29 research outputs found
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It's about Power Stupid! - The interpretive study of environmental governance.
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Reconstructing low-energy housing using ‘systems of practice’.
The residential sector accounts for a third of energy use in the UK (DECC, 2014b)
and generates fifteen percent of greenhouse gas emissions (DECC, 2014c). Lowenergy
housing is therefore critical to meeting climate change mitigation targets
(DECC, 2011). New homes are required to be carbon-neutral by 2016, presenting
a considerable challenge to the housing industry (DCLG, 2006). Addressing this
ambition remains shaped by the ‘techno-rational paradigm’, where energy savings rely
on optimal design, technological diffusion and ‘correct’ use. In contrast, this thesis
understands technologies and ‘behaviours’ as connected through social practices, which
interrelate in dynamic ‘systems of practice’.
Housing policy, newly built homes, and domestic practices are critical to governing
low-energy housing transformations, yet initiatives consistently fail to account
for inter-connections between these different practices. Whilst interventions are
attempted, they frequently go awry, or operate in unexpected ways. Developing a
systems of practice analysis, this thesis analyses implementation of the Code for
Sustainable Homes (CSH) - a building energy performance standard introduced to
drive ‘a step-change in sustainable home building practice’ (DCLG, 2006). A Norfolkbased
affordable housing scheme, accredited as carbon-neutral, forms the focus of this
mixed-methods case-study.
The research identifies that householders incorporate energy-efficient building
materials and renewable technologies in ways that frequently fail to mesh with
designers’ assumptions. Housing professionals also struggle to modify ingrained ‘ways
of doing’. Importantly, these actors and their practices are enabled, or constrained, by
connections within and across broader practice systems. This has important governance
implications. Research and policy should therefore: (i) conceptually map the housing
system delimiting the network of involved actors and agents, and identifying pivotal
links for target practices or interventions, (ii) generate multi-actor and multi-pronged
interventions and join up distributed sources of evidence, and (iii) attend to how
interventions generate reactions, interactions and resistances across the practice system
A common management framework for European smart cities? The case of the European innovation partnership for smart cities and communities six nations forum
To minimize market fragmentation, optimize efficiencies through compatible digital architectures, and encourage collaboration, high-level smart city harmonization efforts have been advocated across Europe. This paper critically analyzes attempts by the European Innovation Partnership for Smart Cities and Communities Six Nations Forum (EIP-SCC 6N) to constitute a common smart city management framework through application of a generic Blueprint. Analysis highlights how these efforts are brought to bear through four techniques: simplification, interoperability, integration, and authorization. Examining the adoption (and rejection) of these techniques underscores the importance of attending to distinctive urban contexts and alternative ways of knowing and acting in the city
Redefining the role of urban studies Early Career Academics in the post-COVID-19 university
We are an international collective of Early Career Academics (ECAs) who met throughout 2020 to explore the implications of COVID-19 on precarious academics. With this intervention, our aims are to voice commonly shared experiences and concerns and to reflect on the extent to which the pandemic offers opportunities to redefine Higher Education and research institutions, in a context of ongoing precarity and funding cuts. Specifically, we explore avenues to build solidarity across institutions and geographies, to ensure that the conduct of urban research, and support offered to ECAs, allows for more inclusivity, diversity, security and equitability. *The Urban ECA Collective emerged from a workshop series described in this article which intended to foster international solidarity among self-defined early career academics working within urban research.ITESO, A.C
Energy monitoring as a practice: Investigating use of the iMeasure online energy feedback tool
Energy feedback is a prominent feature of policy initiatives aimed at reducing domestic energy consumption. However little research has been conducted on the phenomenon of energy monitoring itself, with most studies looking at whether, and how, feedback impacts on energy conservation. This paper aims to address that gap from a practice theory perspective. In particular we: set out the difference between energy feedback and energy monitoring; define the practice of energy monitoring; and investigate the rationale and qualitative experiences of those performing energy monitoring. An online energy feedback tool (‘iMeasure’) was the basis of the case study. A netnographic analysis of online discussion about the tool informed complementary in-depth interviews with ten current/former iMeasure users. We found energy monitoring to be a distinct practice that focuses on measuring and identifying energy use trends and requires specific know-how to perform. However, its connections to other household practices were weak and, for those who did perform monitoring, there was no guarantee that this practice would reorganise other practices to induce household energy saving. In fact, monitoring often followed decisions to make energy-related changes, rather than prompting them. We conclude that policy expectations need to be reframed in terms of how energy monitoring tools are used
Robotics and automation in the city: a research agenda
Globally cities are becoming experimental sites for new forms of robotic and automation technologies applied across a wide variety of sectors in multiple areas of economic and social
life. As these innovations leave the laboratory and factory, this paper analyses how robotics and automation systems are being layered upon existing urban digital networks, extending the
capabilities and capacities of human agency and infrastructure networks, and reshaping the city and citizen’s everyday experiences. To date, most work in this field has been speculative and isolated in nature. We set out a research agenda that goes beyond analysis of discrete applications and effects, to investigate how robotics and automation connect across urban domains and the implications for: differential urban geographies, the selective enhancement of individuals and collective management of infrastructures, the socio-spatial sorting of cities and the potential for responsible urban innovation
Robotics and automation in the city: a research agenda
Globally cities are becoming experimental sites for new forms of robotic and automation technologies applied across a wide variety of sectors in multiple areas of economic and social life. As these innovations leave the laboratory and factory, this paper analyzes how robotics and automation systems are being layered upon existing urban digital networks, extending the capabilities and capacities of human agency and infrastructure networks, and reshaping the city and citizen’s everyday experiences. To date, most work in this field has been speculative and isolated in nature. We set out a research agenda that goes beyond analysis of discrete applications and effects, to investigate how robotics and automation connect across urban domains and the implications for differential urban geographies, the selective enhancement of individuals and collective management of infrastructures, the socio-spatial sorting of cities and the potential for responsible urban innovation
Governing and governed by practices: Exploring interventions in low-carbon housing policy and practice
In this chapter we conceptualise low-carbon housing as an intervention in a system of interconnected practices, performed both by housing professionals and householders. This understanding distinctly contrast to commonly accepted approaches that rely on the simple introduction of low carbon materials and technologies to households. We analyse the low-carbon housing system using two UK case studies focused on contrasting building performance standards (Code for Sustainable Homes; Passivhaus standard). We argue that links, flows and relations within such a system need further exploration to better understand the governance of sustainability interventions
Robotics and automation in the city: a research agenda
Globally cities are becoming experimental sites for new forms of robotic and automation technologies applied across a wide variety of sectors in multiple areas of economic and social life. As these innovations leave the laboratory and factory, this paper analyzes how robotics and automation systems are being layered upon existing urban digital networks, extending the capabilities and capacities of human agency and infrastructure networks, and reshaping the city and citizen’s everyday experiences. To date, most work in this field has been speculative and isolated in nature. We set out a research agenda that goes beyond analysis of discrete applications and effects, to investigate how robotics and automation connect across urban domains and the implications for differential urban geographies, the selective enhancement of individuals and collective management of infrastructures, the socio-spatial sorting of cities and the potential for responsible urban innovation