ReGeneration: An ethnographic study of energy, data and social change in net-zero Britain
Research summary
- An anthropological study of imaginaries of climate change and renewable energy in the context of net zero transitions in the UK.
- 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
This research sets out to explore how energy systems and social life are being rethought and understood in the context of local energy transitions.
The research is a 2.5 year ethnographic study of community and municipal energy projects in the UK. By studying the everyday work of bringing about energy transitions, we aim to understand how experiments with new technologies and practices of renewable 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.
The project focuses specifically on the emergence of community and municipal energy 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 aim to understand how people are experimenting with and rethinking energy as an infrastructure of social reproduction.
Our questions include:
- what kinds of understandings of energy are emerging in these projects?
- what role do different kinds of technologies play in positioning energy as a method of social and economic transformation?
- what possibilities and barriers does this reveal for broader energy transitions in the UK and beyond?
This research contributes both to academic knowledge on the relationship between energy and social life, and to the needs of 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.
- Power in the city - a podcast about the everyday ways people are responding to the climate emergency.
- Interview with Hannah Knox about her book Thinking like a Climate: Governing a City in Times of Environmental Change.
People
- Dr Hannah Knox
- The University of Manchester
- Profile information
- Dr Itay Noy
- University College London
- Profile information
Publications and further information
- Knox, H. (2024). Doing place through data: Proliferation, profiling and the perils of portrayal in local climate action. Big Data & Society, 11(3).
- Knox et al (2024) 'Substituting the Individual for the Collective in the Climate Crisis', in Ulrich, Katie, Alice Rudge, and Véra Ehrenstein. 2024.
- "Substitution." Theorizing the Contemporary, Fieldsights, November 12.
- Seeking Social Value through Energy and the Built Environment (PDF) - briefing note.
- Knox, H and Noy I (2025) 'Balance' in Harvey, Penny, Hannah Knox, Maria Şalaru, and Constance Smith (Eds). 2025. "Unbuilding." Theorizing the Contemporary, Fieldsights, August 1.
- Samanani, F., Knox, H., Costanza, E., Panagiotidou, G., Fell, M., & Potapov, K. (2025). Everyday laboratories: Collective speculation and energy futures. Futures, 170, 103594.
- UKRI webpage for the research project.