheon, 1980.

--Foucault, Michel. History of Sexuality: An Introduction (v. 1). Vintage, 1990.

--Burchell, Graham, Colin Gordon, and Peter Miller, eds. The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1991).

--Marcus, G.E. Technoscientific Imaginaries. Late Editions Vol. 2. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. With contributions by Livia Polanyi, Michael M.J. Fischer, Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good, Paul Rabinow, Allucquere Rosanne Stone,Gary Lee Downey, Diana and Roger Hill, Hugh Gusterson, Kim Laughlin, Kathryn Milun, Sharon Traweek, Kathleen Stewart, Mario Biagioli, James Holston, Gudrun Klein, and Christopher Pound.

--Fortun, Kim and Michael Fortun. 2005. “Scientific Imaginaries and Ethical Plateaus in Contemporary US Toxicology.” American Anthropologist 107 (1): 43-54.

-- Sheila Jasanoff, Sang-Hyun Kim. Containing the Atom: Sociotechnical Imaginaries and Nuclear Power in the United States and South Korea. Minerva June 2009, Volume 47, Issue 2, pp 119-146

--Claudia Strauss. The Imaginary. Anthropological Theory September 2006 vol. 6 no. 3 322-344

--Kathleen Stewart. Ordinary Affects

--Jane Bennett. Vibrant Matter

--David Graeber. Consumption, the Very Idea.

-- Soper, Kate. The Politics and Pleasures of Consuming Differently, co-editor with Lyn Thomas and Martin Ryle, Palgrave, 2009

--Escobar. Encountering Development.

--Escobar. Toward an Anti-essentialist Political Ecology