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Imagining sustainable energy and mobility transitions: Valence, temporality, and radicalism in 38 visions of a low-carbon future.

ABSTRACT: Based on an extensive synthesis of semi-structured interviews, media content analysis, and reviews, this article conducts a qualitative meta-analysis of more than 560 sources of evidence to identify 38 visions associated with seven different low-carbon innovations - automated mobility, electric vehicles, smart meters, nuclear power, shale gas, hydrogen, and the fossil fuel divestment movement - playing a key role in current deliberations about mobility or low-carbon energy supply and use. From this material, it analyzes such visions based on rhetorical features such as common problems and functions, storylines, discursive struggles, and rhetorical effectiveness. It also analyzes visions based on typologies or degrees of valence (utopian vs. dystopian), temporality (proximal vs. distant), and radicalism (incremental vs. transformative). The article is motivated by the premise that tackling climate change via low-carbon energy systems (and practices) is one of the most significant challenges of the twenty-first century, and that effective decarbonization will require not only new energy technologies, but also new ways of understanding language, visions, and discursive politics surrounding emerging innovations and transitions.

SUBMITTER: Sovacool BK

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7399846 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Imagining sustainable energy and mobility transitions: Valence, temporality, and radicalism in 38 visions of a low-carbon future.

Sovacool Benjamin K BK Bergman Noam N Hopkins Debbie D Jenkins Kirsten Eh KE Hielscher Sabine S Goldthau Andreas A Brossmann Brent B

Social studies of science 20200506 4

Based on an extensive synthesis of semi-structured interviews, media content analysis, and reviews, this article conducts a qualitative meta-analysis of more than 560 sources of evidence to identify 38 visions associated with seven different low-carbon innovations - automated mobility, electric vehicles, smart meters, nuclear power, shale gas, hydrogen, and the fossil fuel divestment movement - playing a key role in current deliberations about mobility or low-carbon energy supply and use. From t ...[more]

PMID: 32375583

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Project description:An essential part of entrepreneurial activity is the drafting and narrating of an entrepreneurial vision. This study is premised on the observation that entrepreneurial groups form an interaction arena for the practice of imagining the future and asks how the content of entrepreneurial visions is shaped by the conditions of the group. Taking an entrepreneurship-as-practice lens, which we enrich with sociological theory on the future (Beckert) and small groups (Fine), we engage in an in-depth case study of 12 entrepreneurial groups. We show how the content of entrepreneurial visions is configured by four elements (i.e., fictional expectation for the business or the group; future orientation that is continuing or divergent) and name two group conditions (i.e., role confidence and hierarchical congruence) that direct their configuration. We propose that lacking role confidence can impede thinking about the future of a business and that narrative hierarchies that challenge structural hierarchies can open a window for divergent future orientation. This study contributes to a novel theoretical understanding of where entrepreneurial visions come from by emphasizing politics of expectations within groups and calling to consider group conditions as a relevant context for entrepreneurial visions. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11187-021-00566-6. Plain English Summary Entrepreneurs make futures! To do so, they have to be confident in their role within an entrepreneurial group or they will be caught up in thinking about how the group should work together rather than drafting a future for the business. This is a key finding of the study put forward by Stamm and Gutzeit on the practice of imagining the future. Family members, friends, or former colleagues who jointly engage in an entrepreneurial venture form such a group, with its own history, structure, and culture. The authors’ qualitative study, based on group interviews, reveals that these group conditions influence the content of entrepreneurial visions. For entrepreneurship research, this study implies that an entrepreneurial vision is a product of group political processes rather than individual mental images. This study further implies that entrepreneurial groups and their advisors should reflect on group conditions before engaging in the drafting of an entrepreneurial vision. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11187-021-00566-6.

Dataset Information

Imagining sustainable energy and mobility transitions: Valence, temporality, and radicalism in 38 visions of a low-carbon future.

Publications

Imagining sustainable energy and mobility transitions: Valence, temporality, and radicalism in 38 visions of a low-carbon future.

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