1. Opening up Pandora’s Box: Energy
Biographies, everyday practices and
the psychosocial
Prof. Karen Henwood
Project Collaborators: Dr Catherine Butler , Dr Karen Parkhill
, Prof. Nick Pidgeon, Dr Fiona Shirani
“How we talk…Implicit connection between discourse, affect &
conversational practice – Energy Behaviour & Individual Complexity ”
UKERC event 5-6th September, 2013, Oxford

2. Researching Energy in the Everyday
• Energy Use/Consumption and low carbon transitions -
making the problem researchable
• Gaining perspective - Lessons from extant research
• Modern societies face intractable problems
- Climate change, environmental degradation, natural
resource depletion, fuel shortages…
• Interdisciplinary fields of study
- Risk, Science and Technology Studies (STS), psychosocial
…
• Pandora’s Box – misfortune & optimism

3. Interdisciplinary Fields of Study…
• Risk - possible harm/uncertainty/future orientation;
Epistemological tensions; Subjective perceptions & affect
(e.g. dread, fear, anxiety); (Un)fathomable complexity
for policy & practice. (see e.g. Pidgeon et al 1992)
• STS - Onto-formative effects of discourse; Soci0-
technical (and human) assemblages; Promissory
narratives, imaginaries; Future ethics.
• Psycho-Social - Complex understanding of subjectivity
(versus empty or unitary subject); Discursively
produced; Affective depths.

4. The Field of Energy Research
• Sociological study of mundane/routine & embedded practices -
energy in the everyday; practices as socio-technical assemblages of
meaning, skills and materials; consumption studies.
• Psychological study of behaviour change – values & frames
plus emotions and identity; universal psychological processes as
explanation for change (spillover, rebound).
• Community energy studies – social norms, networks &
capital; contested definitions of space and place; social cohesion &
common fate; branding (consumption & identity).
• Our own energy biographies framework…

5. The Energy Biographies Study – Why
Biographies?
Practice
• Connections between wider
social processes and
personal lives
Change
• Continuities and changes in and through time
• Perceptions and accounts; Sense making;
personal and cultural narratives
Temporal
• Transitions in time (lifecourse, generation, history)
• Multiple lenses – temporal perspectives and
temporalities

6. Project details
• 4 case site areas across the UK
• 3 waves of interviews over a 1 year period
• 74 participants in initial interviews
• 36 in the longer term (18 men and 18 women)
aged 18-70
• Photograph tasks between interviews

7. Interview Themes/Approach
2. Daily routine
• Talk through in detail to get an understanding of energy
use and practices
• Discuss how this varies for atypical times/events
e.g. Christmas, weekends
3. Life transitions
• What have been the key events/turning points that have
resulted in a lifestyle change?
• How might lifestyles and transitions differ for future
generations?
1. Community and Context
• Talk through how they came to live in their current
home/area, how they characterise their community(s)
• Connections – e.g. who they live with/is in their family
• Discussion points specific to the particular case area

8. Qualitative Longitudinal Methods
1. Initial interview – establishing energy biographies through a focus on three
themes:
• Community and context
• Daily routine
• Life transitions
2. Second interview – a detailed focus on everyday energy use
• Discussion of important life changes since interview 1
• Exploring everyday energy use through participant generated photographs
• Following up emerging themes from interview 1: waste, frugality and guilt
3. Life transitions
• Discussion of important life changes since interview 2
• Exploring everyday routines through text-prompted photographs
• Expanded talk about the future (both personal and social), facilitated
through video clips

9. Multi-modal Methods (activity 1)
1. Participant-generated photos
• Participants were asked to take photographs of things they felt related to
energy use in relation to four themes
• Two week period for each theme. Participants were sent texts to remind
them of the theme
• Pictures then formed the basis for discussion in interview 2
‘I found it quite useful having the groups you know the focuses I think cos otherwise I
would have yeah I think I’d have kind of tailed off’ Emmanuelle

10. Multi-modal Methods (Activity 2)
2. Text-prompted photos
• Text messages sent to participants at 10 intervals between August-November
2012 asking them to take a picture of what they were doing at the time
• From these pictures we created photo narratives, to be discussed with
participants in interview 3

11. Multi-modal Methods (Interview 3)
3. Video clips
• During interview 3 participants are shown clips from a 1950s and 2010s version
of what a home of the future might look like
• The clips facilitate talk about the future, which can otherwise be difficult to
discuss
Monsanto house of the future 1957 Channel 4 home of the future 2012

12. Energy Biographies - Techniques for
materialising everyday energy
Right more gadgets.
TV, PVR, video player, digi
box, daughter using laptop
whilst watching television.
Yeah just the penetration of
electronics into our lives which
kind of we all know but when
you actually put the spotlight
on and take some photographs
it just brings the impact up.
(Jeremy, 62, Cardiff)
“

13. Energy Biographies - Techniques for
materialising everyday energy
….it gives this sense that you’re in an open space
so its airy, its well lit and you can see outside,
it feels bigger so I think this is great. And it
saves them a lot of energy consumption as
well because they, I noticed that they do have
artificial lights but they’d need to use a lot
more if instead of glass panels they had brick
walls. But on the other side I don’t know how
they keep the insulation with the glass, I don’t
know how good all these windows are for
insulation so it might be that they’re saving on
one side but spending a lot on the other side.
(Suzanna, 34, London)
“

14. Energy Biographies - Techniques for
materialising everyday energy
Yes well it’s my work, it’s on 24/7 pretty much.
Everything about it is energy… so computers
generate heat … that always reminds me the
heat of the screen reminds me that it’s using
energy.… heat is a big thing that reminds me
about energy and that comes from being young
I suppose when we lived in a house that had no
central heating and it was very costly to heat
and so heat, I was very aware of heat at a very
young age and aware that actually it was quite
precious.
(Jack, 48, Cardiff-Ely)
“

15. The Energy Biographies Study
• Conversation/communicative practice
- Qualitative research – avoiding imposition of
researcher frames (Henwood et al, 2008; 2010)
- Reflexive/discourse practice approach to
participation, involvement, deliberation, collaboration
- Opening up spaces for perception- avoiding
narrowing energy demand reduction frame
- Exploring sense-making & accountability, not
moral opprobrium
- Talk (about images) as countering the invisibility
of energy to people in everyday life

16. Analysis/Findings in Progress
• Making ethical connections to future generations – the
role of different temporalities (Shirani et al, 2013, Local
Environment)
• The dynamics of continuity & change in everyday energy
use – case biography narratives and socio-cultural
theory (Butler et al, in press, Nature and Culture)
• Low carbon transitions/sustainable living – the
significance of perceptions of normative change (in
preparation)

17. Project website
•www.energybiographies.org

18. Thank you
Professor Karen Henwood
Cardiff University, School of Social
Sciences & Understanding Risk
Group
www.energybiographies.org