Workshop with Distinguished Professor Elizabeth Shove: Energy demand, flexibility and social practice.

The purpose of this workshop is to think about what sociological and organizational theories of time, space and change bring to contemporary debates about sustainability, decarbonization and increasing reliance on renewable energy supply.  The challenge of matching energy demand and energy supply is not new, but the intermittency of renewables presents fresh challenges.  Issues of timing and societal rhythm are rising up the environmental agenda but what does this mean in practice: can we imagine more flexible and less ‘demanding’ configurations of time and space, and if so, how might these come about?

13:00	The first part introduces a handful of core ideas about how flexibility might be conceptualized.
13:45	The second part involves discussion of a photo-essay on making energy supply and demand:  an historical view, of the introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Energy Histories, on flexibility, and the paper, ‘Conceptualising Flexibility’ published in Time and Society.
14:30-14:45	Coffee break
14:45	Part three presents and describes an attempt to define and characterize ‘institutional flexibility’ – and to identify the scope that a selection of secondary schools have for ‘flexing’ and for adapting the timing of what they do, and for modifying and the energy demands that follow.
15:20	Part four consists of a discussion of these ideas, and of how we might conceptualise and study the constitution of flexibility at different social and spatial scales.

Please register if you plan to attend (max 20 participants).