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CenSES annual report 2015
democratization. Tomas Moe Skjølsvold and Carmel
Lindkvist have explored how users were imagined in a
project that set out to involve what was perceived as active
and competent users in the design of feedback technologies.
In their paper in Energy Research & Social Science they found
that the idea of active user participation was overshadowed
by an ambivalent andparadoxical viewof users as knowledge
deficient and incompetent.
A related point is made by Sara Heidenreich in a paper in
Environment and Planning A. vol. 47 where she examines
developments, (3) enacting regulations, and (4) local
democracy and public engagement.
Local governments’actions are clearly shaped by national
policies, like the Planning and Building Act, and the
request for local energy and climate plans. However, a
main finding is that local governments pursue
technology policy and use policy instruments distinctly
different from the national government, above all by
their active, direct participation in and support of
concrete development projects.
Most of the analyzed local governments did not
consider themselves as transition actors, but their actions
still contributed to sustainable energy transitions in
important ways.
offshore wind scientists’ constructions of their public(s). The
dominant narrative of these scientists conveys a positive
public, expectations of public resistance and constructions
of public sentiment as NIMBY (‘not in my backyard’) are
present in the research environments.
This continued presence of narratives of irrational public
resistance in the scientists’ imaginings could be understood
as an act of othering the public, with the possible implication
of a disembodied technology development.
PhD student Bente Johnsen Rygg defended her
dissertation April 17th 2015.