Conference presentation

1. 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 Sciences
Cardiff University
http://energybiographies.org

2. 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: Brill
2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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

5. ‘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

6. 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 interviews
Royal Free Hospital,
London
Lammas, W est W ales

7. Interview 1
Themes: community and context, daily routine, life transitions
Activity 1
Participant-generated photos
Interview 2
Themes: changes since interview 1, discussion of pictures generated in activity 1,
follow up on emergent themes from interview 1
Activity 2
Text-prompted photos
Interview 3
Themes: 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/

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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)

11. Film clips: critiques of futures past
“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)

12. RReettrroo--ffuuttuurreess::
aabbuunnddaannccee
aanndd
aauuttoommaattiioonn
“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)

13. PPrreesseenntt
ffuuttuurreess::
rreettuurrnn ttoo
tteecchhnnoo--ffiixxeess??
“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’

14. 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)

15. 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)

16. 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

17. Thanks for your attention
Energy Biographies Project
School of Social Sciences
Cardiff University
http://energybiographies.org