Events

RGS-IGB Annual Conference, Birmingham

Tuesday, 26 to Friday, 29 August 2025

We are pleased to announce that our session will receive sponsorship by the Energy Geographies Research Group (EnGRG).

Convenors

• Giulia M Mininni (The University of Manchester)
• Saska Petrova (The University of Manchester)
• Lin Zhang (The University of Manchester)

Multiple crises, including climate change and energy precarities in different contexts, are calling for a shift within energy systems governance promoting the use of clean energy technologies. Yet, while technologies such as smart grids and decentralised renewable energy systems promise efficiency and resilience, they can inadvertently exacerbate precarities among marginalised communities (e.g., ethnic minorities, indigenous communities, elderly people) at different scales, or ignore energy-related reproductive work, if contexts, energy politics and practices are overlooked (Strengers, et al., 2022; Klumbyte et al., 2023).

By being attentive to issues of social change and justice, feminist scholarship in energy transitions contribute important insights for decarbonising energy systems. Feminist perspectives can create avenues for more socially just ways of living which centre the concerns of the most marginalised within societal structures (Cho et al., 2013; Wilson, 2018). Beyond exploring gender inequalities in energy production, use, or policy, a feminist perspective reveals how power operates at multiple levels, from political structures to fuel systems, and across frontiers, and including in the way energy is conceived amongst policy-makers and in industry (Folbre, 1994; Bell et al., 2020).

Feminist approaches to energy critique the masculinised narratives of energy production and consumption, which often prioritise large-scale, technocratic solutions over community-centred and inclusive practices (Nightingale, 2003). Feminism draws attention to the unrecognised and unrewarded care work and ‘energy housekeeping’ involved in the development of new energy systems, whilst at the same time criticising the gendered assumptions about such ‘domestication’. Moreover, creative methodologies in feminist research on energy facilitate the exploration of alternative imaginaries for just and sustainable energy transitions to envision and co-create meaning and futures that dismantle patriarchal and colonial energy systems. These approaches foreground relational and care-centred perspectives, valuing the interconnectedness of people, communities, and ecosystems in energy decision-making processes (Sultana, 2020).

Yet, application of these insights to policy, and specifically focusing on correcting intersecting inequalities for just energy transitions, is scant. This CfP will bridge this gap by bringing new evidence and by eliciting discussion among participants.

Organised under the auspices of the GENERATE project on Thursday, 12 December 2024, the aim of this online 2-hour interactive workshop was to critically discuss how gender (in)equality can be addressed in environmental and energy projects and campaigns and how it can be detected and analysed in environmental/climate/energy research, policies, and the media.

The workshop was led by Dr Irena Cvetkovikj, an expert in gender studies and activist for gender equality.