This book provides a critical approach to research on the social acceptance of renewable energy infrastructures and on energy transitions in general by questioning prevalent principles and proposing specific research pathways and lines of inquiry that look beyond depoliticised, business-as-usual discourses and research agendas on green growth and sustainability. It brings together authors from different socio-geographical and disciplinary backgrounds within the social sciences to reflect upon, discuss and advance what we propose to be five cornerstones of a critical approach: overcoming individualism and socio-cognitivism; repoliticisations – recognising and articulating power relations; for interdisciplinarity; interventions – praxis and political engagement with research; and overcoming localism and spatial determinism: As such, this book offers academics, students and practitioners alike a comprehensive perspective of what it means to be critical when inquiring into the social acceptance of renewable energy and associated infrastructures.

This open access book focuses on the energy sector and will make a significant contribution to its continued evolution. For many years, the energy sector has been missing a raison d’etre and now finally there are increased calls for that to be justice. Hence, this book will develop the concept of energy justice and how it needs to be formalised in a new ‘social contract’ with all stakeholders in society. The focus will be on improving legal systems at local, national and international levels while ensuring that justice is a core issue within energy law, the legal system and more broadly in society.

Energy Democracies for Sustainable Futures explores how our dominant carbon and nuclear energy assemblages shape conceptions of participation, risk, and in/securities, and how they might be reengineered to deliver justice and democratic participation in transitioning energy systems. Chapters assess the economies, geographies and politics of current and future energy landscapes, exposing how dominant assemblages (composed of technologies, strategies, knowledge and authorities) change our understanding of security and risk, and how they these shared understandings are often enacted uncritically in policy. Contributors address integral relationships across the production and government of material and human energies and the opportunities for sustainable and democratic governance. In addition, the book explores how interest groups advance idealized energy futures and energy imaginaries. The work delves into the role that states, market organizations and civil society play in envisioned energy change. It assesses how risks and security are formulated in relation to economics, politics, ecology, and human health. It concludes by integrating the relationships between alternative energies and governance strategies, including issues of centralization and decentralization, suggesting approaches to engineer democracy into decision-making about energy assemblages. - Explores descriptive and normative relationships between energy and democracy - Reviews how changing energy demand and governance threaten democracies and democratic institutions - Identifies what participative energy transformations look like when paired with energy security - Reviews what happens to social, economic and political infrastructures in the process of achieving sustainable and democratic transitions

This book, Globalization and Sustainability - Ecological, Social and Cultural Perspectives, gives an interesting overview of the frontiers of scientific research in this practically important and scientifically interesting applied ecological research area. It offers chapters about ecological, economic, cultural, and sociological aspects of this area from theoretical and practical viewpoints. I am sure that this book will be very useful for everybody—researchers, teachers, students, or others interested in the field—who would like to get some insight into this part of the complex phenomena of global sustainability.

To reduce emissions and address climate change, we need to invest in renewables and rapidly decarbonise our energy networks. However, decarbonisation is often seen as a technical project, detached from questions of politics and social justice. What if this is leading to unfair transitions, in which some people bear the costs of change while others benefit? In this timely and expansive book, Ed Atkins asks: are we getting decarbonisation right? And how could it be made better for people and communities? In doing so, this book proposes a different type of energy transition. One that prioritises and takes opportunities to do better - to provide better jobs, community ownership and improve people's homes and lives.

This book studies the dramatic changes in consumption patterns in Vietnam over the past decades, combining a focus on everyday practices and societal transformations. Zooming in on the new urban middle classes, and through in-depth case studies in the realms of mobility, food and energy, the book brings new insights to some of the most urgent global sustainability challenges. Based on a decade of research in Vietnam, the book aims to contribute to better understanding one of the most fascinating ‘development success stories’ in the world. It introduces the term ‘consumer socialism’ to analyse some of the contradictions embedded in the socialist market economy. Simultaneously, the book aims to contribute to strengthening consumption research in and on emerging economies, and for this purpose develops a theoretical approach focusing on social practices and the political economy of consumption.

Policing and ecological crises – and all the inequalities, discrimination, and violence they entail – are pressing contemporary problems. Ecological degradation, biodiversity loss, and climate change threaten local communities and ecosystems, and, cumulatively, the planet as a whole. Police brutality, wars, paramilitarism, private security operations, and securitization more widely impact people – especially people of colour – and habitats. This edited collection explores their relationship, and investigates the numerous ways in which police, security, and military forces intersect with, reinforce, and facilitate ecological and climate catastrophe. Employing a case study-based approach, the book examines the relationships and entanglements between policing and ecosystems, revealing the intimate connection between political violence and ecological degradation.

This handbook reviews extant research and offers critical summaries of key topics and issues in the field, enriched by authoritative analyses of specific cases and examples. It displays pluralism across a number of axes: epistemological, theoretical, geographical, cultural, and thematic. The first part offers historical routes through the international development of the field and explores the epistemological grounds of multiple strands of environmental communication studies. In aiming to map the field broadly, as well as stimulating new thinking, the second part is organized along three core perspectives: arenas, voice, and place. It comprises chapters on various public spaces that are critical to the symbolic constitution of the environment, and sheds light on a range of aspects and social agents that have received insufficient attention, including research about – and carried out in – non-Western countries. Crucially, at a time of profound environmental crisis, the final part of this book discusses possibilities and constraints to social change, and the potential contributions of environmental communication research to ways of understanding and responding to the challenge.