Towards a conceptualization of power in energy transitions
Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift, 2017

The field of sustainability transitions has recently benefitted from efforts by multiple scholars at better conceptualizing power and politics, and integrating insights from other fields. This article argues for an understanding of power as relational, productive, contingent and situated. I conceptualize power to the aim of understanding and explaining how and where power relations become de/stabilized in energy transitions in poor rural communities. An understanding of power as a relational capacity to act is integrated with a sociotechnical and relational understanding of constitutive power, which enables us to explore the co-production of social relations, technology and nature. The resulting conceptualization is applied to a case of mini-hydropower electrification in Tanzania. I find that electrification simultaneously reinforces social inequality and enhances social mobility. I identify material, symbolic and discursive domains that work as sources of de/stabilization of social hierarchies, producing effects on the system configuration and relations of class and gender.

Sustainability transitions

Africa

Sociotechnical systems

Energy transitions

Constitutive power

Human power

Författare

Helene Ahlborg

Chalmers, Energi och miljö, Environmental Systems Analysis

Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions

22104224 (eISSN)

Vol. 25 122-141

Drivkrafter

Hållbar utveckling

Ämneskategorier

Tvärvetenskapliga studier

Övrig annan samhällsvetenskap

Annan elektroteknik och elektronik

Styrkeområden

Energi

DOI

10.1016/j.eist.2017.01.004

Mer information

Senast uppdaterat

2021-02-12