Many of today’s most pressing problems, whether the climate crisis, the future of health systems, or global economic disparities are deeply interrelated with our (in)capacity to change current infrastructures and govern socio-technical change. Infrastructures are contested political terrains: they shape the way we communicate, how we move, how we lead our everyday lives; they are interlaced with political and economic power relations and they produce social inclusions and exclusions.
In my research I am interested in the governance of socio-technical change particularly in the field of energy, but also transport and food systems and the impact of digitalisation. My work focuses as much on national environmental and transformative innovation policies as on cities as a specific context for the climate transition .
I study the change and transformation of energy systems and infrastructures as a socio-material practice and have a special interest in the role of users, households and civil society organisations in shaping change but also in how they become configured in particular ways through different governance strategies.
Questions in this context are:
- How does our way of dealing with the challenge of climate change and sustainability shift social relations and power structures?
- How do new socio-technical assemblages emerge and become institutionalised and others becoming unstable?
- How do we attempt to shape transformative change of infrastructure systems at different governance levels and how successful are these strategies?
