The grit in the oyster: using energy biographies to question socio-technical imaginariesof 'smartness’

Christopher Groves, Karen Henwood, Catherine Butler, Karen Parkhill, Nick Pidgeon and Fiona ShiraniEnergy Biographies Project (http://energybiographies.org)

School of Social SciencesCardiff University, UKhttp://cardiff.academia.edu/ChristopherGroves

The Energy Biographies project (2011 – 2015)• QLL biographical

interviews▫ Four UK sites: Ely,

Peterston (Cardiff), Lammas (west Wales), Royal Free Hospital (London)

▫ 3 longitudinal interviews (N=74 in first round, N=36 for rounds 2 & 3)

▫ 6 months between interviews

▫ Multimodal component: participant photography and film

Lammas, West Wales

Royal Free Hospital,

LondonPeterston, Cardiff

Ely, Cardiff

Questioning future imaginari

es

• Critique of imaginaries explores viability & desirability of socio-technical transformation

• Embodies a responsible research and innovation (RRI) approach

• RRI means reflecting on the social constitutions1 or ‘worlds’2 of socio-technical options

• Implies a ‘hermeneutic’ approach to futures3 & a deliberative model of tech assessment

1. Kearnes, M., et al. (2006). "From Bio to Nano: Learning Lessons from the UK Agricultural Biotechnology Controversy." Science as Culture 15(4): 291-307.

2. Macnaghten, P. and B. Szerszynski (2013). "Living the global social experiment: An analysis of public discourse on solar radiation management and its implications for governance." Global Environmental Change 23(2): 465-474.

3. Grunwald, A. (2014). "The hermeneutic side of responsible research and innovation." Journal of Responsible Innovation 1(3): 274-291.

Experience & deliberation• Ethnographic work on

‘smartness’ emphasises entanglement of socio-technical arrangements and lifeworlds1

• RRI approaches tend to construct deliberation as discursive & its subjects as rational discoursers ≈ Habermasian technological democracy

• But the meaning of technologies is inseparable from lived engagements2 and affective, embodied subjectivity2 1. Strengers, Y. (2013). Smart Energy Technologies in Everyday Life: Smart Utopia? London, Palgrave Macmillan.

2. Mol, A. (2008). The logic of care. London. New York, Routledge.3. Lash, S. and J. Urry (1994). Economies of Signs and Space. London, Sage.

• How can lived, embodied engagements with technologies enter deliberative arenas – particularly when these belong to as yet only potential and abstract future worlds?

The Energy Biographies approach1: Complex Subjectivity• Psychosocial approach to

social practices: practices matter (Sayer, 2011)

• Explores ‘internal rewards’ (Shove, Pantzar & Watson, 2012) of participating in practices▫ Constitutive of identity▫ Supporting sense of

agency

• As well as shaped by shared meanings of practices, identity is ▫ dynamic▫ relational▫ biographical

• Complex dynamics of attachment condition participation in normative/ non-normative practices

Groves et al, 2015, ‘Energy biographies: narrative genres, lifecourse transitions and practice change’, Science, Technology and Human Values

Groves et al., forthcoming,’Invested in unsustainability?, Environmental Values, June 2016

Energy Biographies approach2: Multimodal Methods

•2nd and 3rd round interviews▫Photographing everyday

energy use with smartphone

▫Using two films to explore shared imaginaries Monsanto’s ‘House of the

Future’ (1957) UK Channel 4 ‘Home of

the future’ (2012)

Convenience and comfort: memories and ambivalence

• Older interviewees: remember liberating, life-enhancing socio-technical transitions

• Convenience widely seen as becoming an end-in-itself

• Biographical narratives echo STS analyses of a thinned1 lifeworld in which attention is dispersed2

• Stiegler: dispersed attention reduces opportunities for individuation

1. Casey, E. S. (2001). "Between Geography and Philosophy: What Does It Mean to Be in the Place-World?" Annals of the Association of American Geographers 91(4): 683-693.

2. Stiegler, B. (2010). Taking care of youth and the generations. Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press.

It’s the best thing in the world that happened to me, was going from coal that we had over in Hywel Dda there. But when I first moved from Cambria Road to Heol Deva that was a house of, it was unbelievable, we had central heating and I was only 10, in all the rooms, a steel house, wonderful, wonderful.

(Jeffrey, 60s, Ely)

‘[…] yeah, everything is really easy and convenient I mean you want the TV on you hit a button and it’s on and you’ve got like 500 channels at your fingertips should you want to watch them and then you’ve got all your music players and you’ve got not just one but maybe one in each room […] and then you’ve got, you’ve got Wi-Fi and internet and stuff ‘

(Monica, RFH)

Practices, ‘friction’, and valued subjectivity• Against the ‘frictionlessness’ of

convenience and smartness1

• Friction as individuating2 – the ‘grit in the oyster’ of subjectivity

• Associated with valued forms of relational subjectivity

“Yeah but I don’t like that. I look back and I think actually I see for me how I had no connection with it [central heating], no connection you know, whereas when the wood’s there and you see the fire going you think maybe I’ll just turn the fire down cos the pile of wood is shrinking.”

(Emmanuelle, Lammas)

“I think we were saying about the log fire, it’s rewarding when you sit back and see the log fire whereas if you just flick a switch and it’s there it’s not as rewarding so who knows you know on how it effects our happiness in the long run things like that, don’t know.”

(Sarah, RFH)

“Yeah well that’s, my partner says I’m obsessed with it because I’m always off up the woods looking for wood and things like that, ‘I’m going to light it tonight’, ‘oh no you’re not are you?’”

(Robert, Peterston)

1. Ellul, J. (1964). The technological society. New York, Vintage: p. 4142. Stiegler, B. (2010). Taking care of youth and the generations. Stanford, CA, Stanford

University Press.

Friction as mobilising critical reflection• Reflecting on

imaginaries produces critical observations▫ On unacceptable

forms of dependency

▫ On forms of technological mediation that erode individuation

“[talking about Ch4 film] all the gadgets I mean that was you know similar to the bloody [Monsanto] house you know you’re hungry and the electricity is down and you can’t, you know you can’t have a shower because you can’t turn on the tap (Vanessa, Lammas)”

(Vanessa, Lammas)

“I still think it sort of dumbs us down as a kind of society and replaces our you know ingenuity and our thinking, free thinking with controlled you know thinking and you know computerisation of everything”

(Dennis, RFH)

Mobilising critical reflection• Reflecting on valued forms

of agency and links to practices/technologies spreads to values like comfort, convenience and controllability1

• Leads to a re-tooling of the meaning of these dominant values

• E.g. differently convenient: localisation of infrastructure rather than always ready-to-hand services

1. Vannini, P. and J. Taggart (2014). Off the Grid: Re-Assembling Domestic Life. London, Routledge.

“I had no connection with it [central heating], no connection you know, whereas when the wood’s there and you see the fire going you think maybe I’ll just turn the fire down cos the pile of wood is shrinking.”

(Emmanuelle, Lammas)

In conclusion1. Interviews feature reflexivity that is

aesthetic, embodied, relational2. Indicates value of multimodal-

narrative- biographical approach as occasion for deliberation

3. Involves using biographical reflections on practical lifeworlds as the basis for imagining future ‘worlds’

4. Opens paths for extending deliberative approaches beyond ‘Habermasian technological democracy’

Thank you

http://energybiographies.org

Other team Members: Professor Karen Henwood, Professor Nick Pidgeon& Dr Fiona Shirani (Cardiff), Dr Karen Parkhill (now York)Dr Catherine Butler (now Exeter)