Transcript: What do we need citizens for anyway?
Everything is connected (revisited) – citizen participation in sustainable energy
Below is the transcript of this podcast episode. It picks up on the newsletter ‘Everything is connected’ (leaving out the bits about the history of relational social science) and builds on it with input from new sources on ‘life transitions’.
Citizen’s support for our collective move towards zero-carbon societies is obviously important. At minimum, buy-in is necessary, but if you take it one step further, it is also an excellent opportunity to actually revitalize democracy.
But what do people support? One survey might find broad support for bold climate action, while another might tap into the scepticism and anger of the (proverbial) gilets jaunes. Or take the infamous value-action gap: people profess wanting to take the car less but can subsequently found using the car just as much.
One problem is that surveys measure a rather artificial situation – namely: a respondent answers questions posed on the telephone, written on a piece of paper, or presented on a screen – all situations divorced from everyday life. Our values aren’t isolated entities that we pick from the shelf whenever someone asks for them. Values are acts of evaluation – and acts are necessarily contextual: we act in and upon a situation. If we want to understand how people come to value one thing over another, or struggle to live up to their own standards, we therefore need contextual methods as well.
Contextual methods mean: research that can show us how people relate to the people and things around them, how they handle them, deal with them, and how they subsequently reflect on these interactions, evaluate them.
Choices and structures
For a good example of what such research looks like, we can turn to a 2016 article by Catherine Butler and her colleagues. They want to understand what it means when we talk about the “choices” people make to consume more or less energy. Choices are made by people-in-a-context. Just as with values, we cannot assume a detached actor, with a view from nowhere, making impartial and fully ‘rational’ evaluations about the (environmentally) best course of action. So instead, Butler and colleagues ask in what contexts such choices are, pragmatically, made.
Take the following reflection from one of their interviewees, Debbie, on her laundry routines:
. . . I would have a choice not to wash clothes but this generation, your generation and my daughter’s generation, they wash things every day, their working clothes every day. They have showers every day and that is the way that they have been brought up . . . that’s the way . . . that they don’t know any different, whereas my mother’s generation their clothes, their outer clothes weren’t washed hardly ever. They used to have woollen stuff and things like that and washing was a real struggle once a week so they never washed anything at the drop of a hat so that’s the difference, it’s that we are used to having cheap, available energy all the time. (Debbie, 50 years) (p 893)
As the authors conclude, Debbie sees her daughter’s choice as more constrained as her own, as it is made in the context of “widespread available energy, washing machines, forms of clothing” and “expectations arising from interaction with others regarding showering and washing clothes everyday” (p 893). Debbie has more of a choice because she can detach herself a little more from that context, having seen other days.
Another interviewee, Cara (35 years) also talks about the multiple logics tugging at her ‘rationality’: she relates how, since having had a baby 8 months ago, she no longer thinks about energy consumption at all. She just does whatever her role as parent requires of her. Energy use, in other words, is not just about our (environmental) values, but is
“connected to notions of, for example, wanting to provide the best or the necessary for our families, which in turn is connected to wider social structures that serve to reproduce what constitutes ‘the best’, ‘the necessary’ in different contexts.” (p 898)
Energy citizenship
These examples already make quite clear that ‘energy values’ cannot be easily reduced to an ‘aye’ or ‘nay’ to sustainable energy. Divorced from context it would be difficult to say what the implications of an ‘aye’ or ‘nay’ for policy should be. We need to know more from people. So, if not ‘consent’ or ‘rejection’, what role can people play in public deliberations about the future of our energy system?
Public deliberation is also contextual. Research over the last decade plus has investigated how people assemble their opinions and take their positions in public debates in response to particular issues and in engagement with (physical) objects of concern. We bring a new piece of technology in our home, we are asked to comment on a renovation project, and these new interactions provoke a train of thought that we put together as it leaves the station. Values are not pre-given, but contextual. That means they are also open to change.
We find excellent examples of this in an 2018 article by Marianne Ryghaug and colleagues. In their interviews with Tesla owners, prosumers in smart grids and owners of PV panels, they observe how people evolve their stances. Thus, in the case of the Tesla owners, many
say that they acquired their vehicles not because of environmental or climate concerns. By driving the vehicle, and through mundane encounters with criticism, however, many report the emergence of profound environmental attitudes, especially after ‘reading up’ on environmental and energy related aspects of the vehicle. (p 292)
Smart grid technologies showed the same potential of engendering transformation.
On the one hand, many [respondents] highlight how mundane routines such as showering, laundry and cooking are static and very difficult to change. On the other hand, they also evoke instances where smart energy technologies have enabled them to engage with, challenge and sometimes change such routines. (p 294)
So why did people evolve their ideas and practices? Their Tesla’s and their smart grid technologies brought ‘energy’ out of the obscure background, turning it into something “visible and tangible” (p 293). Energy became a newly perceived issue. In response, some people sought out new knowledge, and developed new practices. They started timing laundry or dishwashing differently, or established new household rules about energy is to be used.
Implications
Each article has a slightly different story about the context of ‘choice’. Butler et al emphasize the constraints on people’s choices – social and material structures, like cheap energy or hygiene norms – and consequently suggest that as a policy-maker you’ll want to target these constraints. But their point is not that you should find the levers that will activate people’s ‘environmental values’. Instead we should look at the values embedded in our societal (infra)structures (say, how bike-friendly our roads are).
For Ryghaug et al, constraints can be productive. They can generate new ideas and feelings, whether in the form of opportunities for people to give shape to their individual responsibility, or in the form of frustrations in people’s routines. We should capitalize on these engagements and design energy technology that allows a broader diversity of people to have those new engagements, and open energy up to more broadly shared debate or dialogue (p 294).
On this both articles agree: other choices are possible when people are able to extract themselves somewhat from their routines and their taken-for-granted assumptions. The political relevance of these insights about context is therefore as follows. Instead of waiting for people to adopt the environmental values necessary to support climate policy, we should create spaces of practical involvement – “material participation” in Ryghaug et al’s words – which allow people to develop their ideas, invite them into public debate, and can give them therefore (a sense of) ownership of the transition.
Now what?
Hearing this, you might think, hmm, “extracted from routines”? Shake up “taken-for-granted assumptions”? That kinda rings a bell! Isn’t that what most of the world has gone through with covid-19?? People must really be questioning things now.
Jelmer Mommers, from the Dutch platform for journalism, The Correspondent, argues as much (in Dutch, see here for amended English version).
When the coronavirus crisis hit the ground, this lesson really hit home. We realised we are not only connected to nature, as fickle and cold as it can be, but that we also depend on each other. That turned out well. Suddenly, we were able to cooperate to protect the health of others, others we often didn’t even know. We temporarily sacrificed our freedom, because science said it was necessary. And our politicians listened to that science!
Covid-19 showed us above all else how fast we can change when worst comes to worst. Like now.
After the crisis, we all need vacation. Saving the world is a little inconvenient right now. But maybe we can reflect, from the comfort of our hammock, about whether, over the next few months and years, we are going to listen to the voice inside that longs to go ‘back to normal’, or the voice that says we can’t, because it’s a little strange now to believe in the delusion of a person trying to get around the limits of nature when you just faced the utter impossibility of doing so.
There is some anecdotal evidence, just by opening the lifestyle sections of your favourite newspaper that all this did make some people ponder the error of our ways. There is also anecdotal evidence that **others** have learned nothing!
So, in the light of all that has happened, let’s dip our toes into the sea of knowledge about the ways of man that is social science and ask if there is any basis to assume that indeed, extracting people from their routines opens up space for new ideas and new practices.
Because, as it so happens, there is a whole body of knowledge about so-called “life transitions”: moving house, becoming a parent, retiring. My toes will dip into just two articles here: one by Kate Burningham & Susan Venn, published this year and another by Fiona Shirani and her colleagues, from 2017.
Both refer to the ‘habit discontinuity hypothesis’, which is a great name for a theory and basically states what I just said about extraction and new space. Or, as the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs puts it (cited in Burningham & Venn):
It has been found that particular life events represent moments of disruption to people’s routines, which in turn can serve as ‘windows of opportunity’ in which to deliver interventions when people may be more able or willing to do things differently. (p 104)
Quick take by yours truly: This is an idea premised on the idea that we should consume our way out of climate catastrophe. As a matter of policy – rather than one of sociological curiosity – it doesn’t seem to be a particularly useful idea, because life transitions by their very nature are exceptional and thus hardly suitable for enacting systemic change.
The longer take is by the authors, and they conclude that the ‘window of opportunity’ may not even be very representative of what crucial life events actually look like.
our research illustrates that daily routines continued to shift for both groups of participants [the new parents and new retirees]. Such ongoing changes lead us to caution against adoption of the terminology of a ‘moment of change’ and indicate the limitations of studies which seek to measure changes in everyday behaviours ‘before’ and ‘after’ a transition. (113)
The point is the same as the one by Butler, Ryghaug and their respective colleagues: context is decisive and context cannot be reduced to simply one element: a baby, a job, or a house. Or a virus for that matter. I’m sure this point will sound reasonable to all of you given what the past few months have looked like, as we were continuously scrambling to adapt and find better working solutions.
Alright, let’s make this more concrete. I’ll take the case of Sarah, as discussed by Shirani and her co-authors. Sarah, a nurse living in London, really wants to commute by bike (and cherished doing so with her daughter when she was still young), and tries to save heating costs as much as possible in her rented apartment (but hates having to inflict a cold apartment on her daughter). Then two things happened: she got a different job and her car got, er, nicked. Biking to her new place wasn’t really an option, initially because she needed to find a place to securely lock her bike, but subsequently and more importantly, because that particular bit of London felt quite dangerous to bike through.
Biking in London takes courage (Photo Andreas Habeland)
The loss of the car also meant she couldn’t drive to the supermarket for a ‘big shop’, so she started ordering online, opting for the environmental delivery option which batches together deliveries to the same area. After she got a new car though, she kept on buying groceries online, because it was convenient, actually cheaper and environmentally friendly.
In other words, one may have preferences, and in the case of anticipated life transitions such as having a baby or retirement, one may have expectations and ambitions, but when circumstances actually change, often in unpredicted ways, such preferences are re-evaluated. When disruptive circumstances then disappear, many revert back to how they did things before. This is at least what Burningham and Venn found in their interviews. However, Sarah’s case also shows that people might carry over some of the things they learned into their new, re-established normal.
To sum up: it’s still the system, stupid, also with life transitions. If you don’t enable sustainable practices, say, by making a safe commute possible, you’re not going to see them, even if people have been shaken out of their slumber, awoken to the blinding light of the impending climate collapse. And even then, some people have other shit going on, so either be patient or adjust the system with them specifically in mind too.
Now, what is unique about this coronavirus situation is that we’ve all gone through some massive disruption – a disruption, in other words, of systemic proportions. That has allowed pro-active policymakers, citizens and politicians to puncture some holes that system, which may actually outlast the crisis. We’ve seen several cities considering permanent closure of certain roads to car traffic, and companies are busily contemplating letting employees work more from home, which can significantly reduce energy demand too.
But if you, as a policymaker or politician, have been a little less pro-active, do not worry, there is time yet! Everything is still a little – or a lot – in disarray, there’s still plenty of of friction, and that, we now know, makes for fertile ground for joint reflection. We’ve all participated materially in the pandemic and our minds are ripe for new ideas. Now, the hammock might be a good place to cultivate some of them, but in fact Mommers has a better idea: citizen climate panels (see an earlier piece by Mommers about climate democracy here).
As you may have heard, France just concluded its national panel with some 150 recommendations, and while Macron may have refused to further submit to the political process the few that would have truly upended the status quo, I’d say so far it looks like a successful undertaking overall. The idea is that the policy ideas from these panels enjoy more legitimacy, because they don’t come from the (Parisian) top down. Let’s see how that plays out. If you know anything about how these panels are perceived, let me know!
In the meanwhile, every jurisdiction can enact its own climate panel, because every level of administration has its own competencies. This, in turn, allows us to capitalize on the space of reflection, devise better informed local policies, because the devil is always in the detail, and ensure greater legitimacy of the broader transition.
The Green Party had their own climate panels and it looks like they’re pretty fun!
Note, finally, that what these panels shouldn’t do is talk about how you can live more sustainably. They should deal with infrastructural change and how to make sure changes empower people with different needs – whether that be pertain commutes, or people in their care.
I’d be really interested to hear from you if are currently doing research or involved in an ongoing project and you’re talking to people about how they might want to do things differently post-Corona. Let me know if you’re noticing trends! Or if you get to enjoy a hammock over the new few weeks and you come back with inspiration, I’d love to hear about that too!
For now, best wishes,
Marten
Sources
Butler, Catherine, Karen A Parkhill, and Nicholas F Pidgeon. 2016. "Energy consumption and everyday life: Choice, values and agency through a practice theoretical lens". Journal of Consumer Culture. 16 (3): 887-907. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540514553691
Burningham, Kate, and Susan Venn. 2020. "Are lifecourse transitions opportunities for moving to more sustainable consumption?" Journal of Consumer Culture. 20 (1): 102-121. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540517729010
Ryghaug, Marianne, Tomas Moe Skjølsvold, and Sara Heidenreich. 2018. "Creating energy citizenship through material participation". Social Studies of Science. 48 (2): 283-303. https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312718770286
Shirani, Fiona, Christopher Groves, Karen Parkhill, Catherine Butler, Karen Henwood, and Nick Pidgeon. 2017. "Critical moments? Life transitions and energy biographies". Geoforum. 86: 86-92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2017.09.006 (Open Access)