Introduction
The transition to a decentralized renewable energy system requires the transformation of communities. Increasingly, citizens
become ‘prosumers’ and take energy production in their own hands.
Recently, many citizens pool their
resources to start a local energy initiative. In the Netherlands, for instance, more than 500 such local initiatives seek to reshape
the energy system in the face of constraints embedded in technical, cultural, economic and political traditions.
In my research I investigate such
constraints, or obduracies, which are both physical and political. The physical built environment resists change and brings
along unsustainability due to the layout of buildings and infrastructures; the politically established way of centralized decision
making resists the attempts of local
initiatives to change the energy system.
Materials and methods
•Investigation of linkages of localinitiatives to regional and national
networks for community energy, such as traditional environmental movement
organisations, village support
organisations, as well as newly formed regional energy co-operations.
•Finding out how the regional networks channel demands for the democratic
control of energy policies to the national government and how they negotiated the Dutch Energy Covenant.
•Methods include qualitative interviews, observation, design research. All
materials are analysed with Nvivo.
• Tineke van der Schoor, Hanze University of Applied Sciences,
c.van.der.schoor@pl.hanze.nl, tel. +31505955391
• Supervisor: Harro van Lente, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Maastricht University
• Co-supervisor: Alexander Peine, Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University
Results
My analysis combines Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and Social Movement Theory (SMT), to allow a dynamic analysis of collective strategies.
First, ANT is mobilized to describe the local networks consisting of human actors as well as institutions, buildings, energy technologies and infrastructures. More specifically, I
investigate the obduracy and scripts of the local environment to clarify how the local network both resists change and invites specific forms of energy use and production. Present layout will be contrasted with low-carbon re-designs of the built environment. ANT-writers include Bruno Latour, Michel Callon and John Law.
Secondly, I employ Social Movement Theory to unravel the emergence of local energy initiatives as a new phase in the history of the energy movement, where new political demands are voiced for the democratic control of energy policies.
SMT classics include Alain Touraine and Alberto Melucci.
My theoretical contribution is to combine SMT and ANT in the analysis of recent
attempts to decentralize and decarbonize the energy system. While I use the micro-analysis of ANT I aim to circumvent its myopia by tracing the national and regional networks that form the community energy movement. Likewise, I follow
political moves with SMT without ignoring its blind spot: the technological embeddedness of social movements.
