Research summary

  • An anthropological research project on climate change and energy.
  • Exploring the everyday work of bringing about a just transition through a study of local and community energy in two cities in England.
  • Funded by the ESRC and hosted between The University of Manchester and University College London.

The project

Our research sets out to explore how energy and social life is being rethought and understood in the context of local energy transitions. 

Through a 2.5 year ethnographic study of community and municipal energy projects in the UK, we aim to understand how experiments with new technologies and practices of energy generation, distribution, conservation, supply and visualisation, are shifting understandings of what energy is and how it should be addressed as a tool of social reproduction.

We focus specifically on the emergence of community and municipal projects oriented to local processes of social change and economic regeneration and to the digital and data technologies used within these projects to make energy knowable.

We seek to understand how local energy futures are being pursued by taking as a starting point two geographical areas - one in the North of England and one in London - where energy transformations are taking place.

Taking these concrete locations as a starting point, we are aiming to understand how people are experimenting with and rethinking energy as an infrastructure of social reproduction.

We are investigating;

  • what kinds of understandings of energy are emerging in these projects,
  • the role of different kinds of technologies in positioning energy as a method of social and economic transformation
  • the possibilities and barriers that this reveals for broader energy transitions in the UK and beyond.

We aim to contribute both to academic research on the relationship between energy and social life, and to policy, community energy and business by outlining the social possibilities and conceptual barriers to an effective energy transition.

If you are interested in finding out more, or being involved in the research, contact Hannah at: Hannah.knox@manchester.ac.uk

Impact

We are working with several organisations to disseminate and share research findings.

In June 2024 we ran a workshop exploring the usefulness of social value as a way of measuring the impact of projects in energy and the built environment.

We have also been building approaches and methods for exploring community-based intelligence on issues related to energy, as well as developing alternative methods of engagement on issues related to energy and climate change.

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People