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Energy Transitions and Materiality: Between Dispositives, Assemblages and Metabolisms

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Conceptualizing Germany’s Energy Transition

Abstract

Building on recent interest in the ‘material turn’ in the social sciences, this chapter explores diverse ways of conceptualizing the socio-materiality of energy transitions. It selects three fields of scholarship on the co-production of material and social phenomena: dispositives, assemblages and metabolisms. It analyses each one according to common analytical criteria to assess and compare how they address socio-materiality, drawing out significant differences and areas of complementarity. The value of the three approaches in analysing energy transitions is illustrated with two empirical cases from the German Energiewende: on local energy autarky around a waste-to-energy initiative and on energy-efficient refurbishment of residential buildings. The chapter concludes with recommendations on how this knowledge can enrich future studies of energy transitions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space (IRS), Erkner, Brandenburg, Germany

    Timothy Moss & Ludger Gailing

  2. Erkner, Germany

    Sören Becker

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  1. Timothy Moss
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Leibniz Inst for Research on Society and Space (IRS), Erkner, Brandenburg, Germany

    Ludger Gailing

  2. Leibniz Inst for Research on Society and Space (IRS), Erkner, Brandenburg, Germany

    Timothy Moss

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Moss, T., Becker, S., Gailing, L. (2016). Energy Transitions and Materiality: Between Dispositives, Assemblages and Metabolisms. In: Gailing, L., Moss, T. (eds) Conceptualizing Germany’s Energy Transition. Palgrave Pivot, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50593-4_4

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