2014/07/01 by Elizabeth Shove, Gordon Walker · 8 citations
Environmental Science · Social Sciences · #Energy and Environment Impacts #Social Acceptance of Renewable Energy #Sustainability and Climate Change Governance
paper · doi:10.1177/0263276414536746
openalex publication_date 2014/07/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Energy has an ambivalent status in social theory, variously figuring as a driver or an outcome of social and institutional change, or as something that is woven into the fabric of society itself. In this article the authors consider the underlying models on which different approaches depend. One common strategy is to view energy as a resource base, the management and organization of which depends on various intersecting systems: political, economic and technological. This is not the only route to take. The authors develop an alternative approach, viewing energy supply and energy demand as part of the ongoing reproduction of bundles and complexes of social practice. In articulating and comparing these two positions they show how social-theoretical commitments influence the ways in which problems like those of reducing carbon emissions are framed and addressed. Whereas theories of practice highlight basic questions about what energy is for, these issues are routinely and perhaps necessarily obscured by those who see energy as an abstract resource that structures or that is structured by a range of interlocking social systems.